How China Loses: The Pushback

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How China Loses
Luke Patey
How China Loses
The Pushback against Chinese
Global Ambitions

1
1
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Names: Patey, Luke A., author.
Title: How China loses : the pushback against Chinese global ambitions /​Luke Patey.
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 To Lilian Mattar Patey,
for showing her sons what courage looks like.
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to
be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man
really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.”

—​Robert Green Ingersoll, American writer and orator, 1883

CON TEN TS

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: There Was a Moment 1

1. Waiting for Peace 17
2. Evils under the Ground 41
3. Nobody Hates Money 63
4. The Chinese Way 89
5. Few Illusions Left 129
6. What Is Best for Europe? 159
7. Behave Accordingly 197
8. A Distant Part of Asia 227
Conclusion: Big or Small 251

Notes 271
Index 365
ACK NOW LEDGME NTS

F or the five years that I spent intermittently traveling and doing re-
search for this book, I was met with openness and generosity from a
host of researchers, government officials, civil society activists, and business
managers and executives around the world. Undoubtedly some will disagree
with my arguments and conclusions, but their willingness to meet, debate,
and share their insight and experiences was essential in helping me carry out
this work. This dialogue between friends and colleagues on what were gener-
ally sensitive issues in their respective countries provides me with confidence
that we can overcome the current tensions and troubles that stand between
China and the world. In the years ahead, it is necessary to remain open to
arguments that may unsettle our established perspectives if we are to avoid
escalation of present-​day hostilities.
Research for this book took me to East Africa, South America, East Asia,
and around Western Europe. This lengthy travel demanded time and financial
support. I was lucky to have both and much more from the Danish Institute
for International Studies. I know of no better place in the world to carry out
such independent work. For over a decade, I’ve benefited from working at an
institute that maintains a rare combination of academic scholars and policy
thinkers across foreign policy, defense and security, and development issues.
Since the importance of China to all of these research areas is now clear, despite
few working specifically on China, I gained much from discussions, support,
and feedback from my current and former colleagues. These included Peter
Alexander Albrecht, Louise Riis Andersen, Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke,
Rasmus Alenius Boserup, Adam Moe Fejerskov, Kristian Fischer, Stefano
Guzzini, Matthew Fallon Hinds, Johannes Lang, Jessica Larsen, Lars Kristian
Mathiesen, Mikkel Runge Olesen, Jairo Munive Rincon, Frederik Rosén,
Peer Schouten, Ida Marie Vammen, and Lars Vissing. I also appreciate the
research and translation assistance I received from Boukje Boerstra, Kirstine
Lund Christiansen, Nina Theodora Heuser, and Cynthia Murillo. Each went
above and beyond in diving into specific research queries and sharpening up
my work.
Sara Gro Vagtholm Sørensen deserves special thanks for designing the il-
lustrative maps for each chapter. The book spans much of the world. Mapping
it was meticulous work. For each illustration the focus is on the countries and
areas covered in the book. These should not be considered official in any way.
Rather they are meant to present readers with a basic geographical visual
to situate themselves within the content of each chapter. Countries, cities,
disputed borders, and other important distinctions that may not be relevant
to the book’s focus have been left out in many places.
This book started where my last one left off. My visit to South Sudan came
shortly before political tensions boiled over into a long and devastating civil
war. With hope that the worst is now behind the world’s youngest country,
I’m thankful to Elizabeth James Bol, Nick Champion, Brian D’Silva, Tut
Gatwech, Ilya Gridneff, Francois Henepin, Peter Justin, Francis Mila, Leben
Moro, James Ninrew, Henry Odwar, Qian Fengzhang, John Ryle, Kathelijne
Schkenel, Egbert Wesselink, Philip Winter, Zhang Hui, and Zhang Yi.
In Argentina, I discovered new research pastures. My warm reception
there began with meeting University of Rosario professor Eduardo Oviedo at
the Café de los Angelitos in central Buenos Aires. With framed black-​and-​
white photos of Carlos Gardel, Osvaldo Pugliese, and other famous Argentine
singers and performers looking down on us, Oviedo not only went through
the history of Argentina’s relations with China, but also exemplified the hos-
pitality I received in the country. Everyone I met was not only willing to
sacrifice their time and speak at length but also connected me with their re-
spective networks. Particular thanks go to Gustavo Cardozo, Sergio Cesarin,
Gustavo Alejandro Girado, Andres Lopez, Grete Sillasen, Monica Ynakiew,
and Yung Lin.
In Japan, I benefited greatly from wisdom and guidance availed on me
by Miwa Hirono, Tetsuo Kotani, Masayuki Masuda, Jane Nakano, Yoshiji
Nogami, Iwao Okamoto, Tomohiko Satake, Kiyoyuki Seguchi, Akio
Takahara, Aki Tonami, Michito Tsuruoko, Noboru Yamaguchi, and Anthony
Yazaki. In Western Europe, I am grateful to Thorsten Benner, Ana Luisa
Brito, Mikko Huotari, Ellen Margrethe Løj, Angela Stanzel, Luis Villalobos,
and Zhang Jiyu. In China, I learned much from discussions with Guo Cunhai,

x   A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
Lucy Hornby, Jin Ling, Wang Suolao, Wu Hongying, and Xu Weizhong.
There have also been many people, particularly in business and diplomatic
circles, who while asking to remain unnamed, made invaluable contributions
to this book.
There are a number of friends and colleagues outside my home institu-
tion, and several helpful reviewers to the book, who took the time to read
over selected draft chapters. Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira
were sounding boards for early ideas and offered excellent advice throughout.
I also owe much gratitude to Adnan Aamir, Akiko Fukushima, Jonathan
Hillman, Fermín Koop, Rohan Mukherjee, Juan Uriburu Quintana, Shutaro
Sano, and Harry Verhoeven. They each saved me from mistakes, pointed out
weaknesses, and encouraged me to push on. In times when research on China
is all too quickly politicized, they renewed my faith in academic community.
I’m grateful to my literary agent Andrew Stuart for his confidence in the
book’s early sprouts and his advice moving forward. At Oxford University
Press, thanks to David McBride for guiding the book from start to finish
and Holly Mitchell for all her help along the way. Despite all the insight and
assistance I received from others in the research, writing, and production for
this book, I remain solely responsible for any mistakes, shortcomings, and
the arguments and perspectives put forward.
My greatest debt is to Thea, Victor, and Gregory. We made many of the
trips for this book together as a family and I could not be more fortunate to
have their unwavering love and support.
This book is dedicated to my mother, Lilian Mattar Patey. At a young age,
political unrest and conflict upended her life. Rather than embrace anger and
revenge, she dedicated her time to spreading hope and helping others, and
never shied away from questioning unjust power.
Luke Patey
Copenhagen
July 2020

Acknowledgments xi
How China Loses
  Introduction: There Was
a Moment

S omething new was happening. Xi Jinping was in Davos. Once a year,

the small Swiss alpine town plays host to the World Economic Forum, a
gathering of political leaders, business executives, celebrities, academics, and
activists to discuss globalization, free trade, and current global issues from
climate change to artificial intelligence. The Davos crowd is an affluent one.
Often associated with liberal ideals of limited government, free markets, and
democracy, it is not a place where one expects to find the man who holds
the titles of the general-​secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and head
of the People’s Republic of China. It is not where one anticipates hearing a
keynote speech from the leader of a one-​party state known for its brand of
political authoritarianism and state capitalism.
But in January 2017, China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping, headlined
Davos. Along with him was the largest delegation China had ever sent to the
annual meeting. It included the likes of Jack Ma, founder of China’s largest e-​
commerce company, Alibaba, among other Chinese corporate executives and
high-​level government officials. Xi’s presence marked the changing current
in global affairs. The Chinese leader had arrived to assuage the anxieties of
the global elite. Just two months earlier, Donald J. Trump had won the 2016
American presidential elections. On the campaign trail, Trump threatened to
shake up America’s long-​standing trade and security partnerships in Western
Europe and East Asia. His victory, paired with Britain’s yes vote in a 2016
referendum to leave the European Union, confirmed to many that the West
was in disarray.
 For China, this was a golden opportunity. After the 2008 financial
crisis weakened liberal markets in the United States and Europe, the rise
of populism was now shaking political stability in Western democracies.
From Beijing’s vantage point, a new power vacuum had opened to advance
China’s interests, norms, and values on the world stage. Unlike the incoming
American president, Xi wanted to show the over 3,000 influential delegates
in attendance at Davos that he was a rational and responsible statesman, and
that China was ready to seize the mantle of globalization and free trade.
“ ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ ” Xi said in his
speech, quoting the opening line of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.
“Today, we also live in a world of contradictions,” Xi continued. “Many
people feel bewildered and wonder: What has gone wrong with the world?”1
The Dickens classic is set in the late eighteenth century during the First
Industrial Revolution and French Revolution. But Xi refused to blame ec-
onomic globalization, and the merger of digital technologies with physical
systems of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, for political and social turmoil
in the world. He rejected Trump’s calls for protectionism in response to un-
fair trade practices by America’s largest trading partners. “China will keep its
doors wide open,” Xi said. “Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in
a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will
also block light and air.”
There was skepticism about Xi’s promise of keeping China’s domestic
economy open. Foreign trade and investment in China have long faced con-
siderable restrictions and controls. But the Chinese leader’s speech was none-
theless met with praise from the global political and corporate elite. It was a
step in the right direction. Xi told the champions of global commerce what
they wanted to hear. That the walls of protectionism were not closing in
around them, that there would still be room to expand their trade, invest-
ment, and finance, that China would show the way forward. Klaus Schwab,
the founder of the World Economic Forum, summed up the mood in his in-
troduction of the Chinese president. “In a world marked by great uncertainty
and volatility,” he said, “the international community is looking to China.”2
The world’s discontent towards the United States under President Trump,
combined with China’s elevated internaitonal standing, animated sentiments
that one superpower will replace the other. But this perspective misses
the bigger picture. China wields considerable global power, but its rise to
the commanding heights of the global economy and world affairs is not
preordained. If America remains deeply politically fractured and continues to
look on multilateralism with disdain, this will open opportunities for China
to extend its influence overseas. The COVID-​19 pandemic may also reshape

2   H o w China Loses

the global economy and geopolitics in the coming years. But we will not be
entering a future with China in charge anytime soon. China will not wield
ubiquitous and overwhelming global power simply by the inertia of the sheer
size of its home market and economic engagement abroad. Its potential ev-
olution into a global superpower, with a deep presence and strong influence
over economic, political, military, and culture abroad, will rather be condi-
tioned by how China behaves toward the rest of the world, and how the world
responds.
The outside world wrestles with a paradox when it comes to China.
While many countries hold conflicting political values and security positions
with China, they are still eager to derive economic benefits from the rela-
tionship.3 It is hard to miss the immediate economic attraction of China.
Responsible for some 30 percent of global economic growth for much of
the past decade,4 China has the largest economy in the world by purchasing
power measures. While its growth is slowing, China’s economic size alone,
particularly its burgeoning middle class, will still draw high levels of for-
eign trade and investment for the foreseeable future. China is also the largest
trading partner for well over 125 countries, a major foreign investor across a
variety of industries, and a leading provider of overseas finance for developing
countries.
For decades, many countries around the world avoided confronting these
political differences with China. In the United States, Western Europe, and
East Asia, the assumption was made that trade and investment would lead
to economic and political liberalization in China.5 But the resolve of China’s
political authoritarianism and state capitalism is now clear. Engagement has
integrated China into the global economy and world affairs, but at the same
time, it brought on new challenges as Beijing’s authoritarian politics and
state-​led capitalism stretched out into the world.
This book shows that the political differences and security tensions be-
tween many countries around the world and China are still present, and in
some cases larger than before. But for developed and developing countries
alike, there is also recognition that engagement with China can produce stra-
tegic vulnerabilities to their own competitiveness and foreign policy and de-
fense autonomy. Despite the drawing power of China’s economic edifice of
market size and consumer buying power, what were once latent concerns
with how China restricts and controls its economy at home have grown con-
siderably and expanded to how China engages in trade, investment, tech-
nology, politics, and security beyond its borders.

***

Introduction: There Was a Moment 3

Two years after Xi Jinping’s Davos speech and Trump’s presidential inaugura-
tion, I was in Berlin. It was here where the last titanic shift in global politics
began, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, when
revolution across Soviet Europe cascaded into East Germany and brought
down the concrete barrier dividing Berlin and the geopolitical barriers of
the Cold War with it. The reunification of Germany and the collapse of the
Soviet Union heralded the beginning of a period of triumph for Western de-
mocracy, with the United States standing tall as the sole global superpower.
In the former East Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, I met a German of-
ficial close to a park where the Berlin Wall once stood. During the Cold War,
Mauerpark was the site of the so-​called Death Strip, where armed guards on
watchtowers gunned down eastern Germans seeking to escape to the west.
Today, some thirty years later, it is quite a different setting. The attack dogs
and barbed wire are long gone. In a united and free Berlin, the park is better
known as a weekend spot for picnicking locals and crowds of tourists to
watch street performers and stroll through flea market stalls.
In light of America’s foreign policy under Donald Trump and the
promises of Xi Jinping that China would defend globalization, I asked the
German official how his government was coping with the changing state of
world affairs. “There was a moment when the United States turned inward
that led China to become our most preferred partner,” he told me. “When
it came to open trade and climate change, China was saying all the right
things. But it quickly turned out to be more difficult than we thought. The
conflicting issues, like on human rights, remained the same, but the com-
plementary ones became less and less evident. Germany had its own political
and business problems with China.”
America’s longtime allies were confounded by Trump’s victory over front-​
runner Democratic leader Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 US elections.
Days after Xi spoke in Davos, Trump gave his inaugural address from outside
the Capitol in Washington, DC, and decried America’s military partnerships
and free trade agreements. “From this moment on,” he promised, “it’s going
to be America First.” Trump sought to tear down long-​standing structures
of multilateralism that American leaders had worked hard to build following
World War II. The new president pushed forward with a more abrasive,
instable, and transactional American foreign policy. The world’s leaders were
on edge. Portugal’s prime minister António Costa saw Xi’s “pro-​globalization”
speech at Davos and Trump’s “America First” inaugural address as a turning
point.6 “I was quite surprised to see the Chinese president make the speech
that was supposed to be made by the American president, and the American
president make a speech that the Chinese president was supposed to make.”

4   H o w China Loses

 On his first day, President Trump began to follow through on his cam-
paign promises. He pulled the United States out of the recently signed
Trans-​Pacific Partnership trade deal, which was set to cover over a third
of the global economy. Months later he withdrew the United States from
the Paris Agreement on climate change, and later the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action to roll back Iran’s nuclear program. Under Trump the United
States then went on to not only designate China as a strategic competitor and
launch a trade war with Beijing in 2018, but also instigate trade disputes
with Japan, the European Union, Canada, and Mexico, as well as question
the usefulness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and America’s other
security alliances.
Trump’s arrival to the White House gave new life to debates on America’s
decline as a global superpower, the end of an American-​led global order, and
the rise of China.7 But in dismissing the rules, norms, and niceties of inter-
national affairs, the Trump presidency brought on fears in the United States,
and among its longtime allies, that American global power was now not in
a slow and steady decline, but in complete free fall. Prominent American
thinkers view Trump’s foreign policy as an abdication of America’s global
leadership in setting the international rules, building security alliances and
free trade deals, and advocating democracy and human rights.8 Without
America at the helm, they argue, the world will sink deeper into disorder.
Since many see the Trump presidency as a symptom rather than the cause
of divisive and inward-​looking American politics, even in Trump’s absence,
American multilateralism may remain limited.
And where one finds American angst, Chinese triumphalism follows
closely after. For well over a decade, some experts have argued that China
has been on a clear ascent to rule the world thanks to its unparalleled ec-
onomic rise at home.9 Today, America’s decline is seen as opening new
space for China’s international presence to grow, and for Beijing to rival,
and in time surpass, the United States as the world’s perennial superpower.10
Leading Chinese thinkers have called on the international community to rec-
ognize China’s growing global power and understand and respect its strategic
thinking and visions for the world.11 They are now debating how China will
shape the future international order, to put an end to ideas of global polit-
ical integration, universal rights and values, and advance its own interests in
the world. Just as Trump’s “America First” has rejected ideals of multilateral
cooperation and international rules, the hierarchical global order that China
envisions unsurprisingly deems Chinese interests as second to none.
But the world is bigger than the United States and China. There is
a tendency among politicians, businesspeople, analysts, and academics to

Introduction: There Was a Moment 5

focus on the relationship between the United States and China, the de-
clining and the rising power, as dictating the future of global order.12
There is good reason to emphasize the relationship. Together, the United
States and China make up roughly 40 percent of the global economy and
command the world’s two most powerful militaries. Trade wars, strategic
competition over new technologies, and potential war between the United
States and China will shape our lives, and that of our children, more than
any other relationship in the world. But a fixation on such a global contest
is too simplistic. Taking only the vantage point of Washington and Beijing
to view the direction of the global economy and world affairs limits our
understanding of the importance of on-​the-​ground changes in Africa, Latin
America, Europe, and Asia.
Although many Americans and Chinese may struggle to comprehend such
diversity, this broader picture—​the other 60 percent of the world economy,
the other major militaries, technology leaders, and cultural hubs—​will be
significant in shaping the future world. The rest of the world is not standing
still as great powers rise and fall. Just as countries around the world are
re-evaluating their relations with the United States, big and small countries
alike are critically assessing their relationship with China too.13

***

Taking a look back at the past few decades, it is not hyperbole to see China’s
rise as one of the most important stories in the global economy and world
affairs. In the span of fifty years, China went from being a poor, largely
isolated country to an aspiring global superpower today. China’s military
strength and technological capabilities have grown tremendously, but it is
China’s economic reach around the world that most closely touches all of our
lives. From refrigerators to smartphones, we use a growing line of sophisti-
cated Chinese-​made products every day. Chinese corporations are exploiting
their advantageous competitive positions at home, and searching global
markets for new opportunities and acquisitions, to take a commanding po-
sition in advanced industries, from telecommunications to artificial intelli-
gence. China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, a trillion-​dollar grand
strategy to connect East Asia to Europe through new ports, railways, digital
communications, and financial, political, and cultural cooperation, has the
potential to reshape entire regions.
Today, China seeks to regain the great status and respect it once held in
the world. For hundreds of years, China was the world’s largest economy
before what became known as its century of national humiliation began in

6   H o w China Loses

the mid-​nineteenth century due to internal turmoil and external interven-
tion from colonial powers. Gradual economic reform and opening to the out-
side world in the late 1970s brought on an economic miracle and decades
of fast-​paced growth. China’s political authoritarianism and state capitalism
strongly limit political rights and maintain state monopolies over key
industries, but at the same time, allow for privatization and foreign invest-
ment. By the turn of the century, China became the “factory of the world”
thanks to its low labor costs and high levels of outside investment and tech-
nology. This brought hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, led to
large-​scale migration from rural areas to cities, and an infrastructure boom of
highways, railways, and modern skyscrapers and urban housing.
This economic miracle at home elevated China’s standing in the world. It
passed Germany to become the largest exporter in 2009 and then the United
States as the world’s largest manufacturer two years later. As of 2014, China
could claim the title as the world’s largest economy in buying power. The
World Bank projects that China will surpass the United States as the world’s
largest economy in nominal terms by 2030.14 But just as the economy is
central to China’s global power, it remains a critical weakness going for-
ward. China simultaneously boasts modern and wealthy megacities such as
Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, and an enlarging
middle class, but by Chinese government estimates, China is still struggling
to overcome entrenched poverty among tens of millions of its population and
ensuring many times more do not slip back into impoverishment. China has
the most billionaires in Asia, but also the fastest-​growing inequality rates
in the world, and a widening economic, educational, and social welfare gap
between rural and urban areas.15 The priority of economic growth above all
for decades on end has also left China with large-​scale environmental degra-
dation of its air, water, and soil. Despite President Xi Jinping’s efforts to root
out corruption in a long-​running anti-​graft probe, according to watchdog
Transparency International, China remains the most corrupt large economy
in the world, at the same level as Serbia in the former Yugoslavia and West
Africa’s Benin.16
To overcome its remaining economic challenges and become a rich nation,
China must escape “the middle-​income trap.” This is a phenomenon where
low labor costs initially fuel a country’s development through manufacturing
growth, but later as wages increase, growth stagnates, and income levels
remain suppressed and unable to move up further. Most emerging market
economies have failed to escape this trap. If China is going to buck the trend,
such as South Korea and others have done, it will need to foster a new economy
based on innovation and services.17 And since the 2008 global financial crisis,

Introduction: There Was a Moment 7

the Communist Party has stimulated economic growth by taking on higher
levels of debt, which with a rapidly aging population, threatens to drag down
growth levels. One common refrain is that China will grow old before it
gets rich.
Yet China’s economic model has defied critics in the past. China’s state-​
driven mandates, including allowing some market forces to take hold, as
well as its vast internal, regional diversity, make it difficult to compare its
economic approach and trajectory to others.18 Domestic savings and tight
capital controls may ward off an economic meltdown from high debt levels.
The Chinese government may be able to continue to exert control over state
companies, and significant influence over private firms, to manage swings in
the economy, and exploit domestic economies of scale to elevate the position
of its industries in the global economy.19 Despite lofty predictions, however,
extrapolation of China’s future economic size is prone to error and will de-
pend on the success of the Chinese government to further reform the economy
and drive forward productivity.20 Whether weak or strong in the future, the
health of China’s economy holds widespread geopolitical consequences.
Just as China has not become a full-​fledged market economy, it also re-
mains a one-​party state. The Communist Party has long been seen as a re-
sponsive authoritarian regime—​some public criticism is accepted to improve
governance standards and its own legitimacy in the process. But these polit-
ical and economic reforms have been rolled back under President Xi Jinping.21
This includes reinforcing its Great Firewall to regulate the Internet, harsh
penalties for those criticizing the Communist Party, pervasive, high-​tech sur-
veillance systems, and most strikingly, the forced detention of an estimated
1 million people from the minority Uyghur ethnicity in its Xinjiang region.
The Communist Party’s apprehension and sensitivities toward granting
some political rights, and its drive to expand techno-​ authoritarianism
through strict social media control and facial-​recognition technologies, have
only been reinforced by protracted protests in Hong Kong in recent years.
Widespread disapproval of Beijing’s reneging on its international treaty of
self-​governance to the territory until 2047 by Hong Kongers represents a
powerful rejection of the developmental model of political authoritarianism
and state capitalism that Party leaders are eager to legitimatize globally.
Beijing’s imposition of a new national security law for Hong Kong in the
spring of 2020 signaled a determination to not back down from its authori-
tarian political approach.
China’s economic well-​being, particularly the internal threat of a slowing
economy from rising debt, productivity challenges, and aging demographics,
coupled with the Communist Party’s sensitivities toward maintaining

8   H o w China Loses

political power at home, largely defines China’s relations with the outside
world today. If China is indeed destined to suffer from a deep economic crisis,
its relative power in the world could very well be peaking. This presents a
narrowing window of opportunity over the next two decades for Xi Jinping
and China’s leadership to transform the global economy and world affairs
to suit Chinese interests, norms, and values.22 Alternatively, if China keeps
crisis at bay, the Communist Party may be emboldened to advance its global
ambitions with more assertiveness. Either way, after decades of amassing con-
siderable economic and military power, China’s leaders are now keen to re-
shape the world.

***

What does China want from the world? Xi Jinping gave a lot of important
speeches in 2017. But his over three-​hour-​long, 65-​page speech at the 19th
National Congress of the Communist Party that October holds the most
significant consequences for the world. Xi said that by 2035, China should
develop into a modern economy and become “a global leader in innovation”
with both material and normative power extending beyond its borders. By
the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, Xi
predicted that China will achieve “the Chinese Dream,” the “great rejuvena-
tion of the Chinese nation,” and become “a global leader in terms of composite
national strength and international influence.”23 Xi pledged that China would
build world-​class armed forces and resolve the Taiwan question, reunifying
the de facto independent island with the mainland, by force if necessary. The
following year, Xi Jinping Thought was enshrined into China’s constitu-
tion and presidential term limits abolished so he could potentially rule for
life as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, the founder of
the People’s Republic of China. Pursuit of this agenda demonstrates China’s
move from a defensive and inward-​looking approach to the world to an offen-
sive and expansionist view.24
While there is a diversity of opinion, interests, and power in Chinese so-
ciety and in its interactions abroad, the Communist Party remains the most
powerful single actor in shaping China’s relations with the outside world.
Just as the Communist Party has established its power at home, its leader-
ship now wants China to become the perennial global power. Engaging the
outside world presents the Communist Party with opportunities to alleviate
China’s economic problems at home and project their political legitimacy
and strength in the eyes of the Chinese population. Ultimately, however,
China wants to replace the United States at the top of the world hierarchy and

Introduction: There Was a Moment 9

reshape global norms and international institutions to better accommodate
and advance its economic, political, and security interests in the long run.
Xi’s assertive political moves at home reflect where he intends to take China
on the world stage. But they are not new for China’s leadership. And while
they may evolve in the future in the face of domestic economic and political
challenges, just as America’s political disorder and nationalist foreign policy
may outlive Trump’s presidency, China’s assertiveness may very well con-
tinue even in the absence of Xi as leader. In the early 1990s, at the end of
the Cold War and after its brief international isolation after the Tiananmen
Square Massacre, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s popular instruction was
for China to keep a low profile in global politics and “hide capabilities and bide
time.” But Deng never expected China to fully integrate into an American-​led
international rules-​based order. Instead he believed China should avoid con-
frontation with the United States and its allies until it was certain it could
win.25 The modesty attached to the strategic guideline of “hide and bide,” in
the meantime, reduced the risk of China’s estrangement and containment and
allowed room for China to develop its economic and military power.
As China’s power grew at home, it moved to extend its influence abroad.
There was a gradual ramping up of China’s outward confidence under President
Jiang Zemin in the 1990s and early 2000s, and China’s assertiveness began to
clearly show its face in the final years of President Hu Jintao’s leadership era
until 2012. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Hu advanced China’s mil-
itary capabilities, laid the groundwork for China’s assertive stance in territorial
disputes in the South and East China Seas, as well as the idea for what would
become Xi Jinping’s foreign policy signature, the Belt and Road Initiative.26
Ambitious and outwardly self-​assured, Xi is now attempting to bring these
long-​standing goals of the Communist Party to fruition.
China has gained much from the current international rules-​based order,
but in contradiction, its history has also taught it to view the outside world
as threatening to its domestic political stability and economic welfare. To
ensure that the global economy and world affairs are better suited to China’s
interests, its leaders believe they should “take an active part in leading the re-
form of the global governance system,” as President Xi stated in June 2018.27
In realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation and promoting the
building of a “community of common destiny” for humankind, Xi plans
for China to displace the United States as the world’s superpower and play
a leading role in reshaping global governance.28 The success of China’s lead-
ership in achieving its global political, ideological, economic, and security
ambitions, but also their aggressive behavior abroad in response to domestic
instability, can both hold significant consequences for the world.

10   H o w China Loses

 This book examines whether China will realize its global ambitions: re-
solving overseas conflicts to expand its economic and security agenda,
attaining far-​reaching global influence through its Belt and Road Initiative,
quelling criticism and cementing the political legitimacy of the Communist
Party and its model of authoritarian capitalism overseas, advancing China’s
economic growth and modernization at home through interactions with the
outside world, and establishing hegemony over Asia through its military
and economic power. To begin with, as Chinese economic interests expand
overseas, Beijing is determined to demonstrate that it can protect Chinese
workers and investments around the world. This is particularly the case
in conflict-​prone and unstable developing countries in Africa, the Middle
East, and South Asia, which are sites of key Chinese investments in energy,
mining, and transportation.
At the inaugural forum for the Belt and Road in 2017, Xi Jinping said
that the initiative “requires a peaceful and stable environment.”29 China will
“always be a builder of world peace, contributor of global development and
keeper of international order,” he later pledged in a New Year address.30
China aspires to the role as a global peacemaker in order to protect its na-
tional and economic interests abroad, lifting up the political legitimacy for
the Communist Party in the eyes of the Chinese populace, and to shape
global norms by advancing its own approach to establishing peace and se-
curity abroad.
Legitimizing China’s developmental model of political authoritarianism
and state capitalism in the world is another global ambition. For decades,
American and Western officials, non-​governmental organizations, and media
have both criticized and attempted to influence China, with a goal of guiding
the one-​party state toward liberalism and democracy. Today, it is the United
States, Western Europe, Japan, India, and other democracies around the
world that face the challenge of resisting China’s authoritarian influence. For
Xi, there is fierce competition in the ideological sphere with the West, but
also in keeping regional challengers, such as India, firmly subdued.31 As a
globally engaged and economically powerful one-​party state, China seeks to
challenge the core values of the world’s liberal democracies: individual li-
berty, freedom of speech, and rule of law.32 This begins with buttressing the
Communist Party’s international image and quelling critique of the Party
and China at an international scale.
Xi Jinping sees China’s model as worthy of admiration and emulation, a
replacement for the instability and decline of Western liberal democracies.
In the “community of common destiny” that Xi promotes as his vision of the
world, China provides an authoritarian counter to democracy as the guiding

Introduction: There Was a Moment 11

light for world development. In his 19th National Congress speech, Xi said
that China “offers a new option for other countries and nations who want to
speed up their development while preserving their independence.”33 Similar
to the United States, China imbues an exceptionalism and moral superiority
in international affairs that guides its worldview and foreign policy.34 China’s
bid for soft power comes mainly through its economic growth and wide-
spread poverty reduction at home, but also its long history as a civilization
and rich culture, which Beijing promotes through hundreds of Confucius
Institutes and other organizations around the world.35
The sensitivity of the Communist Party to its international image was
on full display in early 2020 when the COVID-​19 pandemic grew out of
the city of Wuhan in Hubei province and around the world. While later
putting some 800 million Chinese under various degrees of lockdown to
slow spread of the coronavirus, Chinese authorities initially failed to pub-
licly acknowledge its human-​to-​human transmission, even suppressing early
warnings by medical personnel and scientists.36 After the pandemic began
inflicting deep and widespread human and economic loss across continents,
the Chinese government, foundations, and corporations started donating and
selling medical resources and supplies to affected countries, reciprocating
what other countries had done for China when the virus first broke out there.
But Beijing also launched a global public relations campaign in which out-
spoken Chinese officials sought to obfuscate China’s initial delay in reporting
the virus, pointing to the US military as the potential source.37 As the ec-
onomic consequences of the pandemic began to bear down on the world,
with Europe, the United States, and others initially neglecting its threat and
severity, Beijing sought to rewrite its role in an effort to secure both its do-
mestic and international legitimacy as a global power.
China also seeks to leverage its engagement with the outside world to ad-
vance its economic agenda at home. The Belt and Road, China’s global connec-
tivity initiative, strives to increase its trade and finance in the world, with the
aim of helping to transform China’s middle-​income economy into a modern
and rich one. Hundreds of billions of dollars for finance to build ports, railways,
and digital communications networks from Southeast Asia to Africa provide
Chinese companies the opportunity to offshore overcapacity in heavy industries
at home and to capture new markets and elevate their positions in global value
chains where Chinese industrial and technological standards can take hold.
China also wants to develop its state-​owned and private corporations to
become global leaders in advanced industries. Launched in 2015, China’s
“Made in China 2025” policy aims to innovate China’s manufacturing in-
dustry with advanced technologies to produce high-​value goods and services,

12   H o w China Loses

targeting automotive, aviation, robotics, information technology, and other
high-​tech industries. By leveraging access to its large domestic market to
gain new technology and expertise from leading multinational corporations,
offering large subsidies and favorable formal and informal regulation to
improve the market positions of its industries, and engaging in corporate
acquisitions overseas, China seeks to enhance the global competitiveness of
its corporations to ensure continual growth and modernization at home.
Building and demonstrating China’s military power is also essential for
Beijing. Xi wants to build world-​class armed forces that are “ready for the
fight, capable of combat, and sure to win.”38 China first seeks hegemony in East
Asia, and to reclaim what it sees as lost territory in the South and East China
Seas, bringing other regional powers to heel, and pushing the United States
out of the western Pacific. Then China’s leaders also seek to elevate Chinese
military power to project its might across the globe. Warfare is not necessarily
required to achieve these regional and global aims. The threat of economic
and military force alone can be compelling for China’s neighbors in Southeast
Asia to far-​off countries in Latin America to ensure they do not cross China’s
red lines. Similar to the use of sanctions by the United States and big powers
before it, China weaponizes its trade, investment, and finance to punish and co-
erce countries, multinational corporations, universities, and non-​governmental
organizations that fail to respect its foreign and defense policy.

***

Beyond drawing from the well-​researched and insightful work of Chinese

and international relations scholars outlining China’s global ambitions, this
book’s focus is not on what China wants. Neither is it preoccupied with how
the United States can compete with its new rival. While there are lessons for
both Chinese and American officials and businesspeople in the pages ahead,
I am more interested in understanding the views and experiences of the rest
of the world toward China’s rise and what might lie ahead. To discern China’s
power in the world, and avoid both underestimating and exaggerating its in-
fluence, it is necessary to take on a grounded understanding of how China fits
into domestic politics, markets, and societies around the world.
My travels and research began in South Sudan, an East African country
where some of China’s earliest and largest overseas oil investments have been
threatened by political instability and civil war. I was interested in examining
whether, by getting involved in peace talks after decades of promoting non-​
interference in the affairs of foreign countries, Beijing could protect its people
far from home and ensure that Chinese investments were safe and productive.

Introduction: There Was a Moment 13

Closer to its borders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, China is also engaging
with its own approach to peacemaking that looks to draw on its experiences
with domestic security and counter-​terrorism at home and preparing for the
possibility of future military intervention near and far from home to protect
its interests.
I then headed to Argentina in South America, where in late 2015 a new
president had taken power and called for the suspension and possible can-
cellation of large-​scale, multibillion-​dollar Chinese infrastructure projects.
How did China react to democratic change that threatened its economic
interests? Do domestic pressures from the private sector, labor unions,
environmentalists, and others in Argentina reflect the broader challenges
China is facing in its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative across Africa and
Asia? Can China’s developmental model find root in these regions while si-
multaneously advancing its economic and strategic objectives?
Next I traveled around Western Europe, from big economies like
Germany, China’s largest European trading partner, to smaller ones such
as Denmark and Portugal, which one assumes are more prone to China’s
outsized influence. Europe’s liberal democracies serve as venues for Beijing to
normalize its political values overseas, by ensuring even the world’s vibrant
democracies respect its expanding political red lines, particularly on Taiwan,
Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong, and maintain an acritical outlook toward
China’s rise, or else face the threat of losing access to the Chinese marketplace.
While China’s economy continues to impose restrictions and controls on for-
eign companies, for much of the past decade, Europe’s advanced economies
have offered Chinese state-​owned and private corporations access to new
technologies and expertise for China’s modernization at home. Can Beijing
expect to maintain limits to foreign trade and investment in its home market
while having much greater access to others? Is Europe’s economic depend-
ency on China so significant that Beijing can influence European foreign and
defense policy and bend democratic norms and values?
Finally, I traveled to Japan, a major trading partner to China, but one
with a long history of hostile relations. In seeking regional hegemony as a
major step in its global rise as a superpower, China is determined to retake
what it sees as lost territory in the South and East China Seas through eco-
nomic coercion and the threat of force. After building deep trade ties with its
Asian neighbors, how would China’s use of informal sanctions and consumer
boycotts impact these relationships? Can Japan, India, and other Asian coun-
tries push back against this assertiveness?
What I found was that despite clear demonstrations of its new power
around the world, China’s current strong-​arm approach to foreign relations is

14   H o w China Loses

struggling to overcome a host of challenges. Despite China’s new peacemaking
efforts, Chinese investments are under attack and languish in conflicts in Africa
and South Asia. Critical politicians and environmentalists are upending China’s
plans to build new roads, railways, and digital communication networks from
Southeast Asia to Latin America. European democracies are pushing back
against China’s political interference and economic protectionism, and Japan,
India, and many of China’s Asian neighbors are mobilizing their economic and
military power to resist its hegemonic ambitions.
The global pushback against China’s assertiveness is a consequence of
both Beijing’s strategic missteps and overreach. China’s leaders are ill pre-
pared to accept economic and political compromise with the wider world,
often viewing it through their own domestic authoritarian lens. They repel
rather than attract potential partners to help fulfill strategic goals. As a re-
sult, China will struggle to protect its people and investments in overseas
conflicts, legitimize its developmental model, fully advance the Belt and
Road as a global connectivity plan, readily acquire foreign companies for
new technology and expertise to leverage its position in advanced industries
in the global economy, and establish military hegemony in Asia.
None of this implies that China will become insignificant to the global
economy and world affairs or that its actions at home and abroad should not be
taken seriously by others. Neither does it mean that China’s assertiveness is un-
precedented among global powers in modern history and that all its ambitions
in the world should somehow be contained by others. Rather it is how China’s
leaders have chosen to exercise their country’s elevated economic and military
power which largely is eliciting pushback. Even if China’s economy soldiers on
and avoids crisis in the future, this does not guarantee it will gain new, signif-
icant influence if leaders in New Delhi, Tokyo, Berlin, and other foreign cap-
itals, see its behavior as jeopardizing their own interests and values. Without
reform and adoption of a genuine openness to compromise and cooperation,
China’s predatory economic agenda, headstrong diplomacy, and military ex-
pansion undermines rather than advances its standing in the world.
China’s leaders maintain a long-​standing hierarchical worldview. It is no
wonder that maps showing plans for Xi’s signature foreign policy, the Belt
and Road, only include Eurasia, and visually leave out the United States and
the Western Hemisphere. While there are economic and geostrategic reasons
for this geographical focus, it also reinforces the idea that a future with the
United States out of the picture is a future with China in command. But this
view is mistaken. Xi’s 2017 Davos speech did not represent a changing of the
guard in global superpowers. China is currently pressuring the wider world,
but is still far from persuading it.

Introduction: There Was a Moment 15

 Chapter 1 Waiting for Peace

“We are suffering from the fighting,” Qian Fengzhang wrote to me

in a halting message. “We are staying [safe] in the shelters. We are waiting
for peace.” In July 2016, gunfire erupted outside the compound of China’s
largest oil company, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), in
South Sudan’s muggy capital, Juba. A director at the Chinese oil giant, Qian
and his colleagues took shelter for several days before they could evacuate.
The booming artillery, heavy movement of tanks, helicopter gunships over-
head, and scores of bodies on the streets were clear signs that South Sudan’s
civil war was far from over.
The street battle in Juba was between South Sudan’s military, loyal to
President Salva Kiir, and opposition forces backing the former vice presi-
dent Riak Machar. The fighting spelled an end to yet another ceasefire in the
conflict, which began in late 2013 when political discord between Kiir and
Machar boiled over into violence. Clashes between members of the presiden-
tial guard rapidly escalated into a full-​blown civil war, spreading out of the
capital and across the country. The conflict was largely along ethnic lines,
pitting the majority Dinka of President Kiir against the Nuer of Machar.
Like Qian and other Chinese oilmen stationed in Juba, many of the city’s
residents were forced to remain in their homes. In an attempt to avoid stray
bullets piercing the walls, some spent long hours lying on the ground or
crouched together in bathrooms. Many others flooded the compounds of
the United Nations peacekeeping mission, joining thousands already living
there for protection.1 Throughout the conflict, extrajudicial killings, rape,
and torture were employed as weapons against ethnic populations perceived
as supporting the opposite side. In the years to follow, close to 400,000 died
from the violence and millions were displaced.2
At CNPC’s compound, Chinese oilmen frantically called the local office of
Beijing DeWe Security Services, a Chinese private security company that had
set up shop in Juba.3 Led by a former veteran of the People’s Liberation Army,
DeWe and its local staff evacuated CNPC personnel once the fighting ended,
along with several hundred Chinese civilians around the city. At Juba’s in-
ternational airport, workers from the China Harbor Engineering Company,
building a new terminal, locked themselves in steel-​ plated containers
surrounded by sandbags until help arrived. China Central Television later
4

broadcasted scenes of relieved Chinese workers reaching the safety of nearby

capitals in East Africa.
Oilmen and construction workers under fire in a foreign capital,
multibillion-​dollar projects in jeopardy: this was not an outcome the Chinese
government wanted to see for its overseas investments. And unlike in the
past, when Chinese leaders often elected to stay on the sidelines of conflicts
abroad, Beijing marshaled a response. At the start of South Sudan’s civil war,
China’s special envoy for African affairs, Zhong Jianhua, flew to regionally
brokered peace talks in Ethiopia and urged both sides of the conflict to settle
their differences without further violence. Such crisis diplomacy seemed a
natural reaction for any country. But Zhong’s engagement was a deviation
from China’s long-​standing foreign policy of non-​interference in the do-
mestic affairs of foreign countries.
Long aggrieved by the harsh intervention of colonial powers in its past,
and fearful of foreign interference in its politics, the Communist Party
promoted non-​interference in its official foreign policy since the early 1950s.
Beijing did not always maintain strict observance. In the 1960s and 1970s,
it supported revolutionary movements in Africa and Asia and fought border
wars with India, Russia, and Vietnam. But more often than not, China has
not become party to overseas conflict or engaged in peacemaking.
By the turn of the century, however, circumstances changed faster than
the Chinese government could keep pace. After over a decade of economic
reform and opening up at home, Chinese state-​owned enterprises began to
gradually increase overseas investments in the early 1990s in search of new
growth opportunities. It was a slow process at first. Even by 2001, China’s
total foreign investment only amounted to $7 billion. But over the next
decade, China became one of the world’s largest overseas investors. Annual
Chinese foreign investment crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time
in 2013. And because when they first invested abroad, Chinese companies,

18   H o w China Loses

particularly in energy and construction, deliberately sought to avoid heavy
competition from their American, European, and Japanese counterparts, they
eventually ran into trouble in unstable countries overseas.
South Sudan presents an early example of how China responds when its
economic interests come under threat overseas. In the new African country,
China’s leading national oil company, CNPC, worked to improve its secu-
rity practices and corporate responsibility; Chinese diplomats engaged in
conflict resolution; and Chinese soldiers joined the Blue Helmets of United
Nations peacekeeping. But South Sudan is hardly an isolated example of
China responding to safeguard its economic interests and nationals in over-
seas conflicts. To the north in Sudan, Chinese-​run oil fields had been targeted
by rebels and local armed groups since the late 1990s. In neighboring Chad,
when rebels sped across the country in a caravan of gun-​mounted Land
Cruiser pickups to threaten the capital of N’Djamena in 2008, hundreds of
Chinese nationals working for CNPC, Huawei, and other corporations were
evacuated with the aid of the French military.5 In early 2011, the rapid es-
calation of conflict in Libya put billions of dollars in Chinese construction
ventures in jeopardy. By land, air, and sea, Beijing hastily patched together
a rescue effort to extract some 36,000 Chinese nationals. The rescue mission
represented the largest overseas evacuation in China’s history, the first time
the Chinese navy crossed the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, and arguably,
with some $20 billion in deals at stake, the largest loss of Chinese interna-
tional projects due to the outbreak of civil war.6 When conflict broke out
in Yemen in 2015, the Chinese navy, learning from the Libya experience,
played an instrumental role in rescuing hundreds of its citizens and foreign
nationals.
Not only do China’s political leadership and top corporate executives need
to come to grips with how to react when Chinese interests come under threat
overseas, but they also face the difficult question of how to put an end to
long-​standing conflicts to ensure the sustainability and expansion of Chinese
investments abroad. Driven by the self-​interest of ensuring that Chinese
investments and workers are safe overseas, and the political legitimacy that
comes along with this in the eyes of the Chinese population, Beijing aspires
to be a global peacemaker. In a 2017 speech mapping out China’s diplomatic
agenda, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China was “ready to take part
in the peaceful settlement of hotspot issues, and actively explore a Chinese
approach of constructive engagement.”7 This was an answer to international
calls for China to play a larger role in solving some of the world’s most in-
tractable conflicts. After watching the United States stumble through long
and costly foreign military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Beijing

Waiting for Peace 19

remains eager to contrast its own international engagement, and demonstrate
a positive impact on global peace and security. A growing number of crises
facing Chinese interests have pushed Beijing to discard its commitment
to staying out of the domestic affairs of foreign countries.8 But can China
succeed in protecting its economic interests in crises overseas and help settle
protracted conflicts?

***

The car shook as we drove through a deep rut on the rust-​colored dirt lane.
“This is a new country,” the South Sudanese driver said with a halfhearted
smile, excusing the dilapidated roads of South Sudan’s capital. Once a pro-
vincial capital and garrison town when it was still part of Sudan, Juba under-
went a transformation in the lead-​up to South Sudan’s independence in 2011.
South Sudanese from across the region and around the world flocked home
in search of new opportunities. Traffic clogged the streets. Walled residential
compounds, offices, and stores sprung up across what were once overgrown
fields, and hotels and restaurants replaced tent camps for out-​of-​town guests
on the bank of the White Nile. The backwater became a boomtown.
There was a new vibrant energy and hope for the future in Juba, but pov-
erty still gripped much of the capital. Many live in traditional tukuls, grass-​
thatched mud huts, and shantytowns of flimsy plastic tents. But Juba still
stands out from the dreary state of much of South Sudan, where well over
half the population of twelve million live in poverty with few health and ed-
ucation services to speak of. For much of the twentieth century, first under
the rule of a British-​Egyptian condominium, then by independent Sudan’s
leaders in the northern capital of Khartoum, the region that is now South
Sudan was deliberately cut off from development opportunities and exploited
for its resources. Decades of civil war grew out of the resulting grievances
from its treatment by outsiders. Sudan’s conflict was one of Africa’s longest
and deadliest. It led to two million deaths and displaced millions more until
its end in 2005. After a six-​year interim period and referendum, the southern
Sudanese rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, fulfilled the long-​
coveted dream of the southern Sudanese and won independence, spitting in
two what was then Africa’s largest country.
Unlike most countries emerging from conflict, South Sudan had consid-
erable wealth to kick-​start the aspirations of its rebels-​turned-​rulers. It took
three-​quarters of the once united Sudan’s valuable oil resources with its inde-
pendence. Yet this was hardly a blessing. Instead South Sudan suffers from the
resource curse, a phenomenon in which developing countries with lucrative

20   H o w China Loses

natural resources paradoxically experience volatile economic growth, weak
governance, and high levels of corruption. In 2012, corruption was so out
of hand that President Kiir publicly admitted senior officials had stolen as
much as $4 billion in government funds. “We fought for freedom, justice and
equality,” Kiir wrote, “yet, once we got to power, we forgot what we fought
for and began to enrich ourselves at the expense of our people.”9
Despite gross corruption and economic mismanagement, South Sudan
still received ample support from the United States and international donors.
Washington helped usher South Sudan toward independence and offered
billions in aid to build a development-​orientated government. And if South
Sudan needed another sign of good fortune, not only did it have backing from
the reigning superpower, but also its main contender.
Oil tied China to the new country. Before its breakup, Sudan provided
5.5 percent of China’s average annual oil imports from 1999 to 2011, often
representing its sixth largest supplier. But Sudan was valued by China’s oil
industry mainly as an investment destination. Sudan’s civil war pushed out
much of the competition in the 1990s and early 2000s, and China’s oil giant,
CNPC, came to dominate the industry. Sudan made up 40 percent of the
company’s annual overseas oil production between 2003 and 2007, and CNPC
built oil pipelines, roads, and even a major refinery outside Khartoum.10
Top Chinese government and Communist Party officials, including former
president Hu Jintao, feted the company’s activities, and dubbed its refinery
China’s “Pearl on the African Continent.”
But a new political landscape opened up after South Sudan’s indepen-
dence. Chinese oilmen needed to win over the new government and its
people. Before he was taking cover during fighting in South Sudan’s capital
in July 2016, I met the CNPC country director, Qian Fengzhang, at CNPC’s
offices in Juba. At the time, just months before the civil war started, Qing
was on the frontline of his company’s new charm offensive. He told me that
when he arrived in South Sudan the locals began to call him “Juba boy,” a
moniker recognizing his young appearance. But Qian is hardly a novice on
the oil patch, with close to two decades of experience overseas from Central
Asia to Africa. His office was in an off-​white, prefabricated unit on a com-
pound shared with the Chinese embassy, where the company kept in close
contact with Chinese diplomats.
As we settled into two small sofa chairs, Qian said that he first arrived in
South Sudan three years before its independence. The longevity of his posting
is a rarity in the international oil business. While his Western peers rotate in
and out of overseas appointments every couple of years, he stays put. He has
a special purpose in South Sudan, tasked with mending the mistrust of South

Waiting for Peace 21

Sudan’s government and local communities toward the Chinese oil company.
“Production is our priority,” Qian told me, “but we want to get feedback on
our work from different parties so we can learn to minimize risk.”
During the civil war in Sudan, southern Sudanese rebels regarded CNPC
as an enemy of war. As Sudan’s most prominent investor, the Chinese com-
pany and its partners generated the revenues that underpinned the Sudanese
government’s ability to wage war. Billions in petrodollars empowered the
scorched-​earth tactics Sudan’s army employed in killing and displacing
southern Sudanese communities to make room for oil operations.11 Similar
to other companies, CNPC feigned ignorance of the violence unfolding
around it. “We do our own business,” a CNPC spokesman said at the time,
“nothing else.”12 This was echoed by Beijing, which directly supplied arms
to the Sudanese military and protected the Sudanese government from pu-
nitive action from its veto-​wielding, permanent seat on the UN Security
Council. “We try to separate politics from business,” China’s deputy foreign
minister Zhou Wenzhong said, asserting Beijing’s non-​interference foreign
policy line.13
In the years following Sudan’s civil war, much of the violence ended, but
CNPC developed a reputation for poor environmental and social standards.
Much like their European and American counterparts before them, Chinese
companies have been chastised for poor business practices across Africa.14
And similar to the reputation of other foreign workers in Africa, the Chinese
are notorious for living in enclaves, working long hours during the day, and
holing up in walled compounds away from local communities at night.
But Qian’s work in South Sudan has the potential to break these
stereotypes. Engaging and talkative in nearly fluent English, he was learning
to open up to outsiders since his arrival. Rather than avoid social interactions
and ignore environmental laws, Qian pushed his company to be transparent
and responsible. In 2012, CNPC established a partnership with the British
non-​governmental organization Saferworld, a rare engagement for a large,
state-​owned Chinese company. The partnership’s aim was to open up dia-
logue with South Sudanese civil society and local communities in oil areas
and design new environmental and social policies.15 “I tell my South Sudanese
friends,” Qian informed me, “when you encounter a problem, be patient and
we will try to explain. We will not hide any info from you.”
Self-​interest drives this change of approach. Qian hopes that building
better relations with a broader set of groups in South Sudan will be good for
business, ensuring the company does not get blindsided by intrusive policy
decisions from South Sudan’s government, and avoid costly protests, theft,
kidnappings, and attacks against its staff and facilities. The company had

22   H o w China Loses

already taken steps to improve its security after a kidnapping incident in
Sudan in October 2008 resulted in the deaths of five CNPC workers.16 Now
it wants to prevent such attacks from occurring in the future.
But it was difficult for many South Sudanese to turn the page on its his-
tory with the Chinese oil company. Before his death in a helicopter accident
in 2010, John Garang, the rebel leader and founding father of South Sudan,
saw Chinese oilmen as “legitimate targets” during the civil war.17 A decade
after the conflict ended, with a picture of Garang and South Sudan’s presi-
dent Salva Kiir on her desk, Elizabeth Bol, the deputy petroleum and mining
minister, told me that tensions with the Chinese oil company were still fresh
in her mind. “During the civil war, CNPC just watched at the expense of the
Southern Sudanese. They did not interfere.” At South Sudan’s parliament,
Henry Odwar, then chairperson for the energy committee, echoed this senti-
ment to me. “How can China call it non-​interference when people are being
killed?” From the South Sudanese perspective, China was hardly neutral in
the conflict. As South Sudanese were killed for the sake of oil development,
non-​interference in itself was viewed as a crime.
It was hard to imagine how Qian would succeed in warming relations
between his company and the South Sudanese, to move on from the past,
open up, and make peace. A year after visiting Qian in Juba, I joined a small
group of South Sudanese and international civil society representatives in
Beijing meeting face-​to-​face with CNPC executives. The tall glass façades,
marble foyers, and modern conference halls of CNPC’s headquarters stood in
sharp contrast to the company’s makeshift offices in Juba. At the meeting,
the South Sudanese civil society leaders traced out how the industry’s envi-
ronmental harm, polluting local water sources, resulted in social unrest when
people and cattle became sick, and then political problems for companies
when communities blocked roads in protest. “You need to be very mindful
of local politics,” the Reverend James Koung Ninrew said to Chinese oil
managers across the table. “How the companies and the local people come
together has been missing for so long.”
But the criticism drew a defensive response. “I have stayed in Sudan
for twelve years, and I really think Sudan, including South Sudan, is my
second home,” said Jiang Xingwei, CNPC chief representative in the Sudans.
“But when I first came to South Sudan, the first impression from the top
level, to the communities, to even the vendor on the street, was that they
see the Chinese as the enemy,” she said. “I think we trust South Sudanese
more than you trust the Chinese.” Despite growing evidence of environ-
ment negligence,18 Chinese executives argued there was no pollution in oil
areas, that the South Sudan government was uncooperative in advancing the

Waiting for Peace 23

company’s community initiatives, and that the activists simply had too high
expectations.
From his vantage point, Qian Fengzhang saw the need for reform, but
his superiors in Beijing had different priorities. The meeting in Beijing
alone was an acknowledgment of changing discourse at the Chinese oil com-
pany. But whether this engagement would change the company’s behavior
was doubtful. No specific commitments were made to the visiting South
Sudanese. A senior company manager told me afterward that any new en-
vironmental and social guidelines required approval from top management,
and in any case, would only move forward if the South Sudanese government
was also on board.
It was also a question of money. An international oil trader working in
South Sudan was pessimistic that CNPC would invest the time and resources
in reforming its practices in the future. Production from South Sudan’s oil
fields was in decline and what was left was poor-​quality crude that fetched
low prices on international markets. “South Sudan is just such small beer.
You can spend 16 hours a day working on a million-​dollar deal or you can
spend 16 hours a day working on a billion-​dollar deal. Do you really want to
bang your head for those last percentages in a basket-​case country?”
American and European companies certainly do not always perform
to high international standards in Africa. But it is hard to imagine China
raising the corporate responsibility bar.19 Reform of China’s long-​running,
growth-​at-​all-​costs approach to its economy is still a work-​in-​progress. New
policies and regulations for Chinese companies to improve conduct are in
place, but enforcement of these measures, particularly overseas, remains
weak. It is difficult for Chinese state-​owned companies to overcome well-​
ingrained mindsets and practices of operating at home. In China, corporate
transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to social and environmental
issues have largely been neglected for decades, and the sharing of information
and dialogue between the state and society remains limited.20
Reacting to and negotiating with civil society and media are still not
in the repertoire of many Chinese executives and senior managers. New so-
cial and environmental initiatives tend to be episodic and founded within
CNPC subsidiaries abroad, such as Qian’s work in South Sudan, rather than
advanced through the headquarters in Beijing, and thus often have a short
life span.21 Chinese companies typically demonstrate good behavior over-
seas when local governments and civil society have the political will and
regulatory strength to hold industries accountable.22 South Sudan’s political
leaders had pushed forward new social and environmental policies after in-
dependence. But implementation was disturbed by war and regional power

24   H o w China Loses

struggles over sharing government oil revenues. This left local concerns over
oil development underprioritized. In early 2020, reports of water and soil con-
tamination from toxic chemicals used in oil operations causing severe health
problems for local populations, including birth defects and miscarriages,
confirmed the worst fears of South Sudan’s civil society activists.23 Allowed
to go unaddressed, animosities between communities and oil companies are
likely to continue well into the future.
If its peacetime troubles were not enough to keep China’s largest oil com-
pany occupied in South Sudan, wartime threats were far from over in the new
country. The outbreak of South Sudan’s civil war in late 2013 tore Qian’s
attention away from relationship building to crisis management. But he was
not alone in his efforts to keep Chinese oilmen, and billions of dollars in
assets, out of harm’s way.

***

It was Zhong Jianhua’s job to make sure Chinese oilmen stayed safe. The vet-
eran diplomat, a former ambassador to South Africa, was appointed as China’s
special representative for African affairs in 2012. While his remit covered the
entire continent, Zhong’s time and attention were overwhelmingly captured
by events stemming from South Sudan’s civil war. Zhong’s job was two-
fold: protect Chinese nationals and investments and help achieve a lasting
peace. And to do it, Beijing permitted its envoy to enter largely uncharted
territory. In engaging directly in peace talks and meeting formally with both
warring sides, Zhong knew the novelty and gravity of his position. “This is
a challenge for China. This is something new for us. It is a new chapter for
Chinese foreign affairs.”24 He was also straightforward about taking China a
step further away from its long-​standing non-​interference policy. “When you
talk to a rebel force that means stepping into internal affairs.”25
Early on, Zhong was confident that China could play a unique and useful
role in ending South Sudan’s civil war compared to the United States and
Europe. “African nations like South Sudan view China and its mediation
efforts in a completely different light, given that China has never invaded
African countries, nor hurt the self-​esteem of African people.”26 China’s en-
gagement was welcomed by African, American, and European diplomats.
Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, commented that China “possesses sub-
stantial political, diplomatic and financial assets, which, if fully applied,
would be a game-​changer in the region’s peace and security.”27 Over time,
however, China’s special envoy discovered he had less control over the fate of
Chinese oil investments than he hoped.

Waiting for Peace 25

 Zhong’s challenges were not all unlike those of China’s first special
envoy to Africa. His predecessor, Liu Guijin, took up the post in May
2007. But Liu’s tenure was also dominated by Sudan, where another civil
war, in the western region of Darfur, brought an international spotlight on
China’s relationship with the Sudanese government.28 At the time, China
was preparing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, a global coming-​
out party to show the world its fast-​paced modernization.29 Liu was tasked
with deflecting accusations linking China’s oil investments and political
support to Sudan with genocide and atrocities in Darfur. The criticism
stuck and threatened to tarnish the image of the Beijing Olympics. With
its national interests at stake, China shelved its non-​interference policy,
and President Hu Jintao pressured his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-​
Bashir to open the way for a United Nations peacekeeping mission.30 It
was the first time that China actively pushed a sovereign government to
go against its expressed position and political will, and accept outside in-
tervention in its territory.31
Not long after, it was newly independent South Sudan’s turn to show
the eroding utility of Beijing’s long-​standing non-​interference policy. South
Sudan had won its political freedom in July 2011, but its economic future
still relied on oil pipelines transporting its oil through Sudan and on to in-
ternational markets. The fragility of this bond, however, became clear after a
dispute erupted over the transit price South Sudan should pay to move each
barrel of oil through Sudan.32 In response to Sudan’s unilaterally confiscating
oil as payment in kind, South Sudan announced it was preparing to shut
down its oil industry altogether. This was a shocking move, economic suicide
for the new country, as oil was its main source of revenue.33 Chinese officials
were utterly baffled. Alongside other international and regional negotiators,
they urged the two Sudans not to go to war, and for South Sudan to continue
its oil production.34 CNPC and its corporate partners even offered to pay
Sudan a temporary compensation package if it allowed South Sudanese oil to
flow without interference.35
But China’s new crisis diplomacy fell short. Despite international and re-
gional pressure, Sudan and South Sudan did not budge from their positions.
Beijing could not protect the company’s most prized international asset.
At Chinese-​run oil fields, South Sudanese soldiers burst into control rooms
and told Chinese technicians to shut down production. When the Chinese
protested, an international oil consultant related to me, the soldiers raised
their weapons. “We’ll come back in thirty minutes,” they said. “If you’re not
finished, you will die.” The oil fields were shut down soon after. For CNPC,
it was a devastating loss of income. Sudan and South Sudan represented a

26   H o w China Loses

quarter of its international production in 2011. In 2012, for the first time in
its history, the Chinese oil company’s international revenues fell.36
It took over a year for Sudan and South Sudan to make amends and end
the oil shutdown. Its economic fallout fueled the political discord that later
gave rise to the next crisis, South Sudan’s civil war.37 The long absence of
oil revenues fueled political divisions between South Sudan’s top leader-
ship, and in December 2013, conflict erupted in the capital. South Sudan’s
oil industry was hit hard by the civil war. Opposition forces succeeded in
taking control and closing off several large oil fields in an effort to cut off the
government’s main revenue stream. The civil war brought Chinese diplomats
back to regional mediation alongside their African, American, and European
counterparts. China monitored developments and offered financial assistance
for the peace talks, marking a gradual increase in its involvement in the
multilateral effort. But Beijing also deepened its bilateral presence. Zhong
Jianhua met directly with and told the warring factions that “in the short
run, you must ask the troops to safeguard our oil fields. In the long run, you
have to stop fighting and implement the ceasefire.”38
But Zhong denied that it was oil that motivated China’s crisis diplomacy.
He rightly noted that Sudan and South Sudan oil exports only amounted
to 1 to 2 percent of China’s total import needs in 2016.39 Instead, Zhong
argued that it was the economic importance of oil for South Sudan’s eventual
post-​conflict recovery that warranted the industry’s protection.40 His boss,
foreign minister Wang Yi, doubled down on the benign position. China
was mediating “not for its own interests,” Wang said, “but acting on the
responsibilities and obligations of a responsible world power”; that China
was an “active promoter of peace.”41
Despite the words of China’s top diplomats, their actions told another story.
One of China’s largest international oil investments—​billions of dollars in
assets—​was in jeopardy from South Sudan’s civil war. If the fighting overran
the oil industry, China’s global reputation and the Communist Party’s le-
gitimacy at home would suffer. In January 2015, Beijing arranged a special
consultation session between the South Sudanese government and opposition
forces in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. It announced that these talks were part
of regional mediation efforts, but had particular goals of its own in mind.
At the meeting, Chinese officials implored opposition forces not to attack
the remaining operating oil fields in Upper Nile state and offered financial
inducements as motivation.42
But China could not dictate the direction of events on the ground. Months
later, fighting grew around the Upper Nile oil fields. But it was not oppo-
sition forces that targeted Chinese-​run oil fields. Rather, it was a breakaway

Waiting for Peace 27

faction of South Sudan’s armed forces. The militia of Johnson Olonyi, from
the minority Shilluk ethnic group, allied with the South Sudanese govern-
ment at the outset of the civil war. He and his men served as a protection
buffer against attacks on the country’s largest oil fields at Palogue. But the
fluid and volatile political and security environment of South Sudan shifted
allegiances over time.
Many of the militias underneath the South Sudan army and the opposi-
tion are in fact primarily focused on maintaining control and security within
their own immediate territory, occasionally changing loyalties at the national
level to advance their local interests.43 Olonyi switched sides in the conflict
after a dispute erupted with a nearby pro-​government ethnic group. His sub-
sequent march to the heart of South Sudan’s economy at the Palogue oil fields
forced hundreds of Chinese and foreign oil workers to evacuate. The change
in events for China fit well with a popular Chinese saying: “Heaven is high
and the emperor is far away.” Just as powerful central government ministers
in Beijing struggle to direct the actions of provincial officials, who know the
immediate environment better, China is unable to influence the ebbs and
flows of South Sudan’s conflict. Rather than China controlling politics inside
South Sudan, China’s actions were conditioned by South Sudanese politics.44
South Sudan’s army later regrouped and pushed back Olonyi and his
fighters.45 But the episode underlined the multiple challenges China faced in
navigating South Sudan’s conflict. Ironically enough, the advance of Olonyi’s
forces was made possible thanks to twelve Chinese-​made machine-​gun-​
mounted amphibious vehicles, supplied to his forces by the South Sudan
government.46 Changing allegiances within South Sudan’s opposing forces
could suddenly threaten Chinese nationals and economic interests, and finan-
cial and military support could one day be the root of considerable blowback,
including the repeated occurrences of Chinese-​made weapons threatening
Chinese-​run oil fields.47 In Sudan’s Darfur conflict, Chinese arms had also
found their way into rebel hands. “All the weapons we took from the soldiers
were Chinese. The Sudan government is using the oil money it gets from
China to buy weapons to kill our people,” a Darfuri rebel said.48 His group
later targeted Chinese-​run oil fields in a series of attacks.
China’s engagement in peacemaking in South Sudan and other conflicts,
paradoxically, grew alongside its sharp rise as one of the world’s leading
arms sellers. In Africa, the level of Chinese arms sales by the China North
Industries Group Corporation, better known as Norinco, the China Poly
Group Corporation, and others, trails only Russia.49 Everything from mil-
itary aircraft, drones, tanks, and even surveillance technology is on offer to
African governments. But China’s mark in Africa’s arms industry is mainly

28   H o w China Loses

in small arms and light weapons, like the Chinese Type 56, a near copy of the
Russian Kalashnikov AK47, which proliferates in conflicts as stocks of old
Soviet weapons from Eastern Europe dry up.
Shortly after South Sudan’s independence, Norinco started selling weapons
to the new country. Two large shipments were dispatched in May 2014, eight
months after the outbreak of civil war. The transaction was legal. A United
Nations arms embargo was not put in place on South Sudan until 2018.
But knowing the moral grounds of supplying arms to a government accused
of ethnic killings, in June 2014, China’s ambassador in Juba, Ma Qiang,
said that China had cut off negotiation on a new arms deal.50 When news
broke that the South Sudanese government had bought nearly $40 million
in arms from China, however, Ma was pushed to defend his previous posi-
tion.51 “When the conflict broke out, that shipment was already on the way,”
Ma pleaded. “We could have stopped it if we’d known. But most of the stuff
was logistics equipment, not artillery and tanks. Business is business, and it’s
separate from diplomacy.”52
Either the Chinese ambassador was trying to deliberately mislead, or he
demonstrated a disconnect between the Chinese foreign ministry and the
Chinese state-​owned arms seller, Norinco. The company understood its
shipments were entering an active war zone. In the transfer documents to
South Sudan’s defense ministry sent weeks after the conflict began, company
vice president Zhang Yi penned, “Wish safety to all of you!”53 In contrast to
what Ma told the international press, Norinco’s shipments included much
more than logistical equipment. Hundreds of machine guns and pistols, over
2,000 grenade launchers, nearly 10,000 assault rifles, and 2 million rounds
of ammunition were sent from China and made up a significant proportion of
the South Sudan army’s ammunition in the years to follow.54 Ma’s utterance of
China’s trope of “business to business” demonstrated that Chinese diplomats
were still not connecting the dots on how the commercial engagements of
its companies upset politics and security. China did stop making official
arms sales to South Sudan after the Norinco controversy. But Chinese, East
European, and other foreign arms were still entering the country through
porous borders in East Africa.55
What is evident from China’s engagement in South Sudan is that Chinese
actors are uncoordinated and often frustrate one another’s interests when
filtered through local politics. Non-​interference seems to be rolled out by
Beijing when it suits its interests. But when China must act, the alternative
of intervening has been a mess. China’s foreign ministry is hardly pleased in
having to find ways to protect Chinese companies venturing into war zones.
Zhong Jianhua privately complained that CNPC was arrogant and reckless

Waiting for Peace 29

in investing in Sudan and South Sudan in the first place. As for Norinco,
much like American and other foreign suppliers of arms in conflicts overseas,
Chinese arms fell into the hands of multiple sides of the conflict. Rather than
Beijing executing a well-​coordinated plan, an assortment of Chinese actors
pursued their own narrow goals, upsetting China’s stated foreign policy to
demonstrate its role as a global peacemaker and provide a stable environment
for its economic interests to grow.
Neither does China coordinate well with other foreign powers. In South
Sudan, the Chinese continued to resist showing a public, common front
alongside American and European interlocutors. Beijing avoided joint
statements and rejected Western proposals to place strong sanctions on South
Sudanese leaders. Mediators were keen on the Chinese side’s becoming deeply
involved, but its overall engagement was “sparing and inconsistent by com-
parison,” spiking when opposition forces threatened Chinese-​run oil fields.56
European and African diplomats privately echoed this concern.57 The incon-
sistency allowed warring sides to manipulate their international mediators,
which together could only muster watered-​down agreements.58
Zhong Jianhua asserted that China was a newcomer to multilateral peace
talks, and it would take decades for its knowledge to match that of other for-
eign powers.59 But by prioritizing its narrow interests over long-​term peace
in overseas conflicts, Beijing was actually following a well-​traveled road of
foreign powers. The United States and European countries, in response to
political pressure constituencies at home, provided assistance to the southern
Sudanese rebels during the 1990s and early 2000s despite the group’s human
rights abuses and corrupt practices.
There have been efforts to improve cooperation between China and the
United States. In 2014, the Chinese special envoy joined his American
counterpart and Ethiopia’s former foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin to find
common ground.60 Through pursuing common goals on preventing disease,
combating terrorism, and supporting peacekeeping in Africa, the envoys
hoped to avoid a future of “zero-​sum competition” between China and the
United States on the continent, to ward off “mistrust, military rivalry, com-
mercial competition and different approaches to governance.”61
But similar to Qian Fengzhang’s approach to corporate responsibility,
while the frontline diplomats saw the potential gains in developing closer
cooperation between their countries, political winds in their respective cap-
itals were headed in another direction. Even before Donald Trump entered
the White House, his transition team was weary of China’s activities in
Africa, asking the State Department, “Are we losing out to the Chinese?”62
Later Trump’s Africa strategy, “Prosper Africa,” focused on countering

30   H o w China Loses

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
leikillinen Miina!" sanoi hän ihastuneena.

Hiljaa keinuili vene järven pinnalla, onnellista paria kantoi se.

Sydän oli taasen tavannut sydämmen; ne olivat olleet eroitettuna, ja
tuskalliselta tuntui se ero, luonto kun oli ne yhteen kasvattanut.

Ilta oli kulunut jo myöhäksi, kun uusi vene saapui rantaan ja

maalle nousivat onnelliset soutelijat; käsikädessä astuivat he, he
olisivat tahtoneet vaikka koko maailmalle sanoa, että rakastivat
toisiaan ja olivat onnelliset.

"Tänään on käynyt tytölle hyvin!" nauroi Pekka, nähdessään

tyttärensä iloisena ja vilkkaana.

"Oikein arvattu, niin onkin!" vastasi Miina.

Eräänä kauniina elokuun iltapäivänä soutaa Ruuhkajärvellä

moniaita veneitä. Etummaisessa niistä näemme entiset nuoret
tuttavamme. He palaavat pappilasta, jossa ovat vannoneet ikuista
uskollisuutta toisillensa ja saaneet papillisen siunauksen; nyt ovat
Kalle ja Miina laillinen aviopari. Morsiamen kasvot loistavat
onnellisuudesta, hänen kantaissaan helähtelevää morsiuskruunua;
ihastuttavan katseen loi hän onnelliseen ylkäänsä, joka vakavana
rinnalla istuu.

Samassa veneessä vastapäätä morsiusparia istuu nuori iloisen

näköinen herrasmies, sehän on ennen tuntemamme Alpert herra,
joka nyt seuraa pientä hääjoukkoa takamaille.

"Onpa hauskaa kun tanssitaankin illalla", puhuu Alpert, "mutta

enpä vielä kysynytkään, kukas tulee soittamaan?"

"Hm, Puumalan Antti!"

 "Hyvä, Antti soittaa kauniisti, sen olen kuullut?" Kaksi muuta
venettä seurasi jo mainittua. Niissä oli morsiusparin sukulaisia ja
tuttavia, paraastaan nuorta väkeä ja hilpeällä mielellä kulki seurue
rantaa kohden.

Rannalla oli tuttavia vastassa ja siitä yksissä lähdettiin torpille,

jotka olivat koristetut lehtipuilla ja muilla viheriöillä kasveilla mitä
ihanimmaksi.

"Ohoo, täällähän ollaan kuin esivanhempaimme paratiisissa",

huudahti
Alpert herra, astuissaan Alamaan pihaan.

"Niin sitä nyt ollaan! mutta harvoin onkin häisiä päiviä", sanoi
Pekka, joka oli pihalla vastassa.

"Harvoin kyllä, mutta hyvä kun joskuskin!"

"Jaa, hyvä kyllä, ja vielä parempi että tekin tulitte niihin osaa
ottamaan, vaikka ei täällä ole paljoa tarjona!"

"Toivon sentään ettei hauskuudesta ole puutetta!"

"Eipä pitäisi", jatkoi Pekka vilkkaasti, "tämä on tanssitalo, johon

tullaan iltaa viettämään, käymme nyt ensiksi tuonne minun mökilleni,
siellä se on pelimannikin, vetää marssia, että korpi raikuu!"

Pihalla oli Mikkokin vieraita vastassa, sanoen heitä tervetulleiksi,

kävi hänkin joukkoon, ja niin lähdettiin morsiustaloon. Siellä oli
oivallinen hääpöytä laitettu, olikin nyt oikein varsinainen kokki
ruokien teossa, joita nuoret pojat pöydälle kantoivat.
 Hääpöydässä toivotti Alpert herra onnea nuorelle pariskunnalle ja
lupasi häälahjaksi Kallelle Alamaan torpan nautinnon samoilla
ehdoilla kuin tähänkin asti.

"Onpas siinä lahjaa, pila vieköön", sanoi Pekka, "eipä Mikolla

olekaan enää juuri mökin maat!"

"Se on teidän työnne ja ansionne", sanoi Alpert, "ilman teitä ei

kukaties näillä takamailla olisi yhtä peltosarkaa, eikä niittulappua,
ilman teitä olisi tämä mitätön räme, sutten ja karhuin pesäpaikka.
Mutta rehellinen, uupumaton työ palkitsee tekijänsä, samalla
hyödyttäin koko kansaa ja isänmaata. Senpätähden lupaan
mielelläni nämät maat näille nuorille; ei se oikeastaan tulekkaan
heille miksikään lahjaksi, vaan oikeutettuna perintönä" ja, jatkoi hän
morsianta silmiin katsoen, "toinen torppa tulee Miinan myötäjäisinä,
tietysti vasta sitte, kun ei Pekka sitä enää tarvitse."

"Te olette jalo mies", sanoi Mikko, "nyt vasta voimmekin viettää
oikein iloisia häitä, koska tiedämme, että näitten toimeentulo on
turvattu vielä sittenkin, kun me vanhat olemme päivämme
päättäneet, ja kyllä kai niin kauan sovimme."

"Aivan hyvin", sanoi Pekka, "ystävyys on täällä ollut paras

tukemme kovinakin aikoina, kestäneehän sitä eteenkinpäin!"

"Minä", sanoi Kalle Alpertille, "saan teitä kiittää sekä aineellisista

että henkisistä eduista. Jos ette nuoruudessani olisi ravintoa
hankkinut kaipaavalle hengelleni, kuka tietää mitä olisi minusta
tullut!"

"Vaan tuossa tuodaan paistia", sanoi Alpert, "isketäänpäs siihen ja

morsiusparin kunniaksi, hyvällä ruokahalulla!"
 "Oikein hyvällä", sanoi Pekka, "ja iloisella mielellä, vaikka ollaankin
täällä metsän sydämmessä!"

Iloisella mielellä näytti jokainen olevan ja vilkkaasti haastellessa

kului ilta. Silloin rupesivat nuoret muistuttelemaan, että olisi tanssin
aika ja pelimanni etunenässä kulki hääjoukko Mikon laveaan tupaan,
viihdyttämään tanssi-intoaan.

Iloisina tanssivat nuoret, mutta kaikista iloisin oli Alpert herra, hän
tanssi, laski leikkiä ujosteleville tytöille, häntä huvitti nähdä kansansa
lapsia heidän teeskentelemättömässä yksinkertaisuudessaan.

Toisen päivän ikäpuolella läksivät vieraat kukin kotiaan vieden

hauskoja muistoja muassaan näistä kaikinpuolin niin iloisista häistä.

Syksypuoleen eräänä sunnuntai-iltana istui nuori pariskunta

Ruuhkajärven rannalla, katsellen, miten laineet loiskuivat rantaa
vasten. Äänetönnä istuivat he käsikädessä, näkyipä pari kirkasta
kyyneltä nuoren naisen silmissä, mutta ne eivät olleet surun, ei —
entisajan muistot saivat ne uhkumaan.

"Oi sinä tuttava järvi", huudahti Kalle, "kuinka monta kertaa

olenkaan pinnallasi soudellut, myrskyssä ja tyyneellä. Tuolla", sanoi
hän, "olen soudellut monta kertaa onnellisena, mutta myöskin
onnettomana, sydän särkymäisillään! Mutta onnettomuuteni olikin
vaan luultua, ei todellista; olen löytänyt rauhaa sydämmelleni ja
saanut omakseni sen, jota rakastin, jota rakastan enemmin kuin
omaa itseäni."

Miina painoi päänsä Kallen rinnoille, kuiskaten: "Oi Kalle, minä en

ansaitse niin suurta rakkautta, luontoni on paha, mutta minä koetan
tulla paremmaksi!"
 "Ole sinä vaan semmoinen kuin olet, semmoisena olen sinua
rakastanut ja rakastan, semmoisena olet sinä elämäni ihana
päivänpaiste ja sydämeni paras ilo!" sanoi Kalle hymyillen.

Loppu.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TAKAMAAN
TORPPARIT ***

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