The Fate of Taiwan's Independent Status as a Fully Functioning State

"Taiwan is a front-line state in the Peoples Republic of China's outward push to expand its physical and political influence in the Indo-Pacific, just as Ukraine stands in the way of similar ambitions in Putin's Moscow."

"The fate of the island nation's 23.5 million people will have direct repercussions for the future of democracy the global economy, the future of technology and the ambitions of authoritarian regimes to create a world that is more hospitable to their anti-democratic outlook."

J. Michael Cole, academic, Taipei, former intelligence officer 

Most Taiwanese consider themselves Taiwanese only, while some among them acknowledge their Chinese heritage. Unlike China, Taiwan has fully embraced democracy, and as Mr. Cole points out, Taiwan is "increasingly incompatible with, and resistant to, Beijing's attempts to annex it." He explains this and much more in his book The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island Nation at the Center of the New Cold War, arguing that Beijing's annexation determination does not reflect a historic wrong through uniting a divided nation, but far more reflects China's authoritarian territorial expansionism. 

 

On the weekend, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted a U.S. intelligence report that there has been a rapid buildup of the commercial ferry fleet by China in preparation for an invasion of Taiwan; roll-on/roll-off ferries are being produced by a Chinese shipyard modified to carry tanks for an amphibious operation. Some 70 of these vessels will have been built to order by 2026's year-end. 

 

Beijing's President Xi Jinping had been governor of Fujian province situated directly across the strait from Taiwan, and irrespective of the fact that 92 percent of Taiwanese have no wish to join China, Xi has ordered the People's Liberation Army to build its military capacity to prepare to invade and take Taiwan by force by 2027 while he is still alive to enjoy his territorial acquisition exploit and perhaps before he turns his ambitions toward accessing disputed territories with his South China Sea neighbours.

 

 (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)  A Chinese coast guard boat moves near the Philippine resupply vessel Unaizah after it was hit by their water canon blast causing injuries to multiple crew members as they tried to enter the Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed South China Sea Tuesday, March 5, 2024. 

"The Gordian knot tightens, with little, if any potential for a truly peaceful resolution."

"The calm and pragmatism that has characterized the Taiwanese people's threat perception has undoubtedly contributed to Taiwan's resilience. It has prevented panic and stock market crashes whenever China holds major military exercises to coerce Taiwan."

"However, This pragmatism relies on a reading of Chinese intentions and  capabilities that may no longer reflect reality."

J. Michael Cole, Taipei  

In 2023, a war game by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies envisaged loss of Taiwan's entire fleet, and half of its air force, while, with the U.S. holding firm to its pledge to aid Taiwan, would lose two aircraft carriers, 20 warships and hundreds of aircraft if a titanic military clash did eventuate. The envisioned scenario would also see the PlA with heavy losses, needless to say. 

 

China's ocean-going ferries are capable of transporting armoured vehicles and soldiers. (Supplied: CCTV)

 

Taiwan has invested in their own cruise missile stock; they've built beach defences, protected critical infrastructure, reduced trade dependence on China, and created their own satellite network. The growing conviction by Beijing that the U.S is in decline and distracted by domestic infighting, has emboldened Xi. The conviction that Taiwan is "an indispensable element" in the Indo-Pacific state of stability is a true incentive for the West to be highly concerned over Xi's intentions. 

 

And then aside from the dread prospect of hundreds of thousands of lives that might be lost in a conflict of this dimension, there is also the element of world control of rare earth elements and production of critically required communication and technological items. Taiwan produces 60 percent of the world's semi-conductors to a value of $10 trillion -- ten percent of global GDP. 

 

A cargo ship is seen next to a new class of specialised landing dock in southern China. (Supplied: US Naval War College/Maxar Technologies)

 

The Obdurate Autocratic Failings of the Chinese Communist Party on Zero-COVID

"The party and the people are trying to seek a new equilibrium."

"There will be some intsability in the process."

"Without the clear signal of party leader divisions -- I would expect this kind of protest might not last very log."

"[It is] unimaginable [that Xi would back down, and the party is experienced in handling protests]."

Hung Ho-fung, Johns Hopkins University

"[The West's vaccines offer] a major solution [to China's COVID problems."

"[According to health experts zero-COVID is unlikely to be achieved until vaccine uptake among China's elderly sees an improvement]."

"[Efforts are underway to increase coverage but] it's unlikely things will get better for the next  half of the new year."

Xi Chen, associate professor, Yale University

A protester is arrested by police in Shanghai on Sunday night. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/AFP via Getty Image

 

Local authorities in China, making no allusion to credit the mass protests springing up all over China against the crude lockup methods being employed to stem the rising tide of COVID-19 outbreaks, have begun to ease imposed restrictions reflecting the state's zero-COVID mandate. In Beijing, the city government announced it plans to phase out gating to block access to apartment compounds where infections are diagnosed.

Manufacturing and trade centre Guangzhou, the current hot-spot in the latest wave of infections, announced that selected residents no longer will be required to undergo mass testing. The stringent measures originally in place to minimize deaths at the same time that other countries suffered magnitudes of infections and deaths no longer has the silent consent of the Chinese population.

According to the Chinese Communist Party ruling China, anti-coronavirus measures must continue "targeted and precise", while at the same time the least possible disruption should be caused to people's lives; local officials threatened with their jobs or similar punishments should outbreaks occur, codify their own strategies to match the central government's zero-COVID command-and-control demands.

Their response has been the imposition of quarantines and allied restrictions exceeding what the central government recommends. Hardships imposed on the population appear to be of no concern to the Xi administration, beyond the anodyne recommendations that lockdowns not cause community unrest. Millions of people in Shanghai were placed under strict lockdown in the spring, resulting in food scarcity and access to medical care being restricted.

Despite the ensuing turmoil, Xi loyalist, the city's party secretary, saw appointment to the No.2 position of the Communist Party. On the past weekend, protests were so sweeping in numbers and inclusivity many from among the educated urban middle class of the ethnic Han majority were in full vocal attendance. This is the group the ruling party relies upon to recognize a post-Tiananmen agreement that a better quality of life would accompany autocratic rule.

Following a fire on Thursday that killed at least ten people living in an apartment building in the city of Urumqi, where residents have been locked into their homes for four months, furious protests erupted particularly when the city council suggested those that died were insufficiently motivated to save themselves, prompting an avalanche of angry online questions whether firefighters or people attempting to escape the fire were blocked by locked doors or similar pandemic restrictions.

Foreign governments have suggested to Beijing that it use vaccines developed in the West to improve protection for its people, and once more effective vaccines are widely used the government could reconsider and ratchet back the draconian restrictions of the current zero-COVID policy. Beijing has consistently refused to import the mRNA-based more highly successful vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, insisting its own home-grown vaccines are effective.

 

They are not, however. Moreover, the most vulnerable in the population, the elderly, have not received vaccinations in numbers that should satisfy any responsible government. Analysis indicates that millions of unprotected people could perish under current circumstances should zero-COVID be abandoned. The acceptance of Western vaccinations could turn that scenario around.

"Europe and Germany have had very good experience with administering mRNA vaccinations", stated Steffen Hebestreit, adding that Olaf Scholz had "made this clear" to Chinese officials during a visit by the German chancellor to China. China is steadfast in its reliance on its own vaccines based on older technology, failing to offer the same protection as the West's vaccines against severe disease and death.

"'Zero COVID' [was] supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the 'Chinese model', but ended up demonstrating the risk that when authoritarian regimes make mistakes, those mistakes can be colossal."

"But I think the regime has backed itself into a corner and has no way to  yield. It has lots of force, and if necessary, it will use it."

Andrew Nathan, Chinese politics specialist, Columbia University

Protesters are fed up with lockdowns, but their government is not budging

Beijing's Zero-COVID Protests

"[It is necessary] to strengthen the management and service guarantee [of quarantine centres and field hospitals where people who test positive for COVID-19 or ha.cve been in close contact with an infected person are taken by police]."

"[Authorities must] further accelerate [their construction and] coordinate the allocation of space, facilities, materials, personnel and other resources."

Beijing city government spokesperson Xu Hejian

People sing slogans while gathering on a street in Shanghai. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP)

 

"On the second night of protests, 2,000 miles northwest of the Foxconn factory, a fire broke out in a residential compound in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region. Ten died. Neighbours videoed the inferno on their phones, triggering yet another wave of anger online. Some pointed out that the youngest victim was only three and had lived almost his entire life under zero Covid. Others speculated that doors had been sealed in the block as part of the lockdown, meaning victims couldn’t escape."

"Late on Friday night, the Urumqi authorities made things worse with a press conference which seemed to blame the victims for their ‘lack of survival know-how’. Fury, and protests, ensued."

"Whether the fire was made worse by lockdown or not, the tragedy and the callous official response confirmed what many already suspected: their lives are cheap in the name of pandemic control."

Cindy Yu, Assistant Editor, The Spectator, U.K.

 

In some parts of China's capital, residents began sweeping items off supermarket shelves, while the urgency of their demands were overwhelming delivery apps on Friday. The city government had ordered an urgent need to speed up construction of COVID-19 quarantine centres and field hospitals. China's Zero-COVID policy is not to be relaxed, its government has made it quite clear that it will not tolerate the spread of the pathogen, and a recent upsurge in cases has only increased its resolve.

 

Chinese citizens, beyond weary with the constant lockdowns and stern conditions that have compromised their quality of life for too long, are desperate to see an end to these unlivable conditions and the constant threat of isolation, impairing their ability to work, to attend school, to buy food, to acquire needed medications, in short, the ruination of normal life, being forced to live under abysmally unnatural circumstances. Deprived of normalcy.

 

The uncertainty and fear surrounding unconfirmed reports of lockdowns in some select districts in the capital fuelled a demand for food and other basic living supplies fuelling unusually large turnouts of shoppers in the northern suburbs of the city, resulting in market shelves emptying of products in quick order, in a city of 21 million people.

 

Across the country daily cases of COVID are reaching record numbers with Friday alone notching up 32,695 new cases, almost half of which were in Beijing, mostly asymptomatic. Field hospitals along with improvised quarantine centres have been thrown together in gymnasiums, exhibition centres, where large open indoor spaces have become synonymous with poor sanitation, scarce food supplies, overcrowding and lighting that remains bright for 24 hours a day.

 

Instructions not to leave compounds have gone out to most residents, watching themselves being fenced in, where workers in white hazmat suits stop unauthorized people to ensure residents have recent negative test results on cellphone health apps before they can gain entry. University campuses are closed, students shifted to online classes. Grocery delivery service is at full capacity. Some delivery personnel are  unable to appear for work at grocery deliveries, with their own compounds locked down. 

 

The World Health Organization has called for a change in operations from the zero-COVID strategy, a recommendation that the Chinese Communist Party rejects. Cases and death counts in China remain low in comparison to other parts of the world, yet Beijing insists on isolating every case to entirely eliminate the virus. Where other governments eased antivirus controls, relying on vaccinations and immunity from past infections to aid in death prevention and serious illness, China's President Xi Jinping is immovable in his conviction that China can tame Nature.

 

Confronting authorities in Shanghai, some protesters called for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to step down

Bienvenue, China's Billionaires

"These are clients who realize the chances of getting caught have increased dramatically -- to not a will but a when question."

"That group has now for the first time really contemplated 'I'm going to have to leave some day. There is definitely a wildfire'."

"We've been very busy since the beginning of the year."

"You want to prevent the problem [coming to Chinese authorities' attention as a potential threat to the governing body] and avoid the wildfire, as opposed to trying to put it out after your house is on fire."

"The thing to remember is that Canada is in competition for these Golden Geese and must present an opportunity which is competitive with all the other countries which are also trying to get this group [of mega-wealthy Chinese escaping crackdowns on 'ultra-high net-worth' individuals]."

David Lesperance, Immigration and Taxation lawyer, Poland

Helicopters carry Chinese flags over Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour on the 25th anniversary of the former British colony's handover to Chinese rule, July 1, 2022. There is a growing trend among China’s wealthy to move at least their money, if not themselves, out of the country. Photo by Paul Yeung/Reuters/File

In China of late, a growing urgency has arisen among high-net-worth Chinese, considering it is time to leave Hong Kong or mainland China before government attention lingers too long on their fortunes and their perceived activities. Business people based in the Peoples Republic of China have reason for concern with President Xi Jinping concentrating his power, eliminating opponents while tightening his grip on Hong Kong. One never knows when something quite innocent of intent to Beijing or give it reason to feel that being a billionaire has made one a competitive threat may draw attention.

 

How many of these five Chinese billionaires – who all pulled their money out of China – do you recognize? Photo: Weibo/WeChat/Reuters/Getty

 

The result of which is that a shared nervous tension among China's ultra-wealthy is driving them to seriously consider leaving China, with assets intact, for greener, more relaxed and welcome shores. Destinations of high popularity among this restless group include Australia, New Zealand, and a little geographically further afield, the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada. Mr. Lesperance is a Canadian who has relocated to be closer to his growing client base, at a kind of cross-roads clearing-house.

He is increasingly being sought out by wealthy business people out of China and Hong Kong urgently intent on leaving the region. Those reaching out need professional assistance and Mr. Lesperance has the experience to help expedite their intentions. He has seen requests tripling in the last few years in lock step with Xi Jinping eliminating perceived threats to his longevity as undisputed ruler of China's 1.4 billion population.

 

Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma. (Photo by Wang HE/Getty Images)

China has not yet seen a mass exodus of its richest.That demographic represents 626 billionaires, a number of the world's wealthy second only to the 724 such Croesus's in the United States. There has been a trend of late among these wealthy Chinese to move their assets to Singapore through the city state's "family office" system. This is a situation not entirely fixed to China. In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman set to rise to the throne, is giving concern to the ultra-wealthy there, too.

Since coming to power in 2012, President X has brought quite dramatic changes to China, leaving its business tycoons nervously trying to read tea leaves into the future. The extradition treaty proposal of 2019 to remove people from Hong Kong to the mainland to stand trial on espionage and other like charges created a reverberating watchfulness. The National Security Law has empowered authorities to imprison dissidents; among them media mogul Jimmy Lau, in the curbing of democracy.

High-tech sector Jack Ma, billionaire head of the Alibaba technology conglomerate's disappearance in 2020 after publicly criticizing Chinese regulators saw the IPO for his Ant Group suddenly axed. Mysterious disappearances of other wealth moguls amidst President Xi's announcement of a "common prosperity" program to see a more equitable spread of wealth across the entire Chinese population, placed the rich under anxious pressure. Some believe the underlying purpose of such campaigns is focused on eliminating rivals to Mr. Xi's power and control, and that of his Party.

Chen Mailin (left) made his fortune in duck farming before moving to Canada. Photo: Weibo

The Chinese Communist Party DoubleSpeak

"By 2025, China will bring the cost [of war] and attrition to its lowest."

"It has the capacity now, but it will not start a war easily, having to take many other things into consideration."

"For me as a military man, the urgency is right in front of me."

"[The situation with China] is the most severe in the 40 years since I've enlisted. [China would have] comprehensive [capabilities to invade Taiwan by 2025]."

Taiwan Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng

"I've spoken with Xi about Taiwan. We agree ... we'll abide by the Taiwan agreement."

"We made it clear that I don't think he should be doing anything other than abiding by the agreement."

U.S. President Joe Biden

Chinese President Xi Jinping  Andy Wong/AP

"Reunification of the nation must be realized, and will definitely be realized."

"Reunification through a peaceful manner is the most inline with the overall interests of the Chinese nation, including Taiwan compatriots."

"Aggression and hegemony are not in the blood of the Chinese people. Our people hope to successfully realize national development, but they also hope to see all peoples of the world leading happy and peaceful lives."

"China will remain a champion of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order, and we will do our very best to make even greater contributions to humanity."

"Through courage and skill, we will overcome all major risks and challenges that may impede our path to national rejuvenation and resolutely safeguard our national sovereignty, security and development interests."

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Recent polls show many Taiwanese support the government's approach in "safeguarding national sovereignty"   AFP/Getty Images

 

Taiwan values its independence as a sovereign nation. Since its historic split with the mainland in 1949, its political path diverged wildly from that of China. Taiwan is a vibrant democracy with a multi-party system and fair and open elections. It wants no part of China's one-party Communist China system; a severe autocracy focused on population control and a towering ambition to lead a new world order. 

 

Taiwan knows very well what is in store for it, in plain sight beyond the threats, when Beijing shut down democracy in Hong Kong and absorbed the island state, breaking a contract designed around "one country, two systems".

Taiwan will not forego its system to be absorbed with China. And when President Xi spoke of the ideal transition of peaceful absorption what he really meant was that a steadfastly recalcitrant Taiwanese administration would do well to set aside its unwillingness to reunify and submit to China's all-encompassing ambition to recapture the breakaway island state and return it as a province of China.

For all of President Xi's faux optimism of a biddable Taiwan and the soft lullaby of a peaceful transition, he has issued statement after statement couched in semi-diplomatic language not quite concealing implicit threats. And beyond the implicit subtlety of language there is the indisputable violence of a different kind of threat with the deployment of Chinese war planes buzzing Taiwanese air space.

 

Where over the course of less than a week the People's Liberation Army dispatched fighter jets, bombers and airborne early warning aircraft no fewer than 149 times toward Taiwan latterly. One of the air manoeuvres involved 52 jets. Intimation of the first order. A warning that could not possibly be misinterpreted. 

 

The gamble that an unrelenting ferocious display of power hinting at the destruction that could be unleashed by an angry Beijing at Taiwan's stubborn rejection of reunification proposals would bring an abject Taiwan to its knees was destined to fail.

But the offer of a peaceful transition is there, cloaked in the grim threat of military invasion. President Xi's plan is laid out neatly enough. Reunification is the melding destiny of the two; it can be achieved without bloodshed if one of the party relinquishes its foolish separation of what is manifestly meant to be a unified whole. 

 

The alternative to an ongoing stalemate which has gone on too long, would be lives lost unnecessarily and the goal achieved regardless.

China's influence on the world stage transcends that of Taiwan by a wide margin; one the master bully, the other the self-respecting island state determined to go its own way; as at variance as a cultural, social, political entity from its former status as a geographically captured satellite of an Asian giant as it might be possible to imagine. 

 

Taiwan's reputation and dignity in its status as a breakaway province lacks the distinction of recognition by the international community thanks to China's manipulative thrust at the UN. Nations that recognize Taiwan's sovereign independence risk backlash from powerful China whose no-holds-barred retaliation of presumed insults have become legendary.

 

But Taiwan continues to assert its independence with its own display of military equipment in response to that of China's. Fighter jets scheduled to put on a National Day display of its own military prowess and readiness to respond to China's provocations. Under Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen Taiwan doesn't flinch. There will be no 'peaceful' reunification.

A man walks on an overpass in Taipei, Taiwan, decorated with Taiwanese flags earlier this week ahead of the country's National Day, which is celebrated on Sunday. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Beijing's Malicious Spite

"This tweet stood out to me because it is so much more provocative [than the usual trifling bite-back comments]."

"It's ramping up things much more than what had come through official channels." 

Adrian Zenz, anthropologist, researcher in China's human rights abuses

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week visited the Cowessess First Nation, where a search had found 751 unmarked graves. Beside him is Chief Cadmus Delorme. Photo by Shannon VanRaes / Reuters

"Convincing people of moral equivalence between China and Canada is a huge win for Beijing given our respective reputations."

"It also helps China if foreign observers see Xinjiang through the prism of Canada's residential schools program."

"[Yet, Beijing refuses to admit it is involved in] a vast, ambitious and multifaceted 21st Century genocide."

David Mulroney, former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs

Hu Xijin 胡锡进

@HuXijin_GT

China state-affiliated media

Who is this man? Isn't he worried about the indigenous people spitting on his face?

 

A cartoon derisive of the Prime Minister of Canada who has latterly overseen, though not himself initiating, Parliamentary censures of China for its treatment of minority Muslim groups in China -- with new revelations being unleashed in the world media of sensational discoveries of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at the sites of former mandatory residential schools established in Canada over a hundred years ago by previous Canadian governments with a view to preparing First Nations children to be integrated into the larger society, leaving their ancestral languages, customs and families behind -- has found favour with Chinese diplomats and news media.

The cartoons are the work of a Twitter account holder living in China, even though the Chinese government bans most of its citizens from access to Twitter. Describing herself as an ordinary citizen, her brief bio sketch identifies her as someone proud that Zhao Lijian, the Chinese ambassador to Australia "is really fond of me". Australia has had more than ample lash-back of the fury of Beijing for the Australian government's impudence in insisting that China must be held accountable for its lack of due diligence in preventing the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 becoming a global pandemic.

As pay-back, the Chinese Communist Party has harassed and belittled Australia, punished its large trading partner by cancelling out or holding up imports into China. Australia investigative reports of China's ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang province has been yet another irritant between the two countries, particularly since Australia succeeded in drawing attention to the plight of the Uyghurs and bringing its Western democratic allies on board to censure China.

 

Protesters hold photos of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, abducted by China as hostages.

For the past two-and-a-half years, Beijing has been expressing its rage against Canada for arresting Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou on an extradition request from the United States, which brought Beijing to retaliate by kidnapping two Canadian citizens in China, accusing them of espionage, and subjecting them over a period of more than two years to inhumane prison conditions in an attempt to coerce the government of Canada to release Ms.Meng from bail custody in Vancouver. 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long courted China, anxious to sign trade agreements with the trading colossus. Mr. Trudeau has on more than one occasion in the past, expressed his admiration for China's brand of tyranny for its efficiency in governing and excelling in its economic sphere of hugely successful corporate production, trade and profitability. Ever cautious of criticizing Beijing whose agents have been allowed to infiltrate Canada's government, academia, science and technology, in the process scoping out Canada's trade secrets and absconding with scientific and technological advances belonging to Canada, Mr. Trudeau is now the butt of Chinese spite.

 

The man who worked so assiduously to try to ingratiate himself with China and its Communist politburo to advance Canada's interests in free trade with China, but who failed to succeed even though the political party he heads continues to see such an agreement as a priority for Canada, is now being berated and belittled for obliquely causing embarrassment to China on the world stage. Some might call it just desserts. On the other hand, it stands as an example of the low behaviour that China excels at.

The cartoon in question shows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seated on the skulls of Canada's First Nations people with gravestones in the background and the legend: "We stole your land, we killed your men, we buried your child (sic)", with a smirking Trudeau smugly content as vultures circle in the background, and the finishing line to the statement: "Let's reconcile". A Chinese diplomat and the editor-in-chief of a Chinese Communist Party newspaper re-tweeted the cartoon with their own comments appended.

"Who is this man? Isn't he worried about the indigenous people spitting on his face?", jeered Hu Xijin of Global Times. As for Beijing's consul general in Rio de Janeiro, Li Yang ridiculed the Canadian prime minister: "Do you think your so-called reconciliation is worth showing off?!!!" Needless to say, none of this undiplomatic and juvenile behaviour would be on if it were not encouraged by China's President Xi, seemingly oblivious to the obvious, that world leaders normally do not engage in this type of low-character assassination.

Beijing's calling card.

 

Police patrol the compound at No.2 Intermediate Peoples Court in Beijing during the trial of Canadian Michael Kovrig

Eradicating Poverty in China

"I insisted on looking at real poverty, understanding the real efforts to reduce poverty, helping those who are in real poverty and achieving real poverty alleviation."

"[The] arduous task of eradicating extreme poverty has been fulfilled."

"According to the current criteria, all 98.99 million poor rural population have been taken out of poverty, and 832 poverty-stricken counties as well as 128,000 villages have been removed from the poverty list."

"The CCP’s leadership and China’s socialist system are the fundamental guarantees against risks, challenges and difficulties."

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Ceremony, Beijing, Great Hall of the People

It took China less than 70 years to emerge from isolation and become one of the world's greatest economic powers.  Getty Images

"When the Communist Party came into control of China it was very, very poor." 

"There were no trading partners, no diplomatic relationships, they were relying on self-sufficiency."                                                                                                                        DBS chief China economist Chris Leung

 

"[The ceremony and propaganda were] aimed at painting Xi Jinping as the victorious commander leading China to success in its millennia-long battle against poverty and allowing him to claim personal credit for this accomplishment."

"This will have dramatic ramifications in terms of Xi's personal power, the extent to which a cult of personality surrounding Xi will be tacitly or directly encouraged."

Professor Carl Minzner, specialist in Chinese law and governance, Fordham Law School

President Xi's address, announcing his country's success in achieving the "human miracle" of wiping out extreme poverty in the most populous country in the world was meant to spotlight pride of achievement linked directly to his presidency. Claiming the milestone was achieved when ten million people in the country for each of his eight years in power broke through the poverty barrier, at a cost of close to $311 billion. Beijing's determination to bring employment to all of its population through the medium of becoming the world's factory.

 

Producing inexpensive, not particularly durable products attractive to a world economy eager to import an impressive range of everyday articles at an irresistible price, reflecting a poorly-compensated workforce, but one that had never before been capable of employing so many people. The process was one of addiction; the West in particular seeing consumers snapping up the cheap bargains, even as a consequence their own production facilities went out of business, unable to compete, completely undercut as China gave the world what it wanted.

 

Beijing was comfortable ignoring copyright, trademark and international norms for competition and business practise. Skilled at theft of other countries' scientific formulae, medical breakthroughs, corporate technology, design and client data helped its economy steadily advance, without the need to invest in research and development of its own. Scrambling up the economic ladder by any means possible, and all were possible for Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party had much to compensate for; its inheritance of the country had come at a steep price.

 

The Great Leap Forward for rapid industrialization of the peasant economy in the 1950s failed to realize its promise and within a decade an estimated ten to forty million people died of malnutrition in an immense famine, thanks to Mao Zedong's vision gone awry. Next up was the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s where China's cultural past was disowned and the culture of Communism instilled at a tremendous cost to the country's social fabric, where just as during the Russian revolution, huge human sacrifice to an ideology that betrayed human nature became a colossal failure.

Xi Jinping in Beijing on Feb. 22. Xi has made fighting poverty one of his main goals since becoming leader of the ruling Communist Party in late 2012. Photographer: Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

What is beyond doubt is that Xi Jinping's vision and belief in his purpose as the guiding light of China is as egotistical and ambitious as his predecessor's. President Xi's personal power readily equals that of Mao Zedong's. But it is without doubt that his personal legacy has been sealed with this historical accomplishment whose stunning vision and proportional success has no rival anywhere in the world. It is no mean feat; setting aside the highly regimented society heavily reliant on state surveillance of the population and rules of behaviour permitting no criticism of its government.

Freedom of any kind in exchange for economic stability. Freedom from starvation. Opportunity for economic advancement. The large and growing Chinese middle class is now able to live in a way that no other generation could even begin to imagine, accruing to itself ownership of property and goods and enjoying services previously unheard of. China's technological advances in every sphere of human endeavour has begun to surpass even that of the mighty United States of America.

Its influence and far reach globally aided substantially by Beijing's use of investment abroad to cant the world toward its advance and benefit. As a member of the UN Security Council, Beijing's human rights abuses cannot be placed under universal condemnation and the CCP sanctioned for egregious conduct. China's new war is one of propaganda, propagated steadily and stealthily while it spreads its influence socially, economically and politically. Its immense hunger for natural resources gathers up the rare and the mundane.

It has the world at its beck and call, the most industrious manufacturer of badly needed supplies of all manner of finished goods and technologies. During a global pandemic which originated in China, the world became dependent on China to provide scarce personal protective equipment to enable its efforts to control the pathogen that has brought world economies to their knees, infected tens of millions of people worldwide, and killed millions more.

The global manufacturing, technological, military colossus produced a viral pandemic that consolidated its influence and power while it solved the endless cycle of endemic poverty at home, even while manipulating its minority populations to become more Chinese, setting aside 'splittism' in favour of 'harmony', and thus achieving happiness as they eschew their traditions, culture, language, religion and liberty in favour of one great big happy family approved by the Chinese Communist Party.

Beijing's Campaign to Make Friends and Influence People as it Aspires to Commanding Heights

"A long-standing trope in the U.S. debate on that subject is that China itself doesn’t know what it seeks to achieve, that its leaders haven’t yet worked out how far Beijing’s influence should reach. Yet there is a growing body of evidence, assembled and interpreted by talented China experts, that the Chinese government is indeed aiming for global power and perhaps global primacy over the next generation — that it seeks to upend the American-led international system and create at least a competing, quasi-world order of its own."

"It doesn’t take unparalleled powers of deduction to reach this conclusion. Top Chinese officials and members of the country’s foreign policy community are becoming increasingly explicit in saying so themselves."

"President Xi Jinping more than hinted at this goal in his landmark address to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. That speech represents one of the most authoritative statements of the party’s policy and aims; it reflects Xi’s understanding of what China has accomplished under communist rule and how it must advance in the future."

"Xi declared that China “has stood up, grown rich, and is becoming strong,” and that it was now “blazing a new trail for other developing countries” and offering “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” By 2049, Xi promised, China would “become a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence” and would build a “stable international order” in which China’s “national rejuvenation” could be fully achieved.

This was the statement of a leader who sees his country not just participating in global affairs but setting the terms, and it testifies to two core themes in China’s foreign policy discourse."

Hai Brands, Bloomberg

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that by 2049, China would “become a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence.” | BLOOMBERG

"Out of the bottom of my heart: good riddance", stated Geng Shuang, Beijing's deputy ambassador to the United Nations after Germany's ambassador Christoph Heusgen's two-year tenure on the 15-member revolving Security Council was coming to an end and he appealed to China to release the two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, held the past two years on spurious charges of 'espionage'. It would be a goodwill gesture, he recommended. Earning him the open spite and abuse of the Chinese diplomat.

"Let me end my tenure on the Security Council by appealing to my Chinese colleagues to ask Beijing for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Christmas is the right moment for such a gesture", offered Ambassador Heusgen on December 22nd at the council session. "I wish to say something out of the bottom of my heart: Good riddance, Ambassador Heusgen", responded Ambassador Geng. "I am hoping that the council in your absence in the year 2021 will be in a better position to fulfill the responsibilities…for maintaining international peace and security."

A man holds a sign bearing photographs of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who have been detained in China for two years, outside B.C. Supreme Court where Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was attending a hearing, in Vancouver, on Jan. 21, 2020. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/File

This is a China the rest of the world doesn't quite recognize by its past activities; a China promoting peace and security for the world order. And in its heartfelt efforts to do just that it used the festive season in its own inimitable way by placing a dozen people on trial who had been arrested in Hong Kong; their criminal act was an attempt to flee Beijing's clamp-down on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, hoping to escape the new security laws that would brand them criminals by committing a criminal act; escaping to Taiwan.

The trial for the dozen men was held in secret then adjourned with no word of its outcome. China responded when an American official criticized the event by demanding he "immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs". It is no secret that President Xi Jinping intends to elevate China's stature in the international community, and with it his own through the personality cult he has assiduously groomed China to accept. The reasoning behind China's Communist Party's decision to forge full steam ahead on its charm offensive to attain that end, is certainly unique to China.

What other country besides the one singular geography holding the largest population in the world -- that has engineered itself skillfully into the position of a global trade and manufacturing behemoth, one that belligerently views its neighbours as obstructing its air, land and sea sovereign claims over both international and disputed areas, and which has launched an immense global investment and infrastructure campaign of dependency to widen its reach and influence -- would engage those it sees as world leaders and competitors with contemptful outpourings of scorn?

 

Beijing appears to have instructed its diplomats abroad to aggressively pursue China's interests against any and all criticism of its modus operandi. Its decades-long covert plan to dispatch agents infiltrating the political arenas, academic circles, businesses and manufacturing of competitive nations to acquire trade and military secrets has given it huge advantages over what it sees as its adversaries. China stretches its octopus arms through its mammoth communications and technology corporations investing in other countries and integrating into their networks.

 

And then came SARS-CoV-2, a virus that erupted out of the blue -- or an escapee from a biotechnology laboratory in Wuhan -- that flooded that city, crept through China, then swept onward to infest the world community. Triggering the CCP's propaganda mechanism into full swing, denying responsibility for COVID-19, hazarding it entered through a U.S. plot, that it emerged from Italy, entered China through imported frozen foods. A dictatorship experiences few problems, little resistance in clamping its population into a virtual concentration camp, starving out the virus.

But if a virus could conceivably be steered and channeled, COVID took it under advisement to strike China's number one competitor as the world's sole global powerhouse, hitting its target and thus far killing 330,000 Americans even as in China things have returned to a state of normalcy. And Beijing boasts its success in taming the virus, exiling it elsewhere around the world, ravaging continents. While Beijing gets on with its charm offensive in Australia. Which exports enormous shipments of coal to China under normal conditions, but is now blackballed by Beijing, stamped 'paid' for Australia's urging of an international commission of enquiry into COVID's China connections.

China's beneficence to its Uyghur Muslim population, extending its hand in benevolence, with free courses on how to eject Islam from their lives and live instead with Chinese Communal benefits due to all in harmonious relations, leaving splittism in the dust bin of failed aspirations, cannot help but endear China to the Turkic Uyghurs. Tibetans and Mongolians are similarly grateful to Beijing's attention in ensuring they become model Chinese citizens, abandoning unneeded culture and language for the benefits of living as Chinese in thrall to happy contentment

Threats to Taiwan and India, Vietnam and Japan? A matter of twisted perception; no threats exist; they must simply accede to Beijing's expectations of them, simple enough. Unity and respect, that's all that Beijing expects from its neighbours, who must refrain from challenging Beijing's rightful claims of sovereignty over land, sea and air. And all would be sweetness and light. Except that there are some problems with President Xi's masterpiece plan, the "belt-and-road" scheme benefiting developing countries from Africa to Europe to the Middle East.

A bit of backfire from SARS-CoV-2. Where the very countries that face mountainous debts to Beijing for its generous loans in massive infrastructure programs are now struggling to keep their heads above COVID-inspired tsunamis of financial defaults from a collapsing economic situation. Low-income countries strapped for cash are beginning to default over their mega-projects leaving China with a bit of a financial problem. "It's undeniable that the program has run into deep trouble, along with many of the associated loans", noted Bloomberg News.

Workers take down a Belt and Road Forum panel outside the venue of the forum in Beijing.  Greg Baker | AFP | Getty Images