The China Thread

[Jacob]

China was already up. It was already recognized as one of the five great powers even when Chiang Kai-shek was in charge. Mao helped knock it down a bit by isolating it and killing off tens of millions of people due to idiocy and mismanagement.

In China, the CCP has basically appropriated the credit for all the work of the Nationalists to the CCP.

[Jacob]

Yeah - and it may also just be my ignorance of how Xi positioned himself before coming to power, particularly in relation to Bo and actually this was all terribly predictable. But I, again possibly ignorantly, would've assumed this scenario would be more likely if Bo had taken over.

IIRC he was basically a cifre. The main speculation was to what degree his father's treatment would influence his policy (and how), but little was known.

HI'm less sure - maybe in general at an EU or European level you're right and I think you're definitely right if things go badly for the UK. But I think the UK v EU comparison is something that will, below the surface possibly, matter in France, for example.

But an example is that I don't think vaccines become as big a political issue in Europe if the UK is going at the same pace as them. If it was just Israel and the US storming ahead I think that it doesn't matter because there are reasons/rationalisations why they're doing better: Israel's small (or the size of many EU member states) and did a deal with Pfizer, the US is very capitalist and morally vacuous hoarding all their vaccines. I think it's the fact that the UK was doing well having opted out of the EU scheme that intensified the political pressure. Similarly if the EU program was miles ahead of the UK I think it would have had huge political salience here, while Israel is broadly ignored.

I'm not sure that dynamic is unique to vaccines, I think it will recur in lots of bits of policy because for the first time in a while the systems/alternative approaches in Europe will not be the EU (and acceding states) or Russia, Turkey, Belarus or Ukraine.

You may be right re: vaccines. I'm not sure it's going to carry forward that much though. I think it's pretty context dependent. But we'll see

And I think there is also ideological/philosophical content around this - I don't think the rise in Carl Schmitt studies in China or papers on theorising "empire" means is just window dressing. I think it is relevant and shaping decisions. I think too much of that is written off or ignored in the West.

Not familiar with Carl Schmitt studies...?

But I've long been of the opinon that the CCP China is an imperialist power, using imperialist tools to achieve imperialist goals.

I also wonder if there is a generational angle of this being the first proper leadership generation (from my understanding) that is out of Deng's shadow and, you know, under Mao China stands up, under Deng it gets rich and now there needs to be a new project or purpose. I get that the CCP isn't the old Maoist party or the Soviet Communist party - but I think a Communist Party needs an endpoint it should be aspiring to reach - without that it is meaningless in a way that normal/non-Communist parties aren't.

Yeah, it looks to me that they've embraced "we're a Great Power"/ "the Middle Kingdom demands respect" as their current project.

[Sheilbh]

Not familiar with Carl Schmitt studies...?

I only discovered it through Adam Tooze making a reference somewhere to the fact that there's apparently Schmitt fever in Chinese universities. While he was the legal theorist of Nazi Germany he was also, I think before the rise of the Nazis a very interesting critic of liberalism (the Talking Politics History of Ideas podcast did an episode on him) and apparently academia in (Communist!) China has taken a huge interest in him in recent years.

There was a piece in the Atlantic on it:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/12/nazi-china-communists-carl-schmitt/617237/

And I think I've seen the odd mention of him on the Reading the China Dream blog.

Edit: This piece also looks interesting:
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1784/totalitarian-friendship-carl-schmitt-in-contemporary-china

But I've long been of the opinon that the CCP China is an imperialist power, using imperialist tools to achieve imperialist goals.
[...]
Yeah, it looks to me that they've embraced "we're a Great Power"/ "the Middle Kingdom demands respect" as their current project.

Yep

[Berkut]

Is anyone actually surprised at China's treatment of Hong Kong?

I mean...did anyone believe for a moment that there was ever any chance that China would look at the "agreement" in good faith at all?

[Tonitrus]

Is anyone actually surprised at China's treatment of Hong Kong?

I mean...did anyone believe for a moment that there was ever any chance that China would look at the "agreement" in good faith at all?

I am not surprised by the final result...that was pretty much inevitable (at the end of the Basic Law)  I think most were surprised, however, by how quickly they moved up the timeline.

Along with the naiveté that the whole "capitalism (with HK as an infecting virus) will make China more democratic" bullshit would kick in by then.

[Valmy]

In the 1990s I was definitely banging my shoe on tables proclaiming the historically inevitable victory of Liberalism. However the reaction to the Falun Gong Cult/Religion was the wake up call that things were not going to go our way in China. O kind of excused Tibet and the rest of that to a discredited Maoist past...which was dumb. Ah well.

I don't think I was alone though.

[Josquius]

Agreed.
There's no logical reason for China to be doing this. Hong Kong is just one small city and its not like it is infecting the mainland with its dangerous ideas as everyone had hoped pre handover.
With time Hong Kong was steadily being assimilated as Shanghai grew, mainlanders moved to HK, Cantonese is beaten into the dust, etc...
Logically you'd have thought they'd have just been patient and held to the agreement by which time cracking down would have been much easier anyway.

Though it must be said I don't think the capitalism infecting China thing is a bullet they've altogether dodged.
The Chinese people have gotten used to a certain standard of living, and it is a very precariously balanced one, the more China acts up and pulls itself apart from the west the dodgier maintaining this looks.
China already had the emerging challenge of growing grey before they grow rich. Now they're getting their middle income manufacturing economy slowly pulled out from under them before they've gotten too far in transitioning to a high income economy,

[Berkut]

Agreed.
There's no logical reason for China to be doing this. Hong Kong is just one small city and its not like it is infecting the mainland with its dangerous ideas as everyone had hoped pre handover.
With time Hong Kong was steadily being assimilated as Shanghai grew, mainlanders moved to HK, Cantonese is beaten into the dust, etc...
Logically you'd have thought they'd have just been patient and held to the agreement by which time cracking down would have been much easier anyway.

I think there is ample and obvious reasons why they are doing this, and honestly, if I were them, I would be doing the same thing.

From their perspective, HK was nothing but a blatant, in your face reminder of their weakness. I always assumed ANY deal they entered into in regards to getting the Brits out of HK amounted to them saying whatever was needed to be said, then the moment they had actual control promptly ignoring any agreement as quickly as they can get away with without it costing them too much diplomatically, but having exactly zero actual care for the actual terms of any agreement.

[The Minsky Moment]

The human rights angle, rightly or wrongly, is really a sideshow.  The more significant policy shift has been increasing willingness of the US and Europe to restrict Chinese trade and investment on national security grounds. This trend really got moving in the US under Trump's administration but it is not a Trumpist policy (Trump opposed trade on traditional protectionist grounds) - it is a bipartisan policy that unites Trumpist nativist, internationalist neo-cons, traditional trade unionists, and progressive human rights critics of China. And it is starting to go beyond restriction into discussion of industrial policy initiatives such as reshoring production of essential commodities and products and securing overseas sources of key materials.

The fundamental question is what are the substantive bases for security conflict between China and the West? One source of friction is China's drive to dominate the South China Sea. The reality is that China's success in that sphere is inevitable.  The have the ability and the will to develop and deploy sufficient resources and capabilities to dominate the area and there is little short of all out war that the US and in allies can do to stop it from happening.  And the US will not go to war over Chinese regional influence and effective sea control of that region. FWIW my own opinion is that the US has never taken this competition seriously - if it did, it would have signed UNCLOS long ago.

The wild card is Taiwan.  Xi personally and PRC have committed irrevocably to their vision of territorial integrity and need to present at least a plausible prospect of eventual reunification; however, Taiwanese politics cannot be counted on to accommodate that, especially since Xi's brutal annihilation of Hong Kong's separate "system" within the one China "country" destroyed what was supposed to be the model for peaceful unification. The unknown questions are China's appetite to put the matter to force and how far the US will go to to resist that force.

Other than Taiwan, however, it is not clear to me what the underlying security conflict is between China on the one hand and the "West" on the other.  Compared to the Cold War, China's threat to core security interests is far more attenuated and the potential benefits of cooperation are greater.  it should not escape notice that China has responded to increasing confrontation from the West by drawing closer to Russia and any China policy must take into account potential secondary effects of strengthening Russia as well.

I don't have a problem with taking a hawkish line on China but the policy should be based on practical and realistic assessment of policy goals and risks.

[The Minsky Moment]

Is anyone actually surprised at China's treatment of Hong Kong?

I mean...did anyone believe for a moment that there was ever any chance that China would look at the "agreement" in good faith at all?

As I just stated above - "surprise" may be the wrong word.  But there are obvious implications to what China is doing in HK on the policy towards Taiwan.  The HK example allowed the PRC and Taiwan to maintain the polite and ambiguous fiction that maybe someday there could be some political framework that encompassed both nations, as long as one country two systems could be plausibly maintained. Since Taiwan's status for the past 7 decades has been based on a series of fictions, the loss of this hypothetical narrative is destabilizing.

[Tonitrus]

I am rather reminded of this film scene (for all the flaws the movie has) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTNIg47QJpI&t=397s

[Berkut]

Is anyone actually surprised at China's treatment of Hong Kong?

I mean...did anyone believe for a moment that there was ever any chance that China would look at the "agreement" in good faith at all?

As I just stated above - "surprise" may be the wrong word.  But there are obvious implications to what China is doing in HK on the policy towards Taiwan.  The HK example allowed the PRC and Taiwan to maintain the polite and ambiguous fiction that maybe someday there could be some political framework that encompassed both nations, as long as one country two systems could be plausibly maintained. Since Taiwan's status for the past 7 decades has been based on a series of fictions, the loss of this hypothetical narrative is destabilizing.

But I don't think China minds that destabilization at all, indeed, I suspect they welcome it.

They likely see the fiction around Taiwan as just as galling as the fiction around Honk Kong.

[Barrister]

Is anyone actually surprised at China's treatment of Hong Kong?

I mean...did anyone believe for a moment that there was ever any chance that China would look at the "agreement" in good faith at all?

In 1997 I had zero faith that the CCP would honour the agreement.

But let's remember - that was 20+ years ago.  Over the next number of years China did in fact honour the transition agreement.  And there seemed to be a real incentive for China to do so - if they could demonstrate that "one country, two systems" could actually work then perhaps Taiwan could be persuaded to peacefully return to the fold.

But now I'm back to having zero faith.

[Jacob]

Back then I doubted but hoped.

More significantly, back then I thought there was a path for China to ease up on totalitarianism and imperialism. Didn't work out, alas.

[Jacob]

The question, I guess, becomes to what degree the West is willing to back Taiwan when push comes to shove.