China has been at the receiving end of a massive global backlash as the world is struggling to contain the China-made pandemic. Even Taiwan in its wildest of dreams would have never thought that it would receive a huge backing from across the continents, as before the pandemic, the country was struggling to gain recognition as it was increasingly diplomatically isolated. The Trump administration is moving in a determined manner to punish China for its sins as apart from pushing for an independent investigation into the virus’ origins, the USA has also started delisting Chinese companies.
Many countries including India, have now started blocking Chinese FDI as any Chinese investment will now have to be first scrutinised by the government which effectively means that direct access to Chinese investment is now history.
While there’s a palpable current against China as many countries are siding with the USA in a bid to punish China, there are some countries who are swimming against the tide and siding with China because of the obvious economic gains by backing the dragon. This has given rise to a strong countercurrent and the world must be prepared against any impending attempts to let China go scot-free.
Make no mistake, despite the pandemic, China is incredibly rich and its superpower status further enhanced after how it has managed to fool the world by colluding with the WHO and despite the mounting evidence, no tangible action against China is yet to see the light of the day. China has a $15 trillion economy and has a whopping $3 trillion forex reserve which enables China to walk with a blank cheque in its pocket. China quite literally has a lot of cash to throw around, and more importantly, a massive market to give access which is desirable for any company. These factors have managed to create dedicated lapdogs who see a lot of profit in going with China as compared to those siding with the USA as the pie will be distributed with too many people.
It is only a matter of time before Pakistan officially becomes a province of People’s Republic of China. Pakistan sits on a tremendous amount of debt which has been further compounded by the pandemic as Pakistan’s economy may witness a 2.9% contraction in GDP growth in 2020.
Pakistan has taken up loans worth billions of dollars with no clear cut plan to pay the loans back and hence, Imran Khan is pleading for debt-relief. During the period of August 2018 to August 2019, the foreign debt incurred by the Imran Khan government stood at PKR 2,804 billion. As of June 2019, Pakistan’s total public debt stood at PKR 31.786 trillion. Such alarming numbers will further push Pakistan towards China until it officially becomes a Chinese province.
Nepal’s overnight decision of pushing India away after its Prime Minister Oli’s anti-India tirades where he claimed that, “India virus is more dangerous than China virus” defies logic and proves that Oli and his communist government have personally gained from Chinese money. The sudden change in diplomatic stance defies logic because there’s no ill will for India among the Nepalese and vice-versa. India and Nepal are culturally very close and Oli’s sudden tilt towards China has already left many Nepalese disgruntled.
Hungary was one of the few countries who swam against the tide and vociferously opposed international attempts for Taiwan’s inclusion in the World Health Assembly. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto claimed that Hungary “always upholds the one-China principle”. The two countries are now discussing cooperation on 5G and a rail project development.
Such is the Chinese influence in Hungary that in May last year, a Hungarian university initially refused to allow Taiwanese students to participate in a campus activity under the name of Taiwan due to the pressure from the Chinese embassy. According to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, the Chinese Embassy pressurised the University of Debrecen to deny participation to Taiwanese students in its “International Food Day” event under the name of Taiwan. After Taiwan protested, a compromise was reached and the students were allowed to have a booth under the name of “Taiwanese food”.
Italy was one of the first countries off the block to support Xi Jinping’s as there are growing concerns that China is literally buying off Italy. In 2019, cumulative Chinese FDI in the country totalled $17.4 billion since 2000. China is taking over Italian companies and is also investing in Italy’s stick exchange at a breakneck speed. Despite being China’s ally, the latter didn’t care to inform Italy about the impending disaster with Italy’s politicians also undertaking a bizarre “Hug a Chinese” campaign. There is no way Italy is going to side with the USA in its efforts to punish China despite Italy being one of the worst countries to be affected by the Wuhan coronavirus.
Spain which also bore the brunt of the coronavirus is showing no anti-China stance despite also receiving faulty kits from China not once, but twice! In April, Spain found several faults in a batch of coronavirus testing kits that it bought from a Chinese company and subsequently returned the batch. Shockingly, even the replacement batch had faulty testing kits which severely hampered the country’s fight against the deadly virus.
Despite this, Spain’s Foreign Minister Gonzalez has claimed that the Spanish king, prime minister has repeatedly and publicly thanked the Chinese government for their “support” in helping them battle the pandemic. Gonzalez further claimed that Spain will strengthen the cooperation with China and stand in solidarity with it and also supports the WHO’s role in helping the world battle the pandemic.
Needless to say, the people of Italy and Spain who have been worst hit by the virus will have no fondness or liking for the Chinese Communist Party, unlike their politicians who are under heavy Chinese influence.
Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte has taken a massive pro-China stance and is drifting far away from the USA. Before Duterte, the island nation was America’s oldest military ally in Asia. Duterte has defended China amidst mounting global criticism for the nation’s handling of the virus.
“President Xi Jinping, for all of his goodness to us, wrote me a letter and said that he is willing to help. All we have to do is to ask,” said Duterte in March. The U.S also sent medical supplies, but Duterte hardly acknowledged it. In 2016, Duterte openly said, “I will be dependent on you for a long time,” during his visit to China.
Marking a new low, Duterte even called Obama a “son of a whore” and despite singing for President Trump during the latter’s visit to the Philippines, Duterte is yet to visit America and has even rejected Trump’s invitation while he has visited four times to China.
As Chinese investment flows in the island country, the American presence is rapidly deteriorating. However, the ground reality is that the local population increasingly favour America which is backed by various local and international surveys which claim that Filipinos trust America more than China.
This fact was further corroborated by the backlash China received from the Filipinos when it released a music video calling for unity with neighbours at a time when China was rapidly harming Philippines interests in the South China Sea. The amount of backlash was so severe that the video had more dislikes than likes on YouTube. The video has garnered 173,000 dislikes as compared to just 2,800 likes. The lyrics are written by Chinese Ambassador H.E. Huang Xilian, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines.
The bilateral relations between Iran and the US are at an all-time low which has unsurprisingly prompted Iran to tilt towards China. An indication of how far China’s influence has increased in Iran, when Kianous Jahanpour, the spokesperson for Iran’s Health Ministry, criticised China’s data on coronavirus as a “bitter joke”, he was immediately attacked by Iran’s conservatives.
Within hours, Jahanpour was forced to backtrack as he thanked China for standing with Iran in these unprecedented times despite the widely believed theory that it was a Chinese visitor who had brought the virus to the holy city of Qom.
Venezuela too is now seeking Chinese monetary support over the pandemic as the Maduro’s government request of receiving $5 billion financing was flatly rejected by the IMF, with China expected to swoop in.
There is a strong counter-current rising which seeks to place China as a holier than thou country and the world must be prepared against it.