The USA is forcing the EU’s hand on the matter of forced labor. In the future, the Americans plan to have goods confiscated at the border if their clean origin cannot be definitively verified. Europe now fears that it will be the global dumping ground for products manufactured with forced labor. The ethically correct solution is to conduct own inspections. Amelie Richter describes what the European Parliament has decided in this regard.
However, a resolution alone will not make the situation any clearer. China rejects any accusation of forced labor in Xinjiang and, in turn, points to human trafficking in the USA and the EU. Moreover, supply chains are intricately intertwined, especially at their origins. Where did the cotton in this T-shirt come from, who supplied the silicon for this solar cell? Soon, companies and customs will have to deal with such complex questions. In the end, this could perhaps provide an impetus for shifting procurement back to the EU’s domestic market.
Conflicts also continue over the use of the oceans. China deems the South China Sea to be its territorial waters. The People’s Liberation Army’s South Sea Fleet continues to expand rapidly and now has a permanently designated aircraft carrier, the Shandong. Therefore, gaining access to the Ream naval base in Cambodia would be a major breakthrough for China’s hegemonic strategy, Michael Radunski reports. So far, China denies any plans to station ships here on a large scale. But the Chinese-funded expansion is already enough to raise the stress level of geostrategists in Washington, Tokyo, and even Berlin.
China also grounds its claim to supremacy on the historical superiority of its own civilization. So Johnny Erling takes a look at Xi Jinping’s very own view on history in today’s column. While people in Shanghai are stuck in lockdown at home, trade numbers are plummeting and no way out of the Covid crisis can be found, the Politburo is exploring the question: How old is China’s civilization? The Party’s commissioned scientists give the only valid answer: Even older than previously expected, namely 5,000 years. Because the more years, the more legitimacy.
According to EU figures, around 25 million people worldwide work in conditions that could be classified as forced labor. In countries such as China, these modern-day slaves pick cotton for clothing, harvest fruit and vegetables, or assemble electrical components. These goods then end up in the hands of European consumers. This is set to change. The European Parliament puts pressure on the executive EU Commission: In the fall, a long-requested draft law for an import and export ban on products from forced labor is to finally see the light of day in Brussels’ bureaucracy.
EU MEPs presented their legislative recommendations on Thursday. They demand that the import of products from forced labor and child labor should already be stopped at the EU borders. The definition of forced labor shall be set according to the guidelines of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Products will then be sorted out using several criteria:
According to the recommendation of the EU Parliament
Thus, the responsibility lies with the importer. According to the EU Parliament’s draft, the importer bears the burden of proof and must prove that no forced labor or child labor was used in the production and transport of goods in question. Otherwise, the cargo will remain seized. To help importers, the European Parliament calls for a publicly available list of already sanctioned companies, regions and producers. Small and medium-sized companies are to receive extra help in implementing the new regulations.
The proposal received a large majority in Thursday’s vote in the EU Parliament. “Today, the European Parliament is signaling that it no longer wants the EU to be complicit with the Chinese totalitarian regime, which has been perpetuating a crime against humanity in the Xinjiang province for five years,” said Green Party European politician Reinhard Buetikofer after the vote.
Dubravka Šuica, Vice President of the EU Commission and responsible for Democracy and Demography, stressed in plenary that a legislative proposal from the Brussels authority would follow after the summer break. However, due to the tight schedule, an impact assessment would no longer be possible, Šuica said. EU MEPs had called for a draft law in a debate on the issue in September – exactly one year after EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced the import ban in her State of the European Union speech (Table.Media reported). It was originally supposed to become part of the EU supply chain legislation. However, due to disputes over jurisdiction, the project was shelved.
However, the EU will now also face time pressure because an important legal change is due to take place on the other side of the Atlantic later this month: As of June 21, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) will come into force in the United States. Import bans on cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang are already in place. However, UFLPA will further restrict the import of goods from the region.
The US legislation includes:
This means that the US legislation goes one step further than the EU Parliament’s proposal, as all goods from Xinjiang are stopped at the US border by default and are only cleared once it has been proven that no forced labor was involved in their production. Taking the stricter US approach as a template was rejected by the EU’s Directorate-General for Trade in the past (China.Table reported). To what extent the Brussels authority will follow the recommendations from the EU Parliament is open.
However, the UFLPA will also affect Europe: “It is extremely high-risk that the EU is going to become a dumping ground for Uyghur forced labor goods,” Chloe Cranston of the NGO Anti-Slavery International told China.Table. So anything that can no longer be sold in the United States is sent to the EU market. According to Cranston, this strategy is not completely new. For example, this could already be observed in cotton or the solar industry. That’s why the organization is calling for equally strong legislation in all countries.
Otherwise, Cranston warns, there is a risk that the value chains will split up, with a “clean” supply chain for goods to the US and one for other regions where products from production using forced labor are not yet traced and sorted out as rigorously. The situation in the EU would be further complicated by the fact that customs data is not publicly available.
Meanwhile, the US also tries to exert pressure on China through the ILO. At the annual conference of the Labor Organization, which will end on Saturday in Geneva after almost two weeks, the US delegation, alongside other Western countries, called for an investigation of the forced labor allegations by an expert committee. But since China is a member of the ILO executive, it will be difficult to issue a corresponding mandate.
China’s ambassador Wang Wentian vigorously rams a red spade into the sandy soil of the Cambodian coast. At his side is Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Tea Banh, who then also grabs a shovel. The diplomat and the military want to show through their unusual manual labor effort: From now on, China and Cambodia will be moving into the future together. It was a special groundbreaking ceremony which the two celebrated last Wednesday. It marks the beginning of the modernization of the Ream naval base on the Cambodian coast – and Wang is already in the midst of a double play.
On the one hand, he praises the project as a major achievement for relations between China and Cambodia. On the other hand, however, he is forced to dismiss the construction project as a simple overhaul project that is not directed against third parties. Because while both China and Cambodia celebrate their port project, the US is angered. “An exclusive PRC military presence at Ream could threaten Cambodia’s autonomy and undermine regional security,” said Chad Roedemeier, spokesman for the US Embassy in Phnom Penh. Washington fears China could not only modernize the base on the Gulf of Thailand, but also use it for the Chinese military.
Both Cambodia and China strongly deny such accusations. “Don’t worry too much, the Ream base is very small… It won’t pose a threat to anyone, anywhere,” Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Banh said on Wednesday, adding, “We need to upgrade our base to protect our nation, territory and sovereignty.”
The Chinese side is more clear: Ambassador Wang blustered that some countries were always criticizing and slandering the regular cooperation between China and Cambodia. Rather, he said, these countries had imposed unilateral sanctions on Cambodia to grossly interfere in Cambodia’s internal affairs under the guise of democracy and protection of human rights. This is a reference to the United States, which indeed imposed sanctions and an arms embargo on Cambodia a few months ago. The reasons at the time: corruption, human rights violations – and the growing influence of the Chinese military in the Southeast Asian country.
Just a few days ago, the US newspaper Washington Post reported that China was secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military. The report claims the naval base will be equipped with a maintenance workshop, two piers, a dry dock, a slipway and facilities for docking larger ships. Western officials had told the newspaper that the base would be built for the “sole use” of the Chinese navy. Accordingly, a Chinese official had even confirmed that “part of the base” in Cambodia would be used by the Chinese military.
So far, China has only maintained a naval base overseas in Djibouti (China.Table reported). A base in Cambodia would thus mark only its second outpost. By comparison, the United States has hundreds of bases spread around the world. In a conversation with China.Table, John Brandford of the Maritime Security Program at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore explains how China might justify a new base in Cambodia: “Just as Beijing heralded the utility of its Djibouti and South China Sea bases in responding to disasters and conducting humanitarian missions, it would likely argue that bases located in the Gulf of Thailand would allow closer staging to some locations where those threats are likely.”
In fact, despite its strong economic presence in the Gulf of Thailand, China has not been a major player in regional disaster management. According to Bradford, while a Chinese base in Cambodia will have serious consequences in the region, it is not a game-changer in China’s favor.
Malcolm Davis takes a different view. In an interview with China.Table, the scientist from the renowned Australian Strategic Policy Institute points out that the facility in Cambodia has a completely new dimension. It would be the first Chinese base in the strategically important Indo-Pacific region – and thus perfectly fitting for China’s strategic goal: control over the South China Sea.
It fits the picture: For years, China has been filling up reefs in the South China Sea, constructing runways and bases. A few weeks ago, it signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands (China.Table reported). Just last week, a similar venture was attempted on islands in the Western Pacific – and failed (China.Table reported). Now follows the push into Cambodia. “Forward deployed naval capability from Ream allows Beijing to more easily control the eastern exit/entry to the Malacca Straits – a key strategic waterway and to defend Chinese bases in the South China Sea.”
Davis primarily identifies domestic political reasons for Cambodia’s decision to allow the Chinese presence. He says the country has aligned its future with China’s rise. “Hun Sen is deep in Beijing’s pocket – elite capture – and his country’s participation in the BRI means it is susceptible to Chinese debt-trap diplomacy.” Cambodia has long been a Chinese vassal, Davis says. China has been the largest investor in Cambodia for years. “Beijing keeps Hun Sen in power in return for his compliance.”
A shift in Cambodia’s political orientation away from the USA and toward China has been apparent for quite some time. When Phnom Penh deported Uyghur asylum seekers to China in 2010 and the US subsequently suspended the delivery of 200 military vehicles, China quickly stepped in – providing the Cambodian military with 257 vehicles and fifty thousand uniforms. Since December 2016, China and Cambodia have held regular joint military exercises under the designation “Golden Dragon,” while at almost the same time they ended the Angkor Sentinel exercises with the United States after seven years.
That leaves the question of how the base will be used. So far, only a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony has been held. The modernization of the Ream base is scheduled to be finalized in two years. Until then, the denials from Phnom Penh and Beijing will probably prevail. But lately, China has accumulated a long list of falsehoods – from alleged training camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang to natural coral reefs in the South China Sea that suddenly resemble bases with quay walls and missile launchers.
And against this backdrop, one statement made by Ambassador Wang at Wednesday’s joint groundbreaking ceremony in Cambodia is particularly striking here: “As a strong pillar of the iron-clad partnership, China-Cambodia military cooperation is in the fundamental interests of our two nations and two peoples.” It sounds like a diplomatic backdoor that could swing open in two years.
China’s 25 most powerful officials, including only one woman, gathered in the palace of the once-imperial Zhongnanhai Park, in the heart of Beijing. Party leader Xi Jinping had summoned his Politburo and its Standing Committee to the lakeside compound, which was turned into the CP’s headquarters in 1949. China’s inner circle convened until late in the evening of May 27.
The illustrious circle did not gather to discuss crisis management, although on this day Shanghai continued to fight the pandemic, and Beijing feared it would be the next metropolis to go into lockdown. Nor was the international collateral damage threatening China for its silent consent of Putin’s attack on Ukraine as much a topic or the downward spiral of the economy.
Instead, the Party brass – as if they were living in a bubble – listened visibly nonchalant to the remarks of Beijing historian and guest speaker Wang Wei (王巍). Afterward, Xi recapped the latter’s presentation. China’s TV channels featured everyone obediently taking notes. The elite had sat down for their so-called 39th group study session, to which CP leader Xi has been regularly summoning his Politburo every four to six weeks since the last Party Congress in 2017. Its agenda was set by a seemingly otherworldly, academic question: How old is China’s civilization, really?
Wang Wei, president of the Society for Archaeology, gave a report on the project for researching the origins of China’s civilization (中华文明探源工程), which he has been leading since 2001. The 400 scientists involved were said to have gained new insights into the Yangshao culture along the Yellow River, discovered in 1921, which is one of the earliest Neolithic cultures known to mankind (7000 to 4700 BC). Excavations at the ruins of Liangzhu near Hangzhou (5300 to 4300 BC) would have revealed how complex the earlier urban settlement was organized. In 2019, UNESCO included the site in its World Heritage List. Further discoveries at the Erlitou site, found in 1959 in central China’s Henan, seem to confirm earlier assumptions that Erlitou may have been a sub-center of the Xia reign (2070 to 1600 BC), the legendary first dynasty in the Middle Kingdom, whose existence has so far not been truly archaeologically proven.
But Xi triumphed: China’s researchers would have provided factual evidence “of my country’s millions of years of human history, its ten thousand years of cultural history and its more than 5,000 years of civilization history”. (实证了我国百万年的人类史、一万年的文化史、五千多年的文明史。中华文明探源工程成绩显著。)
For decades, scientists from all academic disciplines have been trying to pin down the origins of Chinese civilization on behalf of the Party. Historians, however, stand by their assessment, reporting about “more than 3,000 years” that can still be dated and documented with the writing on oracle bones from that time.
The Party wants to change this narrative. China’s civilization is unique in the world. There are older cultural societies, such as the Egyptians with their hieroglyphics, which date back 8,000 years. But those ancient empires were declining. China would be different, Xi said: “Its civilization is the only one in the world that has been able to continue without interruption until today.” (中华文明是世界上唯一自古延续至今、从未中断的文明). Aside from national pride, this is also a political and cultural asset for him to exploit. He cited, for example, the ties Beijing wants to forge with the 50 million expatriate Chinese around the world.
Xi demonstrated just how much the issue of periodization means to him during the first visit to Beijing by then-US President Donald Trump on November 8, 2017.
As the first foreign dignitary, Trump was to meet Xi immediately after the end of the 19th Party Congress, which had further extended Xi’s powers. Xi then prepared a spectacular imperial reception for Mr. and Mrs. Trump. Donald and Melania were taken directly from the airport to the cordoned-off imperial palace, where Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan gave them a four-hour tour of all the palaces from 3:30 PM to 7:30 PM and entertained them in courtly fashion. China’s television recorded one of their dialogues. It was first about the 300-year history of the United States. Trump told Xi he had heard that “China has a 5,000-year-old civilization.” Xi responded by referring to a verifiable recorded history of “over 3,000 years”. However, he said, its civilization could be traced “back 5,000 years or even earlier”.
When Trump referred to Egypt and its “8,000 years of culture,” Xi replied, “Yes, Egypt is older. But China’s civilization is the only, oldest civilization in the world continuously preserved to this day.” Trump asked if it was still “an original culture today” and was answered, “We are the original people. We have the same black hair and the same yellow skin. We call ourselves descendants of the dragon”. (是原来的人。黑头发、黄皮肤，传承下来，我们叫龙的传人。)
That China claims a civilization “more than 5,000 years old” has been Xi’s credo since he took office in 2012. Shortly before the 20th Party Congress at the end of 2022, which is expected to enable his third re-election and set the course for a “new era of socialism under Xi’s leadership” and the resurrection of the nation, Xi is reaching back to culture. China is special in this regard, he said during the study session: “The Chinese nation has taken a course of development that is different from other civilizations.”
All Party media in the country published synopses of Xi’s teachings to his Politburo. Detached from the lowlands of reality, he seeks to draw recipes for the nation’s rise from the past as well. He revives the old Mao saying to “let the past serve the present” (要坚持古为今用). He repeatedly rambles about “the nation’s cultural gene,” which “is also a spiritual force to realize the great resurrection of the nation.” Because Xi is aware of the fears China’s rise triggers abroad, he also speaks of the “cultural gene of peace”. Beijing must “tell the narrative about China’s civilization well from China’s soil, and convey a trustworthy, lovable and respectable image of China to the world”. (要立足中国大地，讲好中华文明故事，向世界展现可信、可爱、可敬的中国形象。)
It was the second time Xi made his obsession with a “more than 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization” the focus of a Politburo meeting. On September 28, 2020, he demanded to mobilize China’s archaeology to prove it. In the process, he spoke of the inherited “cultural gene” that the nation “uses every day without being aware of it”. (中华民族日用而不觉的文化基因。)
As a correspondent in Beijing, I have twice witnessed the failed political attempt to re-periodize Chinese civilization in the Party’s image. In November 2000, after five years of interdisciplinary research, 200 scholars claimed they could accurately date China’s legendary first three dynasties of the Xia, Shang and Zhou and chronologically list all the ruling houses. The Xia would have ruled from 2070 to 1600 BC, the Shang until 1046 BC and the Zhou until 771 BC. Thus, China’s civilization history was verifiably over 4,000 years old, the People’s Daily rejoiced at the time. It quickly turned out that the researchers came to their verdict only through conclusions, deductions and re-examinations of already known sources.
In 2010, Beijing made another attempt. In a spectacular exhibit, the capital’s museum displayed 400 ancient artifacts from excavations, most of which had never been shown before. But Wang Wei, the curator at the time and the same archaeologist who addressed the Politburo in late May, backpedaled. Although the Party press claimed that the history of Chinese civilization needed to be rewritten, academics in charge at the time called the exhibition a tribute to 60 years of archaeological work since the founding of the Institute of Archaeology in 1950, and said it was not intended to spark a new debate on the periodization of Chinese history.
There is no shortage of Chinese excavations in recent years that have unearthed countless finds, fantastic bronzes, jade ornaments, and spectacular cultural artifacts. They discovered early human settlements, burial sites, hydraulic engineering, rice and agricultural cultivation. China’s archaeologists, however, adhere to the same criteria as their foreign colleagues when they speak of a unified civilization. These include evidence of larger cities, a faith system, infrastructural work, social stratification in the society of the time, and a developed writing system. Many of the excavations revealed former regionally developed advanced civilizations. But they apparently did not yet constitute a unified Chinese civilization.
The problem, as with all of China’s sciences, lies in their political appropriation. To legitimize his and his Party’s absolute rule over China, Xi embeds his century-old Party in the succession of modern Chinese and socialist development all the way back to the “more than 5,000-year history of the development of Chinese civilization”. In his “grand historical perspective” (大历史观), everything is “of the same piece for him, looking to the past as well as to the future” (既向过去看，又向未来看), write Marxist social scientists.
But what if it cannot be proven that China’s civilizational history is as old and as particularly different as Xi hopes? At the very least, he raises the question rhetorically in the Politburo, “Then what would be special about China if it does not have a Chinese civilization that is more than 5,000 years old? Then how could we successfully follow China’s special socialist path today?” (如果没有中华五千年文明，哪里有什么中国特色？如果不是中国特色，哪有我们今天这么成功的中国特色社会主义道路?) Xi is left with no answer.
World Oceans Day: Researchers transplant corals to the seabed off Fenjiezhou Island south of Hainan. Since 2004, scientists have been trying to revive the underwater world. Fenjiezhou is not far from the vacation hotspot of Sanya. Diving tourism and environmental pollution have taken their toll on the reefs. At least these activities seem to yield some small successes. A few sea creatures have already been attracted back.
The USA is forcing the EU’s hand on the matter of forced labor. In the future, the Americans plan to have goods confiscated at the border if their clean origin cannot be definitively verified. Europe now fears that it will be the global dumping ground for products manufactured with forced labor. The ethically correct solution is to conduct own inspections. Amelie Richter describes what the European Parliament has decided in this regard.
However, a resolution alone will not make the situation any clearer. China rejects any accusation of forced labor in Xinjiang and, in turn, points to human trafficking in the USA and the EU. Moreover, supply chains are intricately intertwined, especially at their origins. Where did the cotton in this T-shirt come from, who supplied the silicon for this solar cell? Soon, companies and customs will have to deal with such complex questions. In the end, this could perhaps provide an impetus for shifting procurement back to the EU’s domestic market.
Conflicts also continue over the use of the oceans. China deems the South China Sea to be its territorial waters. The People’s Liberation Army’s South Sea Fleet continues to expand rapidly and now has a permanently designated aircraft carrier, the Shandong. Therefore, gaining access to the Ream naval base in Cambodia would be a major breakthrough for China’s hegemonic strategy, Michael Radunski reports. So far, China denies any plans to station ships here on a large scale. But the Chinese-funded expansion is already enough to raise the stress level of geostrategists in Washington, Tokyo, and even Berlin.
China also grounds its claim to supremacy on the historical superiority of its own civilization. So Johnny Erling takes a look at Xi Jinping’s very own view on history in today’s column. While people in Shanghai are stuck in lockdown at home, trade numbers are plummeting and no way out of the Covid crisis can be found, the Politburo is exploring the question: How old is China’s civilization? The Party’s commissioned scientists give the only valid answer: Even older than previously expected, namely 5,000 years. Because the more years, the more legitimacy.
According to EU figures, around 25 million people worldwide work in conditions that could be classified as forced labor. In countries such as China, these modern-day slaves pick cotton for clothing, harvest fruit and vegetables, or assemble electrical components. These goods then end up in the hands of European consumers. This is set to change. The European Parliament puts pressure on the executive EU Commission: In the fall, a long-requested draft law for an import and export ban on products from forced labor is to finally see the light of day in Brussels’ bureaucracy.
EU MEPs presented their legislative recommendations on Thursday. They demand that the import of products from forced labor and child labor should already be stopped at the EU borders. The definition of forced labor shall be set according to the guidelines of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Products will then be sorted out using several criteria:
According to the recommendation of the EU Parliament
Thus, the responsibility lies with the importer. According to the EU Parliament’s draft, the importer bears the burden of proof and must prove that no forced labor or child labor was used in the production and transport of goods in question. Otherwise, the cargo will remain seized. To help importers, the European Parliament calls for a publicly available list of already sanctioned companies, regions and producers. Small and medium-sized companies are to receive extra help in implementing the new regulations.
The proposal received a large majority in Thursday’s vote in the EU Parliament. “Today, the European Parliament is signaling that it no longer wants the EU to be complicit with the Chinese totalitarian regime, which has been perpetuating a crime against humanity in the Xinjiang province for five years,” said Green Party European politician Reinhard Buetikofer after the vote.
Dubravka Šuica, Vice President of the EU Commission and responsible for Democracy and Demography, stressed in plenary that a legislative proposal from the Brussels authority would follow after the summer break. However, due to the tight schedule, an impact assessment would no longer be possible, Šuica said. EU MEPs had called for a draft law in a debate on the issue in September – exactly one year after EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced the import ban in her State of the European Union speech (Table.Media reported). It was originally supposed to become part of the EU supply chain legislation. However, due to disputes over jurisdiction, the project was shelved.
However, the EU will now also face time pressure because an important legal change is due to take place on the other side of the Atlantic later this month: As of June 21, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) will come into force in the United States. Import bans on cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang are already in place. However, UFLPA will further restrict the import of goods from the region.
The US legislation includes:
This means that the US legislation goes one step further than the EU Parliament’s proposal, as all goods from Xinjiang are stopped at the US border by default and are only cleared once it has been proven that no forced labor was involved in their production. Taking the stricter US approach as a template was rejected by the EU’s Directorate-General for Trade in the past (China.Table reported). To what extent the Brussels authority will follow the recommendations from the EU Parliament is open.
However, the UFLPA will also affect Europe: “It is extremely high-risk that the EU is going to become a dumping ground for Uyghur forced labor goods,” Chloe Cranston of the NGO Anti-Slavery International told China.Table. So anything that can no longer be sold in the United States is sent to the EU market. According to Cranston, this strategy is not completely new. For example, this could already be observed in cotton or the solar industry. That’s why the organization is calling for equally strong legislation in all countries.
Otherwise, Cranston warns, there is a risk that the value chains will split up, with a “clean” supply chain for goods to the US and one for other regions where products from production using forced labor are not yet traced and sorted out as rigorously. The situation in the EU would be further complicated by the fact that customs data is not publicly available.
Meanwhile, the US also tries to exert pressure on China through the ILO. At the annual conference of the Labor Organization, which will end on Saturday in Geneva after almost two weeks, the US delegation, alongside other Western countries, called for an investigation of the forced labor allegations by an expert committee. But since China is a member of the ILO executive, it will be difficult to issue a corresponding mandate.
China’s ambassador Wang Wentian vigorously rams a red spade into the sandy soil of the Cambodian coast. At his side is Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Tea Banh, who then also grabs a shovel. The diplomat and the military want to show through their unusual manual labor effort: From now on, China and Cambodia will be moving into the future together. It was a special groundbreaking ceremony which the two celebrated last Wednesday. It marks the beginning of the modernization of the Ream naval base on the Cambodian coast – and Wang is already in the midst of a double play.
On the one hand, he praises the project as a major achievement for relations between China and Cambodia. On the other hand, however, he is forced to dismiss the construction project as a simple overhaul project that is not directed against third parties. Because while both China and Cambodia celebrate their port project, the US is angered. “An exclusive PRC military presence at Ream could threaten Cambodia’s autonomy and undermine regional security,” said Chad Roedemeier, spokesman for the US Embassy in Phnom Penh. Washington fears China could not only modernize the base on the Gulf of Thailand, but also use it for the Chinese military.
Both Cambodia and China strongly deny such accusations. “Don’t worry too much, the Ream base is very small… It won’t pose a threat to anyone, anywhere,” Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Banh said on Wednesday, adding, “We need to upgrade our base to protect our nation, territory and sovereignty.”
The Chinese side is more clear: Ambassador Wang blustered that some countries were always criticizing and slandering the regular cooperation between China and Cambodia. Rather, he said, these countries had imposed unilateral sanctions on Cambodia to grossly interfere in Cambodia’s internal affairs under the guise of democracy and protection of human rights. This is a reference to the United States, which indeed imposed sanctions and an arms embargo on Cambodia a few months ago. The reasons at the time: corruption, human rights violations – and the growing influence of the Chinese military in the Southeast Asian country.
Just a few days ago, the US newspaper Washington Post reported that China was secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military. The report claims the naval base will be equipped with a maintenance workshop, two piers, a dry dock, a slipway and facilities for docking larger ships. Western officials had told the newspaper that the base would be built for the “sole use” of the Chinese navy. Accordingly, a Chinese official had even confirmed that “part of the base” in Cambodia would be used by the Chinese military.
So far, China has only maintained a naval base overseas in Djibouti (China.Table reported). A base in Cambodia would thus mark only its second outpost. By comparison, the United States has hundreds of bases spread around the world. In a conversation with China.Table, John Brandford of the Maritime Security Program at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore explains how China might justify a new base in Cambodia: “Just as Beijing heralded the utility of its Djibouti and South China Sea bases in responding to disasters and conducting humanitarian missions, it would likely argue that bases located in the Gulf of Thailand would allow closer staging to some locations where those threats are likely.”
In fact, despite its strong economic presence in the Gulf of Thailand, China has not been a major player in regional disaster management. According to Bradford, while a Chinese base in Cambodia will have serious consequences in the region, it is not a game-changer in China’s favor.
Malcolm Davis takes a different view. In an interview with China.Table, the scientist from the renowned Australian Strategic Policy Institute points out that the facility in Cambodia has a completely new dimension. It would be the first Chinese base in the strategically important Indo-Pacific region – and thus perfectly fitting for China’s strategic goal: control over the South China Sea.
It fits the picture: For years, China has been filling up reefs in the South China Sea, constructing runways and bases. A few weeks ago, it signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands (China.Table reported). Just last week, a similar venture was attempted on islands in the Western Pacific – and failed (China.Table reported). Now follows the push into Cambodia. “Forward deployed naval capability from Ream allows Beijing to more easily control the eastern exit/entry to the Malacca Straits – a key strategic waterway and to defend Chinese bases in the South China Sea.”
Davis primarily identifies domestic political reasons for Cambodia’s decision to allow the Chinese presence. He says the country has aligned its future with China’s rise. “Hun Sen is deep in Beijing’s pocket – elite capture – and his country’s participation in the BRI means it is susceptible to Chinese debt-trap diplomacy.” Cambodia has long been a Chinese vassal, Davis says. China has been the largest investor in Cambodia for years. “Beijing keeps Hun Sen in power in return for his compliance.”
A shift in Cambodia’s political orientation away from the USA and toward China has been apparent for quite some time. When Phnom Penh deported Uyghur asylum seekers to China in 2010 and the US subsequently suspended the delivery of 200 military vehicles, China quickly stepped in – providing the Cambodian military with 257 vehicles and fifty thousand uniforms. Since December 2016, China and Cambodia have held regular joint military exercises under the designation “Golden Dragon,” while at almost the same time they ended the Angkor Sentinel exercises with the United States after seven years.
That leaves the question of how the base will be used. So far, only a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony has been held. The modernization of the Ream base is scheduled to be finalized in two years. Until then, the denials from Phnom Penh and Beijing will probably prevail. But lately, China has accumulated a long list of falsehoods – from alleged training camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang to natural coral reefs in the South China Sea that suddenly resemble bases with quay walls and missile launchers.
And against this backdrop, one statement made by Ambassador Wang at Wednesday’s joint groundbreaking ceremony in Cambodia is particularly striking here: “As a strong pillar of the iron-clad partnership, China-Cambodia military cooperation is in the fundamental interests of our two nations and two peoples.” It sounds like a diplomatic backdoor that could swing open in two years.
China’s 25 most powerful officials, including only one woman, gathered in the palace of the once-imperial Zhongnanhai Park, in the heart of Beijing. Party leader Xi Jinping had summoned his Politburo and its Standing Committee to the lakeside compound, which was turned into the CP’s headquarters in 1949. China’s inner circle convened until late in the evening of May 27.
The illustrious circle did not gather to discuss crisis management, although on this day Shanghai continued to fight the pandemic, and Beijing feared it would be the next metropolis to go into lockdown. Nor was the international collateral damage threatening China for its silent consent of Putin’s attack on Ukraine as much a topic or the downward spiral of the economy.
Instead, the Party brass – as if they were living in a bubble – listened visibly nonchalant to the remarks of Beijing historian and guest speaker Wang Wei (王巍). Afterward, Xi recapped the latter’s presentation. China’s TV channels featured everyone obediently taking notes. The elite had sat down for their so-called 39th group study session, to which CP leader Xi has been regularly summoning his Politburo every four to six weeks since the last Party Congress in 2017. Its agenda was set by a seemingly otherworldly, academic question: How old is China’s civilization, really?
Wang Wei, president of the Society for Archaeology, gave a report on the project for researching the origins of China’s civilization (中华文明探源工程), which he has been leading since 2001. The 400 scientists involved were said to have gained new insights into the Yangshao culture along the Yellow River, discovered in 1921, which is one of the earliest Neolithic cultures known to mankind (7000 to 4700 BC). Excavations at the ruins of Liangzhu near Hangzhou (5300 to 4300 BC) would have revealed how complex the earlier urban settlement was organized. In 2019, UNESCO included the site in its World Heritage List. Further discoveries at the Erlitou site, found in 1959 in central China’s Henan, seem to confirm earlier assumptions that Erlitou may have been a sub-center of the Xia reign (2070 to 1600 BC), the legendary first dynasty in the Middle Kingdom, whose existence has so far not been truly archaeologically proven.
But Xi triumphed: China’s researchers would have provided factual evidence “of my country’s millions of years of human history, its ten thousand years of cultural history and its more than 5,000 years of civilization history”. (实证了我国百万年的人类史、一万年的文化史、五千多年的文明史。中华文明探源工程成绩显著。)
For decades, scientists from all academic disciplines have been trying to pin down the origins of Chinese civilization on behalf of the Party. Historians, however, stand by their assessment, reporting about “more than 3,000 years” that can still be dated and documented with the writing on oracle bones from that time.
The Party wants to change this narrative. China’s civilization is unique in the world. There are older cultural societies, such as the Egyptians with their hieroglyphics, which date back 8,000 years. But those ancient empires were declining. China would be different, Xi said: “Its civilization is the only one in the world that has been able to continue without interruption until today.” (中华文明是世界上唯一自古延续至今、从未中断的文明). Aside from national pride, this is also a political and cultural asset for him to exploit. He cited, for example, the ties Beijing wants to forge with the 50 million expatriate Chinese around the world.
Xi demonstrated just how much the issue of periodization means to him during the first visit to Beijing by then-US President Donald Trump on November 8, 2017.
As the first foreign dignitary, Trump was to meet Xi immediately after the end of the 19th Party Congress, which had further extended Xi’s powers. Xi then prepared a spectacular imperial reception for Mr. and Mrs. Trump. Donald and Melania were taken directly from the airport to the cordoned-off imperial palace, where Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan gave them a four-hour tour of all the palaces from 3:30 PM to 7:30 PM and entertained them in courtly fashion. China’s television recorded one of their dialogues. It was first about the 300-year history of the United States. Trump told Xi he had heard that “China has a 5,000-year-old civilization.” Xi responded by referring to a verifiable recorded history of “over 3,000 years”. However, he said, its civilization could be traced “back 5,000 years or even earlier”.
When Trump referred to Egypt and its “8,000 years of culture,” Xi replied, “Yes, Egypt is older. But China’s civilization is the only, oldest civilization in the world continuously preserved to this day.” Trump asked if it was still “an original culture today” and was answered, “We are the original people. We have the same black hair and the same yellow skin. We call ourselves descendants of the dragon”. (是原来的人。黑头发、黄皮肤，传承下来，我们叫龙的传人。)
That China claims a civilization “more than 5,000 years old” has been Xi’s credo since he took office in 2012. Shortly before the 20th Party Congress at the end of 2022, which is expected to enable his third re-election and set the course for a “new era of socialism under Xi’s leadership” and the resurrection of the nation, Xi is reaching back to culture. China is special in this regard, he said during the study session: “The Chinese nation has taken a course of development that is different from other civilizations.”
All Party media in the country published synopses of Xi’s teachings to his Politburo. Detached from the lowlands of reality, he seeks to draw recipes for the nation’s rise from the past as well. He revives the old Mao saying to “let the past serve the present” (要坚持古为今用). He repeatedly rambles about “the nation’s cultural gene,” which “is also a spiritual force to realize the great resurrection of the nation.” Because Xi is aware of the fears China’s rise triggers abroad, he also speaks of the “cultural gene of peace”. Beijing must “tell the narrative about China’s civilization well from China’s soil, and convey a trustworthy, lovable and respectable image of China to the world”. (要立足中国大地，讲好中华文明故事，向世界展现可信、可爱、可敬的中国形象。)
It was the second time Xi made his obsession with a “more than 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization” the focus of a Politburo meeting. On September 28, 2020, he demanded to mobilize China’s archaeology to prove it. In the process, he spoke of the inherited “cultural gene” that the nation “uses every day without being aware of it”. (中华民族日用而不觉的文化基因。)
As a correspondent in Beijing, I have twice witnessed the failed political attempt to re-periodize Chinese civilization in the Party’s image. In November 2000, after five years of interdisciplinary research, 200 scholars claimed they could accurately date China’s legendary first three dynasties of the Xia, Shang and Zhou and chronologically list all the ruling houses. The Xia would have ruled from 2070 to 1600 BC, the Shang until 1046 BC and the Zhou until 771 BC. Thus, China’s civilization history was verifiably over 4,000 years old, the People’s Daily rejoiced at the time. It quickly turned out that the researchers came to their verdict only through conclusions, deductions and re-examinations of already known sources.
In 2010, Beijing made another attempt. In a spectacular exhibit, the capital’s museum displayed 400 ancient artifacts from excavations, most of which had never been shown before. But Wang Wei, the curator at the time and the same archaeologist who addressed the Politburo in late May, backpedaled. Although the Party press claimed that the history of Chinese civilization needed to be rewritten, academics in charge at the time called the exhibition a tribute to 60 years of archaeological work since the founding of the Institute of Archaeology in 1950, and said it was not intended to spark a new debate on the periodization of Chinese history.
There is no shortage of Chinese excavations in recent years that have unearthed countless finds, fantastic bronzes, jade ornaments, and spectacular cultural artifacts. They discovered early human settlements, burial sites, hydraulic engineering, rice and agricultural cultivation. China’s archaeologists, however, adhere to the same criteria as their foreign colleagues when they speak of a unified civilization. These include evidence of larger cities, a faith system, infrastructural work, social stratification in the society of the time, and a developed writing system. Many of the excavations revealed former regionally developed advanced civilizations. But they apparently did not yet constitute a unified Chinese civilization.
The problem, as with all of China’s sciences, lies in their political appropriation. To legitimize his and his Party’s absolute rule over China, Xi embeds his century-old Party in the succession of modern Chinese and socialist development all the way back to the “more than 5,000-year history of the development of Chinese civilization”. In his “grand historical perspective” (大历史观), everything is “of the same piece for him, looking to the past as well as to the future” (既向过去看，又向未来看), write Marxist social scientists.
But what if it cannot be proven that China’s civilizational history is as old and as particularly different as Xi hopes? At the very least, he raises the question rhetorically in the Politburo, “Then what would be special about China if it does not have a Chinese civilization that is more than 5,000 years old? Then how could we successfully follow China’s special socialist path today?” (如果没有中华五千年文明，哪里有什么中国特色？如果不是中国特色，哪有我们今天这么成功的中国特色社会主义道路?) Xi is left with no answer.
World Oceans Day: Researchers transplant corals to the seabed off Fenjiezhou Island south of Hainan. Since 2004, scientists have been trying to revive the underwater world. Fenjiezhou is not far from the vacation hotspot of Sanya. Diving tourism and environmental pollution have taken their toll on the reefs. At least these activities seem to yield some small successes. A few sea creatures have already been attracted back.
