Compared with its reaction to US President Joe Biden sending a delegation of former senior defense and security officials to Taiwan in March, China ratcheted up its saber rattling in response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. China is signaling that it is willing to escalate tensions with the US, a move the Biden administration must not underestimate.
The escalation is a calculated ploy meant to divert the attention of the Chinese public away from their country’s internal problems before Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) secures his third term, and to pave the way toward adding further pressure on the US and Taiwan.
China and the US have been working around red lines. Once one is crossed, democratic countries would have to watch out for China boarding a runaway train to war. Conflict does not appear out of the blue, it is the inevitable outcome of Beijing testing US diplomacy, while Pelosi’s visit served as an excuse to amplify tensions.
Xi is trying to change the Chinese public’s impression of the US back to the time of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and the Cultural Revolution. In the wake of Pelosi’s visit, China has issued warnings about repercussions, and even quoted Mao: “All reactionaries are paper tigers.” China believes it is on the rise, while the US is in decline, with Xi viewing Washington as nothing but a “paper tiger.”
Starting in July last year, China has been grappling with a series of crises: the floods in Henan Province, the incident of a chained up mother of eight in Xuzhou, Shanghai’s COVID-19 lockdown nightmare and the Henan bank protests. Beijing’s “zero COVID-19” policy has taken a heavy toll on its economy and the job market. China’s property sales fell about 30 percent this year with “rotten-tail buildings” — structures left unfinished when the funds were embezzled — appearing, leaving many buyers unwilling to pay their mortgages.
As the global economy slows due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s economy has not been able to avoid the effects. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) has been pulling out all the stops to stabilize the economy since May.
Since 2018, China’s global image has deteriorated markedly. It has become a troublemaker and risk in terms of markets, factories and opportunities, and its “wolf warrior” diplomacy has created an unfriendly global environment. By creating challenges locally and abroad, while escalating diplomatic tensions, Beijing hopes to foster nationalism, strengthen the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control and facilitate Xi’s third term.
Its growing aggression and military maneuvers in the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and South China Sea had been sowing the seeds of conflict even before the military blockade drill around Taiwan. While the global community remains wary, China has stepped up in its propaganda and brainwashing efforts. As a result, its relentless attack on Pelosi’s visit and Chinese fighter pilots’ “intimidation” efforts against their Australian, Canadian, Philippine, US and Vietnamese counterparts by flying near them were carried out with the same agenda in mind.
Beijing’s furious response toward Pelosi’s visit is just the start. It plans to sow more chaos in the Indo-Pacific region.
The UN Human Rights Committee last week said it had deep concerns over the Hong Kong government’s “overly broad interpretation and arbitrary application” of its National Security Law, which Beijing imposed on the territory in 2020, and recommended that Hong Kong’s government repeal the law.
To achieve what the CCP calls “stability maintenance,” it did not hesitate to scrap the promises it made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Yet, what is barely appreciated about Hong Kong’s rapid transformation from its autonomous “one country, two systems” model to full absorption into China is the “butterfly effect” it triggered, which has been felt in Europe.
While Taiwan and Europe are relative strangers, Hong Kong has a distinct European sensibility. Prior to the introduction of the national security legislation, Beijing had said it viewed the joint declaration to be a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.
As Beijing robbed Hong Kongers of their liberties and human rights, this quickly touched a raw nerve in Europe, causing leaders there to shift their gaze to the Indo-Pacific region. This led European politicians to rediscover Taiwan’s importance, and so they began to express their concern over the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.
Former US president Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy lacked impetus. Former US president Donald Trump and his successor, Biden, have taken steps to flesh out and realize Obama’s original vision. European nations have followed in the US’ footsteps by enacting their own pivots toward Asia. What Xi fails to realize is that his destruction of a free Hong Kong was a catalyst for the West to take a renewed interest in the region.
Xi has said that “as we prepare to celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army in five year’s time, we must continuously initiate new situations that would enable us to further the task of building a strong military, and provide the necessary strategic support to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.”
In February, China and Russia issued a joint declaration, which highlighted that Xi is trying to form an authoritarian grouping of nations as a means to break through what he views as China’s encirclement by democratic anti-China nations. A third-term with Xi at the helm would present grave danger on a global scale.
Biden has no desire to change China’s system of government, nor does he seek to challenge the CCP’s monopoly on power. He is also not seeking to build an alliance of nations to contain China. Consequently, there is no hope of dismantling the ticking time bomb that is China under Xi.
During the latter stages of the Cold War, the CCP resisted China’s peaceful transition into a democracy, as the era of globalization began. Unlike during the previous decades, which saw a transfer of resources and capital to Western nations, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in the new global economy, China underwent rapid development. China and foreign nations became mutually dependent for trade. This interdependence spawned the weaponization of economics and trade, which is being played out in the war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has weaponized Ukraine’s vital grain supply, forcing Western nations into a difficult corner.
In addition to the conflicting values between democracy and authoritarian nations, we are witnessing the ebb and flow of hard power between democracies and autocracies, as evidenced by the massive expansion of China’s military power. Xi has therefore concluded that there is no need to admire US-style democracy or capitalism, and has instead placed his trust in China’s one-party authoritarian state model, to which he has appended his own policy goal of achieving “common prosperity.”
In Xi’s eyes, the US is the leader of a grouping of Western nations seeking to contain the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” and only he possesses the courage and the strategy to frustrate a declining US global hegemony.
Democratic nations around the world must draw the correct lessons from Putin’s invasion and Xi’s response to Pelosi’s visit. After Xi achieves his third term as president, rather than ignore Beijing’s ambitions until Xi’s armies are knocking on the gates of the democratic world, it would be far less painful — and more cost-effective — for democratic nations to tame China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats now, defend the settled international order and secure tomorrow’s peace today.
Translated by Rita Wang and Edward Jones
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