Читать книгу The World According to China - Elizabeth C. Economy - Страница 15

China’s unwillingness to put its sovereignty conflict with Taiwan aside in 2020 was indicative of a much larger strategic push by Beijing to reinforce its sovereignty claims while other countries were preoccupied with the pandemic. Most notably, it implemented a politically repressive National Security Law in Hong Kong; continued its detention of more than one million Uyghur Muslims in labor and reeducation camps in the country’s westernmost region, Xinjiang; and deployed its naval and other military forces across the South and East China Seas, threatening Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. As we will see in chapter 3, it also sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat and named more than 80 features in the South China Sea, 55 of which were underwater. China and India also engaged in their first deadly border conflict in more than four decades.

Criticism of China’s coercive political and aggressive military behavior mounted, particularly in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia. India banned a wide array of popular Chinese apps; Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada levied sanctions against Chinese officials and entities for their actions in Xinjiang; and many countries revised their decision to allow Huawei components or software in their 5G networks. Global public opinion polls indicated that distrust in Xi Jinping’s motivations and ambitions was rising precipitously (see Figure 1.2).⁶⁸ Yet Chinese officials did not relent. In fact, in the face of the Xinjiang sanctions, they retaliated against a number of European entities, jeopardizing an investment deal with Europe that had been seven years in the making. It was an important signal both of the relative weight of sovereignty as opposed to trade and investment among China’s strategic priorities, and of Beijing’s willingness to tolerate significant disequilibrium in the international system in pursuit of a new steady state: a reunified and politically insulated China.