The Telegraph, 01 September 2020

Below is an article published by The Telegraph. Photo ASPI.

The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly resorting to the use of coercive diplomacy, taking advantage of the lack of a coordinated pushback from like-minded governments, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.  

The study analyses 152 cases of the CCP’s use of coercive diplomacy across 28 countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and in East Asia over the past decade, and concludes that governments need to counter its “divide-and-conquer” tactics through a joint strategy via multilateral institutions. 

“Our dataset suggests the CCP has begun to use coercive diplomacy far more actively. We found a sharp increase from 2018 onwards,” said Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey and Tracy Beattie, the ASPI authors, in a statement. 

“In the first eight months of 2020 we found 34 cases of coercive diplomacy, which equates to more than half of the number recorded in 2019. Unless states can come up with a better strategy to resist coercive diplomacy, we can expect this trend to continue.”

The research uses open source information from media, company reports, academic research and government reports, to identify CCP pressure tactics through trade and investment sanctions, tourism bans, popular boycotts and in extreme cases through arbitrary detention or the death penalty.

“China is the largest trading partner for nearly two-thirds of the world’s countries, and its global economic importance gives it significant leverage,” it points out. 

It cites one example as a threat against the UK in 2012 when Wu Bangguo, a former Chinese chief legislator, cancelled a proposed trip to Britain and threatened “serious consequences” after David Cameron, the then prime minister, revealed his intention to meet the Dalai Lama. 

The British embassy in Beijing expressed its regret at the cancellation of the trip and Mr Cameron later distanced himself from the spiritual leader. 

Fast-forward to 2020, and Chinese state media has called for economic countermeasures against the UK for eliminating Chinese company Huawei from its 5G network, and the foreign ministry has threatened retaliation for Britain’s offer of a pathway to citizenship for Hong Kong residents. 

However, the UK is among a number of foreign governments, including Australia, Canada, Japan and India who are “starting to call out the CCP’s coercive diplomacy as it happens and are working on ways develop an effective counter-coercion strategy,” says the report. 

Smaller countries have also pushed back against bullying. On Monday, Prague summoned the Chinese ambassador after a threat from Wang Yi, the foreign minister, that the Czech Republic will “pay a heavy price,” for sending a high level political and business delegation to Taiwan. 

China seeks to annex Taiwan, a democratically-governed island, and rejects its right to have international relations with other countries. 

“You cannot accept being someone’s servant, because if you do, then when you obey once, it’s assumed that you obey every time,” said Milos Vystrcil, the Czech Senate speaker and delegation leader, ahead of the trip.