Glenn Chafetz
Xi Jinping’s Insecurity, China’s Economic Decline, and the Increasing Danger of War Over Taiwan
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) makes no secret of its ambitions for global hegemony (though it uses the word “leadership” in place of hegemony). China’s quest for worldwide dominance is rooted in the shaky claim to power of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This might seem like an odd contention to outside observers, including the Trump Administration who see Xi as the unquestioned dictator atop a party-state-economic monolith dominated at all levels by the CCP. Xi, however, does not see his position in that way. He is, in fact, deeply insecure about his power and authority. His insecurity, in turn, feeds his ambitions, which creates more insecurity, and drives him to expand his power both domestically and internationally.
Xi’s insecurity manifests itself in a panoply of policies that include the introduction of a Maoist cult of personality for Xi himself; his personal assumption of leadership of all party internal security institutions, the continuing growth of mass technical and human surveillance both domestically and internationally; the destruction of Hong Kong’s last remnants of democracy; the classification of any internal disagreement as foreign directed; hypersensitivity to criticism from abroad; and a global program of economic espionage, sabotage, and bullying.
Fear of losing power has led Xi and his lieutenants to study the fall of other one-party regimes, like Iraq, Libya, and most especially the collapse of Communist rule in the USSR in 1991. One lesson Xi and the CCP have drawn from the Soviet collapse is the need for absolute control of the military. For Xi, the failure of the Red Army to defend the Communist Party in 1991 led to the party’s collapse. By contrast, the responsiveness of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to CCP orders in 1989 enabled the CCP to preserve its monopoly on power.
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