7 minute read
Pulpit
The art of avoiding war
ThePulpit
David Mahon
FEW governments undertake foreign relations from long-term strategies. They tend to react according to their immediate interests and couch their reactions in diplomatic language that suggests strategy but often lacks substance.
The United States is trying to corral its allies and dependents into a bloc to contain China, while making references to upholding international law and human rights. These same laws and rights it ignores in the name of national security, such as with its ill-fated forays into the Middle East and handling of detainees suspected of terrorism nearer to home.
The US government appears motivated by a fear of China’s rise, which it mistakenly sees as responsible for the receding tide of its global power. China also provides the US population with an external enemy to hold responsible for internal American problems.
In this, President Biden differs only in tone from his predecessor, while nurturing the seeds of a future conflict that the previous administration planted. In the recent G7 meeting in England, Biden tacitly made US support for NATO conditional upon a European alliance with the US against China.
European countries will join in the containment rhetoric to a degree, but a real alliance is unlikely, for working with China offers Europe long-term economic benefits the US cannot match.
The Chinese government also lacks a coherent foreign relations strategy, but has two general aims: to be recognised as a pivotal power in the world (a revived Middle Kingdom), and to exert influence within the region and on its trade routes commensurate with its economic and geographical scale.
The former is problematic, for by harking back to the pre-Opium War dynastic past, it risks making China’s aims seem imperial, when the core motive is to recover lost prestige.
The latter is more practical and should not be interpreted simply as expansionist, for China perceives that its large landmass and population require a commensurately large zone of maritime influence.
China has demonstrated a capacity for comprehensive domestic strategies spanning decades, such as reforms in banking, the creation of a largely free-enterprise-driven market system, the expansion of common wealth and the beginnings of environmental renewal.
China’s mistake in the past five years has been to confuse forcefulness of tone for demonstrations of internal strength. Some government spokespersons sound as if they are reacting from anger over historical injury and current insecurity rather than representing a powerful, stable, largely modern country with a vision for the future.
Winning the world back
Chinese people invariably praise their government’s handling of covid and ongoing economic reform, but many criticise the degree to which their government has alienated so many of its trading partners with its aggressive rhetoric.
President Xi’s speech in June to the Politburo Study Session called on officials to adopt a softer tone in foreign affairs. Perhaps this denotes an awareness of general discomfort in the administration and the wider population of China’s increasing alienation. The proof would be in a quieting of the wolves in China’s foreign service.
The Western world is turning against China at an alarming rate and no matter how justified China’s conviction may be that it is being unfairly punished for its economic success and growing national confidence, Beijing is far from powerless to reverse this trend.
Recent polls in the US, Australia and other Western countries show that more people have a largely negative view of China than a positive view. While there is no current national data on the Chinese people’s views of other countries, anecdotally it appears that they have a growing sense of regret and resentment that attitudes towards their country have changed, more so than direct rejection of the cultures that judge them.
Just as Mao unified his country one guerrilla engagement at a time, China needs to secure the trust and respect of large and smaller nations one by one.
A few carefully timed larger initiatives, such as Xi Jinping sitting down with President Modi to address the tensions on the Chinese-Indian border, would offer China and its counterparts opportunities to demonstrate their power and maturity. These sorts of pairings would show that the US and Europe are participants but no longer the arbiters of global relationships. Sadly, such rapprochements are unlikely.
While full war is not imminent, conflicts become more likely the longer sides hold their stances in seeing the other side as the enemy.
In the case of China, with a strong economy and relatively high social morale, the sooner Beijing can pursue rapprochement with important counterparts the better, before it is distracted by multiple pressing domestic and foreign policy challenges at once.
FOCUSED: Beijing-based trade and investment advisor David Mahon says while the Chinese government lacks a coherent foreign relations strategy, it has two general aims.
Who am I?
David Mahon is the managing director Mahon Investments in Beijing, China.
Your View
Got a view on some aspect of farming you would like to get across? The Pulpit offers readers the chance to have their say. farmers.weekly@globalhq.co.nz Phone 06 323 1519
Climate change terrifies me
STEVE Wyn-Harris’ (Farmers Weekly, July 5) wants tourists to enjoy our scenery again and for families to enter NZ without quarantining.
He says vaccinated people cannot contract or transmit covid and a negative test should be enough to avoid MIQ facilities.
He is incorrect.
A negative test and covid vaccination do not guarantee against having covid or transmitting it to others.
Studies show vaccine efficacy is between 64% and 95%, not 100%.
A nasal swab can also give a false negative in the early stages of the illness.
Instead of advocating for a return to ‘normal’ and more tourism, Steve should spare a thought for people affected by the climate crisis.
Currently, British Columbia and the US are experiencing recordbreaking heat waves, increasingly severe droughts and more devastating wildfires.
The town of Lytton BC survived record 50degC temperatures, only to be destroyed days later by wildfires.
Water shortages are threatening to make states like California uninhabitable and are turning once prime agricultural land into desert.
Climate change terrifies me.
My overseas friends and family know I won’t fly or take overseas holidays and I won’t encourage them to visit.
The car does low kilometres and I’m planting more trees.
That’s in addition to the 12ha in forestry plantation, retired stream plantings, hundreds of shade trees and half a hectare garden.
I’ve reduced cattle numbers by 20% to comply with Rotorua’s nitrogen allocation and am recreating a wetland.
Despite my efforts, OverseerFM reports my farm emits 233.9 eCO2 tonnes a year.
Methane GHG emissions, the bulk of that total, are 171eCO2t/ year.
The only good news is the farm sequestered 10,000t of CO2 last year.
Farmers are told low methane genetics or methane busting additives are in the pipeline but we need them now.
In the meantime, I urge all NZ farmers to do their best to reduce emissions and protect our industry, our children’s future and the planet from what is a fast moving, devastating climate crisis.
ETS criteria is flawed
I READ Lewis Hore’s letter (Farmers Weekly, July 12) with interest and total agreement in which he took Forest & Bird to task for the “woolly idea” that wild animals have to be eliminated because the creatures are causing emissions.
Forest & Bird’s woolly thinking has infiltrated groups like the Green Party and the Department of Conservation. The same warped thinking has led to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) where it has selective rules excluding all vegetation under five metres in height. Much native vegetation is under five metres in height. Obviously pasture is. Yet both must have a carbon sequestering value?
Alan Emerson seemed to somehow believe Forest & Bird’s call to eliminate wild animals to comply with ETS targets. Perhaps he should leave wild animals alone and instead take aim at the flawed ETS criteria over excluding vegetation under five metres in height and the folly of the carbon trading ‘system’, which is a speculative playground for corporates to make big bucks from NZ by creating monocultures of pines.
Laurie Collins
Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust Westport
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