You can’t understand the world without understanding China. No country has had a less predictable, more dynamic impact on the world in the past 40 years — and the next 40 will be no different.
The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers condemned Western nations for “politicizing human rights issues” with sanctions. Beijing separately lashed out at “the West,” accusing at least half a dozen nations of hypocrisy and saying they had no right to lecture China.
Today, the European Union issued its first sanctions on China since 1989, condemning Beijing’s abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Canada, Britain, and the U.S. also issued new Xinjiang-focused sanctions. Beijing immediately retaliated against the EU with sanctions of its own.
In a high-level meeting in Alaska, top U.S. officials confronted China about breaking international rules, saying Beijing was making the world “far more violent and unstable.” China shot back by accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy on a range of issues, including human rights.
In 2020, loans from Chinese policy banks in Latin America fell to historically low levels. In the last days of the Trump administration, Washington agreed to lend Ecuador $3.5 billion, in what U.S. authorities considered a novel approach to confront China in the region. But does the region stand to benefit?
As senior diplomats from the U.S. and China prepare to meet in Alaska tomorrow, expectations are extremely low. Meanwhile, the U.S. sanctioned 24 officials for having undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy, and the EU reportedly approved sanctions in response to human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
In the most violent day in Myanmar since the military coup d’état six weeks ago, dozens were killed and Chinese factories were attacked in the suburbs of Yangon on Sunday. Beijing walked a fine line in its response.
One billion doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be produced in India and distributed to Southeast Asian countries, with the help of the U.S., Japan, and Australia. The initiative, an output of the informal “Quad” alliance, is an attempt to counter Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the region.
According to a new Gallup poll, 79% of Americans now have an unfavorable view of China — more than right after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Pew, meanwhile, found that nine-in-ten Americans see China as a competitor or enemy.
Beijing unexpectedly announced last week that it had found “pests” in Taiwanese pineapples, and banned their import. Taiwan called it an “ambush,” and drew a parallel to China’s targeting of Australian wine.