Chinese amorality

Back in the day, Lord Palmerston apparently asserted that “Britain has no permanent friends, she only has permanent interests.”

China’s growing presence in Africa, with little concern for values, let alone a mission civilisatrice, makes me wonder if China is the new Britain (just with less liberalism at home). And if so, should we care?

Plenty of Asian commentators, and their fellow travellers, say no: “leave China alone”. Today, a Beijing Olympic official, Wang Wei, echoed this by criticising international media for coming to China “to peak, to be critical, to dig into the small details and find fault” in the country’s human rights record.

With all due respect to Godwin, and inspired by George Packer, I had a flick through Victor Klemperer’s diaries, I Shall Bear Witness. Klemperer read about the likes of Mr Wei in the 1930s:

A new phrase has appeared in the papers and presumably comes from France. The French Popular Front is starting a ‘crusade of ideas’, for the Spanish Communists and against Fascism. That is quite shocking, our press responds, scandalised, National Socialism doesn’t do anything like that, it wants every nation to be happy in its own way, it doesn’t carry on any propaganda outside Germany. This is the most loathsome feature of the swastika crusade, that it is conducted hypocritically and in secret. ‘We’ are not conducting a crusade, ‘we’ do not shed blood either, we are a completely peaceable people and only want to be left in peace!