wikileaks cables,aggressive china losing friends around the world

8/13/2019 WikiLeaks Cables,Aggressive China Losing Friends Around the World

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WikiLeaks cables: 'Aggressive' Chinalosing friends around the worldBritain, India and Japan complain of Beijing's diplomatic 'muscle-

flexing', while Africans talk of coercion in aid-for-resources deals

Ewen MacAskill

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 December 2010 21.30 GMT

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Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident whose Nobel peace prize sparked a bitter outburst from Beijing. Photograph: EPA

China's "newly pugnacious" foreign policy is "losing friends worldwide", the US

ambassador to Beijing argued in a cable last February.

European diplomats were "most vocal", although Indian and Japanese counterparts

voiced similar complaints, Jon Huntsman wrote. In other dispatches US diplomats

quote unhappy African officials.

In his cable, entitled "Stomp around and carry a small stick: China's new 'global

assertiveness' raises hackles, but has more form than substance", he accused Beijing of

"muscle-flexing, triumphalism and assertiveness", but added that some observers saw it

Leaks cabl es: ' Aggressi ve' Chi na l osi ng fri ends arou. . . http: / / www. guardi an. co. uk/worl d/2010/ dec/04/wi ki l eaks-em. . .

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as rhetoric designed to appeal to Chinese public opinion. "Numerous third-country

diplomats have complained to us that dealing with China has become more difficult in

the past year," Huntsman reported. His examples included:

A British diplomat saying that Chinese officials' behaviour at the Copenhagen climate

change summit was "shocking" and so rude and arrogant that the UK and French

complained formally.

The Indian ambassador to Beijing requesting closer co-operation with the US because

of "China's more aggressive approach".

Japanese diplomats complaining that officials were "aggressive and difficult" during

summit preparations.

Another Japanese official describing rising tensions in the East China Sea, saying that

"the increased aggressiveness of Chinese 'coastguard' and naval units had provoked

'many dangerous encounters' with Japanese civilian and self-defence force ships".

The official said Japan had not reported all the incidents. The issue became public in

the autumn when Japan arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat for ramming a

coastguard vessel near disputed islands.

The cable refers to another dispute that later broke into the open. A Norwegian

diplomat said Oslo was unhappy with the trend of bilateral relations, citing the lack of

progress in human rights discussions and referring to the jailing of writer Liu Xiaobo.

China reacted angrily when Norway's Nobel committee gave the peace prize to Liurecently.

The main tensions appear to be with China's neighbours or established western powers.

In several cables US diplomats note China's growing influence in Latin America and

Africa. One cable notes the Kenyan ambassador stressing the benefits of China's role on

the continent and saying Africa has nothing to gain if the US and China co-operate.

Juliu Ole Sunkuli "claimed that Africa was better off thanks to China's practical,

bilateral approach to development assistance and was concerned that this would bechanged by 'western' interference Sunkuli said Africans were frustrated by western

insistence on capacity building, which translated, in his eyes, into conferences and

seminars. They instead preferred China's focus on infrastructure and tangible projects."

Other cables suggested some African diplomats felt "a degree of suspicion and

resentment" about China's role. A Nigerian official suggested poorer countries were

"coerced" into aid-for-resources deals. Elsewhere a Moroccan diplomat commented:

"China will never play the role of a global leader if it treats its trade partners so poorly."

Assessing US-China relations at the start of 2009, the then US ambassador to China,

Clark Randt, saw growing similarities in relations with the rest of the world. "By the end

of the next 30 years China should no longer be able to portray itself as the

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guardian.co.uk Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

representative of lesser developed countries. This does not mean that it will necessarily

identify with the more developed, mainly western countries; it well might choose to

pursue some uniquely Chinese path Even so, China's growing position as a nation

increasingly distinct from the less developed world may expand our common interests."

It was possible China "will come to be identified by the average citizen in less developed

countries not as 'one of us' but as 'one of them'."

Leaks cabl es: ' Aggressi ve' Chi na l osi ng fri ends arou. . . http: / / www. guardi an. co. uk/worl d/2010/ dec/04/wi ki l eaks-em. . .

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