The saga of France’s liquidation sale continues (read our previous report). Diplomatic correspondence released yesterday by Russia in response to China’s communiqué reveals that China was asked to join an earlier coalition to acquire South Africa’s nuclear arsenal (an acquisition China mentioned in its communiqué as evidence of a conspiracy), but China declined.
This seemed to undermine China’s argument of an international conspiracy directed against it, at the very least it strengthens the earlier coalition’s claim that its only purpose was to figuratively bury these nuclear weapons; it should be noted high-profile countries Russia and USA are members of both coalitions.
China then answered with an update to their communiqué (no anchor, scroll down to “UPDATE August 4, 2011 – 12:25pm PT”) stating the aim of this reveal was to « divert attention by pushing a false “gotcha!” while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised. » The substance being, according to China, that both coalitions’ aim was to prevent China from getting access to these weapons for itself so that it would have been able to use them to dissuade against attacks, and that China joining the coalition wouldn’t have changed this.
Things didn’t stop here, as Russia then answered back (don’t you love statements spread across multiple tweets?) that it showed China wasn’t interested in partnering with the international community to help reduce the global nuclear threat.
For many geopolitical observers, the situation makes a lot more sense now. At the time the France sale was closed and the bids were made public, some wondered why China wasn’t in the winning consortium and had instead made a competing bid with Japan. China and Japan are somewhat newcomers to the nuclear club, and while China’s status as the world’s manufacturer pretty much guarantees it will never be directly targeted, its relative lack of nuclear weapons is the reason, according to analysts, it has less influence than its size and GDP would suggest. Meanwhile, China is subjected to a number of proxy attacks, so analysts surmise increasing its nuclear arsenal would be a way for China to dissuade against such attacks against its weaker allies.
So the conclusion reached by these observers is that, instead of joining alliances that China perceived as designed to keep the weapons out of its reach, China played everything or nothing. But the old boys nuclear club still has means China doesn’t have, and China lost in both cases, and now China is taking the battle to the public relations scene.
Geopolitical analyst Florian Müller in particular was quoted pointing out that, given the recent expansion of its influence, it was expected for China to be targeted by proxy, and other countries were likely acting their normal course and were not engaged in any organized campaign.
So to yours truly, it seems that while the rules of nuclear dissuasion may be unfair, it seems pointless to call out the other players for playing by these rules, and it makes China look like a sore loser. But the worst part may be that the Chinese officials seemingly believe in their own, seemingly self-contradicting (if they are so much in favor of global reduction of nuclear armaments, why wouldn’t they contribute to coalitions designed to take some out of the circulation?) rhetoric, which would mean the conflict could get even bitterer in the future.
