Belated blossoms

IN THE words of a senior foreign policy adviser to the Chinese government, the official attitude towards the Arab Spring can be summed up very simply: “Ever since it started, all they want is to keep it as far away from China as possible.”

So nervous were Chinese officials about the fragrance that might have wafted eastward that last year, after a delicate flower became a symbol of revolt in Tunis, Cairo and elsewhere, censors blocked searches for the term “jasmine” on the internet—and police blocked the sale of jasmine at Beijing flower markets.

The reason for such skittishness is not hard to understand. The sight of authoritarian governments with dynastic tendencies being toppled in civil uprisings after decades in power is…unsettling, for the rulers of China’s one-party system. The support that most Western countries showed for that succession of revolts, whether in the form of explicit statements or merely in nods and winks, has likewise been unwelcome.

Today however, even as Syria’s government seems to teeter on the brink of becoming the next casualty of the Arab Spring, China is enthusiastically welcoming one of the wider movement’s key beneficiaries, Egypt’s newly elected president, Muhammad Morsi, on an official two-day visit.

The Egyptian’s decision to make his first official long-haul trip a visit to China (having paid respects to neighbours in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia already)—to be followed immediately by one to Iran—appears to be a clear poke in the eye of America, which provides Egypt with billions in aid each year and wants desperately to retain its influence there, no less despite the change in management.

The fact that Mr Morsi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood might be of some concern to Beijing. One of the many potential threats to stability in China is unrest among its ethnic Uighurs, a non-Chinese Muslim minority in Xinjiang. The baseline level of tension between Han Chinese and the Turkic Uighurs is high, and violence has erupted between the groups on many occasions. Nearly 200 people died in riots in July 2009. A dozen more were reported killed in February of this year.

To see the travails of China’s Muslims become a focus of world Islamist movements would be very most unwelcome in Beijing. It marks something of a triumph for Chinese policymakers that they have so far managed to dodge that bullet. So even if it shares international concerns about Egypt’s Islamist government, China can only gain by staying on the movement’s good side for as long as possible.

China stands to gain in more concrete ways as well. Any effort by Mr Morsi to wean Egypt from its reliance on America would create space that China might readily fill. As a pair of American scholars, David Schenker and Christina Lin, write in the Los Angeles Times ,

“Although an Islamist Egypt beset by insecurity and a failing economy might seem of little value to the Chinese, upgraded ties with the troubled nation would provide China with a foothold on the Mediterranean, and include, hypothetically, a port. Morsi’s Egypt might also be amenable to offering Chinese warships priority access to the Suez Canal, as the US has traditionally been afforded. This privilege would be particularly appealing to China, which increasingly sees a need to protect its investments in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.”

If Mr Morsi does speak to his Chinese hosts about any of these issues, the details will be kept quiet. In public, the two sides will emphasise the need to enhance commercial ties. Mr Morsi comes with a delegation of business leaders; both sides express optimism about boosting bilateral trade and investment. Mr Morsi’s team hopes China will increase its investment in Egypt from its current levels, of around $500m, to $2 billion within three years.

According to Yin Gang, a Middle-East specialist at the ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences, China can be expected to press Egypt to help that process along by changing some of the foreign-investment laws that are now holding back trade. “Chinese companies are not happy with the investment environment in Egypt right now,” Mr Yin said. They would most like to change the requirement that foreign ventures hire a certain number of local workers.

The Chinese government, however, is probably as happy as it could have hoped to be, after watching the unpleasant spectacle of Hosni Mubarak’s fall. Setting aside the way he came to power, and his Islamist roots, Mr Morsi comes bearing a tantalising opportunity for China to bolster its influence in a vital region.

It’s not likely that China will ever approach America in terms of the total value of direct aid it provides to Egypt. In April the foreign ministry announced a package of less $15m, while America’s aid, much of it in the form of military hardware (and which is closely co-ordinated with its aid to Israel), measures in the billions of dollars annually.

Money however is not the only measure of influence. A recent commentary on the website of the People’s Daily observed hopefully that “We cannot say that US aid to Egypt has lost its influence, but one certain thing is that it cannot make the new Egyptian government follow the US lead in domestic and foreign policies any more.”

Or, as a wise man might once have suggested, when the world gives you jasmine-scented lemons, make jasmine lemonade?

(Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons)

via Analects http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/08/jasmine-beijing?fsrc=gn_ep