One of the benefits of being a big-spending world power is that much of the world — especially its autocratic and venal parts — is a briber’s market.
Unlike democratic governments, which are subject to at least a semblance of accountability among civic groups and watchdogs, China, the most aggressive of emerging world powers, offers no substantial space for civilian organizations to criticize diplomatic activities.
Instead, for some time, the international media have been focusing on the growing presence of Chinese investment in Asia and Africa in particular, and some analysts and reporters have asked whether the fiscal benefits for local economies and raw material benefits for the Chinese government will not be undone in the longer term as Beijing’s neo-colonial behavior triggers resentment in those locations.
In other regions, however, China is learning that cash doesn’t always deliver the goods. Despite threats of reprisal, in recent weeks Australia and Japan have issued exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer a visa — allowing her to speak freely of Chinese atrocities in Xinjiang.
The failure of Chinese state-controlled Chinalco to take greater control over Australian mining firm Rio Tinto was, in Chinese eyes, just as great a provocation, but with more practical consequences. Some of the firm’s employees are now in custody in China and preparing for a farcical corporate show trial, while the Australian media are finally waking up to the nature of the beast they have admired for so long.
After weeks of rising tensions, it is pleasing to see the Australian government respond to China’s hypocrisy and infantilism with something approaching self-respect. Perhaps Canberra realized that the average Australian has far less tolerance for Chinese insults to Australian values — be they commercial, cultural or moral.
In so doing, Australia helps to teach the Chinese a lesson: There are limits to what you can do or say to self-respecting foreigners; ignoring this forces a choice between moderation and the kind of extremist rhetoric and vengefulness characteristic of China in the late 1960s. Indeed, reporting on the Rio Tinto case and tensions with Australia in general, the Chinese media in the last few weeks have displayed a passion for exactly this kind of mad language.
In Taiwan, the latest — and most spectacular so far — example of gunboat fiscal diplomacy ironically arrives in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot. Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) this week personally received a check worth US$2.9 million from the Chinese government, ostensibly to assist Aboriginal communities suffering from the typhoon’s devastating impact on remote areas in Taiwan’s south.
May Chin has been running a China-friendly line of no relevance to Aborigines for some time, along with some other Aboriginal politicians and activists who have connections and a ready audience among unificationists in China. But she also has no shortage of enemies in the Aboriginal community. For the Chinese to donate such a large amount of money to her and a group of fellow travelers instead of genuinely non-partisan groups or the government, therefore, is a corrupt act intended to strengthen one segment of Aboriginal politics at the cost of others and seed pro-China propaganda.
As always, China can’t help itself. But now, in the unfortunate context of Typhoon Morakot, the corrosive influence of Chinese “aid” is taking on a new and more conspicuous form as Beijing openly seeks to manipulate legislative and ethnic politics.
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