China's Negative Projection of US

To Secure More Political Legitimacy at Home in China

To watch the news broadcast inside China is to see the United States in chaos: police brutality against African Americans, the January 6th storming of the US Capitol, and people freezing to death during the Texas power shortages. When Chinese state councilor Yang Jiechi berated the United States, mentioning the Black Lives Matter movement as evidence of its human-rights abuses in a recent meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Anchorage, he was celebrated by the Chinese media for highlighting the hypocrisy of the American government. Anger at multinationals pledging to no longer source cotton from Xinjiang, in response to China’s treatment of the Uighur minority in the region, has led to an angry backlash, with Chinese consumers burning Nike shoes and denouncing Swedish clothing retailer H&M.

The onslaught of negative news about the United States is part of an effort to make the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) look capable in contrast to a floundering US administration, thereby convincing the Chinese people that they should be pleased with their current leadership. This is important, as China has ever fewer supporters abroad while US President Joe Biden works to strengthen alliances in Europe and Asia (though Beijing has announced its intention to boost ties with its old allies Russia and North Korea). A recent survey by Gallup revealed that American perceptions of China are at an all-time low, worse even than after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. The Chinese people have typically viewed other nations and particularly the United States showing respect for China as a source of legitimacy for the party and a demonstration of its growing global heft.

Serious challenges to China’s future economic growth make it doubly important to bolster popular support for the leadership. China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.5 percent in the final quarter of last year—faster than almost any country—and policymakers expect to easily meet their target of over 6 percent growth for this year. But the impressive numbers mask problems. In order to keep their economies humming during the pandemic, China’s local governments built up a potentially destabilizing $2.3 trillion of hidden debt in 2020, according to a Bloomberg report citing a Chinese government-affiliated think tank.

Income inequality in China has gotten worse thanks to a lopsided recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that has mainly benefitted the wealthy and jeopardized the household consumption of the less well-off. Last year, China’s richest 20 percent had an average disposable income of over 80,000 yuan ($12,000), 10.2 times that of the poorest one-fifth. That surpassed the United States, where the multiple was about 8.4, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. As one study put it, “the pandemic has exacerbated [China’s] preexisting inequalities.”

Stopping Putin's Aggressive Tactics

Gaining Political Power by Intimidation

• The Biden administration slapped thirty-two Russian government officials and entities, plus six companies, with economic sanctions in retaliation for the SolarWinds hack, 2020 election interference, and other Russian malfeasance.
• Today’s actions are largely a “clean-up” job after the Trump administration neglected to respond to Russian offenses in areas such as Afghanistan and cyberspace, Julia tells us. But she’s not sold on the wisdom of issuing such a “sweeping executive order” in this manner—and she warns it could signal danger ahead.

• “The administration could have chosen to respond technocratically, procedurally, incrementally. But now we’re playing big politics,” she says. 

• “One could argue—and here I would gladly be wrong—that a single day’s action may increase the Kremlin’s ability to play the aggrieved party for its domestic audience and global sympathizers, and compel Moscow to test US resolve (and rhetoric) through asymmetric action,” Julia notes. “Will Russia understand that today’s moves by the US are intended to wipe the slate clean?”

The North Korea Nuclear Threat and US Missile Defense

Where Does This Go From Here

Victoria Becham - Eyes on the Mark

Setting Target Goals