Mark Rutte’s grovelling to Donald Trump this week went viral in China, with countless social media posts showing the Nato secretary general referring to the United States president as Daddy. For some of the more chauvinistic who shared it, the clip exemplified Europe’s subordination to the United States and the contrast with China’s policy of standing up to Trump.
In advance of this week’s Nato summit in The Hague, Rutte warned that China’s “massive” military build-up made closer links between the alliance and countries like Japan and South Korea more important than ever. He expressed concern that between three and five Chinese defence companies now rank among the world’s top 10 whereas a few years ago none did.
“Of course, they don’t do this only because they want to have nice parades in Beijing. I guess it’s there for a reason,” he said.
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday accused Rutte of spreading misinformation, stoking confrontation and looking for an excuse for Nato to increase its military spending.
“Nato claims to be a regional organisation but keeps reaching beyond the geopolitical scope defined in its treaty and uses Eurasian security connectivity as an excuse to have a presence in the Asia-Pacific,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press conference.
“The international community sees this clearly and countries in the Asia-Pacific are on high alert.”
China’s defence budget has more than doubled since 2010, growing at 7 per cent a year for the past decade, although it still amounts to less than 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the world’s largest standing army with 2.2 million active service personnel and its navy has more ships than any other.
China has been upgrading its military technology, developing weapons systems and building new stealth aircraft and fighter jets. Chinese forces have not been involved in a war since the 1970s but some of the new technology found a showcase last May during an air battle between Pakistan and India.
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Pakistan sent fewer aircraft into battle but it succeeded in downing five from the Indian air force, including three French-made Rafale fighters. It did so using Chinese-made fighter jets, missiles, radar and electronic warfare systems.
Rutte is undoubtedly right when he says that China is not making all of this military hardware just to put it on parade. But some of it will be on display in a big parade in Beijing on September 3rd to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the second World War.
Xi Jinping will inspect troops on Tiananmen Square and preside over a parade that will feature Chinese-made, high-precision military equipment and “new types of combat forces including unmanned, intelligent equipment”. Vladimir Putin will be among the world leaders at the parade and some Chinese commentators have suggested that Xi should invite Trump too.
This display of military strength will not be a reassuring spectacle for China’s neighbours but one of the country’s leading foreign policy experts said this week that Beijing has no ambition to replace Washington as the global hegemon. Gao Fei said the “one superpower and many powers” pattern was giving way to a multipolar system in which China will prioritise developing global partnerships.
“Partnerships are not distinguished as superior and subordinate, and there is no division into camps,” he wrote in the People’s Daily.
“Those who share the same ideals and aspirations (like-minded) are partners, and those who seek common ground while reserving differences are also partners. All countries can establish partnerships based on common interests and pursuits, constructing a common rather than exclusive ‘circle of friends’.”
Gao asserts that in the global partnerships China promotes, all states will be equal participants and the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of each will be respected. But he says that as a major power, China should play a leading role in improving global governance, not least because of the turn taken by the US under Trump.
“Certain western countries have abandoned their own international responsibilities, shifting from providing public goods to the international community to seeking rent from the international community through public goods, further affecting the legitimacy and stability of the international order,” he writes.
“As a responsible major country in the international system, in the face of enormous challenges to the international order, China must demonstrate its major power responsibility and play a mainstay role.”
During a visit to China this week, Singapore’s prime minister Lawrence Wong spoke about the vulnerability of small countries as global norms and institutions weakened amid a rise in economic nationalism and a greater emphasis on security.
“I think, frankly, no one knows what this new order would look like. It is still very early days. We are in a period of transition and a period of evolution,” he said.
“There will be critics of today’s system that say it is good that now the system is changing. But I would also say, let us have a care. Let us not be too quick to cheer. Because what is the alternative?”
