I'm always surprised whenever a reader gets the impression that I am anti-Chinese. The opposite is true. I believe that China not only gave the world one of the highest and most sophisticated civilisations in the history of its humanity, but also that it has achieved a unique miracle: longevity, thousands of years. The people living in China today are the direct descendants (language, culture, mentality) of those who created this civilisation; and this is not true of other ancient civilisations.
Things to admire, things to reject. This ancientness and this faith gave the Chinese an extraordinary cultural heritage and, at the same time, an almost limitless aptitude to master new knowledge, even knowledge which is not part of their cultural birthright. They assimilate, they perfect, they innovate. I have just learnt that in China, a technique has been developed to treat breast cancer without the need for surgery, by using rays to destroy cancerous cells, and that this method has just been used for the first time in Europe, with great success. China has become the world's largest exporter and not only of toys, textiles and shoes, but also of computers and other electronic products. It is in the vanguard of a whole range of high-tech products, and soon will be for many others.
But the vastness of its population and its area, associated with manual dexterity, an extremely high attention span and skills at learning to learn, have had the result that China has also reached the number one spot in other, less acceptable exercises, such as counterfeiting and illegal trade, which respect neither intellectual property nor the rules of origin. It is, of course, these aspects, which are immensely harmful to Europe, which I have spoken out against vigorously from the very beginning, when too many interests, even in Europe itself, were benefiting from this. But I also think I was one of the first to acknowledge the efforts of the central Chinese authorities to fight this scourge. By and large, the results are still insufficient; but this is only to be expected, because it cannot be easy to check and keep tabs on the actions of the local authorities and of hundreds of millions of highly skilled, business minded people from the capital. This is why both the speaking out and the vigorousness remain vital, as is the reinforcement of the protection measures.
This is particularly true as an additional dimension has come to the fore: the monetary threat, again on the scale of the Chinese continent and its population, for two reasons: the under-evaluation of the currency and the almost limitless availability of dollars, which theoretically would allow the sovereign funds held by the Chinese government to take control of vast swathes of the European economy, including high-technology companies and those of major strategic importance. For the first time, the EU is to speak on these issues with one voice, because the European institutional leaders - the president of the Eurogroup, the president of the European Central Bank and the competent European commissioner - are to visit Beijing in the next few days to discuss these subjects, with the intention of setting up permanent dialogue.
Two-way information. It is quite normal, and even necessary, for our bulletin to continue to publish the appropriate information in the meantime, and for this column to comment on them. The information, fortunately, goes both ways: our criticism of abuses and frauds on the one hand, progress in cooperation with Beijing on the other. In Geneva, the WTO has opened several infringement proceedings against China, by request of the EU or other countries (car spare parts, tax discrimination, counterfeiting). In Brussels, Olaf (the European anti-fraud office) has discovered a vast network of import frauds for Chinese textiles and shoes, worth millions and millions of euros (with accomplices in Europe). The steel industry of the EU has called for the introduction of anti-dumping duties on certain types of Chinese steel. The enormous problem of music counterfeiting has not yet been resolved. The number of investigations opened by the European Commission on the imports of dangerous toys is growing all the time.
But at the same time, Meglena Kuneva, European Commissioner for Consumer Protection, has reported back on growing cooperation with the Chinese authorities, who have themselves overturned 750 export licences for toys which did not fulfil the security standards. The G7 is looking into a “code of conduct” regarding the sovereign funds (Chinese ones and others).
My conclusion is simple: respect and admiration must go hand-in-hand with monitoring and defence measures, putting China on the same footing as the other major trade powers and calling for cooperation in and respect for the rules they freely subscribed to as a member of the WTO.
(F.R.)