China’s Foreign Policy Is Backfiring: Uniting Partners in Geopolitical and Value-Based Alliances

Newton’s Third Law of motion says that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction — this law of physics seems to manifest in China’s foreign policy and world affairs today. 

With the advent of so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy” promoted by the regime of Xi Jinping, China has led initiatives such as the “16+1 Cooperation” and its predecessor “17+1”, which target former Soviet satellite states and countries under its influence, adopting a policy of divide and conquer against EU solidarity and attempting to strengthen alignment with China through economic incentives. After EU member states were exposed to various forms of coercion and intimidation through economic or political pressure, Beijing’s wolf warrior approach has become the catalyst for a massive setback to more than ten years of development between that region and China. 

Whenever Beijing sees anyone expressing views that do not fall in line with its own views, it has promptly raised the level of confrontation and blown events out of proportion rather than responding to each individual situation proportionally. In each instance, China has chosen to use extreme tactics to address its grievances: from ceasing rail transport to Lithuania, to banning red wine from Australia; from imposing tariffs on American soybeans, to putting an embargo on Taiwanese pineapples. Such practices, which continuously interfere with markets, will only strengthen the distrust among the global community towards China, while increasing the economic dependence of these allied countries on each other and reducing their share of trade with China.

According to Deutsche Welle, “during the four months after China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples took effect on March 1, the island’s export of the fruit to Japan has skyrocketed to 16,556 tons, more than 8 times the volume shipped from March to June last year, replacing China as the largest export market for Taiwanese pineapples.”

Following that, “starting from late February to the end of June, more than 112,000 credit card transactions have been processed from citizens across seven major cities in Taiwan to Lithuania, with a total amount of more than $2.537 billion,” as reported by the Economic Daily News.

Next, a headline from the Central News Agency: “Australian wine exports to Europe hit 10-year high, offsetting impacts from high tariffs in China.”

Clearly, Beijing’s extremist policies do not garner global support or the respect that the regime so desperately seeks. 

Domestic controls are out of control

The same is true for their tactics to maintain control domestically: consider China’s recently imposed regulations on the cram school industry, restrictions on the gaming industry, and the suspension of the American Chamber of Commerce in Southwest China. This spells great risk for those trying to enter the Chinese market. The nature of business places great importance on a stable and predictable political and economic environment. When arbitrary decisions exert influence over the business environment, its vigor will no doubt be affected.

The international community is driven by interest, but the interests of a country should not be limited to purely economic, trade, or military security, but rather a consideration between a larger variety of factors. Culture, rule of law, commerce, education, artistic thought, and the different lifestyles its citizens pursue are all part of a country’s interests. Few countries are willing to unilaterally seek one aspect of development at the expense of the many other possibilities in which the development of their people can take place. To define a country’s success on one dimension alone  is no more than a generalization, minimizing the human experience and leading to societal aberrations.

China is experiencing major setbacks in all the aforementioned areas, because it thought it could achieve success through economic influence alone. At the cultural level, many countries have banned Confucius Institutes, and ideological control by the government has encroached slowly upon the educational system in China. Beijing has thus set the worst possible example for both its national development and the image of its citizens abroad.

At the same time, Taiwan’s soft power can be demonstrated through a freer and more open market and by strengthening the training of talents in Chinese language education. As the European Union is the largest foreign investor in Taiwan, providing approximately US$45 billion and accounting for 25% of all foreign investment, increasing commercial and artistic relations with Europe is a critical addition to our well-established connections with the US and Japan. The utilization of bilateral channels and stronger mutual understanding will lead us to deeper relationships through shared interests.

China’s recent diplomatic tantrums certainly present a monumental challenge to the world, especially for countries with values very different from those of the Chinese Communist Party. But by making the most of every challenge and facing every crisis with equanimity, Taiwan and other countries under the shadow of the Chinese regime will be able to demonstrate their strength in these challenging times.