The Precarious Rejection of the Xi Jinping Regime: US-China Confrontation and the Curse of the Soviet Union

“The Chinese Communist Party will not end up like the Soviet Union that collapsed all too easily, and under no circumstances will I let it.” This was the first thing Chinese President Xi Jinping swore after his rise from dark horse to the pinnacle status of general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Yet today, China finds itself being forced down the same path as the Soviet Union by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Not only that, but this is happening just as the country is preparing for the 100th anniversary of the party’s founding — only one year away. There is no doubt that currently, Xi is conflicted in his search for a way to retaliate.

In a recent address about China and U.S. foreign policy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Xi is “a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology,” and aroused hostility by saying “if the free world doesn’t change, Communist China will surely change us.”

Either way, the U.S. would have China meet an end similar to that of the Soviet Union, with Xi walking the same path as that of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Pompeo’s address, which implied a “peaceful evolution,” – a coup d’etat brought about by peaceful measures, and one that China has long been cautious of – contains content so provocative, it cannot be aired uncensored in China. Pompeo draws a clear distinction between the Communist Party and the Chinese people, and uses specific rhetoric to dichotomize the two.

It is worth mentioning that Pompeo’s address was given at the presidential library of Richard Nixon, the very president who paved the way to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and China. The Chinese Communist Party broke away from its big brother, the Soviet Union, and joined forces with the U.S. Nixon also took a risk by reaching out to China, another communist nation, for help in containing a major enemy.

The U.S.-China cooperation that changed the course of contemporary history almost half a century ago is beginning to take on a different nature. Frankly, it would have been better if the U.S. had begun targeting China, the remaining communist nation, once the Soviet Union had fallen. However, the influence of China in the first half of the 1990s was negligible to the U.S., the victor and last remaining superpower. This worked in China’s favor.

’Were There No Men?’

In order to talk about Xi and Gorbachev, we need to turn the clock back eight years. A sentiment not unrelated to the current U.S.-China conflict lies hidden in an address made by Xi soon after he came to power. The military, which had slipped from under the party’s absolute control due to misguided policy, did nothing, and in the end, the Soviet Union dissolved with only a brief farewell from Gorbachev. Herein lies the moral of the story.

“Was there not a single man (who could fight)?” These words of reproach, which sound almost like an approval of the coup that resulted in Gorbachev’s house arrest in Crimea, became the root of the various policies that Xi would later implement, i.e., the absolute rule of the Communist Party. This is the curse of the Soviet Union.

Xi was not against breaking precedent for the sake of achieving this goal. First, he created “leading small groups” one after the other within the party’s Central Committee to facilitate policymaking, and gave himself a seat at the top as leader. He also took full advantage of the authority of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to conduct a political purge known as the “anti-corruption campaign” that ousted his political opponents.

This also functioned as a way to hijack authority from the State Council that Xi's rival, Premier Li Keqiang, presided over. As a result, even macroeconomic policy, which was under Li’s authority, was gradually absorbed by Xi.

The undercutting of Li was also apparent at a large-scale, entrepreneurial roundtable event that Xi held on July 21. It was a huge conference that saw attendance from not only Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd., China’s industry leader in surveillance cameras (a company that is under pressure from the U.S. government), but also from Microsoft and the Panasonic Corporation of China. Yet, for some reason Li was nowhere to be found.

On that day, even though Li was confirmed to have been in Beijing, he was not asked to attend. Meanwhile, the other three members of the top leadership were present. It was a rare economic roundtable that was even attended by the Politburo Standing Committee; the heads of foreign diplomacy. Policymaking was led by the Communist Party, which was headed by Xi — the de facto structure of the Chinese government was enshrined in one man.

Upon his accession, Xi tabled previous efforts to separate the government and the party, the government and enterprise as well as the military and enterprise. For the sake of appearances, he carried out “reverse reforms” that would reinstate a governance structure prioritizing the Communist Party.

The slogan “military-civil fusion” is a prime example of this. Here, “military” does not refer to the “national military” that is a country’s armed forces. Instead, it refers to a system in which private enterprise fully cooperates with the People’s Liberation Army, which is under the party’s absolute command. This is also a result of Xi taking to heart the lessons learned from the Soviet Union. And while we’re on the subject of party dominance, the reverse phenomenon, where the Communist flag overshadows the national flag, has recently become quite ubiquitous at official ceremonies.

The Contradictions of Party-Controlled Chinese Businesses

Above all else, the goal of business is the pursuit of profit. However, Chinese businesses contain party-affiliated apparatuses (i.e., party cells), and with the party lurking in the shadows, they become something other than the simple businesses we know them to be. Moreover, as a result of legislation such as the National Intelligence Law, Chinese businesses and citizens are obligated to provide any requested information to the government — in reality, the party.

The unique structure of a communist state proves to be an obstacle when companies like China’s industry leader in telecommunication devices, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. or surveillance camera producer Hikvision operate in more libertarian countries like the U.S.

When we look back at how China came to open its doors to the rest of the world, Richard Nixon is quoted as saying, “We may have created a Frankenstein." From the perspective of free-market countries, these Chinese businesses that have no choice but to show ultimate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, even when operating overseas, appear as enigmatic Frankenstein-like monstrosities.

At the 2017 National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi further strengthened this system in which everything is decided by the party. North, South, East, West, the Center — China was required to create a party apparatus within the organizational structure of any and all political parties, governments, military organizations, private enterprises, schools, nonprofit organizations, etc.

At the same National Congress, Xi presented concrete guidelines about how China would rise to effectively match the U.S. economically, and then overtake it – building on a plan to achieve modernization by 2035. “We will surpass you,” he said. After such provocation, one could expect that the Trump administration would try its hardest to prevent that from happening.

The internationally unpopular decision to suddenly implement the Hong Kong National Security Law, which makes a sham of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” principle, prioritized the interests of domestic politics that place the survival of the Communist Party above all else. The effect this would have on the national economy was of secondary importance.

Everything Is a Threat, and the Party Is the Target

As anticipated, the U.S.-China conflict has become radicalized, and matters are the worst they have been since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Trump administration has targeted the actual system of the Chinese Communist Party itself, and began to use rhetoric that distinguished the party from average Chinese citizens who are forced to obey its orders.

A closer look at this rationale reveals there is even a possibility measures will be taken to restrict the entry of problematic party members and their families into the United States. The number of Chinese Communist Party members exceeds 92 million members – more than the entire population of Germany. If you include their families, the total is said to be close to 300 million people, nearing the population of the United States.

A few years ago in China, it was revealed for the first time that Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, China's industry leader in e-commerce, is a member of the Communist Party. Even private citizens can choose to declare their affiliation if they are public figures; but for the most part, unless someone outs himself, it is possible to hide one’s affiliation with the Party. Nevertheless, if the U.S. makes an enemy of this class of Chinese elite, rather than a full-scale conflict, it could lead to the virtual collapse of U.S.-China relations, an admittedly dangerous situation.

Since Xi’s accession to the top, he has poured all of his efforts into strengthening the party’s governance. Though he is determined not to end up like Gorbachev, all of Xi’s decisions up to this point have proven to be his undoing. It is undeniably ironic, if Xi had not tried so hard, things might have turned out differently.

News about the closure of the Chinese consulate general in Houston, Texas, was released simultaneously with Pompeo’s address. The reason the U.S. gave for the closing was that “it was a hub of spying and intellectual property theft.” In retaliation, China closed the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in Sichuan province.

The U.S. completely refuses to acknowledge the achievements of Xi Jinping's regime (which has been in power since 2012) and has started to target the Communist Party itself. This conflict between the U.S. and China is falling into a trap caused by the specter of the Soviet Union that collapsed 29 years ago. There is no easy way for Xi to change the path he is on. This confrontation between the two powers has entered into dangerous and uncharted territory.