the deterrent state
China's behaviour is subtle and not
It is tough to offer optimism on the trajectory of the Sino-U.S. relationship these days. We are on a long road which will certainly have many twists and turns but our side certainly has more suggestions being submitted. I am uncertain what it would take for us to come together in any positive manner. I do see a difference in the tactics of the two governments.
The U.S. public soured on China over the past three years, largely coincident with COVID and the fears about China’s massive economic success threatening our own lifestyle. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue signal greater distrust (including Presidents Biden, Trump, and even Obama in his final couple of years), if not outright hostility, towards China resulting in Beijing’s plaintive whine about the United States seeking to ‘contain’ China. Business appears more hopeful it can still extract some good from the relationship but that is far from certain. As a nation, we are struggling with a coherent, prioritised approach to engaging with China.
China appears closing the door on ties with the United States, with deterrence being applied in a rather different way one might expect.
Certainly China seeks to deter any U.S. actions to keep Taiwan separate from the mainland should Xi decide on more actively forcing reunification. Xi also clearly seeks to make U.S. allies and partners in the region feel the pain of ties with the United States worse than any benefits of those links provide: this is a classic definition of a state attempting to deter or disincentivise actions.
Much of China’s deterrence, however, is domesic in nature. It uses disincentives and pain to alter domestic actions as well in several arenas.
Beijing recently passed an Espionage Law which appears to me a deterrent to its own people engaging with foreigners unless absolutely necessary or authorised by the Party. It will also, of course, pertain to foreigners ‘caught’ engaging in ‘espionage’ under a regime broadly defining the term.
A number of my academic colleagues are parsing the legislation to determine where ‘danger lines’ might be for academic meetings but Xi’s China has been anything other than lenient in interpreting outsiders’ actions as benevolent. China will try to convince their citizens not to invite foreigners or to engage with them on the ground in the Middle Kingdom. I don’t think there are danger lines to parse; no protections exist for those who travel to China, making them vulnerable to the whims of an increasingly paranoid and unconstrained Party apparatus.
For several years, Xi has complained that western education undercuts China. He discourages further education abroad for the students seeking a education to challenge ideas rather than perform in the more traditional Confucian top-down education provided strictly by the faculty member who demands rote memorisation. To the best of my knowledge, Xi is not prohibiting studying abroad but the General Secretary speaks poorly of western views of China while calling into question the more chaotic nature of western societies. He is also curbing the membership numbers in the CCP which remains the primary vehicle for advancing in society. It is logical to assume someone who repudiates Xi by studying abroad might face a penalty for CCP membership. Wouldn’t that person consider deferring that goal?
Xi has also discouraged the type of investigative behaviour still vibrant in the United States and most other representative political systems. Just last week the head of the British Broadcasting System, Richard Sharp, resigned upon revelation of conflicts of interest resulting from involvement in a loan to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A Los Angeles Times story noted Sharp’s departure is one of a number associated with revelations dogging the high level association of Johnson,1 stories long tracked by the aggressive British press.
Xi methodically provided disincentives for that sort of accountability. It wasn’t even necessary to illegalise investigations as much as to write laws to prohibit the associated research activities such as incarcerating journalists, preventing access to huge parts of the country, and publicising state behaviour to menace those who have met with the press or might consider it. That pain of state reprisal which makes China the world’s greatest jailor of the press, powerful intimidation.2
Advocacy organisations, such as environmentalists, established with foreign enterprises were targets of the Party preventing financing it did not control. As early as 2016, foreign investment laws strictures, often ultimately leading to incarceration, forced Chinese to weight probable painful consequences for themselves and their families versus advancing an cause, be it anti-smoking, environment, or legal reform.
The greatest evidence of Xi Jinping’s deterrence arguably remains stiffening people’s fear of violating the Great Firewall, a mechanism for outside and inside the country.. To maintain the societal harmony, Xi claims to prevent luan, the chaos so feared to disrupt a finely-balanced (in theory) society under Confucian preferences for an orderly society for the billions, by monitoring the internet. One must have valid credentials, known access points, and various other monitoring consents before getting onto the web. Chinese are reluctant to find themselves reported to the authorities for violating the rules deemed for the collective society; individualism is prized in the west but viewed as an evil in the Middle Kingdom.
The precluded terminology the internet censors most likely will include the ‘coloured revolusions’ (or names of any of those from the past such as Tulip, Rose, or Orange). We know they don’t like Winnie the Pooh, associated a decade ago with a photograph of the ever more rotund Chinese leader with a passing similarity to the childhood character. I cannot imagine the Party would allow those other terms circulating online freely because government officials has responded so forcefully over the past 13 years to pointing out its certainty that the United States encouraged anti-governmental forces to try ousting the repressive regimes.
Anecdotally, I don’t know that people often try using these terms. While the anti-COVID protests last November were a shocking display of civic unrest in Chinese terms, they have resulted in arrests in the months following. Those arrests are publicly known for a reason: the Party does not want Xis and the CCP leadership or wisdom on any topic questioned again. Few will repeatedly challenge this system.
In short, Xi provides ample deterrence which allows him to argue his citizens chose the path of acquiescing to the needs of society over individual curiosity or frustration.
The laws that the Party imposes are harsh for a reason: they believe rule by law will deter behaviour they fear. The Party needs that deterrence to argue their citizens are willingly agreeing to these actions to keep peace but that is a facade for preventing complains about government authoritarian rule. This helps with offering a unified society in response to the U.S. and foreign threat as well, building nationalist sentiment since ever fewer voices undermine or question the state narrative or arguments.
This is not the case in our free for all society, much as some might wish we were a bit more orderly.
Along with using deterrence, Beijing continues blaming the United States for seeking to overturn CCP rule. Whatever the U.S. concerns about China, few voice fear Beijing seeks to oust our elected leaders while China so fears that is precisely the goal the U.S. leadership has.
Again, not a good look ahead. Suggestions welcome: you have any ideas?FIN
Jill Lawless, ‘BBC chief quits amid furor over role in Boris Johnson loan’, LosAngelesTimes.com, 28 April 2023, retrieved at https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-04-28/bbc-chief-quits-amid-furor-over-role-in-boris-johnson-loan
Helen Davidson, ‘Journalists in China face ‘nightmare’ worthy of Mao era, press freedom group says’, TheGuardian.com, 8 December 2021, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/08/journalists-in-china-face-nightmare-worthy-of-mao-era-press-freedom-group-says