Liberal democracies can contain authoritarian China

Already Greece and Italy have turned to China for substantial investment at a time when both have high debt levels, bear the brunt of the EU external migration crisis, and have had their calls for greater pan-European investment for the past three years rejected outright by core eurozone members like Germany, the Netherlands and Finland.

The end result is that China is increasing its presence in the European region. With the China Ocean Shipping Corporation (COSCO) now having stakes in at least 15 European ports, it acquired the controlling share of the Greek port of Piraeus in 2016, thus upholding the CCP’s plan that Piraeus will serve as a gateway to EU markets and Asia-European-African trade routes thanks to its close proximity to the Suez Canal.

With a lack of cohesion preventing all liberal democracies from effectively working together to counter China’s rise, the US will indeed sometimes use a carrot and stick approach to encourage allies to provide greater resistance to the CCP’s aims.

For instance, during May 2020, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated that it would “disconnect” Australia from its ‘Five Eyes’ security relationship with Australia if the Victorian Labor government’s involvement in China’s ‘Belt and Road’ global infrastructure project impacts telecommunications that impacts upon US citizens and “security networks for our defence and intelligence communities”.

The US, which has already warned Israel that Chinese management of its Haifa port in 2021 could jeopardise continued use of the port by the US fifth fleet, also pressured Israel in 2020 not to accept a Chinese bid to construct the world’s largest desalination plant,

With China also building a new port in Israel’s Ashdod, the US is pressuring Israel to review foreign investment at a time when China is also looking to upgrade Lebanon’s deep seaport of Tripoli to allow it to accommodate larger vessels while seeking to build a railroad that would connect Beirut and Tripoli in Lebanon to Homs and Aleppo in Syria.

However, others argue that the US can win greater support against China by showing that it is a reliable trade partner, conclude more free trade agreements, and focus on the norms and values that it shares with other liberal democracies given that China uses 5G technologies as part of its campaign to suppress dissent from the Uighurs to Hong Kong.

Liberal democracies can also lead by their economic, social and environmental policy mix, with inequality in the US similar to China with Gini coefficient scores of 0.46 and 0.45 as of 2020, far worse than Sweden’s much more equal 24.9 and Australia measuring 30.3.

However, with the US spending around 18.7% of GDP on public social expenditure during 2018, the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2020 admitted that roughly 600 million Chinese citizens still earn only $US140 a month compared to Chinese average income of ($US4,198), while only a very small part of its working population is covered by an unemployment insurance system as of 2020.

And all liberal democracies must uphold the rule of law to protect their many ethnic minorities, an approach at odds with the entrenched racism of China which targets its minorities, has the lowest immigration rate in the world (0.07% of the population), and offers no legal protection against racial discrimination with its recent racism towards Africans over the coronavirus leading to a huge public outcry across Africa.  

To conclude, the above reasons help demonstrate why liberal democracies can counter the CCP’s world ambition, albeit an increasingly aggressive approach by China will cement greater Cold war tensions that may be evident for years.

In agreement with others, the liberal democracies must remain “resolute in defending our security, interests and values” and “respect for international law, which China may further flout as its problems increase” given the CCP’s resistance to the rule of law shaped by an independent judiciary, a free press, civil society, and some sort of political accountability.