The West cannot force China to read its interests differently

IN RECENT DAYS, as China prepared to turn Hong Kong into a cowed simulacrum of a world city—a shiny stage-set of modernity, run from the shadows by the mainland’s hard men—Chaguan asked Western envoys in Beijing how their countries might respond. Several chose to hear and answer a different question, namely, how might their government make China change course?

Be realistic, such diplomats sighed. China will impose this national-security law on Hong Kong. What would you have us do? Other well-placed foreigners in China are still more fatalistic about the West’s ability to influence China. That is true whether they are being asked about repression in Hong Kong or about Xinjiang, the far-western region that China has turned into a police state. It is shocking enough that over 1m members of Xinjiang’s mostly Muslim Uighur minority have been locked in re-education camps in recent years, suspected of extremism for praying or even wearing beards. On June 30th the Associated Press reported on an official campaign to force abortions and sterilisations on Uighur women, causing birth rates to plunge 24% in Xinjiang last year. Ask Westerners in Beijing about such painful subjects, and they cite forecasts that in coming years China will account for 30% of global economic growth. In a pandemic-induced recession, when millions of workers are losing...