On Friday, April 16, a Hong Kong court sentenced a number of local pro-democracy activists who had been convicted earlier, mostly for sentences ranging from one to one and a half years. The “crime” for which these people were found guilty was unlawful assembly without permission, and the charges were not really related to Hong Kong’s national security law, but everyone linked the trial and convictions to the national security law that the Chinese Communist Party is pushing in Hong Kong.
To be honest, I am definitely not surprised by this result, because if one understands the nature and characteristics of the Chinese Communist regime, one can conclude that “it will happen sooner or later”. Therefore, I have always believed that if the first goal of the democracy movement in Hong Kong is not to target the CCP, and if the democracy movement in Hong Kong is not considered in the context of the democratization of mainland China, it is difficult to get a good result in the end.
But this time, the CCP’s operation in Hong Kong can further highlight the CCP’s fear as well. For all the CCP’s unreasonable attacks reflect some kind of fear deep in its heart.
What does the CCP fear most at the moment? We have summarized the top five and stated them for discussion as a way to throw light on them.
The fifth item that the CCP fears the most is economic decoupling
This item, of course, is mainly related to the economic situation in mainland China. The CCP system is a so-called executive-led system, where the regime controls society in multiple ways, but since the last two decades, this control has been reflected more at the economic level. To put it bluntly, the more money available to the authorities, the stronger the control over society. This is the pattern, for example, of the huge increase in the so-called cost of maintaining stability on the mainland.
In Beijing, for example, many people talk about the “Chaoyang Masses” or the “Xicheng Aunties,” the Communist Party’s so-called “people’s war” on security matters, which is in fact piled up with money. Each “Xicheng Ma” participates in stability maintenance actions for at least 40 to 50 RMB per day, up to hundreds of RMB. Most of the so-called patriotic organizations in Hong Kong are also funded by the United Front or other Chinese Communist Party agencies, or by some Hong Kong businessmen at the expense of mainland market development.
The “legitimacy” of the Chinese Communist Party’s regime over the past three decades has been largely based on so-called economic growth. The economic growth of mainland China has a lot to do with the national identity of the Chinese people, and the economies of China’s neighboring Chinese societies, even those in the Chinese cultural sphere, are doing quite well. This shows that there is not much correlation between good economic performance and sound government governance and policies. Secondly, the economy of mainland China is also related to the large amount of foreign investment. Funds from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, the United States and Europe, accompanied by a large influx of companies into the mainland, have a huge impact on the Chinese economy. However, CCP propaganda uses the results of economic development to assert the “legitimacy” of the CCP regime.
The economic development of mainland China is based on the so-called “East Asian model”, which is export-oriented. More than a decade ago, mainland China’s economic dependence on foreign trade once exceeded 50 percent, but has decreased in recent years.
In 2019, China’s GDP was RMB 99,865 billion, or roughly less than $15 trillion, but its total annual imports and exports reached $4.5 trillion, of which exports were $2.5 trillion and imports were $2.1 trillion, accounting for about 30% of GDP. Foreign trade drives peripheral economic activity plus a large number of employed people, foreign trade accounts for more than 40% of China’s GDP, which can still be reached.
The three main drivers of economic growth, investment, consumption and exports, mainland China’s consumption contribution is the least, accounting for about forty percent of GDP, much less than the usual seventy percent or more in other countries. But in reality, foreign exports are equivalent to the contribution of foreign consumers to China’s GDP.
In other words, the East Asian model relies on consumption in foreign markets to drive economic growth. Thus, a U.S.-China trade war by President Trump (Trump) would be quite frightening for the Chinese Communist Party. It is not simply due to the possibility of curbing the dependence of the U.S. market on Chinese products, but this action starts a trend that reverses the continuation of the East Asian model in mainland China, which in turn poses a challenge to the structure of the Chinese economy or to the Chinese economic growth model. The Chinese Communist Party had to prepare for the future of the economy. This is the biggest reason why the CCP started to promote “self-reliance” or “internal circulation”. Once the economy shrinks, the CCP’s government revenue will be under pressure and its spending on stability maintenance will be affected, as well as internal stability maintenance, external unification and foreign propaganda.
The fourth item is the interruption of scientific and technological exchanges with the West
This fear is firstly related to the economy, because the CCP’s export-oriented economy has reached a limit. As the world economy develops, exports of simple low-grade products can no longer grow significantly, so China needs to upgrade its products, which requires industrial upgrading and technological upgrading in order to continue to maintain its share of foreign markets.
Secondly, technological upgrading is also an important condition for the CCP to control society and upgrade its military equipment, so if the technological “exchange” with the West is interrupted, it will have serious implications. By “exchange,” we include the theft of intellectual property. Whatever the means by which technology flows from the West to China, we will count it as an “exchange” for now.
Mainland China has a large number of international students studying science and technology in European and American universities. There are 330,000 Chinese students in the United States, which is an important channel and means of “exchange” with American science and technology. Now, the U.S. is not only cutting off all kinds of high-level academic exchanges, but is also considering how to reduce the number of Chinese science and technology students.
Although China has many outstanding scientific and technological personnel, it lacks the culture and mechanisms for creativity and innovation, which are usually incompatible with an authoritarian and totalitarian system. Once the “exchange” of science and technology with foreign countries cannot continue, the progress of science and technology under the CCP will be greatly affected.
The third major fear of the CCP is the so-called “independence” of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.
The CCP started with Marxism and communism, and has always used them as the core values on which mainland Chinese society is based. But in fact, since the Cultural Revolution, communist ideology has collapsed in mainland China, and few people, even at the highest levels of the CCP, truly believe in communism, creating an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy for the CCP.
To deal with this crisis, the CCP has adopted a democratic and nationalist approach. This is the reason why Chinese nationalism has been on the rise over the past two decades. For example, in past propaganda, the CCP deliberately recounted its war victory with the Kuomintang regime as a way to highlight the legitimacy of the CCP’s seizure of power, but recently the CCP has begun to emphasize the war against Japan, stressing that it was the CCP that led China to defeat Japan. With this goal in mind, the CCP changed the history of the war against Japan from 8 years to 14 years, as they wanted to include the Manchurian War of Resistance in the mid-1930s, which had a joint leadership of the Soviet Union and the CCP, as a way to express that the CCP was the real force leading the war against Japan.
As the temperature of nationalist sentiment in mainland China continues to rise under the constant push of the authorities, the Chinese public has also begun to measure the CCP through a nationalist lens. in 2016, Xi Jinping said in a public speech, “We will never allow anyone, any organization, any political party, at any time, in any form, to split any piece of Chinese territory out of China! ” This tough stance is in response to the rising nationalism in mainland China. Of course, after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, it gave up many pieces of Chinese territory, including Northern Manchuria and Mongolia, which have historically become off-limits to the Communist Party.
As a result, the CCP cannot and must not compromise in the face of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang affairs, and has been involuntarily kidnapped by extreme nationalism. The room for flexibility in its policies has been compressed as never before, and there is no other choice but to be tough and tougher.
The second item on the list of the CCP’s greatest fears is religious freedom
This also has to do with ideology. The need to eliminate all religions is the inevitable result of the Communist totalitarian regime’s monopoly on ideology. Over the past decade or so, the CCP has intensified its repression of all religions and beliefs, with the clear goal of eliminating any authority outside the Communist Party, especially ideological authority.
We have seen the CCP dismantling churches, arresting underground church leaders, and forcing the Catholic Church to follow the CCP’s instructions in mainland China. In Tibet, the CCP’s main effort to cleanse so-called Tibetan independence has been directed at Tibetan Buddhism, with police stations set up in large monasteries, monks and lamas forced to study atheism, materialism and Xi Jinping’s ideas, and those who disagree arrested and sentenced to prison.
In Xinjiang, where more than a million Uighurs and other Islamic minorities have been taken to concentration camps for collective brainwashing, the key focus, too, remains on religion. Large numbers of Muslim imams have been arrested, religious books of all kinds have been destroyed, and any online comments about faith and religion have been dismissed as religious extremism.
Religion is at the heart of the repression in Xinjiang and Tibet. In Xinjiang, the authorities have tried to eliminate all culture based on religion, including forced drinking, forced eating of pork, forced marriages of female Islamic believers to Han Chinese, and even forced abortions and sterilizations, all of which violate the basic teachings of Islam. But to the Chinese Communist Party, these are all manifestations of extreme religious power.
In fact, it is not only religion that is concerned with religious freedom, there are also various faiths that are also within the scope of the CCP’s crackdown. For example, Falun Gong. What is stipulated in the UN human rights conventions is the freedom of religion and belief, including the freedom to believe, worship, preach, and so on. However, in mainland China, this freedom is reduced to believing and does not include public worship and free proselytizing. On the issue of Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party has deliberately distorted the concept of “religion and faith” at the United Nations, compressing the two concepts into one and turning it into “religious faith”. Therefore, it says that Falun Gong is not a religion, so it suppresses the issue of “religious beliefs”.
The key to all of this is that religion and faith must have a moral authority outside of the official ideology, which poses a serious threat to totalitarianism.
The number one fear of the CCP is that “the CCP is not China, and the Communist Party is not the same as the Chinese people.”
On September 4, 2020, Xi Jinping, in a speech commemorating the 55th anniversary of China’s victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, began with five “no promises”.
First, the Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by any force to distort the history of the CPC and to vilify its nature and purpose!
Secondly, the Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by any force to distort and change the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics and to deny and vilify the great achievements of the Chinese people in building socialism!
Third, the Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by any force to divide and oppose the CPC and the Chinese people!
Fourth, the Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by any force to impose their will on China through bullying means, to change the direction of China’s progress, and to obstruct the Chinese people’s efforts to create a better life for themselves!
Fifth, the Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by any force to undermine the Chinese people’s right to live in peace and development, to undermine the exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese people and the people of other countries, and to undermine the noble cause of human peace and development!
In this regard, the fifth “never promise” is a refusal to decouple, the fourth “never promise” is an economic issue, related to economic decoupling, and the first to third “never promise”. The first to the third “never promise” actually fall on the third “never promise”, that is, the Chinese Communist Party refuses to decouple from the Chinese people.
A political party is not the same as a government, and a government is not the same as a state, which is a basic logic. But the CCP is not the same as China, and the CCP government is not the same as the Chinese people, which is not a logical issue with the CCP. This reminds me of what the Chinese people say, there are two kinds of logic in the world, one is called logic and the other is called CCP logic.
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