What China Wants:

“Both China’s president, Xi Jinping, and Mr Putin want to carve up the world into spheres of influence dominated by a few big countries. China would run East Asia, Russia would have a veto over European security and America would be forced back home. This alternative order would not feature universal values or human rights, which Mr Xi and Mr Putin see as a trick to justify Western subversion of their regimes. They appear to reckon that such ideas will soon be relics of a liberal system that is racist and unstable, replaced by hierarchies in which each country knows its place within the overall balance of power.” - The war in Ukraine will determine how China sees the world/The Economist March 19, 2022

“Some of the strategy to achieve this global order is already discernible in Xi’s speeches. Politically, Beijing would project leadership over global governance and international institutions, split Western alliances, and advance autocratic norms at the expense of liberal ones… Economically, it would weaken the financial advantages that underwrite US hegemony… Militarily, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would field a world-class force with bases around the world that could defend China’s interests in most regions and even in new domains like space, the poles, and the deep sea. The fact that aspects of this vision are visible in high-level speeches is strong evidence that China’s ambitions are not limited to Taiwan or to dominating the Indo-Pacific. The “struggle for mastery,” once confined to Asia, is now over the global order and its future. If there are two paths to hegemony—a regional one and a global one—China is now pursuing both.” - The long game: China’s grand strategy to displace American order. By Rush Doshi/Brookings August 2, 2021 (Doshi is currently President Biden's National Security Council as Director for China)

“At least for now, [Xi] isn’t working to overthrow democracies and replace them with revolutionary or autocratic governments. But it is clear he wishes to forge a “new type of international relations,” as he calls it, based on altered perceptions of what makes for good government. ‘Each country is unique with its own history, culture and social system, and none is superior to the other,’ Xi said in a January speech to the World Economic Forum. ‘What does ring the alarm is arrogance, prejudice and hatred; it is the attempt to impose hierarchy on human civilization or to force one’s own history, culture and social system upon others.’ …In other words: Don’t preach that democracy stuff to us, our system is every bit as valid.” What does Xi want? By Michael Schuman/Politico October 8, 2021  

“At an April 1st summit between China and the European Union, China demanded that the EU and members stop supporting multinational, coordinated statements about Chinese rights abuses in such global forums as the UN Human Rights Council.” - The war makes China uncomfortable. European leaders don’t care/The Economist April 2, 2022

China and the Role of Journalism

“Today’s leaders do not give credit to foreign reporters for their culture of scepticism. Rather, Western media are accused of inventing reports about repression in Xinjiang or Tibet and of scouring China for negative stories to distract from chaos in America or Europe…Domestic journalists are under pressure, too. Once there was public sympathy when reporters gave coverage to disaster victims and their families, as they sought answers or redress…Now, the public is turning on purveyors of bad news.” - A final victory for China’s propaganda chiefs/The Economist April 2, 2022

“Growing anti-media sentiment is driven by politics and economics. Until about a decade ago, journalists at swashbuckling news outlets talked openly of holding the powerful to account. Then the Communist Party struck back, hard, neutering liberal publications and purging newsrooms. To earn press cards today, journalists must take politics tests and attend 90 hours of training each year, stressing their primary mission of “public opinion guidance". As an extra incentive to toe the party line, censors allow online nationalists to savage any journalism deemed unpatriotic” - A final victory for China’s propaganda chiefs/The Economist April 2, 2022

China’s Tactics: A Few Examples:

“When Australia had the temerity to call for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 last year, China was incensed. It responded with an unprecedented wave of trade restrictions that froze many categories of Australian exports, rapidly decoupling economic ties.” (Foreign Policy) “China's government…hit a range of Australian goods – including barley, wine, timber, lobsters, cotton and coal — with both formal and informal sanctions, including crippling tariffs, import suspensions and long delays at customs.” (The ABC) - Australia Shows the World What Decoupling From China Looks Like. By Jeffrey Wilson/Foreign Policy, research director of the Perth USAsia Centre. November 9, 2021 and Australia attacks China's policy of economic punishment at the WTO, accuses it of contravening rules. By Stephen Dziedzic/ The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) October 20, 2020

“When Lithuania, a Baltic country of 2.8 million people, decided last year to open a Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius and a Lithuanian one in Taiwan, China’s response was swift and draconian…Vilnius was temporarily removed from China’s customs clearance system… Beijing stopped direct China-Lithuanian freight trains. It also closed credit lines for Lithuanian companies and blocked imports of existing orders from China… China downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania to chargé d’affaires level, forcing the Lithuanian ambassador to return home…[China] warned multinational companies, European and otherwise, to reduce their investments in Lithuania and stop sourcing supplies in the country. Beijing even threatened to retaliate against these companies’ operations in China—a well-tested policy aimed at playing EU member states off against each other.” - China’s Bullying of Lithuania Spurs European Unity By Judy Dempsey/Carnegie Europe January 18, 2022

“A posting on Twitter Friday by the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey showing support for the Hong Kong protesters has fractured the relationship between the National Basketball Association and its business partners in China, a country with deep pockets and an insatiable thirst for the sport. The tweet featured an image bearing the caption ‘Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.’… As a result of Morey’s tweet, the Rockets—who have been highly visible in China ever since they drafted the Chinese basketball legend Yao Ming in 2002 —lost many of their sponsors from China and are banned from being shown in the country. The Chinese Basketball Association, the high-profile league that Yao now leads, is suspending its relationship with the Rockets… China’s state television network announced it won’t be broadcasting the NBA’s preseason games this week, because [NBA Commissioner Adam] Silver still supports Morey’s right to free speech.” - The NBA Is Going to Have to Choose. By Jemele Hill/The Atlantic October 8, 2019

On 15 November 2019 the Culture Minister of Sweden went against the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership and presented a PEN literary award – in absentia - to a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, who had been arrested by Chinese security agents while traveling in China, apparently for writing poetry critical of the Party. China's Ambassador to Sweden later “gave an interview on Swedish public radio in which he said, ‘We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns.’" - Overseas censorship of Chinese issues. Wikipedia (one of many examples on this page of China’s “truculent approach” towards critics no matter their citizenship or place of residence).

For a Later Post: What to Do about China

The following is from subsequent readings:

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has articulated plans to reshape the international order in his country's favor on the back of the war in Ukraine…[Xi] criticized the ‘wanton use of unilateral sanctions’... called on all countries to reject…’group politics and bloc confrontation’, a reference to NATO and other military alliances Beijing sees as consolidating in the East…’practices of decoupling, supply disruption and maximum pressure [are bound to fail]; so are the attempts to forge small cliques or to stoke conflict and confrontation along ideological lines’…” - Xi Jinping Pushes China's Own Vision for 'Global Security' By John Feng/Newsweek.  April 21, 2022  

“China seeks to become a leader in global internet governance and to promote the idea of “cyber sovereignty”—that a state should exert control over the internet within its borders… China’s domestic internet offers an alternative to existing, freer models of internet governance, and Beijing also uses its influence at the United Nations and other forums to push countries to adopt more closed internets. Meanwhile, Chinese corporations such as Huawei and CloudWalk have supplied repressive governments in Venezuela and Zimbabwe with surveillance tools like facial recognition technology.” - China’s Approach to Global Governance. Council on Foreign Relations, 2020