Gordon G. Chang's Blog, page 15

China's Latest Attempt to Co-opt Christianity

Last Thursday, China Daily reported that Beijing plans to “establish a Chinese Christian theology.”

The new theology “should adapt to China’s national condition and integrate with Chinese culture,” said Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, at a seminar in Shanghai on the “Sinicization of Christianity.” In the words of the official paper, Wang believes that “Chinese Christian theology should be compatible with the country’s path of socialism.” 

China’s socialist path is atheistic, so Wang is attempting something that is theoretically impossible. Impossible attempts, however, are nothing new when it comes to China’s Communist Party and religion. Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic, had a simple solution to Christianity and all other forms of religion: he persecuted and banned them.

Mao’s tactics, despite his relentlessness, did not work, often causing severe embarrassment for the communists. For instance, after his 1955 arrest, Cardinal Kung, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shanghai, was brought before a “struggle session” in the center of the city to confess “crimes.” Instead, the diminutive cleric, hands bound behind him, yelled out, “Long live Christ the king, long live the pope,” and the large crowd shouted back, “Long live Christ the king, long live Bishop Kung.”

Since then, it has mostly been downhill for the party, which today tries to corral and co-opt faith. It recognizes five “religions”—two of them labeled “Catholicism” and “Christianity”—all with party-controlled organizations headquartered in the Chinese capital.

At the same time, party cadres do their best to stifle religious fervor. Beijing’s tactics in the Muslim northwest have been so repressive that they have provoked an insurgency it cannot win. In the southwest, Buddhist Tibetans, subject to what the Dalai Lama calls “cultural genocide,” appear to be on the verge of an insurrection that can break out at any moment, almost certainly on the death of His Holiness if not before.

The party’s treatment of Christians, although not nearly as brutal, is no more successful. Beijing’s coercion, such as tearing down crosses from churches and even churches themselves, is counterproductive, helping to spread faith. The party does just enough to annoy congregants and create a sense of persecution yet not enough to actually discourage faith. As a result, Christianity is growing faster in China than perhaps anywhere else.

Wang Zuoan’s announcement indicates Beijing is trying to control Christianity by telling Christians what they believe in. This is not quite as ludicrous as passing a law prohibiting Buddhists from reincarnating without approval from Beijing, as happened in 2007, but it is unlikely to be any more successful.

According to the China Daily story, China is in the second year of a “five-year campaign” to “provide theological guidance for church rostrums” and “promote the positive and correct theological thinking.” Says Gu Mengfei, a leader in the “patriotic” official Protestant church, “This will encourage more believers to make contributions to the country’s harmonious social progress, cultural prosperity, and economic development.”

Chinese leaders talk about faith as if it were a tool to increase gross domestic product, which is why, whatever they do, they are losing the struggle for their country’s soul.

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China's Militarist General Liu Yuan Promoted

Reuters reports that General Liu Yuan will be promoted to the Communist Party’s 11-member Central Military Commission in October. Liu, 62, could even be given one of the two vice-chairman slots when the Central Committee meets, sources state. His elevation is a certain sign that hard-line elements are fast gaining power in Beijing.

Liu, the political commissar of the General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army, ostensibly earned the move up for his role in bringing down Lieutenant General Gu Junshan. The investigation of Gu, in turn, led to the dramatic detention of Xu Caihou, a former vice-chairman of the military commission and former Politburo member. Both Xu and Gu have been ensnared in what the party has termed “anti-corruption” probes.

“Anti-corruption” is undoubtedly a misnomer. Chinese ruler Xi Jinping, from all appearances, is merely using corruption charges as an excuse to eliminate political adversaries, so Liu’s moves to rid the army of corruption have served Xi’s purposes well. It is no surprise that China’s supremo has publicly acknowledged his friendship with General Liu. Both are considered “princelings,” a term that includes children of former leaders. Liu is the eldest son of Liu Shaoqi, once Mao Zedong’s chosen successor.

What can be wrong with promoting an anti-corruption crusader like Liu Yuan? The general, unfortunately, is well known for his disturbing opinions. He publicly called the US a “whore” a decade ago, he was openly sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, and he famously declared that “man cannot survive without killing.” “Military culture is the oldest and most important wisdom of humanity,” he wrote in a preface (pdf) to Changing Our View of Culture and History, a collection of leftist essays published at the end of 2010. “Without war, where would grand unity come from?  Without force, how could fusion of the nation, the race, the culture, the south and the north be achieved?”

It’s one thing for Liu to advocate aggression to advance a racial and nationalistic ideology, yet it’s another for him to urge others to revolt, to be openly insubordinate. “Actually, the party has been repeatedly betrayed by general secretaries, both in and outside the country, recently and in the past,” he wrote in the preface. And make no mistake about what he meant, because the outspoken general has also talked about starting the Communist Party all over again. It is a small step from his words to the military believing it has the obligation to defend China by pushing aside civilians and running the country outright.

Liu is by no means the only Chinese flag officer with dangerous views. Luo Yuan is notorious for his public comments, and Liu Yazhou, once thought to be a liberal, is increasingly expressing aggressive sentiments. China watchers have often assured us that we can ignore their extremist views either because they have no command responsibilities or because they do not represent mainstream sentiments in the officer ranks.

Yet if General Liu Yuan gets his promotion in October, we will have to rethink these explanations. “Perhaps this will finally put an end to the speculation that such figures are only of marginal importance,” noted Christopher Hughes of the London School of Economics this week, in a message to me and others.

As Hughes suggests, we need to start paying attention to who gets promoted in the People’s Liberation Army. A militarist advancing to a seat on the Central Military Commission is a sign that China is entering a particularly dark era.

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Xi Jinping: The Putin of Asia

On Friday, Beijing marked the 120th anniversary of the start of the first Sino-Japanese War, which ended in a crushing defeat of China. This year—once in February and then in June—Xi Jinping referred to this anniversary, mentioning how the conflict resulted in Japan taking Taiwan from the Chinese state. China’s leader, who believes he must “reunify” his country, remembers 19th century grievances as if they arose yesterday.

Nobody tops Xi when it comes to irredentism, not even the fellow who called the breakup of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century and who is now doing all he can to reacquire former Soviet lands. Vladimir Putin is roiling one country—Ukraine—but China’s supremo is now destabilizing an entire region, in a sweeping arc spanning China’s south to its northeast.

For one thing, Xi wants Taiwan, which unfortunately for him has become a vibrant self-governing society with little interest in being absorbed by a hard-line authoritarian state. For another, he wants to intimidate Japan. To that end, he planned Chinese incursions into territorial waters and airspace administered by Tokyo around the Senkakus in an attempt to seize the eight tiny islands. Moreover, Beijing policymakers are now even talking about taking Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain. Xi is thought to be the driving force behind Beijing’s November declaration of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone, which includes the sovereign airspace of Japan and closely abuts South Korea’s.

His fishing fleets regularly intrude into South Korea’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and pick fights with the local coast guard. He lays claim to Seoul’s Ieodo, a rock in the Yellow Sea.

Furthermore, Xi is making a major move on the South China Sea, international water that he considers to be an internal Chinese lake. There, he is fortifying contested reefs, shoals, and islets; pressuring a Philippine garrison defending Second Thomas Shoal; and placing drilling rigs where they should not be, including waters surely within Vietnam’s EEZ. Xi believes his China extends more than a thousand miles from its shores, closely abutting Brunei and Malaysia. He is pressing claims to Indonesia’s Natuna Islands.

Finally, Chinese troops regularly make deep incursions into Indian territory, well south of the Line of Actual Control, because the Chinese leader covets large chunks of land long considered parts of India.

Xi, with an attitude much like the Russian leader’s, does not seem overly concerned about maintaining friendly relations with China’s neighbors or keeping the good will of the international community. He strides across his region, the Putin of Asia.

And like Putin, Xi sees the United States as standing in the way of his nation’s taking of territory from other states. Although the Chinese ruler is more careful with his words, both suspicious men think Washington is conspiring with their neighbors to frustrate their expansionist goals.

Xi and Putin also share something else, domestic vulnerabilities. Putin, some believe, chose this time to create crisis in part to distract the Russian people, who have been manifesting their unhappiness in the streets. There is also plenty of discontent among the laobaixing—common folk—in China, but the especially dangerous signs of stress appear at the top of the Communist Party. There, Xi has been ferociously attacking the patronage networks of other senior figures as well as the groupings in the People’s Liberation Army, all under the guise of an “anti-corruption” campaign that has the hallmarks of a political purge.

So Xi, like his Kremlin counterpart, is embarking on misadventure abroad, partly with the purpose of consolidating his position at home. Both Xi and Putin, in short, lead troubled societies.

Two men are makers of history at this time, with grand ambitions and the will to pursue them. These ambitious figures are now disturbing peace and tranquility, one in Asia and the other in Europe. They may not be coordinating their actions, but they are now acting at the same time, making this moment especially consequential.

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The Second Cold War?

“Do you believe that the US-Russian relations are now at Cold War levels?” CNN’s Candy Crowley asked Dianne Feinstein on Sunday. “Yes,” replied the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

During the same interview, on the State of the Union program, Feinstein hinted at the problems of imposing sanctions on Moscow, even in the aftermath of the murderous downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week with a missile almost certainly of Russian origin. “It’s difficult, because you need Russian help in so many things,” she said to Crowley. “The P5+1, Syria, and it goes on and on.”

The list was not always so long.

In the Cold War, of course, the United States saw Moscow as an adversary, not a partner. But that perception soon changed, especially at the end of 1991 after Mikhail Gorbachev signed the USSR out of existence and turned over the nuclear launch codes to one Boris Yeltsin. Because the collapse of the Soviet state was thought to mean “The End of History”—inspired by Francis Fukuyama’s famed essay and book—hopeful Americans and others thought the great powers, pursuing common interests and acting in concert, could manage the international system. It was almost as if the Congress of Vienna, convened in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, had resumed after a recess of almost two hundred years.

In the optimistic 1990s, the UN Security Council became the preferred place for resolution of thorny problems. Yet multilateralism, despite high hopes, soon failed. The inability of the council to implement its own resolutions, even after the end of the divisions that marked the Cold War, led to a continual erosion of global stability.

Now, the Security Council is having trouble coming together. On Monday, it passed Resolution 2166 calling for an investigation, but  in this most desperate situation it is unlikely to take meaningful action. 

Two of its permanent members, Russia and China, are obstructionists who in other situations have prevented the international community from acting. They have, for instance, vetoed four resolutions to date on the horrific Syrian civil war.

They have also been up to other geopolitical mischief. For example, those two large states have been watering down sanctions on North Korea and then failing to honor the resulting lowest-common-denominator solutions, thereby permitting Pyongyang to detonate nuclear devices and launch ballistic missiles. The current project of the pair, perched high on the council, is to protect the Iranian atomic program, long suspected to be a cover for a fearsome weaponization effort.

Washington reached a milestone at the beginning of this week when a prominent figure admitted that relations with Russia had reached new lows. On CNN, Senator Feinstein even addressed the Russian leader, saying, “Putin, you have to man up.”

Yes, he does, but so do American policymakers of all genders. The next steps for them are to acknowledge that Russia and China are not partners of the US but are in fact on the other side of a growing international divide—and then to act with a seriousness of purpose not seen in Washington for years.

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Russia and China Shun Iranian Nuclear Talks

The big story from Vienna is not that discussions this week with Iran over its enrichment of uranium are not going well. Such a failure was virtually inevitable. The big story is who is not in town for the ill-fated proceedings, an effort to stop what many suspect is a disguised nuclear weapons program. 

US Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are all in Vienna for talks with their Iranian counterpart. The top diplomats of the remaining two members of the P5+1, the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany, are no-shows, however. The foreign ministers of Russia and China, Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, are nowhere to be seen in the picturesque Austrian capital. Instead, Moscow and Beijing sent note-takers.

In one sense, who can blame the absentee diplomats? Analysts said Lavrov’s failure to participate suggests Moscow is pessimistic, and the Russians have every right to be that way. Tehran and the P5+1 are far apart, with little prospect of reaching an agreement by this Sunday, the deadline for a pact. Everyone knows the Iranians will not strike a deal until the very last minute, and this weekend’s self-imposed limit is hardly firm. After all, when an interim arrangement was announced last November, the parties talked about the possibility of a six-month extension beyond July 20th.

Moreover, they have continued to speak about prolonging the negotiations. “There may be pressure to put more time on the clock,” Kerry wrote in his June 30th Washington Post op-ed, titled “Iranian Nuclear Deal Still Is Possible, But Time Is Running Out.” “But no extension is possible unless all sides agree, and the United States and our partners will not consent to an extension merely to drag out negotiations.”

Unfortunately, no one believes the secretary of state will walk away from the talks. For one thing, Kerry set a low bar for their continuation. “Iran must show a genuine willingness to respond to the international community’s legitimate concerns in the time that remains,” he wrote, as if he had set an objective standard.

No one should be surprised that Kerry is prone to talking and adverse to acting, but observers were taken aback by Russia and China shunning the Vienna talks. For some time, the pair has been coordinating its actions and undercutting what is left of the so-called “international community.” Yet the joint defiance of Western powers this time was startling.

The State Department, predictably, ignored what is far worse than a slight. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the P5+1 is “united in the negotiating room, as we always have.” That’s a fib because France’s Fabius has already criticized Moscow for its “differences of approach.”

“Differences” is a polite way of characterizing the situation. It is known, for instance, that the Russians are essentially willing to permit Iran to do whatever it wants, presumably because they want to sell Tehran as many as eight nuclear reactors. The Chinese, for their part, have been surreptitiously supplying the “atomic ayatollahs” with parts and technology for nuclear weapons, both directly and through surrogate North Korea.

Now that Moscow and Beijing have effectively left the negotiations by sending junior diplomats to Vienna, it’s time to recognize that they essentially support Iran. The world’s major powers may have once seen themselves as having similar interests, as post–Cold War Americans like to think, but that is certainly not true now. The international system is cleaving, and unfortunately the Chinese and Russians are on the other side on many issues, including those involving Iran’s uranium enrichment.

Russia and China, therefore, have no place in the Vienna discussions, at least sitting next to the Western democracies, and the sooner we recognize their support for the ayatollahs, the sooner we will not let them sidetrack effective measures to disarm Iran. Lowest-common-denominator solutions have no place when fearsome men want the world’s most destructive weapons.

Two missing foreign ministers in Vienna tell us the international system has already changed in ways that make it worse. At some point, we have to stop believing the world is as we wish it to be and start acting on the basis of what it actually is.

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China’s Collision Course with Itself

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, has just issued a warning that Chinese leaders will not be deterred from engaging in increasingly provocative conduct. “There could be some tactical change in the direction of moderation but I cannot see any fundamental change in strategic orientation,” he told John Garnaut of the Sydney Morning Herald.

As Garnaut noted in messages to me this month, Beijing tells the world that “we will keep going and we will win.” Shi, however, has been saying that what the Chinese really mean is, in Garnaut’s words, that “we will keep going even though we cannot succeed.”

“How many times have you heard the Chinese described as pragmatists?” Arthur Waldron asked me this week. “They’re not.” At this moment, the University of Pennsylvania historian of China has put his finger on something especially distressing. Chinese policymakers work under a political system that now does not permit them to act pragmatically, cooperatively, or sensibly.

Why not? The widely followed Shi identified three reasons for the inability of Beijing to change course: the nationalism promoted by the Communist Party, the beliefs of senior leaders, and the dynamics inside the People’s Liberation Army. China, in short, is trapped in dangerous currents, almost all of them attributable to the flaws inherent in its particular brand of authoritarianism.

We often forget that the form of a country’s government matters. There is an almost unshakeable belief in America that China, under Communist Party rule, can be talked into becoming a responsible member of the international community. As a result of this hopeful perception, Washington has promoted dialogue, and as Beijing’s behavior has deteriorated this decade, American policymakers have urged even more of it. During the previous administration, the number of ongoing bilateral forums reached 50. In the Obama years, these exchanges hit 90.

We talk to Chinese officials in every conceivable format. This week’s forum is the sixth US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew headed a delegation of hundreds of American officials that traveled across the Pacific to Beijing. Never have expectations been lower for one of these sessions, which in various forms has been held since 2006. As Kerry and Lew tried to downplay hopes, some analysts blamed the US for a deterioration of the relationship by not paying enough attention to China.

That’s a misdiagnosis. China’s relations with many states, especially those to its south and to its east, have spiraled downward in recent years. By now we should realize that Beijing’s troubles with the international community have little or nothing to do with others.

In any event, Shi does not see much hope that ties will get better. “This kind of tension between China and the US and US allies will deteriorate rather than improve,” he notes. China, unfortunately, is on a collision course with the world. 

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North Korea to Counter China’s Bold Play for Seoul

Xi Jinping arrived in Seoul today on a groundbreaking trip.

Analysts in Asia, where symbolism is closely watched, invest the visit with great significance. Xi, after all, is the first Chinese leader to travel to the South Korean capital before going to Pyongyang. “The message,” says John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul, “is that if North Korea continues to keep Beijing at a distance and not work harder to keep China happy, then China will tilt towards South Korea.”

The oft-quoted Delury is undoubtedly correct, and his remark suggests that China thinks it can ultimately shape events to its liking. Most everyone outside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the North calls itself, agrees, believing Beijing to be the main actor on the Korean peninsula.

We see China’s moves and marvel at its power. There is no doubt that Beijing is working to pry South Korea away from the United States, but we should understand it is a project doomed to failure, especially as long as the Chinese continue to back the North Koreans and lay claim to South Korean waters. At most, Beijing, by planning Xi’s itinerary as it has, is signaling displeasure with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s youngish leader, but this means China is merely reacting to the Kimist state. As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang correctly said, no one should “over-read” the sequence of Xi’s visits.

China, for all its centuries of dealing with the Koreans, is still trying to figure out the situation on the peninsula. And while it searches for a policy, it is hoping to make the two Koreas compete for Chinese support. So far, Beijing is making some headway, at least in the South Korean capital. 

Yet not in Pyongyang, where China’s policy looks far less successful. And we have to remember that it is the North Koreans, not the Chinese, who are driving events on the Korean peninsula. Strong nations—China, South Korea, and the United States—are reacting to Pyongyang’s seemingly perplexing moves.

Take, for example, the growing rapprochement between two states that have looked to be enemies for decades. Pyongyang and Tokyo met in Beijing on Tuesday to talk about the Japanese nationals abducted by the Kim regime for various nefarious purposes, including language training for terrorists.

The Japanese abductees are about the last thing that Kim would ordinarily want to discuss, but he is cozying up to the enemy of his enemy, as veteran journalist Donald Kirk notes. The North Koreans, Kirk points out, are tired of lectures from Beijing, and they are looking for friends to serve as counterweights to the increasingly overbearing Chinese. The Japanese, on the other hand, want allies in their efforts to protect themselves from China, which has growing designs on an increasing number of their islands.

There are real limits to accommodation between Tokyo and Pyongyang—and Beijing and Seoul for that matter—but as the diplomatic initiatives continue, relationships on the Korean peninsula will evolve in ways difficult to predict at this time. North Korea can change the dynamic in North Asia in an instant, which means Kim will probably do that soon. The geopolitical landscape of the region in the second part of this decade could—and probably will—look quite different than that in the first.

We now have the notion that big China can push weak North Korea around, but the North Koreans will push back. With Xi Jinping in Seoul, China makes a bold move, but Pyongyang will counter soon.

Photo Credit: Korea.net

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Study Finds Chinese Economy a Third Smaller Than Claimed

In a report released on June 20th, the business research organization Conference Board recalculates Chinese gross domestic product going back to 1952. Economist Harry Wu estimates that China from 1978 to 2012 grew an average of 7.2 percent a year. Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics reports 9.8 percent average annual growth during that period.

Wu believes that official numbers for 1952 to 1977 are generally accurate, at least when considered over the period as a whole. China’s figures, therefore, have become less reliable over time.

The discrepancy in the 1978–2012 period, which roughly conforms to the so-called “reform” era, is largely the result of Beijing’s inadequate adjustment of nominal results to account for price changes. Recently, many economists, most notably Christopher Balding of Peking University, have come to similar conclusions, that Beijing underestimates inflation when it calculates what is known as “real”—i.e., price-adjusted—GDP.

Wu’s work supports that of others who see a Chinese economy that could be a third smaller than Beijing claims. His findings, therefore, can affect our notions of which Asian nation grew the fastest or which is now the world’s second-largest economy. Hint: the Conference Board is about to become very popular in Japan.

Yet Wu’s work has implications that are far broader. Yes, an economy’s size matters, but perhaps more important is volatility. Analysts have long suspected that Beijing has smoothed results, reporting less growth in robust periods and more in down times, similar to what some corporations are accused of doing with their earnings. Wu’s calculations show far more volatility than official estimates, “suggesting,” he writes, “that the Chinese economy is more vulnerable to external shocks than the picture painted by the official GDP estimates.”

At the moment, China’s economy is vulnerable to shocks, but the biggest one might not be external. In order to create GDP, Chinese leaders have incurred indebtedness at an extraordinarily rapid pace. Beginning especially at the end of 2008, Beijing has essentially ordered the building of “ghost cities,” high-speed rail lines to nowhere, and factories with little demand for their products.

Some of the money for this binge was doled out by the central government in the form of subsidies and grants, but most of the cash was “loaned” by state banks, which were directed to rain renminbi down on free-spending state enterprises and local governments. The increase in indebtedness, as a result, was explosive. “China has accounted for more than $15 trillion of the $30 trillion in worldwide credit growth over the last five years,” writes John Mauldin, an investment commentator and adviser, in Forbes. That’s quite a feat for a country that is, at most, 13 percent of the global economy.

This lending, as it comes due, could be the shock that most everyone, including Wu, is concerned about. Up to now, state banks have been rolling over nonperforming loans—bad debt, in common parlance—so that these institutions will not appear insolvent and the problem can be pushed into later years. There has been almost no official recognition of the situation, and economists have not adjusted official GDP numbers downward to account for the bad loans.

When they do, it will become evident that the Chinese economy has been growing more slowly than anyone has imagined. In the meantime, however, Wu and the Conference Board have highlighted that China’s growth is a little less miraculous than it has been presented—and accepted by others—to be.

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Beijing Redefines Hong Kong's Autonomy

On June 10th, China’s State Council issued its first white paper on Hong Kong since the city was handed from Britain to Beijing on July 1, 1997. The document, titled “The Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” is a heavy-handed attempt to sway public opinion that is sure to backfire.

In the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, China promised Hong Kong, then a colony, a “high degree of autonomy.” At the time, Chinese officials sought to put the hearts of their Hong Kong compatriots “at ease,” as they said, by providing guarantees.

This month’s white paper, however, essentially wrote the Joint Declaration out of existence by noting that China has “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong and is the source of its autonomy. There was, in the words of the paper, no “residual power.” In short, Beijing has full authority to take back any and all rights that people in Hong Kong presently enjoy.

Many of Beijing’s defenders point out there was nothing new in the white paper, which is largely true. China, after all, has been trying to bury the Joint Declaration for a long time. Yet Hung Ho-feng, a professor at Johns Hopkins, points out that the white paper breaks new ground by essentially establishing a requirement for the procedures to be put in place for the election in 2017 for the city’s chief executive, the top political post there. According to Hung, writing in a private message, such procedures look like they will have to “comply with the interests of national sovereignty, security, and development.” In other words, Beijing gets to reject any election mechanism it does not like.

The paper was issued on the eve of an informal citywide referendum to be conducted by Occupy Central, which has promised civil disobedience in Hong Kong’s main business district if Beijing backtracks on promises to hold free and fair elections in 2017, the most contentious issue in Hong Kong at the moment.

If the white paper was an exercise in intimidation, as many believe it was, then it is resulting in a debacle for Beijing. The Occupy Central effort, which was flagging prior to the white paper, took on new life after the paper came out last week. As Benny Tai, a co-founder of the group, told the Economist, “We should thank Beijing for adding fuel to the fire.”  

Beijing’s effort was so inflammatory that some in Hong Kong privately suspect Chinese officials purposefully sought to aggravate the situation, perhaps to justify declaring martial law and deploying the People’s Liberation Army to patrol the streets.

It is, however, unlikely that Chinese leaders had this as their intent. For one thing, they have always been worried about unrest in Hong Kong triggering disturbances across the border in the mainland. Moreover, they like to portray themselves as representing the popular will and large-scale protests utterly destroy that narrative.

Moreover, Beijing appears behind a concerted campaign to keep people off the streets, either in demonstrations organized by Occupy Central or during the annual July 1st pro-democracy march. Some of the most prominent pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong, such as former justice minister Elsie Leung Oi-sie, have in the last few days warned about civil unrest, foreign agitators, and “color revolutions.”

The best explanation for the white paper, as Michael Davis explains, is that Chinese leaders want “to say forcefully that Beijing is in charge.” Yet as the outspoken Hong Kong University Law School professor noted on Monday in the South China Morning Post, “The most effective way for Beijing to calm resistance is to assert less control, not more.”

Davis is absolutely correct. The pan-democratic movement is particularly divided at the moment and would fall apart if Beijing looked even slightly benign. Yet Chinese leaders sometimes cannot help themselves. They are so accustomed to pushing around their own people that they act arrogantly with everyone else. And so Beijing is now indulging its worst instincts and unintentionally aiding the cause of representative governance in Hong Kong. 

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China's Unusual Outreach to India's New Leadership

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a visit to the newly installed prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, at his official residence in New Delhi. On the day before, Wang met his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a session lasting more than three hours.

The meeting with Swaraj, perhaps the more important of the two, covered most topics of interest between the two giants. The discussions, according to External Affairs spokesman Syed Akbaruddin, were “productive and substantive.”

Some of the issues raised, such as India’s trade deficit with China, can be resolved, and some are vastly more complicated, like the sovereignty disputes along their 2,521-mile border. But the most important aspect of the meetings was not what was discussed but the fact that they took place so soon after Modi’s assumption of power. As Ranjit Gupta of the Washington-based US-India Institute said to AFP, “China has gone all out to woo the new Indian government, which is a great gesture.”

The Chinese have every reason to pull out all the stops when it comes to such overtures. Modi could be in power for a long time, as he swept into office with an absolute majority in the lower house of Parliament, taking down the Gandhi dynasty, which had dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947. He started his political career in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, better known as the RSS, a hard-line Hindu nationalist organization with an undisguised contempt of the Chinese, and his few comments about China during the campaign were not especially kind to Beijing. Unlike his predecessor, the ineffectual Manmohan Singh, Modi will pursue “India First” policies and will not go out of his way to avoid angering the Chinese.

No wonder Xi Jinping sent Foreign Minister Wang to the Indian capital before the paint was dry at Modi’s official residence. And no wonder Xi himself will be traveling to New Delhi sometime this year. That’s a departure from standard Chinese practice of requiring a foreign leader to travel to Beijing before receiving a visit from China.

And Modi is in no hurry to tread upon Chinese soil. He will surely meet Xi at the 6th BRICS summit next month in Brazil and perhaps on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, yet the prime minister’s travel schedule will nonetheless cause unease in Beijing.

Modi’s maiden foreign trip will be later this month, when he goes to Bhutan, where India could soon find itself in an intense competition with China. Then, next month he riles the Chinese by visiting Japan, where he sits down with good friend Shinzo Abe, who Beijing demonizes at every possible opportunity. After that, Modi gets on a plane in September for Washington, meeting President Obama, the leader of a country that China increasingly brands an adversary. This is not an itinerary designed by New Delhi’s Beijing-friendly diplomats, who once made sure India’s China policies were kept firmly deferential.

None of this is to say that Modi will be “anti-China.” He will not. Job One for the Indian leader will be to restart the Indian economy, and every dollar from Beijing, especially in the form of investment into non-sensitive sectors, will be gladly accepted. So the new leader isn’t going out of his way to poke the Chinese in the eye. He will not, however, accommodate Beijing when to do so would disadvantage India.

At the moment, Indians think they are being disadvantaged by their commercial links with China, India’s largest trade partner. The annual deficit, according to Beijing’s figures, is now $31.4 billion, a lopsided result when total two-way trade in 2013 was only $65.5 billion (the deficit exceeded $40 billion according to Indian figures covering a slightly different period). New Delhi, of course, wants to reduce the shortfall with more access to the Chinese market, especially for IT-enabled services, cotton textiles, home furnishings, and pharmaceuticals.

Modi just might get that access, because Beijing is now obviously worried about India, the only country in Asia that Chinese leaders view as a long-term competitor.

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