China’s Communist Party Conundrum

The Chinese government’s geo-political maneuvers, cold war tactics, and massive propaganda aren’t necessarily approved or known to majority of the Chinese people. Media is restricted and there is no press freedom in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and other Chinese territories. It is the Chinese Communist party that call the shots in their government and in the lives of the Chinese people. So, the conundrum is with the party, not with the Chinese people or the country.

Last week, the Chinese government objected to the passage and naval activities of US, Australian, and French navies in the South China Sea and the expanded areas for the Mutual Defense Treaty of the US and the Philippines. Some employees of American companies in Beijing have also been detained, and Chinese military ships and planes have been regularly encroaching on Taiwanese territorial waters and airspace for months. Also last week, in a visit to Canada, Biden and Trudeau declared that China is the main adversary economically and militarily. Chinese communications equipment and other products with potential spying capabilities are banned or restricted in the US, Canada, most European countries, Japan, and Australia. Even TikTok is now investigated. There is now a fully-blown cold war between the Chinese government and the Western Alliance.

The 30-year economic growth of China was fueled by exports of cheaper products to the rest of the world and is anchored on the Chinese government’s adoption of a free-enterprise economy allowing imports of raw materials and technologies needed by their economy, but not democratic political ideologies. The freewheeling economic entrepreneurship also came with libertarian ideas that created rich and powerful tycoons like Jack Ma that eroded the power of the communist party. So they were investigated, fined, broken up, and cut down in size and power.

Even without the pandemic, the Chinese economy was slowing down from double-digit annual growth to the low single digits. The pandemic just made it pronounced. This balancing of economic freedom and political restriction is the first dilemma which is compounded by China’s trade relations with many countries and the rest of the world. To continue growing their economy and improving their citizens’ lifestyle, the Chinese government has to allow more freedom/liberties to their people and trade with many countries. Their hegemonic geo-political ambitions and actions go against these objectives and looks like an impossible balancing act.

The economic success of China also rekindled the militaristic ambition of the Communist Party and the authoritarian ideology. The party has always maintained that to govern a huge country, a powerful government and military discipline has to be enforced. This gave rise to strongman rule of Xi Jingping backed by the military. This led to the planned takeover of Taiwan and military expansion in the South China Sea, the Belt and Road initiatives to influence/intimidate developing countries, the spying/poaching of high-technology assets, and the buildup of military armaments. With the Chinese government showing its hand, naturally all the other countries responded accordingly. They are all now wary of all Chinese moves economically and militarily.

On the diplomatic front, the Chinese government’s actions are contradictory, ambiguous, and irresponsible. Saying one thing and doing another is more than inscrutable and surely uninspiring. So, the Chinese government now has a credibility problem before the world. Even with China’s recent alliance with Russia with Xi visiting Putin in Russia, China’s neutral stand on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and peace brokering in the Middle East, it is unsure where all this is going. They are even pulling out the historical nationalistic card of centuries of western invasion/oppression, but they are not totally committing to Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

A dilemma is when you’re confronted with two or maybe three difficult choices, while a conundrum is when faced with four or more choices, majority of them having disastrous consequences.