Nov. 20, 2020–The Chinese Communist Party intends to create a new world order serving authoritarian goals and nationalistic ambitions, according to a newly released report by the U.S. State Department.
‘New Great Power Competition‘
The 74-page report asserted that China’s ambition of revising the world order is triggering “a new era of great-power competition.”
Specifically, the State Department said that China plans to influence every region of the world with its economic power and reform international organizations from the inside out. As it does, it is increasingly reshaping the world with its authoritarian model, the report said.
That puts that current world order — one founded on free and sovereign nation-states — that advances U.S. national interests, according to the State Department. Having been strengthened by remarkable economic growth and major military modernization, China poses a threat “to free and sovereign nation-states and to the free, open, and rules-based international order,” the report says.
Trade Didn’t Lead to Democracy
The conventional wisdom by Western observers is that China’s entry into the world trading system is an opportunity to improve livelihoods in all nations through the benefits of trade. That assumes China becomes more democratic as its economy opens up to a global trading system based on capitalism and free enterprise.
However, rather than liberalize, China’s Communist Party “consistently affirmed its fidelity to Marxism-Leninism” as a model for governance not only for itself but also for “an alternative world order,” the US State Department asserted.
That sentiment reflects a growing concern among scholars that China is exporting a model of authoritarianism around the world. Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined his vision for leading the world using its Socialist Democracy model in 2018, when many Western countries started turning inward under a populist trend.
Trump’s New Strategic Doctrine
The State Department says President Donald Trump fundamentally broke with that conventional wisdom. The Trump administration developed “a new strategic doctrine to address the primacy and magnitude of the China challenge.”
It is not yet clear what approach President-elect Joe Biden will take in the next U.S. administration. Asked on Thursday about China, Biden says he plans to ensure its leaders understand “they got to play by the rules.”
China Calls Report ‘Cold War Mindset‘
China, meanwhile, dismissed the claims in the State Department. Asked about the report, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said
“It only serves to lay bare the entrenched Cold War mindset and ideological prejudice of some people on the US side and their fear, anxiety, and unhealthy mentality towards a growing China,” Zhao Lijian said. “Their vile attempts to bring back the Cold War will be mercilessly rejected by the Chinese people and all peace-lovers around the world. They and their doomed attempts will end up in nowhere but the dustbin of history.”
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