{"id":67993,"date":"2021-10-20T11:15:05","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T00:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=67993"},"modified":"2021-10-20T11:04:19","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T00:04:19","slug":"learning-to-manage-the-china-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/learning-to-manage-the-china-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to manage the China threat"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

When US President Bill Clinton backed China\u2019s accession to the World Trade Organization, he suggested<\/a> that the move would spark profound changes \u2018from the inside out\u2019. By joining the WTO, China would not simply be agreeing to import more American products; it would be \u2018agreeing to import one of democracy\u2019s most cherished values, economic freedom\u2019. And \u2018the more China liberalizes its economy,\u2019 Clinton predicted, \u2018the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people.\u2019<\/p>\n

Reality has turned out to be far more complicated.<\/p>\n

The notion that free trade leads inexorably to democracy didn\u2019t begin with Clinton. His predecessor, George H.W. Bush, operated under the same assumption: \u2018No nation on Earth has discovered<\/a> a way to import the world\u2019s goods and services while stopping foreign ideas at the border.\u2019<\/p>\n

Two decades after China\u2019s WTO accession in 2001, its economy has reached the expected milestones<\/a>. But it is nowhere near becoming a democracy, and American leaders have not only lost confidence in the presumed relationship between economic and political freedom, but now fear that Western democracy is vulnerable to Chinese influence.<\/p>\n

As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned<\/a> last year, the free world should \u2018change China, or China will change us\u2019. Likewise, following last summer\u2019s G7 summit, US President Joe Biden defined the struggle<\/a> between Western democracies, led by the US, and China as \u2018a contest with autocratic governments around the world\u2019. In an echo of Cold War logic, the assumption now seems to be that there\u2019s room for only one political system in town.<\/p>\n

To some extent, China seems to subscribe to a similar worldview. It sees Western efforts to uphold human rights as a direct threat to its domestic political stability. China\u2019s national sovereignty and \u2018national dignity\u2019 come first.<\/p>\n

In any case, the US should be careful what it wishes for. China is a global power, with an economy that has fuelled growth and prosperity worldwide. If it were to experience a profound political transformation, the process might not be particularly peaceful, in which case the consequences would reverberate globally.<\/p>\n

Of course, such a transformation will never come if the Chinese Communist Party can help it. The CCP has obliterated all such efforts, including the New Citizens\u2019 Movement, headed by figures like the late intellectual Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison for promoting a pro-democracy charter. In 1989, Liu famously kept vigil<\/a> to protect protesters at Tiananmen Square from another CCP action aimed at crushing a pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n

As uncomfortable as it may be for Westerners to admit, the CCP has successfully led China through one crisis after another: the 2002\u201303 SARS epidemic, the 2008 global financial meltdown and the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, other Asian states that are not authoritarian also managed these crises well. Still, given China\u2019s size and economic weight, these episodes could have been far more destabilising than they were.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that no changes to China\u2019s political system would be positive. Nor is it to suggest that the CCP will always manage to prevent change, or manage a crisis well (as its mishandling of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests). Still, political systems are inherently dynamic and open to evolution. China\u2019s economic success\u2014which belies Max Weber\u2019s assessment<\/a> that Confucian cultures were incompatible with capitalism\u2014is proof of that.<\/p>\n

So far, the CPC has managed to build a version of capitalism that aligns with\u2014and advances\u2014its priorities, including the persistence of its political monopoly. Economic growth and development have given the one-party regime what the late political scientist Samuel Huntington called<\/a> \u2018performance legitimacy\u2019. But this could turn out to be the CCP\u2019s downfall, if China faces a sharp enough economic slump.<\/p>\n

Even continued economic success could prove problematic for the CCP. Clinton and Bush were not totally off base in their belief that economic liberalisation can weaken a dictatorship: that\u2019s what happened to Francisco Franco\u2019s regime in Spain. Increased prosperity and exposure to the outside world can breed resentment in authoritarian countries.<\/p>\n

That is why the CCP continues to resist full liberalisation and protect the state sector, despite high costs. It\u2019s also a major reason why the party has ramped up its investment in internal security, with annual spending more than tripling<\/a> since 2007. In 2017, China\u2019s spending on internal security stood at \u00a51.24 trillion (US$196 billion), higher<\/a> by about \u00a520 billion than its spending on military defence.<\/p>\n

All this investment makes a revolution highly unlikely. Even dictatorships without such resources\u2014think of Cuba or Iran\u2014have often proved highly resilient. And even if, say, an internal coup occurred in China, there\u2019s little reason to think that it would bring anything close to Western-style democracy.<\/p>\n

Russia didn\u2019t become such a democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union; on the contrary, President Vladimir Putin\u2019s tenure has proven that authoritarian forces can easily survive \u2018democratic transitions\u2019. Russia\u2019s experience (and enduring imperial ambitions) also puts the lie to the notion that regime change would spur China to stop challenging the US and its allies.<\/p>\n

That challenge must be taken seriously. By advancing his imperial designs in East Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping has virtually abandoned China\u2019s long-touted promise of a \u2018peaceful rise\u2019. He has also established a personality-driven neo-Maoist dictatorship. Attempts to force Xi\u2019s regime to fulfill its human rights obligations could probably spur even more dangerous<\/a> antagonism.<\/p>\n

What the US doesn\u2019t do to mitigate the security threat posed by China is as important as what it does. The Biden administration should continue building on recent progress in creating collective security arrangements, such as the AUKUS pact with the United Kingdom and Australia and the so-called Quad with Australia, India and Japan. What it should not do is perpetuate a Cold War\u2013style zero-sum game aimed at forcing regime change in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When US President Bill Clinton backed China\u2019s accession to the World Trade Organization, he suggested that the move would spark profound changes \u2018from the inside out\u2019. 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