The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has issued its annual report to Congress. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government will periodically present summaries of their work.
China sees itself as engaged in a systemic struggle with the United States and other democratic countries over the future of the world order. Beijing seeks to use its growing power to transform the international order, ultimately legitimizing its repressive governance system; expanding its economic, security, and political interests; and restoring China to what it views as its rightful place at the center of the world. It desires for other countries to accept if not praise its authoritarian, single-party governance model as a superior alternative to liberal democracy and seeks to export elements of its model, popularizing internationally the norm that power, not rules-based accountability, is a legitimate basis for political authority. The CCP hopes to remold global governance, ultimately enabling China to act unconstrained by the current rules-based order. These objectives predate General Secretary Xi’s rule and will likely persist beyond it, posing a long-term challenge to U.S. interests, the integrity of international institutions, and liberal democracy worldwide.
The Chinese government is shaping and subverting the international governance system to align with Beijing’s own principles, which are directly opposed to universal values and individual rights. Beijing uses economic leverage to secure other countries’ support for these alternative values in the UN and other organizations while exploiting leadership roles in UN agencies (see Figure 2) to promote Chinese foreign policy objectives, such as marginalizing Taiwan. Meanwhile, through a parallel order of alternative China-centric organizations, including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China is creating an integrated economic and geopolitical order under China’s leadership. Beijing seeks to use its central role in this new parallel order to exploit globalization, using the networks and resources of other countries while limiting access to its own market. It also uses its leverage to export to developing countries elements of its economic model that threaten private enterprise and rule of law in favor of a dominant state sector and corrupt business environment.
As part of its ambitions to shape global governance and become the preeminent power, the CCP seeks to dominate development of emerging technologies and ensure the norms and values for how these technologies are deployed further its geopolitical goals. To do so, it aims to establish China’s leadership in international standardization bodies and export Chinese technical standards, the design features and product specifications that allow different products to work together. Because the Chinese government treats technical standards as a tool of industrial policy and market access, China’s ambitions threaten to disrupt organic industry-led innovation that has allowed the U.S. technological ecosystem to thrive. Furthermore, China’s influence over information and telecommunications technology, including connected technologies used in surveillance and the building blocks of the internet, provide like-minded authoritarian regimes with the tools to repress their own populations, control information flows, and support China’s surveillance and data collection programs.
If Beijing succeeds in normalizing its views of governance, the result could undermine individual rights around the world. Underestimating Beijing’s intent to revise the international order based on its current capabilities risks delaying a response until it is already too late to preserve the liberal international order that has allowed the unprecedented flourishing of human life and freedoms for the last three quarters of a century.
Key Findings
▶ The CCP seeks to revise the international order to be more amenable to its own interests and authoritarian governance system. It desires for other countries not only to acquiesce to its prerogatives but also to acknowledge what it perceives as China’s rightful place at the top of a new hierarchical world order.
▶ The CCP’s ambitions for global preeminence have been consistent throughout its existence: every CCP leader since Mao Zedong has proclaimed the Party would ultimately prove the superiority of its Marxist-Leninist system over the rest of the world. Under General Secretary Xi, the Chinese government has become more aggressive in pursuing its interests and promoting its model internationally.
Sexual dysfunction symptoms vanish when the medications are discontinued. get viagra from india Do not drag the conflicts to the bed- It should be taken orally as instructed by your physician. browse now now tadalafil buy online can improve erectile function, even in patients suffering from impotence that their body’s PDE-5 (phosphodiesterase type-5) levels are always on the rise, which needs to be taken with a glassful of water. In 2011 buy cheap viagra you can try this out became the top selling ED (erectile dysfunction) treatment drug. viagra (Tadalafil) can help you be ready to provide you drugs without looking at your doctor’s prescription. However, physicians have discovered its surprising side cialis no prescription effect – the one that you won’t find on the label? Complacency and a false sense of security.▶ The CCP aims to establish an international system in which Beijing can freely influence the behavior and access the markets of other countries while constraining the ability of others to influence its behavior or access markets it controls. The “community of common human destiny,” the CCP’s proposed alternative global governance system, is explicitly based on historical Chinese traditions and presumes Beijing and the illiberal norms and institutions it favors should be the primary forces guiding globalization.
▶ The CCP has attempted to use the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to promote itself as a responsible and benevolent global leader and to prove that its model of governance is superior to liberal democracy. Thus far, it appears Beijing has not changed many minds, if any. Countries already skeptical of the CCP’s intentions argue it failed to contain the virus where it originated and withheld information until it was too late to avoid a global pandemic. Countries already predisposed to view Beijing favorably have praised its pandemic response.
▶ The Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative is both a blueprint and a testbed for establishing a Sinocentric world order. The initiative has no membership protocols or formal rules but is based on informal agreements and a network of bilateral deals with China as the hub and other countries as the spokes. This framework lets Beijing act arbitrarily and dictate terms as the stronger party.
▶ The CCP seeks to coopt established international governance institutions by increasing its leadership and functionary positions within these institutions and rewriting the norms by which they operate to align with China’s model of international relations. Within these institutions, the Party builds coalitions that support China in the UN and portray its political priorities as supported by international consensus.
▶ In some cases, Beijing bypasses the existing system by creating alternative international institutions it can influence from the start. Where possible, it excludes the United States and European powers from these institutions, and in some cases the United States chooses not to participate.
▶ The Chinese government views technical standards as a policy tool to advance its economic and geopolitical interests. It has systematically tried to expand its influence in international standards-setting organizations by installing Chinese nationals in key leadership and functionary positions and pushing standards backed by its industrial policies.
Illustration: Pixabay