Wolf Warrior diplomacy. Huawei exposed, behind the EU-China deal; China’s Prague party guests.
Hello, and welcome to China Influence Monitor, a weekly newsletter published by CEPA and Coda Story and edited by me, Edward Lucas. We track the westward footprint of China’s influence operations, and their effects on politics, economies, societies and alliances across Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia and Europe.
In this issue: Why Trump’s Twitter ban is unlike anything in China; a 17+1 summit next month; New Zealand goes missing.
Canada and Britain are tightening rules on imports from China linked to forced labor and other horrors. British campaigners said the government’s move was all talk and no action. The foreign ministry in Beijing denounced Australia, Britain, Canada and the US for “grossly interfering” with their joint protest over the Hong Kong arrests. But where’s New Zealand? The other member of the Five Eyes anglophone intelligence-sharing alliance is conspicuous by its absence.
Two young Danish activists are changing their travel plans after helping a pro-democracy activist to escape from Hong Kong. Thomas Rohden and Anders Storgaard staged a fake climate-change conference in Copenhagen to enable Ted Hui to leave Hong Kong. Pro-Chinese lawmakers are demanding their prosecution. The two men, and a Danish politician who helped them, say they will not travel through or to any country that has an extradition treaty with China or Hong Kong.