By Yang Sheng
The latest US attempt to build a “global anti-China alliance” is doomed to fail as Western countries don’t share its policy toward China. China needs to convince the rest of the world by enhancing opening-up and reform, and be more responsible on international issues where the US is giving up its leadership and embraces unilateralism, said Chinese analysts, after the top US diplomat pressured the UK to further offend China.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Britain to join a “broad alliance” against China as the UK government faces new pressure to impose sanctions on Chinese officials related to Xinjiang affairs, after London announced it will ban Chinese IT giant Huawei from the country’s 5G program, Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Pompeo held “candid” meetings with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior UK politicians, including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, in London on Tuesday. Pompeo also met hawkish backbench MPs, telling them he wanted the UK to be “part of an alliance of nations prepared to challenge China’s actions,” the report said.
The meeting was about “getting us together,” said one backbencher who was in the room, according to FT. “It is not about attacking China, but rather saying ‘your behavior means it’s very difficult for us to do business with you’.”
UK media reported that London remained cautious in responding to the US, and Chinese experts said that the US can’t even get its most important ally, the UK, to entirely follow its anti-China strategy, not to mention the whole Western world, and a strategy with a Cold War mentality to force others to sacrifice their interests to serve US hegemony is doomed to fail.
Wang Dong, executive director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding at Peking University, told the Global Times that the West is divided on China, the EU and the US share very different views, and US allies in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, have an even more different stance as they need to cooperate with China to realize economic recovery in the post-pandemic era.
“Maybe Australia is the only one that would thoroughly follow the US’ order,” so it can’t even get the Five Eyes Alliance united, he said. Leading powers of the EU, France and Germany, are showing independent foreign policies on China compared to the UK. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday that France would not ban China’s Huawei from investing in the country, in contrast to Britain, which has decided to purge the firm’s equipment from its 5G network by 2027, Reuters reported.
Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, Huawei’s largest customer in Europe, has also argued firmly against any blanket ban on individual vendors. Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times that most European countries will not follow the US on the anti-China alliance, as they need to balance between Beijing and Washington to maximize their interests. “Most of them have already been confused by the Trump administration on many issues before,” including the US withdrawals from the Iranian nuclear deal, Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization, he said, adding that it would very difficult for them to cut off the mutually-beneficial ties with China. Chinese analysts said these European countries might voice similar views and have some joint actions with the US on specific issues, like Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Huawei, but they will not entirely change their foreign policy to lean to one side.
What China should do
Another reason for the reluctance of other Western countries is they are waiting for the results of the US presidential election. If Trump loses, US foreign policy will significantly change, and it would be unwise for them to keep too close to the US at present and offend China, Chinese experts said.
An Gang, an expert on US studies at the Pangoal Institute, a Beijing-based think tank, said “Those countries won’t follow. They believe Donald Trump won’t sit in the White House for too long. And they don’t want to choose between China and the US.”
“The Trump administration also wants to build some new alliances to fix US ties with its allies, as it has damaged its own alliances in the past several years. European countries do not want to endorse Trump’s foreign policy at this time as they believe this is part of Trump’s election strategy,” Cui said.
Wang said that no matter what the US does, the best strategy for China is to use opening-up and reform against blockades and isolation to strengthen its connection with the world. “In the competition between China and the US, whoever gets rid of the COVID-19 pandemic first wins.”
An said pressure from the US will not make the rest of the world turn their backs on China. But if China becomes even more aggressive and conservative and selfish than the US, the world might be disappointed.
Cui said, “What we should do is to launch accurate countermeasure against US provocation but be prudent in hitting its allies who are also our partners. We should do what the opposite of what the US is doing. While the US shouts ‘America First,’ we should be responsible and even consider playing the role of a leader to solve the world’s concerns,” such as climate change and free trade.
China needs to fill in the void left by the US, especially for Western countries who used to rely on the US but get disappointed now, Cui added.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
