The Chinese ambassador to Estonia last month accused the Baltic nation’s intelligence service of having a “Cold War mindset” for labeling China a threat, warning that its “distorted” conclusions damaged bilateral relations.
Four weeks later, Estonian officials took part in a videoconference hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which the Asian country’s health officials shared their experience in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Estonians found the materials “very professional and targeted,” and sought to distribute them widely, an account of the call posted by the Chinese embassy in Tallinn said.
Photo: AP
“Estonia hopes to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China to fight against COVID-19,” it said.
As Europe becomes the epicenter of the coronavirus, Beijing is stepping up its outreach to individual governments there.
That is coming at the very moment that the US — and in some cases the EU — is seen to be turning away. The result is a battle for hearts and minds that China seems to be winning, at least for the moment.
“It’s great that China has this availability and that it is currently in a position to offer this kind of help,” Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies analyst Lucrezia Poggetti said.
Aid is much needed, but in supplying it, China is consciously exercising its soft power, she said.
“There is a major propaganda push at play on the side of the Chinese with some willing enablers on the European side,” Poggetti said.
For China, the outreach to Europe is part of an effort to claw back an international leadership role after early cover-ups helped the virus spread well beyond its borders.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government has sought to silence critics, including reporters and online commentators, and it has also spread conspiracy theories about where the virus originated.
Xi this week described China’s mass deployment of medical aid to Europe as an effort to further a “Health Silk Road,” stretching his Belt and Road Initiative.
Along with state help for stricken countries such as Italy, aid is being channeled across the continent by private companies in the name of Beijing, helping to burnish China’s image from France to Ukraine.
China’s ambassador in Athens on Wednesday delivered more than 50,000 protective masks to the Greek minister of health.
The Chinese embassy in Paris has said that help is coming to France, while Bulgaria and Slovenia are also to receive aid.
Xi told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in a call on Tuesday that China would provide support to combat the epidemic.
That same day, an aircraft carrying medical aid from China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Jack Ma’s (馬雲) foundation arrived at Spain’s Zaragoza Airport, the Chinese embassy said on Twitter.
Alibaba and the Jack Ma Foundation have also been involved in airlifting aid to Belgium and Ukraine, which needs express test kits to detect the coronavirus.
“We agreed with China and we are grateful to them, especially grateful to Jack Ma, as he helped us by financing the US$80 million” cost of the medical kits, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
Others are turning to China out of desperation. Cyprus, Luxembourg and even Norway, which has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, have called on Beijing for support or are considering doing so.
In Lithuania — another Baltic state that fell out with China over a critical security assessment — Lithuanian Minister of Health Aurelijus Veryga said that his government was reaching out to China to buy “several hundred” lung ventilators.
“We don’t want to wait” for joint EU medical supply purchases, Veryga said on Wednesday.
That kind of dependence on China is a warning sign for some.
“This crisis has showed how exposed we in Romania and in Europe are to imports from China,” Romanian Minister of Economy, Energy and the Business Environment Virgil Popescu said this week, adding that the government in Bucharest aims to encourage domestic production of healthcare products as a result.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
RSS