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By PHELIM KINE
with STUART LAU
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Hi, China Watchers. Today we look at what Secretary of State Antony Blinken may get out of his trip to China, talk to a former victim of Beijing's hostage diplomacy about the risk-reward ratio of China travel and profile a book that unpacks Beijing's diplomatic inroads into the Solomon Islands.
Let's get to it. — Phelim.
Blinken braves Beijing's diplomatic brick wall
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the middle of a three-day trip to Shanghai and Beijing for sharp conversations on the U.S.-China relationship. And Blinken is receiving a much frostier reception than Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was greeted by positive public takes on China's tightly controlled Internet during her recent visit.
In his meetings with Chinese officials today and Friday, Blinken is expected to call out Beijing for actively fueling conflict in Europe and threatening neighbors in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing doesn't want to hear it. "China does not hold high expectations for #Blinken's visit," Chinese state media tabloid Global Times said on X on Tuesday.
Blinken set the stage for some sharp exchanges with his Chinese counterparts by rolling out State's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Monday which accuses Beijing, again, of "genocide … and other human rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs." Beijing fired back. Those allegations reflect "political lies and ideological biases" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday.
Beijing's welcome mat for Blinken has included a warning about Beijing's expectations by an unidentified Chinese Foreign Ministry official. The Biden administration is pursuing policies at "containing China, keeps adopting erroneous words and actions that interfere in China’s internal affairs, smear China’s image and undermine China’s interests," the statement said. The success of Blinken's visit hinges on "establishing the right perception" of his hosts, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in an X post on Tuesday.
Blinken has other plans. His list of awkward discussion topics includes China's "support for Russia's defense industrial base … [and] PRC provocations in the South China Sea," a senior State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity prior to Blinken's trip. Administration anger about Beijing's alignment with Russia's war on Ukraine was front and center at a press briefing Blinken gave on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Italy on Friday. "China can't have it both ways — it can't purport to want to have positive, friendly relations with countries in Europe and at the same time be fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War," Blinken told reporters.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith reiterated that frustration Wednesday in an interview. "If they were not providing some of these components … Russia would be in a very different situation and would have trouble pursuing some of these acts of aggression," Smith said. She added that Beijing's exports to Russia of items including drone technologies, machine tools and the chemical nitrocellulose, a key component of gunpowder for artillery rounds, are helping Moscow sustain its war on Ukraine.
Expect Blinken to urge Beijing to cease its support for Russia's industrial base or face consequences. Beijing is already pushing back. "The United States keeps making groundless accusations over the normal trade and economic exchanges between China and Russia … to fan the flames or to smear others and shift the blame is no way to solve the Ukraine issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday.
The next legislative push in Congress on Taiwan
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The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning arrives in Hong Kong waters on July 7, 2017. | Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images |
Taiwan is about to get $1.9 billion in military hardware after President Joe Biden signed into law a foreign aid package that included $8 billion in Indo-Pacific defense support — all in an effort to forestall conflict between China and Taiwan.
But there's a parallel effort that a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate are pushing — legislation aimed to insulate the U.S. from the economic fallout of any war over Taiwan. Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), members of the House Select Committee on China, introduced the Fortifying U.S. Markets from Chinese Military Aggression Act on April 11. It would require the U.S. government to prepare for such a conflict by creating a council to identify the economic implications of a Chinese attack on Taiwan and present recommendations to counter them.
That legislation is essential to "signal to the American people that what happens in the Taiwan Strait will not stay in the Taiwan Strait," said Torres. The U.S. is "catastrophically unprepared for the economic and financial shock" that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will inflict on the U.S., Torres argued.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) are trying to push through another bill in the coming weeks that would require the Commerce Department to "identify critical sectors of the U.S. economy that are strategic vulnerabilities that could be exploited" by China in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and advise how to reduce them. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) has sponsored a companion bill in the House.
That bill cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June. It's possible that the senators might attach the bill as an amendment to next year's National Defense Authorization Act, a spokesperson for Peters said.
Both bills channel U.S. public concerns about both the rising risk of conflict over Taiwan and China's potential threat to the U.S. if hostilities break out.
"We had the [Chinese spy] balloon go directly over my district … and it brought home the problem that we have with China," said Luetkemeyer. Those constituents want a "plan in place to address this — if not we're going to be caught out again just like we were when Russia invaded Ukraine, and our economy is going to suffer," Luetkemeyer said.
Luetkemeyer wants to steer the House bill to a floor vote by end-July either part of one to two days of focused House consideration of various China-related legislation session or include it a possible omnibus China bill mooted in December by now-former House Select China Committee chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).
But getting lawmakers' attention in a highly partisan congress during the countdown to November's presidential election won't be easy. "I'm optimistic that there is a bipartisan consensus in favor of bringing the bill to the floor for a vote … but the present dysfunction of Washington D.C. is hard to overstate," Torres said.
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
— ON THAT TAIWAN AID: Biden's signature will put wheels on that $1.9 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations for Taiwan — which will fund "new procurement or repair" of existing weapons systems as well as "education and training" for the island's military. Wang at China's Foreign Ministry argued Wednesday that the aid package won't make Taiwan "safer or save 'Taiwan independence' from doom — It will only heighten tensions and the risk of conflict and confrontation in the Taiwan Strait."
— TIKTOK LEGISLATION MAKES IT THROUGH: The U.S. foreign aid package also included a provision forcing TikTok's parent firm ByteDance to find a U.S. buyer for the app within a year or face a ban. POLITICO's Rebecca Kern has the full story here. TikTok is defiant. "We aren't going anywhere. … The facts and the constitution are on our side," TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a statement on the platform on Wednesday. China's Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
— INDOPACOM: CHINA'S 'COERCION' OF TAIWAN WORSENING: China is ramping up its Taiwan-targeted coercion tactics, warned Adm. John Aquilino, chief of U.S. Indo-Pacific command. "I am watching an increasingly aggressive campaign plan of coercion and pressure," toward the self-governing island, Aquilino told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday, per Reuters. Those comments come just four weeks prior to the inauguration of Taiwan's pro-independence President-elect, Lai Ching-te, which could spark an uptick in Chinese military harassment and intimidation across the Taiwan Strait.
TRANSLATING EUROPE
EU RAIDS TECH FIRM FOUNDED BY HU JINTAO'S SON: As part of the the EU's first operation against non-EU companies breaking new foreign subsidies rules, European Commission officers raided the Dutch and Polish branches of Nuctech, a firm specializing in security screeners used in ports and airports and which was once headed by Hu Haifeng, son to former Chinese President Hu Jintao. The company confirmed the raid on Wednesday, pledging to cooperate with the authorities. Some European lawmakers hailed the move, saying there were prior concerns about Nuctech's equipment at the airport in Strasbourg, the French city where members of the European Parliament gather for meetings regularly. "Finally, we have woken up," Dutch center-right MEP Tom Berendsen wrote on X. Pieter Haeck has the story for POLITICO Europe's Pro subscribers.
ALLEGED SPY'S GERMAN EMPLOYER KEEPS CAMPAIGNING: Far-right German politician Maximilian Krah refused to quit the European election race Wednesday, despite bombshell police allegations that his top aide was spying for the Chinese government. Krah, from the Alternative for Germany party, announced that he would fire the assistant accused of espionage, but that he would not step down as the party's lead candidate for the European election — just six weeks away. "If you think this is the end of my candidacy, then I have to disappoint you," said Krah. Šejla Ahmatović and James Angelos have the story.
EU TAKES AIM AT CHINA'S CLOSED MEDICAL MARKET: The EU invoked a new tool against China, alleging the Chinese market for being completely closed to European makers of medical equipment. "Regrettably, our repeated discussions with China on this trade irritant have been fruitless," EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said, adding that the EU's International Procurement Instrument "is a powerful new mechanism." Koen Verhelst and Camille Gijs have the full story.
EU ASKED TO TAKE BELT AND ROAD MORE SERIOUSLY: The EU needs to get serious about competing with China for influence around the world by creating a megaplan for international investments that's relentlessly focused on what works. That is the message in an internal European Commission briefing document on the global infrastructure program that Brussels hoped would rival Beijing's vast Belt and Road Initiative. The paper, seen by Koen and Eddy Wax, warns that efforts so far under the EU's €300 billion Global Gateway plan have fallen flat because they're "spread too thinly." Here's the story.
HOT FROM THE CHINA WATCHERSPHERE
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— BILATERAL TENSIONS TORMENT U.S. CORPORATES: U.S. firms operating in China say their top challenge is "rising tensions in U.S.-China relations." That's one of the key findings of the American Chamber of Commerce in China's annual survey of business sentiment released Tuesday. U.S. businesses are leery of increasing their investment in China due to concerns including "how the country's national security laws apply to business," said AmCham's synopsis of the report. That reflects lingering corporate jitters about Chinese police raids on U.S. firms including Mintz Group and Bain & Company over the past year.
**We're celebrating the first-year anniversary of POLITICO's Research & Analysis Division! That's 365 days of delivering clarity through ready-to-use reports and hours of work creating policy intelligence for our readers, but we'll spare you the details. Watch our video putting together the figures that stood out to us to see what we're all about.**
TRANSLATING CHINA'S HOSTAGE DIPLOMACY
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Former Canadian hostage: "the risk of arbitrary detention is real"
Can Americans safely travel to China? The Biden administration's approval in February of more direct flights to the U.S. by Chinese airlines prompted House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) to accuse the administration of raising the risk of U.S. citizens becoming victims of arbitrary detention or hostage taking by Beijing. A short trip to China "could easily turn into a years-long detainment for a crime they never committed," McCaul warned in an op-ed in The Hill last week. That puts McCaul at odds with U.S. educators and business interests — backed by the Chinese Embassy in Washington — pushing the administration to lift obstacles to U.S. citizens going to China for work or study.
China Watcher spoke to former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig — who along with fellow Canadian Michael Spavor spent nearly three years behind bars in China as a pawn in a Chinese hostage diplomacy strategy — about the risks of traveling to a country which he says keeps "lists of foreigners that they're watching that they can then grab and use as collateral when they need to."
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
How can foreign government's prevent arbitrary detention or hostage taking of their citizens by Beijing?
There's deterrence by denial and deterrence through punishment or threat of punishment. Denial is by just discouraging your citizens from going to countries where they’re at risk of arbitrary detention. But once people have been detained what's necessary is to try to change the cost-benefit calculus of countries that are doing that.
Did your three-year ordeal — which ended in 2021 by Canada releasing Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou from house arrest in Vancouver in exchange for you and Spavor — provide Beijing a model for future hostage diplomacy?
The costs for China were quite high, so I don't think that China would necessarily conclude that this was a successful way of handling things. By taking hostages, they painted the Trudeau government into a corner and actually complicated things for themselves. And the costs are still going on in terms of how China is perceived. It contributed in many ways to changing perceptions of the Chinese party state in ways that I don't think are in any way helpful for China.
There's pressure on the State Department to downgrade its Level 3 "Reconsider Travel" advisory for China that warns of "arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions." Is that a good idea?
I see no reason to justify removing that warning. The risk of arbitrary detention in China is real. And it would be negligent if the United States government did not warn its citizens. And if there's pressure from various quarters in the United States to remove that classification, then there's a simple path to do that. China can publicly disavow arbitrary detention. It can sign the international Declaration against Arbitrary Detention and it can release people.
HEADLINES
Newsweek: China building new outpost on U.S. doorstep, leaked documents reveal
CNN: I'd rather live in the 'world's most dangerous place' than America
Associated Press: Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous
Rest of World:TSMC's debacle in the American desert
ONE BOOK, THREE QUESTIONS
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Manchester University Press and Dan Mogford |
The Book: Divided Isles: Solomon Islands and the China Switch
The Author: Edward Acton Cavanough is an Adelaide-based journalist, researcher and policy analyst.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is the most important takeaway from your book?
The China switch — the decision in 2019 to break relations with Taiwan in favor of Beijing — was not thrust upon Solomon Islands involuntarily by Beijing, but was welcomed and advanced by key actors within Solomon Islands for their own benefit. China wanted the Solomons relationship normalized, no question. But it was a combination of ambitious lawmakers who saw in the China relationship an opportunity to bring more investment into the Solomons, and an active local Chinese business community in Honiara that really drove the switch.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?
The deprivation and abject poverty that I saw in the Solomons was quite shocking. I've seen maternity clinics with no electricity, bedding, medicine, or even trained staff, working within eyesight, literally, of the capital city, where more than $2 billion has been spent in recent years by various aid and development partners.
How was last week's Solomon Islands' election a litmus test of the power of China's influence and development model for South Pacific island countries?
The results of the election so far suggest that the governing coalition of pro-Beijing Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has taken a hit. But whether or not this is related specifically to Sogavare's China stance, or whether it is a reflection of the general apathy or frustrations towards the government is hard to distinguish.
Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com.Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Rebecca Kern, Pieter Haeck, Šejla Ahmatović, James Angelos, Koen Verhelst, Camille Gijs, Eddy Wax and digital producers Tara Gnewikow and Fiona Lally.Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week’s items? Email us at pkine@politico.com slau@politico.eu
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