The Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa, on a joint patrol mission with U.S. and Japanese warships in the East China Sea, soon threatened by PRC guided missile destroyers
From the 20th century on, as the machines and weapons of war rose to inflict increasing levels of death and destruction against enemies, foreign and domestic, there arose a new threat from angry, mentally unstable narcissistic strongmen, seeking power and lacking a moral compass. In the earliest years of that century, the egos of monarchs placed their populations at risk to wage very personal wars to prove such leaders had powers. The parallel phenomenon was the rise of shrewd narcissists taking advantage of the anger of those ignored masses of citizens who were the victims of the resultant wars.
On the military technology side, when Britain commissioned the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 – a massive, large-gun, thick ironclad battleship – all existing naval vessels were rendered obsolete. That gave every existing nation a blank slate to build a ground-up navy. WWI added enhanced artillery, tanks and the beginnings of air power. These factors allowed nations – from the United States to Russia to Germany – to build the massive engines of global military power… and woe to such nations that were led by a new generation of Napoleonic narcissists. History provided the harsh results. Nuclear power combined with the United Nations were thought to be the post-WWII deterrent based solution. But the Cold War turned hot in Korea, Vietnam and across the Middle East.
What most Americans have let slip from their focus is the most recent transition in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Under “I want to be the new Mao” leadership of President Xi Jinping, now unrestrained by the 10-year term limits and able to wipe his opponents from the Politburo, China changed. Big time. The emergence of the “some must get rich first” economic reforms, initiated by Deng Xiaoping and the intervening heads of state until Xi, gave rise to some of the largest and most successful corporations and mega-powerful Chinese billionaires, leading global economists to project China’s permanently surpassing the United States as the largest economy on earth by 2040. While the PRC may ascend to that status for a very short moment, that will not last under the revised legacy of President Xi.
Just as Xi was allocating massive resources to build the largest navy on earth, updating her aircraft and ocean-based technology, her nuclear capacity and her army, Xi focused on repressing and reining dissent: the Muslim Uighurs, and even ignoring his treaty obligations to crush Hong Kong. Those billionaires had too much power, so Xi decapitated those captains of industry, requiring them to sign pledges that prioritized doctrinaire communism over their economic wealth. Many disappeared. Those who were allowed to resurface ceded ownership to the state and faded into relative obscurity. Economic growth through capitalism was no longer a priority. And Xi had so consolidated his power under a revised police state that true dissent was marginalized or ended.
Xi’s COVID policies began with denial, soon replaced by a zero-tolerance lockdown/arrest program that stubbornly clung to an inferior vaccine. The lives of ordinary citizens plunged in quality. The deprioritizing of economic goals, the repression of big companies combined with global sanctions from Xi new militancy over the East and South China Sea, exacerbated the economic harm from the pandemic. Growth slowed to a crawl. Unemployment soared, reaching such a high rate of unemployment among the Y and Z Generations (20%) that the government stopped reporting negative statistics entirely. The Chinese economy was flailing, the new policies were wreaking havoc among now educated middle class workers, apartment complexes lay empty, real estate prices began to fall and a new feeling of hopelessness settled across China. China’s Belt and Road initiative over regional interconnectivity also failed to deliver. Yet still, today, China is a $700B/ year trading partner with the US.
So, what does a strongman do when his policies are failing miserably… but he has a massive military? Putin did his best imitation of Hitler with efforts toward annexation. Xi, it turns out, was no different, but a bit more shrewd and able to fall back on the long-held PRC position that Taiwan was an essential part of China and would be brought to heel by military force if necessary. A military airbase built by landfill in the Spratley Islands gave substance to China’s claims over its “legitimate” control of the region’s seaways and underlying riches. And China recently upped its claims by declaring that it had complete control of the Taiwan Strait… challenging any naval vessel that dare cross.
“Many nations — including Canada — want to protect the Strait as an international waterway. Under international law, China has exclusive jurisdiction over the 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres) off its coastline. It also claims the zone off Taiwan's coastline… But as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China does not have exclusive navigation rights beyond this area.” CBC, September 6th. But China does not care. As Western naval vessels ply the strait, China’s naval vessels press menacingly close. And strongmen facing failure often revert to extreme positions to distract and rally their citizens to the sacrifice needed to battle foes.
China could attempt rapprochement with the West, attempt to deescalated tensions to reinforce its economy and address global issues like climate change. Instead, Xi is doing a Trumpian double down, watching the United States weakened by the red-blue divide, unable even to promote US senior military officers as a former college football coach and now a senior US Senator is attempting to subject the entire country to his religious beliefs. But the signs of a new but likely more violent Cold War are increasingly serious. As Michael Schuman, writing for the September 9th Atlantic observes: “[Early in September, the] world’s most powerful leaders gathered in New Delhi for the year’s premier diplomatic event—the G20 summit—but China’s Xi Jinping deemed it not worth his time. His absence sends a stark signal: China is done with the established world order.
“Ditching the summit marks a dramatic turn in China’s foreign policy. For the past several years, Xi has apparently sought to make China an alternative to the West. Now Xi is positioning his country as a full-on opponent—ready to align its own bloc against the United States, its partners, and the international institutions they support.
“Xi’s break with the establishment has been a long time coming. His predecessors integrated China into the U.S.-led global order by joining its foundational institutions, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. For much of his tenure over the past decade, Xi has kept a foot in the door to that Western order—even as China’s relations with the U.S. have deteriorated. China even participated (though grudgingly) in G20 efforts to help alleviate the debt burden on struggling low-income countries.
“But over the course of his rule, Xi has grown hostile to the existing order and intent on altering it. He has focused on developing alternative institutions that Beijing could lead and control. Xi formed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to rival Washington’s World Bank, for instance, and promoted competing international forums, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose membership includes Russia and Iran.” As Congressional gridlock defines the United States, as China watches the 2024 US election intensify internal hatred, can the United States even deal with the challenges it faces from global autocrats? And if not…
I’m Peter Dekom, and as our nation struggles with domestic terrorism, a trial of its former leaders’ in an attempt to usurp the elective process, there are even darker forces looking to challenge a world order that once embraced freedom and democracy.
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