Briefings - 227. page

For the first time, on Friday, March 19, 2021, the Federal Council of the government of Switzerland adopted a public strategy for China. The Strategy sets out the objectives and measures for Swiss policy on China for the period from 2021 through 2024.

“The new China Strategy represents the Federal Council’s response to current geopolitical developments. Neither growing competition between major powers nor polarisation around China and the US is in Switzerland’s interests.”

The report says that its China policy is based on three principles: pursuing an independent policy on China, advocating the inclusion of China in the liberal international order, and a balanced, coherent and coordinated approach to China. It lists four thematic focus areas: peace and security including a human rights dialogue; prosperity such as trade, investment, education, and tourism; sustainability with a concentration on climate and the environment, health, a sustainable financial sector; digitalization, or “intact digital space that is governed by the principles of international law.”

According to Deutsche Welle, the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland responded to the Swiss “China Strategy” document on March 22, saying that although the document recognizes China’s great achievements in economic development and makes a positive assessment of Sino-Swiss relations, Beijing criticizes Switzerland for making unfounded accusations and attacks on China’s political system, minority policies and human rights development.

The Chinese embassy wrote in a statement: “Switzerland has attached some malicious labels on China and sent wrong signals to the outside world. These statements deviate from basic facts and are not conducive to the healthy development of Sino-Swiss relations. China expresses its firm opposition to this.”

Source: the official website of the Swiss Government
https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-82757.html
Deutsche Welle, March 22, 2021
https://p.dw.com/p/3qwPc

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition recently reported that Vietnam has placed orders to acquire a large quantity of Covid-19 vaccines from the United States, Great Britain and Russia. The only missing source of supply is China. The Health Bureau of Ho Chi Minh City recently submitted a proposal to import five million doses of Moderna’s new Covid-19 vaccine from the United States. The Ministry of Health of Vietnam is also negotiating with other American manufacturers to obtain more vaccines. In February, Vietnam received 117,000 doses of the vaccine from the United Kingdom. At the end of February, Vietnam also approved Russia’s Satellite-V vaccine, possibly ordering a total of 150 million doses. However, Vietnam has never bought a single dose of vaccine from neighboring China. This is in sharp contrast with other ASEAN countries. Analysts have said that Vietnam remains very cautious about the Chinese vaccine since China never played any importance in international vaccine developments before. In the meantime, Vietnam’s attitude towards China is also more complicated. It doesn’t want to follow China too closely.

Source: RFA Chinese, March 14, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/5-03142021125113.html

A new study revealed a trend that China is turning to more autocratic regimes in securing natural resource supplies and is buttressing its tactics to weaponize trade against geopolitical rivals.

“China’s resource security redrawing geopolitical map,” a section of the report Political Risk Outlook 2021 recently issued by Verisk Maplecroft, a U.S. based research group, describes how China diversifies its imports and achieves its resource security.

“Beijing prefers suppliers from stable autocratic regimes over democracies that involve frequent changes of governments and potential shifts in policy. Autocracy is a governance system it is comfortable operating with and can influence.”

“China is seeking to strengthen its control over global supply chains via overseas investments and partnerships with international majors. Beijing has been supporting Chinese SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) to ‘go global’ and establish control of resource bases overseas since the late 1990s. … The number of Chinese-owned base metals and gold companies in Oceania has grown from zero in 2000 to 59 in 2020.”

“Geopolitical instability in the Middle East and the South China Sea has induced China over the past decade to diversify its seaborne imports with overland imports, as reflected by its massive investment in energy pipelines with Russia and Central Asia. The Myanmar-China oil and gas pipelines are another example of China’s attempt to reduce its reliance on a sea lane that transits through strategic chokepoints, in particular the Strait of Malacca.”

BY diversifying its natural resource suppliers, Beijing is able to bring greater geopolitical leverage. Beijing can use trade as a coercive weapon. “This diplomatic tool is most effective when wielded against commodities in which China has a diversified import profile and the target state is dependent on the Chinese market.”

Beijing has also strengthened its relationship with Russia driven by their deteriorating relationships with the West. With increased Chinese investment in and trade with the “Belt and Road” countries, “these partnerships will reshape multilateralism with an economic order that is more China-centric.”

Source: Verisk Maplecroft, March 18, 2021
https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/chinas-resource-security-redrawing-the-geopolitical-map/

On Friday March 19, in a prominent position in a French newspaper, on the Le Monde website page, there was an article about a Chinese ambassador’s verbal attack against a French think tank researcher. The article said that China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” reappeared. It cited that the Chinese Embassy in Paris posted on its twitter account calling Antoine Bondaz, a member of a French independent think tank Foundation for Strategic Research, “petite frappe.”

According to the article, in mid-February, after Chinese ambassador Lu Shaye learned that a group of French senators planned to visit Taiwan, Lu sent a warning letter to the chairman of the senator team. In return, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that French parliamentarians are free to go where they want to go.

Bondaz wrote on his twitter account saying that Chinese ambassador’s behavior is not acceptable and that Beijing has no right to tell French elected officials what to do, let alone that a diplomat made the demand. Bondaz learned about Lu Shaye’s response through his friend because it has been over a year since Ambassador Lu blocked Bondaz on twitter. Bondaz then replied on his twitter account saying, “Insulting researchers instead of arguing with them is a sign of weakness.”

Le Monde’s article pointed out that after France started to talk about the mass detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, its relationship with Beijing became tense.

Bondaz received wide support for his remarks on twitter. European Parliament member Raphaël Glucksmann replied, “If our leaders have a little dignity and a sense of a nation, we should explain (to China): “if you keep pissing us off, you will go straight back to China.” François-Xavier Bellamy, another European Parliament member told Bondaz “Don’t let this go. Otherwise, it would mean (you are a) coward and (that is) dangerous.”

This is not the first time that Chinese ambassador Lu Shaye made similar insulting remarks. On April 14, 2020, French Foreign Minister Le Drian summoned the Chinese ambassador because Ambassador Lu Shaye made some comments to the medical staff in a French nursing home. He wrote on the Embassy website that the medical staff in the French nursing home “left their jobs overnight and left the elderly in the nursing home to die of starvation and disease.”

Source:
1. Radio France Internationale, March 19, 2021
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/%E4%B8%93%E6%A0%8F%E6%A3%80%E7%B4%A2/%E6%B3%95%E5%9B%BD%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E6%8A%A5/20210319-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E9%A9%BB%E5%B7%B4%E9%BB%8E%E5%A4%A7%E4%BD%BF%E9%A6%86%E6%94%BB%E5%87%BB%E4%B8%80%E6%B3%95%E5%9B%BD%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6%E5%91