MCLC: Beijing joins Team Anti-America

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: han meng (hanmeng at gmail.com)
Subject: Beijing joins team Anti-America
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Source: Wall Street Journal (2/10/12):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577212522050195282.h
tml

Beijing Joins Team Anti-America
By Willy Lam

Beijing has suffered a huge defeat in its longstanding effort to win
hearts and minds in the Middle East and Africa with its U.N. Security
Council veto of a resolution condemning a government crackdown in
Syria. Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby said China "has lost diplomatic
credit in the Arab world" following the move. Leaders of several
Middle East countries which are major oil exporters to China have also
expressed dismay. And it's not just the elites who are angry. Libyans
pelted the Chinese Embassy in Tripoli with stones to show their
displeasure with China's ongoing resistance to the Arab Spring.

China doesn't exactly have a reputation for supporting human-rights
causes at the U.N., but even so this veto marks surprisingly bad
judgment in light of the public-relations costs. How did the Chinese
Communist Party, which has thousands of diplomats, intelligence
officials and state businessmen based in the Middle East and Africa,
get it so wrong?

One might have thought someone in Beijing would have learned the
lesson of Libya, where they failed to gain the good will of the new
government by refusing to cut their links with the Gadhafi regime.
Potential contracts in oil and infrastructure worth billions of
dollars have now gone to the Europeans and Americans. Unlike Russia,
China does not have close military or economic ties with Syria's
current regime to worry about.

Beijing's normal rationale for such moves -- its precept of
"noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries" --
doesn't fully explain this veto. In the face of overwhelming
international condemnation of Syria, Beijing could have upheld this
principle simply by abstaining, allowing the resolution to proceed
without China's support. Instead, Beijing felt compelled to offer an
additional fig leaf to justify the veto. The People's Daily quoted
leading foreign affairs expert Ruan Zongze as saying that "China and
Russia's decision to veto created a 'window of opportunity' for a soft
landing to the problem, which should not be wasted."

This willingness to act in a way so far counter to what would appear
to be its normal interest is an important signal. Beijing is sending a
message about its evolving attitude toward the U.S.

The veto is Beijing's way of thumbing its nose at Washington, which it
believes is masterminding a series of "color revolutions" to undermine
nondemocratic regimes around the world. Anti-American sentiments seem
to have surged within the CCP establishment, particularly after
President Obama's recent "pivot to Asia" policy. This is interpreted
-- not entirely wrongly -- by Beijing as an exacerbation of what China
calls Washington's "anti-China containment policy."

This U.S. pivot comes at an especially delicate time for Beijing. The
upcoming leadership transition means Beijing is keen to protect the
facade of stability in China, even in the face of an estimated 150,000
cases of riots and disturbances every year. Unrest is spreading in
Xinjiang and the Greater Tibetan Region. While only a small number
among these groups harbor separatist tendencies, most members of these
ethnic groups fume at Beijing's draconian measures to suppress their
cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms.

So when U.S. Senator John McCain suggested in an international forum
in Munich last weekend that "the Arab Spring is coming to China as
well," Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun angrily responded
by saying that this was no more than a "fantasy" of the West. But Mr.
McCain may have tapped into the fears of some in Beijing. As the
Global Times newspaper, a commercial offshoot of the People's Daily,
pointed out in an editorial earlier this week, "the 'Arab Spring' has
pushed the 'color revolutions' in [countries] in the former Soviet
Federation to a climax. . . . The U.S. and EU will continue to foster
'revolutions' in other parts of the world until China is overwhelmed."

Such concerns are shared by the Russian regime. Recent months have
seen protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg against Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin's rule after allegations of vote-rigging in elections.
Mr. Putin blames the West for fomenting the demonstrations. Beijing
and Moscow have in the past year or so tightened joint efforts at not
only blunting the advance of "Western" values but also combating the
forces of separatism among ethnic minorities in the two neighboring
countries. Their U.N. veto on Syria could mark the beginning of an
enhanced phase of cooperation between the two erstwhile Communist
allies to fight "Western infiltration." Beijing's U.N. veto could be a
not-so-subtle way of telling Tibetans and Uighurs that the People's
Liberation Army might soon up the ante in cracking down on dissent.

All this suggests Beijing is likely to grow more aggressive in
challenging the West. Yet the reaction to its Syria veto raises
questions about whether it will succeed. The CCP seems oblivious to
the fact that many of "the West's" global ideas and principles such as
democratic governance are catching on at breakneck speed throughout
the Middle East and Africa.

This marks a curious reversal for China. In the 1950s, Maoist China
spearheaded a somewhat quixotic campaign to become leader of the Third
World by fomenting a Marxist-style international revolution. Thanks
partly to the radical chic of Maoism, the Great Helmsmen won quite a
number of converts among Africa and the Middle East. Now Mao's heirs
have become reactionaries, remaining tone deaf to the democratic
aspirations of millions upon millions in the developing world. Beijing
might think its Syria vote was a realpolitik win and in the short term
that might be true. Over the longer term, though, it may be turn out
to be a Pyrrhic victory.

---

Mr. Lam is an adjunct professor of history at Chinese University of
Hong Kong and a select professor of China studies at Akita
International University, Japan.