What Poland's arrest of a Huawei leader says about China's rise and who it can trust

On a business trip to Poland 10 years ago, friends said there was a joke over dinner: When the solidarity movement against the Communist government peaked in Poland in the early 1980s, it seemed inevitable that the Soviet Union would launch an invasion, supported by others Warsaw Treaty countries. When the war right 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," answered the soldier. "Business before pleasure."

The joke brought home to me the bad Soviet Union of Poland's peoples. While history of blood and tears goes back centuries, alone in the 1[ads1]940s, Poland was so much destroyed by the Soviet Union as by Nazi Germany. During the 1944 Warsaw uprising, the Red Army, which had promised to help the Polish resistance, stopped its offensive in a Warsaw suburb and left the Polish warriors to fight 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 Katyn Forest mass purchase of over 22,000 young Polish refugees who had been imprisoned by the Soviet Union.

Against this background, Poland's trajector after the second world war was understandable. Poland was one of the first former communist countries to join NATO, with strong support from the United States in 1999. Washington also supported Poland as one of the eight former communist regimes to join the EU in 2004. As a close union and partner in The United States, Poland has repeatedly asked the United States to establish a permanent military base there, which is now called "Fort Trump" in a nod to the US President's support for it.

The strength of the cooperation between the United States and Poland was clear on January 11, when the Polish government announced the arrest of an employee of the Chinese telecommunications power plant 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.

The excitement has been high since December 1 when Canada arrested Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States. Warsaw did not care to hide his intention to please Washington by pursuing Huawei's leader. Poland's intelligence spokesman even tweeted FBI, the CIA and the US Department of State when he issued the identity of the two arrested.

The reaction from different countries to the Huawei case shows that when China and the United States jockey for power worldwide, they also test their allies and how effectively they can work together. So far, the United States and its allies have prevailed and have collaborated seamlessly. Australia and New Zealand have excluded the use of Huawei products in their 5G networks, Japan will release Huawei from its public procurement list, the UK government has expressed concerns and Germany has said it considers a ban.

However, China has received no serious, or even symbolic, support from its allies. Russia had been expected to give Beijing a hand as China's partner in counterbalancing US influence. But when Russian citizen Maria Butina was arrested by the United States for 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. Furthermore, Chinese intellectuals do not have a high perception 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 with North Korea against US-led coalition forces in the Korean War, killing more than 200,000 Chinese soldiers. However, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un now seems to have too many tough issues with Washington on his plate already, each of them either more imminent or important than Huawei.

For Africa, where Huawei has expanded to 40 nations and invested billions of dollars, and as Beijing has gone the extra mile to help, no country has spoken up for Huawei. Although they do, their voices may not have any weight with Washington and its allies.

The relationship between the United States and its allies was built not only on common strategic interests but on common values ​​and culture. Poland can get much more support in the US than China. There are 9.6 million Americans of Polish descent who have become fully integrated into the fabric of American society and have significant political, economic and cultural influence.

Polish-American heritage dates back as far as the revolutionary war, when General Tadeusz Kościuszko led troops with American founders against the British. Polish-Americans in the recent note include Chuck Hagel, who served as US Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration, siblings who founded the entertainment industry Warner Brothers, the media symbol Martha Stewart and Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. It is clear from this the list of how far Poland can go in pushing its agenda in Washington.

This week, the United States confirmed that it will continue to seek extradition of Meng Wanzhou from Canada. The Chinese Foreign Ministry's demand for the US to drop the request was suspended and an isolated vote. China is fighting an uphill battle against not only the United States, but its allies around the world. China has gone as far as fat controls can get it.

Billy Huang is the media veteran who has served leading media in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and America for more than 20 years. billyhuangpost [email protected]