EU envoy slams China’s ‘obsession with national security’, questions economic rebound
- Expected openness and loosening of controls after China lifted pandemic curbs ‘has not come’, Jorge Toledo tells online MERICS seminar
- Spanish diplomat also questions Chinese economic data, pointing to property market woes and sluggish consumption as red flags
Jorge Toledo said that EU diplomats were not only struggling to meet Chinese officials, who need security clearance for any engagements with foreign officers, but also academics and think tank members.
“We thought that opening up and lifting the controls of the pandemic would allow for less control and people would feel freer. Well, it has not come,” Toledo told an online seminar hosted by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) on Wednesday.
“The increased obsession with national security can be seen everywhere, cameras everywhere with facial recognition. The need, and this is quite recent, for state and party cadres, officials, to get clearance for meeting foreign diplomats – that was not happening a few years ago.”
This level of control has extended to academia post-Covid, the Spanish diplomat said.
“You cannot freely enter universities in China any more. Students and professors in universities and Chinese members of think tanks need authorisation to meet us, and this we did not expect, and it’s gradually increasing,” he said.