By Claude Arpi
Everyone knows that China is an irritable country. And if you irritate
China there is a price to pay.
This
was openly asserted on a blog published recently by The People’s Daily. Chinascope,
the website which translated the posting into English, explains: “The People’s
Republic of China often chooses economic retribution as a means to control
other countries actions.” Let us not forget that The People’s Daily is
the mouthpiece of the Communist Party and every word published in its columns
has the sanction of the authorities in Beijing.
This
particular posting shows the Chinese regime’s way of behaving with
‘recalcitrant’ States: “The French President came to China and took a big
package, a huge present, back to France with him. When the Chinese Premier Li
Keqiang went to Germany, Germany also received benefits. At the same time, the
United Kingdom is just able to watch from the sidelines.” Explanation: In
September of 2007, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama, Beijing
was then forced to ‘retaliate’: “Of course, China would get angry,” says the
blogger.
To
punish the ‘culprit’ Angela Merkel, China ‘Got close to the British and the
French’ and as a result the Germans were alienated; they ‘had a tough time’.
But,
says The People’s Daily: “Merkel
learned her lesson” and after her re-election, she did not dare to meet with
the Dalai Lama again. “Since then, she has managed to maintain a fairly good
relationship with China,” comments the blog. Then the French: In December of
2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy met with the Tibetan leader. It set a precedent
for France (though the meeting was discreetly arranged in Warsaw, Poland, to
not anger the Chinese), affirms the blogger who adds that during this period,
Sarkozy had a ‘double identity’ (France held the Presidency of the European
Union for six months). So, it doubly angered Beijing. And obviously, as the
blogger explains: “Coupled with the bad role Sarkozy played before the Beijing
Olympics, China’s revenge against France was much more violent”.
Remember,
Carrefour shops were burned. Beijing had to “give (sic) sweetness to the
British and the Germans and let France suffer”. Sarkozy did not have to be
punished for long, he flatly apologised to President Hu Jintao (‘France was
forced to give in and issued a joint declaration with China’). But Beijing
still remembered ‘the affront’.
Though
Sarkozy repeatedly ‘tried to appease China’, it took some time for Beijing to
show its magnanimity; by the time China was ready to forgive the
‘hyper-President’, he had lost the Presidential election. His successor got it
straight right away. Hollande’s Sherpa, Jean-Paul Ortiz, is a known ‘China
expert’, he must have explained to the French President, no more ‘T’ word, no
more encounters with the Dalai Lama.
That
is how Hollande got ‘a huge gift’ with Beijing (purchase of Airbus).
Video
credit: Euronews
Foolishly,
the British Prime Minister David Cameron did not read the message on the wall.
In May of 2012, he received the Dalai Lama at 10, Downing Street. The blogger
of The People’s Daily comments: “This time it was Britain’s turn to suffer.
Meanwhile, France and Germany got the sweet treatment from China.” Though other
British leaders had met the Dalai Lama before (I remember in the 1990’s seeing
John Major’s photo on altars in monasteries in Tibet), but Cameron did not
realise that the times have changed. Today China is a powerful, very powerful
nation.
His
punishment: “Cameron still cannot make a visit to China that he has always
wanted to make”. And there is a collateral, Britain will lose billions of
pounds of China’s investment because its Prime Minister’s audacious gesture.
The
blogger asks: “Should he refuse to admit his mistake and save face or should he
get the all-important money? This really is a question for the British.” Right,
London should decide if it wants Beijing’s friendship or not. The inheritors of
the British Empire should know that ‘in the front of today’s God of
Wealth–China’, one has to bow. No bowing, no business. They have to make “some
kind of gesture to obtain China’s forgiveness”, says the blogger.
Interestingly,
when the EU decided to slam duties for ‘dumped’ Chinese solar panels, Li
Keqiang managed to convince Angela Merkel and François Hollande to object to
Brussels decision. They announced that they don’t agree with Brussels’
decision. Berlin and Paris have learned the ‘correct’ way to deal with the
Middle Kingdom. But as the European Commission is insistent on charging duties
on what it considers as unfair practices (the solar panels are subsidised by
the Chinese State to capture the European market), Beijing preemptively
retaliated, it launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe in European
(read French) wines. That’s not all. The Chinese authorities announced that
they had destroyed an unspecified amount of Belgium chocolates because they
contained toxic substances. Belgium media was rife with speculations: “Could it
be a coincidence that the latest trashing of the national delicacy comes as the
EU pursues import tariffs on Chinese solar panels.”
China
is said to have identified disunity between the EU countries, in particular
Germany, France, and the UK, to be the most effective way to impose what they
call ‘economically divisive tools’. When the United States were irritated with
the PLA’s Black Visitors regularly hacking into the US defence computers, the
US President planned (without informing Beijing that the issue was the first on
the agenda) to tell his Chinese counterpart what he thought about stealing
others’ properties. The Chinese got deeply irritated to be pointed a finger.
As Obama and Xi were
to going to seat on a redwood bench at Sunnylands, ‘whistleblower’ Edward
Snowden suddenly emerged in Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region of
China. Was it a miracle or just a coincidence? Or perhaps a retaliation? An
interesting question: What would happen if China irritates India? Take the example of the Chinese camping in the
desolate Depsang plains of Ladakh; it was really irritating. But don’t ask
silly questions!
Delhi
can’t demand a gesture from China to obtain India’s ‘forgiveness’? India
automatically forgives and forgets, it is her way of doing things these days.
NOTE—
Claude Arpi is a French author, Tibet-China expert and a freelance based in
India. This article is republished from NITI CENTRAL
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