China hawks risk accelerating the outcomes they are trying to avoid
The Covid-19 pandemic is leading to a clear hardening of western attitudes towards China.
The origins of the virus in Wuhan, coupled with suspicions that the Chinese government suppressed awareness of the initial outbreak, have emboldened sino-sceptics and heightened fears of growing Chinese influence.
Yet blanket hostility risks accelerating the emergence of the aggressive and dominant China that the hawks are so intent on preventing.
The purpose of this article is not to defend the policies of the Chinese state, nor to justify the many reprehensible acts it is responsible for. From the mass incarceration of the Uighur Muslim minority and the abduction and torture of political critics, to the indiscriminate surveillance of its citizens and violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy, there is much to criticise and condemn China for.
Rather, it is a critique of the west’s overall strategy for handling China.
US policy towards China under President Donald Trump is a perfect illustration of the counterproductivity of an overly confrontational stance.
US tariffs on tens of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, along with the retaliatory duties levied by China, have done little to slow the latter’s rise while doing serious harm to American businesses. The New York Federal Reserve recently estimated that the trade war has already wiped $1.7 trillion off American companies’ combined market value since 2018.
Attempts to cripple the Chinese tech sector by banning exports of US technology to its leading businesses, particularly Huawei and ZTE, have also failed to achieve their ends. Instead they have shut American companies out of a lucrative expanding market while turbocharging China’s investment in its own domestic capabilities. Plans to ban or limit Chinese listings on US exchanges are likely to have similar consequences.
America’s abandonment of the international institutions it helped create is another open goal for China — and one with global repercussions. By storming out of the Paris Climate Agreement and World Health Organisation and effectively paralysing the World Trade Organisation, the US is burning bridges with its traditional allies while simultaneously handing illiberal China the reins of the global world order.
And before we in the UK begin to congratulate ourselves yet again for the questionable achievement of being better than Trump’s America, we would do well to look closer to home. Prior to the crisis, the UK had been treading a fine but sensible line with its China strategy, attempting to balance legitimate security and economic concerns with the need to engage with a rising global power.
Now Covid-19 has thrown all that to the wind. Fair and important criticism of China’s handling of the pandemic has rapidly degenerated into an anti-Beijing free-for-all, culminating in the establishment of the China Research Group (CRG) — a new parliamentary formation deliberately modelled on the ERG group of Brexit hardliners.
In response to this pressure, Boris Johnson’s government appears to be abandoning its balanced approach to China. It is backtracking on plans to permit Huawei’s involvement in non-sensitive areas of the UK’s 5G infrastructure — a compromise endorsed by the intelligence services — and is reportedly beefing up imminent legislation on foreign (read: Chinese) investment screening to cover academic and research partnerships.
Such sweeping hostility risks harming the UK’s economic interests, particularly as it leaves the EU Single Market, without bringing about meaningful change in China’s behaviour either at home or abroad.
There is an additional, and frequently overlooked, reason why a confrontational approach to China is likely to be counterproductive. This is the very realistic possibility that deepening western hostility will empower hardliners within the Chinese government and Communist Party in their struggle for pre-eminence over their more dovish counterparts.
Indeed, this may already be underway, and could well explain China’s recent power grab in Hong Kong and provocations at the Indian border. A world in which China no longer sees any reason to play by the rules of the existing global order, even if only on a superficial level, is undoubtedly a more dangerous one.
What is the alternative? The fact of the matter is that the west’s ability to significantly alter China’s behaviour, let alone stem its rise, is limited. Tariffs on Chinese goods or restrictions on Beijing’s access to western technology will neither meaningfully change its economic trajectory nor bring about a flowering of democracy and civil liberties.
This does not mean that defeatism is the answer. The west can and should continue to treat China as an important economic and diplomatic partner while not hesitating to call it out for playing unfairly. Proportionate retaliation, targeted at specific abuses, should be prioritised over sweeping and heavy-handed measures.
This will not satisfy those thirsting for a more bellicose approach. But it may well be the least bad option we have.
Main image credit: Getty