“… as Xi Jinping turns China from a one-party state into a one-man imperium, everything matters. No detail is too small to sweat. No sympathetic politician too obscure to ignore. With opponents, Xi demands a gangster’s respect by unleashing retaliation out of all proportion to the original offence. China explodes at trivial examples of opposition a stable superpower would have the self-confidence to ignore.

… the Czech politician Zdeněk Hřib … discovered when he became mayor of Prague in 2018 that the city had committed itself to supporting Xi’s one-China policy, as part of an apparently harmless twinning agreement with Beijing. Hřib abandoned the policy because he was a liberal who did not agree with forcing Taiwanese people into a communist state against their wishes. In any event, he thought it ridiculous for a central European city to take a position on conflicts in the far east. China reacted as if he had declared war. It banned cultural contacts. Czech oligarchs with Chinese interests hired hack journalists and PR shills to attack him. Miloš Zeman, who was then the Czech republic’s Trumpian president, warned him and Prague of ‘unpleasant consequences’.

Today it is Lithuania’s turn. China is blocking imports and threatening multinationals with punishments if they do business with the tiny Baltic country, solely because it trades with Taiwan.

We should bother …”

aus: Nick Cohen: No friendly politician is too obscure for insecure China, not even Barry Gardiner. The Guardian online, 15.1.21, im Internet.

Abb.: Agapetoes Agus Kristianda: Big Mom, 2011, im Internet.

 

01/22