China, with its growing navy and nuclear arsenal, its not-so-veiled threats to conquer Taiwan, and neocolonial Belt & Road Initiative, looks an awful lot like an imperial power bent on expansion. But the truth is that, under Communist Party boss Xi Jinping, it’s impossible to tell what the hell kind of country he wants China to be—a ravenous Communist hegemon, a steady actor on the world stage, or something in between.
The “inscrutable oriental” is such a trope of Western entertainment—and sometimes, even our political thinking—that there’s even a page dedicated to it on TV Tropes. But inside any trope is a kernel of truth, and Chinese Communist Party boss Xi Jinping is nothing if not sometimes inscrutable.
While Xi is bellicose in his statements and in his unprecedented peacetime re-armament program, Joerg Wuttke, president emeritus of the EU Chamber in China, told the Sydney Morning Herald this week that Xi is “not a man in a hurry when it comes to Taiwan.”
“He’s a man who doesn’t gamble. Unlike Putin, he’s a man that wants security and controllable security—and a war in Taiwan is anything but.”
I’m reminded a bit of this line from Ralph Peters’ 1991 technothriller, “The War in 2020,” about China’s lack of concern with a remilitarized and aggressive Japan:
China slept. The Chinese were lost in another of their long cycles of introspection, occasionally raising an eyelid to check on the Japanese, then closing it again, content that their carefully delineated sphere of influence had not been annoyed.
We are not, unfortunately, lucky enough to live in a world where Xi’s China is content to sleep with one eye open because, on the other side of the inscrutability equation are stories of straight-up Chinese imperialism. The Washington Post ran a story last month reminding readers of an incident in Fiji from 2017.
Beijing sent four police detectives to the Pacific island nation to investigate “Chinese nationals suspected of running internet scams.” The two countries had earlier begun a shared policing program involving exchanges and education on both sides. But rather than aid local police, the Chinese cops took over. “Fiji police was only there to assist in the arrest, nothing else,” one Fijian police officer recalled. “All the statements, recordings, and the uplifting of all exhibits was done by the Chinese.” There was no extradition process, no paperwork, no Interpol, no nothin’. The smaller nation has since dropped out of China’s police program, but at the time, the Chinese barged in and ran things like Fiji was an imperial Chinese possession.
That’s straight-up colonialism, and apparently a small part of Beijing’s failed attempt “to forge a sweeping security pact with 10 Pacific island nations,” according to the Post. The pact would have been the biggest challenge to American trade and power (the two are inextricably intertwined) since Imperial Japan from 1937-42.
ASIDE: Beijing’s pact failed in large part because post-colonial-era colonialism requires a softer touch than Communists usually know how to apply. These days, colonialism is more about Levi’s 501s and Apple iPhones than it is about gunboats and Gatling guns. The U.S. might have lost South Vietnam to war, but, culturally, 21st-century Vietnamese young adults, with their blue jeans and smartphones, make it look like we did the conquering. In a sense, we did—long after the fighting stopped.
And yet, a bit closer to home, Beijing has since 2019 been working quietly to make the Solomon Islands—liberated from Imperial Japan at great cost during WWII—a part of the Chinese sphere of influence. “China,” Jill Goldenziel wrote for Forbes last year, is “surely eyeing the Solomons’ untapped mineral resources, as well as its deep water ports that would allow it to block adversary military activity.”
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But despite my well-grounded concerns about the PLA’s massive nuclear and naval buildups, Xi does have more serious concerns closer to home, albeit largely of his own making.
In his 2010 memoir, “Decision Points,” former President George W. Bush described a conversation he had at a summit with then-Chinese premier Hu Jintao. Bush asked Hu, “What keeps you up at night?” Bush said his greatest fear was another 9/11-type terrorist attack. Hu said his fear was creating the “25 million jobs a year” needed to sustain China’s growth—and to keep his own head off the metaphorical chopping block.
Chinese were fleeing rural life in the hinterland and swarming the rapidly modernizing and industrializing coastal cities. Back then, China averaged 10% growth per year. Since Xi reintroduced more Real Communism™ (and harsh COVID lockdowns) to his formerly liberalizing nation, growth has slowed to 2-3%. So has the rush of rural Chinese to the cities. In fact, “reverse migration” is already underway as “millions of Chinese people did not go back to urban areas for work after the coronavirus pandemic last year,” according to NBC News. “Rural-urban migration already slowed before covid and had its first decline in 2020,” Shanghai economist Dan Wang told NBC in 2021.
These developments might actually make Xi smile, if somewhat inscrutably.
Getting back to Wuttke in today’s Sidney Morning Herald, he also noted that “China will definitely have to live with a much lower growth projection.” Comrade Xi, he says, “is willing to sacrifice economic growth for the sake of ideology.
“The old equation was always that China does anything to add economic growth because that was the perception of what keeps us in office,” Wuttke said, but what keeps Xi in power is “utter, 110 percent control.”
Lower growth might be enough to satisfy the demands of a shrinking population. Whether or not that’s the case, lower growth is the inevitable result of Xi’s increased command and control over the economy—and is obviously a price he’s willing to make his people pay.
Xi’s desire for total control doesn’t seem to square with launching a risky war over Taiwan, but before we let down our guard, it’s a perfect fit for Beijing’s growing imperial ambitions in the western Pacific and Southeast Asia, plus a huge arc of nations stretching around the Indian Ocean from Australia through South Africa.
It might well be that not even Xi knows exactly what kind of country he wants China to be. It might be that Xi is, in the end, mostly improvising in the international sphere while keeping his eye on his true goal, which is purely domestic. That’s keeping the CCP in 110 percent control of China and Xi 110 percent control of the CCP.
P.S. Need a little mirth after all of today’s serious news? Then don’t miss the “Five O’Clock Somewhere” VIP Gold Live Chat with Stephen Kruiser and Yours Truly at 4 p.m. Eastern on Mondays and Fridays. There is sometimes a special guest, and almost always day-drinking.
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