Last Thursday I had to get up very early. I had to be at the Hongqiao train station in Shanghai at 6:30 in the morning to travel to Beijing. A light breakfast of wanton soup (Chinese ravioli) in a small restaurant at the station gave me the necessary energy to start the journey. The fast train was waiting for it to make the crossing. Four hours and thirty-five minutes to cover the 1200 km between China’s two largest cities at a maximum speed of 350 km/hour.
By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein
On arrival, my always smiling friend Wu was waiting to transfer me to the hotel promptly to start the activities. That same afternoon I had an interesting and fruitful dialogue with Chinese colleagues to exchange on international issues, their eagerness to know what is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean is evident.
Once again. I verified our mutual lack of knowledge and identified this as the reason that most strongly influences the generation of difficulties for a better and optimal rapprochement. China is beginning to understand that it is not enough to have excellent relations with businessmen and politicians. It is necessary to build a wider range of links with civil society, popular organisations, social movements, political parties, universities, intellectuals and academics, among others.
When I was asked why there is resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean to the Chinese presence, which according to them generates great benefits for the population, I replied that this was not always the case. Exchanges with businessmen only produce profit and gain for them. The people do not see the direct results of investment and trade, simply because they do not know about it and are not aware of it.
China has begun to understand that its confrontation (not necessarily war) with the United States is inescapable. The naïve vision that permeated the rhetoric (at least in the academic world I knew) only a few years ago and that established the security of being able to advance in the development and construction of its political model in “healthy coexistence” with the United States, has given way to the conviction that this is increasingly unlikely, especially after the events of 2019 in Hong Kong in which Washington openly financed and promoted the secessionist revolt.
The aggressiveness expressed in the wake of Trump’s “trade war”, the blatant Western support for Taiwan, the growing presence of US armed forces in adjacent seas, and Washington’s major diplomatic effort aimed at building military alliances in its neighbourhood, have led China to realise the inevitability of conflict and the need to prepare for it. This is readily apparent in the discourse of the academics with whom I have spoken, but also in media reports.
From my point of view, all this marks a notable difference from what I observed less than five years ago.
Taking advantage of my free time, over the weekend I visited Zhengding, a “small town” according to the Chinese, in reality, an ancient city of 550,000 inhabitants located 275 km southwest of Beijing in Hebei province. The town gained notoriety when in 1982, a young 29-year-old Xi Jinping became a political leader when he became general secretary of the district committee of the Communist Party of China for three years.
The city’s inhabitants remember the imprint of the country’s current leader. A colleague consulted on the subject points to a number of important actions taken by the young communist leader: The reduction of taxes on grain farmers, the repair and restoration of more than a thousand primary and secondary schools, the creation of a sports school specialising in table tennis, which to this day is a national benchmark in that sport, the obtaining of resources for the repair and maintenance of the religious temples that are the cultural heritage of the city, the region and the country, and the arrangement for the film “Dream in the Red Pavilion” to be shot in the city, which became an icon of national cinematography. The scene of the filming has been preserved and is the main centre of interest for national tourists who come to the city.
However, the visit had to be cancelled due to the colossal rains brought by Typhoon Doksuri’s transit through the vicinity of the territory. At the time of writing, the weather had caused severe flooding, forcing the authorities to declare a red alert and evacuate 31,000 people. The rains are considered the worst to hit the capital in the last 20 years.
The consequences of Doksuri and government responses at all levels have been the focus of media activity over the past few days as rainfall has averaged 320.8 mm and peaked at 580.9 mm in one sector of Beijing.
Despite this, the media, and especially social media, have been quick to comment on the dismissal of Chancellor Qin Gang. With a profusion of comments of all kinds on social networks, although not characterised as a national scandal, the Chinese are echoing all kinds of comments, especially the one that exposes a love soap opera as an explanation for the event.
The appointment of Wang Yi, who had already held this responsibility in the past and had delivered the post to Qin only seven months ago, shows that it was an unplanned decision and that the high Chinese authorities had to make a quick decision in view of the upcoming BRICS Summits in South Africa in August, G-20 in September in India and APEC in November in the United States, in which President Xi Jinping is due to take part. At the same time, the foreign ministry had to attend to six heads of state and other high-ranking authorities who have been in China over the last few days to take part in the opening ceremonies of the 31st edition of the World University Olympics.
In a more intimate ambit, the presentation of the Chinese edition of my book “China in the 21st Century. The Awakening of a Giant”. The event was held at the headquarters of China International Communication Group (CICG), the Chinese media giant. Speaking at the event, Du Zhanyuan, President of CICG, said that “the Chinese model is not without its faults, but the country will not accept that the Western media criticise it with ill-intentioned prejudices that distort reality”.
Du announced that a major event he called the “Latin America-China Civilisation Forum” would be held in Argentina next September as a meeting and discussion point between the Asian giant and our region in order to exchange ideas and opinions with a view to a shared future.
At 347 km/hour on the train back to Shanghai, I am taking the opportunity to write these notes after a very fruitful and intense – albeit short and wet – visit to Beijing.