Among western democratic governments, this is a moment of unhappy clarity about China. Their bleak consensus follows years of naivety and wilful self-delusion about the nature of Xi Jinping’s regime. A changed mood—one of shared, durable gloom—was on display at the latest Stockholm China Forum. This is a gathering of American and European officials, scholars and business types that Chaguan has attended, on and off, since 2008 (Chinese diplomats and scholars attend some sessions).
The war in Ukraine hung over the latest forum, jointly hosted by Sweden’s foreign ministry and the German Marshall Fund, a think-tank. There was no happy talk about China being an ideal peace-broker, as some European leaders had suggested in the early months of the conflict. Instead, participants talked of Chinese envoys touring European capitals to recommend that Ukraine lay down its arms and sue for peace, while casting Vladimir Putin as a ruler acting in self-defence. One speaker called China’s “collusion” with Russia an “electroshock” for Western governments. China is expected to play a role in the conflict’s end-game and in post-war reconstruction, not least because Ukraine’s government wants Mr Xi at the table. But there was shared horror in Stockholm at any notion of China helping to design a future security architecture for Europe. That distrust is born of hearing Chinese officials blaming the nato defence alliance for war in Ukraine, and promoting a world order in which individual countries seek security via shifting, values-free calculations of their interests.
No comments:
Post a Comment