We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us (With Chinese Characteristics)

In a piece at Project Syndicate Minxin Pei articulates a view near and dear to my heart—the Chinese Communist Party faces an existential threat in the form of its own bad policies. Much of it may sound familiar, for example:

The CPC sees the world as, first and foremost, a jungle. Having been shaped by its own bloody and brutal struggle for power against impossible odds between 1921-49, the party is firmly convinced that the world is a Hobbesian place where long-term survival depends solely on raw power. When the balance of power is against it, the CPC must rely on cunning and caution to survive. The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping aptly summarized this strategic realism with his foreign-policy dictum: “hide your strength and bide your time.”

which hearkens back to an earlier post here this week.

But consider this:

The CPC’s worldview is also colored by a cynical belief in the power of greed. Even before China became the world’s second-largest economy, the party was convinced that Western governments were mere lackeys of capitalist interests. Although these countries might profess fealty to human rights and democracy, the CPC believed that they could not afford to lose access to the Chinese market – especially if their capitalist rivals stood to profit as a result.

That was the view of the Soviets as well. The prevailing wisdom was that turning American diplomats and intelligence assets was easy—all it took was money and they had considerable success with that tactic. In the short run.

Dr. Pei concludes:

Unfortunately for the CPC, therefore, it now has to contend with a far more determined adversary. Worse still, America’s willingness to absorb enormous short-term economic pain to gain a long-term strategic edge over China indicates that greed has lost its primacy. In particular, the US strategy of “decoupling” – severing the dense web of Sino-American economic ties – has caught China totally by surprise, because no CPC leader ever imagined that the US government would be willing to write off the Chinese market in pursuit of broader geopolitical objectives.

For the first time since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the CPC faces a genuine existential threat, mainly because its mindset has led it to commit a series of calamitous strategic errors. And its latest intervention in Hong Kong suggests that it has no intention of changing course.

In neglecting to mention the standoff between India and China in the Galwan area or China’s aggression against Bhutan, Dr. Pei understates his case if anything. Something will depend on how or whether the Democratic Party manages to unify itself over the next four months. Although the neoliberal foreign policy establishment may favor reinstating Chimerica, the Sanders-Warren wing of the party certainly doesn’t. If Trump is re-elected or the anti-China forces within the Democratic Party gain ascendancy, the situation may become even more dangerous as China’s sphere of influence narrows. Cornered rats, etc.