US-China war, all the advice of the US State Department to beat Beijing
China's weaknesses and advice to the United States to defeat Beijing. The US State Department document analyzed by Giuseppe Gagliano
The recent document relating to China drawn up by the US State Department is certainly relevant for several reasons: first of all because it once again illustrates a substantially bipolar ideological narrative of the world similar to that formulated during the years of the Cold War in an anti-Soviet function. and more generally anti-communist function; secondly because, in addition to highlighting only the criticalities and vulnerabilities – of which we will speak – of China, the alternatives indicated by the State Department are obviously aimed at consolidating American hegemony on a global level through an approach that is no longer unipolar like the Trumpian one but multipolar approach which, however, beyond the suggestive lexicon, does not modify the substance of the hegemonic design of the United States.
Finally, it is very likely that the indications contained in this document could be the guidelines of the new American administration.
Let's start with the vulnerabilities indicated by the document.
According to State Department analysts, some of China's vulnerabilities stem from the autocratic nature of its political regime. Because of their imperial ambitions and disregard for international norms and standards, autocracies are prone to estrange allies and partners.
First, the Chinese economy faces significant difficulties. Although China is a global manufacturing and technology powerhouse, State Council Premier Li Keqiang admitted in May 2020 that there are still around 600 million people earning a low or middle income, or even less. Their monthly income is just 1,000 yuan (about $ 142), not even enough to rent a room in a mid-range Chinese city. The pandemic has exacerbated the problem by increasing unemployment. Furthermore, prior to the Covid-19 crisis, social unrest in the PRC spread as the economy experienced its lowest growth rate in 30 years. The new reality forces the CCP to take stricter measures to control the population.
Secondly, China is suffering from a worsening of demographic conditions. Population size is on track to peak over the next decade and then gradually decline. To make matters worse, Beijing is about to experience an explosion of those aged 65 and over as its working-age population shrinks dramatically. China's absence of a modern social safety net will impose tensions as workers struggle to support a growing retirement population. Furthermore, as a consequence of China's one-child policy – abolished in 2016 but with consequences that will reverberate for generations – the working-age population will suffer a prolonged gender imbalance (the 2010 census reported 120 males for every 100 females).
Third aspect addressed: China's accelerated economic development has seriously degraded the environment. The PRC has been around for more than a decade and remains the largest source of carbon emissions in the world. Pollution produces dystopian conditions in many of China's major cities, while reducing the country's arable land and clean water. As a result, life expectancy in China has decreased. A recent Lancet study found that 1.1 million people in China die prematurely from air pollution every year.
Fourth, corruption – at the local level as well as at the top of the party – creates risks for the CCP. Many members of the elite got rich at the expense of the people. Along with uneven economic growth and demographic and environmental problems, land repression and expropriation exacerbate discontent, causing more than 130,000 protests of various kinds each year. Such protests are likely to shake the system for years to come
Fifth factor: the CCP devotes considerable resources to the repression of ethnic and religious minorities. In gross violation of the principles set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CCP maintains a military occupation of Tibet dating back to the 1950s, conducts a brutal program in Xinjiang to "re-educate" Uighurs and millions of other Turkish Muslims. it oppresses ethnic Mongols in the autonomous region of Chinese Inner Mongolia and imposes onerous norms on Chinese Christians, who number about 70 million.
Sixth, Beijing allocates extraordinary sums to internal security. The PRC refers to these expenditures, which include central government and regional government costs, as "internal national security spending." An open source analysis suggests that China directs about 18% more to internal security than to external defense. The PRC's spending on homeland security grew from RMB 348.6 billion ($ 57.2 billion) in 2007 to RMB 1.24 trillion in 2017 ($ 197 billion in face value).
Seventh point: the Chinese military lacks popular legitimacy. The purpose of the PLA is to fight for the CCP, not for the people. Consistent with Mao's motto, "political power is born from the barrel of the gun", the party presides over the military decision-making process. However, with the modernization of the ELP, ideological conviction within the ranks decreased while corruption increased. Xi sought to restore party loyalty – more specifically, loyalty to his person – by restoring mandatory ideological training and eliminating senior military generals.
Eighth factor: the CCP faces the serious problem of leadership succession. Uncertainty surrounds the person who will follow Xi Jinping as China's supreme leader. Party practices under Xi deviated from the CCP rules for leadership succession established after Deng Xiaoping. While in the past, the party would have given some indication at this point in the supreme leader's mandate regarding his successor, that question remains shrouded in mystery under Xi.
Nine: China's conduct of foreign affairs generates distrust abroad. According to an October 2020 Pew Research Center poll, "views on China have become more negative in recent years in many advanced economies and unfavorable views have soared over the past year." The global pandemic has amplified international discontent with the PRC. The new coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 has rapidly spread to peoples and nations around the world, in part because China has hidden the outbreak from the world. Beijing has further damaged its reputation through its international disinformation campaign and diplomacy to deflect responsibility for the pandemic. The CCP's shameful conduct has given rise to international demands for accountability over the spread of Covid-19.
In the light of these analyzes, what is the only possible conclusion that the State Department analysts reach?
The CCP faces a classic dilemma typical of an authoritarian government: the more the party employs repressive means to perpetuate its monopoly on state power, the more it risks creating a wedge between itself and the people. At the same time, and even though hundreds of millions in China remain mired in poverty, hundreds of millions have achieved middle-class welfare under the CCP. It remains to be seen to what extent the realization of economic growth, the manipulation of nationalist sentiments and the generation of fear and submission by a state of totalitarian surveillance will allow the CCP to maintain its hold on power.
It also remains to be seen to what extent the CCP can effectively address the variety of specific vulnerabilities China faces. The party's discipline and ruthlessness allowed it to mobilize vast resources and patiently pursue the production of wealth at home and the acquisition of power and influence abroad. At the same time, the CCP's authoritarianism, which eradicates dissent, limits the party's ability to recognize the regime's weaknesses, correct errors and adapt to changing circumstances.
At this point it becomes imperative for the United States to identify the tools necessary to reaffirm its hegemony on a global level. It is no coincidence that the analysts of the State Department formulate a very interesting parallelism under the historical profile between the USSR at the time of the cold war and present-day China.
Soviet authoritarianism combined communism and traditional Russian nationalism with the aim of building a world socialist order with Moscow at the center. Similarly, Chinese authoritarianism combines communism and a hypernationalist interpretation of China's fate. The CCP synthesis governs China's quest to build a world socialist order with Beijing at the center.
It is significant that this parallelism can also easily be used to understand the logic of power projection that has characterized the United States since the end of the Second World War and, in particular, from the Marshall Plan of 1947 to the realization of NATO in 1949.
However, the State Department analysts do not escape the existence of a profound difference with respect to the hegemonic objectives pursued by the USSR during the years of the Cold War. Indeed, if the Soviet Union has mainly expanded its domains and tried to impose its will through military coercion in reverse, China's challenge is not primarily military. While Beijing's nuclear, cyber, and space capabilities pose substantial threats, China primarily pursues the reconfiguration of world affairs through a kind and amount of economic power that the Soviets could only dream of.
At this point, State Department analysts ask themselves a crucial question: how to act to contain China's goals of global hegemony?
First, the United States must guarantee freedom at home. The nation must preserve the constitutional order, which is founded on respect for individual rights, democratic self-government and national sovereignty. The nation must also promote a free market economy that rewards hard work and entrepreneurship and ensures equal opportunities, both by providing housing for those hardest hit by the disruptions of globalization, and by devising incentives to provide people the ability to thrive in areas critical to US security. And the country must cultivate a vibrant civil society that allows people to care for their families, safeguard their communities and form associations of all kinds. Fidelity to American traditions of individual freedom and democratic self-government will produce prosperity and restore civic concord that has always been essential to addressing the nation's challenges abroad.
The first point indicated by the State Department, rather than constituting a concrete solution, seems to be an excerpt of speech taken from the electoral propaganda of the Democratic Party. But let's move on to the second aspect.
According to the State Department, the United States must maintain the world's most powerful, agile and technologically sophisticated militaries, while strengthening security cooperation, based on common interests and shared responsibility, with allies and partners. Furthermore, for the sake of security and prosperity, the United States must once again dedicate itself to maintaining its status as a world leader in technological innovation. Because neither security nor prosperity can be achieved by just one country.
What does an indication of this kind mean in practice? It means that the United States will have to have primacy in the military industry, sell their products in Europe and the Arab world; but it also means that the cooperation of these countries must consist in buying these products – whether they are needed or not – without much discussion ( see F-35 ). But it also means that, in a multipolar world, the United States alone is not able, realistically, to pursue genuine hegemony but can only do so by using its allies. It is no coincidence that the United States has over the course of over fifty years built more than 800 military infrastructures globally and it is no coincidence that the reconfiguration of Africom goes precisely in the direction of reconfiguring its hegemony in the light of the changed balance.
Third, the United States must strengthen the free, open, rules-based international order – which it guided in its creation after World War II – composed of sovereign nation states and based on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Such an order reflects American principles and serves American interests.
The fourth point is certainly interesting not only because the United States presents itself as defenders of human rights – we think it is said with irony about the so-called humanitarian wars recently waged by the United States in Kosovo that have contributed to destabilizing the Balkan area or the countless political destabilizations put in place by the United States during the Cold War in Latin America in Africa in anti-Soviet function certainly implemented in the name of freedom and democracy (sic!) – but it is interesting because without many turns of the word it states that the free world created by United States at the end of World War II must be safeguarded above all to allow the United States to maintain its hegemony globally.
Let's move on to the fifth point.
The fact that China is the most dangerous opponent of the United States does not prejudice the possibility of cooperating with it but at the same time, state Department analysts point out, the United States must support those who in China promote freedom (and who therefore can directly or indirectly benefit the US).
What does such a statement realistically mean? It means that the United States must finance and logistically support all those organizations that in Hong Kong as in Taiwan want to weaken the power of the Chinese Communist Party. In short, we are talking about a real destabilization which is nothing more than a soft variant of the traditional coup d'état carried out by the United States during the cold war – such as that of Pinochet – in an anti-Soviet function. In this regard, we advise the reader to read a short text by Gene Sharp entitled "How to overthrow a regime" (clear letters, 2011), the main theorist of the Arab revolts.
The sixth point, despite its concinnitas, is highly instructive: the United States must engage with Beijing in a cautious and creative way, countering its economic imperialism. Translated into realistic terms it means that Chinese imperialism is harmful while American imperialism is positive because it preserves the freedom of the markets.
But it is undoubtedly the seventh aspect, emphasized by the State Department, that must be the object of our attention.
The United States must educate American citizens on the scope and implications of the Chinese challenge. Only an informed citizenry can be expected to support the complex mix of challenging policies that will enable the United States to guarantee freedom. Executive branch officials and members of Congress must address the public on a regular and direct basis about China's conduct and intentions and the policies the U.S. government must implement to ensure freedom at home and preserve the established international order. In addition, the State Department, Congress, think tanks, and private sector organizations must work together to ensure that government officials and the public have access to English-language translations of key CCP official speeches and writings along with relevant publications. and broadcasts from the Chinese state media, the academic community and the world propaganda machine.
What does this apparently vague and generic indication formulated by the State Department mean on a strictly pedagogical level – because this is basically what we are talking about? It concretely means that high school young people, like those of the university world, will have to be educated in a new anti-Chinese patriotism in some ways similar to what was put in place by the United States during the Second World War as an anti-Nazi function and during the Cold War. in anti-Soviet function. But also speculate – and this does not seem paradoxical – the anti-American nationalism that is touted in the Chinese educational instructions. In this regard, the analysts' considerations regarding the anti-patriotism that would manifest itself in American schools as well as in universities and colleges are even more significant – if it is possible. Translated: instead of defaming and / or criticizing the United States, teachers should instruct and / educate students to assume a posture, so to speak, critical of China.
Well, is a new cold war on the cultural level emerging like the one that was carried out against the USSR?
In this regard, I would like to once again give some advice for reading to the readers of Startmag : I am referring to the essay by Frances Stonor Saunders entitled “The cultural cold war” (Fazi, 2004).
Enjoy the reading!
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/guerra-usa-cina-tutti-i-consigli-del-dipartimento-di-stato-usa-per-battere-pechino/ on Tue, 01 Dec 2020 05:30:05 +0000.