Retelling the story of China and why it’s important

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A debt trap. A dispute at sea. A trade threat. An anomaly. A friend of Russia. The many names China has been called in recent years doesn’t require much reiteration, because they are already so engrained in our minds; either by label-repetition, international media-unison and perhaps also because of China’s Achilles’ heels – limitations with the English language and Western expression. 

Meeting with Chinese counterparts over the last month, I only had one question. Why don’t they fight the provocation much harder? And moreover fight it in public spaces rather than behind closed diplomatic doors where the risk for facts to be eluded and stereotypes resorted to being much higher. A case in point is perhaps the blatant press leaks to a closed door diplomatic meeting at the G20; a clear unapologetic breach of pacta sunt servanda. 

The problem at its core was this, that in the telling of the story of China to the world, agency was often in the hands of a few in the Global North, who often presented a purposefully one-sided and dimensionally-lacking version of the country. Points presented were often not untrue, but very purposefully misrepresented. How could they be okay with this? The answers I received can only be described as profound at best. 

My interlocutors, not privy to the Western critical lens that perhaps I myself am victim to, would not waste our meeting on West-bashing. Instead what I found was understanding rooted in respect toward counterparts – regardless of whatever part of the world those counterparts were from, and an assured confidence that in this game of story telling, that time, would ultimately tell the most truthful story. 

The interactions, to a great extent quantify the cultural tapestry that makes up Chinese characteristics to development; where Sri Lanka may have a five-year plan and Switzerland may have a 25-year plan, China sees the future in millennia. But is China correct to believe that the fullness of its story will be told, without urgency in the here and now for that correction to be forced? It begs the question of what the status quo is on that story being retold. There are some indicators that can be looked at for this purpose.

Redefining ‘made-in-China’

For one thing the connotation of what ‘made-in-China’ means is changing at accelerating velocity. The Chinese automobile manufacturer BYD for instance is viewed as the company to beat when it comes to transport-decarbonisation. Neck-to-neck and often ahead of companies such as Tesla. And while general publics are unaware of BYD’s presence around the world, the company is credited with the tech and manufacturing of electric buses that run in over 70 countries, including the iconic double decker buses that run in London. Its technological lead in lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, has caused other EV manufacturers around the globe to up their game, with BYD ranking 212 on the 2023 Fortune Global 500 list, ascending 224 positions within a year, making it the fastest-growing Chinese company on the list. 

Following behind in battery R & D, is CATL, another Chinese manufacturer which offers nearly every battery type made by BYD, and also collaborates with Western brands that have become synonymous in consumers’ minds with luxury and dependability; BMW, Ford and Toyota to name a few. Chinese companies have long viewed such collaborations and partnerships with pride, both out of recognition of its own achievements and that of foreign partners, but there appears to be hesitance on the part of Western counterparts to generally cite Chinese tech and recognise that beneath the cover of what looks intrinsically Western, is made-in-China products and tech. With the rise of companies like BYD this is bound to change, one informed consumer at a time. 

Green economies

Electronic Vehicles however are only one part of China’s move toward green technologies. It’s estimated that the country is actively promoting green and low-carbon transformation more fiercely that European or American counterparts, with energy transition investments reaching around $ 546 billion in 2022, about four times more than that of the United States. What’s interesting about the Chinese model, is that the economic advancements that come hand-in-hand with such policies, aren’t limited for China’s reaping alone. For instance Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF recently noted that a 1% increase in China’s economic growth contributes to around a 0.3% increase in productivity for other Asian economies. The percentages and data assist to better understand why Western narratives and cultural provocations rarely fracture China’s bilateral relations with global south countries.

But perhaps because production and manufacturing output has always been part of how the world views China, it may be important to also assess the other areas in which the country is active, yet not globally recognised, or is still misrepresented. 

Conflict mediation

In the last year the country has shown that it is serious about its role as a mediator in conflict resolution, not only with the Ukraine-Russia conflict but also within the context of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Even French President Macron noted that his Chinese counterpart had shared ‘important words’ on the Ukraine crisis, and expressed his belief that China could play a major role in finding a path to peace. Its efforts last year in brokering a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia could have ushered in stability to regions including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain, had the severe escalation of tensions not taken place in Gaza. China’s emphasis on negotiation and peaceful coexistence is part and parcel of its historic cultural expression; for instance, with its observer status within the Non Aligned Movement, the country has maintained strong links with the organisation, alongside NAM’s founding pillars being almost identical to the 5 principles of peaceful coexistence contained in the Panchsheel, a 1954 codification of the Chinese government’s foreign relations principles. 

Conclusion: Perspective matters

The areas of work mentioned in this article are significant to understand what China really is, yet somehow, international publicity of it remains scarce or lacking all together. Whether or not mass international media will move past political ideology and the one-size-fits-all measurement in this sense, is yet to be seen. But China appears to continue doing what it does best – move forward. And this perspective, whether for China, or any other country of the Global South, remains vital.

udhr_75

What Reparations look like on the anniversary of the UDHR

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By J. Natasha Gooneratne

Areas of focus: colonization, reparations, accountability, social, economic & cultural rights

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and for most part, the Human Rights Regime has achieved what most analysts believe to be a “keeping in check” of those states who need restrictive parameters most. The usual suspects as it were. As such, the emphasis within the system of international law and order, and perhaps of the UN Charter itself, is a revisitation of human rights tragedies scattered over time, and a pacta sunt servanda multilateral formulation of non-reoccurrence, accountability and reparation.

Yet somehow, the mother of all tragedies within the system, remains scantly touched, despite countless calls over time from the Global South that addressing this core issue remains fundamental for maintaining equitable international order. That being, the issue of colonization by imperial powers.

There is in no way a special requirement of retroactivity in order to access the legal norms that were flagrantly violated by Eurocentric powers during these periods. One may argue that the current international law and human rights law regimes are contemporary, and are therefore ill-suited to examine the historical contexts of colonization. But this argument hardly holds considering that the contemporary regimes of international law are founded in customary law, spanning the trajectory of colonization. Furthermore, if the technicalities of dates are to be utilized, 1990 may be a vital one. It was the year Namibia gained independence from apartheid South African rule. So really, colonization may have the favour of being considered contemporary.    

Violations of customary law; breaching of treaty obligations that were mendaciously agreed to; torture; slavery; violations of cultural, economic and social rights; natural resources plundered, repressive and purposeful policies based on a belief of Eurocentric race superiority, and a range of programs, including divide and rule, that continue to cause irreparable social and economic damage in these countries even today. While the social indicators are better known, (having caused divisions across Africa, namely that of Rwanda and in South Asia in countries like India and Sri Lanka to name a few), the economic impacts are still at a dramatically unassessed level. It could perhaps be fair to hypothesize that the label of ‘developing’ countries may have never been bestowed upon what we now call the Global South, had colonization never occurred. But perhaps this is too far of an assumption to contemplate. Instead we should assess the limited, but telling numerical data we have at our disposal.

The economic impacts of Colonization on the Global South

Research by economist Utsa Patnaik, published by Columbia University Press in 2018 details that as much as US $45 trillion may have been pilfered from India by Britain between 1765 to 1938[1]. The figure is impactful when assessing India’s current foreign debt which roughly stands at US $ 617 Billion. The pre- British India traded in silver with other nations that were drawn to her rich textiles, spices  and grains. But under British rule, the tax system imposed by the East India Company meant India would now be paying for the goods bought by Britain. Patnaik’s study also estimates that a re-export system that Britain established as a result of the taxation assisted in ‘finance (of) a flow of imports from Europe, including strategic materials like iron, tar and timber, which were essential to Britain’s industrialization.’[2] In that sense, India’s deep economic loss was Britain’s gain, but the data presented by Patnaik is not the exception, but the reoccurring rule woven through colonized states. The rough estimation in the Caribbean region is over US $ 9 trillion[3], for Namibia which experienced colonial era genocidal massacres by German settlers the figure of expectation was 478 billion euros, compensation for slavery in the United States is estimated at US $ 12 Trillion, and the list goes on.

The staggering monetary figures are important to note because they provide a framework within which to understand colonization in ongoing terms; to weigh-in in proportional requisites how much was taken from colonized states, and, perhaps more crucially, in fully understanding the root causes of why the developing world is still ‘developing’.

Acceptance & Restitution: How far along are we? 

On the eve of the UDHR’s 75th anniversary, one may consider the current discourse on human rights and its competing actors, and conclude that there remains an imbalanced and erred viewpoint here. On the one hand, Global North nations are often perceived as altruistically advancing the human rights cause, encouraging Global South counterparts to follow suit, leading and steering discussion, agenda and norm setting exercises at intergovernmental human rights mechanisms. But on the other side of that coin, discussions that center on the requirement of economic stabilization for global south countries are often met with harsh indifference, including to the point of strongarming and postponing outcomes at intergovernmental working groups that are viewed as developing-country friendly, such as the UN Working Group on the Right to Development or the Development Agenda Group of WIPO.

The causality of this duplicity can perhaps be twofold, with economic rights, often adjourned under the banner of collective rights historically ill-receiving the recognition it deserved, from most western states. The deliberations covering the treaty on economic social and cultural rights versus that of civil and political rights are an unfortunate case in point. As noted by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “the UDHR, ratified in 1948, makes no distinction between these rights. (Although) a distinction later appeared in the context of cold war tensions between the East and West. This led to the negotiation and adoption of two separate covenants—one on civil and political rights, and another on economic, social and cultural rights”.[4] The other reasoning, being more simplistic, so as to not have any onus or accountability within a discussion that centered on the global south and economic rights, given the likelihood of all root causes leading back to colonial delinquencies.

In fact the latter, may perhaps be the factor behind the surprising delay on the formulation of a mechanism of restitution for colonization; even to the embarrassing point of language. This means that while former imperial powers are willing to return a limited number of cultural objects including artifacts to former colonies, the process of considering real reparations or even acknowledging the violations and very enterprise of colonization still remains awkwardly out of bounds verbally, and in written form. Perpetuating a growing notion among former colonizing powers that avoidance of such language somehow alters the confines of the culpability. For instance, analysts have explained that Germany’s initial hesitancy toward addressing the Namibian claim, and the perhaps consequent decision, to label any monetary exchange a gesture and not reparation was due to a “grave concern that this would give rise to a rule.”[5]

Conclusion: Navigating difficult questions and realities

But criticism by analysts have not been limited to the linguistical altercations alone. The qualitative demeanor of artifact returns have also been under scrutiny. A case in point may be France’s repatriation of 26 artefacts to Benin last year, viewed in relation to the estimation that the country holds close to 90,000 stollen artefacts from Africa, or the United Kingdom’s decision to return 7 stollen artefacts to India this year. This is not to say that such gestures have not been appreciated by the receiving countries, in contrast such returns have been met with diplomatic warmth and welcome reception by both authorities and publics of the Global South, but any analyst, aligned to any political bloc, must be willing to ask the difficult questions of, a) If it is enough in relation to the proportionality of what colonized countries endured under colonization? And b) If it is enough in relation to the structural political, civil, economic, cultural and social fractures that colonization caused and perpetuated in these countries? And if the answer is no, then what can an equitable and meaningful reparation, or gesture look like?

Perhaps the issue is that at the root of the problem lies a duplicity of values that prevents formerly colonized states from ever receiving the restitutive justice they require to exit the never ending cycle of monetary dependence. If true political will is attached to the championing of human rights, as it is portrayed by the championing states, then the way forward to reparations can be disentangled from complexities of linguistical avoidance or discounting the work of analysts such as Patnaik. If reparatory payments in the trillion range appear non-negotiable, then surely debt forgiveness in the billion range should be possible? If the return of all stollen artefacts causes too much of a toll on the cultural and social architecture of a once imperial state, then surely the easing of asylum restrictions to allow for a relative flow of economic migrants from once colonized states should be permitted? Or perhaps more altruistic onus toward hosting refugees from former colonized states? In fact the UNHCR notes that 74% of refugees are hosted in low and middle income countries; with Turkiye hosting 3.7 million people, Colombia 2.5 million, Germany 2.2 million, Pakistan 1.5 million, and Uganda 1.5 million.[6] Save Germany, the other 4 nations on this top 5 compilation consists of mainly global south states, that among a myriad of national strains, also have the complicated manoeuvring of extreme foreign debt, post COVID-19.

The concluding point being, that whatever the package formulation of restitutive justice, the power to exert change still appears to lie in the hands of the (once) colonizer. And in that sense, perhaps the status quo of North and South, economically at least, is still awaiting its decolonization.

[1] Hickel, Jason. “How Britain Stole $45 Trillion From India.” How Britain Stole $45 Trillion From India | Conflict | Al Jazeera, 19 Dec. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india.

[2] Hickel, Jason. “How Britain Stole $45 Trillion From India.” How Britain Stole $45 Trillion From India | Conflict | Al Jazeera, 19 Dec. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india.

[3] Caricomreparations.org

[4] “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/economic-social-cultural-rights. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.

[5] Fisher, Max. “The Long Road Ahead for Colonial Reparations.” NY Times, 27 Aug. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/world/americas/colonial-reparations.html.

[6] “Mid-Year Trends: Forcibly Displaced Populations.” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, www.unhcr.org/mid-year-trends.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.

Neutrality or Non-Alignment? The purposefully forgotten but crucial difference.

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This article explores the discourse of the Ukraine crisis from the perspective of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), recalling some of the movement’s focal pillars that find their roots in the cultural and historical makeup of its member states. It looks at recent efforts of NAM members within the context of peace talks and bilateral relations and further presents a reflection on why NAM members are better equipped to create progressive conditions within that space.

Lastly, it explores why such efforts are often misconstrued by Western governments and media.

A few weeks ago, 7 African leaders (heads of state of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Comoros and Egypt, alongside top officials from the Republic of Congo and Uganda) travelled to Russia and Ukraine, in what can thus far be described as the largest collective push toward brokering even a semblance of peace talks in over 16 months.

In a comparative perspective, the African peace mission is the opposite of NATO interactions.

Others have done their part, notably Türkiye, brokering the now defunct Black Sea Grain Export deal. This, while juggling tragic natural disasters, a US official’s distasteful hint at possible support toward regime change, a presidential election, its consequential run-off and a worsening economic situation. Although important to note that for now, Türkiye’s balanced stance within NATO appears void in light of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s revelation on negotiations between Ankara and Washington.

Other players still have contributed important trajectories in the domain of the last 16 months, that have perhaps re-shaped some of the more cliched POVs of world affairs. China, for instance, has emerged this year as a credible and serious mediator in conflict resolution, not only with Ukraine-Russia but with Iran and Saudi Arabia too. Even the most ascetic of its usual critics conceded to that point, with French President Macron noting that his Chinese counterpart had used ‘important words’ on the Ukraine crisis, and expressed his belief that China could play a major role in finding a path to peace.

This view stands in contrast to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s perception of China’s stance, levelling directives that Beijing must take a clearer stance in the war and saying that “neutrality means taking the side of the aggressor, and that is why our guiding principle is to make it clear that we are on the side of the victim”.

In a similar vein, the NY Times reported that President Biden was seeking more allies against, what it called ‘increasingly aggressive governments’ in Moscow and Beijing. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US was depicted in the international press as Washington’s ‘pomp-filled’ wooing and pageantry in the possible hopes that India would reconsider its non-aligned stance against Russia, and, perhaps more interestingly, against China. Liberal US media outlets, including the New York Times, are clearly unable to fathom why India, which it described as sharing certain enmity for China, would not subscribe fully to Washington’s strategy and perspective for dealing with the Chinese.

This assessment is important because, since World War II, it has often been the West’s rule, and not its exception, to reduce non-aligned policies of Global South states in their bilateral and multilateral relations with states that the West at varying times considers ‘the aggressors’.

This rule often permeates into diplomatic language, as has perhaps been the case with the United States’ rhetoric on the Indo-Pacific Strategy and more recently with the QUAD. Emphasis is often placed on ‘shared values’ between partners and allies, drawing invisible but palpable lines for non-partners. Lines that justify semantics like that of President Biden’s labelling of President Xi Jing Ping a ‘dictator’ recently, at the end of what had otherwise been seen as a promising visit of Secretary Blinken to China.

Despite the German Foreign Minister, Washington and a smattering of Western press – for Global South states, the familiar writing has always been on the wall: Pick a side – ours or the aggressor’s! It’s a passive-aggressive ultimatum that you’re either with us or against us.

And before we can even begin to deconstruct this coerced polarization of camps that has become part and parcel of the North’s relations with the South, it is perhaps more important to disentangle the purposeful and erred linguistic substitution of ‘neutrality’ with the accurate designation of ‘non-alignment’, and the differentiation of the two.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), with its deep roots in the decolonization struggle, understood the implications of them-us narratives, and whose purpose they served. Most NAM member-states fell, of course, within the category of “them” during colonization (and some may argue,they still do).

For NAM members, however, it is the promotion of mutual interests and cooperation that takes precedence over side-picking. It’s friendly relations over cliquey differentiations, and mutual respect over the need to paint international-order positions and policies in easy black or white. For those who followed the struggle of the decolonization movement and founding of the NAM, the current context of world affairs within the discourse of Russia should come as no real surprise: all 7 peace-mission African states are members of the Non-Aligned Movement, as is India.

China, with its observer status within the NAM, has strong links with the movement, with the NAM’s founding pillars being almost identical to the 5 principles of peaceful coexistence (1954) contained in the Panchsheel, a codification of the Chinese government’s foreign relations principles also today.

Even Türkiye, with its historical reservations during the formation of the NAM, has expressed its solidarity with the movement’s work; Türkiye’s foreign minister in 2021 reiterated the validity of the NAM’s work in a multipolar world where he said that challenges were becoming more complex; his words were like a precursor to the reality awaiting the world in 2022 with both the Ukraine crisis and the global economic crisis that would follow.

Among the 10 Principles of the Bandung Founding Conference (1955) was the movement’s pacta sunt servanda pledge toward settlement of international disputes by peaceful means, in conformity with the UN Charter, a pledge that, as illustrated by the African peace mission or via India-China diplomatic relations, members inculcate.

The movement has consistently stressed that it aims to promote peaceful coexistence between nations, regardless of their political, social or economic systems. NAM members have special capacities precisely because of this enshrined principle of friendly relations with all states and not just with those that share similar values.

If third-world approaches to international law liken the West’s hegemony within the international system to an understanding of ‘the white man’s burden’, then the opposite can be true of what the NAM can accomplish. For if the former is based on a perceived moral obligation to civilize, then the states being looked at will always be seen as requiring civilizing; they are “aggressors” or “dictators” always ‘developing’ – yet never arriving to or meeting the invisible measure set for it by that hegemony.

Through the lens of the NAM, states are seen as equals, not greater or lesser, but burdened with their gaps and shortcomings within differing contexts. Contexts that can only be genuinely addressed and understood from within. This is possibly what makes NAM states the most suitable mediators for this present time, with an approach that could allow both Russia and Ukraine to be at the table without consideration of a conflict of interest, or hidden agendas.

Where neutrality takes a back seat and no side, non-alignment actively strives for friendly relations and peace.

During the Cold War, non-aligned policies succeeded in making the world a far less aggressive place than it potentially had the capacity to become, but that story often goes untold, in the face of a narrative of two superpowers with their finger on the MAD trigger.

Perhaps this time around, the viewpoints of the 7 African leaders, or perhaps even the nuances of China-India relations, may be given more amplification – in the media yes, but also in the understanding of the public, alongside the consideration of how multilateral forums such as the NAM differ radically in their diplomatic relations and perception of other nations from those of the Western world.

If a peace mission is genuinely what the international so-called community is seeking, instead of more destruction now and in the future, it is imperative to recognise the radical difference that mediators – in spite of their experience of being labelled, name-called and othered – can make. It’s therefore time to stop twisting their arms and enable their genuinely different but competent mediation as a road toward sustainable conflict resolution and peace.