On July 3, the Washington Post published an open letter by figures from business, government and academia titled “China is not an enemy,” calling on US President Donald Trump and the US Congress not to treat China as an enemy, but to strike “the right balance of competition and cooperation.”
The letter says: “Nor is China a monolith, or the views of its leaders set in stone,” because there are still many Chinese officials advocating “a moderate, pragmatic and genuinely cooperative approach with the West.”
Washington, the letter urges, should strengthen the influence of those Chinese leaders rather than taking an adversarial stance that might favor China’s assertive nationalists.
As the US-China trade war is heating up and Trump just launched his re-election campaign, the letter represents a powerful counterstrike from the pro-China faction in the US against Trump’s policies.
Yet the letter’s hackneyed argument and its disregard for the truth does not stand up to scrutiny.
The signatories are major figures from the pro-China force in US politics, think tanks and diplomatic circles. Their influence on the US’ China policy dates back to then-US president Richard Nixon’s opening to Beijing and has helped shape the context for the development of US-China relations after Nixon.
Before Trump started his forceful confrontation with China, these signatories could be seen as members of the US’ China policy establishment. They are quite friendly toward Beijing and although communist China is autocratic and despotic through and through, they continue to think that the US can change it, and they want to use it as a bargaining chip when confronting and containing Russia.
On the other hand, during China’s “century of humiliation,” the US was the friendliest of the countries in the Eight-Nation Alliance — a multinational military coalition set up in response to the Boxer Rebellion — and it was with a sense of mission and historic sentiment that it opened China’s “iron curtain.”
As a result, mainstream US opinion wants to help lift China out of poverty and guide its participation in the global system, wholeheartedly expecting economic growth to yield democracy and market reforms that will make it conscientious and responsible.
However, the views of China’s leaders clearly differ from the wishful thinking of the China-friendly faction in the US: Reform and opening up were primarily aimed at attracting foreign investment, talent and technology to promote its economic development. It then used its economic strength to back its military expansion and establish a global sphere of influence through its Belt and Road Initiative in a bid to restore the glory of the Han and Tang dynasties.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never cared about democracy and free markets — and still does not. Its economic reform strategy mainly aims to consolidate state capitalism and to intervene in the market with state power. By edging out foreign businesses, building a monopolistic advantage for domestic industries, and fostering the “red supply chain,” China became the world’s factory and second-largest economy.
Democratic reforms run counter to the power and core interests of China’s elite, the so-called taizidang (太子黨, princelings) — the offspring of senior CCP officials — and the CCP itself, particularly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. As China renounces universal values such as democracy, freedom and human rights, it is becoming more determined to move toward autocratic dictatorship.
With the help of high-tech monitoring systems, it has created a digital dictatorship unprecedented in human history and exported it to the world using its “sharp power.”
In that sense, the rise of China is not a blessing. It is becoming an enemy of democratic societies and free economies, and its competition with the US for global hegemony has put to rest hope for China.
In the years since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) came to power, he has advocated the “China dream” to reinvigorate zhonghua minzu (中華民族, “Chinese ethnic group”).
Domestically, Xi is implementing a dictatorship, forcefully suppressing Tibet and Xinjiang, and extending his vicious power to Hong Kong, breaking the promise that the territory would remain unchanged for 50 years and swapping the “one country, two systems” model for “one country, one system.” Xi is also casting covetous eyes toward Taiwan, and the East China and South China seas.
The path leading to China’s rise and its results have run contrary to the expectations of the US’ China-friendly faction. It has even sought to challenge the US. China’s rise is part of century-long strategy rather than an accident of history.
Once confused by the illusions China created, Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute and a former “panda hugger,” wrote The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower as a an act of profound self-reflection. Still only a minority is able to wake up and panda huggers can still be found throughout the US.
From a historical perspective, Trump launched the trade war due to his obsession with certain ideologies, but it was also an inevitable outcome following the past half-century of US-China relations.
Even if Trump were not president, the US would still have had to confront the same issues: a serious trade imbalance, China’s theft of intellectual property, plagiarism, forced technology transfers and the heavy subsidies provided by the Chinese state. The only difference is the intensity of the confrontation.
The panda huggers “do not believe Beijing is an economic enemy or an existential national security threat that must be confronted in every sphere” by the US.
They believe that “many Chinese officials and other elites” are moderate and pragmatic, and that their influence will be weakened by Washington’s adversarial stance toward Beijing ... in favor of assertive nationalists.”
Such opinions are sentimental wishful thinking and irrational.
Xi’s China dream is the combination of China’s new nationalism and its party-state system, and it is mainstream thought in present-day China.
By contrast, the so-called “moderate” officials are few in number and might even be non-existent, visible only within the illusion created by the CCP.
The panda huggers pose the greatest risk for the US in its confrontation with China, because they are unable to see the truth and the lurking threats.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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