The Thoughts of Chairman Xi His China combines Marxism-Leninism with nationalist aggression.
The most important election in the world this year is no election at all. It’s a coronation. When China’s Communist Party anoints President Xi Jinping for a third five-year term this week, it will confirm China’s combination of aggressive nationalism and Communist ideology that is the single biggest threat to world freedom. It all but guarantees an era of confrontation between China and the U.S.
We say this with regret, and not only because war with China would be a catastrophe. When China embarked on its reform project under Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, there was reason to hope that the Middle Kingdom might eventually leave behind its murderous Communist past. For a time, into the 2000s, that still seemed possible as reforms continued and Chinese living standards increased.
The bet, which was worth taking for the sake of a better world, was that China would follow the path of other East Asian nations that evolved into democracies as the middle-class grew. But China’s Communist Party has never relinquished its grip on power as the authoritarians of Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines did.
In his book “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” Michael Pillsbury makes a powerful case that Chinese war hawks have been biding their time all along until China was strong enough to challenge U.S. power. But there were enough differences in elite opinion in China to think that even the Party wasn’t monolithic in its views. Mr. Xi’s consolidation of power has ended that debate, as he has become the most powerful and committed Communist leader since Mao Zedong.
In a decade Mr. Xi has crushed all dissent, imposed a vast censorship regime, and created an intrusive surveillance regime beyond anything the East German Stasi imagined. He has erased the autonomy for 50 years that China had promised Hong Kong and made Xinjiang province a prison camp for the Uyghurs.
He has also restored the Communist Party to the commanding heights of the economy, putting decades of market reform in reverse. Private companies that grew large have been subjected to political control and state-owned companies receive preference in capital allocation. Theft from foreign businesses, inside and outside of China, is a state-sanctioned practice.
Mr. Xi has also abandoned the restraint abroad that marked the first 30 years after Mao. He has occupied and militarized disputed islands in the South China Sea, though he had promised not to. He has fanned disputes with India, Australia and Japan, and he is menacing Taiwan militarily. He is building a military that can project power globally and hold the U.S. homeland vulnerable. Mr. Xi believes in a potent combination of Marxism-Leninism at home and nationalist expansion abroad.
All of this in service of Mr. Xi’s view that Communist China is destined to replace the U.S. as the world’s leading power. He said in his speech Sunday to the Party Congress that China is offering humanity a “new choice” that is an alternative to the democratic West. As Sinologist Kevin Rudd has noted, Mr. Xi has revived the Mao-era slogan about “the rise of the East and decline of the West.”
China has weaknesses. The state direction of capital has led to excesses and inefficiencies that have slowed the country’s breakneck growth. So has Mr. Xi’s zero-Covid policy. China must also import much of its food and energy, making it vulnerable in a crisis.
The country’s demographics are daunting, as it will likely grow old before its average standard of living matches that of the West. With his desire at age 69 to remain in power for another five years, and maybe for life, Mr. Xi is also setting the country up for a succession dilemma that could become messy.
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But none of this should make the U.S. sanguine about the Xi challenge. It is the most formidable the U.S. has faced since World War II, with economic and military power backed by ideological conviction and nationalist ambition. The West has been slow to recognize the seriousness of the threat, but perhaps the coronation of Mr. Xi will be the catalyst for a bipartisan awakening.
A U.S. response to Xi Jinping’s challenge is a subject for other editorials on other days. But any response has to start with the recognition that the U.S. military isn’t currently prepared to meet China’s threat, as Seth Jones argues nearby. If Mr. Xi becomes convinced China has an advantage in hard power, he will find a moment to act against Taiwan or some other U.S. strategic interest. The U.S. must rally its confidence and resources, and soon, if it doesn’t want a world dominated by Xi Jinping thought.
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