Now it is a cliché to say that we are in a new era of wonderful competition of forces, but that does not make it wrong. The new US National Security Strategy, the recently launched National Defense Strategy and the imposition of draconian export controls Computer chips and similar technologies make it abundantly clear that Biden’s management sees China as a long-term strategic rival. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his affiliates seem to have an opinion. Fasten your seat belts: the journey will be bumpy.
Given this situation, how do we interpret the recent 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC)?This has provided abundant water for pro-China observers, adding dramatic moments such as what gave the impression of being the public humiliation of Xi’s predecessor. Xi won an unprecedented third term in power, strengthened his grip by appointing more loyalists to key posts, sidelined economically oriented technocrats in favor of more state-oriented officials, and most likely became president for life. As Kevin Rudd notes, economic expansion and progression are no longer the most sensible priorities; national security and the preservation of the CCP’s authority are.
I am not an expert on China, but there is no need to realize that the relationship between the world’s two toughest countries and the balance of forces between them will have profound effects on many facets of world politics. This raises an apparent question: What will the decisions made at the recent Party Congress on the balance of forces and competition between the United States and China have an effect?From the American point of view, is what just happened in Beijing smart news or not?
Now it is a cliché to say that we are in a new era of wonderful competition of forces, but that does not make it wrong. The new US National Security Strategy, the recently launched National Defense Strategy and the imposition of draconian export controls Computer chips and similar technologies make it abundantly clear that Biden’s management sees China as a long-term strategic rival. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his affiliates seem to have an opinion. Fasten your seat belts: the journey will be bumpy.
Given this situation, how do we interpret the recent 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC)?This has provided abundant water for pro-China observers, adding dramatic moments such as what gave the impression of being the public humiliation of Xi’s predecessor. Xi won an unprecedented third term in power, strengthened his grip by appointing more loyalists to key posts, sidelined economically oriented technocrats in favor of more state-oriented officials, and most likely became president for life. As Kevin Rudd notes, economic expansion and progression are no longer the most sensible priorities; national security and the preservation of the CCP’s authority are.
I am not an expert on China, but I don’t have to be one to realize that the relationship between the world’s two most difficult countries and the balance of forces between them will have profound effects on many aspects of world politics. This raises an apparent question: what effect will the decisions made at the recent Party Congress have on the balance of forces and competition between the United States and China?From the American point of view, is what just happened in Beijing smart news or not?
My challenge is that I can tell you two stories about this event: one that deserves to push Americans back a little and one that deserves to make us all more nervous. To make matters worse, those contrasting stories are not mutually exclusive and possibly even each other.
Let’s start with the right story, noted from the United States.
What happened in Beijing suggests that China is now reverting to the same kind of one-man rule that delayed its emergence as a major force for decades. China already faces significant headwinds: a slowing economy, an aging population and shrinking workforce, and developing foreign considerations about its strength and ambitions. Some of those advances were unavoidable (for example, expansion invariably slows as economies mature and demographic imbalances cannot be corrected overnight), but have been exacerbated through uncompromising COVID zero policy. Xi’s crackdown on China’s high-tech sector and the belligerent “wolf warrior” approach to foreign policy that China has pursued under Xi. And China’s riots go beyond US efforts to limit access to technology; Asian and European states are also increasingly wary of close economic ties with China. Although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and others still seek to keep the doors open, broader trends (including the European Union’s resolve to suspend a previously denied investment deal) suggest that the opening that has facilitated China’s immediate rise starts to close.
Given those unfavorable developments, the recent Party Congress may have been only an opportunity for a medium-term correction, but precisely the opposite happened. He continued his crusade to identify himself as a leader alongside Mao Zedong.
Possibly, this would be bad news for Chinese corporations and Chinese citizens, but it may also be good news for the United States, as Mao has been in many tactics in a crisis for China. He would possibly have been a brilliant revolutionary leader and wartime strategist. , however, he had no idea how to run an economy or identify the foundations of the curtains for lasting global influence. His largely unquestioned leadership left China’s enormous perspective untapped for decades, leading directly to mistakes like the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and causing enormous human suffering, almost entirely within China itself. It was only after Mao’s death and the abandonment of his policies that China began its remarkable rise. Recognizing the risks of relying on an “infallible” single leader, Mao’s successors sought to enshrine the principles of collective leadership and spare him a tragic repetition of beyond madness.
Under Xi, Array China is going in the opposite direction. It is now highly unlikely to blatantly criticize Xi, which means his ill-conceived policies will be implemented. If they backfire, and some of them will, they will be hard to reverse. Not coincidentally, Chinese stocks fell after the Party Congress once investors learned there would be “no adults in the room” on economic policy. Unless you believe that Xi is the first completely infallible political leader in history, and it has already been shown that he rarely is, his consolidation of strength means that China will be less rich, less tough and less attractive. for foreign populations. it would have been led by a less opinionated leader whose affiliates might simply question his possible choices and curb excesses. In the future, who will tell Xi when he is wrong? Wouldn’t subordinates be even more likely to tell superiors what they think superiors need to hear and suppress bad news, so they don’t look bad? This is a recipe for inefficiency that also increases the threat of monumental errors. Overall, the new force configuration in Beijing will help the United States maintain a position of primacy.
But keep the schadenfreude – there are also big drawbacks here. I can of at least 3 possible problems.
First, China’s declining economic expansion would arguably be smart for the balance of forces between Washington and Beijing, but it’s not smart for a global economy already on the brink of recession. If China under Xi continues to stumble, many other economies, adding our own, will suffer, other people in many other countries will suffer, and extremists of all stripes will benefit.
Second, the top priority given to national security issues (and resolution to elevate them above economic growth) is a transparent representation of spiraling style dynamics at work. China’s rise and developing ambitions have prompted a defensive reaction from the US. U. S. and others. No wonder Beijing now recognizes that the external environment is more dangerous and seeks to protect itself from U. S. -led efforts to restrain its long-term growth.
Unfortunately, the deterioration of relations between the two countries has already made it more complicated to solve non-unusual problems, such as climate substitution, and cooperation on those issues will most likely be even more complicated in the future. When it comes to climate substitution, China and the U. S. are not yet in the U. S. The U. S. Navy begins to resemble two rowers on the Niagara River fighting over who can sit in the back and rule, even as their canoe heads toward the falls.
Third, as I pointed out a few weeks ago, when countries are ruled by out-of-control autocrats or by small teams of other like-minded people (no prominent dissidents), they are more likely to make big mistakes and have a harder time correcting them. When they do. Democracies are not immune to this danger, but it turns out to be more prevalent in highly centralized dictatorships. If so, the consolidation of Xi’s strength means we deserve to hope that Beijing will be more prone to making long-term mistakes than it has been. However, this is not good news, as some of the mistakes they might make, such as trying to take back Taiwan, would be incredibly dangerous.
This is where my two stories can come together. If Xi Jinping’s centralization of force further undermines China’s economic energy and worsens the structural upheavals it already faces, then any hope it may have of matching or surpassing Mao as China’s greatest modern leader will be undermined. Any claim to have matched or surpassed Mao would count. about what Mao could not do, such as recovering Taiwan’s formality. If he begins to suspect that China’s relative strength has peaked, the temptation to act while he can grows. Talking blatantly about this purpose alarms others, and making an attempt would be a massive gamble, but it’s also the kind of miscalculation autocrats (or closed decision-making groups) are likely to make.
Americans have one more explanation for why moderating their satisfaction at seeing China drift away from market principles, rely more on the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, and eschew collective leadership in favor of one-man personality worship. The U. S. political formula The U. S. economy is also in big trouble, and there’s a clever explanation for why expect things to get worse after the midterm elections. The world’s two toughest states seem to be engaged in a fierce festival to see which formula can dysfunction faster. Unfortunately, and despite what just happened in Beijing, I’m not sure China will win.
Stephen M. Walt is a columnist for Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University. Twitter: @stephenwalt
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