Au Revoir Britannia by Sylvie Bermann sampler

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au revoir britannia Chinese leaders propaganda, pure and simple, and interference in their affairs. Still on the defensive at the time of Hu Jintao, they have now gone on the offensive and are more than willing to give as good as they get, inexpertly and brutally, in the case of the ultra-nationalistic and arrogant ‘Wolf Warriors’. They have had no hesitation, sometimes to the chagrin of their elders, in trampling on diplomatic niceties. Simply desirous of ensuring respect for their own model of governance and development, the Chinese did not try to preach or convert anyone in the past. Is that set to change? Certainly since 2010, some people, mostly in the West, have claimed that the ‘Washington Consensus’ (a set of liberal rules used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for granting development aid conditional upon good governance by recipient countries) has been replaced by the ‘Beijing Consensus’ (development without democracy). The latter is designed to attract developing countries, especially in Africa where China is investing more and more resources. But European countries were never a target for Chinese propaganda even at the height of the Cultural Revolution when self-styled Maoist parties in Europe were looked on with profound distrust by Beijing. Despite originating in China, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided an opportunity for the Chinese. Proud of having contained the disease through the application of drastic measures, Beijing has been able to present itself as a generous and efficient supplier of epidemiologists, masks and other medical equipment to European countries, and even American ones, which were hopelessly unprepared and whose management of the situation was chaotic. While it was easy for them to point to the shortcomings of the West, the Chinese overplayed their hand by claiming that their system – characterised by discipline, a sense of community, Confucius principles and public-spiritedness – was clearly superior. In fact most of Asia – including relatively democratic societies such as South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore – reasoned in a similar fashion, emphasising these 40
introduction same Asian values as opposed to the perceived individualism of Westerners. But unlike China, they did not link them to any particular political system. For its part, Beijing considers that the superiority of its authoritarian regime has been proved and that these values are embodied in the Communist Party, which is totally at one with Xi Jinping’s vision of China. This is in no way a Communist ideal, but a system of reinforced internal control of a Leninist variety designed to win and retain power above all else. We are very far from the Chernobyl effect predicted by the Western press at the beginning of the pandemic, since the perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) which resulted from that event were analysed in Beijing as the reason why the Soviet Union exploded and why the Communist Party disappeared. May God, Mao or the Yellow Emperor save China from such a fate! When Xi Jinping was the party’s school director, the collapse of the USSR was regarded as a case study, the conclusion being that everything must be done to prevent the same thing happening in China. On the international scene, China will no doubt continue with its vision of power and the preservation of its interests, now present in most of the world. The ambitious project of establishing new silk roads will remain at the heart of its international policy, despite the inevitable temporary hold because of the post-COVID economic crisis. The increasing involvement of Beijing in the United Nations system, which the West sees as ‘entryism’, will also continue. This is not illegitimate, whatever is said about it, except in the case of Interpol, when its Chinese president was recalled to Beijing in somewhat mysterious circumstances and convicted of corruption. It is a logical development for the world’s second power, which for so long remained on the margins of the system monopolised by the West, and has significantly increased its contributions at the request of those same Western countries that had also regularly expressed the wish that China would take on more responsibilities. 41
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Au Revoir Britannia by Sylvie Bermann sampler

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