China

Regardless of its strategic intent, the Build Back Better World initiative could be a huge win for global welfare, sustainable development, and multilateralism.

For many, a quick glance at the Olympics medals table reinforces the idea of China as a threat—a country pursuing victory at any cost.

Xi Jinping's speech marking the one hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party demonstrated China is unlikely to drastically change its approach to Taiwan anytime soon.  

Highlighting the Belt and Road Initiative’s problematic labor practices, and pressing China to tighten regulations further, is an important step toward improving the human outcomes associated with BRI.

Captain Robert Francis is an officer in the U.S. Navy, specializing in surface ships, and a former military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Lieutenant Commander Roswell Lary is a Foreign Area Officer in the U.S. Navy and a recent graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. The United States, and Southeast Asian countries with competing claims to those of China in the South China Sea, have had difficulty responding to Beijing’s South China Sea gray zone tactics. Gray zone tactics, as defined by Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, are acts beyond normal deterrence or assurances that attempt to achieve one’s security objectives while falling below the threshold that would elicit armed responses. In the South China Sea, Beijing is using the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM), China’s armed fishing fleet, as a gray zone actor to assert Beijing’s claims to disputed territories. The PAFMM reinforces Beijing’s claims by keeping Southeast Asian fishermen out of their traditional fertile fishing grounds and reserving access for China’s massive fishing fleet. Beijing has asserted rights over a majority of the South China Sea through their depiction of the “nine-dash line.” This line suggests that more than 90 percent of the waters and features in the South China Sea belongs to Beijing. The line is contested by many Southeast Asian claimants and violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Jurisdictional, legal, and diplomatic issues limit the responses of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard to these Chinese tactics; Southeast Asian nations with competing claims mostly do not have adequate maritime forces to counter these tactics. Regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that rely on reaching a consensus to act will almost certainly never confront China’s use of its armed fishing fleet in the South China Sea, since some ASEAN members are close to Beijing. One solution to more effectively countering quasi-civilian forces like the PAFMM is to expose these gray zone activities through extensive social media campaigns throughout Southeast Asia, which would expose the PAFMM as more than just a fishing fleet and show how its activities are not only helping China stake claims to territory but hurting Southeast Asian economic interests. Beginning in 2012, Beijing began to increase its use of gray zone tactics in the South China Sea. This escalation included the 2012 seizure of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines, extensive artificial island building between 2014 and 2017, and an increased use of the Chinese Coast Guard and PAFMM in the South China Sea. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard units have responded by taking more actions in the region. Freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) increased from zero in 2014 to an all-time high of ten in 2019. The Navy, which maintains 60 percent of its fleet in the Indo-Pacific, conducted tri-carrier strike force operations in the region in 2017 and 2020, a herculean accomplishment given how much planning and resources goes into deploying so many aircraft carrier groups together. The increased U.S. and partner countries’ military presence in the South China Sea, and diplomatic statements condemning Beijing’s South China Sea actions, have had little effect in deterring China’s use of quasi-civilian forces such as the PAFMM. In April 2021, Beijing had 220 PAFMM vessels anchored in Whitsun Reef, a feature within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. This buildup of PAFMM was likely in response to the 2021 U.S.-Philippine Balikatan (Tagalog phrase for “shoulder-to-shoulder”) Exercise, since China’s actions came just before the exercise. Fortunately, the presence of so many forces around Whitsun Reef did not escalate into a wider conflict. It is a losing strategy to send U.S. or Southeast Asian warships to settle disputes like the PAFMM Whitsun Reef tactics. First, it risks escalation. While the Philippine Navy might be able to sink the PAFMM boats, China’s Navy and Coast Guard units, which patrol just beyond visual range of the reef, could respond with even greater force if the PAFMM boats were attacked. Second, an armed response by the Philippine (or other Southeast Asian) Navy, or an armed response by U.S. warships, would potentially be a public relations nightmare. Even if the People's Liberation Army Navy and Coast Guard chose not to respond, images of Philippine or U.S. military units attacking what seems to much of the world like unarmed fishing vessels could be portrayed by Beijing as an excessive use of force. A better way to respond to China’s use of quasi-civilian units in the South China Sea would be to impose a high public diplomacy cost on Beijing for such tactics. Imposing this cost would require a strategy that centered the voices of fishermen affected by the PAFMM and showed that these PAFMM units are actually military tools enforcing Chinese claims and also damaging fishermen’s livelihoods. Regional governments like the Philippines, Vietnam, and others, perhaps with some financial backing from regional leaders like Japan and the United States, could develop more coordinated social media campaigns, helping fishermen capture their harassment in the South China Sea, and then developing videos, images, and stories from the South China Sea on regional and global social media outlets. Right now, there are some stories and videos that emerge on social media from fishermen harassed in the South China Sea, but they lack any organized social media campaign that places their stories in a larger narrative, explains more fully the role of the PAFMM, and provides extensive information about how badly the PAFMM affects regional livelihoods. If regional governments, working with and centering the fishermen (who of course would have to consent to being involved in this strategy, since it could put them at further risk), could create narratives focused on how relatively low-income Southeast Asian fishermen are being disadvantaged by the PAFMM, they could expose the PAFMM as much more than a unit of fishing boats. They also could win regional and global sympathy. Think, for example, of videos of assertive Chinese vessels tossing the catch of a struggling Philippine or Vietnamese fisherman overboard, and these videos then promoted through comprehensive social media campaigns. In addition, Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea do not only impact Southeast Asian fishermen—they also impact an entire industry of people who process and sell the fish in the region. Specific resources required for this effort would include audio/visual equipment such as cell phones or internet-accessible devices loaded with the right applications for fishermen at sea, training sessions for users on how to make, edit, and distribute quality videos through social media, and reliable internet access for vessels at sea that would allow them to broadcast interactions live. Given that such a social media effort would portray Beijing in a highly negative light, and would challenge Beijing’s interests in the South China Sea, China would probably launch a vigorous response. This response could include PAFMM sailors destroying the audio/visual equipment of fishermen, arresting fishermen, and Beijing responding with its own social media campaign. But since many of Beijing’s social media campaigns have proven simplistic and often counterproductive, these tactics could backfire against China in terms of regional and global opinion. Such a social media strategy could be a relatively cheap and simple way for Southeast Asian states facing growing PAFMM use to highlight and contest maritime disputes. Furthermore, it potentially places Beijing in the unenviable position of using disproportionate force against those fishermen who choose to challenge their claim, or do nothing and appear to be weak in response.

Roman Shemakov is currently a Henry Luce Scholar in Taiwan and coauthor of The Digital Transformation of Property in Greater China: Finance, 5G, AI, and Blockchain. In a matter of a month, the stability that separated Taiwan from the global tumult of the past year has been brought to an end. A deadly train crash that killed forty-nine, the worst drought in four decades, and intermittent power outages that would normally dominate Taiwan’s headlines for much of the year have taken a back seat to the biggest outbreak of COVID-19 infections in Taiwan since the pandemic started. Only a mass vaccination campaign can fully resolve the ongoing pandemic. For the past month, Taiwan’s quest to purchase vaccines has been supported by the United States and Japan, and impeded by China and divisive local politics. For the past year and a half, Taiwan successfully prevented mass community spread of COVID-19 and had been touted as a global success story. Despite widespread lockdowns across the world, Taiwan became one of the few places to remain open, with its economy still growing by 3 percent in 2020. In addition, the island lent tens of millions of shipments of critical personal protective equipment to countries across the world. The eighteen months of relative normalcy in Taiwan ended due to general complacency. Cross contamination at a quarantine hotel for local pilots led to three weeks of unnoticed community spread. Unprepared hospitals lacked the proper space for infected patients. Lack of testing infrastructure caused diagnosis delays and week-long backlogs of cases. As a result, some Taiwanese victims have been found dead in their homes or offices—only then to be diagnosed with COVID-19. Taiwan’s fourteen thousand confirmed cases in almost two years still pale in comparison to most international outbreaks. Australia, with a comparable population of twety-five million people, has had twice as many infections. Over the course of the pandemic, the United States’ infection rate per 100,000 is more than 166 times that of Taiwan. The current downward trend of new infections is a positive sign that the prevention measures taken in May and June were a success, but the outbreak is far from over. Delays in the regional production of AstraZeneca vaccines destined for Taiwan, pressure from China, and domestic political squabbling together have significantly delayed Taipei’s campaign to purchase enough vaccines to inoculate twenty-three million Taiwanese. Taiwan still has not received the ten million AstraZeneca vaccines it ordered between September 2020 and February 2021 due to EU regulations tightening vaccine exports and production problems with the British company’s vaccine manufacturing partner in Asia. Siam Bioscience, AstraZeneca’s partner and a first-time vaccine manufacturer, has been delayed by months due to “production problems.” The manufacturing issues have also delayed vaccine deliveries to Malaysia and Philippines. While Taiwan has pre-ordered ten million doses of its domestically-developed vaccines, they are expected to complete clinical trials only in July. With only 7 percent of the population vaccinated to date, it is unlikely that Taiwan will reach its vaccination target of 50 percent of the population by year’s end. During the ongoing outbreak, cross-Strait relations have reached one of the lowest points in recent memory. In January, Taiwan agreed to purchase five million doses of BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines directly from BioNTech. The German company requested that the word “country” be dropped from the announcement of the purchase. Despite Taiwan’s agreement to not use the word “country” in the announcement, the deal has remained unfulfilled. Taiwanese media reported that a senior Chinese executive at BioNTech’s U.S. headquarters played a role in the delays. President Tsai Ing-Wen, who handily won re-election last year, has accused China of interfering with Taiwan’s vaccine procurement to purposely cause delays. China has denied claims of interference, while continuing to offer donations of Chinese-made vaccines to Taiwan. China’s Fosun Pharma owns the distribution rights of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine for mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Taiwan is legally unable to purchase vaccines from Fosun Pharma because of a law banning all Chinese medical imports. Additionally, Tsai Ing-Wen has stated she will not negotiate with any Chinese entity as long as China continues to interfere in Taiwan’s vaccine affairs. As a result, Taiwan has only placed orders for AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines, neither of which are expected to be entirely fulfilled until the end of the summer. To date, 60 percent of the vaccines in Taiwan are donations from the governments of Japan (1.24 million doses) and the United States (2.5 million doses). The recent donations to Taiwan are a sign of increased coordination between the United States and Japan on cross-Strait issues. In April, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the White House, and for the first time in half a century leaders of the two countries directly mentioned Taiwan in a joint statement, supporting “stability across the Taiwan Strait.” The draft of a Japanese defense ministry report released a month later mentioned that the security of Taiwan is vital for the security of Japan and the international community. When the Japanese government decided to donate 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Taiwan, American representatives were reportedly present during the talks to facilitate the vaccine’s successful arrival. The United States has similarly increased its public support of Taiwan. A few days after Japan’s donation, three U.S. senators visited Taiwan in a show of solidarity during the outbreak and promised to donate another 750,000 vaccines. The high-profile visit came amidst a string of supportive U.S. policies. In January 2021, the Trump administration lifted all restrictions on U.S. government contacts with Taiwanese officials. The Biden administration has kept the relaxed contact guidelines in place and the State Department has reiterated unequivocal support for Taiwan. Last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned China for making it difficult for Taipei to receive vaccines. In June, the G-7 emphasized in its official communique the “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the first mention of Taiwan since the organization’s founding in 1973. Additionally, the joint statement between South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Joe Biden made a similar reference to Taiwan. While Taiwan has received generous support from the United States and Japan, its own domestic politics are undermining its response to COVID-19. The opposition KMT is attempting to turn worsening relations with China, the pandemic response, and the difficulties in obtaining vaccines into election issues to win back its waning support. As a result, domestic disinformation campaigns have become more widespread and damaging. Erroneous claims that Taiwan refused additional vaccine donations from Japan, domestic vaccines are unable to complete necessary trials, or that the president is secretly sick with COVID-19 have spread like wildfire on social media. Since May 2020, Tsai Ing-Wen’s approval rating has fallen from an all-time high of 71 percent to less than 40 percent today. The ongoing domestic tensions signal a bitter struggle for the presidency in 2024. The issues with Taiwan’s vaccine procurement are making a rebound in cross-Strait relations more difficult. Over the past few years, Taiwan’s public trust in China and support of unification has continued to fall. It is likely that China’s interference in vaccine procurement, increased military drills in Taiwan’s airspace, and aggressive diplomacy will only further alienate Taiwanese citizens.

China’s Communist Party (CCP) celebrates its one hundredth anniversary in July, although the specific date of its founding remains a bit unclear. It has long outlived most of the world’s other communist parties, and has outlived numerous predictions by both foreign and some Chinese scholars that the Party-state would collapse. It has pursued policies that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and modernized large portions of the country, which contributed to Beijing’s legitimacy. It also has, at least between the Deng Xiaoping and the beginning of the Xi Jinping era, proven more adaptable in its economic policy–making, some of its domestic policy–making related to social issues, and some of its foreign policy–making than many observers expected. For instance, after alienating many Southeast Asian states in the 1970s and 1980s, Beijing pursued a relatively effective soft power effort in the 1990s and early 2000s designed to bolster its regional image and smooth the way for China to become the dominant trading partner with Southeast Asia, and to sign a trade deal with Southeast Asian states. The CCP also has, in the past two decades, inculcated nationalism among younger Chinese, tying that nationalism to the CCP itself. And it has skillfully used a crackdown on links to the outside world, and a portrayal of wealthy democracies as failing to contain COVID-19 and rife with internal problems to boost the image of the CCP. It has become confident enough that Xi and the CCP in general have, on multiple occasions, sought to promote China’s model of authoritarian state capitalism, enabled by technology, to multiple other countries. And yet under Xi Jinping, the CCP is not unassailable. Under Xi, China has become far more repressive domestically, and assertive internationally—often so assertive, via Beijing’s “wolf-warrior diplomacy” and assertive moves in the South China Sea and South Asia borders, that it is turning world opinion against it. China’s thus-far ineffective vaccine diplomacy, combined with its wolf-warrior diplomacy, may further come to a head in the run-up to the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. The fact that the Biden administration appears to be pursuing similarly tough policies toward China as the Trump administration—and that many European countries are increasingly toughening their approach too—also could further isolate China internationally. China faces internal challenges as well. Harsh repression in Xinjiang, in Hong Kong, and among the population in many other parts of China risks not only atomization and fragmentation of the population but also a backlash, especially if the central government fails to maintain high growth rates and to keep COVID-19 under control. In addition, as my colleague Elizabeth Economy has written, China faces a serious demographic crisis, in which it is aging rapidly and may be left without enough younger workers to fill jobs as the population ages. In addition, as she notes, harsh gender discrimination limits China’s economy and its future growth, as does discrimination against ethnic minorities, who are essentially being taken out of the talent pool. What’s more, rural China remains extremely poor, and China is developing some of the worst income inequality in the world. Xi’s abandoning of China’s consensus-style leadership at the top, and his clear plan to serve more than two terms as president, also risks putting China in the position of having no clear successor to Xi, (in contrast to the well-planned and signaled successions of Hu Jintao and Xi) and a succession crisis if Xi gets sick or suddenly dies. And Xi’s increasing authoritarianism strangles China’s creative class, Economy notes, hurting innovation in a range of industries, including the vital technology sector, and possibly hindering China’s long-term growth by undermining private sector companies and innovative firms. Yet despite all these challenges, China is continuing to become a dominant actor in much of Southeast Asia, and an increasingly assertive actor on the world stage, including in areas of global governance. For more on China’s historical views of global governance, and how Beijing addresses global governance today, see the CFR Interactive report China’s Approach to Global Governance, by CFR Senior Fellow for Global Health Yanzhong Huang and myself.