The 2018 APEC summit may have ended with a whimper, but for China, there were more than enough bangs. Xi Jinping left afterward for Brunei and then the Philippines on a desperate crusade to recover some semblance of his dignity (and Xi's devoted concubine, Rodrigo Duterte, was eagerly waiting to lick his... er, ahem "wounds" for him before he heads to Argentina for the G20 Summit, where I cannot foresee Trump going easy on him) but that won't change the fact that in the past few days he (and by continuation, China) has lost more face than Harvey Dent.
The gathering was held in Papua New Guinea, a nation that has attracted a disproportionate amount of attention lately, mainly due to its location but also, due to its status as China's most recent target. China's interest in PNG mainly stems from its proximity (and less-than-cordial history) with Indonesia, a country which has spurned China's advances frequently and has recently become one of the leading voices in the region's pushback against China (Rose; Karmini). This has infuriated Beijing, whose policy of trying to forge close ties with "regional pivot countries (Jin, 158) coupled with their view of Indonesia as the main power in ASEAN (Xi), has led them to woo the archipelago intensely.
China found a new toehold in ASEAN when their agent, Duterte, became president of the Philippines in 2016, and now they needed a toe-hold in the Pacific Islands Forum, and like a woman scorned, they chose the one that could give them the best chance of wounding Indonesia. That, of course, was PNG, a country with a history of... well, perhaps "tension" is too strong a word, given the rarity of violent clashes between the two. Let's call it "mutual annoyance." Well, to make a long story short, China's ambitions of bringing PNG under her sway went down in flames at APEC last week, and that wasn't the only slight to China, who succeeded in making herself look even more foolish and impetuous than usual at the summit.
Who Cares if This is Your Country!? We are Chinese! We Go Where We Want!
The first embarrassing incident involving the Chinese delegation was on Saturday afternoon (17 November) when China's delegation sneakily sought a meeting with PNG president Rimbink Pato in the hopes of making last minute changes to the summit's joint-communique (a staple of the summit every time they assemble). This year's joint communique included a passage saying "We agree to fight protectionism, including all unfair trade practices," and in an irony of historic proportions, China, the nation that spends half their lives shrieking about alleged "US Protectionism (Westbrook, Greenfield & Wen; Denyer & Noack)," felt this vow to fight protectionism unfairly singled them out and would not endorse the communique for this reason (Geopolitical Futures).
After being denied, they decided that the "Great and Glorious China" was under no obligation to show respect to a "lowly laowai tributary," and forced their way into the president's office demanding an audience (Whiting & Dziedzic). Agence France-Presse reported that police were called because of this incident (Straits Times).
An unnamed source close to the issue explained that it was inappropriate for the PM to negotiate on-on-many with a delegation from China, and that the Chinese delegation was aware of this. With this in mind, the forceful entry after being denied a meeting, coupled with the number of delegates facing down one man (and need we mention the overbearing arrogance Chinese delegates are so famous for) makes this a rather obvious attempt at intimidation and bullying. Pato downplayed the incident, simply saying "there wasn't an issue," but he did not deny it outright.
I realize freeze-framed pictures can be skewed to project almost any image imaginable, but if Wang Yi's demeanor in the photograph below, in which he appears to be whispering like a Triad Boss into Pato's ear, is any indication, then this would certainly seem to be exactly as I described it.
Oh, and predictably enough, China has vociferously denied the incident (Lee Jeong-Ho), but I've already explained why I don't take denials from the Chinese government that seriously and find it laughable that anyone else does.
This Wasn't In Comrade Xi's 5-Year-Plan
By this time, China was beginning to see that the summit was not going the way they felt it should (and indeed, the way they believe all international meetings are supposed to go); namely, the meeting did not consist of dozens of world leaders fawning at the feet of the "Glorious Middle Kingdom." This could explain why China banned all non-Chinese media from a meeting between Xi and the Pacific Island leaders, despite the fact that all had press credentials issued by the host country (Whiting). I feel it is necessary to point out that even reporters from the host country, which was one of the nations at the meeting with Xi, were kicked out in rude and blatant terms by Chinese officials.
China was completely unable to hide that their "odd man out" status the entire time, from Xi's defensive speech filled mostly with insistence that the Belt and Road project is, somehow, not a debt-trap, to the incredibly suspicious timing of a blackout at the forum's media center -the internet service went out as Mike Pence was taking the stage for a blistering verbal assault on China that was greeted with applause at all the right times (Remarks)- and then, just as mysteriously, came back online as soon as Pence left the stage. Even Washington Post, normally one of the first outlets in line to blast anything the Trump Administration says or does, was at pains to point out China's thuggish behavior, and showed the way VP Pence took calm and easy command of the summit (Rogin).
By the time all was said and done, little was said and less done. According to Washington Post, the Chinese delegation spent most of the summit trying to butt into conversations among other nations and then screaming their paranoid garbage about the other member nations "plotting against China," a favorite theme in the mythology that forms China's worldview. The summit ended, for the first time since its founding in 1989, without issuing a joint statement, due entirely to China's filibustering and refusal to endorse the communique, and when this happened, the Chinese delegation broke into applause. A fine show of asinine vitriol indeed for a nation that prides itself on its "[commitment] to promoting peace and stability in this region" and "[following] the path of peaceful development and the mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, and pursues friendly cooperation with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (White-paper).
Now, not only is this juvenile, but we should thank China for being this tactically stupid. Does China honestly think that a viewpoint espoused by every member state there (except China) is going to not be put into place because it lacks the meaningless rubber stamp of being made official by APEC? The nations of the Asia-Pacific made their view quite plain, and that view is that China is at roughly 14:45 of her 15 minutes of fame. What makes China's rather pitiable tactics even more laughable is that the website of China Global Television Network, a rather undisguised Beijing propaganda outlet, ran two editorials(1) on it, saying that the US was seeding discord (Summer), and that APEC had become an instrument for the US, who the author described as a "hegemonic overlord (Tangen). Intriguingly, while China publishes these alleged editorials on their English-language websites (read: "their media intended for everyone else"), there has been a Party-ordered moratorium on APEC coverage on Chinese-language websites (read:"their media for their own people"), which no publication in China except the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post was able to catch (Lee, Amanda).
In short, the Party-state is desperately trying to spin their obstructionist practices as the work of the US when the rest of the world is listening, while making sure their own population has nothing to listen to at all on the subject. However, the summit was far from a failure.
A More Literal "Power Broker"
Leading up to the summit, one of China's most frequently touted boasts was its "offer to help" PNG build an electric power grid. This was to be done through one of the high-interest loans that have become China's trademark, which they, in typically Chinese fashion, were pressuring a rather reluctant PNG to accept. (Packham). Well, it was announced at the summit that PNG will get their electric grid at significantly lower cost, and will owe China nothing (Associated Press). Given that this announcement was made on Saturday, the 17th -the same day as the incident at the PM's office- it seems credible to believe the Chinese delegation's boorish behavior had something to do with persuading the PM to sign the deal with the US, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.
And seaking of deals between PNG and US allies, the US and Australia will be developing a deepwater port on Manus Island (a port which had been sought by China as a naval base) as a joint US/Aus/PNG naval base (Dziedzic), another announcement that was made at the summit.
Basically, everyone got what they wanted out of the APEC summit.
...Except China.
As for me, I count those last two words as the biggest extra win for all concerned.
(1) CGTN is well-known for "editorials" that will invariably be linked to their facebook page. Though China has discovered the trick of posting a disclaimer in the article itself and the FB caption stating that the opinion is the opinion of an author and not necessarily of the network, the fact that they have never run an opinion other than the one prescribed by Beijing makes this facade rather obvious. Also, though the names attached to these editorials are usually non-Chinese, they have the same grammar errors that are common in Chinese ESL students (putting punctuation outside of quotes instead of in, using the present simple tense almost to the exclusion of all others, and using the wrong part-of-speech form of words, such as "depends on inclusive" instead of "depends on inclusion." There is also the abundant repetition of Party slogans and Chinese rhetorical style (such as an emphasis on binary comparisons, a hallmark of Confucian writing) to consider. All-in-all, it is my very strongly held opinion not only that these "editorials" are actually propaganda pieces written by Chinese citizens on the Party's order, but that this should be obvious to all.
Works Cited
Books
Jin Canrong, Dai Welai, Zhou Xinyu, Sun Xihui, Wang Shushen, Kang Xiao, Dong Chunking, Guo Zhenjia, Wang Hao, Xiong Lili. Trans. Wen Jianxin. China's Wisdom. Beijing, 2017. China Renmin University Press.
ISBN 978-7-30024-622-2
Xi Jinping. The Governance of China; Vol. I. Beijing, 2014. Foreign Languages Press.
ISBN 978-7-119-11394-4
Government Documents
Full text: China’s Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation. State Council of the People's Republic of China. 11 Jan, 2017. http://english.gov.cn/archive/white_paper/2017/01/11/content_281475539078636.htm . Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
Remarks by Vice President Pence at the 2018 APEC CEO Summit | Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The White House. 16 Nov, 2018. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-2018-apec-ceo-summit-port-moresby-papua-new-guinea/ Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
From the Web
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https://geopoliticalfutures.com/daily-memo-asia-pacific-intrigue-a-win-for-greece-middle-east-diplomacy/
Agence France-Presse. "Cops Called After Delegates Try to 'Barge' Into Minister's Office." Straits Times. 19 Nov, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/cops-called-after-delegates-try-to-barge-into-ministers-office
Associated Press. "US, Allies to Bring Electricity to Most of Papua New Guinea." Washington Post. 17 Nov, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-allies-to-bring-electricity-to-most-of-papua-new-guinea/2018/11/17/4c116884-eadb-11e8-aff1-eec29b6f92ca_story.html?utm_term=.12e23171186a
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Dzeidzic, Stephen. "US to Partner with Australia, Papua New Guinea on Manus Island Naval Base." Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 Nov, 2018. Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-17/us-to-partner-with-australia-and-png-on-manus-island-naval-base/10507658
Karmini, Niniek. "South China Sea: Indonesian Navy Fires Shots, Seizes Chinese Fishing Boat." Sydney Morning Herald. 31 May, 2016. Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
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Lee, Amanda. "Nothing to See Here … China’s State Media Has Little to Say Over APEC Summit Drama." South China Morning Post, 19 Nov, 2018. Web, 20 Nov, 2018.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/2173933/nothing-see-here-chinas-state-media-has-little-say-over-apec?edition=international
Lee Jeong-Ho. "‘Simply Not True’: China Rejects Claims Apec Diplomats Tried to ‘Barge’ in on PNG Minister’s Office to Influence Communique." South China Morning Post. 18 Nov, 2018. Web, 20 Nov, 2018.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/2173782/police-called-chinese-diplomats-barging-png-foreign-minister
Packham, Ben. "PNG Pushed by China on $1.25bn Power Deal." The Australian. 27 Sep, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/png-pushed-by-china-on-125bn-power-deal/news-story/f4ad770a0fd8bc994671920d41f09f10
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2018/11/20/inside-chinas-tantrum-diplomacy-at-apec/?utm_term=.9cd7906a194d
Rose, David. "‘CHINA CALLS IT FISHING, INDONESIA CALLS IT CRIME’: PUDJIASTUTI FINDS HER TARGET FOR OCEANS SUMMIT." South China Morning Post. 18 Oct, 2018. Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2169153/china-calls-it-fishing-indonesia-calls-it-crime-pudjiastuti
Summer (first name not given). "Opinion: APEC's Future Depends on Inclusive and Win-win Cooperation." CGTN. 18 Nov, 2018. Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674d33676a4e30457a6333566d54/share_p.html?fbclid=IwAR1XzFGuvBCeLkqa3EfCCjmPCt_56XuO5JrcbzMegXo2WJd72PKYlz-jhrs
Tangen, Einar. "Opinion: Rhetoric and Reality, APEC and the Emperor's New Clothes." CGTN. 20 Nov, 2018. Web, 21 Nov, 2018.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674e794d7a4e30457a6333566d54/share_p.html?fbclid=IwAR0PKga_mb3i6b5Wr4XT1IyRvhaFTZ5omMZjO2MvDTHlZJnPNqNlKh586Cg
Westbrook, Tom; Greenfield, Charlotte & Wen, Phillip. "UPDATE 4-U.S.-China Divisions Dominate APEC Summit." Reuters. 17 Nov, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
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Whiting, Natalie. "China Boots Media from Pacific Island Leaders Meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping." Australian Broadcasting Company. 18 Nov, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/media-kicked-out-of-xi-jinping-pacific-leaders-meeting/10506666
Whiting, Natalie and Diedzic, Stephen. "APEC 2018: Chinese Officials Barge Into PNG Foreign Minister's Office After Being Denied Meeting." Australian Broadcasting Company. 18 Nov, 2018. Web, 22 Nov, 2018.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/chinese-officials-create-diplomatic-storm-at-apec/10508812