China’s practice of imposing economic sanctions on countries to achieve its own geopolitical goals is nothing new and the regular phenomenon of China bullying others has, in fact, helped other countries to keep several options at bay, said the author of “China’s Crony Capitalism”, Minxin Pei.
Recently, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued an official warning against travel to Australia because of “a significant increase in racist acts and violence against Chinese and Asians in Australia”. Two months ago, after Australia had demanded an investigation into the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing imposed an 80 per cent “anti-dumping” tariff on Australian barley, costing Australian 500 million Australian dollars a year.
Minxin said Australia is only the latest victim of Chinese bullying. Japan, Philippines and South Korea also has had a taste of Chinese economic coercion.
In 2010, during a diplomatic row with Japan over the Senkaku Islands, China briefly cut off the export of rare earth minerals to Japan. Similarly, China, in 2012, restricted the import of bananas from the Philippines after Manila opposed Beijing’s seizure of the Scarborough Shoal, which lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
In 2016, China targeted South Korea after it agreed to host the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system (THAAD) to defend against the North Korean threats.
Minxin said as China believed that the US was using Pyongyang as a ruse to deploy THAAD’s powerful radar to spy on Chinese military activities and potentially render Chinese missiles vulnerable to interception, it cut the number of Chinese tourists visiting South Korea.
However, in neither of the instances could China succeed. While Japan started seeking new suppliers, the Philippines exported fewer bananas to China and simultaneously won against its seizure of the Scarborough Shoal. Similarly, Beijing failed to stop South Korea from not hosting THAAD.
“If Beijing expects Canberra to kowtow, it should think again. China is almost certain to achieve the opposite of its goals: its economic coercion will only succeed in alienating and pushing Australia further into the US-led anti-China coalition,” Minxin said.