The battlefield of China-U.S. fight has expanded its areas from trade, technology, spying, pandemic, Hong Kong etc. to military confrontation, Europe and Taiwan Strait. Hong Kong is very likely to become the “punching bag” again!

Facing the aggressive Trump, Beijing is running out of tricks up its sleeve. The main problem is, Beijing has no allies to support it. China’s “friends” are all poor, small countries which only court China for money. They would even voice their support of Hong Kong national security law. But to offend the U.S.? No way. Big country Russia only wants China to attract aggravation from Europe and the U.S. so that it can have more room to expand. Has Russia said anything nice things about China during the China-India conflict?

On the other hand, the U.S. continues to expand its “alliance against CCP,” after the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand from Five Eyes, it actively promotes the Indo-Pacific alliance. Three years ago, the U.S., India, Japan and Australia formed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to strengthen their cooperation in order to contain China. Stephen Biegun, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State indicated clearly at Monday’s U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum that, the U.S. is willing to develop an official strategic relationship with the three countries and form a military alliance like NATO. South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand would also be welcomed to join. The only thing Beijing could do was try and win over Europe as counter-attack. This could initially be an extremely aggressive diplomatic action that can affect the outcome of the China-U.S. fight, therefore both Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister and Yang Jiechi, Xi Jinping’s no.1 diplomat and a member of Politburo are visiting Europe in the past few weeks.

Because of Trump’s “America First” policy, the crack in the relationship between the U.S. and Europe is deepening; Germany, the leader of the EU has on more than one occasions worked against Trump. This has not only taken the U.S.-Germany relationship to hit rock bottom (some U.S. military being withdrawn from Germany is the solid proof), but it also affects the U.S.-EU relationship. This would have been the god-given chance for Beijing to win over Europe. However, Beijing has angered the Europeans with Xinjiang’s problem; it concealing the pandemic, suppressing Hong Kong and implementing Hong Kong national security law, arresting democrats in Hong Kong, etc. has drastically heightened the anti-China emotion in Europe. As a result, Wang Yi’s attempt to impress Europe has gone down the drain as all the European dignitaries have openly brought up Hong Kong’s problem. When asked in Norway about Hongkongers being nominated Nobel Peace Price, Wang warned not to politicize such award. When asked about Czech’s senate speaker visiting Taiwan, Wang threatened that the Czech Republic would “pay a heavy price for the short-sighted move and political speculation,” which has caused a great backlash and the “China Threat Theory” sounds more convincing than ever. The Czech Republic reacted of course strongly by summoning the Chinese Ambassador to the Czech Republic; After meeting with Wang, The EU Council representative and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has also emphasized to Wang that Europe must defend its value and would not countenance threats. He also said that he has called the Czech foreign minister to express his solidarity, the sentiment which was shared by France and Slovakia.

A visitor who wants a favor from people and stop the U.S. and EU forming an alliance, but has turned into a “fire-starter” and caused argument everywhere he went, warning this and threatening that. Is he asking for favor or just showing off his mightiness? Having taken all these in, would the Europeans drop their core values of human rights and freedom etc. to anti-U.S. with you just for some economic profits? What has Wang gained from this trip on Huawei and 5G issues?

Another China-U.S. battlefield is Taiwan. Beijing is enraged when Czech delegation visit Taiwan but it can do nothing about it. Apart from the verbal threat by Wang in Europe, there are also threats by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Alone in August, PLA has done 10 live fire drills in the nearby sea, with Beijing’s CCTV calling it as solid action to deter “Taiwan independence” and ‘Taiwan secession’ forces. But not only has this not deterred Taiwan, but has drawn more attention to Czech’s visit. It has also made the U.S. to speed up rectifying its long-standing “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, and to issue a clearer signal that it would assist Taiwan when it faces military threat. During this time, the U.S. military has sent reconnaissance aircraft to the coast of China and warships to operate in the Taiwan Strait. It has also confirmed the Navy “already made 10 routine transits through Taiwan Strait” this year, and may break the record of 12 transits in 2016.

The U.S.’s strategic ambiguity on Taiwan started when it built a diplomatic relationship with China in 1979, which it wanted to continue to develop in order to fight against the Soviet Union together; but it also wants to ensure Taiwan would not be forcefully unified by the CCP. Therefore the U.S. has reserved its policy options in terms of how to intervene when Taiwan is threatened by force. But as the threat from PLA towards Taiwan increases, the U.S. government has changed its ambiguity and released two declassified cables on Aug. 31, which clearly stated the “Six Assurances” by ex-President Reagan is the cornerstone of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. It included when China shows hostility and aggression, the U.S. would increase arms sale to Taiwan. The U.S. Congress has also publicly clarified that the U.S. “One China” policy is different from the CCP’s “One China” claim of having sovereignty over Taiwan. These are parts of the actions of steering clear from “strategic ambiguity.”

Under the U.S.’s “shelter,” the military threat from the CCP towards Taiwan can hardly be materialized, which has even drawn more sympathy and understanding from the international society on Taiwan and increased its international visibility. Naturally, more European delegates and officials would visit Taiwan. Having failed to win Europe over, being incapable of doing anything against the U.S. decoupling and watching hopelessly Taiwan getting away from its grip, of course the CCP would be using Hong Kong and people in the mainland as punchbags, which has been happening ever so often in the past year. It would appear the new punchbag could be the Mongolians.

Within few years the CCP has made Tibetans to protest, Xinjiang people to resist, Taiwanese to stay away, Hongkongers to resist, Americans to heavily criticize, the Japanese to show discontent, Europeans to denounce, Indians to send troops; now even the Mongolians are fighting back. Such a genius of a party is definitely hard to come by!

(Poon Siu To, veteran journalist)

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