On the penultimate day of 2020, the People’s Republic of China and the European Commission announced a political agreement on investments. It is something, but it is far from reaching a whole. The reason: the growing distrust that the Chinese communist regime generates in the world.
Violation of human rights; subjugation of minorities – Uyghurs, Tibetans; dictatorship; destruction of the rule of law in Hongkong; claims and military actions on the China Sea; aggressiveness against Taiwan; they make up elements that generalize a growing distrust within world public opinion.
These are arguments that are increasingly difficult to put aside. Even more so if the nebula that extends over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic is added, to whose elucidation the Chinese government puts delays and distractions to avoid an opinion that can become very unfavorable.
However, Chinese communism in the government has an enormously important ally when it comes to balancing such a negative balance. That ally is its demographic weight that makes the country an extremely attractive market for all those who have something to sell to the Asian giant.
From that reading, the European Commission seeks adherence to the agreement with China. In particular, because, with its pluses and minuses, the commitment aims to “balance” bilateral investments, many of which are Chinese in Europe, almost a drop in Europe in China.
To date, in the Europe of the 27 countries that make up the European Union (EU), Chinese investments suffer almost no restrictions. Quite the contrary, for European investments in China. The economic nationalism of the Asian giant multiplies the barriers to the entry of capital and establishes discriminatory practices for the companies established in its territory.
The 69-page Sino-European agreement covers items such as automotive, transportation and health equipment, and the chemical sector within manufacturing; and the financial line, the numerical line, and air and maritime transport, on the services side.
On these issues, the agreement provides for good Chinese intentions … such as lifting – depending on the case and considering by the Chinese government itself – the obligation for Europeans to integrate “joint ventures” – partnerships with Chinese companies – or to transfer technology. Another good intention, for example, is for Chinese public companies to treat European companies in a non-discriminatory way (sic).
The European Commission of the EU must, from now on, develop pedagogy to convince governments about the advantages of agreeing with its Chinese counterpart. In the European Parliament the left, the greens and the liberals, pose oppositions. Among the governments, Austria, France, Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands express their reservations.
Negotiations between the EU and China lasted seven years. At least one more year – early 2022 – it will take the 27 to agree to approve or reject the agreement reached.
World dominance
If Europe, as a second-order power, can afford to present contradictory attitudes towards China, determination and firmness should frame the decisions of the United States with respect to the Asian giant.
US policy on China will possibly be one of the few signs of continuity between the finalized administration of President Donald Trump and the recently started one of President Joseph “Joe” Biden.
The opposite would represent an “abdication” of the North American leadership. In any case, with the ex-president it was possible to imagine a United States turned inside out. With the current and recent, impossible.
Pandemic, economy and national unity are the predominant themes for President Biden. But foreign policy will not sleep the sleep of the righteous in some desk drawer. And China will occupy – almost certainly – the predominant place. It does to the national security of the United States.
President Xi Jinping (67 years old) did not walk around. Only two days after the new US president took office, he sanctioned Trump administration officials.
He didn’t do it because of the invasion of Congress, or anything like it. It was a “wetting of the ear” for President Biden who reacted quickly with a condemnation by his new National Security Council to the Chinese decision. In the language of symbols, a “let’s fight.”
Of course, the battle is not played there. It is played in Taiwan. The island that, after World War II, China recovered to the detriment of the Japanese occupation and that in 1949 was occupied by the defeated Nationalist Army of Marshal Chang Kaishek on the continent after the triumph and the taking of Beijing by the Chinese People’s Army of the communist Mao Zedong.
Singing tests: on Saturday 23 January -3 days after the North American replacement- at least six Chinese Xian H-6K strategic bombers, an upgrade of the once famous Soviet Tupolev TU-16 aircraft flew over the Taiwanese “identification and defense zone”, south of the island.
A day later, twelve Chinese fighter jets – two Sukhoi-30, four J-16 and six J-10 – and three Y-8 maritime patrol planes did the same. In 2020, Chinese raids on Taiwan totaled 380 and exceeded all previous values since 1996.
For some, it was President Xi’s response to the presence, by invitation, of the de facto ambassador – there is no official recognition – from Taiwan in Washington to the inauguration of President Biden.
But it is not all. On Friday, January 22, the Chinese People’s Congress unanimously voted a law authorizing the Coast Guard to open fire on foreign vessels and destroy foreign facilities on disputed islands in the China Sea. China’s aggressiveness and its claims of world leadership carry a danger of war, for the moment, latent. And the first battleground, if it happens, will be Taiwan.
Potholes on the Silk Road
That said, China and India are nuclear military powers. But, so is Pakistan, the third of the four Asians who dominate the atom for war purposes. The fourth is another neighbor of China: North Korea.
If North Korea can be classified as close to China, Pakistan is directly its great ally. An ally that, for Chinese and Pakistanis, responds to the old adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
With the initiative of the Silk Road, consisting of Chinese investments and loans for transportation and trade infrastructure of the Asian giant through “corridors” that reach Africa and Europe, the approach went beyond the military and acquired a greater geopolitical content .
In April 2015, President Xi traveled to Islamabad – the Pakistani capital – to officially launch the work on the “corridor” of the Silk Road through Pakistan. After signing 51 linked agreements, then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared that “our friendship is higher than mountains and deeper than oceans.”
But affection has limits. Five years later the relations between the two friends turn cold. The excuse, a disagreement over the construction of a railway line that connects three major Pakistani cities: Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi.
The reason, even at a convenient rate, must be found in that Chinese loans may not be repaid in a timely manner depending on the debt payment crisis that is hovering over the states through which the corridors pass, crises aggravated by the pandemic of COVID-19.
If bridges and highways are expensive and contribute to pollution, given the uncertainty to recover the investment, China reorients its strategy towards the “numerical”, much cheaper and with almost immediate results, in accordance with its intention of primacy in the field of new technologies and services.
Far from being completed, the Silk Road presents important potholes that make the decision to continue or not. Potholes that are complemented by black holes that show the first investigations into the origin of the pandemic in Wuhan. When it comes to trust, the Chinese Communist Party regime and its Chairman Xi leave much to be desired.
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