In its annual report released today, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service paints a clear picture of China’s efforts to silence criticism and dominate key technologies in Estonia and other democracies.
Why it matters: The small Baltic state has decades of experience in staring at Russia authoritarian entry. China’s actions in Estonia are now ringing similar alarm bells.
Send the news: The report comes a week after Estonia and five other countries chased Beijing by sending lower-ranking ministers, rather than presidents or prime ministers, to the 17 + 1 summit convened by Chinese officials.
What the report says: “Implementing China’s foreign policy doctrine, or creating a ‘community of common destiny’, will lead to a quiet world dominated by Beijing. The growing confrontation with the West is China’s main goal of a create a gap between the United States and Europe. ”
- The report’s section on China highlights Beijing’s growing ability to exert influence in the West through economic leverage, oversight of Chinese citizens abroad, and the cultivation of local elites.
- The report also warns that China’s leadership “has a clear goal of making the world dependent on Chinese technology”, citing 5G maker Huawei and navigation system BeiDou.
Background: Russia has long been Estonia’s biggest security concern, especially the threat of military invasion. China does not pose a military threat to Estonia. But throughout the 2010s, Estonia became increasingly wary of Beijing’s use of economic coercion for geopolitical purposes, its cyber espionage, and its growing partnership with Russia. This year’s foreign intelligence report uses the most difficult language yet.
- The country’s biggest concern is the ‘dismantling of the world order that allowed Estonia 30 years ago to regain its independence, and also the prosperity and development in which we have participated over the past thirty years’, said Frank Jüris, research fellow at the Estonian Institute for Foreign Policy at the International Center for Defense and Security, located in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn.
The whole picture: Estonia, like the Czech Republic, is more outspoken in its criticism of China than larger European countries such as Germany and France.
- “This is not the first time that small European states are the pioneers leading in the right direction,” Jüris said. “It was mostly the small European states that had experience with an aggressive Russia that warned other European states about the Russian regime.”
Go deeper: Increasing number of countries warn against China’s espionage