China’s Overkill

By S.P.SETH

Isn’t it ironic that more China becomes a major global player; the more it shows signs of insecurity? One encounters this all the time whether its communist leadership is dealing with dissidents, the Dalai Lama and, more recently, Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the World Uighur Congress.

Rebiya Kadeer (62), who lives in exile in the United States and is the mother of 11 children, is accused of igniting the recent riots in Xinjiang, triggered by the killing of some Uighur workers at a factory in Guangdong.

How she did all this from thousands of miles away in the United States is hard to comprehend! But Beijing is adamant, calling her a criminal, and a terrorist.

Earlier, she spent five years in a Chinese jail even though, at one time, she was said to be China’s richest businesswoman.

The point, though, is that when the Chinese leadership decides to go after some person(s) or group, they don’t worry about the plausibility of their accusation.

Indeed, the ferocity with which they pursue their victim (in this case, Rebiya Kadeer) is breathtaking.

Sample this interview with one Pan Zhiping, a researcher at Xinjiang Academy of Social Science. Talking about Rebiya with the Weekend Australian, she described her as “rotten meat, the kind that only attracts flies… The human rights she advocates are evil rights, murderers’ rights.”

Whatever might be the academic credentials of Pan Zhiping, she certainly is an apt pupil of China’s political establishment.

While an ordinary Chinese academic might verbalize the establishment’s anger, the government always has a ready- made case to condemn their victim.

They have already procured and flashed letters on TV from her two children and other relatives (including some of her grandchildren) to testify that Rebiya started the riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

Does Beijing really think that the world is so gullible as to believe this stratagem of pitting children against their parents?

But Chinese leaders have a history of believing their own propaganda by equating coercive confession as willing admission.

Rebiya’s children are the convenient pawn in this political chess game, and the regime has no moral qualm in these matters.

She said, while visiting Australia, that, “It is shameful that the Chinese Government has tried to turn the children of a mother against her.”

And added, “… It is immoral violence. It is a forgery, transparent propaganda.”

Incidentally, five of her 11 children are living in China. Two of her sons are in Chinese prisons.

Rebiya Kadeer’s Australia trip has infuriated Chinese authorities for allowing a “criminal” and a “terrorist” into Australia in disregard of Chinese representations.

She has been in Australia to attend the premier of a film based on her life (The 10 Conditions of Love) at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

The Chinese diplomatic mission in Australia tried unsuccessfully to stop this documentary being screened in Melbourne.

As a retaliatory measure, Chinese films, that were part of the Melbourne Festival, were withdrawn.

The Australian ambassador in Beijing was summoned to explain, and Melbourne’s Lord Mayor was threatened that his city’s sister-city relationship with Tianjin might be ended.

But the Australian authorities stood their ground both on the screening of the film and the grant of visa to Rebiya Kadeer.

But she hasn’t been granted audience with any of the officials and ministers here.

Rebiya Kadeer has almost overnight become the Dalai Lama of the Uighur people.

Like the Tibetan people, the Uighurs fear ethnic cleansing and cultural decimation.

One must say it defies common sense why China, a strong country of 1.3 billion people, cannot devise a workable policy of accommodating its ethnic minorities like the Tibetans and the Uighurs?

But then the Communist Party of China has always sought to deal with its presumed enemies by demonizing them.

Which brings us to the insecurity inherent in a system where the ruling party has monopoly power.

The CPC’s insecurity borders on paranoia. It believes that it alone can ensure social stability and consequent economic growth in the country.

Hence, any challenge to its power is a challenge to the nation, because both the party and the nation are indivisible.

And Beijing demands utmost loyalty not only from Chinese citizens but also from citizens of other countries with Chinese descent.

The party is, therefore, seeking to rally overseas Chinese as well around the flag. Which is a dangerous exercise, as it tends to elevate national chauvinism to a transcendental level.

At a recent congress of the overseas Chinese, Wang Zhaoguo, a Politiburo member, reportedly called on the delegates to use “blood lineage” of their common Chinese descent “to achieve outstanding results in uniting the broad masses of overseas Chinese.”

And to emphasize the indivisibility of national and party interests, he told the delegates to “do a better job of uniting the force of the circle of overseas Chinese around the party and the government.”

This is quite a dangerous exercise that Beijing is embarking on quite openly.

The Chinese diplomatic missions are already quite active in organizing and mobilizing overseas Chinese in their respective countries. This happened during the anti-Tibetan rallies and about the time of the Beijing Olympics.

But Wang’s brazenly open call on the Chinese citizens of other countries to rally around the flag, the party and the government is a sinister development.

Has Beijing realized that this could create a backlash against Chinese living in other countries by raising concerns about their loyalty?

And if Beijing persists with such politics, it won’t be long before some of them start being seen as a potential fifth column.

China might feel emboldened that with its new reach and power, the benefits of rallying millions of overseas Chinese around the flag far outweigh any potential danger from hostile reaction in other countries.

It probably thinks that no Asian country (where most of the overseas Chinese live) will dare create trouble for its “blood lineage” for fear of crossing China.

If this is the line of thinking dictating China’s policy, it is not a good omen for the region and the world.

Such overkill is the mark of a blustering but essentially paranoid country.

Sino-Australian Relationship in Crisis Mode

By Sushil Seth

Who would have thought that Australia’s relations with China would nose-dive under its Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd? The question therefore is: what happened for things to reach a crisis point?

Before we analyze the state of Sino-Australian relations in some detail, one point needs to be emphasized. Which is that, after Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister, expectations were high on both sides.

Rudd believed that as China’s friend, and one who saw himself well versed in Chinese culture, he had some latitude when speaking to Beijing frankly even about issues (like Tibet) that will annoy them.

Beijing too seemed well inclined toward Rudd, being the only leader of a Western country with fluency in Mandarin and proud of it.

And they naturally thought that he would be sympathetic to China’s interests.

But things started to go wrong not long after Rudd became Prime Minister.

Even though he chose China among the first countries (and the first in Asia) that he visited, thus rattling Japan particularly; Beijing was not amused when Rudd publicly told them, during a Beijing University address, that frankly “there are significant human rights problems” in Tibet. And advised them to recognize this fact and deal with it.

Even as he claimed to be China’s friend he, nevertheless, continued to emphasize the primacy of Australia’s strategic alliance with the United States.

Beijing, of course, wasn’t expecting any sudden change in Australia’s primary political and security relationship with the United States.

But, it did expect that, under Kevin Rudd, Canberra wouldn’t stand in the way of Chinese investments in the crucial resources sector, particularly iron ore.

China is now Australia’s top trading partner, ahead of Japan. It is devouring Australia’s commodity exports, particularly iron ore.

According to one estimate, iron ore comprised 18 billion dollars (Australian) of Australia’s 32.5 billion exports to China last year.

With the global economy spiraling (until recently), and the demand for commodity prices high, China’s insatiable demand for iron ore hiked up its price several times, with huge profits reaped by Australian companies like Rio Tinto.

China was not happy. It wanted to control both the supplies and pricing of iron ore; with Australia as a major global supplier along with Brazil.

To this end, Beijing sought to double its stocks (share holding) in Rio Tinto, taking advantage of its debt problems. But, Rio Tinto backed out of the deal at the last moment, having made up with BHP, another Australian mining giant that, only a short while ago, wanted to gobble up Rio Tinto.

China was thus left high and dry, and fuming, it would appear.

Beijing feels that the Australian Government played a role in scuttling China’s investment by delaying its approval. Which, it regards as discriminatory against China.

Whether or not the Australian Government twisted Rio Tinto’s hands is not the question here. Because, most countries (China, even much more) wouldn’t like another country’s instrumentality having a controlling share in its strategic resource sector.

However, China cries foul and is not happy with Australia. Indeed, they seem angry and vengeful at the way, in their view; Australia has sought to fiddle with China.

Even as things were getting tangled with Rio Tinto, the global economic crisis lifted the pressure on commodity prices. China wanted Rio Tinto to reduce its iron ore prices by over 40 per cent, refusing to accept a 33 per cent reduction as agreed with Japan and South Korea.

With the wrangling over the price of iron ore still continuing, Chinese authorities arrested Stern Hu (a Rio Tinto executive in China, carrying an Australian passport) and three other Rio Tinto employees who are Chinese citizens.

They are accused of bribing executives of Chinese steel mills and stealing state secrets to damage China’s economic security.

It is now become a state security matter, and not simply an ongoing negotiating process about the price of iron ore.

However, the arrested Rio Tinto employees have not been formally charged, as we report.

And Australia is being largely ignored, with its approaches in the matter being regarded as interference in China’s “judicial sovereignty”.

To cap it all, the matter has become highly politically charged in Australia’s domestic politics, with the opposition taunting Kevin Rudd to pick up the phone and talk directly with the top man in China, obviously referring to President Hu Jintao or Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The implication here being that Kevin Rudd made much politically of his magic touch with China, and now is the time to deliver.

But China has told Australia publicly to butt out and let its judicial process take its own course.

Beijing is virtually telling Canberra that they should forget about Stern Hu and his colleagues, whom they have already pronounced guilty of bribery and stealing secrets.

They are already being branded as traitors by Chinese bloggers.

There are two schools of thoughts in Australia on the question of dealing with China. First, and the one sympathetic to China, would like Australia to cave in, not only because China is a regional giant but also because commodity exports to China are increasingly the bread and butter of Australia’s economic lifeline.

This school includes a good number of Australian Sinologists, as well as some strategic analysts.

The second school, reflected in the government policy so far, acknowledges the growing importance of China’s economic connection but argues (as did Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in a recent statement) that the importance of Sino-Australian economic relationship cuts both ways, since China needs what Australia has to offer.

Besides, if Canberra were to make a humiliating back down on the iron ore issue (ignoring the arrest of Stern Hu and his Chinese colleagues as well), it would mean that in future its economic policy (where it concerns China) will increasingly be dictated by Beijing.

In a larger sense, Australia will become part of China’s regional sphere of influence thus undercutting its US alliance and much more.

As one prominent Australian columnist has written, “Australia’s greatest strategic challenge: how to manage a successful relationship with China as a repressive state that rejects our values, legal system, governance and US alliance.”

Sino-Australian relationship has been brought to a crisis point with the arrest in Shanghai of four Rio Tinto employees, one of them an Australian citizen.

China is using this to intimidate Australia into submission.

It has been unhappy with Rudd’s Australia for a variety of reasons, including its softness for the Dalai Lama.

This annoyance must have turned into anger after the recent unofficial visit of a bipartisan parliamentary delegation to visit Dalai Lama in his Dharamsala headquarters in India.

To compound it further, the Melbourne International Film Festival is screening a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighur leader in exile in the United States.

Beijing calls her a terrorist and holds her responsible for the recent violent unrest in Xinjiang.

A Chinese consular official reportedly rang the director of the Film Festival, demanding that the documentary be dropped.

This is not all. Rubiya is coming to Australia for the premier of her documentary and has plans to canvass her people’s cause with the government here.

China has, however, withdrawn some films due to screen in the Festival. And Chinese hackers have been at work to damage the web site of the Melbourne Festival.

At a strategic level, the new Australian defense white paper has apparently angered China even more by suggesting that a rising China could threaten Australia’s security as it overtakes the United States as the world’s largest economy around 2020.

Which means, “by 2030, any changes in economic power will affect the distribution of strategic power.”

Coming back to the Rio Tinto issue, Australia has sought to internationalize it by pointing out to Beijing that it could affect its commercial interests worldwide with the brazen arrest of the employees of an international corporation.

The United States has already raised the issue with Premier Wen Jiabao during the recent China visit of its Commerce Secretary, Gary Lock.

It would seem that Sino-Australian relationship is in for a rough ride for quite some time to come. How it will be resolved is anybody’s guess.