The recent crackdown by Chinese authorities on their largely foreign-listed education and tech companies has caused much chaos among Western investors.

As I hinted last year, the CCP leadership’s vision for China’s future appears to be a sophisticated version of high-tech big-data authoritarianism that advances the interest of the party-state. While “authoritarianism” and “big data” are the inherent political and demographic characteristics of China, “high tech” is, to a great extent, an imported good. Given that foreign investment and know-how in technology are still relatively scarce, it is indeed puzzling to see the PRC killing the goose that lays the golden eggs at such an early stage of its “technology struggle,” to the point where it appeared to be helping its adversaries in achieving their goals.

Unless “we must have missed something”—as the “conventional wisdom” goes when it comes to the “mysterious ancient nation that reads Sun Tzu and plays Go”—

Unsurprisingly, the “usual suspects” in the U.S. quickly came to the PRC’s rescue, arguing that “investors have misconstrued China” and it “could ultimately be a good thing.”

So is China playing Go? I don’t know. What I do know is that an enormous bet is being placed: if successful, it could make George Orwell blush for his lack of imagination, but if it goes south, one can only hope that things would end up peacefully.

By a vote of 2,895 to 0 (with one abstention), China’s rubber-stamp legislature near-unanimously approved sweeping changes to Hong Kong’s electoral process, ensuring that candidates will be “patriots only” per Beijing’s requirement. Concurrently, 47 politicians and activists in Hong Kong were charged with “subversion,” kept in custody pending trial. The message that the PRC is sending to Taiwan could not be clearer: Do not expect your political system to be honored and/or allowed to co-exist should any deal be struck between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

On a related note, Admiral Philip S. Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, recently said that China might be capable of forcing a “reunification” with Taiwan within the next six years, as part of Beijing’s ambition to supplant the U.S. in geopolitical matters in the Western Pacific area. Indeed, “rise of the East, decline of the West” (东升西降) has become a familiar refrain for Chinese officials and state-controlled media outlets as they declared “victory” over COVID-19 and mocked the chaotic responses in the West—in particular, the U.S.—apparently with some “China experts” going along the same line, as I have documented here.

However, Admiral Davidson did not mention that the PLA, while seemingly impressive on the outside, is largely untried in real battles. This, together with the clandestine nature of the PRC’s political and military systems, makes it even harder for both the decision-makers within the PLA and the outside world to evaluate its strengths and conditions (same for other complex issues such as China’s economic growth or its handling of COVID-19 beyond the party line/propaganda). While I predicted last year that the India-China border tension would escalate to one of explicit armed conflict and casualties—which unfortunately turned out to be true just a few days after I posted my thoughts—the melee that actually ensued revealed little information about what would happen should armed clashes break out between the PLA and the Taiwanese armed forces.

China’s obsession with “sovereignty and territorial integrity” (主权和领土完整) has always been part of the core of its authoritarian ethnonationalism (the other part appears to be the “Chinese/Han race”), as is reflected in its “patriotic education” to the point where certain words and phrases such as “separatism” (分裂/分离主义) and “Taiwan independence” (台独) can stimulate strong emotions of contempt and hatred in an average school child. This, in turn, has prevented the average Chinese from ever thinking about these issues because the fear of themselves being associated with a (real or imagined) “separatist” or “Taiwan independence advocate” is so strong that they risk being crushed by the society they live in.

Absent credible external deterrence, taking bold action on Taiwan might just be a good way for the CCP leadership to galvanize nationalist support and deflect attention from increasingly thorny domestic challenges.

James Traub at Foreign Policy recently wrote an article on America no longer being free. This has prompted some in the China watcher community to wonder whether the U.S., both as a polity and a dominant builder of international order, is losing its attractiveness for others to follow and whether the status quo would help promote China.

Here is my take on these issues, together with some theorizing and a small prediction.

Re: Is the U.S. model no longer attractive? Will the China model become more attractive?

Other than some first-generation Chinese immigrants, very few people in the developed world would find the China model an attractive alternative even if the current ruling values in America completely collapse.

On top of that, the “U.S. model” is continually evolving. If “Western” values à la traditional European Enlightenment no longer support American primacy, I cannot think of why something else will not come out to serve that purpose better.

Just to be clear, that “something else” re America’s future on the world stage can come within the liberal idea. It may well be the case that it addresses the limits and shortcomings associated with traditional European liberalism.

Re: Why do many Chinese people living in the West oppose the idea of having liberal democracy in China, even if they themselves have seen firsthand how democracy works and chosen to stay in it?

There are certain knee-jerk reactions to those growing up in mainland China when it comes to the “motherland” (祖国). Think, for instance, of their often subliminal feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem associated with “guochi” (国耻, ethnic-national shame in connection with the Middle Country/Qing Dynasty’s downfall when confronted by Western powers in the 19th century), or of their attitude toward separatism in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and most recently, Hong Kong.

The CCP has successfully exploited these narratives (e.g., using meticulously designed propaganda and “patriotic education”) to shore up its legitimacy. And together with China’s information decoupling (e.g., WeChat and Weibo accounts catering to overseas Chinese students, most of whom do not read from local sources), the majority of Chinese cannot recognize how subconsciously they are under the influence.

Such ideas as “democracy is too risky” and “the Chinese people are not ready for democracy” are also among those pumped into their heads. As a result, liberal values that are learned even after moving to the West cannot easily override these conditioned responses from their younger selves’ own experience. Many observers have noted that even reasonable Chinese people would suddenly become irrational when certain buttons are pushed.

Re: Various forms of democracy exist—even between the U.S. and the U.K., there are many differences in their respective systems. China should have a democratic system that is different from the rest of the world.

“Democracy,” “freedom,” “equality of rights,” “liberty,” … one can call it whatever they like. But to quote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”

Sure, for the U.S. (presidential), U.K. (Westminster), France (semi-presidential), or a presumably genuinely democratic system in a future China, each can have vastly different arrangements on the cultural, social normative, and political functional levels. But what I see is that all are founded on the same type of liberal social contract and source of political truth (i.e., clashes of varied ideas, as reflected in votes, protests, and political debates), whose origins can be traced back to the works of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau—regardless of whether a theory of “natural rights” is invoked.

In contrast, the “democracy with Chinese characteristics” system under the CCP is a completely different animal, and it is not compatible with the above.

That being said, unless there is some serious structural change on the societal level—something on the scale of a civil war or a revolution—it seems unlikely to me that China would transition to a genuinely democratic system in the foreseeable future.