日前，歐盟就廷基於謊言的新疆人權問題制裁中國官員及機構。中國外交部當晚立即祭出報復行動，被制裁的10人中，包括5名歐洲議會議員，荷蘭、比利時、立陶宛國會議員各1人，以及長期研究新疆人權問題的德國學者鄭國恩（Adrian Zenz）、瑞典亞洲研究學者葉必揚（Bjorn Jerden）；被制裁的4個機構，分別是歐盟理事會政治與安全委員會、歐洲議會人權分委會、德國墨卡托中國研究中心MERICS 及丹麥民主聯盟基金會Alliance of Democracies Foundation。相關人員及其家屬被禁止入境中國內地及香港、澳門特別行政區，他們及其關聯企業、機構也已被限制同中國進行往來。
歐盟有關方面表示，雖然歐盟早已預料到中方會進行抗議，但沒想到中國會對歐盟進行這樣堅決的製裁。中國的強硬姿態，展現了其綜合國力不斷提升帶來的底氣。歐盟的指責是基於謊言和虛假信息，以所謂新疆人權問題為藉口對中國有關個人和實體實施單邊制裁，歐方顛倒黑白，中方當然對此表示反對和譴責，並進行反制裁。
歐盟對中國發起的制裁可能會影響中歐之間的貿易關係。長期以來，歐盟與中國是重要的貿易夥伴。去年中國超過美國，成為歐盟最大的貿易夥伴。對歐盟而言，中國既是巨大的市場，又是主要的投資者歐盟成員國匈牙利外長西亞爾托已公開指出，歐盟針對中國的制裁是毫無意義且有害的。
其實，中國提出的建立人類命運共同體需要的是對話和尊重，中國對歐盟採取的制裁措施正是追求公平的舉動。 這種反擊是想告訴這些國家：不可以用虛假信息攻擊中國。以前，美國英國以虛假情報發動伊拉克戰爭，非常可恥！這樣的行為絕不可能照搬到中國身上， 基於謊言的言語攻擊也不行，中國的定會做出反制。 這是中國的反制裁行動正常合理。
王錦添 工程師
香港建設專業聯會理事
香港建設專業聯會
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
The aricle written by Thomas L. Friedman, an opinion Columnist, on March 23, 2021, says, "We’ve stopped following our formula for success.... ". You may care to have a look.
Sometimes a comedian cuts through foreign policy issues better than any diplomat. Bill Maher did that the other week with an epic rant on U.S.-China relations, nailing the most troubling contrast between the two countries: China can still get big things done. America, not so much.
For many of our political leaders, governing has become sports, entertainment or just mindless tribal warfare. No wonder China’s leaders see us as a nation in imperial decline, living off the leftover fumes of American “exceptionalism.” I wish I could say they were all wrong.
“New Rule: You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a ‘silly people.’ And Americans are a silly people,” said Maher. “That’s the classic phrase from ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ — when Lawrence tells his Bedouin allies that as long as they stay a bunch of squabbling tribes, they will remain ‘a silly people.’ …
“We all know China does bad stuff. They break promises about Hong Kong autonomy; they put Uyghurs in camps and punish dissent. And we don’t want to be that. But it’s got to be something between authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”
Maher added: “On a national level, we’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009, but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending ‘woke’ competition. … The other half believes we have to stop the lizard people, because they’re eating babies. … China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”
Yes, China has huge problems. Its leaders are not 10 feet tall, but they are focused on real metrics of success. “China’s leaders are fierce but fragile,” argues James McGregor, the chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide, Greater China. “Precisely because they were not elected, they wake up every day scared of their own people, and that makes them very focused on performance” — particularly around jobs, housing and clean air.
By contrast, many U.S. politicians these days are elected from safe, gerrymandered districts and seek to stay in power by just “performing” for their base with populist theatrics.
Whenever I point this out, critics on the far right or far left ridiculously respond, “Oh, so you love China.” Actually, I am not interested in China. I care about America. My goal is to frighten us out of our complacency by getting more Americans to understand that China can be really evil AND really focused on educating its people and building its infrastructure and adopting best practices in business and science and promoting government bureaucrats on merit — all at the same time. Condemning China for the former will have zero impact if we’re not its equal in all of the latter.
S. L. LI Engineer
HKFDP
