Paul French says that the Chinese government needs to act very differently if it wants to be popular in the west


Earlier in the summer, two things grabbed the attention of China watchers. The outspoken and internationally lauded Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was finally released (on bail) after 75 days of detention and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao visited London to push the Beijing line on things.


The release of Ai occurred the week before Wen arrived in London. This is not presumed to be a coincidence. Meanwhile Wen’s trip was less the usual trade mission and more another step in China’s search to find out why nobody loves her.


In fact very few, if any, new contracts were concluded during the trip. Instead we saw some minor announcements mixed with some long-arranged deals finally authorised by Beijing (the Diageo stake in a traditional Chinese spirits maker).


There were also some examples of what the Foreign Office calls (off the record) “reheated” agreements that have long been in place but get rolled out one more timeduring these visits to inflatethe numbers (for example, the contract for a clean coal plant in Inner Mongolia that may, or may not, ever happen).


Why the hush?


Two things struck me about these events.


First, shouldn’t British business have shouted a little louder, or at all, about Ai Weiwei?


Second, why is Beijing so seemingly desperate to be loved in the west? Wen went on a rather cack-handed charm offensive in the wake of Ai being pictured on the front of every UK newspaper, freed butunable to speak to journalistsand obviously having had the frighteners put on him. This did not endearWento the British public.


Most of Fleet Street and the UK arts community publicly showed support for Ai.Penguin published one of its “specials” on him; Anthony Gormley and other British artists called for his release; and his installations at London’s Somerset House and Lisson Grove Gallery were well attended. But little comment came from the business community.


So what?Why should business speak out for Ai?


Well, for one thing his work had recently been the Unilever Installation at London’s Tate Modern. Ai’s Sunflower Seeds featuring 100mhandmade ceramic seeds attracted much praise – and many visitors. Unilever presumably sponsors the installationtoappear to be supporting creativity and free expression. Yet I cannot find even a small press release from Unilever in response to Ai’s detention. Total silence.


Of course, Unilever does more than €1bn of business a year in China, a country where the government regularly takes reprisals against companies that don’t stay on-message. But is it acceptable to us, as consumers, that Unilever gets all the press coverage, kudos and soft power from sponsoring Ai but then, within weeks of his installation endingand when he’s been banged up by Beijing, says nothing?


Kerry Brown, head of the Royal Institute of International Affairs China programme at Chatham House in London, has just returned from a trip by western academics to Beijing where the purpose was to “engage” with the Communist party on its image issues overseas. He tells me that one of the party leaders’ major concerns is that they feel unloved.


They believe they have delivered growth, better standards of living and a stronger China – so why don’t people appreciate the party more? Similarly, Beijing feels that the world doesn’t understand or accept a stronger China.


No emotional contact


The leadership believes China has been a bulwark against an even deeper world recessionand the world should be grateful. That the west focuses on human rights, Tibet and Ai Weiwei genuinely perplexesBeijing. As Brown puts it, “the party is frustrated that it has failed to make an emotional contact with the people”.


Still, Beijing’s marketing and PR are notreally improving – even as Wen was still in London the cadres in Beijing were announcing that Ai was an “economic criminal”while telling critical British journalists to go and learn more about the “real China” but denying thosejournalists visas to enter the country.


For now, Beijing and the party should probably just get used to being unloved. 


Paul French has been based in China for more than 20 years and is a partner in the research publisher Access Asia.  



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