{"id":66006,"date":"2024-09-18T13:23:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T11:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/laesst-sich-die-situation-in-nahost-noch-deeskalieren-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-09-18T15:08:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:08:19","slug":"the-regime-strives-for-a-pax-sinica-a-world-order-according-to-chinese-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/the-regime-strives-for-a-pax-sinica-a-world-order-according-to-chinese-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"The regime strives for a Pax Sinica, a world-order according to Chinese rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hongkong-born political scientist and historian Steve Tsang is director of the SOAS China Institute at London University.  His expertise includes gover\u00adnance  and security policies in China, Taiwan and Hongkong. In his latest book, he examines the Xi Jinping system. Interview: Till Schmidt.<\/h3>\n

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In Germany and across Europe and the West, Xi Jinping is seen as a powerful and ambitious yet somewhat myste\u00adrious leader. Steve Tsang, in your new book, entitled \u201cThe Political Thought of Xi Jinping\u201d, you and your co-author Olivia Cheung explore what China\u2019s leader wants, how he thinks, and what he envisions for China\u2019s future. Is that something to be found in a canon of texts or even in a single canonical book, like the infamous \u201cMao Bible,\u201d compiling quota\u00adtions from the Great Chairman?<\/em><\/p>\n

The political thought of Xi Jinping is not produced in one single volume. It is a collection of speeches, writings, and, in some case, instruc\u00adtions that Xi Jinping had issued after he became leader of China in 2012. There is a team of people led by Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning that supports Xi Jinping in drafting many of these documents, perhaps most of them. Our book basically gathers all texts that are publicly available and recon\u00adstructs \u201cXi\u2019s Thought\u201d along the following question: What are the key ideas that Xi Jinping advocates in terms of gover\u00adnance, in terms of management and in terms of foreign and security policies?<\/p>\n

By what means and channels of commu\u00adni\u00adcation are the state author\u00adities trying to plant Xi\u2019s thought into the hearts and minds of the Chinese? <\/em><\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s political thought has been integrated into every\u00adthing: In the education curriculum from kinder\u00adgarden to graduate school, from the production of films and media or social media outputs to practi\u00adcally every kind of instrument for propa\u00adganda under the remit of the all-powerful propa\u00adganda department of the Communist Party. It has become a requirement for all Chinese to learn Xi\u2019s thought, with Chinese overseas being encouraged to do so.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the 19th<\/sup> Party Congress in 2017, the Communist Party issued an app called \u201cXuexi qiangguo.\u201d In the first instance, all party members must download it onto their mobile devices. This app does not only provide you with content, but also monitors how you are learning Xi\u2019s thought on a daily basis. When the Covid pandemic hit, the apps started to include for example, permits for you to get out of your apartment if you need to travel somewhere for approved purposes. Downloading the app was not the only way to get a green code but one of the easiest ways.<\/p>\n

Comparing this approach to the old-school socialist way of agitation and propa\u00adganda, I thought of party cadres going to the villages, to the factories trying to engage with people and dissem\u00adinate leaflets and posters. Does that way of propa\u00adganda and agitation also play a role in China these days?<\/em><\/p>\n

China in the 21st<\/sup> century and in the last ten to twelve years was quite different from China in the 1960s. Today, there are study meetings of the Xi thought being organised. But there is no widespread sending of party cadres and units to local\u00adities to spread teachings of Chairman Xi, as there was during the Cultural Revolution. Back then, Mao Zedong issued his Red Book and required people to carry it and read it every day. People accepted that and followed the instructions.<\/p>\n

From 1979 to 2012, under the extended Deng Xiaoping era that included Hu Jintao\u2019s rule, however, Chinese people had lived through decades of reform and opening. People had developed a taste of individual freedom. So today, many people \u2013 from the general public to even some cadres of the Communist Party \u2013 use the app only in a formal kind of way without really putting any serious efforts into it. But if you do not pass those tests, you will face problems with your career or other forms of progression. Everybody knows that. So you have not much choice.<\/p>\n

Let us delve into the various compo\u00adnents of Xi\u2019s thought.<\/em> Officially, it is labelled socialist. What are its main ideological undercurrents?<\/em><\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s thought is about forging the idea of one country, one people, one ideology, one party, and one leader. In our book, we charac\u00adterize the political thought of Xi Jinping as Sino-centric Consul\u00adtative Leninism. Its defining charac\u00adter\u00adistics include a primary focus on the security of the party state and the supreme leader, with him coming ahead. The second most important charac\u00adter\u00adistic is the existence of a mechanism that essen\u00adtially tells everybody that China is being made great again. Without the Communist Party, China was weak, poor, under\u00adde\u00adveloped, and the subject of bullying by Western countries. The Communist Party, however, has given China once again a sense of greatness and achieve\u00adments. So, you have every reason to support China.<\/p>\n

How does Xi\u2019s thought<\/em> involve the general population, or \u201cthe masses\u201d \u2013 as old-school socialism would put it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Improving gover\u00adnance under the Sino-centric Consul\u00adtative Leninism is about putting the Communist Party in charge of every\u00adthing, sharing and super\u00adin\u00adtending all government insti\u00adtu\u00adtions, leading the government, people, social organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions, the economy, and so on. When the Communist Party leads every\u00adthing in that Leninist way, China is well governed. When the party is not able to deliver that, the party will in its own way supervise itself. Xi Jinping calls that the \u201cself-revolution\u201d of the Communist Party. Political dissent or religious and ethnic bases are not accepted.<\/p>\n

The fourth defining feature of Xi\u2019s thought is the issue of consul\u00adtation. In China, consul\u00adtation means the reinvig\u00ado\u00adration of the Mao Zedong\u2019s concept of the mass line. It works like this: The party goes out to the general population \u2013 which they already have indoc\u00adtri\u00adnated by using the entire propa\u00adganda machinery of the party state \u2013 to ask what they would like. When the party has formu\u00adlated its policies, it packages the party\u2019s policy to make it look like it has drawn in elements from the consultations.<\/p>\n

How does Xi envision China\u2019s role in the world and within the current world order?<\/em><\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s foreign policy is about making China great again as part of the fulfilment of the Chinese dream of national rejuve\u00adnation. That must be accom\u00adplished by the end of 2049 which is the centenary year of the founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China. When that is achieved, China will accord\u00adingly be recog\u00adnised by the rest of the world as the most advanced, developed, rich, powerful and civilised nation in the world and is therefore a nation to be respected and admired and whose leadership one must therefore follow. It is about effec\u00adtively trans\u00adforming the liberal inter\u00adna\u00adtional order of the post-WWII era into a Sino-centric world order, putting China back in the mythical concep\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions of the medieval past.<\/p>\n

\u2026 as a classical nation\u00adalist move of selec\u00adtively constructing history to your own needs.<\/em><\/p>\n

Indeed! In the second year of his rule, Xi Jinping intro\u00adduced a concept called historical nihilism. It basically means that anybody who comes up with an inter\u00adpre\u00adtation of history that differs from the party\u2019s inter\u00adpre\u00adtation of history is nihilistic and is therefore prohibited and punishable. There is only one narrative of history that is: The best of time in human history was the time when China was the most powerful, advanced, the strongest and richest country in the world, and when China\u2019s neigh\u00adbours succumbed to it.<\/p>\n

It is not seen as utopia, as something to be realized in the far away future, because that was something that had happened repeatedly in history. Xi sees restoring this as China\u2019s positive contri\u00adbution to the world order. It delivers Pax Sinica, by which everybody knows their place and respects and admires the top power; there is no need for the top power to use force to subjugate them. Therefore, it would be better than the liberal inter\u00adna\u00adtional order. There would be no need for the global hegemon to constantly conduct \u201cinter\u00adna\u00adtional policing opera\u00adtions\u201d by using force against other countries against their will.<\/p>\n

That sounds quite bizarre given the conflict over Taiwan. How do you charac\u00adterize and describe the role of that conflict in Xi\u2019s endeavour to make China great again?<\/em><\/p>\n

Taiwan is extremely important, if not critical, in that overall scheme of \u201cXi Jinping\u2019s Thought\u201d. Without having \u201cthe sacred territory of Taiwan\u201d being part of the People\u2019s Republic of China, the whole idea of one country, one people, one ideology, one party and one leader does not make sense. China would not be made great again. Moreover, the substi\u00adtution of the liberal inter\u00adna\u00adtional order by the Sino-centric order, as described above, cannot be achieved without being visibly and effec\u00adtively going eyeball to eyeball with the only existing super\u00adpower and by forcing that super\u00adpower to back off.<\/p>\n

So, if China can take Taiwan \u2013 preferably without a bloody battle, but instead by forcing Taiwan to surrender effec\u00adtively \u2013 where would America stand in the Indo-Pacific? Would European NATO countries still expect that the US could be relied on in coming to their aid under the NATO treaty? So, funda\u00admen\u00adtally, the whole status of the US would be challenged. If China were to fight a war with the United States and then take Taiwan, the effect would even be more dramatic. The humbling of the American might would be unmis\u00adtakeable for the rest of the world to see.<\/p>\n

Let us move back to mainland China. What does Xi\u2019s idea of one country, one people, one ideology, one party, and one leader imply for minority rights?<\/em><\/p>\n

To qualify as a patriotic Chinese, you must subscribe to the mainstream Chinese culture based on Han civil\u00adi\u00adsation and be loyal to the Communist Party and the Supreme Leader. From the perspective of Xi Jinping\u2019s political thought, minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet, or in Hongkong are all people who are being led astray by the mistaken idea of the ethnic, religious, or political belief. Therefore, it is the duty of the Communist Party to educate them and to make them under\u00adstand what really is good for them, which is to become patriotic Chinese.<\/p>\n

So, they can stay as Uyghurs or Hongkongers or Tibetans as much as they like, but they must support the leadership of the Communist Party without questioning and they must admire the leadership of Xi Jinping. If they do all that, they can keep their ethnic dress and they can sing their ethnic songs and even go to mosque or keep their Legislative Council as in Hongkong. In the end, it is all about political and social control.<\/p>\n

To sum up, to what extent is the endeavour of planting the political thought of Xi Jinping into the hearts and minds of the Chinese successful? <\/em><\/p>\n

There is a distinction between the many different strands of Xi Jinping\u2019s thought. Policies that really were harmful to people\u2019s everyday living condi\u00adtions are being resisted where they could. You have seen it with how people were not adhering to the Covid restric\u00adtions, coming out to protest. But when you look at the issue of the greatness of China, for example, then the \u201cXi Jinping Thought\u201d indoc\u00adtri\u00adnation is clearly much more effective.<\/p>\n

In the past five years, the Chinese government did practice a very aggressive approach to diplomacy that under\u00admines what diplomacy is all about. The public does embrace that. You do not see serious criticism of that in China, except among a few academics in private settings. And that tells you in matters that do not affect people immedi\u00adately that propa\u00adganda and indoc\u00adtri\u00adnation work. You do not see the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese who believes in human rights and liber\u00adalism, taking serious issues with what happens in places like Xinjiang or Tibet. Likewise, people buy into Xi\u2019s rhetoric about Taiwan, believing that Taiwan is a \u201csacred territory\u201d of China that must be \u201cre-incor\u00adpo\u00adrated\u201d into China.<\/p>\n

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