What better way to symbolize the debate about the growing estrangement between the People’s Republic and foreign countries than by China’s chief epidemiologist’s recommendation to avoid physical contact with foreigners? It seems that decades of fighting for China’s friendship have been for naught when we are so categorically classified as a health risk.
Friendship is already a fragile construct when it is primarily motivated by economic interests. It is all the more important that these interests come to light before swearing undying loyalty to each other. The author of today’s Opinion, Professor Ralph Weber of the University of Basel, has studied the influence of the Chinese party-state on our society in great detail and found that we often completely overlook the depth of the interconnection between economic exchange and political motivation by our Chinese partners.
In Hong Kong, too, ideology has come to play a much bigger role in the economic context since John Lee became the city’s new chief executive. Where once the focus had been on growth and opportunity, nowadays, the message of the importance of political stability is being spread in the spirit of the CP, writes Ning Wang after speaking to people on the ground.
Incidentally, political stability is also the mantra of Turkish leader Recep Erdoğan, who wants to be re-elected president next year. He urgently needs to create economic prospects and probably sees good chances for this in closer ties with China, as a potential member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This is rather unpleasant news for NATO, which has to watch Beijing pave the way to greater influence over a NATO member state.
At least the Western alliance can hope that relationships formed primarily out of economic interests hardly have what it takes to become intimate friendships.
Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive, John Lee, took office three months ago, but things have been surprisingly quiet around him. That may be deliberate. Whereas his predecessor Carrie Lam had clear announcements, actions and thus publicly discussed controversies, silence and unpredictability reign under Lee. This raises questions: Where is Hong Kong headed? Where are the red lines? The lack of clarity covers the metropolis like a heavy blanket, and it also causes problems for the city’s expats.
“People are becoming more and more cautious about making political statements,” says a German woman who has lived in Hong Kong for more than 15 years and would only speak to China.Table anonymously. “I have also become very cautious,” she says. On social media, she refrains from posts that might be interpreted negatively. For an upcoming art exhibition she helped organize, she chose green T-shirts for participants rather than black ones, merely to avoid an association with the 2019 protest movements. Anticipatory obedience, like one that has been known in Mainland China for a long time, is spreading.
Growing concern is now also gripping multinational companies, associations and other institutions. They are increasingly asking themselves whether Hong Kong is still a sensible place to do business. These doubts were also recently highlighted at the Belt and Road Summit in late August. One participant, who also wishes to remain anonymous, estimated in an interview with China.Table that the number of Western expats in the room could be “counted on two hands” – among more than 1,300 participants.
The estrangement could be felt in other ways as well. The event, which is supposed to promote the global integration of the New Silk Road, was exclusively held in Standard Chinese – and not, as announced previously, in English as well. Cantonese, which had been common in previous years, was also dropped as the official language of the event.
As a result, the summit of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, a semi-governmental non-profit organization that promotes international economic and trade relations, resembled more of a staged political campaign, she summed up the summit. For her, it seemed to be more like the government’s attempt at preaching the motto “From chaos to governance and from governance to prosperity” like a mantra.
Such events certainly do not boost the faith of foreign companies in the business location of Hong Kong, but are more likely to reinforce their growing skepticism. As early as spring, GTAI, Germany’s foreign trade promotion agency, noted that many companies were expanding their branches outside Hong Kong. Singapore was said to be a popular alternative.
The exodus of foreign workers from international companies also continues: One moving company reports that it has been contracted for 250 moves out of the city in the past year – and contrast to only 17 new arrivals in the same period. Many foreigners are leaving the special administrative region since it became clear that international schools will soon be teaching civics classes under Beijing’s interpretation.
For companies that manufacture goods in the city – and not only maintain an office in Hong Kong – countries like Vietnam have become more and more interesting. Thus, many foreign companies have been pursuing a so-called China-plus-1 strategy for some time now: They look for other locations in the region besides China. Some Asian countries, like Thailand, Vietnam or Malaysia, are attracting foreign investment with commercial and tax benefits, The Diplomat reports.
For Hong Kong native Louisa Lim, whose book: Hong Kong – “Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong” was recently published, the current ambiguities are part of a tactic by the Chinese government to break the last remaining resistance in Hong Kong civil society: Uncertainty paralyzes, worries dominate everyday life. “At the moment, it is a less predictable environment than in mainland China, particularly with regard to where the political red lines are,” Lim told trade portal The Wire China about the situation in Hong Kong.
It also remains unclear how Hong Kong is supposed to attract multinational companies with its current course instead of losing them. The “brain drain”, i.e. the loss of bright minds and talent, has long been ongoing and is resulting in a shortage of skilled workers. Insurance is one example: The Hong Kong Association of Insurers, for example, stated that about one in three insurance companies is forced to downsize its local workforce.
However, the city is counting on its role as a financial hub in the “Greater Bay Area” of the Pearl River Delta, according to which Hong Kong will be more closely connected with important cities in the coastal province of Guangdong. According to the plans, this economic region will gain international significance through integration by 2035. Its contribution to China’s gross domestic product is already as large as the entire economic output of South Korea.
But it is uncertain whether Hong Kong will then become just one of many cities to join the ranks instead of being at the center itself. Beijing has recently been focusing more on Shenzhen and Shanghai as financial trading centers – and, for example, launched the Star-Market technology exchange in Shanghai two years ago.
China’s government data shows that foreign investment in the economy has risen by nearly a fifth this year. According to state media, the government sees this as evidence that global companies are resisting calls from US and European politicians to reduce their dependence on the country.
However, a closer look at the investments reveals a different picture. Much of this investment in mainland China actually comes from Hong Kong. According to experts, this is due to the fact that mainland companies based there channel funds through the city in a circular system known as “round-tripping”. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Nankai University estimate that nearly 37 percent of inbound foreign direct investment to China moves back and forth in this system, financial services provider Bloomberg reported. Will this be the former British crown colony’s main role in the future?
Chinese companies based in offshore financial centers are also primarily responsible for the increase in foreign direct investment, “making the expression ‘foreign’ investment somewhat of a misnomer,” according to Raymond Yeung, chief economist at Greater China, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.
Those interested in the rise and fall of great powers could observe something astonishing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan over the weekend – not so much in the official speeches or the agreements signed, but rather in the protocol: When China’s President Xi Jinping arrived at Samarkand airport, President Shavkat Mirsiyoyev was waiting at the runway, waving warmly, accompanied by countless dance groups. Even a pagoda specially erected for the occasion on the runway was passed on the way. The scene was completely different for Vladimir Putin: The Russian president had to be content with the Uzbek prime minister – without folklore or music and even without a handshake.
It was already clear on the runway that China had begun to call the shots in Central Asia. And as a vehicle for this, it uses the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. “The SCO is increasingly gaining in size and weight. It is more and more serving China and Russia as an alternative to the existing US-dominated institutions of international politics,” Eva Seiwert, research associate at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and associate research fellow at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, told China.Table.
After initial restraint, Beijing is now keen to shape the SCO into an important player on the international political stage – and the next steps were taken to this end at the summit in Samarkand: It was decided that Iran would soon be accepted as a new member of the organization (China.Table reported). In addition, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country was also seeking SCO membership.
The imminent accession of Iran in April next year means an enormous expansion of the SCO westward, says Seiwert. The SCO expert notes that further steps have already been taken in this regard at the Samarkand summit, in which Saudi Arabia was admitted to the SCO as a new dialogue partner. “This step is clearly at the behest of China,” Seiwert explains. With Iran, the SCO threatens to become a lot more clearly an anti-Western organization, she says.
As early as 2017, Chinese researcher Pan Guang predicted in an essay that China would try to expand the SCO’s influence, including to the Middle East. As potential methods, the director of the SCO Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences mentioned Chinese entrepreneurs and construction workers, as well as Chinese soldiers and the naval base in Djibouti.
What is certain is that this is a matter of geopolitics. The SCO – once a small, informal assembly called the Shanghai Five, consisting of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan – is on its way to becoming a geostrategic factor. Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan have since joined.
Today, the organization’s members represent four nuclear powers and 44 percent of the global population. And there are more to come: Iran will probably follow in April 2023. Also in the race are Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the Maldives and Bahrain. And of course Turkey.
In any case, at this weekend’s SCO summit, the Turkish president appeared eager to join the illustrious circle. “Our relations with these countries will be moved to a much different position with this step,” Erdogan said in Samarkand. It would be a huge step because Turkey would be the first NATO member to join the China-led group. The geopolitical consequences would be enormous.
Germany’s government reacted correspondingly nervously. “NATO and the European Union must ask themselves how long they will allow Erdoğan to play them,” said Juergen Trittin, foreign policy spokesman for the Green Party in the Bundestag, in an interview with the German newspaper Welt. Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, points above all to the geopolitical consequences: “In foreign policy terms, this would be another symbolic step away from the West and its values – a serious political mistake for Turkey’s future.”
Meanwhile, Cagri Erhan, a professor of international relations and member of the Turkish president’s security advisory council, tried to appease concerns on Twitter: “What Ankara is doing is not seeking alternatives to the West, but building balanced relations with the whole world.”
Turkey’s accession would also offer great benefits for China: Turkey’s geostrategic position is a key aspect in the realization of important elements of Xi Jinping’s large-scale geo-economic project, the Belt-and-Road initiative. And Seiwert points out another important aspect: If Turkey were indeed to join the SCO, it would lose its right to criticize the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Because: Within the SCO, the respective national definitions of terrorism must be adopted by all countries. This means: “Just like protests by the Uyghurs are already suppressed in Kazakhstan because China wants it that way, Turkey, as an SCO member, would also have to adopt China’s position and label the Uyghurs as a threat.”
But all that is still a long way off, says Seiwert. Turkey’s SCO membership will take another five years. At least. And Turkey’s aspiration to join the SCO is also much older than current reports suggest: Erdogan had already expressed this desire in 2013. That is why the Turkish president’s appearance at the summit in Samarkand should be seen primarily as a message to the West: “He wants to show that Turkey now has serious alternatives to the West in the form of the SCO,” says Seiwert.
But whether Turkey will join the SCO in the coming months or not for another five years: The country’s potential accession would shift the balance of power dramatically. After all, despite all the quarrels with Erdogan, Turkey continues to be of high strategic value to the West – especially when it comes to dealing with regional security challenges: It is paramount for EU member states that the refugee agreement of March 2016 with Turkey remains in place. In addition, Turkey houses several key NATO military facilities that are of vital strategic importance to the alliance’s capabilities.
With or without Turkey, the SCO continued to gain importance over the weekend in Samarkand, and Xi Jinping further expanded China’s role as a key player within the organization. Moreover, China’s leadership repeatedly manages to identify opportunities and exploit them to its benefit: Turkey’s current strategic disorientation would be one such case.
Just a few years ago, cooperation with partners from the People’s Republic of China was high on the agendas of numerous European players. Those who refused to participate simply failed to read the signs.
But cooperation has become more complicated. The image of the Chinese government has suffered considerably in recent years because of its human rights crimes in Xinjiang or threats against Taiwan – to name just two aspects. Today, close cooperation with a systematic rival that has openly declared war on our democracies and values must be very well justified to avoid being caught in the crossfire of criticism.
However, because some in the West have a lot to lose, some paint the devil of full decoupling on the wall. It is supposed to show the dangers we face if we distance ourselves too much from China. Often the devil does his job.
Unconditional cooperation and complete decoupling represent two unattractive ends of a spectrum that needs to be considered individually for each business sector. Anyone conducting business in Xinjiang, where people are imprisoned against their will, re-educated, and forced to work in some cases, faces greater (and practically impossible) due diligence than a company producing screwdrivers in Shanghai.
Cooperation partners in the People’s Republic are subject to the dictates and whims of the party-state. Some are even directly docked to the party-state. The pressure that the party-state is able to exert on private Chinese entrepreneurs is also enormous. In such a system, every cooperation is ultimately always a co-optation. The ensuing question is: How to handle this? And if you are aware of it, how transparent do you act?
Germany’s former Minister of Defense, Rudolf Scharping, complains that “the nuances” are lost if direct and personal exchanges are not cultivated. Sober analysis is needed instead of decoupling. He pleads for cooperation. He cites trade, investment, research and development, and necessary negotiations. Without China, for example, there would be no globally viable response to climate change.
To put it bluntly, it reads like this: Since complete decoupling (which apparently excludes even negotiations) is bad and efforts to address climate change are good, the suggestion is that cooperation per se is the right way to go. The problem is that the cooperation partner cannot be freely chosen in China, but automatically ends up in the hands of those who are responsible for the aforementioned human rights crimes in Xinjiang or the military threats against Taiwan.
Even Scharping cannot elude the powers that be. This became apparent at the 9th German-Chinese Business Conference in Frankfurt in early September, which was jointly organized by his consulting firm and the China Economic Cooperation Center (CECC, 中国经济联络中心) and supported by the China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP, 中国国际投资促进会).
The CECC reports directly to the International Liaison Department, which is part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The International Liaison Department is responsible for the CP’s relations with other parties outside the country, historically primarily with other communist parties, but since the reform and opening-up policy also with political parties of all kinds.
Since the early 2000s, and especially under President Xi Jinping, the International Liaison Department (as well as the Propaganda Department and especially the Unified Front Work Department) has gained significance. The fact that this involves influencing, co-opting, and asserting foreign policy interests of the Chinese party-state is hardly denied.
Recent research on the International Liaison Department also mentions Germany’s special position in Europe in these efforts. The CECC’s homepage also explicitly states the goal of promoting the “external work” (对外工作) of the CCP and implementing “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
The fact that the International Liaison Department is behind the CECC can also be seen in the list of speakers at the Frankfurt conference. Shen Beili 沈蓓莉 and Liu Jingqin 刘敬钦, one current and one former top official of the International Liaison Department, attended the event. Jiang Feng 姜锋, the Party Secretary of Shanghai International Studies University, also delivered a speech in Frankfurt. The latter, in a conversation with Scharping published by the People’s Daily in January 2022, described the PRC political system “as a multi-party system” in which there are “many democratic parties” – meaning the “parties” that are under the leadership and control of the CCP and gathered in the united front.
Cooperation with the International Liaison Department is by no means new. For instance, last year Scharping attended the Summit between the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Political Parties Worldwide, which is hosted by the International Liaison Department. There, he praised the CCP several times in his speech. But the fact that cooperation with actors from the People’s Republic of China always leads to co-optation is ultimately owed to a systemic necessity inherent in a one-party dictatorship, which is China’s political system as stated in Article 1 of the state constitution and despite its cadres’ claims to the contrary. Under this system, all relations with the world are managed outside the Party and, as far as possible, subordinated to the Party agenda.
Those who choose cooperation, for which there may be good reasons, must find a way to deal with co-optation. Do you censor yourself to some extent because you don’t want to burden your counterpart too much, out of politeness, clever tactics or because this would help you to achieve your own interests? Or do you even explicitly echo the propaganda positions of the Chinese Communist Party, which are normalized in the process, and thus even accept the successful exercise of discourse power? At what point does cooperation lead to complicity?
All these questions may and must be answered individually and differently in each case. But one thing is clear: If one cooperates directly with Chinese party-state institutions, one must transparently disclose this fact. This is the only way to leave it up to others to decide how far they want to be appropriate.
Ralph Weber is a Professor of European Global Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland. His research fields include Chinese political philosophy, modern Confucianism, and Chinese politics. He focuses on European-Chinese relations and published a widely acclaimed study on the influence of the Chinese party-state in Switzerland in December 2020.
Party on: After a three-month Covid break, Beijing authorities allowed club nights at selected locations last weekend. At the iWork Science and Innovation Park, hundreds of young people came together to party – cigarette breaks outside the entrance included.
What better way to symbolize the debate about the growing estrangement between the People’s Republic and foreign countries than by China’s chief epidemiologist’s recommendation to avoid physical contact with foreigners? It seems that decades of fighting for China’s friendship have been for naught when we are so categorically classified as a health risk.
Friendship is already a fragile construct when it is primarily motivated by economic interests. It is all the more important that these interests come to light before swearing undying loyalty to each other. The author of today’s Opinion, Professor Ralph Weber of the University of Basel, has studied the influence of the Chinese party-state on our society in great detail and found that we often completely overlook the depth of the interconnection between economic exchange and political motivation by our Chinese partners.
In Hong Kong, too, ideology has come to play a much bigger role in the economic context since John Lee became the city’s new chief executive. Where once the focus had been on growth and opportunity, nowadays, the message of the importance of political stability is being spread in the spirit of the CP, writes Ning Wang after speaking to people on the ground.
Incidentally, political stability is also the mantra of Turkish leader Recep Erdoğan, who wants to be re-elected president next year. He urgently needs to create economic prospects and probably sees good chances for this in closer ties with China, as a potential member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This is rather unpleasant news for NATO, which has to watch Beijing pave the way to greater influence over a NATO member state.
At least the Western alliance can hope that relationships formed primarily out of economic interests hardly have what it takes to become intimate friendships.
Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive, John Lee, took office three months ago, but things have been surprisingly quiet around him. That may be deliberate. Whereas his predecessor Carrie Lam had clear announcements, actions and thus publicly discussed controversies, silence and unpredictability reign under Lee. This raises questions: Where is Hong Kong headed? Where are the red lines? The lack of clarity covers the metropolis like a heavy blanket, and it also causes problems for the city’s expats.
“People are becoming more and more cautious about making political statements,” says a German woman who has lived in Hong Kong for more than 15 years and would only speak to China.Table anonymously. “I have also become very cautious,” she says. On social media, she refrains from posts that might be interpreted negatively. For an upcoming art exhibition she helped organize, she chose green T-shirts for participants rather than black ones, merely to avoid an association with the 2019 protest movements. Anticipatory obedience, like one that has been known in Mainland China for a long time, is spreading.
Growing concern is now also gripping multinational companies, associations and other institutions. They are increasingly asking themselves whether Hong Kong is still a sensible place to do business. These doubts were also recently highlighted at the Belt and Road Summit in late August. One participant, who also wishes to remain anonymous, estimated in an interview with China.Table that the number of Western expats in the room could be “counted on two hands” – among more than 1,300 participants.
The estrangement could be felt in other ways as well. The event, which is supposed to promote the global integration of the New Silk Road, was exclusively held in Standard Chinese – and not, as announced previously, in English as well. Cantonese, which had been common in previous years, was also dropped as the official language of the event.
As a result, the summit of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, a semi-governmental non-profit organization that promotes international economic and trade relations, resembled more of a staged political campaign, she summed up the summit. For her, it seemed to be more like the government’s attempt at preaching the motto “From chaos to governance and from governance to prosperity” like a mantra.
Such events certainly do not boost the faith of foreign companies in the business location of Hong Kong, but are more likely to reinforce their growing skepticism. As early as spring, GTAI, Germany’s foreign trade promotion agency, noted that many companies were expanding their branches outside Hong Kong. Singapore was said to be a popular alternative.
The exodus of foreign workers from international companies also continues: One moving company reports that it has been contracted for 250 moves out of the city in the past year – and contrast to only 17 new arrivals in the same period. Many foreigners are leaving the special administrative region since it became clear that international schools will soon be teaching civics classes under Beijing’s interpretation.
For companies that manufacture goods in the city – and not only maintain an office in Hong Kong – countries like Vietnam have become more and more interesting. Thus, many foreign companies have been pursuing a so-called China-plus-1 strategy for some time now: They look for other locations in the region besides China. Some Asian countries, like Thailand, Vietnam or Malaysia, are attracting foreign investment with commercial and tax benefits, The Diplomat reports.
For Hong Kong native Louisa Lim, whose book: Hong Kong – “Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong” was recently published, the current ambiguities are part of a tactic by the Chinese government to break the last remaining resistance in Hong Kong civil society: Uncertainty paralyzes, worries dominate everyday life. “At the moment, it is a less predictable environment than in mainland China, particularly with regard to where the political red lines are,” Lim told trade portal The Wire China about the situation in Hong Kong.
It also remains unclear how Hong Kong is supposed to attract multinational companies with its current course instead of losing them. The “brain drain”, i.e. the loss of bright minds and talent, has long been ongoing and is resulting in a shortage of skilled workers. Insurance is one example: The Hong Kong Association of Insurers, for example, stated that about one in three insurance companies is forced to downsize its local workforce.
However, the city is counting on its role as a financial hub in the “Greater Bay Area” of the Pearl River Delta, according to which Hong Kong will be more closely connected with important cities in the coastal province of Guangdong. According to the plans, this economic region will gain international significance through integration by 2035. Its contribution to China’s gross domestic product is already as large as the entire economic output of South Korea.
But it is uncertain whether Hong Kong will then become just one of many cities to join the ranks instead of being at the center itself. Beijing has recently been focusing more on Shenzhen and Shanghai as financial trading centers – and, for example, launched the Star-Market technology exchange in Shanghai two years ago.
China’s government data shows that foreign investment in the economy has risen by nearly a fifth this year. According to state media, the government sees this as evidence that global companies are resisting calls from US and European politicians to reduce their dependence on the country.
However, a closer look at the investments reveals a different picture. Much of this investment in mainland China actually comes from Hong Kong. According to experts, this is due to the fact that mainland companies based there channel funds through the city in a circular system known as “round-tripping”. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Nankai University estimate that nearly 37 percent of inbound foreign direct investment to China moves back and forth in this system, financial services provider Bloomberg reported. Will this be the former British crown colony’s main role in the future?
Chinese companies based in offshore financial centers are also primarily responsible for the increase in foreign direct investment, “making the expression ‘foreign’ investment somewhat of a misnomer,” according to Raymond Yeung, chief economist at Greater China, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.
Those interested in the rise and fall of great powers could observe something astonishing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan over the weekend – not so much in the official speeches or the agreements signed, but rather in the protocol: When China’s President Xi Jinping arrived at Samarkand airport, President Shavkat Mirsiyoyev was waiting at the runway, waving warmly, accompanied by countless dance groups. Even a pagoda specially erected for the occasion on the runway was passed on the way. The scene was completely different for Vladimir Putin: The Russian president had to be content with the Uzbek prime minister – without folklore or music and even without a handshake.
It was already clear on the runway that China had begun to call the shots in Central Asia. And as a vehicle for this, it uses the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. “The SCO is increasingly gaining in size and weight. It is more and more serving China and Russia as an alternative to the existing US-dominated institutions of international politics,” Eva Seiwert, research associate at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and associate research fellow at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, told China.Table.
After initial restraint, Beijing is now keen to shape the SCO into an important player on the international political stage – and the next steps were taken to this end at the summit in Samarkand: It was decided that Iran would soon be accepted as a new member of the organization (China.Table reported). In addition, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country was also seeking SCO membership.
The imminent accession of Iran in April next year means an enormous expansion of the SCO westward, says Seiwert. The SCO expert notes that further steps have already been taken in this regard at the Samarkand summit, in which Saudi Arabia was admitted to the SCO as a new dialogue partner. “This step is clearly at the behest of China,” Seiwert explains. With Iran, the SCO threatens to become a lot more clearly an anti-Western organization, she says.
As early as 2017, Chinese researcher Pan Guang predicted in an essay that China would try to expand the SCO’s influence, including to the Middle East. As potential methods, the director of the SCO Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences mentioned Chinese entrepreneurs and construction workers, as well as Chinese soldiers and the naval base in Djibouti.
What is certain is that this is a matter of geopolitics. The SCO – once a small, informal assembly called the Shanghai Five, consisting of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan – is on its way to becoming a geostrategic factor. Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan have since joined.
Today, the organization’s members represent four nuclear powers and 44 percent of the global population. And there are more to come: Iran will probably follow in April 2023. Also in the race are Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the Maldives and Bahrain. And of course Turkey.
In any case, at this weekend’s SCO summit, the Turkish president appeared eager to join the illustrious circle. “Our relations with these countries will be moved to a much different position with this step,” Erdogan said in Samarkand. It would be a huge step because Turkey would be the first NATO member to join the China-led group. The geopolitical consequences would be enormous.
Germany’s government reacted correspondingly nervously. “NATO and the European Union must ask themselves how long they will allow Erdoğan to play them,” said Juergen Trittin, foreign policy spokesman for the Green Party in the Bundestag, in an interview with the German newspaper Welt. Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, points above all to the geopolitical consequences: “In foreign policy terms, this would be another symbolic step away from the West and its values – a serious political mistake for Turkey’s future.”
Meanwhile, Cagri Erhan, a professor of international relations and member of the Turkish president’s security advisory council, tried to appease concerns on Twitter: “What Ankara is doing is not seeking alternatives to the West, but building balanced relations with the whole world.”
Turkey’s accession would also offer great benefits for China: Turkey’s geostrategic position is a key aspect in the realization of important elements of Xi Jinping’s large-scale geo-economic project, the Belt-and-Road initiative. And Seiwert points out another important aspect: If Turkey were indeed to join the SCO, it would lose its right to criticize the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Because: Within the SCO, the respective national definitions of terrorism must be adopted by all countries. This means: “Just like protests by the Uyghurs are already suppressed in Kazakhstan because China wants it that way, Turkey, as an SCO member, would also have to adopt China’s position and label the Uyghurs as a threat.”
But all that is still a long way off, says Seiwert. Turkey’s SCO membership will take another five years. At least. And Turkey’s aspiration to join the SCO is also much older than current reports suggest: Erdogan had already expressed this desire in 2013. That is why the Turkish president’s appearance at the summit in Samarkand should be seen primarily as a message to the West: “He wants to show that Turkey now has serious alternatives to the West in the form of the SCO,” says Seiwert.
But whether Turkey will join the SCO in the coming months or not for another five years: The country’s potential accession would shift the balance of power dramatically. After all, despite all the quarrels with Erdogan, Turkey continues to be of high strategic value to the West – especially when it comes to dealing with regional security challenges: It is paramount for EU member states that the refugee agreement of March 2016 with Turkey remains in place. In addition, Turkey houses several key NATO military facilities that are of vital strategic importance to the alliance’s capabilities.
With or without Turkey, the SCO continued to gain importance over the weekend in Samarkand, and Xi Jinping further expanded China’s role as a key player within the organization. Moreover, China’s leadership repeatedly manages to identify opportunities and exploit them to its benefit: Turkey’s current strategic disorientation would be one such case.
Just a few years ago, cooperation with partners from the People’s Republic of China was high on the agendas of numerous European players. Those who refused to participate simply failed to read the signs.
But cooperation has become more complicated. The image of the Chinese government has suffered considerably in recent years because of its human rights crimes in Xinjiang or threats against Taiwan – to name just two aspects. Today, close cooperation with a systematic rival that has openly declared war on our democracies and values must be very well justified to avoid being caught in the crossfire of criticism.
However, because some in the West have a lot to lose, some paint the devil of full decoupling on the wall. It is supposed to show the dangers we face if we distance ourselves too much from China. Often the devil does his job.
Unconditional cooperation and complete decoupling represent two unattractive ends of a spectrum that needs to be considered individually for each business sector. Anyone conducting business in Xinjiang, where people are imprisoned against their will, re-educated, and forced to work in some cases, faces greater (and practically impossible) due diligence than a company producing screwdrivers in Shanghai.
Cooperation partners in the People’s Republic are subject to the dictates and whims of the party-state. Some are even directly docked to the party-state. The pressure that the party-state is able to exert on private Chinese entrepreneurs is also enormous. In such a system, every cooperation is ultimately always a co-optation. The ensuing question is: How to handle this? And if you are aware of it, how transparent do you act?
Germany’s former Minister of Defense, Rudolf Scharping, complains that “the nuances” are lost if direct and personal exchanges are not cultivated. Sober analysis is needed instead of decoupling. He pleads for cooperation. He cites trade, investment, research and development, and necessary negotiations. Without China, for example, there would be no globally viable response to climate change.
To put it bluntly, it reads like this: Since complete decoupling (which apparently excludes even negotiations) is bad and efforts to address climate change are good, the suggestion is that cooperation per se is the right way to go. The problem is that the cooperation partner cannot be freely chosen in China, but automatically ends up in the hands of those who are responsible for the aforementioned human rights crimes in Xinjiang or the military threats against Taiwan.
Even Scharping cannot elude the powers that be. This became apparent at the 9th German-Chinese Business Conference in Frankfurt in early September, which was jointly organized by his consulting firm and the China Economic Cooperation Center (CECC, 中国经济联络中心) and supported by the China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP, 中国国际投资促进会).
The CECC reports directly to the International Liaison Department, which is part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The International Liaison Department is responsible for the CP’s relations with other parties outside the country, historically primarily with other communist parties, but since the reform and opening-up policy also with political parties of all kinds.
Since the early 2000s, and especially under President Xi Jinping, the International Liaison Department (as well as the Propaganda Department and especially the Unified Front Work Department) has gained significance. The fact that this involves influencing, co-opting, and asserting foreign policy interests of the Chinese party-state is hardly denied.
Recent research on the International Liaison Department also mentions Germany’s special position in Europe in these efforts. The CECC’s homepage also explicitly states the goal of promoting the “external work” (对外工作) of the CCP and implementing “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
The fact that the International Liaison Department is behind the CECC can also be seen in the list of speakers at the Frankfurt conference. Shen Beili 沈蓓莉 and Liu Jingqin 刘敬钦, one current and one former top official of the International Liaison Department, attended the event. Jiang Feng 姜锋, the Party Secretary of Shanghai International Studies University, also delivered a speech in Frankfurt. The latter, in a conversation with Scharping published by the People’s Daily in January 2022, described the PRC political system “as a multi-party system” in which there are “many democratic parties” – meaning the “parties” that are under the leadership and control of the CCP and gathered in the united front.
Cooperation with the International Liaison Department is by no means new. For instance, last year Scharping attended the Summit between the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Political Parties Worldwide, which is hosted by the International Liaison Department. There, he praised the CCP several times in his speech. But the fact that cooperation with actors from the People’s Republic of China always leads to co-optation is ultimately owed to a systemic necessity inherent in a one-party dictatorship, which is China’s political system as stated in Article 1 of the state constitution and despite its cadres’ claims to the contrary. Under this system, all relations with the world are managed outside the Party and, as far as possible, subordinated to the Party agenda.
Those who choose cooperation, for which there may be good reasons, must find a way to deal with co-optation. Do you censor yourself to some extent because you don’t want to burden your counterpart too much, out of politeness, clever tactics or because this would help you to achieve your own interests? Or do you even explicitly echo the propaganda positions of the Chinese Communist Party, which are normalized in the process, and thus even accept the successful exercise of discourse power? At what point does cooperation lead to complicity?
All these questions may and must be answered individually and differently in each case. But one thing is clear: If one cooperates directly with Chinese party-state institutions, one must transparently disclose this fact. This is the only way to leave it up to others to decide how far they want to be appropriate.
Ralph Weber is a Professor of European Global Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland. His research fields include Chinese political philosophy, modern Confucianism, and Chinese politics. He focuses on European-Chinese relations and published a widely acclaimed study on the influence of the Chinese party-state in Switzerland in December 2020.
Party on: After a three-month Covid break, Beijing authorities allowed club nights at selected locations last weekend. At the iWork Science and Innovation Park, hundreds of young people came together to party – cigarette breaks outside the entrance included.
