Swiss Review / April 2022 / No.2 9 warned Chinese President Xi Jinping against choosing the path of confrontation. During a virtual summit with his counterpart, the US president said that economic competition should not “veer into conflict” and that all countries must abide by the same rules. Last year, the EU imposed sanctions against Chinese officials in protest at what it called the “arbitrary detention” of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Beijing hit back immediately with its own sanctions against MEPs and European scientists. The regime also resorted to countermeasures amid criticismof its Covid strategy – restricting trade with Australia, for example, after the Canberra government had supported calls to investigate the origins of Covid-19. “China has polarised global opinion since the pandemic began,” noted the Swiss intelligence service, the FIS, in its 2020 situation report, adding thatChina’s international image had suffered. In this report, the FIS outlined the risk posed by cyberattacks and Chinese espionage. The latter was a “significant threat to Switzerland”, it warned. In other words, neutrality is reaching the limits of its effectiveness as far as China is concerned. Discussions over a diplomatic boycott Switzerland’s policy on China made news again before the Winter Olympics, when the USA, Canada, the UK, andAustralia announced a diplomatic boycott, with a handful of European nations following suit. It was impossible to cheer on the athletes without thinking about the situation on the ground inChina, lamented the Zurich National Councillor Fabian Molina (SP). “It is not the right time to be celebrating a country in which crimes against humanity are currently being committed,” he said. Instead, the federal government had to send out a strong message and refrain from dispatching an official delegation to Beijing. ChristophWiedmer, co-director of the Society for Threatened Peoples, also expressed support for a boycott, saying that firmness was needed to make any headway. “The extent of China’s human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang is shocking. Beijing will not stop suppressing minorities unless it faces considerable international pressure – as we learned when In 1980, Lucerne- based lift manufacturer Schindler became the first Western company to agree an industrial joint venture in China. It is now profiting from the Chinese urban construction boom. Photo: iStock Swiss journalist and photographer Walter Bosshard did his bit for Chinese rapprochement with the West. The photos that he took between 1930 and 1939 are today considered part of China’s visual heritage. Bosshard met Mao Zedong in 1938. Photo: Keystone it hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008.” The Federal Council reacted hesitantly to these demands, before eventually stating that it would be “appropriate” for a government representative to attend the opening ceremony in Beijing. However, it gave itself leeway by referring to the pandemic. “The visit will not go ahead if the Covid situation in Switzerland requires all the Federal Councillors to be in Switzerland,” said the Federal Council spokesman. At the end of January, the government decided to stay away from the opening ceremony after all.
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