Charlemagne
The EU should not just hector China about universal values but encourage it to follow its own laws
THE European press has been filled with reports of the Universal Expo in Shanghai. They make for chirpy reading. The Spanish are offering Chinese visitors tortillas at their pavilion. In the Belgian pavilion (shared with the European Union), freshly made chocolates are being handed out every 20 minutes, drawing terrific crowds. France’s efforts have included a mock mass wedding for Chinese couples, who received a “Romantic Wedding” certificate and invitations to visit France in person.
The message is clear enough. This is not Europe as a shining city on the hill, a beacon of democracy and supranational co-operation. This is Europe as a nice place to shop and go on holiday. To be fair, the EU’s (rather small) stand in Shanghai talks about climate change and human rights. But such values are absent from European press reporting: the buzz is all about luring Chinese tourists and investment to recession-hit Europe.
This marks a rapid shift. Until recently European leaders visiting China felt obliged to speak out on human rights. A decade ago, a diplomat recalls, European investment in China was routinely linked to the appointment of a foreign general manager. Now, he notes: “the Chinese are buying Volvo.” Five years ago, Euro-boosters still argued that the EU—a peaceable club with an enviable social model and a lucrative internal market—was uniquely positioned to make China a “responsible stakeholder” and an ally in a multipolar world order.
Such hubris is long gone. China has given up waiting for the EU to integrate enough to become a geopolitical rival to America. The Copenhagen climate talks showed China’s disdain for binding international rules. More broadly, the West’s authority has been undermined by the financial crisis.
Europe has “moved way beyond trying to persuade China to accept our values,” a veteran diplomat admits. The goal has changed from making China a “responsible stakeholder” to “we are not quite sure what.” Yet Chinese envoys and semi-official scholars who tour European capitals complain that a declining Europe still wants to impose its values. Europe’s ex-colonial powers are ill-placed to lecture China about its behaviour in Africa, they say. And as for governance inside China, the Communist Party rejects Europe’s individualistic view of human rights: the priority is lifting millions from poverty and ensuring stability. What is more, they conclude, ordinary Chinese share such views.
In the face of such Chinese self-confidence, the temptation is for Europeans to embrace decline, ditch their principles and engage without conditions. For one thing, Chinese leaders are right to point out that for hundreds of millions of their citizens, life is better than at any time in history.
But Europeans should resist a surrender to moral relativism. Chinese arguments amount to a boast that their model of 21st-century autocracy is proved superior by economic success. But what if China is rising despite its autocratic model, which inhibits such drivers of success as meritocracy, transparency and creativity? An alternative history of the past 30 years might be this: if you abandon some of the most economically destructive policies ever devised, the Chinese economy will stand up and grow.
It is also possible that Europe is worth listening to precisely because it has made its own mistakes, some of which have their echoes in modern Chinese policy. Europe has tried mercantilism, militarism and inculcating youths with angry nationalism. Europe knows the limits of state-directed investment. Europe extended loans to kleptocracies in Africa before concluding that it was neither in its interests nor Africa’s. Many European countries used to jail dissidents and censor bad news. And so Europeans should be sceptical when non-democratic regimes say they can self-correct without independent checks and balances.
But if China is in no mood to be lectured, is there anything the EU can do? It suffers from two handicaps. China is brilliant at playing divide and rule among individual EU countries. And unlike its member states the EU as a union is bad at realpolitik, being a slow-moving bureaucracy based on rules and legal texts.
Charlemagne has a modest proposal. The EU should turn its slow, legalistic style into a strength. Sidestepping sterile arguments about whose values are better, the EU should offer to help China obey its own laws.
With their talk of placing stability and growth above individual rights, Communist officials sometimes make human rights sound like air conditioning, or colour television: a luxury you can afford once you acquire a certain level of wealth. But China’s human rights would improve overnight if the authorities paid more heed to their own laws: whether environmental rules, worker protections, or laws designed to safeguard against abuse by corrupt local officials. If lawyers were allowed to signal legal abuses, or police held to account for brutality, life would improve for thousands of Chinese. Local entrepreneurs as well as foreign companies would benefit from better intellectual-property protection (piracy has killed off many Chinese software firms).
Officials like to blame all ills on local corruption, claiming that central government cannot stop abuses it cannot see. Let the EU call their bluff: offering scholarships for prosecutors and defence lawyers, funding for environmental inspectors, or pressure when the central government blatantly flouts its own laws, for instance by “disappearing” a dissident without trial.
When EU officials speak to Chinese audiences, let them say that this is what they are doing: reflecting Europe’s commitment to rules-based governance by urging China to follow its laws. Handing out pralines is an easy way to make friends. But respect for the rule of law would be a far worthier European export."
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