China’s threat is cause for concern
The world cannot afford to ignore the growing peril, as Mario Du Preez explains
IN years gone by, noises about China’s alleged human-rights abuses, military posturing, authoritarian overtures and its occupation of Tibet have mainly descended into mere murmurings.
Maybe the soft diplomacy, disinterest and appeasement from the so-called ‘West’ was to be expected. After all, China finds itself in a state of dissociative identity disorder.
The Communist Party is still guided by Leninist-Marxist ideology and the eternal memory of Chairman Mao, and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is allowed to remain ‘president for life’ as term limits have been removed.
More importantly, however, and unlike many other communist states, China embraced free-market economics many years ago and has subsequently become everyone’s favourite, low-cost trading partner. The West’s consumerist gluttony even allowed us to overlook China’s flouting of international trade rules, its influence peddling, and its violation of international patent laws.
But did the West erroneously underplay China’s totalitarian tendencies and misinterpret its adoption of a capitalistic, Western-style economic enterprise as a submissive gesture? Have we been duped into believing that China is nothing but a ‘systemic rival’? I think so.
The evidence of a disturbing trend in China’s forceful diplomacy, intrusion and expansionism is now overwhelming. Although the imposition of security laws in Hong Kong is the most obvious, recently publicised transgression, many others abound re the treatment of its own people, sovereign states, and our shared natural heritage. (By the way, China has warned Norway against awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Hong Kong activists.)
China’s persecution of its Muslim Uighur minority, which involved their forceful removal, internment in detention camps, and ‘re-education’, certainly violates the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. China was also accused of ‘cultural genocide’ after it ordered schools in its Mongolian region to abandon their native language and teach in Mandarin instead. In Hong Kong, new textbooks are redefining its political system in order for students to have “correct understandings” of their identity and to be familiar with Beijing’s dominion over the city.
Not only does China want to fully incorporate Hong Kong, but it also lays claim to the self-governing island of Taiwan. Many countries who have expressed support for Taiwan’s democracy and independence have been rebuked and threatened by China.
Although China and India are trading partners, skirmishes on their disputed western border have escalated recently. Relations between the Antipodes and China fare no better amidst trade embargos and journalist expulsions.
Then there is China’s influence in Africa, in the form of loans, infrastructure development, which has raised concerns about ‘financial colonisation’ and ‘debt-trap diplomacy’. What does China get in return? Well, diplomatic support at the UN, a strategic toehold in Africa, and access to the continent’s natural resources. In South America, the fishing grounds off the Galapagos are in peril – 260 Chinese fishing trawlers recently invaded the waters surrounding the protected marine area.
Closer to home, China continues to build coal-fired power stations, and it is restricting access to water from the Mekong to about 60 million people (from Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma) so as to supply its 11 cascade-style hydroelectric reservoirs.
Are we facing Pax Sinica? The doubling of China’s atomic warheads stockpile in the next ten years, its development of overseas military bases in 12 countries, its economic trajectory, its cyber superiority, its trade war with the US, and the hardening of the EU’s stance vis-à-vis it, suggests so.
In the last few months, Germany has rebuked China for “threatening” Europe, France has criticised China’s human-rights record, and the EU foreign policy chief has accused China of behaving like a “new empire”.
Well, you might say, I am unaffected, as a UK citizen. Not so. China has conducted ‘mass surveillance’ on hundreds of thousands of UK citizens and you might be one of them. And, this very week, the UK issued a travel advisory about the risk of arbitrary detention in China. Disquieting times, indeed.
Tomorrow: Dr Kevin Bishop of Dartmoor National Park on why we need to invest in the countryside