Friday, December 1, 2023

How CHINA' s Xi's plans were 'compromised' by Putin's invasion | Frontline

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Union um it wanted to divide the European Union from the United States so
that it could continue to label the United States as as the only problem in the world uh the European Union is its
biggest trading partner all of this has been compromised by the war in Ukraine
on the other side I think that it's fairly clear that uh shiin pin doesn't
want uh Vladimir Putin to fall there's there's a very long border
there's a very there's a history of very complicated relations between Russia and China they haven't always been best
friends even in the time of Communism there was a serious standoff from the early 1960s through the 70s and that's a
border that's a 3,000 km border that you have to that you have to militarize that you have to fortify when you have a
problem with Russia they don't want a problem with Russia hello and welcome to line for times radio with Me Kate chabo
and this time a year after the US president last met with his Chinese counterpart we'll be taking the
temperature of their relationship after they're face Toof face in San Francisco and asking what it means for Global
Security joining us is Isabelle Hilton founder of China dialogue and independent nonprofit organization
Isabelle really great to have you on front line thank you for joining us great to be here before this meeting how
hostile would you judge relations to have been between the US and China and
has it done anything to improve them they were pretty dire to be honest and have been deteriorating for since since
the Trump presidency they've been deteriorating and this is a a pretty long-term systemic thing you know the
description of from both sides of the relationship was that it was the worst it had been for 40 years so we were in
pretty deep water in terms of us China relations at a time when when in a sense they'd never had more at stake you know
the huge trade flows between them the world's first and second biggest economies the world's first and second
biggest climate polluters you know they had everything to talk about and they really weren't talking and what do you
think has led to that breakdown in relations can you just sum up the inventory of things that's gone wrong um
well it's partly Chinese ambition you know the the after gosh after the the Kissinger and
the Nixon visit and the opening up of China under dang sha ping there was a a
sense that if China were to prosper if China were to join in the in
globalization China joined the World Trade Organization uh Western uh investors
moved into China a lot of industrial uh operations moved to China and the sense
was that China would gradually uh as it were uh normalize it would would it
would have a less autocratic system it would share power in different ways it
would build a legal system it would build the the apparatus of a more constitutional state less of a communist
leninist state and for a while that certainly seemed to be happening and then it really went into reverse around
2007 2008 when the party began to reassert
control and the United States had to face up to the fact that it was dealing with a form of authoritarian capitalism
which was very successful in itself because China had a strategic industrial policy which allowed it to Foster native
Industries which would then compete uh on on US Territory but also in third
markets with the United States but also that it had strategic Ambitions which directly conflicted with the United
States and it began to assert those Ambitions so then we had two superpowers
instead of being being on a kind of a course of of of R of becoming more like
each other we had two superpowers which were firmly in systemic competition and
so Chinese security analysts began to see China as the major security threat
China was building up its Armed Forces China had uh unresolved issues over
Taiwan for example but also over the the dominance of all that part of the
Pacific which you know had also been United States you know field of operations so we got into a strategic
and economic uh competition uh we got into trade barriers we you know we we
just things declined and with the rise in nationalism on both sides each leader
if you like was portraying the other as the enemy so Trump would talk about China in disparaging terms and inside
China the United States was painted as the source of all China's problem s and as a power that was trying to stop
China's legitimate rise so in addition to the objective facts of the competition you had the domestic
political factors which made it very difficult I think to uh to relax the uh
uh the confrontation yeah and um ahead of this meeting expectations were set deliberately low um take into
consideration the most recent kind of problems and you mentioned the unfair trade allegations intellectual property
theft Alle ation covid-19 pandemic spy balloons um and of course China's
support or lack of criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine um do you sense
there has been any progress made because we have had this announcement now that
military Communications will resume between the two countries at least yes well that's important because you
mentioned balloon gate the great the famous spy balloon which was discovered drifting across uh the United States
quite why it was drifting across the United States remains fairly fairly unclear it may well have just been off course but as we know it was shot down
now when it was first tracked the United States made uh the military made efforts
to contact their counterparts in the Chinese military and the Chinese just wouldn't pick up the phone now if you
look at what's happening in the South China Sea where China has essentially
Tak an operational control of the South China Sea by by militarizing atols
building building up Islands artificial islands and militarizing despite promising that they wouldn't um the
United States Navy and Allied navies are conducting what are called freedom of navigation operations um because these
are international waters and on a couple of occasions recently these have come perilously close to collision with
Chinese Naval forces were that to happen or were for example there to be a repetition of the 1991 episode in which
a chin uh an American spy play in international airspace uh was in
collision with a Chinese fighter jet the Chinese uh pilot died the American managed to land but you know obviously
there was a standoff of his return these are episodes which could easily escalate
in the current climate into uh into serious incident so military to military
Communications are absolutely vital you have to understand what the other side is doing in order not to misinterpret it
so that's an important that is an important step forward I think just how perilous do you think it's been then
while those the communications have not been ongoing well it's been extremely dangerous you know we don't know what
restraints there are on the Chinese side um but you know as soon as as soon as
somebody dies on either side as soon as there is you know a collision then you have a very inflamed situation very
quickly and with no Communications it it has been extremely dangerous um Joe Biden has said that um
one outcome from this meeting would be to be able to pick up the phone and to talk to another if there's a crisis and
that is Case in point what we've just been talking about how do you think President Putin will react to this
resumption or slightly closing of the relationship as long as it doesn't affect China's support for him which I I
very much doubt that it will um then I I you know I don't see why he should be
concerned you know one one notable absence from the communic was really any progress on
Ukraine uh because China is supporting Russia in Ukraine it's not just
tolerating it uh there is mounting evidence of the supply of what's called
dual use technology uh and that can include drones for example we have a battlefield which is a sort of
combination of World War I and then you know men entrenches slugging it out
and and the World War III which is the use of advanced electronics so drones
are absolutely critical as we know and China is supplying Russia with drones so you know this has gone beyond um
diplomatic neutrality this is this is well into material support um also the
visit of the North Korean leader and and the agreement that North Korea would Supply Russia with military material you
know again I'm sure China had a hand in that and that was not in the communicate on the subject of Ukraine
yeah maybe not in the communicate but do it's conceivable they would have talked about it isn't
it I can't imagine they didn't talk about it they would have talked about all the hotpots they would have talked
about about Israel Gaza certainly Taiwan South China SE and Ukraine and uh you
know the United States would have made its views clear but the relationship
with Russia is described by shiin pin as as you know as a as a as a friendship
Without Limits there have been repeated visits between the two since the Ukraine War uh
there's certainly no boycott of Russia by China or vice versa China has bought increasing quantities of Russian oil at
good prices for China but also helpful for Russia and you know um Putin was in
in China just a couple of weeks ago as the honored guest at the 10th
anniversary of the Belgium Road initiative so there is no slackening of
of China's big smile on Russia um and that is uh you know that I think that is
definitely a problem against that backdrop how much trust can there realistically be between the two
presidents well I think we're back to sort of trust and verify you have to if you're talking and reaching agreements
you have to have an assumption of good faith on each side um but you would be foolish not to
verify that the agreements were being honored um China tends I
mean I suppose big Powers all behave badly and we can certainly you know find
occasions when the United States has failed to honor agreements that it's entered into on trade for example it
routinely breaks WTO rules uh when it's in its interests um China has promised
things which it has failed to deliver it did shiin pin did promise Obama that he would not militarize the South China Sea
as I've said he militarized it um there was a trade deal with between between
Trump and shiin pin in which China promised to buy much more substantial
quantities of uh us agricultural exports that didn't really happen so you know
these things are not guarantees but the fact that they are prepar prepared publicly to pledge uh to do something
and and this pledge of course is being publicized in China as well as in the United States means that there is at
least a a moral obligation to try to honor it publicly and if they don't they
have to produce a good explanation as to why I was going to say as you said as you said no communic uh on on Ukraine
and you mentioned and and detailed China's support uh for the war in Ukraine and for Russia um how much do
you believe I mean China has been cited before as being potentially the answer to resolving the problems there bringing
the sites together but um how much do you think China really wants that war to
end uh there are positives and negatives for China for the war the positive if
you assume a strategic competition with the United States is that a lot of of money and and uh and armaments are going
to that theater from the United States which might otherwise be held in reserve
for a problem in the Asia Pacific so there's distraction there's
expenditure and that's a that's a plus for China NATO and the United States are
have more than enough on their hands at the moment um so you know it is it is a
lifting of any pressure on China it's got cheap oil and gas as I said but
there are big negatives it has done serious damage to China's relationship
with the European Union and I China has been trying to repair that without a lot of success because certainly the
Frontline states which are now in the European Union thinking of the Baltic states and Poland are very clear about
Ukraine and they are very clear about China's uh position on Ukraine so it's
going to be very difficult for China to have the kind of relationship that it looked for with the European Union um it
wanted to divide the European Union from the United States so that it could continue to label the United States as
as the only problem in the world uh the European Union is its biggest trading partner all of this has been compromised
by the war in Ukraine on the other side I think that it's fairly clear that uh
xiin pin doesn't want uh Vladimir Putin to fall there there's a very long border
there's a very there's a history of very complicated relations between Russia and China haven't always been best friends
even in the time of Communism there was a serious standoff from the early 1960s through the 70s and that's a border
that's a 3,000 km border that you have to that you have to militarize that you have to fortify when you have a problem
with Russia they don't want a problem with Russia they don't want Shin U
Vladimir Putin uh to fall and the uncertainty that that would create so you know they're handling it as China
handles it by saying as little as possible I don't think China is going to take any risks over Ukraine in the sense of
trying to negotiate a peace and and failing China tends to be more passive
than that um and trying to minimize its its sort of active diplomacy so um we need to talk about
Taiwan don't we um Xi Jinping has reasserted China's ambition to reclaim
Taiwan he said that its absorption is inevitable and has told the us to stop sending arms I mean are you going say he
would say that wouldn't he yes he would say that
wouldn't the US has been arming Taiwan um since the early 70s since the Taiwan
relations act because the the price if you like of Shifting diplomatic recognition from taipe to Beijing was
was a guarantee for Taiwan and the guarantee which has been described as
strategic ambiguity uh but it does commit the United States to giving Taiwan the means to defend itself and it
has done that ever since every time there is a major um uptick in the level
of armaments given to Taiwan there is a Chinese protest of course what is am
what remains ambiguous is what exactly the United States would do were there to be an attack on Taiwan and Joe Biden has
tended to cross that line when asked if the United States would go to taiwan's
assistance he has said yes on on a few occasions in the White House had hastily
had to to walk that back because that's not the official position the official position is strategic ambiguity leaving
the Chinese in doubt as to whether they would whether an attack on Taiwan would involve in the end of war with the
United States and that's an important doubt if you're if you're a planner um
xiin pin also said on on this occasion uh apparently that he was annoyed that
us officials had been claim claiming that Taiwan was that sorry that China was planning to attack Taiwan in 2027 or
2030 these were slightly puzzling uh remarks uh which we all looked at and said well you know what's the evidence
for that and and it's not that solid I mean obviously we don't know what what
chin pin's real intentions are or or how he calculates risk and he has been
telling the Armed Forces to be ready for an invasion but that is about the only
thing Chinese Armed Forces need to be ready for so of course he would be telling them that um and and even
telling them that can be can be read as a kind of Gray Zone tactic to intimidate
Taiwan it doesn't necessarily mean they're planning to invade a planning actively to invade on that date do you
think um China has actually decided how it is going to pursue its Ambitions over Taiwan or do you think it's sitting
there and waiting to see for example what happens in Ukraine I I think that you know it would sensibly keep its
strategic options open it's it's learning lessons from Ukraine it's learning lessons about how to circumvent
for example sanctions economic sanctions it's building it's trying to build up as much of its trade as it can in rman b as
opposed to the dollar or in you know rubles in local currencies anyway to
avoid uh being completely styi by being shut out of the dollar trading system it's still you know that is going to
make insufficient prog ress um in my view to make a substantial difference
but there are important differences um between Ukraine and Taiwan the obvious one being that taiwan's an island that
makes a military assault extremely complicated and difficult there are very few Landing beaches but it also makes it
complicated for people to escape for example for refugees it also makes it
very complicated for resupply for any Ally of taiwans so it's complicated on
both sides it's also highly volatile because if you were serious about a
military assault on Taiwan you might think if you were Chinese that you would have to take out us Assets in the region
and they're in Japan in South Korea in the Philippines then you're in a wider war in the Pacific very early so it is a
very very big gamble to do this and there are strategic assets like
tsmc which is the company that makes the world's most advanced uh chips computer
chips it's on Taiwan um you know you you could destroy that in an assault you
could get bogged down as the Russians are in Ukraine in a very long fight an
exhausting fight which just drained your assets and and killed your soldiers so
it's a big calculation um and there is a um there's a much misquoted Chinese military
strategist called sunza was you know 2,000 years of military strategy of sunza one of the
things that sun did say was the best war is the one you don't have to fight and
for Taiwan and China that means there is a whole range of pressure points that
could be applied to Taiwan over time which would not involve military action
which would be much harder for the West to respond to or for the American to respond to and they include um economic
blockade they might include uh intermittent blockade of the Taiwan Straits which the Chinese have declared
a domestic Waterway uh this continuing pressure of incursions of Chinese military aircraft
very close to CH Taiwanese airspace forcing the Taiwanese Air Force to scramble all the time that's exhausting
for everybody firing Rockets over Taiwan Taiwan depends on China
economically you know trade embargos um Black Ops uh all these things are
available and you can demoralize a country you can try to manipulate the
upcoming election for example there's an election in January where you might get a more favorable Taiwanese government
some a government that was prepared to talk at least all these things are available before a military operation
and have much less risk there was um a defense diplomacy gathering in Beijing
at the end of October where China's top General General Jang second in line after the president he warned against
other countries interfering in Regional issues um he he he he denounced the US for
encouraging um color revolutions it's quoted um a reference to uprisings
against old Soviet era uh yeah occup rule um the message is clear isn't it
keep your nose out yes absolutely and and actually the color Revolution warning comes from from Putin Putin uh
warned xiin pin many years ago against uh uh foreign NOS for example or or foreign
information because Putin likes to blame all the revolts against Soviet rule on
the west uh on the United States and and and China picked up that line and has
run with it ever since so anything that happens in China any protest in China is
is blamed on the United States and that means that anyone who does protest is liable to be accused of being a traitor
in in the pay of the United States it's you know that's just you know political propaganda but keep out of the region is
not just about color revolutions it's also about uh a US military presence or
for example um NATO's warmer relations with Japan caused some concern or the
new configurations the orcus you know the the kind of strategic um block building that's been
going on over the last um eight or nine years as China's military strength has
grown and as China itself pursued a far more assertive policy in the region you
know so wolf Warrior diplomacy the South China Sea all the things we've been talking about precipitated a response of
course from the United States and its allies and you know that is partly you know those are the building blocks of
the dangerous moment that we're in which is why it's good they're talking to to what extent do you think that that China
is is building and narrow ative of a belligerent us to try and Garner support
amongst new allies that it may be building in this now multi-polar World absolutely that's a really important
part of China strategy um you know in the last in addition to the things we've
been discussing over the past oh 10 years China has been setting up a whole
series of manyi and multilateral fora so uh for example you've heard of the Shanghai cooperation organization which
is the oldest one uh there's the Belton Road initiative there's a thing called fak which is China's uh entity for
relations with Africa which has enormous Summits in Beijing with with African leaders there CAC in uh in Latin America
uh there was 16 17 plus one in Europe but that's pretty much moraband but all
of these uh for um are oh and the bricks of course which they want to expand
these are ways of China exerting influence in the global order which it increasingly describes as unfair and and
and US dominated so everything that was set up after World War II it in which
China has participated actually since since they were set up but it now
describes as being weighted against not only China but emerging economy so China
has positioned itself as a kind of leader of what we used to call the third world World um and this Echoes slightly
you know the Bandung position of the non-aligned countries with China firmly in the position as the largest
non-aligned country um but it it's taken on a more assertive quality because
China wishes to use this influence to limit us power to discredit if you like
us intentions and it's having some success so if you look at votes in the
United Nations for example on topics like Ukraine or even in the European Union um where China's interests are in
play so example criticisms of of the human rights record in Shin Jang you
will find allies of China in the European Union it's Greece in asan it's
Cambodia and in the United Nations it's you know a large block of countries which um which are have China as their
biggest trade partner or you know are BR members the simply vote the Chinese
interest and so the United States can no longer guarantee any kind of dominance
in the institutions uh that that we have lived with for the past 60 70 years and China
is out to change the global order in that sense to it's out to change the
definition of Human Rights CH China has a whole um series of initiatives which
look slightly meaningless um things like like phrases like you know Common
Destiny For All Mankind and those are those are actually part of a a a strategy to change the global narrative
so we have things which again people are not aware of like the global cultural
initiative the global Defense Initiative the global development initiative sorry the Global Security initiative and the
global Defense Initiative these are all Chinese uh formulations of the global
order which are conceeded into the global conversation and will gain
strength as time goes on because they're presented as uh as as a counterweight to
American uh influence and American and the American view of the world so it's discrediting liberal democracy it's
discrediting the United States as a superpower and it is advancing China as
the champion of the rest of the emerging world if China is wanting to discredit
uh the us as a superp power might it also want to try and paint it as um make
it the scapegoat for its slowing economy uh back home in a way that might be
attractive to say well it's all the US's fault and and if that is the case um how
do you think the US should handle that well there is an element of that
and I think the I think shiin pin's enthusiasm for this meeting is partly a
reflection of the fact that foreign direct investment in China CH has been declining quite quite sharply and that's
partly the pandemic but it's also the fact that that conditions for expats in
China have become extremely delicate you know China has a whole series of security laws which means for example if
you're doing just basic due diligence on on a Chinese company for an investor you
can be accused of Espionage so life has got really quite difficult so people are pulling out and people are not exactly
pulling out their existing Investments but the future Investments of are
certainly uh in in Fairly serious Decline and that matters to sh xiin pin
because the economy is being very slow to recover uh from covid and it's at one of those kind of turning points that
every Asian tiger has reached where you've exhausted all the first advantages of the catchup economy and
you need to avoid the middle- inome Trap it is absolutely unclear if China is going to avoid the the middle- inome
track so of course everything that happens in China has to be the fault of somebody else because if you present
yourself as the wise and omniscient leader and the leader with you know all the keys to happiness and success then
anything that goes wrong can't be blamed on you and that's definitely happening and the United States is is well the
United States is responsible in some respects not for the basic problems of
the Chinese economy but it is explicitly trying to limit China's access to
Advanced Technologies because it sees them as potentially threatening to what
extent do you think both of these uh leaders came to this meeting with with with problems at home Biden Biden the
facing resurgent Trump doubts from inside his party and China as we said a
troubled econ economy and coming out of a summer of military purges do you think they both came sort of slightly with low
expectations but from a point of slight uh challenging moments back home well
definitely and and each of them will be aware of of not only of their own challenges but of the challenges the
other uh is facing I what's what's been quite interesting about this meeting is the the change in the mood music in
China you know the the Chinese press have been have been slagging off the United States for years now and suddenly
we are into a kind of rather positive tone uh presented of course as as the
United States you know responding to the Sweet reason of China and and uh
uh and the initiative all being on xiin pin's side um but it's still an
significant change in tone because it does you know create the space for uh
for a lessening uh of hostilities um I think that perhaps they
both you know they both have enough problems at the moment that that A A continuing confrontation uh was a
problem that they they felt that they had to handle and we were in a situation where where something unexpected could
happen and right now with two Wars going on um and another unexpected situation
in Asia would have been quite unwelcome I think for for both
sides how good do you think the US's intelligence is on China how well do you
think it understands it well it's become very it's become increasingly difficult
I think to understand China because access has become more difficult because we're not having these face-to-face
conversations across a broad spect spectum uh that we used to have because the number of journalists has dropped
because the whole party mechanisms have become more opaque and more centralized on the leader but there's an additional
problem that the United States has which that it it's it's essentially its Espionage network was compromised U
about 10 years ago there were a lot of executions and and it really took a
terrible hit so whilst evidently its intelligence on Russia is very very good
at least it has been so far I it's Intelligence on China it
doesn't have the same eyes in China that it once had or that it has in Russia so
a lot of a lot of understanding of China is based on the reading of the documents
the uh whatever electronic surveillance is still functioning but a lot of it is
analysis rather than than you know direct uh access intelligence so you
know uh intelligence is a tricky business anyway um and I think it's just not as well set up in China as as as it
is elsewhere and just finally Isabelle um if I could do a little bit of UK Naval gazing here um we have a new
foreign secretary and the old prime minister uh Lord Cameron I mean famously he he talked of this Golden Era of
relations uh with China um how do you think um what do you think the
fundamental understanding we should have of China should be and about how relations should work with
it yes I I think I don't think we're going to see a return to the Golden Era which which after all was we're still
untangling some of the mistakes that the Golden Era made um you know Huawei 5G do
we really want China building nuclear power plants and operating them in this
country you know when when the trust essentially goes your relationship changes is and there was an assumption
of you know infinite trust in the Golden Era that was that was not well founded so what we have defaulted to along with
the European Union and the United States is a kind of tripartite take on China
which is we cooperate where we can uh when asked about where we can cooperate
everyone says climate and that's sensible uh we confront where we need to
and and and we compete um so pretty much in in maybe with slightly different
words that's that's that three-part kind of take is is where everybody has landed
because you can't ignore China um it would be foolish and anyway it's impossible we are deeply ined uh
economically and strategically in so many ways and and you can't at the same
time there are very important problems authoritarian capitalism and how you
live with that in in a a world of of liberal economies I think it's it
doesn't work anymore so the United States has had to adopt an industrial strategy rather as China does Britain
has yet to do that there are many aspects to this relationship which are going to take a lot more strategy and a
lot more thought and go beyond the slogans and we're really just at the beginning of that I think I sense
another conversation in the near future Isabelle Hilton lovely to speak to you thank you so much for your time thank
you it's really a pleasure you've been watching Frontline for times radio with Me Kate Sho my thanks to our producers
today Louis syes and Morgan berdick and for you for watching if you'd like to support us you can subscribe now or you
can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for

 

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