Xi Jinping

Together, China’s rise and Trump’s reactions threaten to bury the liberal international order and limit Sino-American cooperation, and tensions could well spill over into other regions and global challenges.

The recent move to eliminate presidential term limits in China is music to the ears of many African leaders uninterested in transitioning out of power, and a blow to emerging African governance norms. Coming at a time when the United States lacks both the appetite and credibility to promote good governance, President Xi’s power grab adds a new dimension to the appeal of the “Chinese model” for some African leaders, and strengthens the headwinds faced by those working to entrench democratic institutions.  From Burundi to Uganda to Cameroon, many African leaders have been resisting term and age limits on their tenures, altering constitutions if necessary and personalizing executive power. “Third termism” has been something of a contagion, and is often justified with arguments about how consistent leadership is required for stable and transformative development. Now China’s own internal dynamics may provide new legitimacy to this trend.  To be sure, talk of a U.S.-Chinese rivalry in Africa is often overstated and rarely illuminating, but the appealing timing of the Xi’s move is undeniable for would-be despots in part because of the weakened capacity of the United States, the most vocal external opponent of third termism, to promote an agenda that champions democracy and governance. Sins of omission like leaving senior diplomatic posts unfilled, self-inflicted wounds like President Trump’s reported vulgar characterization of African states, and dissonance generated by the president’s declared admiration and affinity for authoritarian leaders have caused the United States to recede in relevance when it comes to this battle of ideas.  Of course, African advocates for democracy, transparency, and respect for civil and political rights are by no means dependent on the United States or any other external actor for support or leadership. Just over a year ago, West African states banded together to insist on an orderly transition in The Gambia when the long-serving president, to his surprise, lost the election. The people of Burkina Faso rose up in protest when confronted with Blaise Compaoré’s plan to scrap term limits and ultimately drove him from office. Right now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the sitting President’s last term expired in December 2016, activists are risking their lives to insist on long-overdue elections and a changing of the guard at the top. The government of Botswana, which has a solid record of vocal support for democratic norms, recently weighed in with surprisingly direct language urging Kabila to go. But adding the potential endorsement of “leadership for life” to the already formidable Chinese development model and commercial presence on the continent makes a lonely struggle even harder for these African voices. As one longtime democracy activist recently put it, “it’s hard to build a successful movement when feeling so isolated and exposed.” 

Term limits for the leadership are not usually found in dictatorships. The Chinese Communist Party’s proposed abolition of China’s presidential term limit means that it has forgotten one of the main lessons of Mao’s long despotism. The two-term limit was inserted into the People’s Republic of China Constitution after the Cultural Revolution ended and reflected a widespread desire to prevent the return of one-man dictatorship. Its abolition signals the likelihood of another long period of severe repression. This should prompt us to think of Chiang Kaishek as well as Mao and Yuan Shikai and, in a comparative Asian vein, of Marcos and Park among others. Of course, some recognize that Putin’s example may also have significantly influenced Xi Jinping. Xi’s move will have a profound effect on world order. It will enable him to move more boldly and increases the risk of his acting arbitrarily and perhaps mistakenly in international relations. It will surely hinder China’s efforts to be respected for “soft power” as well as military and economic prowess. Xi decided to strike while the iron is hot rather than wait for later in his new term when increasing problems might have made the change more difficult. His brash step has undoubtedly aroused profound concern among the elite. Many high Party personnel, bureaucrats, judicial officials, lawyers, intellectuals, academics and business people, mindful of the past Maoist dictatorship and the increasingly repressive and arbitrary government under Xi, have seen this coming and now, in social media and other informal ways, are showing their anxieties and opposition. But not many public signs of protest can be expected, since he has stifled free expression in the past few years. There must be great grumbling and concern among the country’s elite and educated, especially since the same Party “proposals” that have eliminated term limits have also confirmed the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission that will make the regime more repressive and more free of legal restraints than ever, imposing what amounts to “the Inquisition with Chinese characteristics.” There is big risk for Xi at home since, as it becomes more obvious that China’s problems are catching up with its achievements, the government will look less impressive and the masses will begin to lose their enthusiasm and hold the great leader responsible. The elite will be less surprised but less forgiving. The external risk is more immediate. Xi’s bold consolidation of power will enhance fear of “the China threat”, and his ever greater repression will make people think of Stalin’s decades-long centralization of power, even though, one hopes, Xi will not engage in mass executions. He already is engaging in mass detentions in Xinjiang even though “re-education through labor” was abolished in name a few years ago. These “proposals” are at least a 1-2 punch against the Constitution when we consider the simultaneous establishment of the National Supervisory Commission. People often wonder—even now—how in 1937 Stalin could have said: “We need the stability of the law more than ever.” while at the very same time displaying the infamous “purge trials” to the world and lawlessly executing huge numbers of people. Xi claims to be strengthening the “rule of law” while making certain that it will never get off the ground. Tell it to all the tens of thousands in Xinjiang who are locked up in Xi’s successor camps to the supposedly abolished “re-education through labor”.

According to a recent Foreign Affairs article, U.S. policy toward China has failed. Two senior Asia officials who served in the Obama administration, my good friends Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner (who is also my CFR colleague), argued in the piece that U.S. strategy toward China has been a miserable failure, filled with one misguided effort to change China after another. In their assessment, nothing the United States has done to influence Beijing’s behavior has worked—not sticks, not carrots, not soybeans, nothing. It is easy to see where they are coming from. China is not a thriving liberal democracy and reliable partner for the United States. Instead, it is an increasingly authoritarian, economically and militarily powerful country bent on pushing the United States out of Asia and shaping international norms to suit its own purposes (which are mostly, but not completely, at cross-purposes with those of the United States). It is also seeking to establish itself as a peer competitor militarily and in the development of advanced technology. The current situation is disappointing to say the least; massively concerning to say the most. But, does the fact that China is not developing the way we want mean that we have failed? Only if we believe that 1) we had the power to determine how China would turn out; 2) we can’t point to any success in the current situation; and 3) we believe that this is the end of the road for China’s political and economic evolution. Let’s start with point one. We were never in a position to control the political and economic outcomes of China. We are not in a position to control the outcomes in any country. Just take a quick look at Cuba or even Thailand and the Philippines--our nominal treaty allies. When we try to effect wholesale change, say for example in Iraq, things often deteriorate rapidly. What we can do is to structure opportunities and constraints, but ultimately the political decision-makers in sovereign countries decide their own path forward. Point two. China is not all bad all the time. We have had, and can continue to have, a positive impact. With pressure from the United States, China stepped up to the plate to do more than it originally had planned on climate change, Ebola, and sanctions on North Korea. Since the mid-1990s, partnerships between Chinese and American NGOs—and U.S. and Chinese government actors—have produced significant and important changes in Chinese laws and behavior in areas such as the environment, the economy, and broader social policy. Point three—and perhaps the most important—political change is a long game, and the game is not over. There are many people in China—including senior officials, billionaire entrepreneurs, well-known cultural figures, and civil society activists—who are not enamored of Xi Jinping’s more repressive political turn. Chinese leaders change over time and bring their own political inclinations. Does anyone remember Hu Yaobang or Zhao Ziyang?  Could we imagine a different China emerging over the past five years with a different Chinese leader at the helm, for example, Li Keqiang or Wang Yang? We have only to look at our own political system over the past fifty years to understand the importance of the impact of individual leaders in shaping domestic and foreign policy. This is not naiveté—it is comparative politics 101. What to do now? Campbell and Ratner suggest two guiding principles for U.S. policy moving forward: first, humility in considering how much we can change China; and second, strengthening U.S. fundamentals at home in order to project a strong, competitive policy abroad. I couldn’t agree more. But we have other tools as well. Let’s think of this new China under Xi Jinping as presenting not only new challenges but also new opportunities. We can leverage Xi Jinping’s ambition to pressure him to do more to respond to global challenges or to uphold the principles of globalization that he claims to champion. Adopting reciprocity, we can fight back against Chinese protectionism with our own brand of protectionism. And, of course, old tools are still important. We should deepen our outreach to likeminded allies and partners. I visited Vietnam in January and was struck by the enthusiasm for partnership with the United States—not only through growing security cooperation but also capacity building, such as helping Vietnamese farmers diversify their agricultural exports away from a reliance on China (in this case, a partnership project between the U.S-led Asia Foundation, on whose board I sit, and the Australian government). Campbell and Ratner are concerned about China chipping away at the U.S. system of alliances and partnerships. However, we have the tools to ensure that doesn’t happen, and we shouldn’t be afraid to use them. An effective response to China will require the mobilization of all the U.S. inherent strengths, as well as the adoption of new tools. We may be back on our heels now, but Americans love an underdog. So let’s dig in and get to work.

The New Year has brought a rash of new articles and proclamations to the effect that the retreat of the United States has left the door open for China to walk through and assume the mantle of global leadership. Let me offer an alternative argument: We suck, but China does too. The truth is that neither the United States nor China is currently up to the job of forging the type of consensus that addresses global challenges and advances the international system writ large. The only difference is that the United States now has a leader who makes clear that he simply doesn’t care about the rest of the world while China has a leader that at least pretends to care. So what is the case for Chinese leadership? China’s claim is strongest on the purely economic front. It is investing heavily in all forms of technology from clean energy to artificial intelligence, and despite massive waste and fraud can be counted among the world’s top performers. China has also set out a grand-scale vision for global connectivity, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), that could, in fact, transform the international landscape. The fact that the BRI is self-serving—what better means of off-loading Chinese overcapacity in heavily polluting industries than by building infrastructure elsewhere—is somewhat beside the point. There is the opportunity for “win-win” cooperation as the Chinese like to say; it is up to other countries to tell China when projects don’t meet their needs (as Pakistan and Nepal have done recently). There will be many white elephants along the way, but there is a lot of leadership demonstrated in conceptualizing a worldwide infrastructure project to facilitate trade and investment globally. (As a reality check, it is noteworthy that while China is the largest trading partner for much of the world, it is not the largest investor in any overall region.)  Most analysts raise the example of climate change in discussing Chinese leadership. I have written before about why China should not be considered a climate leader—at least not yet. But to sum up my argument briefly, China continues to develop significant numbers of carbon emitting coal-to-chemical plants that, if completed, are equal to roughly 10 percent of its current CO2 contribution and more than Germany’s total carbon emissions in 2015. (This doesn’t even include its planned export of more than 100 coal-fired power plants through its Belt and Road Initiative.)  In 2018, the independent monitoring groups German Watch and Climate Action Network ranked China 41st in terms of how much it has done to avoid climate change and how much it plans to do. But most important, for real leadership on climate change, China should be rallying other countries to take on even more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets or leading the charge on transparency in monitoring and reporting—yet China is doing neither of these things and is even a drag on the transparency front. Of course, no discussion of world leadership should ignore the quality of governance that a country brings to the table. President Xi suggested at the October 2017 19th Party Congress that China could serve as a model for—or at least advise—other countries on their development. Yet with its facial and voice recognition software, social credit system, and renewed effort to persuade Chinese citizens to report on each other, China is well on its way to becoming a police state. Watching Beijing’s adoption of repressive new political measures, as well as the gradual encroachment of mainland political norms on Hong Kong citizens, is devastating. Would any society in the world willingly subscribe to a political model such as China’s? Moreover, China behaves as a bully—wielding its economic leverage not to advance global goods such as containing nuclear proliferation but instead to punish other countries for perceived political infractions. Norway, South Korea, the Philippines, and even tiny Palau have all felt the economic wrath of China in the recent past for making decisions with which Beijing disagreed. (Interestingly, none of the countries reversed course in the face of Chinese sanctions.) Finally, part of being a world leader means that others will follow. Yet even in China’s own backyard, there is little indication that many countries are excited at the prospect of Chinese leadership.  A quick look at the most recent Pew Poll suggests that among the larger countries in Asia, most citizens are far from willing to jump on the China express. Responding to a question of “How much confidence do you have in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs?,” the response “a lot” was voiced by 12 percent in the Philippines and 0 percent in Japan. The rest of the countries—Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam—ranged from 3 to 4 percent.  Astonishingly, in India, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, confidence in President Trump was higher than in President Xi. There is little doubt that President Trump is sharply diminishing U.S. standing globally. His erratic tweets and impulsive policy pronouncements make the United States appear an unreliable partner—no matter how hard his cabinet tries to mitigate the damage. He is harming U.S. innovative capacity through his mean-spirited policies on immigration. And the impending explosion in the U.S. deficit will burden generations of Americans to come. Yet even as the United States loses standing, China is not the natural stand-in. China has yet to demonstrate the essential elements of global leadership—a willingness and ability to bring others to the table to forge consensus, and to align and, if necessary, subordinate its own narrow interests to those of the larger international community. China could one day fill the role—but until it does, let’s look to Europe, Canada, and perhaps Japan for the type of leadership the world needs in the absence of the United States. 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s first visit to Beijing was an exhibition of mutual flattery. China rolled out the red carpet for what it termed a 'state visit plus,' replete with unprecedented pomp and circumstance for an American leader.  Trump returned the favor with incessant fawning over Chinese President Xi Jinping, supplemented by extravagant admiration for China. 'Nothing you can see is so beautiful,' he said of a full-dress Chinese military parade he witnessed in Beijing. The mood contrasted sharply with Trump’s heated campaign rhetoric (recall his declaration 'We can't continue to allow China to rape our country'), eliciting a flood of analyses in the Western press that he had reversed course toward a softer approach to Beijing. China’s state-run media was all too happy to reinforce this message, billing the summit as locking in a positive path for the U.S.-China relationship. Don’t count on it. Happy veneer aside, three factors at home are likely to drive the U.S. toward a harder line on China in the months and years ahead. Call it the 'Three Ps'. First, people. Trump is slowly, but surely, filling out his Asia team at the National Security Council, State Department, and Defense Department. Not by accident, there’s a near consensus among these political appointees — shared throughout the administration — on the need for a more competitive strategy toward China. That will begin to show. Second, policy development. The Trump administration is finally beginning to get its national security policymaking process up and running. With two big official strategy documents — the National Defense Strategy and the National Security Strategy — likely to drop in the coming months, expect to see a portrayal of China as first and foremost a strategic competitor. This doesn’t mean the Trump administration will demonstrate perfect coherence or competence on foreign policy, but these frames will drive and inform day-to-day decisions on Asia. When, as anticipated, the administration gets around to focusing on other regional issues beyond North Korea (with Taiwan and South China Sea as leading contenders), the possibility of greater friction with China is far more likely than not. The third and most important factor driving the U.S. toward a harder line on China is politics. Consider how Democrats and even some Republicans have pulled Trump back to a more moderate position on Iran. With China, it’s going to be the opposite. The dominant criticism in Washington — across the political spectrum — is that Trump has failed to deliver on China. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has accused Trump of being 'nothing more than a paper tiger' on China. Across the aisle, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn, recently introduced legislation to increase scrutiny of Chinese investments in the U.S., arguing that 'It’s time to wake up to the mounting risks' of China’s threat to the American economy. And let’s not forget that the Bannon-ist, populist, nationalist wing of the GOP first lit this issue on fire in 2016 by blaming China for emptying U.S. factories. Bottom line: ahead of elections in 2018 and 2020, Trump will feel mounting pressure from all sides to make good on his campaign promise to hold China to account for its unfair trade practices. But is America even capable of taking on Beijing if it wanted to? You don’t have to search far these days to find doomsday predictions of American decline. Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer stole the mid-November cover of TIME magazine to argue the contest is already over, proclaiming that 'China Won'. Sensing a similar reversal of fortune, former Foreign Policy chief editor David Rothkopf tweeted upon the President’s departure to Asia that 'Trump about to make history as first POTUS who had to travel all the way to PRC to meet world's most powerful man.' Fair enough: After all, who could fail to compare Xi Jinping’s Davos-friendly odes to globalization with Donald Trump’s protectionism and damaging withdrawal from the Paris climate deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement? Yet the reality in Asia betrays a far more complicated picture. For starters, in spite of (or, perhaps, because of) concerns about Donald Trump, the most important happenings while Trump was in Asia were demonstrations of resistance to — not willing or reluctant acceptance of — China’s growing influence. On trade and investment, the remaining eleven members of the TPP managed to move forward on the deal without the U.S. Washington’s absence was notable and costly, but more significant is the collective desire in the region to avoid a China-led economic order. Similarly, for the first time in a decade, senior officials from Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. met as a 'Quad' to re-energize cooperation among the region’s leading democracies. Again, little nuance that this is anything other than an effort to generate alternatives to a Sino-centric future. It bears remembering that Xi Jinping may be consolidating power at home, but remains deeply unpopular overseas. Pew Research polls, often used as evidence of Trump’s low ratings globally, have also shown that the world has barely more confidence in Xi, leaving the Chinese President about as popular as Vladimir Putin. Despite the billions of dollars the Chinese government has spent trying to burnish its leader’s image abroad, Xi’s numbers are in the basement compared to respected figures like Angela Merkel and Barack Obama. This all suggests it is premature to declare China victorious while the region and the world are rejecting both its leadership and its leader. Finally, let’s remember that, despite Trump’s corrosive effect, the foundations of American power remain strong. The U.S. economy is still the largest and most advanced in the world, with the best universities, the most capable military, strong demographics, and a vibrant civil society. By comparison, take your issue area — economics, politics, environment, energy, demographics, ideology — and China’s position looks more perilous than dominant. China is no doubt a force to be reckoned with, but Trump has the wherewithal to play hardball on trade, Taiwan, or the South China Sea should he choose. Donald Trump, of course, is the ultimate wildcard, and predicting the future of U.S. foreign policy under his watch is risky business. Nonetheless, all signs are now pointing toward a harder U.S. line against China, regardless of either the royal treatment Trump received in Beijing or his 'great chemistry' and 'very good relationship' with Xi. This post originally appeared in The Interpreter, published by the Lowy Institute.

One dominant theme of President Xi Jinping’s political report at the 19th Party Congress is China’s national rejuvenation. China was described as a “great power” or a “strong power” 26 times in his speech. According to Xi, by the middle of this century China will become a leading nation in comprehensive national power and international status. This will usher in a “New Era”: if Mao made China independent (zhan qi lai), and Deng made it prosperous (fu qi lai), Xi will make it strong again (qiang qi lai). Thrilled by this prospect, a top education official predicted that in 2049, Chinese standards of education will become the standards of the world. What is not emphasized in the report is that China’s path toward becoming a world leader is not likely to be smooth sailing. In order to fulfill these ambitious targets, China has to overcome four traps: the Middle-Income Trap, the Tacitus Trap, the Thucydides Trap, and the Kindleberger Trap. The Middle-Income Trap occurs when a country attains a certain income and gets stuck at that level, which falls short of that of advanced economies. Keenly aware of this challenge, Xi promised in 2015 that China’s annual growth would not fall below 6.5 percent for the subsequent five years. While he did not specify the growth rate at the 19th Party Congress, it is estimated that China’s GDP per capita has to reach more than $20,000 (in present value) and sustain an annual growth rate of at least 5 percent during 2020-2035 in order to “basically realize socialist modernization.” For this reason, GDP growth may continue to be used as the yardstick to measure local government officials’ performance. Meanwhile, in recognition of the social cost associated with the single-minded pursuit of economic growth, Beijing is taking a more proactive approach in promoting other developmental goals, including environmental protection and poverty alleviation. Sensing incoherence and contradiction in central policy, local officials may turn to strategic disobedience, timidity, or inaction in policy implementation, which can be exacerbated by the ongoing anti-corruption campaign. As a result, China may well find its economy end up like that of Mexico, Brazil, or Argentina, which show clear signs of the Middle-Income Trap. The Tacitus Trap is a term coined by the Chinese, although it is likely derived from Tacitus, a historian of the Roman Empire. It describes a situation where no matter what the government says or does, people will consider it a lie or a bad deed. President Xi himself used the term to highlight the need to maintain government credibility, without which “the Party’s legitimacy foundations and power status will be threatened.” In order to overcome the Tacitus Trap, the Chinese state is supposed to introduce more transparency, restructure state-society relations, and renew its legitimacy base. Yet rather than push for political reform in this direction, political leaders have been calling for Party members, government officials, and the Chinese people to be “confident in our chosen path, confident in our political system, confident in our guiding theories, and confident in our culture.” On the eve of the 19th Party Congress, the official news agency published a commentary presenting the Chinese political system as a more credible alternative to crisis-ridden Western democracies: “Under the leadership of a sober-minded, forward-looking CPC, Chinese-style democracy has never been healthier and China has absolutely no need to import the failing party political systems of other countries.” The Thucydides Trap is the theory that a rising power will inevitably challenge the dominance of an existing hegemon, and the latter’s fear of that prospect can trigger competitive dynamics that ultimately lead to confrontation, even war. In response, China claims that it does not pose a threat to any other country, and that it will never seek hegemony or expansion “no matter what stage of development it reaches.” Harvard’s Graham Allison begs to disagree. In his latest book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, he contends that “Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war.” Bonnie Glaser and Matthew Funaiole of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) echo this by suggesting that China’s ambitious project to build a “first-tier force” and to increase its international influence could reinforce “the widely held assessment that China harbors a deep-seated desire to displace the U.S. as the dominant power in Asia.” The Kindleberger Trap was coined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye but derived from the late economic historian Charles Kindleberger. Both the Thucydides Trap and the Kindleberger Trap highlight the danger inherent in the shifting balance of power. What makes them different is that rather than focus on the threats from a strong aspirant power (as implied by the Thucydides Trap), the Kindleberger Trap attributes the failure of the international system to the under-provision of global public goods. Kindleberger argued that the chaotic and disastrous nature of the 1930s was caused by the failure of the United States to assume the international responsibilities that came with the mantle of the largest global power that it took from Great Britain. The term can also be used to explain the challenges faced by the current global governance regime. As the United States seems to be retreating from its international commitment, the international community is turning to China, which has indicated its interest in filling the void left by the United States. Yet as I noted in a recent piece, China has to overcome significant capacity gaps–small amounts of foreign aid, a lack of soft power, and mounting domestic political economy challenges–before it can play the role of a true global leader. Of the four traps, the first two will determine China’s internal transition, while the other two will have direct implications for U.S.-China relations and global governance. The four traps are nevertheless not mutually exclusive. For example, both the middle-income and Tacitus traps undermine China’s ability to project its international power and influence, while the Thucydides Trap and the Kindleberger Trap both shape the international security and governance landscape that provides incentives or disincentives for China to address its domestic political and economic challenges. President Trump and his China team may have to keep the four traps in mind in their dealings with an increasingly confident and assertive China.

China’s success in the next five years will depend largely on how well the government manages the tensions underlying its complex agenda. In particular, China’s leaders will need to balance a muscular Communist Party, setting standards and protecting the public interest, with an empowered market, driving the economy into the future. MILAN—As the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress has unfolded, much of the focus has been on who will occupy the key positions in President Xi Jinping’s administration for the next five years. But China’s future trajectory depends crucially on another group of leaders, who have received far less attention: the technocrats who will carry out the specific tasks associated with China’s economic reform and transformation. Over the last four decades, China’s technocrats have collectively engineered a miraculous transformation. The current generation, a gifted group of policymakers, will step down in or around March 2018, passing the baton to a new generation. That generation—highly educated, experienced, and, for the most part, successful on their own merits—is prepared to carry China’s economic and social progress forward with great skill and dedication. The question is whether they will have an open field on which to run. One thing is certain: the next generation of technocrats will face very different conditions from those confronted by their predecessors. China has reached a moment of significant uncertainty. Beyond the questions inherent in the process of generational turnover, there has been a dramatic shift in China’s dominant policy framework under Xi. Under Deng Xiaoping—the leader who initiated China’s radical “reform and opening up” in 1978 – the singular policy goal was domestic economic transformation and growth, to be achieved with a collaborative decision-making model that included vigorous internal debate. Deng explicitly ruled out a broader international agenda for China—a dictate that China’s policymakers followed for more than three decades. Since taking power in 2012, Xi has changed this policy framework in several key ways. For starters, he tackled the endemic corruption that had been undermining the credibility of the CCP (and, by extension, China’s governance model), by launching an unprecedented anti-graft campaign that reached the highest levels of the Party’s leadership. Many expected Xi’s anti-corruption campaign to be a temporary initiative, intended to pave the way for implementation of the aggressive economic reforms announced at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in 2013. Instead, the campaign has become essentially a permanent feature of Xi’s administration. Xi believes that a government’s legitimacy is mainly a function of consistently delivered values, together with economic and social progress, with strict commitment to the public interest taking precedence over the form of governance. While few Western observers have fully recognized this perspective, developments in the West over the last ten years—the 2008 financial crisis, widening income and wealth inequality, and intensifying political polarization—have reinforced this mindset. As a result, Chinese leaders and citizens are more convinced than ever that government by a strong single party is an essential pillar of stability and growth. The focus in the West on the form of governance, as opposed to inclusive economic and social outcomes, is misguided, they believe, because both democratic and autocratic systems can be corrupted. Moreover, China’s economic agenda under Xi has expanded beyond its narrow focus on domestic growth and development to include a concerted effort to expand Chinese influence in the global economy, especially in the developing world. This broad and expanding external agenda generates claims on resources—you can’t be the dominant external investor in Africa and Central Asia without spending a lot of money—while influencing policy choices. For example, state-owned enterprises, including banks, may respond more flexibly than purely private enterprises to a variable mix of public and private incentives and investment returns. Finally, in recent years, China’s policy frameworks have increasingly reflected the inherent tension between the long-standing imperative of ensuring social and political stability and the more modern objective of market liberalization. China’s leadership remains steadfastly committed to protecting the Party’s interests, which it views as coterminous with those of society. For that reason, the CCP continues to focus on upholding order and instilling values in all aspects of Chinese life, maintaining an active presence not only in policy debates, but also in private-sector activities and social affairs. At the same time, the government is seeking to give markets a more decisive role in the economy, unleash the power of entrepreneurship and innovation, and respond more effectively to the needs and desires of a young, educated, and fast-growing middle class. And for good reason: these are the internal engines that have enabled China to achieve 6-7% annual GDP growth amid a difficult structural shift and middle-income transition, carried out in a relatively weak global economy. It is hard to say for sure whether these two objectives are in direct conflict with each other. But there is reason for concern. The kind of dynamic competition that leads to innovation is, after all, far from a centrally guided process, though public-sector choices in areas like basic research do have a substantial impact. Moreover, in both policy making and academia, active debate is indispensable to sorting good ideas from bad ones. Yet while the Chinese system has proved its capacity for high-level internal policy debate among highly trained and experienced participants whose loyalty is not in question, and then act quickly and decisively, China’s leaders remain suspicious of unfettered public debate and commentary. But many complex policy choices—for example, about financial-sector reform and opening up—would benefit from the winnowing process that greater openness affords. Over the next five years, China’s success will depend largely on how well the government’s complex agenda, and the tensions it entails, are managed. To achieve their objectives, China’s leaders will need to strike a delicate balance between a muscular, disciplined, and ubiquitous Party, setting standards and protecting the public interest, and innovative, empowered, and potent markets, driving the economy into the future. This article originally appeared on project-syndicate.org.

Ashley Feng is a research associate for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Sagatom Saha is a Fulbright researcher studying energy reform. The future of transportation will be electric vehicles (EV). As battery costs come down and countries turn away from internal combustion engine vehicles, the most aggressive outlooks see EVs making up one-third of the global car fleet by 2040. Given the pressing need to decarbonize the global transportation sector, this seems like positive news. However, China, the emerging market leader, would stifle innovation if given the chance to dominate. Without competition from inventive American firms, the impending EV revolution would be one that slows the industry and speeds climate change in the long run. If Chinese innovation in the EV market is at all similar to its role in the solar panel industry, the world will only see “good enough” innovation; because there is no competition or pressing problem to stimulate technological breakthroughs, China will settle for minimum advances in EVs. For the past decade, China has identified new energy vehicles (NEVs), which includes electric vehicles, as a strategic and emerging industry, unlocking strong financial and political support from top leadership. Recent trends have demonstrated Beijing will not shy away from using the law to force non-defense related companies to transfer technology or store their data on Chinese servers. In 2013, Kawasaki, a Japanese company, found itself competing against its own designs abroad when CSR Sifang, its former partner in China, used transferred technology to export Japanese-designed high-speed rails to new markets in Europe. For foreign automakers to do business in China, they must have a joint venture with a domestic company as majority owner. The Chinese government also requires automakers to incorporate NEV technologies in their electric vehicles if they have them. Due to these stringent requirements, foreign companies end up forfeiting their intellectual property to Chinese competitors they are forced to work with, boosting domestic Chinese industry and harming their own bottom lines in the long run. Despite this, foreign companies have quickly realized that China is the hottest market for EVs and are still willing to compete there at any cost. Ford, the quintessential American automaker, is exploring developing its new line of electric cars in China, which would then be exported to America. Through leveraging its market size and government-directed economy, China is looking to lead the EV market. By poaching critical technologies and forcing joint ventures, China has leapfrogged to become the world’s second-largest producer in a fraction of the time it took foreign competitors to develop their products. The bad news is this situation will only result in incremental improvements that will not ultimately benefit the environment. Chinese companies are widely known for dumping products to create monopolies and bankrupt competitors, creating an uncompetitive environment in which China could fashion itself as a leader with little merit. While this practice is unproductive across the board, it could be truly damaging in the energy sector. Imagine a world where leading companies only improve marginally on cost and performance. Incremental progress will not sufficiently combat climate change. The U.S. needs to expand funding for research and development of new, innovative vehicle technologies, as government support is crucial to the commercialization of EVs and nearly all energy technologies, often defraying the upfront cost before mass-market viability. The Trump administration has correctly identified the danger that America’s unbalanced trade relationship with China poses to national security and should fight for fair market access for automakers in China. Even under unfair conditions, the U.S. still managed to export $8.9 billion worth of cars in 2016, indicating latent Chinese demand. Congress and the administration should work together to codify and fund the next generation of infrastructure needs, pouring financial support behind charging stations around the country to incentivize domestic EV sales. The U.S. has sustained economic growth through promoting fair and open markets, prioritizing R&D, and investing in national infrastructure. U.S. policymakers should now lead the transformation of America’s transportation sector, lest they leave the next generation in the Beijing’s hands. This piece originally appeared in Fortune.

The importance of the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th party congress to the future of Xi Jinping’s leadership and the direction of China has paralyzed policy debates on many issues, including North Korea. The paralysis has persisted despite the Donald Trump administration’s efforts to wheedle greater Chinese cooperation to rein in North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs before they can strike the U.S. mainland. But even if the configuration of Chinese power for the next five years has stabilized, this does not mean that the geopolitical, economic and domestic political factors paralyzing Chinese willingness to cooperate with the United States on North Korea will suddenly disappear. Rather, the contradictions influencing these three influences on Chinese policy formation will likely intensify. First, China’s geopolitical aspirations will constrain cooperation with the United States on policy toward North Korea. China’s suspicions of U.S. intentions toward North Korea under Trump have surely not been assuaged by his calls for cooperation, even while Chinese fears of U.S.-North Korea military confrontation have gone up. Stability on the Korean peninsula trumps denuclearization as China’s top objective despite China’s grudging willingness to squeeze North Korea. Even if the United States takes unilateral measures toward Chinese suppliers of North Korea in order to force them to choose between Washington and Pyongyang, China is likely to squeeze but not cut off North Korea’s access to the umbilical supply chain that keeps Kim Jong-un afloat. Moreover, the more Trump pressures Xi on China, the more the North Korea issue becomes enmeshed in a broader struggle for hegemony in Northeast Asia. North Korea’s growing threat saps American strength and generates strains in America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea, which constrain China’s growing desire to dominate Asia. But the failure of the U.S.-led alliance framework would unleash daunting new challenges to security on China’s periphery, including the prospect that Japan, South Korea and possibly Taiwan might go nuclear both to even the playing field with a nuclear North Korea and as a hedge against both Chinese regional dominance and the risk of U.S. withdrawal from the region. Second, China’s economic interests on the Korean peninsula keep hope alive in China’s northeastern provinces that coastal supply routes currently blocked by North Korea will gradually open up. On the border, Chinese money has already poured into North Korea through infrastructure, tourism, gambling, and joint manufacturing projects that involve North Korean labor on both sides of the border. Much of this exchange is not reflected in official statistics, but goes a long way toward answering how backdoor cross-border trade between China and North Korea has kept prices inside North Korea stable in the face of sanctions to date. China’s northeastern border provinces would welcome a vibrant North Korean economic neighbor, especially one with which China maintains a monopoly in trade. Even if Beijing decides to support international efforts to impose complete economic isolation on North Korea, there will always be local suppliers willing to take the risks and receive the premiums necessary to ensure that North Korea’s leadership receives the essentials. And if a humanitarian crisis breaks out, China will be the first responder, as it was during the North Korean famine in the late 1990s. Third, Xi himself arguably may be more sensitive to the crosswinds of Chinese public opinion as he forges his approach to North Korea, but his primary objective remains to burnish a reputation for strong leadership. On the one hand, Chinese public opinion toward North Korea continues to sour, and there is no love lost in Chinese internet commentary on “Kim Fatty the Third,” even despite efforts by China’s internet police to block such references from China’s internet. In academic circles, Chinese elites recognize North Korea more as a strategic liability than a strategic asset and are more willing to support economic pressure on North Korea. But North Korea’s ideological and historical value as a fellow communist country will prevent Xi from sacrificing the North Korean buffer, for fear that the absence of North Korea as a foil would turn public criticisms inward and challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic legitimacy. The worry that stripping away of North Korea would invite scrutiny of Xi’s own leadership may indeed be the biggest factor that paralyzes China’s willingness to confront North Korea, despite the growing threat Kim’s leadership direction poses to China’s own interests. This post originally appeared on Forbes.

As China’s senior Communist Party members anoint its future leaders, President Xi Jinping is poised to solidify his position and power at next week’s party congress.

Chinese scholar Shen Yi argues that China needs to be more assertive in its demands, and drive a harder bargain with the United States over cyber issues.

Viola Rothschild is a research associate in Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. When United States President Donald J. Trump makes his first visit to China next month, you can bet that human rights will not be at the top of the agenda—or on the agenda at all. During his nine months in office, President Trump has remained conspicuously silent on human rights, choosing instead to establish friendly relationships with a series of autocrats known for their human rights abuses, including the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, and the Philippines. Trump administration officials are currently working on crafting a ‘comprehensive’ China policy review that will reassess the White House’s approach towards Beijing. The review reportedly focuses almost exclusively on economic issues, and does not make any mention of human rights. Chinese leaders, on the other hand, take human rights very seriously. In fact, in preparation for this month’s 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government recently published a book titled “China’s New Achievements in Human Rights (2012-2017).” The book features a lengthy foreword by Foreign Minister Wang Yi praising the “continuous developing and improvement of human rights” in China under President Xi Jinping.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, the book neglects to mention a few of what it terms President Xi’s “brilliant achievements” in human rights. This summer alone has witnessed some of Xi’s finest work: in July, China’s most famous human rights and pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo died from untreated liver cancer under guard at a state hospital—the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in state custody since the Nazi regime. Several other prominent rights activists and lawyers were “disappeared,” or put on trial on national television to “voluntarily” confess to their crimes. Three student democracy leaders were sentenced to prison in Hong Kong, marking a massive setback for the semiautonomous city. In western China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, authorities have continued their sustained crackdown on the Muslim Uighur minority, forcing them to install surveillance apps on their mobile phones, banning their native language in local schools, jailing prominent Uighur scholars, and even reaching beyond China’s borders to repatriate Uighur students studying abroad. Grassroots groups, including feminists and Christians, have faced intensifying crackdowns, and recent laws on foreign NGOs have further stifled civil society participation. Past U.S. administrations have struggled to effectively pressure China into to making human rights concessions, but there have been some small victories. After intense negotiation, dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Xu Wenli, both leaders in the Chinese democracy movement, were granted medical parole and released to the United States after 34 combined years behind bars in 1997 and 2002, respectively. In 2011, then Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directly confronted China on their human rights abuses at the opening of the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. In 2012, under intense pressure from the Obama administration, Chinese officials let blind activist Chen Guangcheng come to the United States. In 2015, after five prominent feminist activists were imprisoned in China, President Obama refused to attend a United Nations summit meeting hosted by Xi celebrating the 20th anniversary of a historic women’s rights conference in Beijing. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power attended instead, and highlighted several international cases of gender discrimination—including in China. Though these moves did not precipitate major change, and U.S. policy has been primarily non-confrontational, human rights issues were at least on the table. They aren’t anymore. As the world’s second-largest economy, China is not afraid to lash out at international critics and even use its economic clout to impose sanctions on those that displease them. Indeed, it’s not difficult to see why human rights issues are increasingly taking a back seat to trade and security talks. But the United States’ recent silence on human rights comes from more than just fear of crossing their largest trading partner and creditor— it’s because the Trump White House simply doesn’t care. In March, in the wake of international outcry, eleven countries signed a letter criticizing China for torturing human rights lawyers. The United States was not one of them—marking the first time the United States refused to sign this type of joint initiative. In June, Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke out against international human trafficking, citing China’s use of North Korean forced labor. However, their tepid scolding rang hollow given that earlier this year, several Chinese labor activists were arrested or detained after investigating alleged labor abuses at a factory that makes shoes for several international brands, including Ivanka Trump’s. The day after Liu Xiaobo’s death, Trump praised President Xi Jinping in an interview, referring to him as a “terrific guy.” Gone are the days when the United States could (or would) use trade and investment to leverage support for human rights. This spring, in a scathing rebuttal to the State Department’s 2016 China Human Rights Report, Chinese state media released a parallel report calling out the hypocrisy of the United States: “With the gunshots lingering in people's ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights "myth" with its own deeds.” They have a point. From the Chinese perspective, when it comes to its commitment to human rights, the United States is wavering and has relinquished all moral high ground. The U.S. role as “world policeman”—predicated upon the perception of righteousness, global leadership, and economic superiority—was eroding long before Trump took office. But now, as Beijing cracks down on human rights at home, and flexes its muscles abroad, the United States remains silent. Rather than stepping up, the United States is mired in its own controversies, and has not demonstrated any real ability or desire to advocate for international human rights. Maintaining a stable economy and avoiding nuclear war are important. But so are human rights. Despite what Chinese officials might tell us, domestic situations have global consequences. As the U.S.-led world order continues to deteriorate under the apathy of the Trump administration, China can and will seek to play a more prominent role on the global stage. If China insists on behaving like a bully at home, and cannot guarantee its own citizens basic rights and freedoms, how can we expect it to behave any differently as a world power?

Despite a verbal commitment to international standards, the Chinese government lacks the political will to take on trafficking and protect broader human rights.