It boggles my mind that so many Western thinkers are so willing to grant Beijing so much deference. After all, Xi Jinping’s regime demonstrably lies, steals, and undermines everything that we, and many Chinese across that vast nation, hold dear.
Fortunately, a recent Oxford University debate encapsulated the pro-Communist China tropes that Beijing’s Western sympathizers often adopt to defend our taking an easier line against the regime. Here are the three most important tropes that stood out to me.
1) The West needs to be nice to Communist China because China was humiliated by it in the 1839-1945 period
The 19th century period of those roughly 100 years saw the Opium Wars and China’s submission to British imperial rule. In the 20th century, under much suffering, China was again subjugated by imperial Japan.
At the Oxford Union debate, this humiliation-matters-today argument was offered by Anna Wan, the eloquent daughter of Chinese immigrants turned American citizens. Wan suggests we must always be astute that “China carries a painful, lingering memory of its century of humiliation.” This means we must be careful not to offend Beijing by being seen to make excessive demands of it.
The problem here is that Communist China is using grievances of the past only to try and explain its unacceptable behavior in the present. And the great irony here is that China is replicating policies similar to those that so aggrieved it in its past. Beijing’s effort to manipulate international trading regimes is quite similar to Japan’s theft of Chinese resources in the 1930s and 1940s. Then there’s China’s seizure of international fishing and energy resources belonging to other nations. That looks a lot like Britain’s dominance of Chinese markets in the 19th century.
In short, China’s humiliation excuses don’t stack up. We can respect the unjust hardships China suffered in the past without closing our eyes to China’s unjust actions in the present. Indeed, we must do so.
2) Communist China can be positively influenced by American values
Former British diplomat, Kerry Brown, and former Obama administration official, Michael Fuchs, were the ones making this case.
The “Chinese value system is more hybrid” than simply being authoritarian, Brown argued. Fuchs added that to accept a Cold War mentality against China would be to risk the valuable influence America can have on Chinese scientists and students who might no longer be able to visit our shores.
I take both points seriously. Yes, of course, some Chinese values do not exist in the microcosm of the Communist Party. And yes, there is societal-exchange value in having Chinese visitors learn of the benefits of living in a free society. But the central problem here is that the Communist Party, which rules China and Chinese society, dominates those ideas to the point of making them irrelevant, at least as applied to our national policy.
In the present condition of challenge that China presents, we must assess our policies based on what the Communist Party is doing, rather than on our better aspirations of new engagement with Chinese civilians.
Beijing does not see its scientific and student visitors to America as a means of mutually beneficial cultural exchange, but as the means to an end benefiting the party — often to conduct espionage against American interests. And this speaks to the broader point: just as Hong Kongers know that the party despises their individual rights, so too are the Uighurs well aware that Beijing seeks the destruction of their most sacred cultural and religious values. These peoples hold their Chinese values deeply, but the regime suppresses them so that they cannot live by them.
Discounting that truth, we risk providing space to the regime to use our openness against us. The better alternative is to promote Chinese citizens’ free access to information and an offer of asylum and support for those facing political repression.
3) Communist China is not a new Soviet Union
“China is not the Soviet Union,” Wan said. “The West needs to question the whole reason it considers a cold war with China. Basically, it’s fear that China will overthrow it and unseat the modern world order. Even though China has built itself up at an incredible speed, does it have the ability or the will to be the leader of the free world? To be a world policeman? The answer is no.”
Wan gets this almost exactly wrong. Because, of course, Communist China doesn’t want to be the leader of the free world.
Beijing wants to be the leader of a new world order created by Beijing. The same was true of the Soviet Union. Like the Soviet Union, Communist China seeks to control territory, dominate the political and economic decisions and rights of others, and degrade the fabric of our rules-based American international order. It does so to displace us, not to coexist with us.
To ignore these similarities of ambition and action is to ignore a very real threat. But it is also to ignore Xi’s minions at their words. The Orwellian language they often employ is darkly similar to the Soviet propaganda of old.
Ultimately, we need to be wary of those who pretend China wants to be our friend. Let us hope that one day, Chinese leaders will empower their people to make that better judgment. But it is not today, and to allow tropes to define our strategy is a very bad and dangerous idea.
