Chinese President Xi Jinping recently criticized individual countries by name for adopting “unilateralism” at the annual meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia, arguing that in the era of economic globalization, “building walls” and “decoupling In the era of economic globalization, “building walls” and “decoupling” will only harm others and harm oneself. Some public opinion, on the other hand, criticized Xi for playing with rhetoric and promoting unilateralism with Chinese characteristics while trying to dispel the wariness of the Western camp.
Xi said, “You cannot impose the rules set by one or a few countries, nor can you use the unilateralism of individual countries to ‘set the pace’ for the whole world; the world should be fair, not hegemonic, and big countries should behave like big countries and show more responsibility. “
Tuesday (20) at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia annual meeting, President Xi Jinping delivered a video speech, calling on countries to respond to the call of the times, adhere to multilateralism, stressing that artificial “building walls” and “decoupling” contrary to market rules, to the detriment of others.
Although the criticism was not named, it is widely believed that the “individual countries” and “major powers” Xi referred to were the United States. Earlier this month, on the eve of a meeting between the U.S. and Japanese heads of state at the White House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also warned the Japanese government not to be “led” by the United States.
The rise of unilateralism with Chinese characteristics
In an interview with Voice of America, Su Ziyun, director of the Institute for Defense Strategy and Resources at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Studies, said Xi’s speech clearly contradicted himself.
Beijing has moved toward a unique kind of unilateralism in recent years, that is, unilateralism with Chinese characteristics,” Su said. China tries to influence other countries through economic infiltration, while at the same time accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs. This characteristic is unique to Beijing, which is why it is said to be a new type of superpower.”
After taking office, Biden has said that the U.S. should make rules on trade with its allies and join forces to counteract China, and has called on European allies who must prepare for competition with China and should unite to stop the Chinese government’s improper and coercive economic behavior.
And were Xi’s remarks at the Boao Forum aimed at Biden? Su Ziyun said: “It is another competitive argument, an attempt to divide the United States and Europe, in economic terms is a top priority, that is, China is trying to use the power of the market to attract Europe, do not cooperate with the United States, which is a bit of a repeat of the (last century) 1930s German Nazi Party, also using the German market power, to influence Western companies, and finally unfortunately caused war . The Biden administration’s call is actually to avoid that tragedy.”
In his speech, Xi also advocated that Asia and the world respond to the call of the times, join hands to overcome the epidemic, strengthen global governance, build a “Belt and Road” with high quality, and move forward toward building a community of human destiny, and put forward a “four-point initiative”: equality Consultation, openness and innovation, helping each other in the same boat and upholding justice.
Analysis: China “returns the favor to the other side”
Su Ziyun, however, believes that Xi Jinping says one thing and does another. He said, “The ‘community of humanity’ is what China has been repeatedly proposing under the UN framework since 2016, with the main purpose of rationalizing and legitimizing China’s actions, including climate change, the use of resources, and the conduct of trade, all emphasizing the community of destiny. It’s one thing to talk about it, but in fact, including its actions in the South China Sea and the fishing boats in South America, it’s not a community of destiny, it’s destroying the destiny of humanity.”
Song Wendi, a researcher at Australia’s China Center for Global Studies interviewed by Voice of America, described Xi’s speech as “returning the favor to the enemy.
To a certain extent, it seems that China is now trying to borrow the vocabulary of the Biden administration to ‘counter’ the U.S. government, to borrow some of the words that the U.S. and even the Western world likes to use. It seems that China is now trying to borrow the vocabulary of the Biden administration to ‘counter’ the U.S. government, borrowing some of the words that the U.S. and the Western world likes to use, and then slightly adjusting them to make statements that are favorable to China and even to the CCP, changing ‘universal values’ to ‘common values’ and taking the other side’s vocabulary and defending it in the direction of favoring the CCP.”
Song Wendy believes that Beijing is attempting to change the international order in its own set of ways. He said, “The thinking on the Chinese side now should be more ‘nibbling’ than ‘whaling’. It is not directly confronting the international order dominated by the United States and the West in the general direction, but it is creating other small regional orders led by China at the margins, hoping to slowly change the international order in a piecemeal way, but accumulating more and more. This includes the use of the Belt and Road to build up the economic sphere of Southeast and Central Asian countries into China and gradually get used to the China-based ecology.”
U.S. Senate passes bill to address China’s challenges
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier passed the Strategic Competition Act by a large margin, claiming to mobilize all U.S. forces to deal with the Chinese challenge.
The bill covers economic, technological, military and human rights aspects, including funding to help U.S. companies withdraw from the Chinese market, decentralize supply chains, promote infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region, allocate $300 million annually to establish a “Fund to Counter China’s Influence,” and fund media to combat disinformation and invest in technologies that can avoid censorship of speech.
The bill says it wants to strengthen ties with Taiwan, recognizes that Taiwan is an important part of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, should regularly sell arms to Taiwan, promotes Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, and gives Taiwan the same treatment as other governments.
The bill also proposes to allocate $10 million to promote democracy in Hong Kong and impose sanctions on forced labor and sterilization in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. China’s foreign ministry condemned the bill for playing up the “China threat theory” and advocating a strategic competition for dialogue with the United States.
Song Wendi, a researcher at Australia’s China Center for Global Studies, believes that Xi’s speech at Boao is a sign of hope that the Western camp will see the light.
He said, “The West is slowly gaining cohesion, whether it’s the growth of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or even the deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance, and Europe, like Britain, France and Germany, which means that the joint pressure on China from the West is becoming serious. China may now prefer to say to everyone in a non-directly confrontational way that China is actually still maintaining the status quo and not a revisionist state to deflate the situation where other countries are exerting pressure on it.”
No hegemony? Experts: Listen to his words and watch his actions
Will Xi Jinping’s “no hegemony” have a calming effect on the Western camp? I think the effect will be limited,” Song said. As Beijing likes to say to Taiwan, it is important to ‘listen to its words and observe its actions’ with regard to the performance of its leaders. It’s the same now. Western countries, and indeed other countries, should not only listen to China’s words, but more importantly, observe its actions, in response to these declarations of ‘non-hegemony’.”
Su Ziyun, a scholar at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Studies, argued that Beijing’s propaganda offensive cannot conceal the facts no matter how strong it is. He said, “Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, which is exactly ten years ago now. China has doubled its military budget, 100 percent, built aircraft carriers and so on, so it has this military power, and its government has failed to reform and has continuously violated human rights, so this China threat theory becomes an urgent fact.”
There are also signs that the U.S. and China are moving toward “decoupling” in the economic and technological fields. on April 12, the U.S. White House held a semiconductor summit. About 20 global industry giants were invited to attend. The Global Times criticized the summit for excluding companies from China, and denounced it as a U.S.-led conspiracy to decouple from China in the semiconductor sector.
Some analysts believe that the U.S. sees chips as a weapon to contain China’s technological rise and as a key bargaining chip at the negotiating table.
Xu Zhen, research director of the Hong Kong-based Chi Ming Institute, told Voice of America that he believes Xi’s shouting at the Boao Forum was targeted.
He said: “Every country has shortcomings in strategic industries, such as chips, turnover or maximizing gross and net profits, are bound to be compressed, disguised, and the speed of China’s development in these areas is affected, so, from this perspective, Xi Jinping must also be located in a rainy day, before China’s siege situation deteriorates further, through international public opinion shouting at the United States, and on the other hand not allowing the situation to spread to more countries.”
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