— China, Wolf Diplomacy — 2 min read
The Chinese government has made it known that it just might arrest Americans because they're Americans.
Crisis tends to disrobe, readily revealing of what substance we’re made and how well we're built.
So it happens that, over the last few days and during this time crushed through with crisis, news outlets have reported a species of China’s “wolf diplomacy.”
In this particlar strain, known as “hostage diplomacy,” China warns it may imprison citizens of a foreign nation were it to offend, in some way, the Chinese government. Cf. China embraces hostage diplomacy, Axios, Oct. 20, 2020; and China Warns U.S. It May Detain Americans in Response to Prosecutions of Chinese Scholars, WSJ, Oct. 17, 2020.
The United States' offense appears to be its prosecuting Chinese nationals on charges of espionage. The nerve.
These reports follow a warning from the U.S. Department of State and directed to U.S. businesses that employees headed to the Red Dragon may just get “swallowed up.” China Travel Advisory, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Sept. 14, 2020. (Ok, "swallowed up" is my term.)
Confession: I read with some glee this news.
Having worked for years in the financial services industry, my memory resurrected so many conversations in which I or a colleague earned the ridicule and contempt of our higher-ups because we criticized doing business over there. (Disclosure: they weren't that high up.)
The self-evident evil and complicity required to do business in that land was ignored by almost all our American business betters.
You were considered poor material did you not see the money — the vast sums! — that might be made. If you aroused a business conscience, you might draw anger. Often these would-be giants of industry simply deflected and cast about criticisms against their fellow countrymen for imagined wrongs here.
But, with Henry Clay, I’d rather be right.
Now to deal in yuan they’ll have to overcome that fear that has always hounded them, that anxiety that someone in the company might get tagged for something over there and that very someone might be in the mirror. After all, these types tend less to courage; indeed, the business model almost always moves in the opposite direction. Hongkongers they ain’t.
What’s remarkable about this latest "escalation" is how so very unremarkable and expected it is.
The truth — that large, ugly creature in the corner of our public square — has been sounding for decades the old, worn adage about dogs and flees. But our American businessmen didn’t mind the itch.
China’s wolf diplomacy reveals the nakedness of too many of our corporate leaders. Surely wolves in sheeps’ clothing, at least the Chinese Communist Party came dressed for the occasion.
Our business types should do us all a favor and put something on.