Part V of this multi-part series discussed the Made in China 2025 initiative whose goal is to modernize the Chinese industrial base – and ultimately the People’s Liberation Army – through the infusion/exploitation/theft/transfer of advanced technologies into the Chinese economy. The ChiComs seek to become a technologically-advanced leading manufacturing power by the centennial celebration of the founding of Communist China that will be held in 2049.
This part discusses the second tier geopolitical and economic goals and objectives of the Chinese Communist Party.
Introduction
The Belt-Road Initiative (and all of the various “Silk Roads”) and Made in China are strategic efforts widely advertised by the Chinese Communist Party, and the new Great Helmsman, General Secretary and President Xi Jinping. Their intertwined goals are aimed at world economic dominance in all spheres: trade, policy, legal, technology, etc. And with economic dominance comes geopolitical and military dominance.
Xi Jinping’s initiatives were predated by a strategy developed by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping after Mao Zedong’s death:
Although Mao Zedong ruled similarly, Deng Xiaoping’s (1904-1997) greatest innovation after the madness of the Mao era was to empower the bureaucracy-particularly those responsible for economic development-to make and execute policy on their own authority. In other words, to trust them.
Deng’s changes energized the ossified Communist system and leveraged the wisdom and talents of many, enabled by an emphasis on meritocratic leadership. Bureaucrats were sent to the United States (and elsewhere) to study in Western schools, where they learned the importance of free and open thinking.
The new strategy involved penetrating, coopting, and leveraging international institutions in order to gain access to resources, foreign direct investment, advanced technology, and Western methods. The strategy also involved waging war on the post-World War II order established by the United Nations and the Bretton Woods international monetary framework, as manifested in the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT – later the World Trade Organization), in order to corrupt, coopt, and ultimately replace it with an “authoritarian capitalist system” controlled by Beijing. Authoritarian capitalism is summarized here:
What is authoritarian capitalism? This question is difficult to answer because the group of authoritarian capitalist countries is heterogeneous and not clearly defined. Authoritarian capitalism can include features such as authoritarian shareholding, predatory nationalizations, the extraction of private rents using the state as a tool, the reduction of economic pluralism through the alignment of economic and political interests, as well as state capture by particularistic interest groups and the creation of state dependence of economic actors. These features can result in the erosion of the rule of law and the colonization of the state by the ruling elite, but softer authoritarian capitalist models can maintain impartial bureaucracies and the integrity of the rule of law.
A defining characteristic of authoritarian capitalism is the presence of a capitalist economy on one hand along with the absence or erosion of democracy and civil liberties on the other hand. Authoritarian capitalism must be carefully distinguished from public ownership, which is unproblematic insofar as state companies are democratically-controlled and accountable.
Communist China Meets Bretton Woods
Originally established to help rebuild post-war Europe, the purpose of the World Bank has morphed into functioning:
as an international organization that fights poverty by offering developmental assistance to middle-income and low-income countries. By giving loans and offering advice and training in both the private and public sectors, the World Bank aims to eliminate poverty by helping people help themselves. Under the World Bank Group (WBG), there are complementary institutions that aid in its goals to provide assistance.
The principal IMF objective was:
to secure international monetary cooperation, to stabilize currency exchange rates, and to expand international liquidity (access to hard currencies).
The IMF purpose was:
to eliminate destructive mercantilist trade policies, such as competitive devaluations and foreign exchange restrictions—all while substantially preserving each country’s ability to pursue independent economic policies
Bretton Woods negotiators envisioned an “International Trade Organization”, with GATT being a waystation toward that goal of an international organization aimed at “liberalizing trade” among the nations of the world. GATT was focused on implementing free trade by reducing import quotas and tariffs. In 1994, GATT morphed into the WTO whose six objectives are:
(1) to set and enforce rules for international trade,
(2) to provide a forum for negotiating and monitoring further trade liberalization,
(3) to resolve trade disputes,
(4) to increase the transparency of decision-making processes,
(5) to cooperate with other major international economic institutions involved in global economic management, and
(6) to help developing countries benefit fully from the global trading system.
The ChiComs were on the outside and looking in to this international system thanks to the bipartisan anti-Communist political coalition in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. As mentioned in Part II of this series, President Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed that Communist China could be “brought into the family of civilized nations” through democratization and integration of China over time into these institutions (China had replaced the Republic of China – Taiwan – as a permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1971).
- Communist China’s representation at the World Bank began in 1980, and it’s first project loan was approved in 1981.
- Communist China’s association with the IMF began in 1980 although the yuan was not officially designated as a foreign exchange reserve currency until October 2016.
- The trifecta was completed when Communist China became a member of the WTO in 2001.
Recall that the IMF’s goal was to “eliminate destructive mercantilist trade policies.” China remains mercantilist to the core, having manipulated its currency since the country was “opened” by Nixon and Kissinger in 1971. China’s economy is opaque, Byzantine, and authoritarian capitalist. A key secondary goal is to corrupt, undermine, and ultimately control – through proxies or directly – these international organizations to the profit and benefit of the Chinese economy while replacing free enterprise and laisse faire with a government-managed authoritarian capitalist economy.
Secondary Goals of the Spider Dragon
To achieve these ends, the ChiComs under the direction of the new “great helmsman” Xi Jinping have developed an interlocking mosaic of geopolitical and economic policy goals and objectives under the umbrellas of the BRI and Made in China. Here are some of these (in no particular order):
Keep the Western money flowing into China. The standard of living of average Chinese MUST increase yearly in order for the CCP to maintain control. That includes joint ventures with foreign investment banks, as noted here:
US investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanly have received an approval from China’s securities regulator to raise their stakes and take majority holdings in their China securities joint ventures on Friday, a sign that China’s efforts of further opening up have not been hindered by the COVID-19 situation.
Goldman Sachs was approved to increase holdings in Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities from 33 percent to 51 percent, while Morgan Stanley increased its stake from 49 to 51 percent.
In 2018, China announced it would cancel rules that limit foreign investment in domestic banks and financial asset management companies in an effort to push forward financial opening-up.
Make Shanghai the world’s top global financial center. For both prestige and control purposes. That move is on track, as reported by state-run Global Times last year:
Chinese financial centers have shown growing competitiveness globally as five cities rank among the top 20 global financial centers.
Of the five cities, Shanghai overtook Singapore, ranking fourth in the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), while Guangzhou climbed four places to 19th and Hong Kong fell three places to 6th. Beijing stays at 7th and Shenzhen slipped from 9th to 11th.
Become a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse. Aligned with Made in China 2025, this goal involves incorporating automated manufacturing and “internet of things” technologies in Chinese production facilities. The ChiComs have established the Alliance of Industrial Internet for “internet and collaborative manufacturing initiatives.” Beg, borrow, or steal:
With effective support and guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) took up the opportunity and established the Alliance of Industrial Internet with joint efforts of the industrial sectors to accelerate the development of industrial Internet; to gather the industrial power at home and abroad; to establish a public platform for collaborated improvement in administration, industry, academy, research and application; to conduct joint researches; and to facilitate application of industrial Internet.
Assert Chinese leadership on the world scene. The goal is to promote Xi as a world leader while undermining the US by pushing for a bipolar world and multilateral solutions for problems. This includes PPE and vaccine diplomacy, international trade, leveraging China’s export economy and supply chain dominance, exploiting debt trap diplomacy, demonstrating Chinese leadership and know-how, etc. All aimed at achieving a new “Chinese world order.”Here is a typical agitprop headline from XinhuaNet on Chinese leadership: “Xi Focus: China underscores unity to save world economy from recession.”
Reshape global governance. Governance with ChiComs in control, that is, as summarized here:
Beyond territorial ambitions, Beijing wants to control how states interact. The latest such instance that provides Beijing with this opportunity is the recent U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) [Note: Biden reversed this decision.]. For China, this is an opportunity to add to its heft in the international order and fulfil its ambitions of redesigning multilateral arrangements. It also means replacing the current U.S. endorsed “liberal rules-based order” with a model that benefits Beijing and fulfills its self-interests.
For this, Beijing has pushed the “hub-and-spoke model” as a means for China to become the nucleus of global governance. Ironically, first used by the United States in the early years after World War II, the model hinges on a series of bilateral agreements instead of multilateral institutions. China has already extensively applied this model in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia as part of its flagship foreign policy project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Prepare the rest of the world for fangkong (prevent and control). Fangkong is political method developed over the years by the CCP:
It refers to crisis management involving control over diffuse forces (inside or outside of the country); a conveniently broad term, it can be applied to possible threats to both health and security. Fangkong encapsulates Beijing’s perception that these two kinds of threats share similar features and can be tackled using similar approaches.
Fangkong became a common term in the late 1990s and early 2000s, primarily in reference to domestic security. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) saw society as a kind of engineering project that could be improved with better systems and technologies. Fangkong was one concept deployed in this effort.
The ChiComs seek to export fangkong overseas as a kind of psychological preparation for future authoritarian control by Beijing. One might say that the authoritarian virus lockdowns in Blue states in the US are good examples of adopting fangkong methods. There is more to follow in that regard if the Democrat Party has their way!
Leverage the virus/pandemic to expand Chinese influence and economic growth. This involves propagating the myth of ChiCom “epidemic control” to convince other nations to use ChiCom methods:
[L]eading Chinese academics and industrial leaders [have] present[ed] the virus crisis as an opportunity to make epidemic control a major Chinese export. From surveillance drones, disinfection robots, and AI-powered epidemic-forecasting systems to no-contact technology for online education and new factories to make fabric for protective masks, the virus is a boon for Chinese business. In the People’s Daily, the former head of China’s state cement company, Song Zhiping, wrote that “these areas are bound to become the focus of attention of the entire society and have great potential for development.”
This goal also includes purchasing controlling interests in distressed foreign businesses made vulnerable by the collapse of the world economy.
Make major Chinese cities “smarter”. Xi announced this goal last year: “[M]ajor cities can become “smarter” by using big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies to modernize urban governance.” What he left unspoken was the definition of “modernizing urban governance,” which in the ChiCom vernacular involves extending the surveillance state into every nook and cranny of Chinese society, including the use of digital passports and a social credit system to monitor and manage “correct behavior” of all Chinese citizens. This is also something Xi wants to “export” to the rest of the world.
Dominate the world’s oceans. Or, as the PLA-N puts it, “Strive for ocean-oriented strength.” China already has the world’s largest fishing fleet, the world’s third largest container shipping fleet, and now the world’s largest Navy. And they’re not done by any means:
China will have a naval fleet of 425 ‘battleforce’ ships and submarines by 2030 – an increase of almost 20% over the next 10 years – according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) report
The PLA-Navy expansion includes establishment of overseas bases from which to project maritime power and defend Chinese maritime interests associated with the Maritime Silk Road. Here is a look at Djibouti, the Chicoms’ “first overseas strategic strong point.” Get ready for a PLA-N ship patrolling off New York City in the not-too-distant future!
Lead the world in next-generation advanced technologies. The list is a long one, and the ChiComs are pursuing/investing/stealing/”joint-venturing” to beat the band: 5G, artificial intelligence, mobile payment systems, blockchain/digital currency for a “digital transformation of the world’s economy”, robotics, and even sensitive technology to exploit the undersea domain. For the first time, China filed more patent applications than the US in 2019: “The World Intellectual Property Organization, which oversees a system for countries to share recognition of patents, said 58,990 applications were filed from China last year, beating out the United States which filed 57,840.” Control the next-generation technology, control the future world economy.
Control international technology standards. Related to the proceeding is the continuing push by the ChiComs to get control of the international standards certification process by replacing the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) with “China Standards 2035”:
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pursues a decades-long grand strategy to develop and capture global networks and platforms – with them to define global standards. Hold over standards promises enduring control of international resources, exchange, and information; a global geopolitical operating system with coercive might. Beijing has officially endorsed this ambition since its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization, when it launched the National Standardization Strategy.
Now, the CCP is putting that intent into action. Beijing is about to launch China Standards 2035, an industrial plan to write international rules. China Standards 2035 is the successor to Made in China 2025; an even bolder plan for the subsequent decade premised not on governing where global goods are made, but on setting the standards that define production, exchange, and consumption.
Control the standards, control the technology. All part of the mosaic of Chinese goals and objectives.
As the ChiComs have many more secondary goals worthy of discussion, I am going to end Part VI here and continue with more of those in Part VII.
The end.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN:
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: AFNN_USA