China Logic: A Guide to Uncivilized Behavior

China Logic: A Guide to Uncivilized Behavior
Police walk past missing person notices of Gui Minhai (L), one of five missing booksellers from the Mighty Current publishing house, and Yau Wentian (R), a Hong Kong publisher who was last year jailed for 10 years while preparing to release a book critical of Chinese leadership, posted on top of the sign of China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong on Jan. 3, 2016. ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images
Peter Zhang
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It seems that there are two forms of logic in this world: logic that most of us use and Chinese logic. Those who read Josh Rogin’s article “Inside China’s ‘Tantrum Diplomacy’ at APEC” in The Washington Post might ask, why does the international community treat this rogue state with business as usual, as if it is a normal and rational state actor?

Perhaps those guiltless panda-huggers in the West might even get red-faced, if not fizzled out, by Beijing’s uncivilized behavior at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Papua New Guinea, held in mid-November.

Peter Zhang
Peter Zhang
Author
Peter Zhang is a researcher on political economy in China and East Asia. He focuses on China’s trade, diplomacy, and human rights issues and is affiliated with the Global and International Studies at the University of Salamanca. Peter is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School as a Mason fellow.
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