Geopolitics of the Coronavirus: A Global Challenge Needs a Global Response - Bernhard Zand (Der Spiegel)

Geopolitics in the Corona Era: A Global Challenge Needs a Global Response

An Analysis by Bernhard Zand

Der Spiegel, 20/03/2020

As European countries and the U.S. seal off their borders and turn inward in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, China is sending aid around the world. What the world really needs, though, is a coordinated response.

Serbian President Aleksander Vucic  threw a tantrum this week of a kind that should give us pause for thought. "European solidarity does not exist," he raged. "That was a fairy tale on paper." He complained that recently, Europe had sought to force Serbia to reduce its reliance on goods from China and import from Europe instead. Now that Serbia needs goods from Europe, though, "Serbian money is worth nothing."

Serbia, which isn't yet a member of the European Union club, would like to purchase protective suits and face masks from Europe to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic. But Europe isn't selling because "medical goods can only be exported to non-EU countries with the explicit authorization of the EU governments," as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced earlier this week. "This is the right thing to do, because we need that equipment for our health-care systems."

So Vucic wrote a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, certain that Beijing would jump in to fill the void. "I believe in my brother and friend Xi Jinping, and I believe in China's help," he wrote.

"A Friend In Need Is a Friend Indeed"

It's a crazy situation: The government that initially tried to cover up the coronavirus outbreak, then implemented radical measures to fight it and slowly got it under control at great cost, is now being seen by a European leader as the savior in the corona crisis. And Beijing was more than happy to accept the compliment. "A friend in need is a friend indeed," wrote Chinese state news agency Xinhua. "When handshakes are no longer encouraged in Europe, China's helping hand could make a difference."

And that is how geopolitics work: If a vacuum appears, someone immediately jumps in to fill it.

The EU, of course, is fully aware that Beijing is on the lookout for such vacuums. Just a year ago, Brussels declared China to be a "systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance." Yet now, Europe is exposing a flank to that rival -- not just in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, where China has been trying to ramp up its influence for years, but even within the EU itself.

Rome "cried for help when it comes to ventilators and masks," said Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. Italy's EU ambassador, Maurizio Massari, says that the European Commission forwarded Italy's request for medical equipment to the EU member states, "but it didn't work."

Meanwhile, two teams of Chinese doctors with aid supplies have arrived in Italy and a third is on the way. Spain, too, can count on assistance from China, said Xi Jinping following a telephone call with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. "Sunshine always comes after the rain," the Chinese president said. On Wednesday, Commission President von der Leyen announced that China would be providing 2 million masks to Europe, along with other supplies.

Beijing is also shipping aid supplies to Iran, Iraq and the Philippines. Jack Ma, the founder of the vast Chinese online retailer Alibaba, announced he was sending 20,000 test kits, 100,000 masks and 1,000 protective suits for doctors and nurses to each of the 54 countries in Africa. Previously, the Jack Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation had sent aid supplies to Japan, South Korea and other countries.

Politics - and, by extension, geopolitics – does not come to a halt in times of crisis. On the contrary, they can become much more ruthless. That can be seen particularly clearly in the conflict between the U.S. and China, which has grown especially tense following months of a disastrous trade war. In February, Washington announced that Chinese state media representatives in the U.S. would be categorized as "foreign agents." One day later, Beijing threw out a trio of reporters from the Wall Street Journal, while on Tuesday of this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry demanded that at least 13 reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal turn in their press credentials. It is an unprecedented step.

At the same time, Beijing and Washington are exchanging accusations about who is responsible for the current crisis. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken to calling it the "Chinese Virus," while a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry in all seriousness suggested that soldiers from the U.S. Army may have brought the virus into Wuhan.

Nobody Will Lead the World Out of Its Current Misery Alone

During the global economic and financial crisis of 2008-2009, the U.S. and China consulted closely with each other. Washington pumped liquidity into the banking system while China set up a vast investment program to stimulate the real economy. Together with their partners in Europe and the Far East, the largest and then-third largest economies in the world managed to withstand the crisis.

Today, though, the two powers are far away from that kind of cooperation. China, now the world's second largest economy, didn't receive a single mention in Monday's statement from G-7 heads of state and government. For Beijing, which is not a member of the G-7, it is just another indication that China is all on its own.

"If we lose control, the pandemic will risk a new round of global and economic crises and social turmoil," a Chinese government adviser told the South China Morning Post. "So far, there is no coordinated global action, and we may not see one any time soon."

If climate change and the migration tragedies we have witnessed in recent years didn't make it obvious enough, COVID-19 is demonstrating it day in and day out: In crises like this one, some form of global government is needed, as premature and incomplete is it might end up being, given the pressures created by the unending slew of bad news.

Such crises require communication and cooperation far beyond national borders and even continental shores. Instead, though, we are seeing political and economic spheres of influence moving toward isolation.

Nobody will be able to lead the world out of its current misery alone. Not China, which felt a couple of days ago that it was seeing an end to the health crisis, only to now be fearful of the economic waves crashing over the globe. Not the U.S., whose president assured his people just a few days ago that the country was well prepared and who is now mobilizing hundreds of billions of dollars to ward off the worst of it. And not Europe either, which is closing national borders one country at a time and seems to be forgetting its neighbors.

Social distancing is the medical solution to the spread of the virus. But in global politics, we need quite the opposite.

Chinese Oppression of the Uighurs - Bernhard Zand

Persecution of the Uighurs The West Must Respond to Chinese Oppression

There are many disturbing aspects to modern-day China, but its treatment of the Uighurs is the most despicable. The West must come up with a response to the inhuman persecution.

Bernhard Zand

Der Speigel, December 04, 2019  05:04 PM

Working as a reporter in the Xinjiang region of China is an experience both exhilarating and depressing. From the vast expanse of the Taklamakan Desert to the majestic peaks of the Pamir range, the panoramas are overwhelming, the landscapes straight out of a painting. Fully two hours are needed to fly across China's largest province from east to west. On the ground, it can take days.

But few are interested in talking -- neither the man sitting next to you on the airplane nor the family sharing your compartment on the high-speed train. After a while, you grow hesitant about addressing anyone at all. Every encounter could have consequences: unpleasant ones for the reporter, but potentially dreadful ones for his counterpart.

Living in Xinjiang, after all, is dangerous. Those who talk to the wrong people or take the risk of speaking with foreigners, those who read the wrong books, visit the wrong websites or express the wrong thoughts: They all risk being interrogated or locked up that same night. Hundreds of thousands of people, and likely more than a million, have suffered that fate. Beijing has set up a surveillance state in the homeland of the Muslim Uighurs of a kind that the world has never seen before.

People across the globe have been broadly aware of the situation for years. But in the last few weeks, the New York Times and an international collective of investigative journalists have published details that had remained secret until now. They provide an in-depth look at how the camp system was conceived and how the state put it into practice. The documents include procedures for answering the questions of children whose parents are locked away in a camp. They include an instruction manual for running hundreds of penal and re-education camps, which Beijing euphemistically refers to as "vocational training centers." It makes it clear that it is of utmost importance to "prevent escapes," and states that inmates must be strictly monitored "while they are at class, dining, using the toilet, washing, receiving medical care or meeting with family."

Of all the disturbing aspects of the Chinese regime, it is what it is doing in Xinjiang that is the most disturbing. It reveals the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and may shape modern China's global image more lastingly than any event since the brutal crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. It remains doubtful whether Beijing understands the intensity of the shock that the recent reports have triggered around the world.

The problem now facing the West is that of coming up with an adequate response to these hundreds of thousands of violations of basic human rights. Of breaking the silence about the fate of the Uighurs, a silence that is still there despite the recent revelations. Of determining what can actually be done for Muslims in China beyond empty statements of solidarity, given the tight political and economic relations the United States and Europe have with Beijing.

A Conflict over Values

The West finds itself involved in a number of conflicts with the burgeoning global power, from the U.S. trade war to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, from Beijing's industrial policies to its influence along the New Silk Road, from the bickering over telecommunications company Huawei to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Some of these clashes are the inevitable consequence of an emerging China stepping on the toes of an insecure West that is worried that its days of supremacy may be fading. On most issues, there are interests and arguments on both side, but compromise is fundamentally possible.

Xinjiang is different. There are, to be sure, interests at stake here as well: the Chinese population's legitimate need for security along with the equally legitimate concerns of the many countries to which thousands of oppressed Uighurs have fled. But at its core, the Xinjiang conflict is one over values. The degree of discrimination combined with the severity with which Beijing is persecuting its Muslim minority, represents a violation of fundamental values that are not up for negotiation. Rather, they are anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which China also signed when it joined the United Nations -- and which Beijing isn't shy about invoking when it feels the rights of Chinese citizens have been violated abroad.

This conflict of values has been exacerbated by the technological aspect. In Xinjiang, China is relying on digital tools for mass surveillance to an unprecedented degree. DNA-profiling, compulsory installation of spying apps, algorithm-driven facial recognition, identifying citizens based on ethnic characteristics: Beijing is essentially using all of the technical tools at its disposal to keep the Uighurs under tight control.

Even many Chinese harbor fears that these technological tools could soon be used elsewhere in China and even beyond the country's borders. These concerns are justified. The scale of digital surveillance being used in Xinjiang is nothing short of a civilizational rupture. For the first time, it has become conceivable that an authoritarian regime will succeed in robbing an entire population of its culture and religion using digital means.

An Aside

How should the West react to something like that?

The first step must be that of ascribing the diplomatic and political weight to the Xinjiang issue that it demands. Thus far, only the U.S. government has done so sufficiently. European heads of government, by contrast, have "addressed" the persecution of the Uighurs during their recent visits to China, but only as a side note and among other issues.

Second, European countries must insist more forcefully than they have thus far that Western diplomats be guaranteed unimpeded access to Xinjiang. It is important that they get a firsthand look at a situation that only very few journalists have thus far laid eyes on. Furthermore, such visits to the region by European diplomats are necessary to shine the spotlight on oppression. In contrast to the protest movement in Hong Kong, whose representatives have traveled the world to drum up attention for their demands, and in contrast to Tibet, whose plight is never completely ignored because of the presence of the Dalai Lama, the Uighurs have few prominent supporters abroad.

Third, the West must significantly increase both the political and economic cost for Beijing should it continue its human rights violations in Xinjiang. That could include import restrictions for companies that benefit from the tech-powered surveillance regime in Xinjiang, including firms like Dahua, Hikvision and Iflytek. Should the conflict escalate, the West could also consider targeted export bans.

Some of this may sound dated and somewhat futile given China's current economic strength. And one shouldn't have any illusions about how much influence the West has on Chinese domestic policy. It's not much. But for Beijing, the use of severe -- or even extreme -- measures in foreign policy is a matter of course. Norway learned as much in 2011 after regime critic Liu Xiaobo received that year's Nobel Peace Prize. South Korea likewise bore the brunt in 2017 after the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the country, and Canada was penalized by Beijing in 2018 after arresting the chief financial officer of Huawei, including the arrest of two Canadian citizens who are still behind bars to this day.

To be sure, China wouldn't be alone in bearing the costs for a more robust Xinjiang policy. Western companies would suffer as well. And Germany, because of its reliance on exports, is particularly exposed. But together with its European and American allies, Berlin does have significant influence. And because of its own history, Germany has a greater responsibility than any other country to flex its muscles.

Unacceptable

Earlier this year, the European Commission released a report in which it referred to China as a "systemic rival." That is particularly true when it comes to Xinjiang. Still, the West must resist the temptation to conflate the human-rights violations in Xinjiang with other ongoing China conflicts and turn it into an all-encompassing confrontation between two worldviews. That would neither be a fruitful approach to the Xinjiang question, nor would it contribute to finding solutions to the other disputes. On the contrary, it would constitute a relapse into a world divided along an ideological fault line. With humanity currently facing an array of problems that cannot be solved without China -- nuclear proliferation, climate change, the fight against poverty and the consequences of globalization, to name a few -- that is something we can ill afford.

What is taking place in Xinjiang is unacceptable. Even as a million Uighurs have been separated from their children for indoctrination in camps, hundreds of millions of people further to the east in this vast country are living the "Chinese dream," working hard, ensuring a good education for their children, amassing consumer goods and traveling the world. 

But sometimes, even in faraway Beijing, the reality of the surveillance state in western China makes an appearance. A few weeks after I had returned to the capital after my last trip to Xinjiang and written about the oppressive realities in the region for DER SPIEGEL, I was called in by the Foreign Ministry.

An official there lectured me about the "irresponsibility" of my coverage and about my ignorance of the true conditions in Xinjiang. "You sit in your air-conditioned office," he said, "and don't have a clue what is going on there." When I reminded him that I had just spent a week in the region, he pulled out a slip of paper and said: "Yes, and you pressured a taxi driver into talking about his family, among other things." He knew the exact place, date and time: the morning of July 7 in the oasis city of Kashgar. 

It was true. On that day, a driver in Kashgar had taken me to the airport. And we chatted along the way, about our children.