Last year China offered us L'Affaire Kitty Hawk (my long blogpost). Readers may recall that China had denied the US carrier Kitty Hawk entry into Hong Kong port for a normal Thanksgiving visit, an event followed by truculent explanations, but which in the end appeared to be a communciations eff-up. About the same time it also denied two US minesweepers entry into Hong Kong during a storm, a far more serious affront to the laws of the sea.What many observers felt was strange was China's abuse of the US Navy, because the Navy had done its level best to get along with the Chinese, treating them better than almost any other branch of the US government. Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report observed at the time: "... China has had NO better friend, in terms of adult supervision of the relationship, than the US Navy."
The fact is that there is nothing strange about this behavior; it is perfectly normal. Let's expand on what I noted last year:
Anyone who has observed China's relations with the outside world for any length of time has seen this pattern again and again. In the midst of negotiations with the Vatican, it consecrates two bishops for the state Church. In the midst of negotiations over the Olympic Torch coming to Taiwan, it denies a visa to the representative of the city of Kaohsiung to discuss the games to be held there in 2009. Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. Last year the Chinese government shut down an expat magazine in China that was widely considered the most sympathetic and supportive expat rag in that nation. After attending the ASEAN meeting in November where it has positive interactions with ASEAN members, it immediately goes out and holds war games in waters disputed by those nations, without informing them. And of course China gets the Olympics with promises to upgrade its rights situation, yet crackdowns on the internet and journalists intensify, while state security arrests double. Catch the pattern?
Now it's France's turn to be thanked for its hard work on behalf of China. Frankly I think it is wonderful that the Chinese are attacking France. France has been the one nation that has consistently supported China, emphasizing its "special relationship" and repeatedly arguing that the EU should break the weapons embargo caused by Tiananmen. It's hard to know who to laugh at more here, the Chinese for protesting against one of their best friends, or France for imagining that friendship with China would ever be reciprocated. Welcome to China France -- you've been Kitty Hawked!
Of course, the spectre of Kitty Hawkin' also raises the question of what China will do to Ma Ying-jeou after he sucks up to Beijing.
Sadly, some of the amusing aspects of this affair faded yesterday as a westerner was attacked outside a Carrefour there for the crime of being a westerner. Let's hope it was just an isolated thing.
The protests raise another issue: that of the economy. In the public mind Tiananmen is popularly linked with democracy protests though the issue is surely more complex than that, but that year, even though official figures showed comfortable economic growth, the reality was that there was a recession and local incomes shrank. No wonder there were protests. I'm curious whether what is happening with the outwardly-focused protests is an example of displaced anger that otherwise might be focused on the government for rising food prices, especially given China's wildly unequal distribution of income....
[Taiwan] [China] [Kitty Hawk] [France]
5 comments:
Wow, Michael, that pattern thing really blew my mind.
As Mr. Spock would say "Fascinating".
Another pitiful propaganda from Michael, without a need to sweat over it. If he is honest, he should have explained what are the factors causing the Chinese to react otherwise. As an advice, he should just spend more of his time publishing his travelling documentary - it'll be more appreciating.
Tico:
Friends of China take note of The Pattern! I had a long discussion with an exchange student from Shanghai yesterday, 2.5 hours. It was cool -- no raised voices. More sad I was, than angry. I couldn't quite get what it was about France that had pissed them off so -- I think they thought what happened in the time surrounding the Olympics was deliberate -- in the UK it wasn't deliberate, she said. She also added that she was an IR masters and said that nations didn't have friendships, just interests and all "friendships" were illusions. Realpolitik is what she told me. She also knew absolutely nothing about Tibet.
There just seems to be this tremendous, unfocused anger that has at last found its outlet against France. Things seemed to have calmed down somewhat in China, I hear. But that anger will remain, sullen and brooding, and waiting to burst forth again.
Michael
Looks like the the foreigner in question was not in fact attacked by a mob. The person allegedly attacked contacted the blog, which has since posted a correction.
link
Here's what he actually said:
"I am the volunteer in China who has been cited in a number of internet blogs and sources of the press as having been attacked by a mob in Hunan, China Sunday night. I was not in fact attacked by a mob at all but very slightly and unsuccessfully by one youth. The student was part of a demonstration and had confronted me upon my trying to leave the store. Evading that angry student i burst through a protest crowd. He shouted an inflammatory chant and the crowd--seeing what they thought was a French person walking through their protest of a French store--responded. Several students trying to maintain the non-violent nature of the protest walked me away from 2 violent students. The crowd however was already following and chanting, but not attacking me in spite of ample opportunities to do so thoroughly. I eventually got into a taxi and the crowd surrounded it, content to have a foreign audience for their message. (The Western born population of this town is almost unnoticeable.) Still chanting but never breaking through the windows or hurting me, the crowd continued to taunt and protest. In spite of plentiful false reports in the Western media, i was not harmed during the course of this protest--giving tenure to the demonstration as a non-violent event with one angry youth and one white guy where he didn't belong."
"If he is honest, he should have explained what are the factors causing the Chinese to react otherwise."
In other words, you are agreeing that the Chinese government DOES have a pattern of saying one thing and doing another. And since YOU agree with that point, you have little reason to call this propaganda. As for the "factors", the last I checked, having reasons for acting inappropriately does not excuse an inappropriate action.
If I decide not to go to my friend's funeral because I have an appointment at the hair salon, I have a reason. That does not make me less of a (four letter word beginning with c and ending in t and that rhymes with "punt").
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