Xinjiang Cotton Incident： Why China is Taking High-Profile Countermeasures
By Luo Ching-sheng
China Times, March 31, 2021
The meetings between American and Chinese officials in Alaska shocked the world with its fiery opening, with the two strongly condemning each other. The strong and unyielding 16-minute speech given by Yang Jiechi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office of the Chinese Communist Party, left a lasting impression. The response of the Chinese society has been particularly strong. "Golden phrases” from the speech, such as “the Chinese don’t play this game” and "the United States is not qualified to speak condescendingly to China" have even been made into T-shirts and are being sold.
After the meeting, China’s external profile has shown signs of becoming tougher and more unyielding all around. On March 22, the European Union High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials and one entity on the grounds that they violated the human rights of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. China quickly announced counter measures to sanction against the system and announced anti-sanctions against 10 individuals and four entities in Europe, including several members of the European Parliament, think tanks and scholars.
Not only that, on March 24, the State Council Information Office of China also issued the first ever "Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020,” questioning racism, inequality between the rich and the poor, and the failure to respond effectively to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It criticizesd the United States for not only losing control on the spreading of pandemic, but also having political disorder, racial conflicts, and social divisions accompanying that.
At around the same time, the Chinese official media dug back out an official statement from the Swedish clothing brand, H&M from October of last year, which stated that the brand would not use products or raw materials from Xinjiang due to "human rights issues". They said that since then, H&M has still been “earning Chinese money, while being hostile to the Chinese, and that H&M should make careful calculation on the matter.” This sparked Chinese netizens to boycott the brand, and e-commerce websites have taken their products off the shelves one after the other.
This is a deliberate action. Why didn’t they talk what happened last October then, but talk about it now? This shows that China's response to the fierce competition with the United States has started to turn from defensive to offensive, with full counterattack in the realm of diplomacy, values, and commerce. However, a tough stance will get great response when it comes to nationalism, but could be hurt by reactionary forces. The European Parliament has announced the cancellation of the review of the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement. Many countries have also summoned Chinese ambassadors and are protesting to them. Some scholars in Europe believe that this is a strategic error in Chinese diplomacy, which may push Europe, which was originally unwilling to choose sides in the competition between the United States and China, to Washington.
Whether China’s strategy is correct or not depends on the possible evolution of the situation. Let us first sort out this round of strategic interactions between the United States and China.
On March 22, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Europe, the European Union, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand announced sanctions or condemnation against officials in Xinjiang on the basis of human rights. For the United States, this might just be the beginning of U.S. President Joe Biden's so-called "united allies against China." China immediately announced counter-sanctions against the EU, which is obviously a long-prepared card, which can immediately fight back when the EU makes a move.
But this card is a bit bigger, which went beyond the expectation of the Europeans. For the European Union, sanctions on Xinjiang officials are just a "symbolic move" that have been brewing for a long time.
The European Union passed the "global human rights sanctions regime" at the end of last year, the so-called European version of the "Magnitsky Act". It was announced at that time that the first batch of sanctions lists will be in the implemented before the end of the first quarter. Therefore, in addition to officials from Xinjiang, China, the sanctions list also includes human rights abusers from Russia, Myanmar and other countries. The timing of the announcement is only to coincide with the visit of the U.S. Secretary of State. On the one hand, it will help Biden administration counter China, and on the other, Xinjiang will not lose its autonomy. The timely sanctions achieve the best of both worlds.
But for China, this is the so-called "rules-based" international order. Why do the United States and the European Union have their own set of rules to point to other countries and become "human rights teachers"? Yang's 16-minute speech made it clear that China is following an international order centered on the United Nations and based on international law, rather than a "rule-based" international order advocated by a small number of countries.
With such a big countermeasure, is it that China is not afraid to offend Europe? Is it letting the European Union’s operation to cooperate according to the original script turn out to be a real game? Perhaps it is the opposite, China is worried that if it doesn’t not take a firm stand this time, the EU will really join the United States under continuous pressure from the United States to suppress China, or that if the human rights issues continue to ferment, it will truly harm the Xinjiang cotton industry.
Strategic analysis must start from theory and logic, not just looking at documents or what it seemingly looks like. In theory, although both the United States and the European Union emphasize on "values" diplomacy, the textbooks of international relations make it very clear that the essence of international behavior is realism, not idealism. Simply put, it is to manipulate carrots and sticks to lure or threaten to drive opponents.
Remember when the United States first launched a global blockade of Huawei’s 5G, European countries, including the United Kingdom, all originally rejected it, but the United States continued to pressure Britain and even threatened to cancel the F-35 deployment and exclude Britain from the "Five Eyes Alliance." At that time, China did not take sufficient action to counter pressure or provide incentives. As a result, Britain could not withstand the pressure from the United States. Not only did it accept the exclusion of Huawei, British-Chinese relations also deteriorated rapidly due to the Hong Kong issue, completely subverting the original so called "golden age.”
However, didn’t Biden say that "the United States is back?” Would he still pressure the allies like Donald Trump did?
Unfortunately, yes. Although political parties have switched, the interests of the United States remain unchanged. This time, during Blinken’s European trip, they continued to pressure Germany like the former Trump administration, demanding the suspension of the Beixi No. 2 natural gas pipeline project from Russia to Germany, and stated that it would not rule out sanctions against Germany. This is because the United States is worried that Europe will rely too much on Russian energy after the completion of the gas pipeline, which would affect the sales prospects of American shale oil in Europe. Although 90 percent of the 1,230-kilometer gas pipeline has been completed, the United States still insists that Germany cancel it.
For the United States, allies are like a symphony orchestra. The United States has returned as a conductor, the European Union must cooperate with the performance to deal with the threats posed by China and Russia. Blinken’s speech in Brussels on March 24 stated that although the United States would not force allies to choose sides and that allies could cooperate with China if it worked, but the example he mentioned was climate change.
Therefore, China's high-profile anti-sanctions will provide European countries with an excuse to reject the United States. China’s message this time is clear. If anyone cooperates with the United States in sanctions against China, they will pay a price. Therefore, when a joint action is in the interests of the United States but not in Europe, “China will counteract” may become a bargaining chip for Europe.
As for the suspension of the review of the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, China may not be so worried. Because if this agreement is in the interest of the European industry, European industry players will naturally start lobbying. Last year, China's foreign direct investment (FDI) surpassed the United States to become the world's number one, with a cumulative annual increase of 34.24 percent in the first two months of this year. Strong market attractiveness is the source of China's self-confidence.
Second, this time China used the topic of Xinjiang's human rights to made high-profile counter-measures. Part of the reason is because Xinjiang human rights is not actually China's real weakness.
Xinjiang is not an area where travel is restricted. Instead, the policy is to develop tourism and welcome tourism, including foreigners. In 2019, Xinjiang received more than 200 million Chinese and foreign tourists, with tourism revenue exceeding 340 billion yuan (about US$51.8 billion). There are many videos of Xinjiang food, tourism and even mechanical cotton picking on the Internet. There are also Westerners who live in China making videos to criticize the prejudices of the Western media. The "Four Beauties of Xinjiang", which are very popular actresses in China's entertainment industry, are all Uyghurs. The Xinjiang experience of the Chinese people is not the "genocide" or “bloody cotton” like the United States would like to say it is.
Therefore, the mainstream view of the Chinese society would believe that the American accusations of human rights in Xinjiang and suppression of the region's cotton industry are just an excuse to try to stop China’s rise, just like their using “national security” to suppress China’s high-tech companies such as Huawei, SMIC, Xiaomi, DJI, and other Chinese high-tech companies. They just don't want the Chinese to have a better life. This sentiment has become stronger with the increasingly fierce competition between the United States and China. This is why Yang's strong speech has sparked a strong resonance from within Chinese society. It is also the reason why Spokeswoman Hua Chunying of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Chinese people can't be offended. If they are offended, the consequences will be difficult to handle.
In other words, if the goal of the U.S. competitive strategy is to distinguish between China and the Communist Party, trying to make the Chinese people oppose the leadership of the Communist Party, then the effects on how they dealt with human rights issues in Xinjiang will be exactly the opposite. Of course, China has to seize this opportunity and make high-profile counter measures. Unless the American competition is the whole of China, including the Chinese people, but this may further worsen the anti-Asian situation in the United States; otherwise, it may be the United States that is strategically wrong.
From: https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20210327003306-262105?chdtv