考研阅读精选：乒乓球外交官
Master of ping-ping diplomacyDec 14th 2011, 9:35 by G.E. | BEIJING
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IT IS not often that an ambassador to China who leaves his post choosesto hold forth—on the record, and on Chinese soil—about the ups anddowns of his former job. This is true for at least two reasons. First,Chinese government officials here are not exactly thick-skinned (norshort of memory). Second, those with future business here, whetherdiplomatic or more remunerative, tend to say nice things or nothing atall.
Few diplomats understand that better than Geoff Raby, whofrom 2007 until this summer served as Australia’s ambassador to China.He now runs an eponymous consultancy in Beijing that trades on theconnections he established over a career that took him to China in the1980s, back to Canberra and back again. Little wonder that Mr Raby wouldhesitate to tread on those relationships in Beijing last night, when headdressed a gathering of foreign correspondents who sought to inducehim into undiplomatic utterances.
Mr Raby, though outspoken, has adiplomat’s flair for strategic candour. The most undiplomatic broadsidehe delivered while he was ambassador was targeted at his own boss,Kevin Rudd—the Mandarin-speaking minister of foreign affairs whosetenure as prime minister was marked by rocky relations with China.Speaking earlier this year to a gathering of Australian executives inBeijing, Mr Raby observed, among a series of remarks that were clearlyaimed at Mr Rudd, that “to speak Chinese is not to know China”.
MrRudd was prime minister during what Mr Raby described last night as theannus horribilis of Sino-Australian relations, the year of 2009. Thatwas a time in which China was baring its fangs diplomatically, on theheels of ethnically charged riots in the northwest region of Xinjiangthat summer and in Tibet a year earlier. Mr Raby recalled how Chinesediplomats ham-fistedly objected to the screening at a Melbourne filmfestival of a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur activistwhom Chinese authorities had tried to make out as the leader of aseparatist movement. Ms Kadeer herself was invited to attend thescreening, much to Chinese consternation.
“The Chinese consulatewas just amazingly inept,” Mr Raby said. “They did such a good job—Imean no one’s heard of Uighurs in Australia, no one had heard of RebiyaKadeer—they did such a good job that the organisers had to rent a muchbigger hall to fit everyone in who wanted to come and see the film.” MrRaby said that Chinese diplomats have shown more sophistication onsensitive matters since, but he noted that the big decisions about howto engage with other countries are never in their hands.
So itwas with the most troubling Sino-Australian episode of 2009: the arrestof Stern Hu, an Australian citizen and then the de facto head of Chinabusiness for Rio Tinto, a mining giant. Mr Hu was held initially onsuspicion of stealing state secrets. Eventually he was convicted ofbribery and other offences, taking a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.Many observers saw the episode as a case of politically selectiveprosecution, partly due to China’s frustration with the rising price ofiron ore, and partly as retribution for Rio Tinto’s abandonment of amulti-billion-dollar investment deal with the Aluminium Corporation ofChina, or Chinalco.
Mr Raby, without referring specifically tothe facts of Mr Hu’s case, did not dispute questioners’ assertions thatthere was politics behind its prosecution.
“You can draw your ownconclusions from the evidence, but you’re right that a lot of peoplegive and receive gifts, and some get pinged and some don’t, and I thinkto my mind that’s the nub of the issue,” Mr Raby said. In response to anearlier question on the Hu case, Mr Raby had noted an inherent defectof China’s justice system: its lack of independence from politics.
“Here we know there’s a reason why someone’s pinged for corruption orsomeone’s not pinged for corruption and usually there’s something sitsbehind it, so when there’s an anti-corruption campaign in Guangdong orShenzhen, then it’s a fair bet that that’s somehow tied to elitepolitics, because why ping Person A and not B? And I think that is thecontext in which law is practiced here,” Mr Raby said. “There is rule bylaw here…But there’s no rule of law. There’s nothing that sits abovethe political processes of the .”
Mr Raby saidforeign governments can only hope to push patiently, persistently anddiplomatically for “incremental” progress on its justice system andhuman rights. “I don’t think megaphone diplomacy gets you anywhere inthis space.”
Mr Raby noted that during his four years asambassador China’s leverage in world affairs has increased dramatically,as it became, for example, Australia’s number-one trading partner. Hesaid that China’s economic power, combined with its authoritariansystem, pose an historic diplomatic challenge as China’sambitions—including its military ambitions—continue to grow.
“Wehave never seen in world history, with Nazi Germany perhaps to one side,a global economic power that has stood so far apart from theinternational norms of social and political organisation, so it’ssomething different. It really, really is different,” Mr Raby said. Helater assured me that when he uses this line in speeches, he throws in amention of Nazi Germany to pre-empt the nitpickers of history, not as apoint of comparison to China. That would be rather undiplomatic indeed.
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