Losing friends

China became the second largest economy by opening its arms to the world and submitting itself to international rules.

Today its impressive economic growth is sputtering. Joblessness keeps rising while its property sector is tanking. Local consumption is tepid. Foreign investors are pulling out and relocating to other countries, and several major economic partners are moving to disengage from Chinese supply chains.

China can no longer manufacture or export its way out of its economic doldrums. Its companies and their local partners overseas are getting blacklisted, with corresponding sanctions.

God created the world; everything else was made in China? Today, other countries are churning out products offering the same selling points of the made-in-China items: mass-produced in record time, at bargain-basement prices.

Not too long ago, people (myself included) completely swallowed China’s spiel about its “peaceful rise” – the reassurance that its armed forces buildup was meant merely to develop a military capability commensurate with the size of its economy, land and population.

What naifs we were.

I once even watched a military parade in Beijing celebrating China’s National Day, without any trepidation that the military hardware and firepower on display might one day be used for aggression against the Philippines.

OK, high-pressure water cannons, military-grade laser lights and powerful flares were not included in the parade. But at the time, there was still no talk about China’s gray zone tactics in waters it is trying to grab from everyone in the neighborhood. Its trading partners were not yet complaining about Chinese economic coercion.

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China prospered by winning friends and influencing the world. Its continued prosperity is now threatened by the loss of those friends and the erosion of the global goodwill that it built up over several decades.

Several of its major trading partners have admitted that decoupling from the Chinese economy is complicated. But they are pushing ahead, diversifying their markets and supply sources, with their private investors also moving to wean themselves away from dependence on Chinese products.

As for tourism, China’s waiver of visas for several countries including France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia and Thailand beginning last December boosted tourist arrivals, but the numbers are still far below pre-pandemic levels.

A Reuters report last July, quoting experts, said China “needs to do more than just waive visas to encourage foreigners.”

“Geopolitical tensions, a government that tolerates no dissent and China’s sometimes belligerent portrayal in some Western media have kept some tourists away,” the Reuters report said. “China must also compete for attention with Japan, which is experiencing a boom in tourism thanks to its weak yen.”

For those who want a Chinese experience without the guilt, Taiwan is a preferred destination.

Last year, Taiwan became my first overseas travel destination after ending my COVID reclusion. This year I visited the self-ruled island again.

Since the time of Deng Xiaoping, I had been a regular visitor to China, the land of my maternal relatives – as a tourist, as a journalist, as a guest of Beijing.

The attractions in China, whether natural or man-made, are awesome. Local food, from the blandest to the spiciest regional cuisine, is exquisite. The agricultural crops… yum! The sweetest kamote or sweet potato I’ve ever had were those sold steaming hot in carts by ambulant vendors all over China.

In those early days of China’s opening up, the streets of Beijing were still full of bicycles. The architecture of the non-traditional buildings was mostly drab industrial – typical of Mao-era communist design.

Shanghai’s Pudong area was still an undeveloped flatland. Even in the biggest cities, there was no decent coffee to be had – or western-style cakes and pastries, for that matter. Public toilets were horrible.

With every subsequent visit to China, I was amazed by the rapid development. It’s a huge country and there are so many places I still want to see, so many things I want to experience (and eat!).

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But how can I do this, when the Chinese are ramming Philippine vessels and blasting them with powerful water cannons, firing flares into the path of our aircraft and preventing our people from fishing within our exclusive economic zone?

The EEZs are defined under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. UNCLOS, which both the Philippines and China have ratified, was the basis for the 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which invalidated Beijing’s loopy, greedy claim over nearly all of the South China Sea.

The Philippines has the arbitral ruling to define its maritime entitlements based on UNCLOS. What is Beijing’s basis? You can’t claim maritime territory merely because you say so. Simply looking at a map will make you wonder what made Beijing believe it can lay claim to practically the entire South China Sea. Does it think it owns anything bearing the name “China”?

That nine-dash line, upgraded last year to 10 dashes, is a hallucination. The danger for the neighborhood is that the Chinese are moving aggressively, using force to turn the hallucination into reality, at the expense of its neighbors and the maritime environment.

So far, official condemnations of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea have been issued by the Group of Seven industrialized economies, the European Union and individually by several G-7 and EU members plus Australia.

Beijing has ignored the arbitral ruling, but other countries recognize its importance in a rules-based international order. And beyond statements of condemnation, they are beginning to carry out measures that adversely affect China particularly its economy.

There are consequences for states that refuse to play by international rules. There are consequences for losing friends.