The Powerful New Bellicose China

Ambassador Cong Peiwu  Blair Gable/Reuters

"We strongly urge the Canadian side not to grant so-called political asylum to those violent criminals in Hong Kong, because it is interference in China’s domestic affairs, and certainly it will embolden those violent criminals."

"If the Canadian side really cares about the stability and the prosperity in Hong Kong, and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong … you should support those efforts to fight violent crimes."

"I want to make clear that a stable and prosperous Hong Kong … is not only in the interest of the vast majority of Hong Kong residents, but it is also conducive to the majority of those … law-abiding foreigners and enterprises in Hong Kong."

"[Beijing would have a] strong reaction [if Canada's Parliament were to pass any resolution that condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority as] genocide [referring to the over one million Uyghurs in detention camps in Xinjiang province, facilities for] vocational and education training."

"We will take resolute measures to safeguard our sovereignty and national security. [The Uyghurs] live in harmony … and [China’s] human-rights record is the best in history."

"There is no coercive diplomacy on the Chinese side. The Hong Kong issue and the Xinjiang-related issue are not about the issue of human rights. They are purely about internal affairs of China, which brooks no interference from the outside."

China's ambassador to Canada, Ambassador Cong Peiwu

China has the temerity to have its envoy to Canada lecture the government of Canada on how it may and may not represent China, based on fairly universal knowledge and agreement of China's human rights situation in reference to its treatment of minority populations within the country, its belligerent attitude toward 'splittism' and demand for 'harmony', refusing to honour its commitment to Hong Kong's democratic authority as a semi-autonomous enclave, and its determination to ensure that Shanghai be returned to Chinese authority, through military means if necessary.

China's boastful self-praise over its human rights and respect for the rule of law evinces itself in other ways, as for example the arrest of two innocent Canadians in China, held virtually incommunicado, with no access to lawyers, and charged with espionage. This, in retaliation for Canada holding the CFO of China's Huawei telecommunications giant on an extradition warrant from the United States on a charge of illegally supplying Iran with communications equipment in defiance of UN/US-imposed sanctions. The implied threats in Ambassador Cong's statement are evident and reflect the Politboro sentiments.

 President Xi Jinping Photo Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty

"You should focus your minds and energy on preparing to go to war, and stay highly vigilant", a report in the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, quoted China's President Xi Jinping, as lecturing to marine corps at a military base in Guangdong province, at a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Priming his military apparatus for action, at a time when the mood in China is decidedly nationalist, fed by this government which has gone out of its way to alienate its neighbours through regional aggression.

 

The Peoples Republic has spent time, energy, and treasury in making friends and influencing people in some parts of the world, happy to be noticed by China, delighted at its investment in upgrading their infrastructure (for its own trade benefit alongside delivering of other countries' natural resources to feed China's rapacious appetite for energy and raw materials), while leaving those dependent countries with debts through infrastructure loans that will ensure they remain vassals-in-debt for the long-range future.

 

Elsewhere in the developed world, Xi and Beijing have soured international relations, while claiming entitlements and ownership of disputed regions it plans to swallow, to China's territorial advantage. China insists it will have jurisdiction over the island democracy of Taiwan off its southeastern coast, sending Chinese warplanes and navy vessels to harass Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait. "The fact that Taiwan is a separate country, democratically elected, they should be seeing Taiwan as a neighbour, not as a point of conquest", pointed out Margaret McCuaig-Johnson, senior fellow, Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa.

 

China's state television recently released a video of military drills with amphibious landing craft, attack helicopters and missile systems. The unsubtle warning is that China could attack should Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen who has repeatedly attempted to placate China, continue maintaining Taiwanese independence, not recognize Taiwan as part of China. "I believe that regional tension can surely be resolved", she responded. China is enraged that the U.S. is considering an arms deal with Taipei with whom the U.S. is establishing a growing relationship. China warns against any such deal.

According to Reuters seven "major weapons systems" were undergoing an export process with a mind to equipping Taiwan with advanced weaponry. Lijian Zhao, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warns that China will retaliate: "The United States should immediately cancel the planned weapon sales to Taiwan, stop any arms deals and cut off their military ties." Gordon Houlden, director of the China Institute at University of Alberta emphasizes that Xi is satisfying China's growing nationalist sentiment.

 

"Taiwan is a special case. No Chinese president, in my view, would survive a week if he .. abandoned the goal of reunification. The biggest risk for China is the intervention of the United States. The language is always alarming and we should not ignore it, but I don't think there should be panic about it ... it's not the first time and it shouldn't be surprising. But also, it's a warning, perhaps to the international community and to Taiwan that this [unification] is still a Chinese goal, which they still take seriously and which they intend to complete." 

 

Chinese warships, including an aircraft carrier, in formation during drills in the South China Sea, January 2, 2017. Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images