The Observer
04.08.19 13Liu Ye
Editor of international aff airs at
Sanlian Life Week magazine in
Beijing, ChinaI remember the day of the
referendum. It was very hot in
Beijing that morning and I had gone
to a meeting with my publishing
agent. I kept checking the BBC app
on my phone for news. Finally, after
leaving the meeting, while waiting
for a taxi, my phone buzzed – the UK
had chosen to leave.
Suddenly I was reminded of an
old Yugoslav fi lm, Walter Defends
Sarajevo , which was very popular
in China in the 1970s. There is a
famous line that many Chinese
people will remember: “The air is
shaking, as if the sky is going to
burn. The storm is coming.”
Within a few hours, I published an
article titled “The storm is coming”.
It was read by more than 100,000
people in just one hour. Later, I
persuaded my editor to do a cover
story on Brexit. We put that out
within 72 hours, under the headline:
“Brexit: are we facing the reversal
of globalisation?” That edition sold
almost 200,000 copies – even more
than our report on Donald Trump’s
presidential win.
Not many Chinese people care
about the technical or legal details
of the Brexit deal, but the saga has
made an impression. The reputation
of British democracy has suffered.
If you ask someone on the streets
of Beijing what they think of Brexit ,‘The Brexit farce
has encouraged
the nationalists in
China, especially the
young generation’
they might say: “Democracy only
leads to confusion.” I know that’s
not true, but it is diffi cult to change
their impression.
For the past two or three decades,
the US and Britain have been
cultural symbols in Chinese people’s
eyes : the US powerful, rich , enviable ;
the UK exquisite, elegant. Public
intellectuals, especially liberals,
talk about the British style of
constitutionalism, comparing it to
our Soviet-style totalitarian regime.
Students know more about Winston
Churchill and Margaret Thatcher
than J FK or Bill Clinton. That is real
“soft power”.
But now this image has collapsed.
In the Brexit farce, there is no
Churchill or Thatcher, only a dozen
mediocre politicians, none of whom
want to take responsibility or unite
the nation. This has encouraged
the nationalists in China, especially
the young generation born after- With the “help” of the great
fi re wall , they knew little about the
inner crisis of their own country.
But they see that China now has
more aircraft carriers, more missiles
and more hi -tech fi ghters, while
the UK is trapped in the wallows
of Brexit. There is an inner voice in
their hearts: “Now we are strong.
They are weak. We have nothing
to learn from them.” That’s the
danger.
Today, no one really cares about
Boris Johnson, but since he was
the one who called for Brexit at the
beginning, Chinese people will be
interested to see how he can turn his
commitment into reality. L K
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