Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and his comely wife, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), may be the most outwardly attractive first couple to lead China in several generations, but behind the smiles and the glamor lies a hardline streak that Taiwan should not — cannot — ignore.
For months before he became president and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China watchers were divided on whether Xi would be a reformist in the same vein as former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev or the continuation of more conservative elements within the Chinese leadership.
That speculation came to a head last week, when sections of a secret memo to Chinese officials were briefly made public in Chinese media.
“Concerning the Situation in the Ideological Sphere,” issued by China’s Central Committee General Office, leaves no doubt now that Xi’s regime is both stringently nationalistic and altogether hostile to Western values and influence.
Coming on the heels of regulation issued to Chinese universities about the “seven evil subjects” — universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civic rights, historical mistakes by the CCP, crony networks and judicial independence — the memo urged Chinese officials to be relentless in their opposition to the West. In rhetoric reminiscent of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), it called on officials to adopt “battlefield tactics” against liberalism and internal dissent.
This call for mobilization, along with references to China as being “besieged” by Western plots and values, should put to sleep any notion that China under Xi will move in the direction of political reform.
While this bodes ill for the future of China’s relations with Western countries, these revelations should be especially alarming for countries like Taiwan, or Special Administrative Regions like Hong Kong, where Western values — notions such as freedom of the press, liberalism, right of assembly and so on — have taken root.
For the CCP, there is nothing more dangerous and threatening than for those “pollutants” to be picked up, internalized and adapted by “Chinese” societies. While directives like the notorious memo and the “seven evil subjects” will be used to intensify crackdowns on Chinese dissidents, they will increasingly regulate how Beijing interacts with “dangerous” societies that have espoused the very values that threaten the CCP’s grip on power.
Such work has already begun in Hong Kong and Chinese pressure on Taiwan to cooperate in academia, culture and the media — efforts that are part of a united front strategy with close ties to the Chinese intelligence apparatus — are well under way. Those in Taiwan who hoped that exchanges and cooperation with Chinese would help foster change within China, or those who regard Taiwan as a means to an end, as an instrument by which to democratize China, are headed for a rude awakening.
Xi’s CCP will not allow Westernized “Chinese” societies to transform China and will do everything it can to turn the tables by undermining liberalism with those. It will seek to demonstrate that Western values are alien to “Chinese” societies and that they are but a transient phenomenon that cannot withstand the natural forces of Chinese exceptionalism.
The CCP has shown its cards. It is now up to Taiwan and Hong Kong, hopefully with help from other societies that have espoused similar values, to meet that challenge and to erect the appropriate defenses. The battle lines have changed; China, more sure of its ability, is on the counteroffensive and it is taking the war of ideas abroad, starting with the societies closest to it.
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
RSS