The coming Global Backlash against China
- Thread starter BMD
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This is what usually happens in Ireland. You try to defend yourself & end up producing stuff which results in self incrimination. Then you think I'm making up stories, Paddy. How does one even begin to explain this from an ethnicity even the Irish stereotype as a crafty oriental ( which is all true) ! Inconceivable !! @BMD
A second cold war is tracking the first
In Washington, Beijing and Moscow, officials all say that they want to avoid a new cold war. A recent piece in the New York Times suggests they have little reason for concern. It argued that “superpower rivalries today bear little resemblance to the past”. The article pointed to Russia’s relative weakness and China’s technological prowess to underline how things have changed since the late 1940s. Those differences exist, of course. But to me, the parallels between today’s events and the early years of the cold war look increasingly convincing, even eerie. Once again you have a Russia-China axis arrayed against a western alliance, led from Washington.Last week, Joe Biden, the US president, addressed an EU summit — while Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, gave a speech at Nato calling for western unity in deterring China’s military ambitions and Russian “aggression”. Meanwhile, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, was in China, calling for Beijing and Moscow to push back against US power. The tensions between the two sides are heightening. The Chinese air force has just staged its largest ever incursion into Taiwanese airspace. Last week, China also imposed sanctions on EU and British politicians, who had spoken out about human rights in Xinjiang. This month, Russia pulled its ambassador out of Washington in protest at what it called unprecedented actions from the US.
The first meeting between top officials from the Biden administration and the Chinese government degenerated into a public row. The line from Beijing is that the current surge in tensions is caused by Washington’s inability to come to terms with the rise of China. There is an element of truth in the idea that the US is hooked on hegemony. But the Beijing narrative ignores the extent to which changes within China itself have driven the shift in American and European attitudes. Increased repression, the personality cult around President Xi Jinping and the flexing of Chinese military muscle have made hawkish views about China much easier to sell in the US and Europe.
As in the early days of the first cold war, a few key events have crystallised the growing unease in western capitals. In 1945-46, the Soviet Union’s imposition of satellite regimes in eastern Europe led to a fundamental reappraisal of Moscow’s intentions. Over the past year, the crushing of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and more detailed revelations about the persecution of the Uyghurs by the Chinese authorities — now labelled a genocide by the US government — have performed a similar role in shifting western attitudes.
The increasing shrillness of Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomacy is also sounding alarm bells, playing a similar role to a series of anti-western speeches emanating from the USSR in the forties. Until recently, it seemed that western Europe might try to remain nonaligned in a new cold war. The EU’s decision to sign a trade and investment deal with China suggested that Beijing had succeeded in prising open a gap between Washington and Brussels. But China’s imposition of sanctions on leading members of the European parliament makes it increasingly unlikely that the EU will ratify the China trade deal.
European efforts to secure a rapprochement with Russia, pushed hard by President Emmanuel Macron of France, have also gone nowhere. The increasing climate of repression inside Russia, exemplified by the imprisonment of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny, is narrowing the gap between the European and American views of Russia. In this second cold war — as in the first — there are regional flashpoints where the conflict could heat up. In Asia, some of these are actually unresolved issues left over from the first cold war, namely the status of the Korean peninsula and of Taiwan. In Europe, the front lines have moved east.
It is now Ukraine, rather than Berlin, that is the focus of tensions between Moscow and the west. During the Trump administration, the emerging rivalry between the US and China often lacked the ideological dimension of the first cold war. Donald Trump was a transactional president who was focused above all on the US trade deficit with China. According to John Bolton, his former national security adviser, Trump even privately encouraged Xi Jinping to pursue his policy of mass internment in Xinjiang. With the advent of the Biden administration, however, ideological competition is back.
Biden has said that he wants to convene a summit of democracy and is clearly intent on reasserting the US claim to be the “leader of the free world”. Like Harry Truman, who was president as the first cold war took shape, Biden is a former vice-president and Democratic senator, once looked down upon by the intellectual elite of his party, who finds himself unexpectedly in charge at a turning point in history. Technological rivalries are once again at the heart of superpower rivalry. In the first cold war, it was nuclear technology and the space race. Today’s superpower rivalries are focused on 5G telecoms and artificial intelligence. But the technological clash is taking place in a different context. Forty years of globalisation have ensured the deep integration of the economies of China and the west. Whether that integration can survive the intensification of great-power rivalries is the biggest open question about the new cold war.
A second cold war is tracking the first
US-led western alliance is once again squaring up to Russia and China
Taiwan: India helped Paraguay get Covid vaccines despite China pressure | World News - Times of India
Rest of World News: Taiwan worked with other democracies to help it is diplomatically Paraguay get Covid-19 vaccines after China put pressure on the South American countr
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Australia’s ‘very useful’ strategy to overcome China’s ‘bullying'
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australia's Quad meeting with Japan, India and the US last week will help it fight back against bullying from China.Detailing Canberra's plight at the hands of Beijing in an opinion piece for Japanese publication Nikkei Asia, Mr Turnbull said China has been attempting to isolate Australia from its allies.
"China has been trying to make an example of Australia for some time now," he said, noting a raft of Australian actions including the recent condemnation of the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, that have fuelled the rapid fallout between the two countries.
He labelled China's retaliating trade sanctions on Australian exports as "utterly counterproductive".
Malcolm Turnbull has praised Australia's involvement in the Quad. Source: Reuters
Yet in the past 12 months, dialogue surrounding the strategic group of the Quad and Australia's involvement has increased. Last week the four nations took a significant step by holding its inaugural summit in which they vowed to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific led by democracy.
And while a joint statement released by The White House failed to directly mention China, the meeting was used by the leaders of the four nations to discuss the growing threat of Beijing.
After all, Japan, the US and India themselves have all clashed with Beijing in the past 12 months, while also facing security challenges from China.
Freedom of navigation in the South and East China Seas, recent cyberattacks and semi-conductor supply-chain security were all discussed in the meeting.
"We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion," the statement read.
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Quad a 'very useful' tool
Mr Turnbull himself was responsible for reviving Australia's involvement in the Quad in 2017 after reluctance from former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd.On Tuesday he said the meeting was a "a very useful signal that the US and Japan are standing firm with Australia as it stares down the bully tactics from Beijing".
"Ultimately the only way to stop China from picking smaller nations off one by one is for democracies to stick together and support each other when the pressure is on."
Mr Rudd previously told Yahoo Finance Australia it was vital for the Morrison government to side with other nations when taking China to task.
"It pays to hunt in packs... It's much harder for China then to single you out," he said.
Mr Turnbull said he hoped the summit would cause concern for Beijing.
"The picture of the four leaders looked good in each of their capitals, but it was in Beijing that it will have given most cause for reflection and, hopefully, some course correction."
China hits out in wake of Quad summit
As expected, the summit prompted a frosty response from Beijing. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Monday evening hit out at those trying to band together in a bid to take on China."For quite some time, certain countries have been so keen to exaggerate and hype up the so-called "China threat" to sow discord among regional countries, especially to disrupt their relations with China," he said.
Delegates applaud as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening session of China's National People's Congress earlier this month. Source: AP
"However, their actions, running counter to the trend of the times of peace, development and cooperation and the common aspirations of the countries and peoples in the region, will not be welcomed or succeed.
"Certain countries should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice, refrain from forming closed and exclusive small circles, and do more things that are conducive to solidarity and cooperation among regional countries and regional peace and stability."
Turnbull encourages government to stay the course
Reflecting on his dealings with China during his time as PM, Mr Turnbull said it was vital not to fall victim to China's tactics and a resilient response over time should yield results."As I know from my own experience, Chinese foreign policy, especially of the indignant variety, is always instrumental. Once it is clear that its purpose is not being achieved, then it is likely to be dropped.
"This may take time, but giving into coercion only invites more of it."
Speaking at the National Press Club last week, Mr Rudd delivered a five-word piece of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison moving forward.
"Speak less and do more," he said.
Australia’s ‘very useful’ strategy to overcome China’s ‘bullying'
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has urged the federal government to continue to push back against coercive behaviour from Beijing.