Ever since Chairman Xi Jinping announced, in November 2012, of his national dream of China’s great rejuvenation, one has been a little perplexed over the last decade as to what it exactly meant. Was it a call for political reform, was it a civilizational dig into the past revealing an unfulfilled promise, or an oath to seek retribution for a history marred by the “100 years of humiliation” or that China’s time for retribution and revision had arrived?
China’s history has in several ways diverged from the pre-nineteenth century era when relations with many of the East Asian tributary states could be handled by China’s rulers on an internal assumption of superiority without the use of military force. One such principle was governance by “loose rein” (jimi); it endowed native chieftains with titles, awards and the right to rule their fiefdom by their traditional laws.
Chinese historians do not tire of reminding the world of its recent past that staggered between the collapse of an empire to humiliating colonization, from bloody wars to the civil anarchy of Maoism; and now bathed in the success of ‘authoritarian capitalism,’ some even perceive a return of the Middle Kingdom.
They were designated de-facto imperial officials of the Chinese empire, salaried without the need to adhere to political encumbrances of empire. The system came into being during the Tang Dynasty (618 CE) and remained in vogue till the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. In reality, it was an artifice that screened Sovereign weaknesses without prejudicing imperial pride; it also said much for the subtlety of the empire’s traditional tribute system. This was the key to Sino-centricity of that period. How this imperial instrument of governance has been manipulated today has an abiding influence on contemporary Chinese political attitudes.
Chinese historians do not tire of reminding the world of its recent past that staggered between the collapse of an empire to humiliating colonization, from bloody wars to the civil anarchy of Maoism; and now bathed in the success of ‘authoritarian capitalism,’ some even perceive a return of the Middle Kingdom.
But even if the world order of today were to, slip into a mire of lost ‘beliefs’ to make way for Sino-centricity, there remains the problem of a potentially bizarre future where, not-quite-dead-capitalism is controlled by a totalitarian regime fervently dependent on magnifying its growth, perpetuating its dispensation and promoting an aggressive brand of nationalism for stability. All of which echo a past not quite from the Orient, but reminiscent of Europe of the first few decades of the twentieth century.
The Real Sense of Rejuvenation: Revisionism
The dictionary defines the meaning of rejuvenation as an “act to make young again, restore youthful vigour or restoring to a former better state”. And yet such a clinical implication when applied to political comportment leaves much unexpressed; for neither are we dealing with an academic study of the civilizational history of China within the limits of time and space, nor have we chosen to exclude the impact of extraneous geo-political events.
The search for renewal of such self-contained entities is a sterile activity, for it leads us to disintegrated civilizations that have been through a cycle of geneses, growth, decay and eventual breakdown. And, here lies Xi’s dilemma, how best to reconcile a wasted imperial past with a political and economic system that aims to perpetuate an authoritarian regime, encourages a private and profit based economy and yet holds on to control of the major means of production and resources of society through despotic mechanisms?
The sense of Xi’s declaration must, therefore, be seen in the light of policies, postures and outcomes that they shape; rather than in the quest for civilizational reconciliation or payback. Such form of redressal only serves to keep popular mind-sets in a perpetual state of revanchism for historical wrongs. In this perspective it is amply clear that ‘rejuvenation’ is more about geo-political revision, unquestioned growth, domination and control. This assertion remains at the core of all policies fashioned by the Communist-Party- led China to achieve world ascendancy.
Continuity with Toxic Change
Xi is not the first Chinese leader of the communist era to use the theme of rejuvenation to create a narrative that links the Chinese people with their imperial past. Deng Xiaoping talked about the “invigoration of China and his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao both called for the “great revival of the Chinese nation.” The difference lay in Xi’s malignant approach.
Over the course of more than three decades China, riding on the crest of US sponsored opening-up to the outside world, experienced a period of dazzling economic growth accompanied by a rapid build-up of military power; which today has attained a disturbingly bellicose and economically rapacious posture. Clearly, the anticipated transformation of China that President Nixon and his Secretary of State Kissinger foresaw, to a free and democratic society remains a dream gone awry.
China’s modern leaders sought to build a nation that could find its place as a global power. Yet in seeking to realize this common vision, Xi parted ways with his predecessors. Electing a way forward that largely rejected the previous path of political reform and economic openness, instead there is political autarchy and economic reforms without openness.
In a number of respects, Xi, has embraced a process of institutional change that seeks to reverse many of the political, social, and economic changes that emerged from the excesses of the Mao regime and thirty years of liberalizing reform. Beijing has also shed the low-profile foreign policy advanced by earlier leadership in preference for bold and brawny initiatives to reshape global order on China’s terms.
Protests & flagging economy
China’s economic and foreign policy triumphs notwithstanding, the Xi era, has been marked by a growing realization within the country that significant contradictions have emerged in the political and economic life of China. The Communist Party lost its ideological rationale and, for many of its citizens, the Party served little more than an enabler for personal gains, political leverage and economic advancement. Corruption, an issue that Xi purportedly gave primacy to; as he moved up the party ranks, remains endemic both in the Party and the economy.
And, while three decades of economic growth had brought dazzling benefits to the Chinese people; the social welfare net, dismantled along with many of the state-owned enterprises, has not been fully replaced, and critically, distribution of social benefits have not kept up with changing work patterns and societal demands. More than 200 million migrant workers, who toiled in the city’s factories or construction sites, could not legally live, receive medical care, or educate their children in the cities in which they worked.
While three decades of economic growth had brought dazzling benefits to the Chinese people; the social welfare net, dismantled along with many of the state-owned enterprises, has not been fully replaced, and critically, distribution of social benefits have not kept up with changing work patterns and societal demands.
China’s performance during the years of the spread of the ‘Wuhan Virus’ has been appalling and continues to be driven by bizarre ‘Zero Covid’ policies. Ineffectual vaccines and mind-deforming lock downs remains the rule-of-the-day; almost as if there is some arcane secret that may be revealed about the pandemic.
The number of popular protests in the country rocketed in the Xi years. For example in the 3 months between June to September of 2022, more than 668 civic protests have been recorded (noting that this was during a period of severe lockdowns and restrictions on public movement). Even the Chinese economy, while still posting positive growth, began to slow down on the heels of flagging economic gains in low-cost manufacturing and growing investor scepticism.
Contradictions in political thought
The current status of Chinese political thought that informs, shapes, and articulates the visions of Chinese leadership is in a state of ‘flux-of-opportunism’. Makeovers have been undertaken that have left the regime bereft of ideological moorings. Concepts such as materialism, class struggle, and the dictatorship of the proletariat are what realised Chinese communism and gave legitimacy to the Communist Party of China (CPC); yet these very precepts have been consigned to the garbage pail of Chinese history.
Confucianism was wiped out by Mao Zedong in China after the CPC seized power in 1949. It was not until the mid-1990s that Confucian philosophy was reintroduced into the country, more as a pedantic pursuit. But it was Chairman Xi who saw in it a possible contrivance to make peace with the past. The “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” provided the platform to create an illusion of reconciliation; without renouncing the autocratic powers of the CPC or in any way compromising its territorial aggressiveness, predatory economics, political mastery or, indeed, social engineering.
The central precepts of Confucianism focus on virtues of Righteousness, Benevolence, Filial Propriety, Integrity and Piety. Notwithstanding that each of these virtues is abhorrent to the core tenets of the CPC; in order to make the appeal of Confucianism logical, Xi, has even argued that “the Chinese communists have always been faithful inheritors and upholders” of Confucian philosophy.
Strategic contradictions erupt in Chinese policies, particularly, when use of force is tempered by tenets of Confucian thought. So the conflict with India meanders to an unsettled impasse.
He remarked “the CPC have consciously absorbed nutrition from the teachings of Confucius.” Mao will be shaking in his Mausoleum to hear Xi’s speech. So one can expect a gilded form of Confucianism to make its appearance to provide a fig leaf only to perpetuate the current regime in the name of (say) “Enlightened Confucianism”.
However, there is actually a huge discrepancy between Xi’s rhetoric and the reality of the Communist regime. China is not a country that honours imperial ways. The Communist government is not a regime that shows benevolence to political dissenters. The mechanism of selecting public servants overwhelmingly focuses on the candidates’ political ideology and loyalty to the Party rather than merit, piety or integrity nor does righteousness find a place in the decision making of the CPC.
And therefore, Strategic contradictions erupt in Chinese policies, particularly, when use of force is tempered by tenets of Confucian thought. So the conflict with India meanders to an unsettled impasse, the purpose and outcome of the Vietnam war is clouded, the frenetic creation of artificial islands for military bases in the South China Sea tramples on established international norms and the recent skirmishes in Ladakh remain a continuum of the impasse.
We are, perilously, on the cusp of an era of turbulence. Of all the uncertainties that influence strategic stability, it is China; a self-declared revisionist autocratic power, that will impact and challenge globally. Particularly so, in the maritime domain. And therefore it is appropriate that the planner examine and understand in some detail the challenge of China.
Chinese Geo-Political Aims and Xi’s Charted Course
The search for geopolitical space that the emergence of a new revisionist power precipitates, historically, has been the cause for global instability and tensions. Beijing’s military prowess has transformed its perspective of the world and their role in it. China, places primacy on its beliefs and interests. It perceives that its comprehensive power grants it the required heft to shape global affairs in a manner that promotes own well-being.
Add to this is the ideology of nationalism that is inextricably linked to their military and we are faced with a situation when China’s power and its revisionist urge has the potential to provoke conflicts. Progressively, China appears to be challenging not just today’s economic orthodoxy and order, but the world’s political and security framework as well without bringing about a change within her own political morphology.
China’s geopolitical aims are not secret. Xi, wants to consolidate China’s control over important lands and waterways that the “century of humiliation,” ostensibly, wrested from Chinese influence. These areas include Hong Kong, Taiwan, swathes of Indian Territory, and some 80 per cent of the East and South China Seas (E&SCS).
Xi’s charted course is driven by three prime movers: Strategic competition; Strategic stability on China’s terms and Geo-political domination. China’s growing military forces are developing to the point where they will be able to challenge contemporary global order. Strategic competition is the rivalry among powerful nation states as well as the opposing ideological clash.
National wealth and economic prosperity are to some extent inherited but, in the main, created by the innovativeness of people. In this milieu the role played by the individual nation in international relations has become more rather than less critical. Therefore, strategic competitiveness has become one of the central preoccupations of governments.
The phrase “Strategic Competitiveness” first made its appearance in the 2018 National Defence Strategy of the USA . The document identified the revisionist states of China as its prime strategic competitor. The reason for China being singled out is for its use of “predatory economics” to intimidate lesser endowed nations and secondly for militarizing and persisting with its illegal claims in the South China Sea despite the 2016 verdict of the International Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague on China’s claims over most of the South China Sea. So much for the international rule book when it comes to China’s interests.
It is amply clear that strategic stability is breached when the existing status-quo is challenged, or indeed when a state or an alliance contests the emerging challenge. The tools of the contest are the combined “comprehensive national power” of the two parties embracing political, economic, diplomatic and, what seems primary to Beijing, military prowess.
In 2017, Xi announced to the 19th Congress of the CCP, that China has entered a “new era,” and must “take centre stage in the world.” Xi’s charted course would appear to run through the Western Pacific. It focuses on building regional domination as a springboard to global power. To emerge as the dominant player in the Western Pacific, it must effectively influence the security and economic choices of the littorals of the South and East China Sea (S&ECS)s; rupture alliances in the region and push outliers and their military forces away from China’s shores.
If China cannot do this, it will never have a secure regional base from which to project power globally. It will be confronted by persistent security challenges along its vulnerable maritime periphery which is precisely the objectives of the quadrilateral security dialogue (QUAD) and the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance; to make China focus its energies within the S&ECS in a manner that its revisionist aims remain out of reach.
Conclusion
The interests of India and leading democracies of the world converge on many aspects in the Indo-Pacific. India’s Act East Policy, in addition to economic, cultural and commercial goals, includes strategic interests. The QUAD, the AUKUS alliance and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy aim at maintaining prosperity, security, and order in the Indo-Pacific. Though not stated, countering China’s belligerence in the region figures prominently.
The ‘counter-play’ in chess is an offensive move intended to reverse the opponent’s advantage in another part of the board. The Indo-Pacific and the Malacca Straits provide the space for strategic “counter play”; through these waters over 70% of China’s energy flow and 60% of trade ply. It is China’s “growth-jugular” and it is here that the world’s democracies must develop strategies that potentially signal the ability to stymie Xi’s dream of “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
