Today, we are told, elites in Western Europe are “waking up to the malevolent influence of the Chinese regime”. At the same time, the conspicuously adverse, contemporary influence of the US and Israel in Europe prompts more “hug-ins” with this terrifying tag-team rather than any awakening. What is going on? Richard Cullen investigates.
First: Europe squarely spies a Sino-menace
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, stressed her fears about European dependence on China in a major speech in March 2023 where she alarmingly claimed that the “Chinese Communist Party” was pushing to make “China less dependent on the world and the world more dependent on China.”
She also noted, approvingly, how the EU had pulled the plug on the long-negotiated – and agreed – Sino-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), while fretting about the continuing lack of “rebalancing” that the settled CAI was specifically designed to achieve.
Her presentation explored how China presents special risks because it no longer does as the West expects and it is too successful – naturally because of state subsidies (a practice where the EU is particularly expert, as it happens).
Other examples of alarm-bell ringing with respect to China in the EU and the UK are numerous and increasing. Sino-alarmist amplification by American commentators is also common.
Very recently, the EU has moved to impose punishing tariffs on Chinese New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) levying, in effect, substantial new taxes on European NEV buyers while claiming it wants to fight climate change, which depends, inter alia, on selling more lower-cost NEVs in the EU.
So, Europe is paying very close attention to the difficulties of dealing with China, including the way that Chinese involvement in European economies presents challenges. This makes good sense. Beijing’s highly educated, singularly experienced leadership is drawn from a total talent pool of 1.4 billion people.
The Communist Party of China, alone, has some 100 million members. China has a conspicuously strong government which is unswervingly committed to advancing its best interests. Moreover, its socio-economic performance scorecard now eclipses all others in world history. It is, thus, beyond argument, that all nations dealing with Beijing should treat it with watchful respect.
Next: Europe firmly looks the other way
But surely Europe should be equally heedful of all adverse political activity unfolding within its compass. Especially when it faces continual, gravely damaging American and Israeli influence-peddling operations. Consider just two extraordinary examples.
The Seymour Hersh argument that Washington ultimately organized and authorized the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Europe is by far the most cogent explanation we have seen advanced for what happened in September 2022.
This huge act of sabotage has been terrible in terms of its immediate and long-term impact on Germany and Europe. As Hersh says: “The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now”.
And how did Europe respond? Elites listened attentively, nodding, as the US first argued, ridiculously, that Russia dunnit. Then they embraced a fanciful counter-story that Ukrainians dunnit.
Meanwhile, Europe has paid starkly higher prices for shale-gas shipped from the US, injecting fabulous profitability into the American economy. I checked: the Man from Mars is lost for words.
More recently, independent reporting has confirmed that racist Israeli football hooligans visited Amsterdam for a match between their ill-reputed club, Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local powerhouse, Ajax (which won the match 5 : 0). The visitor-fans, many linked to the IDF, soon threw themselves into major anti-Palestine and anti-Arab provocations, involving the tearing down of Palestinian flags, ransacking a taxi and exceptionally foul, public racist chanting, celebrating the hellscape in Gaza.
When local citizens, long-outraged about the genocide in Gaza, responded, as expected (at times with vehement counter attacks) the primary provocateurs trumpeted their victim status, while the Israeli media and its bevy of mainstream Western collaborators framed what had happened as a pogrom. Owen Jones recently explained, in detail, how a primary video-reporter of the “Israeli hooligan rampage” confirmed the way in which Western flag-ship media outlets “lied about her footage”. Eugene Doyle, at about the same time, argued how the BBC had gone “full Goebbels in support of Israeli soccer hooligans”.
Meanwhile, elite EU leaders, from the Dutch King down, castigated their own citizens while proclaiming fealty to Israel and its contemptible, narrative manipulation – all approvingly reported by the BBC.
Conceivable reasons
It was, Wilhelm II – the Kaiser who led Germany into World War 1 – who insistently used the term Gelbe Gefahr (or Yellow Peril) to justify the German occupation of a coastal slice of north-east China (including the city of Qingdao) in 1897. Various other martially-imposed European settlements within China unfolded during the Qing Dynasty, for example, in Hong Kong, Xiamen (Amoy), Shanghai, Beijing (Peking) Harbin, Dalian and Lushun (Port Arthur).
It is possible that European elites, today, are still influenced, as they agonize over Europe’s relationship with China, by some of those bad vibrations from the 19th century. More crucial, however, is the way many within these elite groups appear captivated by manifestly self-serving, malign narratives crafted in Washington – and Tel Aviv – garnished with ample arm-twisting, much of it tracing back to World War II. Bottom line: valiant West good – no need to verify; spooky China bad – and here is the long list saying why.
Unsurprisingly, the terrible war in Ukraine is a huge part of the proximate context within which this warped pattern of elite European behavior has unfolded. Still, however inexcusable Russia’s 2022 invasion may have been, three decades of Ukraine-related, US, NATO and European provocation pre-dated that invasion.
Conclusion
The past 40 years have confirmed that, above all, China wants to work harder and more cleverly, in order to build and innovate as it trades with the entire world. Bitter past invasion familiarity has taught China that it must defend itself vigorously. But, compared to the Global West, Beijing is conspicuously reluctant to resort to war.
China knows how to apply demanding pressure when negotiating. But it has intelligently learnt, through intense experience, that if those it deals with ultimately do well too, then trade will be even better and the rise of China will be enhanced. This is the essence of what is understood by Beijing’s frequently repeated win-win mantra. This vision, when more fully expressed, is wordy and broad and it is plainly anchored by a pivotal understanding of China’s best interests.
But it is positive, forward-looking and creative. And it is backed by exceptional experience. Moreover, as CNN reports, it is a viewpoint that is clearly attractive to many countries.
Still, what does America propose as an alternative? The leader of the free world, soon to inaugurate President Trump for a second term, is getting ready to offer a conspicuously re-heated version of Make America Great Again – and hang the rest.
The Economist predicts that Europe – and China and Mexico – are set to be “the biggest losers from Trumponomics”. Meanwhile, it is hard to disagree with the argument that: “America is a war machine feeding an Israeli government killing machine”.
Attentive Chinese commentators in Hong Kong have, after looking at the evidence, lately argued that certain prominent European leaders are marching so closely in step with the American-Israeli worldview, that they appear to have lost their ability to understand and advance the fundamental best interests of Europe. They recurrently come across as paramount cheer-leaders for this terrifying tag-team. Voters to the right and left in Europe increasingly share this view. Frankly, who can blame them.
Richard Cullen is an adjunct law professor at the University of Hong Kong and a popular writer on current affairs.
To see a list of articles he has written for this outlet, click this phrase.
Main image at top by fridayeveryday.