During the Lunar New Year holidays, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) visited Europe, where he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the EU headquarters in Belgium as well as Germany, Spain and the UK.
China’s meticulous arrangement of the trip to the five countries surrounding France clearly showed its hostility toward France. It was an example of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) united front strategy to consolidate its strength and isolate its enemies as much as it possibly can.
The Chinese government is hostile toward France simply because French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama last December, immediately turning France into a PRC enemy. Interestingly, former US president George W. Bush met the exiled Tibetan leader several times, but the Chinese government did not assume an antagonistic attitude toward the US. This is a clear manifestation of the fundamental Chinese attitude of bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
In September 2007, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama for private talks. This upset the Chinese leadership, which then terminated dialogue with Berlin. Merkel refused to give in and suspended negotiations on a financial rescue package with China. Beijing soon curried favor with France and signed a 10 billion euro (US$12.8 billion) agreement with Sarkozy when he visited China that November. Now that Sarkozy has met with the Dalai Lama, however, that agreement seems to be going up in smoke.
Beijing has signed a number of economic agreements with Germany. These include Germany providing some of its magnetic levitation technology to China and China’s Sanyi Heavy Industry Co investing 100 million euros in Germany — the largest Chinese investment in Europe — although Berlin has continued to bring up human rights issues with China. It is thus clear that as long as Western countries insist on their principles, Beijing’s threats are ultimately ineffective.
Of course, this time Wen unexpectedly pressured the French government by saying a labor strike in France was the result of the French government’s inability to deal with the financial crisis.
But Wen hit a brick wall in the UK. Not only was he forced to leave the Chinese embassy in London through the back door because of pro-Tibet demonstrations, but a protester even hurled a shoe at him as he delivered a speech at Cambridge University.
Bush’s farewell visit to Iraq last December was marred by a similar incident when a journalist threw two shoes at him during a press conference, but he managed to dodge the attack.
Bush joked: “If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw.”
In contrast, Wen reacted with anger, saying that “this kind of despicable trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people.”
It is precisely this kind of behavior that highlights the vast difference between dictatorship and democracy. Still, some Taiwanese media outlets actually praised Wen for his composure.
The protester yelled “dictator,” loudly asking the crowd, “How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here? How can you listen to the lies he’s telling without saying anything? How can you listen to him unchallenged?”
It is indeed shameful that some prestigious Western universities have allowed representatives of a communist dictatorship — including a premier who has tried to avoid blame for the melamine scandal — to preach on campus, and for some Western countries to submit to temptation and pressure from the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of their own ideals.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
RSS