Stand up to China

Everywhere China is using the pandemic to flex its muscles. Not content with being the source of a virus that threatens to wreck the West’s economies, Beijing has seized the chance to clamp down on dissent in Hong Kong. Along the disputed border with India, troops are facing each other as tensions grow. In Taiwan there is concern that China will use the distractions of the pandemic to reassert its historic claims to the island by force.

Beijing is giving assistance to countries to tackle the virus but only if they support its Belt and Road project. In the South China Sea, it has fortified claims over islands claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia and others by increasing its military and naval presence. China’s ships have intruded into waters close to Japanese-controlled territory.

Many of these are longstanding issues. The Sino-indian disputes over the so-called Line of Actual Control in Ladakh go back decades. But recent violent clashes between soldiers from the two nations have heightened animosities, though talks are under way to lower the temperature. The biggest crisis is in Hong Kong, where Beijing has imposed a tough new security crackdown in breach of the agreement with the UK for the One Country, Two Systems approach.

There is too much activity for this not to be seen as the Chinese Communist Party seizing a historic moment to enhance its regional and global role. The regime detects weakness and disunity in the West as it struggles to contain the impact of the pandemic not just on health but on economic stability. Only Donald Trump has stood up to China, but the US president is such a discordant figure that few other Western leaders have followed his lead. It is high time that more did.