China violated the trust of its own people, and failed to adhere to the international rules-based system which created a degree of stability in the modern world. It continues to perpetrate human rights abuses against its domestic minorities, including the Uighurs. It persecutes Falun Gong practitioners and breaks agreements guaranteeing freedoms for the residents of Hong Kong. In the economic realm it employs unfair trade practices throughout the world and militarily commits unchecked aggression on neighbors and other countries far from its shores. This is an abbreviated list of its belligerent practices. Xi Jinping and the CCP have played an offensive chess game with the West for a long time and they almost won.
Decade-after-decade of violations against the normative standards used in the modern nation-state system accumulated without anyone standing up to the Chinese Communist Party leadership. No country, that is, until the United States under the Trump Administration decided that the United States had finally had enough of China’s aggressive behavior.
This summer China dramatically ramped up its activity in the South China Sea. It continued building artificial islands in the region while promising falsely they will not be militarized. The world now knows the Chinese government lied. Today those small pieces of rock, and dredged up land, form harbors for Chinese military ships in ports built using PLA military personnel. PLAF planes conduct sorties from the islands’ military-grade airfields and bases designed and built by China. Its PLAN submarine fleet patrols the international waters as their own, from naval bases deep inside secret underground tunnels on Hainan Island. Policy makers in Washington are responding to the threat. The US recently sent aircraft carrier strike force groups into the region, conducted numerous exercises, and freedom of passage drills.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced the US will resist China’s “destabilizing activity” after the PLAN announced it was conducting three simultaneous naval exercises, including live fire drills, off Qingdao and Bohai Bay. This week alone China stationed four fighter jets, among other transport aircraft on the largest of the Paracel Islands called Yongxing Dao (Woody Island) which is located in the Beijing is regrouping but not backing down. President Xi Jinping, the CCP senior leadership, and the PLA have run rampant across the South China Sea for many years with an increase in illicit activity this summer.
The world is starting to see China as the bully of Asia. The love fest between the West and the Asian giant is coming to an end. Beijing’s lack of transparency and failed response to the Wuhan virus, as it spread across continents killing citizens in almost every nation, sped the awakening. It was a long time in the making, according to a senior Trump Administration official. Washington is taking a strong stand against the expansionist decisions of the Chinese Communist Party. President Xi Jinping pushed his agenda forward until there was resistance from the West. The game is showing the first signs of change. Earlier this week a number of Chinese government and CCP spokespersons were vocal in the media calling for renewed talks with Washington.
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A chess player needs to think strategically and get into the mind of the opposing player. Although China understands it is being “checked,” the game is far from over. China’s end goal is hegemony of Asia, global power status among the largest and strongest of nations, and a world redefined in its own image. The West, in contrast, desires only to co-exist with a peaceful China that abides by the rules-based international system. The struggle is more transparent this week and that is a solid next move toward peace and stability in the world. Now it is up to China to reassess its position. Whether it will be willing to do so is the big question.
DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Fridat, she presents key updates on China.
Photo: A J-10 fighter jet attached to an aviation brigade of the air force under the PLA Southern Theater Command takes off during a flight training exercise under unfavorable meteorology conditions in mid August, 2020. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Wang Guoyun)