China wants the world to know that resistance to its rise is futile

LEADERS OF CHINA and America share an obsession: the notion that a large enough coalition of Western democracies might have the heft to confront a rising China about its authoritarian, state-capitalist ways, and demand that it follow a new trajectory, one that does less damage to norms and universal values that have governed the rich world since 1945.

China fears a broad, American-led coalition as the one force that might still be able to contain it. Not so long ago its foreign minister, Wang Yi, mocked the Quad, an informal group uniting America, Australia, India and Japan, as so much “sea foam”. After America hosted a Quad-leaders summit, China has called the group a destabilising scheme to build an Asian NATO. The Trump administration expanded the role of the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing pact between America, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The group issued a statement in November 2020 about the crushing of political freedoms in Hong Kong. But the Five Eyes should be careful not to be “poked and blinded”, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman growled. Australia and Canada are being punished with trade sanctions and detention of their citizens to teach them the cost of helping America in disputes with China.