While the aftermath of the “Wolf Show” staged by senior Chinese diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi in Alaska is still fresh, Beijing has once again shown its grim face to the world.
On March 22, the European Union announced that it had imposed travel bans and asset freezes on four Communist Party officials and one entity for human rights violations against the Uighur people in Xinjiang. The four are Wang Junzheng, deputy secretary of the Xinjiang Party Committee, Chen Mingguo, head of the Xinjiang Public Security Department, and Wang Mingshan, party secretary, as well as Zhu Hailun, former deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Xinjiang People’s Congress, and the sanctioned agency, the Public Security Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Immediately thereafter, the CCP took retaliatory punitive measures against the EU, sanctioning a total of 10 European parliamentarians and academics, including German, French, Belgian, and Dutch critics of the CCP, as well as four entities, including the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the EU, the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights, the German Mercator Center for Chinese Studies, and the Danish Democratic Union Foundation. The people involved and their families were banned from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, and they and their affiliated companies were restricted from doing business with the CCP. Along with the sanctions, Beijing also threatened that the EU “must stop lecturing others on human rights or interfering in their internal affairs” or the Communist Party “will resolutely respond otherwise.
Beijing’s flailing and threats were immediately met with swift counter-attacks from Europe and the United States. On the same day, Canada, the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department issued a joint statement, joining the European Union in condemning the Communist Party. The U.K. Treasury announced that the U.K. would follow the EU in placing the four individuals and entities on the sanctions list, while the U.S. announced the addition of two CCP officials, Wang Junzheng and Chen Mingguo, to the original sanctions list.
On March 23, the foreign ministers of Australia and New Zealand issued a joint statement expressing “grave concern” about “additional reports of serious human rights abuses against the Uighur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang” and welcoming announcements by the EU, the UK, Canada, and the US. The measures were announced by the EU, UK, Canada and the US.
In addition, eight countries involved in the sanctions, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Lithuania, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands, summoned the Chinese Communist Party‘s ambassador to protest. And the review session of the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, which was supposed to be held by the European Parliament on the 23rd, was cancelled. The agreement was reportedly a “diplomatic victory” for Xi Jinping, who had been personally involved in the deal.
On March 24, the Chinese Communist Party took advantage of H&M Group’s statement last year that it was “deeply concerned about allegations of forced labor and discrimination against minority religions in Xinjiang and said it would not cooperate with any garment manufacturers located in the XUAR and would not source from the region. “The statement provoked a boycott of foreign companies and said, “Boycotting Xinjiang cotton while trying to make money in China? Delusional!”
That night, the Chinese Communist Party’s CCTV and Xinhua News Agency also published commentary articles criticizing the brand for “actually eating China’s rice and smashing China’s pot”. Not surprisingly, a large number of pinkies were outraged, calling for a “resolute boycott” and “get H&M out of China,” and shopping platforms took their products off the shelves and several artists issued statements cutting them off.
H&M’s statement that the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), the organization it works with, has suspended the issuance of BCI cotton licenses in Xinjiang also made BCI a target of the Chinese Communist Party and Pinkie Pie. Many people listed companies with which the BCI has a relationship, including IKEA, Adidas, Nike, Puma, Tesco, Gap and more than two hundred other brands, saying that they would not buy any goods with the BCI label in the future.
The thunder is loud, but the rain is light. The boycott of foreign companies initiated by the Chinese Communist Party will be effective if we look at the continued flow of customers in the stores of foreign companies such as H&M in Beijing and Shanghai, but this still does not affect the hysteria of the Chinese Communist Party on the Internet.
Interestingly, just after H&M and other foreign companies showed their stern side, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on March 26 that it had imposed sanctions on four British entities and nine individuals, including five British MPs and senior lawyers and academics. The Chinese Communist Party also summoned the British Ambassador to China to lodge what it called a “solemn protest”.
The sanctions sparked strong condemnation from all sectors of the British community. The British Foreign Office later issued a statement saying “it is self-evident that while the UK is joining the international community in sanctioning (the CCP) for human rights abuses, the Chinese (Communist) government is sanctioning its critics.” “If Beijing wants to credibly refute criticism of human rights abuses (in) Xinjiang, it should let the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights conduct a full examination to check the facts.”
British Prime Minister Johnson also tweeted his strong support for British citizens who have exposed the atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party. Describing the sanctions as a “badge of honor” given to him, former British Conservative Party leader Shi Zhi’an tweeted, “We have a responsibility to speak out against the Chinese (Communist) government’s human rights violations in Hong Kong and genocide of the Uighur people. Those who enjoy a free Life in a rule of law (country) must speak up for those who cannot speak out.”
There is no doubt that Beijing’s flailing has not only failed to extricate itself from its political and economic woes at Home and abroad, but has pushed itself into the abyss in two main ways.
First, Beijing’s international political environment has further deteriorated. Beijing originally wanted to fix the Biden administration and lift a series of sanctions introduced during the Trump administration to ease its own pressure from all sides at home and abroad, but the Alaska-US dialogue, as well as Beijing’s current denial of the Xinjiang genocide and its overreaction to the EU sanctions, have once again shown Europe, America and the world the evil nature of the CCP. For such a regime, whose values are so different from those of Europe and the United States, and which has committed such heinous crimes, I am afraid that if Europe and the United States continue to be weak in dealing with it, it will fuel the arrogance of the Chinese Communist Party.
For example, at his first press conference on March 25, Biden reiterated that Xi Jinping does not have democracy in his bones and stressed that the world is facing a “battle between democracy and dictatorship” and that “we have to prove that democracy works. He hoped Beijing would abide by international rules, play fair and deal with Beijing in an efficient manner. Biden also said the United States will stand firm on its values and continue to speak out against Chinese violations of freedom and human rights, and that “no U.S. president would turn a blind eye or turn his back on human rights issues.”
The additional U.S. sanctions against two senior Chinese Communist Party officials are a footnote to what Biden said, and the first substantive action taken by Secretary of State Blinken after consultations with the European Union and NATO allies on Crimes Against Humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Second, on the economic and trade front, Beijing faces a bigger crisis. Trump’s tough attitude on trade has added to the misshapen economy of the Communist Party of China. Coupled with the impact of the Epidemic, not only have exports plummeted, but the domestic market is also in depression, with millions of private enterprises closing down, hundreds of millions of people without regular jobs, and a serious lack of consumption, which naturally worries the top brass in Zhongnanhai.
To the surprise of Zhongnanhai, Biden has continued his Trump-era policy on trade so far, with sanctions against high-tech companies still in effect, while Beijing’s sanctions against the EU have put the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, considered a “diplomatic victory” for Xi, in danger of being aborted.
According to the South China Morning Post on March 24, three of the four largest political parties in the EU have made it clear that they will not be able to support the CETA if the Chinese Communist Party does not lift the sanctions. This means that in the European Parliament, 499 seats of MPs will vote against the agreement, accounting for more than 70% of the total number of seats in the European Parliament (705).
The overseas pro-communist Dovetail News also quoted EU insiders as predicting that this will be a major topic for some Time to come, as “generally speaking, as long as our elected officials are sanctioned by a third country, we cannot seek any agreement with the country in question.”
With the trade war with the U.S. not yet over, how should Zhongnanhai respond to the looming economic crisis if the China-Europe Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CIA) dies again?
In addition, a new round of boycotts against foreign companies will further push those still in China to flee and block new foreign companies from setting foot in the country. For example, Philips, a leading Dutch electrical company, announced on March 25 that it would sell its home appliance division to China’s High Tide Capital for 3.7 billion euros.
What is even more worrying for the Chinese Communist Party is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has just passed the Interim Final Amendment to open for public comment on foreign companies being deemed not to meet U.S. auditing standards. According to the SEC’s latest requirements, all foreign-listed companies must report to the SEC whether there are any CCP members on the company’s board of directors and whether the company’s articles of incorporation contain any CCP content.
The SEC’s action is seen as paving the way for the delisting of Chinese stocks, which foreshadows that in the near future, it is already a fantasy for the CCP to use Chinese that stocks to circle money in the U.S. capital market and even the world capital market and then influence U.S. politics. And with the SEC’s public, China the stock closed down in general, Tencent Music, Vipshop, Akiyoshi fell more than 20%, Beili Beili fell nearly 10%, Baidu fell more than 8%, Xiaopeng car fell 15%, Predo fell 8%, Alibaba fell more than 3%. The decoupling of the US and China is not a paper exercise.
Presumably, the Chinese Communist Party knows all too well how dismal the economy is. According to the Epoch Times, Premier Li Keqiang made a special visit to a Sino-German BASF chemical plant in Jiangsu province, which supplies raw materials to Nike and Adidas, after the Communist Party launched a new round of boycotting foreign companies. The strange thing is that the mainland media is quiet about this, perhaps to continue to deceive the Chinese on the one hand, and to appease the existing foreign companies to avoid their withdrawal on the other.
Just how effective can Li Keqiang’s good intentions be if the Chinese Communist Party continues to flaunt its teeth to the world? How much longer can the CCP, which is heading towards the abyss under the political and economic predicament, toss and turn?
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