9/11 and China

Dr Yu Jie

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to Chatham House. I’m Dr Yu Jie. I’m the Senior Research Fellow on China with an Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House. Now, today, we’re dealing another part of the September 11 and examining the implication of China and together, whether that will be the watershed moment for the China-US relations and your reflection on what has happened in the past 20 years. So, unfortunately, my colleague, Dr Champa Patel, won’t be able to join us today, because she’s ill, so I just found out from last minute arrangement. So today I will be contributing Chair, so while making some contribution to the subject itself, but also moderate the conversation here today. And also just a notification that today’s event, it is on the record and is – we will be taking a record and later we will publish our event at our website.

Now, joining with me today to discuss this very interesting subject will be Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino, who is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Defence and International Affairs and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, so very prestigious place and work. And also, together with my colleague, Professor Tim Summers, and who’s a Professor of China Studies at the Centre for China Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong, and he’s also an Author of three books on China.

Now, with these two leading experts on my side, I mean, myself, I’m not going to say too much more about the subject itself, but whether the key questions in here is that back to 20 years ago, obviously, the Chinese – the then Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, was able to use supporting the war on terror of the immediate support for the war on terror with George W, Bush and to make somehow a peace with Washington. So, therefore, that guaranteed nearly 15 years of the peaceful relationship between Beijing and Washington.

Now, the bigger question 20 years after today we may ask is whether President Xi Jinping will do the same thing with President Joe Biden, considering the fact that two leaders just had a call over the weekend. So, with that quite big question in mind, and what we’re going to talk today is, we’re going to deal with looking to first the impacts of September 11 towards China, on China’s foreign policy, and I think Tim will explore a little bit further on China’s role within the South Asia and Central Asia region. Now, Pablo, over to you.

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Thank you very much and it’s a pleasure to be here with all you today and I’m really looking forward to have this discussion. Well, I would like, in my brief intervention at the beginning, to draw attention to the strategic move that took place within China right after 9/11, because while, in my opinion, the main legacy of 9/11 on China is the framing by the Chinese state of modern and contemporary ethnic-related conflict in Xinjiang as a terrorism problem, as China’s front in the global war on terror and everything that has come with this. Such framing has been the basis for the emergence of China, over the past 20 years, as an active counterterrorist actor at the domestic, regional and international levels.

Right after 9/11, you could say that Chinese leaders seized somehow the chance as an opportunity to legitimise internationally their crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, which had escalated during the 90s, somehow China’s reaction to 9/11, and here we see an element that certainly affected its relationship with the US, was, hey, we also have terrorists here. But if you want our support, we require that these terrorists, our terrorists, become part and parcel on the global war on terror, and because the US needed that actual support, that somehow paved the way for an improvement in the bilateral relationship, China-US relationships.

So, before 9/11, ethnic unrest in Xinjiang was not understood by Chinese leaders, broadly as a terrorism problem. Chinese security discourses at the time on Xinjiang rather revolved around ideas such as counter-revolution or infiltration from Western external forces first. Later on, already well into the 90s, around violence partisan religious extremism, but this changed immediately after 9/11 when in a matter of weeks and months, the Chinese Government very effectively launched a diplomatic campaign in international forums to retrospectively recast what has been like China’s decades and possibly centuries longstanding frictions with the Turkic-Muslim ethnic minorities of Xinjiang to reframe it as a matter of terrorism. And this affected not only things, in terms of political violence, that we have seen in the 90s, but generally speaking, all Uighur social, cultural or political, religious manifestations.

Back then, the Chinese Government connected Uighur dissidents to Al-Qaeda, to bin Laden, it linked Uighur nationalism to these sort of new label, manufactured idea of the East Turkistan terrorist forces that definitely entered into the Chinese security discourse, the domestic and the international one too, and it also pointed to an until then unknown and never before mentioned group, the ETIM, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, as a sort of formidable jihadi force, posing a core threat to the stability of Xinjiang and the world and with the clear capacity to infiltrate China and to commit terrorist attacks.

So, this was clearly a strategic move, a strategic reframing of a domestic problem, as a matter of international global terrorism, and it really, from there, onwards it sits at the core of China’s undertakings in regions, such as Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia too, among others. In these regions, when we look into China’s politics there, foreign policy over the past two decades, what we see is that China has firmly tied its security and economic agendas. So, in other words, it has made like economic and support aid, co-operation, trade links and dependent or conditional upon support to its claims about the terrorism threat in Xinjiang. And this has resulted, at the very least, in many countries, tightening their control of the political and cultural activities of the local Uighur communities, but it also resulted in hundreds of them, of Uighurs being extradited to China, at Beijing’s request, on alleged security grounds.

This is, for instance, the logic behind many people ask the silence of many Muslim countries, with regards to gross human rights violations in Xinjiang, which are carried out in the name of fighting this terrorism threat. And this speaks a lot of how China has integrated this somehow, this new post-9/11 counterterrorist identity in its international foreign policy and security discourse. This has also been the case with regards to Western countries, starting with the US, with the United States, which, for many years, has critically reproduced China’s narratives about Uighur terrorism, including those around the existence and prowess of the ETIM, very recently, so I think, like, one year, two years ago, one of the final acts of the Trump administration was to cancel the status of the ETIM as a terrorist organisation, which had done back in the day, in the opinion of many observers, just to please China and to bring China into supporting the global war on terror. So, this counterterrorist identity is quite important for China, it’s also prominent in the United Nations where Chinese leaders present China as a human rights champion in Xinjiang. A country that is carrying counterterrorism activities within the UN sanctioned framework, while at the same time, these activities are being labelled increasingly by scholars, activists and some governments in the West as if they had like a genocidal instinct, or simulation, more as a military dimension.

So, the interesting thing about Afghanistan and the Taliban and the recent developments there is that what we are seeing, following the Taliban seizing of power there, and their initial exchanges with China is that exactly as it happened right after 9/11, the ETIM and threat of Uighur terrorism somehow occupy a very prominent space in the Chinese state discourse. Chinese official narratives are, as it happened 20 years ago, suggesting and certainly finding again, an audience in international media and other discourses that the possibility of Afghan-based Uighur armed terrorists infiltrating China and striking in Xinjiang is real and is alive. So this is a strong matter of concern for whatever relations are with the new Taliban Government.

However, I believe that we need to disassociate the reported presence of Uighur individuals embedded in some militant organisations in Pakistan and Afghanistan or Syria. The risks that they could pose to Chinese interests abroad, notably those related to a potential incorporation of Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative blueprint, and then, the actual capacity of these individuals or these groups to act and strike inside Xinjiang. First because China is no fragile State with ungoverned regions where terrorists or insurgents could easily spill over, move and thrive around, and then, because as many scholars have demonstrated, shown violent unrest in Xinjiang, it is a much more locally rooted phenomenon, which is, in essence, disconnected from the current global jihadism or Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. And which only, in a very few occasions, as long as it has, only a small fraction of the violent unrest that has taken place in Xinjiang has taken the form of actual terrorism, as in indiscriminate violence against civilians.

So, to sum it up, I would say that basically by reproducing in this post-9/11 momentum narrative about the ETIM, and with regards to Afghanistan, to the Taliban and so on, I think that China is trying first to somehow farther – is looking for a farther international legitimisation for its domestic repression of Uighurs and other Turkic-Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

At the moment, when it’s certainly under a lot of pressure for these undertakings and there are ongoing debates about whether this constitutes a genocide or not. No matter what you see in these debates, the very fact that there is a debate about whether China is committing or not a genocide in Xinjiang, speaks of an increase in the crackdown and the human rights violations there and speaks, which is certainly essentially tied to that post-9/11 counterterrorism agenda.

And, secondly, I think that, again, by reproducing this narrative and focusing on this threat, China is probably looking for certain leverage for its economic and security exchanges at different regional or bilateral forums, and that certainly includes a potential extension of the Belt and Road Initiative into Afghanistan. And, finally, I think it also looks for certain continuity in its self-projected vision of a responsible international counterterrorist stakeholder, which acts in accordance with and tries to shape, at the same time, the UN Counterterrorism Framework.

Dr Yu Jie

Thank you for this. Now, I have a, like, really immediate follow-up question, because I keep – I heard you keep mentioning on this the whole ideas that China be able to represent a unique narrative, in terms of counterterrorism, which is very different from, you know, in the Western sense of counterextremism and Islamic radicalisation. And do you actually consider, in the past 20 years, that China has succeeded in present that unique narrative across a spectrum of international affairs? I mean, like, for example, with the UN and UN Security Council, and to win some kind of votes, or to make sure those terms, specific terms that China wanted to be mentioned? So, would you consider actually China become really enjoy that success by presenting that unique narrative, or on the other hand, because precisely because of that unique narrative that make China damage it’s own international reputation?

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Well, I think that there are two sides to the question, and to my answer. On one hand, I think it was certainly successful at the very beginning of the global war on terror. It gained acquisitions from the US, for instance, that labelled the – that it officially labelled the ETIM as a terrorist organisation, and that certainly triggered a full narrative, based only on Chinese official sources that, at the very least, are – there’s not much evidence supporting many of the claims that were done at the moment, and – but certainly, it served for China to become a legitimate counterterrorist counterpart in the West, which is the opposite side in this spectrum, where it was certainly successful too, in the sense of rallying around – rallying a considerable group of nations, you know, to support its human rights and counterterrorism discourse in the UN, in that forum, that particular forum.

However, we see that over the past five, seven years, I would say that success is starting to somehow collapse, and that’s where we see this movement from, okay, let’s have a counterterrorism dialogue with China. Let’s even share some counterterrorism experience with China, to, okay, certainly, well, it seems that China has been using the terrorism narrative to somehow exaggerate that potential terrorist threat in Xinjiang and somehow inflate it and crack down on all sort of – and I think this is very interesting because this takes place over the past five, seven years, when you see an increment in the repression in Xinjiang. Obviously, there is a blowback for that, all these discussions that are taking place right now, but the genocide has to do with that. Governments supporting that and certainly criticising China and pointing at China for what is going on in Xinjiang, that has been – that has escalated to over the past five, seven years, this coincides, happens at the same time that Xi Jinping comes to power.

And I think that we can also not – we shouldn’t also disassociate what has been happening in Xinjiang with what has been happening in the rest of China, in terms of a crackdown on civil liberties, on human rights, etc. So – but taking it to the more international perspective, it gains some success certainly, but I think that has been fading to a very low point where now, the terrorism narrative is not really supported by Western governments at all. But at the same time, it’s true that China still has kept, like – has used it to rally these groups of supporters, state supporters, which are certainly very active in the UN, which don’t have a very positive human rights record themselves. But still, we could say that China has quite a few votes, you know, for its resolutions on and its speech and narratives on terrorism in the UN. They have an audience.

Dr Yu Jie

Alright, well, each country has its own audience. Now, Tim, I know you have focused on China’s regional policy and also the so-called ‘periphery diplomacy’, you know, the overall term that China defend its relations with its neighbours. So, considering that in the past 20 years, what have changed and what hasn’t changed just around China’s closest neighbours in South Asia? Perhaps you can enlighten us on this.

Dr Tim Summers

Yeah, well, thanks very much and thanks to Pablo for getting the discussion going with some interesting comments. I think I probably have a couple of slightly different historical perspectives on this period over the last 20 years that relate to Yu Jie’s question about China’s widening diplomacy. I think from the Chinese perspective, I would see the main significance of 9/11 being in the change engendered in US strategy and US foreign policy. So, before 9/11, in the early months of the Bush Presidency, we had a certain amount of tension in the US-China relationship. There was the EP3 spy plane incident in Hainan, sort of five or four, five or five, six months before 9/11. There was talk of China as a strategic competitor. There was potential there. There were, sort of, the elements there of a policy that could have focused in a much more confrontational way on the US, sort of, dealing with China in a slightly less co-operative, collaborative way from 2001 onwards. But 9/11, sort of, interrupted that and I think the big impact of 9/11, the direct impact was on US policy priorities, shifting towards Afghanistan immediately, but pretty soon pivoting towards the wider Middle East, and obviously, Iraq was at the centre of that from 2002 onwards.

So, in the historical perspective, this is not long after 9/11 that the US, sort of, widened its focus in I think what people at the time often refer to as ‘ark of instability’, right, across that, sort of, part of the greater Middle East. And I think that shift in US attention towards those places meant that the US broadly didn’t want China to be too much of a problem to it. It wanted to keep China on side, as much as possible, and engaged in a more conciliatory, co-operative policy towards China, after 9/11, than perhaps it might have done had 9/11 not happened.

Of course, I realise that’s a somewhat counterfactual argument, but I think, from the Chinese perspective, this then created a bit more of a sense of strategic space. So, Yu, when you characterised it in terms of, sort of, Jiang Zemin’s agency, right, in seeking the better relationship with the US, I think that that’s right. But Jiang had sought better relations with the US throughout. This was a major theme of Chinese foreign policy for a number of years, and I think what 9/11 did, was it shifted the US perspective to one where better relations with China were much more important and it gave China that strategic space.

Now, sure, I mean, I agree with Pablo to the extent that, you know, there was a change in discourse to some extent. There was certainly a categorisation of ETIM after 9/11. There were some Chinese policy moves, but when it comes to Xinjiang, I would argue that actually, it’s the events of 2009, which are more significant in the recent development of Chinese policy towards Xinjiang. And that was the, you know, the big outbreak of violence in July that year with mass violence and rioting in Urumqi, you know, sparked by an incident in Guangdong Province, not by something that happened initially in Xinjiang. But obviously, reflecting some deep roots of, you know, problematic ethnic relations and a difficult security environment in that part of China. And I would argue that that’s the dynamic that’s, sort of, shaped rethinking of Chinese policy, in a number of areas, from, you know, ethnic minorities, the discussion of the second generation of ethnic minority policies, a more assimilationist approach towards ethnic minorities after that period. And certainly, in the early years of the 2010s, we did see quite a lot of violence, including indiscriminate attacks, not just in Xinjiang, but most notably in Kunming is 2014. I think things that justifiably can be characterised as terrorism, was the use of violence with some sort of political motivation behind them. So, I would probably cast my historical narrative in a slightly different, you know, a slightly different way from Pablo’s.

I’d say, when it comes to China’s periphery though, I mean, one of the features of China’s periphery is its complexity and its diversity, 14 land neighbours, maritime borders or maritime proximity to numerous other powers. Of course, the presence of the United States, in a number of ways, very close to China’s coastline. I mean, one of the other things that Afghanistan – one of the other things that 9/11 did was brought a US military presence close to China’s Western borders, not just in Afghanistan, but in other neighbouring countries at that point in time. That’s one thing that will have changed now, to some extent, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan perhaps changed the strategic dynamic from China’s perspective, to some extent.

But China has got this hugely complicated neighbourhood, you know, and I think what the recent developments in Afghanistan have highlighted for China is the complexity and, to some extent, the uncertainty of that neighbourhood. Now, perhaps we could say we knew that the US was planning to leave Afghanistan, in terms of its military presence at some point before too long, but, you know, this was not something over which the Chinese had control or influence. They are forced to be reactive, right, to respond to the timing and the means of the US withdrawal and what it means for both Afghanistan and its neighbours.

I mean, perhaps one other point on, sort of, periphery diplomacy, then maybe, Yu Jie, I’ll pass it back to you for, sort of, continuing the discussion, is China has some fairly, sort of, complicated set of relations with a number of Afghanistan’s neighbours and of Afghanistan’s neighbours, I think immediately after 9/11, China was really not the most important, and possibly is not the most important still. And Pakistan clearly hugely important relationship. Iran, to the West, you know, India as a near neighbour, the Stans, I mean, this is a complicated neighbourhood, and China has difficult and complicated relations with many of those. China/Iran relations very much shaped by the way that the US looks at that, and the US’s relationship with Iran. China-Pakistan, China-India, you know, that’s a complicated triangle too. So, I think this whole series of development, from China’s perspective, highlights the complexity of that neighbourhood, you know, the extent to which China has to respond to developments rather than being in a position to shape them, and that, I think, is going to continue to frame China’s challenge in dealing with the region to its West for some time.

Dr Yu Jie

Thank you, Tim. Now, just to remind the audience, if you have any burning questions, then feel free to post it on Q&A function, and we’re going to pick up your questions accordingly. Now, Tim, before I offer my comments in here, can I just ask you a follow-up question. We were talking about that China has a quite complicated set of bilateral relationships with all the Central Asia Republics and also in the – in further afar with neighbours like Iran or in Pakistan. Now, can I ask you, were you actually expecting, after 20 years, were expecting the Shanghai Corporation play a big role, in terms of that vacuum left by United States? And obviously, you said the strategic dynamic has changed since the US withdrawal, but would you consider that Shanghai Corporation will play a bigger role in searching for actual meaning of that organisation, after, again, 20 years, as well?

Dr Tim Summers

Yeah, thanks for that. I mean, I think, first of all, I would say one of the things we will definitely see in China’s approach to Afghanistan going forward is an effort to work as much as possible with Afghanistan’s neighbours, immediate neighbours and close neighbours through to the Middle East as well. And I think we’ve already seen that, in terms of the – some of the diplomacy and some of the discussions that have been held. And I think to the extent that China wants to try and influence and shape what’s going on, as much as possible the Chinese Government will look to do that in collaboration with and working with those wider regional players. And that’s a recognition that those countries all have significant sources of influence and connection with Afghanistan, and not to do so, you know, would reduce the chances of China being able to influence events in the way that it wanted to. So, I think that working with that broad neighbourhood will continue to be a key focus of China’s approach.

That doesn’t necessarily mean through the SCO though, and I think we’ve already seen in some of those contacts that, you know, a certain amount of that discussion is happening in ad hoc groupings or in groupings that are brought together through different logics than the SCO. The SCO has, certainly in the first, what, 16/17 years of its existence, certainly had fighting terrorism and extremism as a big part of its reason for existence. And I think that will continue to be the case, but perhaps with the joining of India and Pakistan, this has made the SCO larger and less effective as a body. So, I’m speculating perhaps a little bit here, but feeling that China is more likely to work through other, more ad hoc, or other regional groupings, Afghanistan specific groupings of countries in engaging with these regional issues. The SCO may be part of that, but it’s not necessarily going to be such a big part as we might think.

Dr Yu Jie

Thank you, Tim. Now, what I’ve observed, I mean, in the past month or so is that since within China the responses come in all size and shapes. Now, in social media, of course, there’s a sense of uproar that seems to be the true moment of American decline, but however, if you actually observe the Chinese official response on Afghanistan situation, it was actually quite measured, and even somehow timid in a way. So, it’s less about that sense of a schadenfreude, that China view the moment for China to shine, but instead and China feel rather puzzled and confused and what will be the next step in China what can do? So, what China has put forward to is last week, as it announced, around 300 million renminbi equivalent of economic assistance, this is not directly offered by cash, but including vaccines and as many other goods and so on and so forth. So, that sense of economic assistance, still very much keeping in mind of the Chinese authorities, so as what Pablo said, that goes hands-in-hands between the security and the economic development, that narrative has strikes on the Chinese foreign policy in opposed to the American-Afghanistan.

Now, secondly, what I found also this interesting thing regarding the Belt and Road Initiative, which none of you have mentioned so far, is that it seems to be much of the talk, I mean, from the Chinese social media or from even retired officials coming right up a commentary on New York Times by suggesting that China is ready to fill the void of building the infrastructure, as well as footing the role that taking the leadership role in rebuilding Afghanistan. But far from being the reality is that China’s appetite in building infrastructure in those really high risk countries seems to really wanting that appetite in recent years and gradually. So, even though the Chinese authorities and those of the Chinese state-owned companies know the substantial amount of rare earth and minerals that be able to explore in Afghanistan. But throughout in the past few years or so, the Chinese authority and the state-owned enterprises have never really committed anything substantial, in terms of investment and clearly, are really aware that economic cost of building something substantial, building something really meaningful, was in a far off country.

Now, another key element what I found was in Chinese responses on Afghanistan and also on the wider region, it is about even though China declared it is interested in bring all international partners come to begin to talk about the rebuilding of Afghanistan, but however, with UN Security Council, even though such a discussion does exist, and China has only support nominally on the Russia’s proposal on Afghanistan. So, I clearly see a division here, in terms of the rhetoric and also, in terms of the substance, or the substantial support towards whether – how China is going to rebuild Afghanistan or whether they want to including more and more so-called international partner to rebuild Afghanistan within the space.

Having set up that, I think part of the core reason why China is now shrinking its appetite, in terms of extending itself into those high risk countries, I think partially, it is to do with China’s overwrought domestic priority that much of the economic resources have now been redistributed back to building back the economic resilience domestically. And the less so hoping that state-owned enterprises would expand its financial support, like what they have done in the past few years, that extended into geopolitically risky area such as in Ural and in Pakistan.

So, it is very much a developing space, but I’m also expecting that post-US, post-September 11, Afghanistan, for China, it is not just a test for China’s notion on security vis-à-vis economic developments, but it’s also, I would say, it’s a sea change on China’s economic assistant policy that less willing to commit in the high risk areas and instead, and much of the resources will be given back home and also, are looking for much bigger monetary return, in terms of building infrastructures. So, that’s my economic takes on China’s involvement in Afghanistan in the years to come.

Now, another key elephant in the room, which we haven’t discussed here, is the role of United States and obviously, as we know, the two countries are not in the particular moments that enjoyed the company of each other, and the Presidency and President Biden have not really met each other, apart from two very cold phone calls, and which didn’t really result in any substantial collaboration, or so on and so forth.

Now, 20 years ago, Jiang Zemin has managed to get hold of George Bush and managed to secure at least 15 years of reasonable diplomatic ties with Washington, and do we consider of this moment of history that maybe Presidency will take the opportunity and working on a similar pattern and offer olive branch towards President Biden and therefore, resettle the relationship between Beijing and Washington? So, feel free to refer any of your thoughts. Pablo?

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Well, I’m not very optimistic in that sense. I think because of the very fact that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is because of a broader strategic move, global war on terror is finished, nothing to do there, we are now moving towards Indo-Pacific, and the very essence of that [inaudible – 35:22] is one of great power competition. So, I would rather look to see if, well, if some sort of, yeah, co-operation could be achieved in the realm of the Indo-Pacific region, in the South China Sea, etc.. But, yeah, if we look at the very, very recent developments, you have to think about yeah, past 24 hours, it doesn’t look like we are working towards, you know, we are seeing a road towards an olive branch again and an era of harmonious relationships between the US and China.

I think that rather, as a country, Afghanistan signals the end of that global war on terror, but it’s not finished, but the end of the global war on terror having a primordial prominent, dominant, I would say, place, as you mentioned earlier, in the US foreign policy towards a neo-paradigm of great power competition where China certainly emerges. Don’t know still if it’s in the form of a Cold War or something else, but it emerges as the other pole now, against which the US is trying to find some, to strike some balance. So, the answer would be no, or – but, again, we need to wait and also like, before I finish, to connect these two to the domestic arena, maybe a change in Chinese leadership could certainly turn the tide in a matter of weeks, months, and everything.

Dr Yu Jie

Well, we shall see what will happen next year when there’s another round of leadership reshuffle within China, which is the 20th Party Congress. Anyway, I take your answer as seems to be a negative one, and, Tim, where are you stand on this one?

Dr Tim Summers

Yeah, I mean, likewise, I don’t see any prospect really of improved US-China ties at the moment and I don’t see any prospect for change in Chinese leadership either. And I’m not sure how – you know, I don’t think Afghanistan, the latest developments in Afghanistan, provide any sort of opportunity for a reset either. I mean, if anything, from the US perspective, it highlights the, sort of, you know, the insecurities, right, that the US is going through as its withdrawing from Afghanistan. This has not been a happy experience for the US one way or another. I don’t think that is therefore going to incline Biden or the administration to reach out more to countries with which they don’t have a good relationship at the moment. I don’t think, you know, Xi doesn’t see any sense of softening in US policy towards China, so I don’t think there’s much space for him to create opportunities either. I mean, if anything, you know, this could even lead to a hardening of US approaches. It puts China higher on the US’s relative list of strategic priorities, in terms of resources and so on. So, we could even see a further deterioration, but not directly as the result of the pull out of Afghanistan, more I think as a result of the wider forces, as Pablo says, sort of great power competition mentality that has really, I think, taken over the strategic environment at the moment.

Dr Yu Jie

Thank you, Tim. Now, I turn the questions to the audience and now could I invite Fernando Herrero to ask his question? Fernando, please, turn your camera on and sorry, turn your microphone on.

Fernando Herrero

Hello.

Dr Yu Jie

Hello, yes, we can hear you. Please.

Fernando Herrero

Okay, so the – my question is about the recent news that we have read in the newspapers about some sectors within the Tory Party, at least I name Iain Duncan Smith and others, blocking the participation of the Chinese Ambassador to the UK in some House of Commons events, what – is this a big thing, is this a small thing, within the general anti-China, I think, attitude in the UK? Thank you.

Dr Yu Jie

Who would like to take this one? Tim.

Dr Tim Summers

Sure. Well, I think, you know, it’s very much reflective of what I can see of the mood in Westminster when it comes to China matters. I’m based here in Hong Kong, so I see this from a distance, but actually, relatively recently, I read most of the Parliamentary debates that this Parliament has held on China, so going back to the beginning of 2020, and it’s an unrelentingly negative picture of China and there are almost nobody in Parliament who does not stand up and make a negative critical comment. Of course, many Parliamentarians don’t speak, so you have a proportion of people who are vocal on these issues, but the mood there, it’s pretty negative. Probably not just in the Conservative Party, but also the Labour Party, the Labour Party front bench, some prominent Liberal Democrat MPs who have been very outspokenly critical on China. I’m not, you know, I’m not saying this to judge whether their views are correct or justified or not, this is just an observation, but that political mood is very negative.

Now, to be sure, it’s not universal, like there are people in the Parliamentary world, in the political world who don’t share that view. We can see that too from either public statements or other discussions, but I think, you know, in that – in this context, there’s no political benefit for people to, you know, to be soft on China when it comes to this sort of thing. There’s only political plaudits to be gained from being tough and from appearing to be tough, and I think that’s what’s driving a lot of this at the moment.

Of course, from the British constitutional perspective, Parliament is separate from the government, you know, this is not a government decision. But in Chinese perspectives, Parliament is part of the political structure of the country, so I think this is seen not just, sort of, symbolically, but potentially as a very negative statement really about how the UK’s political institutions view China. So, there could be some further things to come in this story, I suspect, over time.

Dr Yu Jie

Pablo, please, yeah.

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Sure, yeah, I mean, just to build on that, I think that this was a reaction against the previous sanctioning of British MPs by the Chinese Government, but, yeah, it is a good example of, well, what Tim said, this is a transpartisan, I would say, current trend of negative – not negative, but somehow a reactive and more assertive positions against China. And it is very interesting to see how things have deteriorated from the – since the declaration of the so-called Golden Era of UK-China relations a few years ago, like 2016, 15/16, and where we are now. We’ve certainly – British Politicians being among the most active and outspoken MPs in Europe, I would say, when it comes to certain Chinese policies, such as those related to Xinjiang. Yeah, I think that it requires a proper analysis of what has happened over the past five years, especially in China, but also, at the domestic level to see that certainly that huge change from a Golden Era into certainly a much more assertive action, you know, to somehow criticise and try to monitor what China is doing, with regards to human rights. And I think that this is something also that has even become more accentuated, following the COVID-19 pandemic and the events not even past five years.

I mean, if you think about the past, yeah, 15 months, there’s been a real change in the tide when you observe how at some point the UK was one of the countries, which was willing to accept Huawei as a provider of certain telecommunications technology, and then it changed and to the other side, so – but, as Tim mentioned, these are a matter of Parliament, you know, and Parliament making basically, I think, expressing its feelings about the previous banning of British – or sanctions, I think, of British MPs.

Dr Yu Jie

Thank you for this. Just a notification here, both Tim and I contributed to the recent House of Lords International Committee Report on UK-China relations, so you can find all answers regarding why this Golden Era has now been dismantled one-by-one.

Now, I have two questions coming from the audience. Now, could I invite Trisha to ask her question, please? Trisha, would you turn up your microphone, asking your question?

Trisha de Borchgrave

Sorry, can you hear me?

Dr Yu Jie

Yes, I can hear you, yeah, Trisha de Borchgrave, please.

Trisha de Borchgrave

Yeah, no, I think it’s really interesting, there was an article recently, I think there was an op-ed in The New York Times about the fact that the US has, I think, conclusively renewed its focus on the Indo-Pacific region, following the fact that it has, you know, put, if you like, a line across the Afghanistan debark and is this in a way going to help perhaps calm the aggression that China has been showing towards Taiwan, because this is now almost a much more real situation in the sense it’s not just playing games? I mean, if America decides to really focus on this, is this a way to calm down that aggression? Thank you.

Dr Yu Jie

Okay, and there’s another question come from my colleague, Alastair Burnett, and he suggested – he asked, “What could the United States have done differently in its China policy, given the constraint of September 11, and what lesson could actually that Washington could be learning now on this current policy towards Beijing?” So, feel free to choose either questions, please. Tim.

Dr Tim Summers

Yeah, thank you, and they’re both big and difficult topics. I mean, I’m firstly, sort of, inclined to make an observation about the Indo-Pacific, ‘cause the Indo-Pacific is a somewhat, I think, still contested concept, and so, it’s boundaries are defined differently by different people, depending what focus they’ve got. But perhaps one could argue that, taken broadly, the Indo-Pacific does include Afghanistan. It certainly, you know, stretches in that direction, so, you know, a focus on the Indo-Pacific, if it’s really a focus on the Indo-Pacific, should go much more broadly. But the reality is, a focus on the Indo-Pacific, to a large extent, means a US focus on pushing back against China, on what the Chinese call containment, on building alliances, and we’ve seen just over the last day the Australia-UK-US statement, the joint statement which, you know, is another example of this, sort of, trying to build a group of countries, or groups of countries, to push back against China, and one that seems to have sparked a certain amount of initial controversy, in relation to France, in particular, and not going to be easy, perhaps either within Australasia.

As for Taiwan, I think from Chinese perspectives, the problem is as much as anything that the US has been shifting its approach towards Taiwan, over recent years. You know, going back to the Trump phone call in late 2016, but moving through to things like recent visits by US military aircraft to Taiwan, the talk of thickening up relations, even, you know, the sort of leaked reports about whether the US might take more significant steps towards forming some sort of official relations with Taiwan in one way or another, is clearly a debated space within the Washington policy community, you know, along with the debates about strategic clarity versus strategic ambiguity, you know, would the US say clearly it was going to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of any military conflict. So, there’s a big debate here, I think, not just about China’s approach, but about the US’s approach to Taiwan, and China’s approach to Taiwan is, of course, very much derivative of what the US tries to do and the US shifts its rhetoric, shifts its policy, that also leads China to shift the way that it talks about Taiwan too. So, these are, I think, very complicated interconnected things. I don’t see much chance of calming though, Trisha, to come to your question. Calming seems to me again unlikely, I think, assuming we don’t want conflict, and the best we can hope for is some sort of broad continuity and the status quo and things not to get worse, but I wouldn’t be any more optimistic than that.

Dr Yu Jie

Pablo, please.

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Yeah, well, I mean, with regards to the question about what could the US have done differently? Well, I think that, in hindsight, and it’s very easy to say, obviously, after 20 years, I mean, it was very clearly, I think since the very beginning, the logic of the global war on terror, on the narrative, just ended up resulting in propelled from the West we want. Ended up resulting in many, many authoritarian regimes, using this narrative to crack down on their own pre-existing domestic local insurgencies with dynamics that had absolutely nothing to do with international terrorism or, at best, were not properly explained just by looking at global jihadism and things like that. We could see that that has happened in many countries, happened in China, of course, it happened in Morocco, it happened in Sri Lanka, it happened in Russia. There were many examples of authoritarian regimes bandwagoning into the global war on terror narrative for their own purposes, and I think that US Government and other actors in the West, they were not critical enough or they didn’t want probably to be critical enough because they required that support for their counterterrorism endeavours. So, yeah, that could have been done definitely different in that sense, so much more nuanced and conscious approach to the power of discourse, I would say.

And then, with regards to Taiwan, it’s quite interesting, the question, because what we see as part of the – we have seen some interventions in the Chinese State media, I think, like, well, look at Afghanistan, this is a good example for Taiwan, when the moment come the US is not going to be there, something like that. So, it’s interesting how all of this is being played at the very information, disinformation narrative level.

Obviously, broadly speaking on the tilt, the shift, the pivot to Asia, to the Indo-Pacific, that, as Tim mentioned, that construct that we don’t really know where it starts, how much it has to do with the Indian Ocean, but rather more with the Pacific, or are we talking about the Taiwan Straits, it’s not going to be a calming move, because a calming move probably would be just not doing nothing and just let China continue with the strategy that the Chinese leaders want, in what they consider it’s the region of influence, and here we enter into a, sort of, you know, the possibility of a great concert where China could do whatever they please, you know, as long as they don’t cross into spheres of influence of other blocs. But Taiwan certainly stands as the stress test in – on whether – to what extent China is willing or not to put pressure on international law and the use of force eventually, or not, as it grows, as it expands its power, and, yeah, it’s to watch out and to watch out not only from China, from the Chinese perspective, where this is a question that is really, really ingrained in, I think, in the national imaginary, in the objectives of the party, the reunification. But also, as Tim mentioned, even the US, you know, and that ties to that comment will the US, or the West, more broadly speaking, be there if military action was to happen? Which, at the same time, I think, again, there’s a lot of political discourse coming and going, threats, communication, but the real possibility of military action, I think, is not that immediate. Again, I am speculating here, but I think there is a bit of a hyperinflation there, but, well, as it was mentioned at some point, uncertainty is the factor that somehow rein over international politics, and we cannot really predict what will happen or not.

Dr Yu Jie

Just one on Taiwan, I mean, Tim – both Tim and Pablo was absolutely right, this sense of China’s Taiwan policy is a derivative or the response, a direct response on what America have chosen to do.

Now, another very interesting element, which has been developed on the 1st of July this year, during the time of the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its centenary. Now, the President, he clearly indicated that for China in order to complete this second centenaries goal by 2049, and China will become more than a rich prosperous countries and that would also include unified countries. So, this almost give you a sense of de facto timeline that perhaps by the time of 2049, and the Taiwan situation will probably have a significant changes. So, keep your eyes on that space and keep that mind and the timelines in mind.

Now, other two questions in here, one is related to another pair of the great power relations, which we haven’t touched upon in here is, after the US withdrawal in Afghanistan and would we actually consider that the dynamics between Beijing and Moscow would change, are they going to get ever closer or are they going to diverge against each other? Anyone?

Dr Tim Summers

Well, I mean, perhaps the short answer, just to say, I think they’re likely to get closer rather than they are to diverge, and that is partly because of the broader context within which both China and Russia find themselves, of more difficult relations with the US and the West. And then, there’s, obviously, some overlaps of interests in the, sort of, in the immediate region, particularly when it comes to security issues. So, I would expect they would shift in the direction of getting closer after this, rather than getting cooler or further apart.

Dr Yu Jie

Okay, so indifference. Pablo.

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Nothing to add. I cannot see why it could be – it would have a negative impact in the bilateral relationship, moreover when we look into the fact that, well, they are both founding members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, and somehow Russia is accommodating to the Belt and Road Initiative, even if there were somehow tensions at the beginning. So, I think that – but, yeah, I see more space for collaboration, if anything.

Dr Yu Jie

Great, more space and more co-operation. Now, there’s another question, I think we can all answer for this one, “And what future does the panel see for any Chinese provision, regarding humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan?” I mean, I’ve said earlier, Beijing already initial offered 300 million equivalent renminbi amount of goods and products, and including vaccine, so that’s already an initial offering. Now, the following up, I don’t know whether China would participate in some kind of international mechanism that offering humanitarian assistance towards Afghanistan or China would prefer to do it bilaterally, like what it has done in the past.

Now, and also come to the relations between Beijing and the Taliban, that really, again, strikes me as being an interesting element that for that last many years or so that China continue to talk to the both side of the Afghanistan Government. So talking to both incumbent government of that time, but also, have a discussion with Taliban. Now, this is really peculiar on the Chinese foreign policy that really, in the troubled areas, in the risky countries, never really take a side, but always make sure it speak to everyone and that is equally applied for China’s relationship with many of the MENA countries as well.

Now, regarding humanitarian assistance, anyone else would like to adding anything else?

Dr Tim Summers

Yeah, I mean, I think I broadly agree with you, Yu Jie. I mean, there’s a pragmatic approach in Chinese foreign policy. I mean, there are some issues where that might be challenged, talking to both sides on Taiwan, for example, if Taiwan policy is something that could be a red line there. But I think the Chinese Government will take a pragmatic approach, they’ll take a cautious approach, as you said before, when it comes to economic areas, and they will look to support development, which I think the idea of promoting development in Afghanistan is quite a big theme of what Chinese officials so far have said about policy towards Afghanistan. I think when they spend money in Afghanistan, they will be spent on development primarily, it won’t be spent on security. There won’t be a military presence. There’s not going to be any drone strikes from the Chinese, so we will see their contribution, I think, being one that is now positive for development. How big that is, is difficult to say at this stage, but, yeah, and perhaps I’ll leave it there.

Dr Yu Jie

Last words from you, Pablo.

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino

Yeah, well, I just say the same, I think China sees the current situation as an opportunity to show that, yeah, that China in Afghanistan is going to be different from the US in Afghanistan, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. So, yeah, as Tim suggested, I can’t see military involvement, that would be really a surprise because that’s the main benchmark to show, no, we come with development, we come with the Belt and Road Initiative, we are not here with boots on the ground, which, as it has been proved over history, it’s not something that the Afghan people like at all. And just to build on your point, Yu, about the act of ambiguity that China has always played in Afghanistan, this was also the case right before 9/11 when the Taliban, back in the day, and the second part of the 90s, were an isolated regime with the international scene. I think only Pakistan maybe had some sort of official relationship.

Well, China was somehow having a very covert presence, but trying to – actually, to close deals related to development, to infrastructures, etc., obviously right after 9/11. “No, no, we have nothing to do with this region or anything,” but they were some sort of war. So we could say that China never really – okay, obviously, it was interrupted, but never really totally broke its relationship with the Taliban, over the past 20 years, to a certain extent.

Dr Yu Jie

Right, well, certainly history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. 20 years on, perhaps one thing that China has learned is that never really overstretch yourself in area which you are not familiar with and that perhaps one of the key lesson that China has learned it from United States and certainly, this will resonate very much in Beijing.

Now, let me thank for my two brilliant co-panellists and Professor Tim Summers and Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Merino from the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst. Also, please allow me to thanks for all the speakers today and all the audience for your brilliant question, and I hope to see you again very soon, hopefully, physically. Thank you. Bye, bye.

Dr Tim Summers

Thank you.