Inbuilt in this drive is what has been described as "to firmly abandon all illusions about the United States and conduct war mobilization with our people. We shall vigorously promote the war to resist US aggression ...We will use a war mindset to steer the national economy ... Prepare for the complete interruption of relations with the US."
It's unclear as it stands if these are only trial balloons disseminated across Chinese public opinion or decisions reached at the "invisible" Beidaihe. So all eyes will be on what kind of language this alarming configuration will be packaged when the Central Committee presents its strategic planning in October. Significantly, that will happen only a few weeks before the US election.
It's all about continuity
All of the above somewhat mirrors a recent debate in Amsterdam on what constitutes the Chinese "threat" to the West. Here are the key points.
- China constantly reinforces its hybrid economic model -- which is an absolute rarity, globally: neither totally publicly owned nor a market economy.
- The level of patriotism is staggering: once the Chinese face a foreign enemy, 1.4 billion people act as one.
- National mechanisms have tremendous force: absolutely nothing blocks the full use of China's financial, material and manpower resources once a policy is set.
- China has set up the most comprehensive, back to back industrial system on the planet, without foreign interference if need be (well, there's always the matter of semiconductors to Huawei to be solved).
China plans not only in years, but in decades. Five-year plans are complemented by10-year plans and as the meeting chaired by Xi showed, 15-year plans. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is in fact a nearly 40-year plan, designed in 2013 to be completed in 2049.
And continuity is the name of the game -- when one thinks that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, first developed in 1949 and then expanded by Zhou Enlai at the Bandung conference in 1955 are set in stone as China's foreign policy guidelines.
The Qiao collective, an independent group that advances the role of qiao ("bridge") by the strategically important huaqiao ("overseas Chinese") is on point when they note that Beijing never proclaimed a Chinese model as a solution to global problems. What they extol is Chinese solutions to specific Chinese conditions.
A forceful point is also made that historical materialism is incompatible with capitalist liberal democracy forcing austerity and regime change on national systems, shaping them towards preconceived models.
That always comes back to the core of the CCP foreign policy: each nation must chart a course fit for its national conditions.
And that reveals the full contours of what can be reasonably described as a Centralized Meritocracy with Confucian, Socialist Characteristics: a different civilization paradigm that the "indispensable nation" still refuses to accept, and certainly won't abolish by practicing Hybrid War.
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