China stokes nationalism over Japan’s discharge of treated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima power plant. Indian PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at BRICS 2023, but both sides disagreed on the nature of the engagement. The grouping’s expansion is approved, but Indonesia will study the mechanism before joining. Chinascope tells you what happened in China and the world in the past week – and much more.
China over the week
On 24 August, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) discharged 1m tonnes of radioactive water with low levels of tritium from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant — a process that will last for 30 years. There was immediate backlash in Beijing.
China’s General Administration of Customs banned all aquatic products from Japan, framing Tokyo’s decision as irresponsible. But the backlash has more to do with politics than the impact of the wastewater release.
The Chinese State media used the opportunity to stoke nationalist sentiment across news and social media platforms. Through propaganda sites, Beijing has suggested that Chinese people boycott Japanese products both directly and indirectly.
A video emerged of a restaurant owner in the Guizhou province pulling down wall decorations in his Japanese-style restaurant to protest the release of wastewater.
Fukushima dominated social media trends in China over the past few days. The hashtag “the truth of Fukushima” was viewed over 700 million times on Weibo. The incident was the top trend on the search engine Baidu for multiple days. Beijing even lodged a formal diplomatic complaint by summoning the Japanese ambassador to China, Hideo Tarumi.
Beijing’s politicisation of the issue is quite evident — in the past, China has released far higher levels of tritium from the Fuqing nuclear power plant in Fujian province and the Qinshan nuclear power plant in Zhejiang province. In 2021, the Qinshan power plant released 218 trillion becquerels of tritium, 10 times higher than the limit set for Fukushima water, which is at 22 trillion becquerels per year.
The fiasco once again reveals how Beijing can foment nationalistic outrage among its citizens, especially in the current information bubble, giving us insights into future crises. In a potential international security crisis, Beijing would use propaganda to frame an enemy in an informational environment that has very few foreign correspondents based in the country.
Also read: BRICS summit has built a bigger club. But new members won’t be just bricks…
Meanwhile, Xi stopped in Xinjiang on his way back from the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, to mark a new phase for the border province. The President called for spreading positive publicity about the “new atmosphere of Xinjiang’s openness and confidence”.
“It is necessary to implement the policies and measures determined by the Party Central Committee, adhere to a game of chess between soldiers and localities, and increase integration efforts in counterterrorism and stability maintenance,” said Xi in Urumqi.
The new confidence Xi alluded to was the success of the ‘re-education’ programme for Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and the mission to push for the Sinicisation of Islam. The latter, Xi said, was aimed to “control various illegal religious activities”.
For India, Beijing’s hypersensitivity regarding Xinjiang has implications for regional security matters, including Afghanistan. The relative success of the Xinjiang policy suggests that Beijing will attempt to expand its influence to safeguard its economic interests in neighbouring Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.
During the BRICS summit, Modi and Xi briefly met on the sidelines; however, two differing accounts of the meeting have emerged. Once again, the hype built in the lead-up to the BRICS summit fizzled out as the interaction between the two sides remained extremely brief.
While Beijing has labeled the meeting as a “bilateral exchange”, India’s Ministry of External Affairs referred to it as a “conversation”.
“President Xi Jinping emphasised that the improvement and development of China-India relations conforms to the common interests of the two countries and their peoples,” said the Chinese foreign ministry in a statement.
Also read: BRICS has expanded, can’t continue being anti-US. It’s up to India to balance
The statement has only mentioned the “properly handling the border issue” rather than discussing the “expeditious disengagement and de-escalation” as the Indian side has framed it. As a result, the Chinese statement reiterates Beijing’s position on delinking the border issue from the bilateral relationship. Even China’s Chargé d’Affaires in New Delhi, Ma Jia, recently wrote an article for ABP Live about finding convergence between the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) slogan ‘community of common destiny’ and the Sanskrit phrase ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ meaning ‘the world is one family’. Ma didn’t mention the border dispute – again indicating that Beijing isn’t rushing to resolve the stand-off. We know that China opposed the inclusion of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ in G20 documents, and Beijing has no interest in sharing the strategic space with India amid the rise of emerging economies.
A détente at the BRICS summit was never in the offing; the disagreement over the nature of the meeting shows the discord runs deep, and both sides are merely holding military-level talks, which could continue for a long time. Talks are a means to delay disengagement, which works in Beijing’s favour in the current context.
The Chinese State media called BRICS’ expansion “historical” — after all, it was a success for Beijing, as it convinced New Delhi to expand the grouping.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said that the country is still studying the potential of joining the grouping. Beijing is pushing the narrative that invitations to join BRICS will naturally translate into induction as members — which is far from the truth. The countries invited must formally apply to join BRICS as some would still want to study the benefits of joining the grouping.
What comes after the dust on G20 settles in two weeks will reveal Beijing’s long-term strategy. For now, China has achieved two goals. The expansion of BRICS and the creation of an impression that relations between India and China are ‘normal’.
Must read this week
The Qing Conception of Strategic Space – James Millward
Isabel Crook, 107, Dies; Her Life in China Spanned a Century of Change – Clay Risen
Xi’s Age of Stagnation – Ian Johnson