I don’t agree, Paul, on the issue of economic coercion. The price of engagement of any sort with China (primarily economic) is political submission.
The main issue is will free and open discussions about justice, about who we are and want to be, be allowed to continue in the world openly (the liberal or rules-based order or whatever one …
I don’t agree, Paul, on the issue of economic coercion. The price of engagement of any sort with China (primarily economic) is political submission.
The main issue is will free and open discussions about justice, about who we are and want to be, be allowed to continue in the world openly (the liberal or rules-based order or whatever one calls it), or will all discussion everywhere be required first and foremost to be an expression of fealty and submission to Xu (as it is in China, and as Xi is pushing for everywhere). In other words, voluntary cooperation or forced submission.
It turns out it’s not true that China didn’t issue the 12 demands to Australia, or that it didn’t bully the NBA or many other companies, or just pass laws sanction policymakers, or that business executives don’t self-censor, and on and on. It’s not true that it didn’t do any of those things or that none of these happen, unfortunately. We can say we think it’s a good thing or not a big deal, it we can’t say that none of them happened. So we should be open about that.
One may not consider free and open debate about how we live our lives to be an existential need, of course—we could all go grand inquisitor in the brothers karamazov for sure :). But what I’m disagreeing with in your post is the idea that that wouldn’t fundamentally change who we are (in democratic nations, obviously), and we should be very open about that to make sure our policy and identity discussions are honest and complete.
I agree with this insight. Indeed, I more than agree with it. I have watched my long time friend Jimmy Lai go to jail because he believes in free speech and was willing to stay in Hong Kong to fight for it. I have worked closely with Apple over the years and helped Jobs when he was just beginning. It is difficult for me not to feel today that every iPhone produced by Apple in China is a nail in Jimmy's coffin. We must be completely honest and realistic with ourselves in considering where coupling with China eventually ends.
Proud to be in discussion with a friend of his. And sad that the engineers of justice can no longer (as they could since ww2) count on solid backing. The bad old days of human history are back 🤣
With respect, I wonder if "one size fits all" doesn't obscure or confuse the fundamental issue. There are in existence many sizes and systems living already living in relative peace with each other. Singapore is not the UK or the US. But no one is afraid of or complaining about its system and how to deal with it. Similarly with india and even, in terms of system, with Iran. But the CCP has declared in the infamous Document 9 that it actively opposes constitutional democracy, free speech, rule of law, and the concept of universal human values. Not only does it oppose them, but it operates an enormous domestic and international surveillance and propaganda machine to stamp them out and counter them. The richer and more powerful China becomes the more able the CCP is to succeed in these aims. It is difficult to see how free world countries can do anything but oppose this pressure.
China has always been a large civilization which has developed largely on its own terms mainly because of relative geographical isolation and outlook; for a long time, Chinese emperors were just not convinced that the rest of the world was worth bothering with. The nations on its periphery were smaller(Korea, Vietnam and Japan) and felt culturally indebted to China. Modern China, the PRC, has combined features of Chinese imperial government, Marxism, capitalism into its own system of government under a revolutionary party which never made the transition to a ruling national party, and assumed the role of a social vanguard party in order to justify its monopoly on power. My view is that western and Japanese aggression against China, and an ineffective KMT lead to the creation of the CCP. It took 150 years, but the west and Japan created their own Frankenstein monster with the CCP.
The question we are now facing is what will this Frankenstein do? Will it be focused on its own region as China traditionally has been, or will it be expansive? Is its system of government exportable to other nations? Right now, I tend to think that the CCP's rise, and Xi's rise, are a set of unique historical conditions unique to China. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
In 19th century Europe, the US and its Declaration of Independence were considered to be a strange experiment in mob rule destined to eventually fail. In the 20th century, the US won two world wars and its largest single challenger collapsed under its own weight. Instead of being a political experiment, the US's values were widely embraced by the rest of the world. Even China looked up to the US until the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.
My point is that if China is going to export its system, it most likely will have to pick a few fights and win them. Is Xi the person to do that? If he does take that path, he will have to convince Chinese that war is the only way for China to win recognition as a global power. That is not an easy sell.
The point is that Xi is trying to enforce CCP political norms on everyone else (say, free and open discussion of political questions which is a western norm would not be allowed by Xi, a la Australia). As I mentioned, it’s unfortunately not true that he didn’t issue those demands to Australia.
So I think your question is wrongly stated—it’s not how far are we willing to go to impose our norms on China, it’s how far are we willing to go to protect our own domestic norms FROM the CCP.
I think the first step the US can make in resisting Chinese demands (if they come up) is to get US domestic policy in order.
I don't see broad consensus among the two parties in the next decade on policy. This internal division is the greatest gift to Xi. The flip side is that treating China as the main enemy becomes the only issue two parties which hate each other can agree upon, which is not good for the world.
Xi's style is drum up support for his policies through leadership task forces 领导小组 where trusted colleagues lead the discussions at the party level, and forming study groups at the senior level to initiate discussion and collect input. One example is Liu He, who is leading trade discussions with the US. Once the policy is broadly agreed upon, they are pushed out to the central government ministries for implementation.
Chinese central government ministries fight a lot over turf; each one has their own think tank which write white papers and publishes them seeking broad support. In simple terms, they hate each other and won't work with each other if they are left to do things themselves. It's a lot like Congress in the US.
Xi's solution has been to work at the Party level because he was head of the Central Party School before assuming his current positions. Since the Party is above the central government ministries, they have no grounds to resist the policies after they have been agreed upon. Their task is implementation.
Historically speaking, the Communist movement has by design promoted the idea of an endless ideological struggle, given its stated end goal of worldwide revolution (though of course in practice this more often worked out to be using international Communist parties as useful idiots to advance Soviet Union geopolitical interests). Setting all other geopolitical considerations aside, as long as the CCP remains deeply Marxist, it is hard to envision any future where there is no profound ideological/political tension between China and the liberal capitalistic bloc.
The word "ideological struggle" is a lot like how the Muslims use the word "jihad". To different people at different times, it has different meanings.
My interpretation of what Xi means by ideological struggle is that through China's opening up and reforms, many Party officials lost faith in socialism as an ideology because the ideology had not been modernized to take into account China's circumstances. This lack of ideological study meant that the whole society just indulged in getting wealthy at any cost. Inside the party, this led to widespread corruption which threatened the stability of the party. Xi had to take firm action on this, as it would have eventually led to China becoming a multi-party democracy, which is exactly what the western powers want, but would have acted against the interests of the Chinese people. Chinese assets would have been carved up and sold the same way Soviet assets were sold off when the Soviet Union ended.
The Party could not and would not permit this to happen, which is why Xi went after corruption in a big way. The ongoing struggle against corruption is a long-term feature of Chinese socialism.
But it is not enough.
The Party is the vanguard party of the Chinese people. This means that it must offer a clear vision for the direction of Chinese society. China cannot fall into the same trap other developed economies have fallen into, which is, that they have become wealthy, and then lost direction, and became stagnant. This happened with the US, Japan and the EU. Made in China 2025, BRI are all major projects and goals for the party which Xi has set forth to make China the world's leading economy.
When it comes to economic policy, everything Xi has done has been about preventing the wealth gap becoming larger without using the sensitive term wealth gap.
It looks to me like Xi is treating China as an experimental lab for socialism; Zhejiang is his latest test project, just as Shenzhen was a test project for his father in 1980. China can adopt features of capitalism, and it must, because it can only become a fully socialist economy when it has achieved a certain level of wealth.
What is Xi's final vision? I don't know, but my guess is that he believes that China can offer a good alternative model for other nations, maybe just as a reference, not for blind copying.
If he succeeds, this ideological struggle would be longer lasting and have much more effect than what socialists from the 1920s were talking about. This is my interpretation of what "ideological struggle" means in 2021 terms.
This stands in stark contrast with the vision of capitalism and trickle-down economics which Reagan and Thatcher offered in the 1980s, and is not attractive to most people outside the US and UK.
I don’t agree, Paul, on the issue of economic coercion. The price of engagement of any sort with China (primarily economic) is political submission.
The main issue is will free and open discussions about justice, about who we are and want to be, be allowed to continue in the world openly (the liberal or rules-based order or whatever one calls it), or will all discussion everywhere be required first and foremost to be an expression of fealty and submission to Xu (as it is in China, and as Xi is pushing for everywhere). In other words, voluntary cooperation or forced submission.
It turns out it’s not true that China didn’t issue the 12 demands to Australia, or that it didn’t bully the NBA or many other companies, or just pass laws sanction policymakers, or that business executives don’t self-censor, and on and on. It’s not true that it didn’t do any of those things or that none of these happen, unfortunately. We can say we think it’s a good thing or not a big deal, it we can’t say that none of them happened. So we should be open about that.
One may not consider free and open debate about how we live our lives to be an existential need, of course—we could all go grand inquisitor in the brothers karamazov for sure :). But what I’m disagreeing with in your post is the idea that that wouldn’t fundamentally change who we are (in democratic nations, obviously), and we should be very open about that to make sure our policy and identity discussions are honest and complete.
clyde
I agree with this insight. Indeed, I more than agree with it. I have watched my long time friend Jimmy Lai go to jail because he believes in free speech and was willing to stay in Hong Kong to fight for it. I have worked closely with Apple over the years and helped Jobs when he was just beginning. It is difficult for me not to feel today that every iPhone produced by Apple in China is a nail in Jimmy's coffin. We must be completely honest and realistic with ourselves in considering where coupling with China eventually ends.
Proud to be in discussion with a friend of his. And sad that the engineers of justice can no longer (as they could since ww2) count on solid backing. The bad old days of human history are back 🤣
My question is how far are we willing to go to enforce that there is only one size which fits all when it comes to political systems?
And when does the exercise end? Or is this an endless exercise, with new wars and battles to be fought for each new generation?
Clyde
With respect, I wonder if "one size fits all" doesn't obscure or confuse the fundamental issue. There are in existence many sizes and systems living already living in relative peace with each other. Singapore is not the UK or the US. But no one is afraid of or complaining about its system and how to deal with it. Similarly with india and even, in terms of system, with Iran. But the CCP has declared in the infamous Document 9 that it actively opposes constitutional democracy, free speech, rule of law, and the concept of universal human values. Not only does it oppose them, but it operates an enormous domestic and international surveillance and propaganda machine to stamp them out and counter them. The richer and more powerful China becomes the more able the CCP is to succeed in these aims. It is difficult to see how free world countries can do anything but oppose this pressure.
China has always been a large civilization which has developed largely on its own terms mainly because of relative geographical isolation and outlook; for a long time, Chinese emperors were just not convinced that the rest of the world was worth bothering with. The nations on its periphery were smaller(Korea, Vietnam and Japan) and felt culturally indebted to China. Modern China, the PRC, has combined features of Chinese imperial government, Marxism, capitalism into its own system of government under a revolutionary party which never made the transition to a ruling national party, and assumed the role of a social vanguard party in order to justify its monopoly on power. My view is that western and Japanese aggression against China, and an ineffective KMT lead to the creation of the CCP. It took 150 years, but the west and Japan created their own Frankenstein monster with the CCP.
The question we are now facing is what will this Frankenstein do? Will it be focused on its own region as China traditionally has been, or will it be expansive? Is its system of government exportable to other nations? Right now, I tend to think that the CCP's rise, and Xi's rise, are a set of unique historical conditions unique to China. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
In 19th century Europe, the US and its Declaration of Independence were considered to be a strange experiment in mob rule destined to eventually fail. In the 20th century, the US won two world wars and its largest single challenger collapsed under its own weight. Instead of being a political experiment, the US's values were widely embraced by the rest of the world. Even China looked up to the US until the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.
My point is that if China is going to export its system, it most likely will have to pick a few fights and win them. Is Xi the person to do that? If he does take that path, he will have to convince Chinese that war is the only way for China to win recognition as a global power. That is not an easy sell.
The point is that Xi is trying to enforce CCP political norms on everyone else (say, free and open discussion of political questions which is a western norm would not be allowed by Xi, a la Australia). As I mentioned, it’s unfortunately not true that he didn’t issue those demands to Australia.
So I think your question is wrongly stated—it’s not how far are we willing to go to impose our norms on China, it’s how far are we willing to go to protect our own domestic norms FROM the CCP.
I think the first step the US can make in resisting Chinese demands (if they come up) is to get US domestic policy in order.
I don't see broad consensus among the two parties in the next decade on policy. This internal division is the greatest gift to Xi. The flip side is that treating China as the main enemy becomes the only issue two parties which hate each other can agree upon, which is not good for the world.
100%
Also not good for the world that Xi treats the USA as his enemy, unfortunately. It’s going to be a bumpy ride on both sides
Xi's style is drum up support for his policies through leadership task forces 领导小组 where trusted colleagues lead the discussions at the party level, and forming study groups at the senior level to initiate discussion and collect input. One example is Liu He, who is leading trade discussions with the US. Once the policy is broadly agreed upon, they are pushed out to the central government ministries for implementation.
Chinese central government ministries fight a lot over turf; each one has their own think tank which write white papers and publishes them seeking broad support. In simple terms, they hate each other and won't work with each other if they are left to do things themselves. It's a lot like Congress in the US.
Xi's solution has been to work at the Party level because he was head of the Central Party School before assuming his current positions. Since the Party is above the central government ministries, they have no grounds to resist the policies after they have been agreed upon. Their task is implementation.
Historically speaking, the Communist movement has by design promoted the idea of an endless ideological struggle, given its stated end goal of worldwide revolution (though of course in practice this more often worked out to be using international Communist parties as useful idiots to advance Soviet Union geopolitical interests). Setting all other geopolitical considerations aside, as long as the CCP remains deeply Marxist, it is hard to envision any future where there is no profound ideological/political tension between China and the liberal capitalistic bloc.
The word "ideological struggle" is a lot like how the Muslims use the word "jihad". To different people at different times, it has different meanings.
My interpretation of what Xi means by ideological struggle is that through China's opening up and reforms, many Party officials lost faith in socialism as an ideology because the ideology had not been modernized to take into account China's circumstances. This lack of ideological study meant that the whole society just indulged in getting wealthy at any cost. Inside the party, this led to widespread corruption which threatened the stability of the party. Xi had to take firm action on this, as it would have eventually led to China becoming a multi-party democracy, which is exactly what the western powers want, but would have acted against the interests of the Chinese people. Chinese assets would have been carved up and sold the same way Soviet assets were sold off when the Soviet Union ended.
The Party could not and would not permit this to happen, which is why Xi went after corruption in a big way. The ongoing struggle against corruption is a long-term feature of Chinese socialism.
But it is not enough.
The Party is the vanguard party of the Chinese people. This means that it must offer a clear vision for the direction of Chinese society. China cannot fall into the same trap other developed economies have fallen into, which is, that they have become wealthy, and then lost direction, and became stagnant. This happened with the US, Japan and the EU. Made in China 2025, BRI are all major projects and goals for the party which Xi has set forth to make China the world's leading economy.
When it comes to economic policy, everything Xi has done has been about preventing the wealth gap becoming larger without using the sensitive term wealth gap.
It looks to me like Xi is treating China as an experimental lab for socialism; Zhejiang is his latest test project, just as Shenzhen was a test project for his father in 1980. China can adopt features of capitalism, and it must, because it can only become a fully socialist economy when it has achieved a certain level of wealth.
What is Xi's final vision? I don't know, but my guess is that he believes that China can offer a good alternative model for other nations, maybe just as a reference, not for blind copying.
If he succeeds, this ideological struggle would be longer lasting and have much more effect than what socialists from the 1920s were talking about. This is my interpretation of what "ideological struggle" means in 2021 terms.
This stands in stark contrast with the vision of capitalism and trickle-down economics which Reagan and Thatcher offered in the 1980s, and is not attractive to most people outside the US and UK.