Chinese officials are optimistic about winning a geopolitical competition with the United States due to the perceived “decline of the West,” according to the boasts of a top Chinese Communist security chief.
“The rise of the East and the decline of the West has become [a global] trend, and changes of the international landscape are in our favor,” Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission chief Chen Yixin told colleagues, per a South China Morning Post translation. “The U.S. suppression [of us] is a major threat, but [our struggle with the US] is both a skirmish and a protracted war.”
American and Chinese officials have moved into open rivalry in recent years after U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Beijing has been “waging … a cold war” against the U.S. Those tensions have underpinned a yearlong controversy over China’s censorship of information about the coronavirus pandemic, as well as disputes over Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong and high-stakes debates over whether American allies can rely on Chinese state-backed tech companies.
“The coronavirus pandemic is a major test, but [we should] rise to the challenge of this crisis and turn threats into opportunities,” Chen said.
Success or failure in key arenas of the competition, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s campaign to thwart state-backed Huawei’s bids to build fifth-generation wireless technology networks around the world, depends on European allies. Their confidence in the U.S. could be shaken by the attack on the U.S. Capitol and President Trump’s success in convincing supporters that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, despite his failure to prove that case in courts across the country, according to a prominent Senate Democrat.
“The Republican Party will have something to say about this because European nations will sort of hedge their bets on getting in too deep with America, if they think that Donald Trump is coming back four years from now or Donald Trump Jr. is coming back four years from now,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during an Atlantic Council event Friday.
Murphy, a Democrat, said that he has advised Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken to draft the Republican lawmakers who accepted the election results into a diplomatic initiative.
“I think he should deploy Republicans and Democrats in the Senate who voted to certify the elections, who have condemned those that tried to undermine democracy, and send us out around the world to try to tell the story of how we overcame this moment,” he said. “This transition, as messy as it will be, will still be a transition, and that, in the end, is, again, still a miracle of American democracy.”
Chinese officials, for their part, have pointed to the crisis at the U.S. Capitol to justify their crackdown on Hong Kong dissidents who protested Beijing’s plans to undercut the rule of law in the former British colony.
“While the society is stable overall, there are still many risks, and hidden dangers … intertwine, resulting in a wide range of public security risks,” said Chen, the security chief. “Security is the cornerstone of development … Without security, we cannot achieve anything.”
