One month after the U.S. election, the two candidates are still in a tug-of-war. On the other hand, Xi Jinping, who regained his tenure by “turning the sword inward” alone, is now boldly pursuing his Chinese dream and trying to popularize the Chinese model to the world.
The Chinese model emerged in the post-Beijing-Olympic era under Hu Jintao, but Xi has been in power for eight years and has invaded the world with his all-out “four self-confidence” model of Chinese communist rule. As Dainian Bu, director of Asian studies at the American think tank Institute for Business Studies, puts it in his new book, “Beijing wants to build a China-centered network of strategic partners, an international order that is more friendly and compatible with authoritarian Chinese rule. Such an order, he writes, “would look more like China under Communist rule – more oppressive, more dependent on social control, coercion, and instruments of oppression, more closed and undemocratic. Bu Danian has called the kind of international order Xi Jinping wants to build “Beijing’s nightmare.
Trump is undoubtedly the most powerful U.S. president to stop the “Beijing nightmare,” and he has corrected the appeasement policies of the four previous U.S. presidents of the last 28 years against the Chinese Communist Party’s encroachment on the world. Regardless of whether Trump wins the 2020 election or not, the three legacies of Trumpism as defined by Yu Maochun — abandoning the China card, abandoning the engagement-centeredness, and recognizing that the CCP does not equal the Chinese people — have become important legacies of the 21st century.
In the election, the Trump Doctrine pushed hard on the entry of members of the Chinese Communist Party and intensified anti-communist espionage operations; banned American investment in 31 Chinese companies linked to the Chinese military; and imposed sanctions on China Electronics Import-Export Co.
On November 24, New Times published an op-ed by former Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying, who emphasized that the U.S.-China relationship would not be decoupled and that some sort of “co-competition” (cooperation and competition) relationship would be developed. Fu Ying blamed Trump’s sanctions and containment of China. It also set conditions for Biden to restore U.S.-China relations, specifically calling for each country to respect and recognize China’s political system. The next day, Xi Jinping called Biden to congratulate him on his election as U.S. president.
On November 11, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) passed a resolution authorizing the Hong Kong government to disqualify four members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, triggering the collective resignation of 15 pro-democracy lawmakers. This is a further destruction of the rule of law, the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems”, following the imposition of Hong Kong’s National Security Law by Beijing’s two sessions this summer, and the destruction of Hong Kong’s political system of separation of powers guaranteed by the Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
Xi won’t even give the appearance of reform.
The first Chinese Communist leader to oppose the separation of powers was Deng Xiaoping, who, after his return from the Cultural Revolution, told visiting foreign leaders, “China does not practice the separation of powers. On May 27, 1987, Deng Xiaoping called Zhao Ziyang to his home to discuss his comments on the report of the 13th National Congress: “We don’t copy the separation of powers, and you didn’t write about the separation of powers; but didn’t you also copy a little bit? It is our advantage to do what we decide, and this advantage cannot be lost. Dictatorship cannot be abandoned, and the sentiment of demanding democratization cannot be accommodated.” The separation of powers is the cornerstone of Western constitutional democracy, and if Deng Xiaoping wants a dictatorship, the separation of powers cannot be moved at all. Deng’s bottom line for political reform is simply “separation of party and state,” he said: “If people can see from the report that China will continue to reform, the report will be a success.
After Xi Jinping came to power, in his first year in office in January 2013, he came up with the “Two Thirty Years of Mutual Non-Denial”, and in April he came up with the “Document No. 9”, the ideological “Seven No-Talk”, and he restored the Party leadership, not even the appearance of reform and opening up.
Xi Jinping reads out one important speech after another drafted by his secretarial team to “open up a new era” all day long, and he has not lost his three-year military hobby of serving as secretary to Defense Minister Geng Biao. He often found time to listen to tapes of Teresa Teng and other Hong Kong and Taiwan singers with the driver in Geng Biao’s car. Now he still loves to listen to music, a party with his brother-in-law, he hid in the house alone to listen to music, after being called out by everyone, he involuntarily said: “I did not expect people to love me so much.” I can only say that the songs he listens to have changed.
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