In its annual report released today, Estonian Foreign Intelligence paints a grim picture of China’s attempts to silence criticism and dominate key technologies in Estonia and other democracies.
Why it matters: The small Baltic state has decades of experience staring at Russia authoritarian encroachment. China’s actions in Estonia are now ringing similar alarm bells.
Driving the news: The report comes a week after Estonia and five other countries rejected Beijing by sending lower-ranking ministers, instead of 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 with a common destiny’, will lead to a world silenced, dominated by Beijing. Faced with growing confrontation with the West, China’s main goal is to create a divide between the United States and Europe. ”
- The China section of the report highlights Beijing’s growing ability to conduct influential operations in the West through economic influence, overseeing Chinese citizens abroad, and cultivating local elites.
- The report also warns that the Chinese 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 greatest security risk, particularly the threat of a military invasion. China is not a military threat to Estonia. But over the 2010s, Estonia became increasingly reluctant to use Beijing’s economic coercion for geopolitical purposes, cyber espionage and the growing partnership with Russia. This year’s foreign intelligence report uses the hardest language yet.
- The country’s main concern is the ‘dismantling of the world order that allowed Estonia to regain its independence thirty years ago, as well as the prosperity and development in which we have participated over the past thirty years,’ said Frank Jüris, researcher at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute of the International Center for Defense and Security, located in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
The big 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 have been the pioneers and lead in the right direction,” said Jüris. “It was mainly the small European states that had experience with an aggressive Russia that warned other European states against the Russian regime.”
Go deeper: A growing number of countries are warning against espionage in China