On a business trip to Poland 10 years ago, friends there told me a joke over dinner: When the Solidarity movement against the communist government was in its prime in Poland in the early 1980s, it seemed inevitable that the Soviet Union would launch an invasion, supported by other Warsaw Pact countries. When martial law was declared, a worker went up to a soldier on a Warsaw street and asked him: “ If the Russians and the East Germans were to invade at the same time, who would you shoot first?” “The Germans, of course,” the soldier replied. “Business before pleasure.” The joke brought home to me Polish people’s deep-seated resentment of the Soviet Union. While the history of blood and tears goes back centuries, in the 1940s alone, Poland was as much devastated by the Soviet Union as by Nazi Germany. During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Red Army, which had promised to aid the Polish resistance, halted its offensive at a Warsaw suburb and left the Polish fighters to battle the Nazis alone. The Poles were decimated and up to 200,000 civilians were killed. Earlier, on March 5, 1940, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had ordered the mass execution at Katyn Forest of over 22,000 young Polish army officers who had been held captive by the Soviet Union. Against this backdrop, Poland’s trajectory after the second world war is understandable. Poland was one of the first former communist countries to join Nato, with strong support from the United States, in 1999. Washington also backed Poland becoming one of the eight formerly communist regimes to join the European Union in 2004. As a close ally and partner of the US, Poland has repeatedly asked the US to establish a permanent military base there, which is now being dubbed “Fort Trump” in a nod to the US president’s support of it. The strength of the US-Poland partnership was evident on January 11, when the Polish government announced the arrest of an employee of Chinese telecoms powerhouse Huawei, and a Polish citizen on espionage charges. The arrest has come at a time when Europe has increasingly become a battlefield between Washington and Beijing over Huawei . Tensions have been high since December 1 when Canada arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US. Warsaw did not bother to conceal its intention to please Washington by going after the Huawei executive. Poland’s intelligence spokesperson even tweeted the FBI, CIA and the US State Department when he released the identities of the two people arrested. The reaction of various countries to the Huawei case shows that when China and the US jockey for power on the global stage, they are also testing their allies and how effectively they can work together. So far, the US and its allies have the upper hand and have collaborated seamlessly. Australia and New Zealand have banned the use of Huawei products in their 5G networks, Japan will drop Huawei from its government procurement list, the British government has expressed concerns and Germany has said it is considering a ban. However, China has received no serious, or even symbolic, support from its allies. Russia had been widely expected to lend Beijing a hand as China’s partner in counterbalancing American influence. But when Russian national Maria Butina was arrested by the US on charges of acting as an agent of a foreign government last year, Moscow did little more than protest verbally. So, it is unlikely that Russia will do much for China in the Huawei case. Moreover, Chinese intellectuals do not have a high opinion of Russian credibility and reliability in international affairs. Huawei and other Chinese telecoms blacklisted by US universities What about “little brother” North Korea? Under pressure from Moscow, China sent its young men to fight alongside North Korea against the US-led United Nations coalition forces in the Korean war, during which more than 200,000 Chinese soldiers were killed. Now, however, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to have too many thorny issues with Washington on his plate already, each of them either more imminent or important than Huawei. As for Africa, where Huawei has expanded into 40 nations and invested billions of dollars and which Beijing has gone the extra mile to help, no country has spoken up for Huawei. Even if they do, their voices may not carry any weight with Washington and its allies. The relationship between the US and its allies was built not only on mutual strategic interests but shared values and culture. Poland can garner much more support in the US than China. There are 9.6 million Americans of Polish descent who have been fully integrated into the fabric of American society and who wield considerable political, economic and cultural influence. Polish-American heritage dates as far back as the Revolutionary war, when General Tadeusz Kościuszko led troops alongside America’s founding fathers against the British. Polish-Americans of note in more recent times include Chuck Hagel, who served as US secretary of defence in the Obama administration, the siblings who founded the entertainment powerhouse Warner Brothers, media icon Martha Stewart, and Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. It is clear from this list how far Poland can go in pushing its agenda in Washington. This week, the US confirmed that it will continue to seek the extradition of Meng Wanzhou from Canada. The Chinese foreign ministry’s demand that the US drop the request rang hollow and was an isolated voice. China is fighting an uphill battle against not only the US but its allies around the world. China has gone as far as fat cheques can get it. Billy Huang is a media veteran who served leading media outlets in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and America for more than 20 years. billyhuangpost@gmail.com