The 5 Things the Chinese Regime Fears Most
Alexander Liao
April 21, 2021 Updated: April 22, 2021
Commentary
On April 16, the Hong Kong court officially sentenced key pro-democracy activists who were convicted last month. Most of their sentences are around a year to 18 months in prison. The “crime” for which the people were found guilty was illegal assembly without permission for a large-scale protest in August 2019 that was attended by hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers.
The crime appears to have no connection with the Hong Kong National Security Law, but many have linked the trial and conviction of the Hong Kong court with the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As fear is the motivation for much of the CCP’s domestic and foreign aggression, the Chinese regime’s recent behavior in Hong Kong reveals some of its major fears.
Economic Decoupling
On the world stage, the legitimacy of the communist regime in the past three decades has mainly centered on its economic growth and economic potential of its large population. It uses this as bait to manipulate foreign governments and corporations that want a slice of the Chinese market.
The three major driving forces of economic growth are investment, consumption, and exports. China’s mainland’s domestic consumption contributes the least to its own GDP, accounting for only a little more than 40 percent of GDP—far less than the usual 70 percent for most other countries. Foreign trade through exports are massive levers for China’s GDP.
The CCP system is an administrative-led authoritarian system. The regime controls society in many ways, but in the past two decades, this control has been reflected through China’s economic operations. The more money the authorities have, the stronger their control over society.
The economic development of mainland China relies on the East Asian model, which is export-oriented. The East Asian model relies on consumption in foreign markets to promote economic growth. This is precisely why former U.S. President Donald Trump’s launch of a U.S.-China trade war was terrifying for the CCP.
This is not simply due to the possibility of restraining the American market’s dependence on Chinese products—this action has forced officials in China to reconsider the continuation of the East Asian model in the mainland, which in turn poses a challenge to the structure of the country’s economic growth model.
In light of Trump’s trade war and the pandemic’s effect on the world economy, the CCP has had to take precautions for its future economic development. This is the biggest reason why the CCP has begun to promote self-reliance and internal circulation of Chinese capital. Once the economy contracts, the CCP’s government revenue will be under pressure, and its administrative stability maintenance budget will be affected. Without enough money for propaganda and enough incentive to legitimize their authoritarian leadership of China, the regime will be on shaky ground.
Disruption to Technological Exchange With the West
This fear is primarily related to the economy, because the China’s export-oriented economy has reached its limit, you can only export so many goods. With the development of the world economy at a threshold, the export of simple and cheap goods cannot increase at the pace it has in the past few decades. Therefore, China needs to upgrade the quality of its products to continue increasing its market share. This will require China to seriously upgrade its technology and design innovation.
Technological advancement is also an important factor in the CCP’s control over society and maintenance of its military. China is infamous for its draconian use of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and track its citizens.
If scientific and technological exchanges with the West are interrupted, it will severely impact the CCP, especially with regard to its losing the ability to steal intellectual property from foreign countries.
A large number of overseas students from mainland China study and engage in scientific and technological research in European and American universities. In 2020, there were over 370,000 Chinese students studying in the United States. For the CCP, this is an invaluable channel and method of “exchange” with American science and technology. Now, the United States has not only cut off various high-level academic exchanges but is also considering how to reduce the number of Chinese science and engineering students.
Although China has many outstanding scientific and technological professionals, the current culture inhibits true creativity and innovation, because innovation and creation are inherently incompatible with autocratic and totalitarian systems. If it is impossible to continue to “exchange” science and technology with foreign countries, then the progress of science and technology under the rule of the CCP will be greatly affected.
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang Independence
The CCP started with Marxism and communism and has always used this as the basic core value for ruling mainland China.
But in reality, since the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, pure communist ideology has disappeared in the mainland. Only a few senior Party leaders truly believe in Marxist and communist ideology, which has brought an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy to the CCP.
To deal with this crisis, the CCP has since adopted aggressive nationalism to assert its control. This is why Chinese nationalism has continued to rise in the past two decades.
For example, in previous generations of propaganda, the CCP deliberately talked about its victory against the Chinese nationalists to legitimize the CCP’s seizure of power. But recently, the CCP has begun to emphasize China’s historical wars against Japan, boldly claiming that the CCP led China’s victories over Japan. It is widespread knowledge that it was the Chinese Nationalists who led the war against Japan at the time. To obscure this fact, the CCP changed the historically recorded length of China’s war against Japan from 8 years to 14 years to include the Pacification of Manchukuo, an insurgency against Japan from Manchu, which was jointly led by the Soviet Communist Party and the CCP in the mid-1930s.
The fervor for mainland Chinese nationalism continuously promoted by the CCP has continued unabated. The Chinese people have begun to view the CCP from the perspective of nationalism and Chinese identity rather than communist ideology.
In 2016, Xi Jinping boldly claimed in a public speech that they “will never allow any person, any group, any political party, at any time, in any way, to split from China any part of its territory.”
This tough statement is a perfect example of fuel for the rising tide of aggressive nationalism in mainland China.
As a result, in the face of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang affairs, the CCP cannot compromise or show any weakness via concessions. Through its evolution, the CCP has involuntarily taken on the cause of ultra-Chinese nationalism in order to justify its rule, devoid of any of its original communist ideals.
(Please visit the whole article in the link below)
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-5-things-the-chinese-regime-fears-most_3780429.html[/I]
Alexander Liao
April 21, 2021 Updated: April 22, 2021
Commentary
On April 16, the Hong Kong court officially sentenced key pro-democracy activists who were convicted last month. Most of their sentences are around a year to 18 months in prison. The “crime” for which the people were found guilty was illegal assembly without permission for a large-scale protest in August 2019 that was attended by hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers.
The crime appears to have no connection with the Hong Kong National Security Law, but many have linked the trial and conviction of the Hong Kong court with the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As fear is the motivation for much of the CCP’s domestic and foreign aggression, the Chinese regime’s recent behavior in Hong Kong reveals some of its major fears.
Economic Decoupling
On the world stage, the legitimacy of the communist regime in the past three decades has mainly centered on its economic growth and economic potential of its large population. It uses this as bait to manipulate foreign governments and corporations that want a slice of the Chinese market.
The three major driving forces of economic growth are investment, consumption, and exports. China’s mainland’s domestic consumption contributes the least to its own GDP, accounting for only a little more than 40 percent of GDP—far less than the usual 70 percent for most other countries. Foreign trade through exports are massive levers for China’s GDP.
The CCP system is an administrative-led authoritarian system. The regime controls society in many ways, but in the past two decades, this control has been reflected through China’s economic operations. The more money the authorities have, the stronger their control over society.
The economic development of mainland China relies on the East Asian model, which is export-oriented. The East Asian model relies on consumption in foreign markets to promote economic growth. This is precisely why former U.S. President Donald Trump’s launch of a U.S.-China trade war was terrifying for the CCP.
This is not simply due to the possibility of restraining the American market’s dependence on Chinese products—this action has forced officials in China to reconsider the continuation of the East Asian model in the mainland, which in turn poses a challenge to the structure of the country’s economic growth model.
In light of Trump’s trade war and the pandemic’s effect on the world economy, the CCP has had to take precautions for its future economic development. This is the biggest reason why the CCP has begun to promote self-reliance and internal circulation of Chinese capital. Once the economy contracts, the CCP’s government revenue will be under pressure, and its administrative stability maintenance budget will be affected. Without enough money for propaganda and enough incentive to legitimize their authoritarian leadership of China, the regime will be on shaky ground.
Disruption to Technological Exchange With the West
This fear is primarily related to the economy, because the China’s export-oriented economy has reached its limit, you can only export so many goods. With the development of the world economy at a threshold, the export of simple and cheap goods cannot increase at the pace it has in the past few decades. Therefore, China needs to upgrade the quality of its products to continue increasing its market share. This will require China to seriously upgrade its technology and design innovation.
Technological advancement is also an important factor in the CCP’s control over society and maintenance of its military. China is infamous for its draconian use of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and track its citizens.
If scientific and technological exchanges with the West are interrupted, it will severely impact the CCP, especially with regard to its losing the ability to steal intellectual property from foreign countries.
A large number of overseas students from mainland China study and engage in scientific and technological research in European and American universities. In 2020, there were over 370,000 Chinese students studying in the United States. For the CCP, this is an invaluable channel and method of “exchange” with American science and technology. Now, the United States has not only cut off various high-level academic exchanges but is also considering how to reduce the number of Chinese science and engineering students.
Although China has many outstanding scientific and technological professionals, the current culture inhibits true creativity and innovation, because innovation and creation are inherently incompatible with autocratic and totalitarian systems. If it is impossible to continue to “exchange” science and technology with foreign countries, then the progress of science and technology under the rule of the CCP will be greatly affected.
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang Independence
The CCP started with Marxism and communism and has always used this as the basic core value for ruling mainland China.
But in reality, since the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, pure communist ideology has disappeared in the mainland. Only a few senior Party leaders truly believe in Marxist and communist ideology, which has brought an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy to the CCP.
To deal with this crisis, the CCP has since adopted aggressive nationalism to assert its control. This is why Chinese nationalism has continued to rise in the past two decades.
For example, in previous generations of propaganda, the CCP deliberately talked about its victory against the Chinese nationalists to legitimize the CCP’s seizure of power. But recently, the CCP has begun to emphasize China’s historical wars against Japan, boldly claiming that the CCP led China’s victories over Japan. It is widespread knowledge that it was the Chinese Nationalists who led the war against Japan at the time. To obscure this fact, the CCP changed the historically recorded length of China’s war against Japan from 8 years to 14 years to include the Pacification of Manchukuo, an insurgency against Japan from Manchu, which was jointly led by the Soviet Communist Party and the CCP in the mid-1930s.
The fervor for mainland Chinese nationalism continuously promoted by the CCP has continued unabated. The Chinese people have begun to view the CCP from the perspective of nationalism and Chinese identity rather than communist ideology.
In 2016, Xi Jinping boldly claimed in a public speech that they “will never allow any person, any group, any political party, at any time, in any way, to split from China any part of its territory.”
This tough statement is a perfect example of fuel for the rising tide of aggressive nationalism in mainland China.
As a result, in the face of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang affairs, the CCP cannot compromise or show any weakness via concessions. Through its evolution, the CCP has involuntarily taken on the cause of ultra-Chinese nationalism in order to justify its rule, devoid of any of its original communist ideals.
(Please visit the whole article in the link below)
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-5-things-the-chinese-regime-fears-most_3780429.html[/I]