Multiple investigations and witness testimonies have established beyond doubt that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in China’s Xinjiang region have incarcerated at least 1 million Uighurs and other non-Han ethnic minorities in concentration camps.
Beijing euphemistically refers to the camps as “re-education centers,” but evidence shows that their purpose, in addition to brainwashing inmates, is to provide the authorities with a vast pool of forced labor.
The world has reacted in shock as evidence of the camps’ existence and scale has gradually come to light, and several well-known Western brands have issued statements stating that they do not use “Xinjiang cotton” in their products and expressing concern over reports of human rights violations in the region.
The CCP has been whipping up “anti-foreign” nationalist sentiment, and Western clothing brands — including Nike, H&M and Burberry — have become sacrificial lambs in the witch hunt.
A wave of Xinjiang cotton populism is sweeping across China, with the strong support of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese celebrities. This is understandable as they have little choice in the matter, but a number of Taiwanese celebrities have also rushed to disassociate themselves from the named brands. Their regrettable actions not only show that they are confused about their own identity — are they Taiwanese or Chinese? — but also reveal a distasteful inclination to place personal profit ahead of everything.
History has shown that nationalism is a double-edged sword. For bullied and oppressed small or weak nations, nationalism can serve as a useful weapon to resist the powerful. Conversely, for a rising empire, nationalism is a potent weapon that it can harness to facilitate aggression against weaker nations. Nationalism has numerous subtle variations, but any dictatorship, be it communist or fascist, is driven by nationalism.
The CCP is an excellent example of this phenomenon. Communism promotes a classless, authoritarian and internationalist system for ordering society. Concepts such as “nation” and “ethnicity” are anathema to that ideology. However, communism was defeated by capitalism and democracy, the Soviet Union broke up, and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) numerous campaigns and “struggles” all ended in disaster.
China today does not practice orthodox communism, but is instead run as a one-party state through a blend of state-led capitalism and digital totalitarianism.
The CCP’s model of governance has always emphasized centralized control and distribution of resources by the state. Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) policy of “reform and opening up” artfully repackaged China’s party-state as an attractive home for foreign capital, investment and talent.
Behind the scenes, the CCP employed unfair trade practices, used subsidies, pilfered intellectual property, and employed other underhand tactics to transform China from a poor developing nation into an economic powerhouse and the world’s second-largest economy. These achievements have proven insufficient to prop up the regime, and give it legal and political legitimacy.
This is why the party is increasingly turning to nationalism as a protective talisman to consolidate its power. It does this by periodically invoking the so-called “100-year humiliation” and fanning the flames of the Chinese public’s latent xenophobia.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP has created the dream of a Chinese empire based on strategic initiatives such as “Made in China 2025” and the Belt and Road initiative. An imperial dream is useful for the party on several levels: It encourages people to look outwards to the world instead of pondering over domestic affairs, allows the party to satiate the public’s appetite for nationalistic pride, fosters fanatical support for the CCP dictatorship and associates Xi with the “great national rejuvenation of the Chinese people.”
Now that China has reached a certain level of wealth, the elephant in the room is political reform: Given China’s outstanding economic success, why is it not enacting democratic reforms so that Chinese can become masters of their own destiny?
The CCP’s answer is that to complete the “great national rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” the nation must rely on the firm and steadying hand of party rule under the framework of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” to avoid the specter of “chaotic” Western democracy.
Thus, the CCP places itself at the vanguard of China’s rise from rags to riches, making it China’s guiding star and savior. According to this logic, the public must entrust the party with absolute power so that it can stamp out any dissenting voices and impediments to China’s great rebirth.
Nationalism simultaneously provides the party’s dictatorship with legitimacy and with the excuse it needs to cling on to the reins of power.
The CCP marries nationalism with a totalitarian system of governance and in doing so has created a virtual prison for its people. The party is all-seeing and all-knowing, just as George Orwell imagined in his novel 1984: In China, Big Brother is always watching.
The essence of democracy is the protection of human rights and freedoms, and the support of a majority of the public. The precise system each nation has devised to achieve this differs, but the fundamental ideals remain the same. There is therefore no such thing as “US-style democracy” or “Chinese-style democracy.” There is democracy and there is its mirror image: autocracy.
“Democracy and law with Chinese socialist characteristics” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: autocracy masquerading as democracy.
In the past, when faced with criticism from abroad, Beijing showed a lack of confidence and sought to cover up, seemingly fearful of negative exposure. Under Xi, Beijing has gone on the attack against other nations and appears intent on changing the rules of the international order, and even redefining the universal values of democracy and human rights.
This is the reason the CCP has unleashed its so-called “wolf warrior” diplomats to joust with the governments of other nations. At last month’s Alaska summit, Chinese diplomats used their own set of “Chinese standards” to criticize Washington for alleged democratic and human rights deficiencies.
Chinese are not content with merely “standing up,” as Mao put it, they want to convert the world to a new set of universal values based on the sham of Chinese-style democracy and human rights.
The CCP is intent on staying in power in perpetuity and Xi will be China’s new emperor, using nationalism to shore up its legitimacy. This means that history is destined to repeat itself.
When the party is faced with new challenges at home or abroad, it will have no choice but to repeat the Qing Dynasty-era Boxer Rebellion’s “Support the Qing, annihilate the West” strategy. Recent rhetoric from Chinese diplomats is telling.
At the Alaska summit, Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) jeered: “The Chinese people will not put up with that.”
During a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday last week, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said the US and the other Five Eyes Alliance countries “are reminiscent of the Eight-Power Allied Forces,” adding that these countries “clearly do not know China or the world. Today’s China is not what it was 120 years ago.”
Referring to Chinese boycotts of Western apparel companies at a news conference the following day, Hua said: “Chinese are friendly and open-minded. That said, nothing will prevail over the will of the Chinese people. Anyone who offends the Chinese should be prepared to pay the price.”
Beijing is sending out a clear signal to the world that it intends to confront and oppose democracy.
Sadly, China has passed up a once-in-a generation opportunity to shake off its historic tendency to wallow in self-pity and victimhood, and become a responsible great power. Instead, the public is being led astray by the CCP and driven into a frenzy of hatred that would lead the nation down a path of no return as it rejects universal values and enlightenment.
After the Eight-Power Allied Forces, a multinational military coalition that invaded northern China in 1900 to relieve foreign legations under siege from the Boxer militia, it took the best part of a century for China to recover.
Today’s anti-Western frenzy is an ill omen that China might be on the cusp of embarking on a “New Boxer Rebellion.”
Translated by Edward Jones
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