The United States announced on Monday the dismantling of an underground police station operated by China in the heart of New York. Two agents who spied on and harassed Chinese dissidents on American soil have been arrested. Dozens of other officials have been charged for their online activities. But in the latter case, the measure is symbolic, because the suspects are almost all in China, safe from American justice.
These spectacular actions are a new stage in the deterioration of relations between the two superpowers and in the awareness of the Chinese threat to the United States. Washington is in its right. The Xi Jinping government’s transnational crackdown on dissidents overseas has been documented, targeting many countries and being terrifyingly effective.
Read also: The United States dismantles an underground Chinese police station in the heart of New York
The Chinese police in New York were a legitimate but easy target. The existence of this clandestine post had been pointed out for months in an NGO report, and some elected officials rather criticize the slowness of the Biden administration to act.
There is rare political consensus in Washington on the need to confront China’s hostile activities. But this unit sometimes turns into hysteria, especially when the army was pushed to shoot down several other seemingly innocuous balloons after the first spy device was sent by China. Or when the boss of the Chinese application TikTok, heard last month by Congress, was condemned in advance.
Pragmatic approach
Closing a Chinese police station and shooting down balloons is one thing; banning an ultra-popular app from American phones is a much bigger challenge. Especially since at the ballot box, young people could make the old politicians of Washington pay for it.
In the same way, preventing China from helping Russia militarily in its war against Ukraine is much more difficult. Not to mention the increasingly asserted desire of the United States to decouple its economy from that of China and to get rid of its dependence on strategic products. Meeting these challenges will require a pragmatic rather than an ideological approach that would make China an existential threat to the United States.
Le Temps publishes chronicles and op-eds – the latter are offered to personalities or requested by them. Whether written by members of its editorial staff speaking on their own behalf or by outsiders, these opinions reflect the point of view of their authors. They do not represent the position of the title.
2023-04-18 18:28:56
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