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Alex Lo

China has a few red lines. But if you respect them, life can be smooth and wonderful. China doesn’t care if you are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu or an atheist. It doesn’t care if your government is democratic, theocratic or dictatorial. If you want to do business, China is more than happy to partner with you.
If you need aid, that’s fine; it won’t tell you what to do with the money or otherwise dictate your finances, so long as it sees some returns, whether commercial, strategic or diplomatic. It is not doing it out of the goodness of its heart, but it always appreciates a win-win. The Global South understands that. The West, which loves to interfere and dictate, doesn’t.
China doesn’t interfere with your elections, overthrow or stage coups against your government, kidnap your political leaders and their spouses or sanction your country to the point of impoverishing and starving the population.
It doesn’t operate hundreds of military bases around the world that turn your country into a staging ground for the next world war. It’s not invading other countries. It doesn’t demand loyalty or force you to pick a side so long as you keep your end of the bargain. China builds; it doesn’t bomb.
In that respect, China is the most transactional and ideology-free country in the world. Just don’t cross its red lines – the return of Taiwan, the legitimacy of Communist Party rule and the unity of the Chinese nation. Everything else is negotiable.
Two recent news stories are illustrative: the home visit of exiled Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, and the public admission of Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene that the country made a big mistake in causing a diplomatic rift with Beijing over Taiwan.

“I believe that Lithuania really jumped in front of the train and lost,” Ruginiene told the Baltic News Service. “It was probably a huge mistake on Lithuania’s part to think that if we offered something ourselves and were the first to do something, the world would suddenly appreciate it. Well, we tried in this case, we have the Taiwanese representative office, but the world did not appreciate it, no one appreciated it.”
But it’s not too late. Give it time, and Beijing will turn around. Ruginiene seems to realise that.
“It is very difficult to rebuild what has been destroyed,” she said. “But we are gradually moving towards not being enemies, [and] at least having more normal technical and business relations.”
Well put. Taiwan is not your business, so why stick your neck out?
Meanwhile, Ai returned to Beijing to visit friends and family after a decade of exile. He was questioned for two hours at the airport, but otherwise, the whole visit was, as he described it, “smooth and … pleasant”, feeling like “a phone call that had been disconnected for 10 years suddenly reconnecting”. His Chinese passport was returned to him in 2015.

In numerous interviews with foreign media, he shared his belief that China is in an “upward phase”, while Western society, beset by incidents of censorship, is in decline.
During British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing, Ai said that the West no longer has the moral authority to criticise China on human rights. In an interview with British-based Novara Media, he argued that the West is going backwards.
BBC China correspondent Laura Bicker sums up China rather nicely.
“As someone who lives and works here … you see a China where if you want to live within certain parameters drawn by the Chinese government … you have quite a nice life,” she said. “You have high-speed trains that can transport you from one side of the country to the other. It’s such a safe country. I could go for a run at three in the morning. I could put a bag full of money in the centre of a coffee shop and it would still be there hours later. People are friendly. The food is nice. It is, you know, to all intents and purposes a lovely place to live.”
Being free from crime, free from want and free to travel – that’s real freedom. But you do have to mind your own business.
Bicker explains: “But if you want to question the leader, if you want to discuss politics, if you want to do anything that is outside the parameters of the party that the party doesn’t like, if you step on those red lines, that is when it becomes a problem, and that includes journalism.”


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Outside its few red lines, China is the ultimate win-win country

People visit a Spring Festival event at the Old Summer Palace in Beijing on February 7. Photo: Xinhua

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (seated, centre), Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan (seated, left) and Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema at the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the revitalisation of the Tanzania-Zambia railway, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 4, 2024. Photo: Xinhua

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Opinion

China Opinion

World Opinion

News

World

While China has red lines regarding Taiwan, Communist Party rule and national unity, everything else is negotiable


While China has red lines regarding Taiwan, Communist Party rule and national unity, everything else is negotiable.


Diplomacy

Ai Weiwei

Lithuania

Taiwan

China’s Communist Party

China trade

Global South

Human rights

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

As I see it

Outside its few red lines, China is the ultimate win-win country

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}While China has red lines regarding Taiwan, Communist Party rule and national unity, everything else is negotiable

While China has red lines regarding Taiwan, Communist Party rule and national unity, everything else is negotiable