Sánchez’s visit to China reveals some ideas that need to be expressed. The Chinese regime, which is a great monolithic and uncompromising dictatorship whose main feature is to be established in the most populated country in the world, seems to have changed direction in recent years and although its role has been discussed in the Conventional diplomatic arena until recently, Russia’s initiative in Ukraine and Beijing too. The strategic importance of the war, which forced them to take a position, increased.
By 2017, China had embarked on a “peaceful rise” behind an overflowing growth and within the framework of peaceful coexistence with the rest of the international community. The country’s great activity and apparent productivity seemed to come from a more or less tacit agreement between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its citizens: there would be a relaxation of authoritarian control of the population, and civil society should strive to support economic development, which in turn would translate into increased prosperity. However, things started to change around 2017. The first symptom was before Xi Jinping came to power under former CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao. It was Hu who began intensifying imperial aggression in his desire to control the South China Sea, one of the busiest shipping regions in the world. But when Xi came to power in 2012-13, despite Hu’s promise to Barack Obama that no such thing would be done, he went ahead and militarized the artificial islands China had built.
Gradually, Xi hardened his position. The next conflict was Hong Kong; Xi violated the terms of the 1997 agreement with Great Britain that he had to protect the city’s autonomy, freedom of the press, electoral system, protection of human rights and academic freedoms. Fulfilled by the coup, Xi set his sights on Taiwan and, fully realizing that China would not hesitate to use force if necessary for reunification, he declared that the island would “sooner or later” pass into the domain of the mother country.
Also in 2017, Beijing retaliated diplomatically against South Korea in response to its decision to host a US-made anti-missile defense system (THAAD) to defend against North Korea. China then launched repeatedly against Canada (for arresting a daughter of the Huawei founder for violating sanctions against Iran) and Australia (for demanding a serious investigation into the origin of Covid-19). The victims of Chinese aggression for various reasons were India, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
In short, according to expert Orville Schell, longtime Chinese historian and director of the Asia Society’s Center for US-China Relations, China has traded “peaceful ascent” for so-called “wild warrior diplomacy.” Two films in China, which achieved great success, and whose feature is to violently repel foreign attacks. This new model implemented by President Xi would see China regress to Maoist absolutism at home and nationalist violence abroad.
In a recent interview, Schell explains that during the constructive relations phase, the United States has established a large trade dependence on China, particularly in manufacturing, rare earths, polysilicon, lithium, cobalt, and some pharmaceuticals and even some technological sectors. microchips.
The change was radical: In 2022, the US passed the Science and CHIPS law, which made it illegal to sell certain types of intellectual property, such as microchips and their manufacturing equipment, to China. This is a sign that things have changed and that China has decided to take the lead in the set of rogue states competing with the globalists: Iran, Syria, North Korea and Russia, naturally. The West will have to steer relations with China, but the stance advancing in this period is to strengthen the structures that bind democracies against illiberal states.