China may only be implementing sanctions against North Korea in fits and starts, but it has shown no trouble sanctioning its democratic neighbors, South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, for the “crime” of trying to protect itself from North Korean missiles—Beijing loathes the THAAD missile defense system that was recently installed there and has implemented numerous measures designed to hurt Seoul economically. (Then again, the newly elected South Korean president and Donald Trump aren’t crazy about it either.) China also resents Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, who it perceives as being less friendly than her predecessor. So Beijing has sanctioned Taiwan too, severely curtailing Chinese tourism to the island, for example.
Beijing has also taken various petty steps to undermine Taiwan’s international legitimacy. It blocked the country from attending last year’s ICAO aviation safety summit in Montreal, for example and barred Taiwanese journalists from covering the event. Now it appears that China will also successfully keep Taiwan from attending a World Health Organization summit—the WHA—in Geneva this year. (Last year, like every year since 2009, Taiwan was able to attend as an observer.) The Taiwanese government has reacted furiously to this, with the country’s ministry of foreign affairs noting that “the WHO has failed to abide by its Constitution and ignored widespread support in the international community for Taiwan’s participation in the WHA, instead bowing to political pressure from a certain member by excluding Taiwan from the WHA.” Taiwanese politicians have noted that “disease knows no borders” and that it makes no sense to subordinate global health issues to political considerations.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has embraced a, shall we say, activist foreign policy, one based on bullying its neighbors. This mirrors his governing style at home, with is authoritarian and repressive. He does not seem to me to be a “good man . . . a very good man.”
