Category Archives: News

China’s mis-step

China has made a rare and serious diplomatic misstep. It came from its ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, who told a television interviewer that the former Soviet states “don’t exist” because “they don’t have effective status in international law.”—Oops.

The result was an immediate outcry and demand for   clarification/retraction from foreign ministries across Europe, especially the former Soviet states who live in perpetual fear of the reimposition of the Russian yoke.

The Chinese obliged. The embassy in Paris said that the ambassador’s remarks were “personal” rather than “official policy.” In Beijing the official spokesperson more or less disowned the comments stressing that China was among the first to recognise the former Soviet republics as “sovereign states” and has refused to  recognise the Russian annexation of Crimea.

But the Europeans were not mollified. Lu Shaye is a prominent “Wolf Warrior” – a moniker attached to a Chinese official who advocates a hard line against the West. It was thought that the hardliners were sidelined at the end of last year. Lu Shaye’s flammable comments have re-ignited their presence.

One of President Xi Jinping’s reasons for sidelining the hardliners was a policy of improving relations with Europe. This would drive a wedge between Europe and America, weaken NATO and the US position in the world and improve China’s position.

The fly in this diplomatic ointment is Russia. A strong alliance with Russia is important to both XI and the wolf warriors. But good relations with Europe is more important to XI then Lu Shaye and the wolf warriors.

Ambassador Lu Shaye’s comments indicate that the Wolf Warriors are still prowling the corridors of Beijing and the problem for Europe is that the Chinese could be a Trojan horse filled with Russians.

Taiwan

Meanwhile, back in China, the Communist Party has been again been rattling its Taiwan sabres. This time it arrested two Taiwanese while they were visiting relatives in Mainland China.

Both arrests are designed emphasise the Chinese Communist Party’s position that Taiwan is party of China and thus the law of the Peoples Republic of China applies to the residents of Taiwan as well as those on Mainland China.

The more prominent of the two arrestees was the publisher Li Yanke. He was born in Shanghai and left in 2009 to set up a publishing business in Taipei. Many of his books are highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Li Yanke was visiting relatives in Shanghai when police arrested him for “endangering state security.”

Perhaps more significant was the arrest of the less well-known 33-year-old Yang Chih-yuan. He was actually detained in August but was not formally arrested and charged until this week. The crime: “suspicion of secession.” He is the first to be charged with this alleged crime.

In 2019 Yang Chih-yuan helped to found the Taiwan National Party which proposed that Taiwan drop its claims to be the legitimate government of all of China and declare itself a separate, independent country. The TNP failed to make any headway in elections and has since been dissolved. Yang Chih-yuan himself is seen as fringe political figure in Taiwan.

But Beijing is concerned that the fringe may become the mainstream unless it is brutally stamped out.

The competing claims to China date back to 1949 and the Chinese Civil War. In that year, Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang army fled to Taiwan and established what was effectively a “government-in-exile.” Only twelve countries (including the Vatican) recognise that 1949 claim and have full diplomatic relations with Taipei. It is impossible for any country to have diplomatic relations with Beijing and Taipei.

Reunification is the top foreign policy priority of the Chinese Communist Party. As long as both entities claim to be the legitimate government of all of China then Beijing can assert that it has the right to unite Taiwan with the mainland—by force, if necessary.

But if Taipei drops its claim to represent all of China and declares itself an independent political entity, then the number of countries prepared to diplomatically recognise it would increase. Taiwan would then become an even bigger problem for the Chinese Communist Party.

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