China’s crushing of dissent could lead to disaster

By Minxin Pei

Lou Jiwei may not be a household name in the West, but the former Chinese finance minister is well known and highly respected among financiers and economic policymakers. 

Yet, earlier this month, China’s government announced Lou’s dismissal from his post as chairman of the country’s national social security fund. 

The move reflects a change in the Chinese leadership’s approach to governance that is likely to have profound implications for the country’s future.
The removal of Lou from his post represents a break from precedent: his three predecessors served 4.5 years, on average, and all retired after reaching age 69. 

Lou is 68 and served for only a little over two years. 

China’s leaders didn’t provide a reason for sacking him, but a likely explanation stands out. 

Lou has recently emerged as an outspoken critic of China’s ambitious industrial policy agenda, calling ‘Made in China 2025’ a waste of public money.
Made in China 2025 had already aroused suspicion among China’s Western trading partners. 

They view the program as an effort by China to use unfair means—namely, government support for strategic sectors—to displace the West as the world’s leader in advanced technologies. 

The scheme was one of the factors that precipitated US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
Since the trade war erupted, China’s leaders have deliberately toned down the hype surrounding Made in China 2025, suggesting that they recognise the high cost of moving forward with the program. 

In this context, Lou’s criticism is not particularly scandalous—unless, of course, China’s leaders are merely pretending to back off the policy until trade tensions ease.
But the implications of Lou’s dismissal extend beyond Made in China 2025. 

Lou is a hard-charging reformer with an illustrious record of accomplishments. 

His dismissal underscores the extent to which, under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China’s government has become intolerant of even the slightest internal policy disagreements, even on the subject of economics, which used to be debated quite openly among the leadership. 

It is an approach that could well prove disastrous.
Since Xi came to power in 2012, decision-making processes at the top level of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have changed beyond recognition. 

Previously, collective leadership allowed dissenting views to be aired, and decisions were reached largely by consensus—a slow process that sometimes resulted in missed opportunities. 

But it was also an important risk-management mechanism. 

Openness to a variety of perspectives helped ensure that impractical or dangerous ideas were rejected and the CCP made no catastrophic policy mistakes under Xi’s two predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.
Xi, however, has replaced collective decision-making with centralised leadership. 

The space for legitimate differences of opinion has been crowded out by the expectation of political loyalty and conformity. 

In fact, the CCP has effectively criminalised voicing opinions that are at odds with the top leadership’s stance. 

That offence—called wangyi zhongyang, or ‘recklessly speaking about the party centre’—probably played a larger role than actual wrongdoing in Xi’s crackdown on official corruption in recent years.
The resulting lack of constructive opposition means that excessively risky or inadequately considered ideas can become national policies in Xi’s China. 

And so they have: in the past five years, China has made several major policy mistakes, owing to inadequate internal debate.
One such mistake was the hasty decision in the summer of 2015 to use public funds to support equity prices when markets plunged. 

That policy failed to stabilise prices, wasted trillions of renminbi and weakened the credibility of China’s new leaders.
Another major policy mistake was China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea and subsequent installation of military facilities on them. 

This might have seemed like a smart strategic move to some in Xi’s government. 

But, by giving the impression that China is intent on dominating East Asia through coercion, it was a major factor contributing to the rapid deterioration of China’s relations with the United States.
Similarly, beyond being economically dubious, Xi’s massive Belt and Road Initiative—featuring more than $1 trillion in planned infrastructure investment in Eurasia and beyond—stoked Western suspicions about China’s geopolitical agenda. 

This mistake has ended up hurting relations not just with the US, but also with key allies, which view China’s involvement in developing countries—and, thus, their own relations with China—with deepening unease.
If the CCP continues to adhere to centralised decision-making, more—and more calamitous—mistakes are likely. 

China’s leaders could, for example, decide to attack Taiwan, risking a catastrophic war with the US. 

In such a situation, one can only hope that, somewhere in the government, there is still a bold figure like Lou willing to stand up to express dissent.

Chinese Communist Party is stepping up efforts to stifle dissent abroad

Report points to the co-opting of ethnic Chinese living outside China and targeting by intelligence services
By Owen Churchill

The Chinese Communist Party monitors individuals and groups operating abroad that it sees as dissenters. Pictured, Chinatown in New York. 

China’s ruling Communist Party is pursuing an aggressive, covert infiltration of US educational and social institutions to quell dissenting voices and strengthen its soft power overseas, according to a report written for an influential US congressional body.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking “to co-opt ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living outside China”, said the report, published on Friday by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Methods include threatening to imprison family members of Uygur people living in the US unless they agree to spy for the Communist Party, the report said.
At the same time, “a number of other key affiliated organisations guided by China’s broader United Front strategy conduct influence operations targeting foreign actors and states,” said the paper, referring to the United Front Work Department, a government body charged with strengthening adherence to the ruling party both within and outside China.
Uygurs and their supporters march near the United Nations headquarters in New York in March.

The research paper, titled “China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States”, is intended to inform further action by the commission, which reports to Congress with recommendations on legislative action related to China.
The commission’s report highlights the scrutiny to which the CCP subjects overseas Chinese, not only as carriers of soft power but also as resources for the monitoring of anti-party individuals and groups operating abroad.
The paper pointed to Xi Jinping’s declaration at the CCP’s National Congress last year that the party would “maintain extensive contacts with overseas Chinese nationals, returned Chinese and their relatives and unite them so that they can join our endeavours to revitalise the Chinese nation”.
The publication comes amid rising international scrutiny of China’s detention of up to 1 million Uygurs in re-education camps in its East Turkestan colony. 

Attention from the global community was renewed recently when a UN panel grilled Chinese representatives on the subject at a hearing on racial discrimination around the world.
As the CCP – in conjunction with Chinese state media – scrambles to discredit such concerns, scores of Uygurs living in the US are being targeted by Chinese intelligence services, according to the report.
Intelligence services are “threatening to send their families still in East Turkestan to internment camps, or keep them there, if the former do not agree to spy for China”, said the report, which draws extensively from media reports and interviews with experts on China’s overseas presence.


Megha Rajagopalan, a reporter for BuzzFeed News in Beijing, had her application for a visa renewal denied.

Megha Rajagopalan – a journalist who has reported on human rights abuses in East Turkestan and who was forced to leave China after her visa renewal application was recently denied – told the commission that the harassment of Uygurs living outside China was consistent with the United Front’s objective to quash voices of dissent against the ruling party.

The commission’s report also draws attention to the subversion role played by the Chinese Students & Scholars Association (CSSA), which has established campus organisations for Chinese students abroad.
A number of CSSAs have denied government affiliation, but not all: the group at the University of Tennessee, for example, lists the Chinese embassy in the US as one of its sources of funding.
Last year, after the University of California at San Diego invited the Dalai Lama to speak at its commencement ceremony, the CSSA at the university spoke out in protest and said it was coordinating with the Chinese consulate on the matter.
There are signs that the US government is growing wary of the CCP’s influence and surveillance tactics detailed in the report.
The US military budget for 2019, recently signed into law, includes a stipulation that no Pentagon funding can be granted to educational institutions that allow Confucius Institute study programmes.

US President Donald Trump signs into law a defence budget that forbids the Pentagon from funding educational institutions that allow Confucius Institute study programmes. 

Operating under the auspices of the CCP, Confucius Institutes offer language and cultural courses to non-Chinese students. 

They offered instead a sterilised, party-approved picture of Chinese culture that proactively glosses over contentious subjects like Tibet.
Acknowledging that move by US lawmakers, the commission’s report said that improved transparency – regarding, for instance, US universities’ relationships with Confucius Institutes – and oversight “hold great promise for countering the most subversive and anti-democratic of the CCP’s influence operations.”
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has also played a role in efforts to prevent the transfer of advanced technologies to China through acquisitions.
Earlier this year, the body recommended expanded authority for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review – and, if necessary, halt – Chinese firms’ acquisition of US companies if technologies developed or produced by the company could be adapted for military purposes.
The recommendation helped advance the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernisation Act (FIRRMA), which provides greater powers to CFIUS and is now US law.

China's growing intolerance for dissent will come at a high price

By pushing the Hong Kong opposition out of the legislature and persecuting Liu Xiaobo, Beijing has set in motion a new era of resistance

By Jason Y Ng

People attend a candlelight march for the late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo in Hong Kong. 

On Thursday evening, Chinese dissident and political prisoner Liu Xiaobo died from liver cancer in a Shenyang Hospital. 

Liu was, as the Western press sharply pointed out, the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since Carl von Ossietzky did in Nazi Germany in 1938. 

Supporters the world over mourned the death of a man who lived and died a hero. 

The only crime he ever committed was penning a proposal that maps out a bloodless path for his country to democratise.
Then on Friday afternoon, Beijing’s long arm stretched across the border and reached into Hong Kong’s courtroom. 

Bound by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s decision on oath-taking etiquettes, the Hong Kong High Court ruled to unseat four democratically-elected opposition lawmakers, including Nathan Law, the youngest person ever to be elected to the legislature. 

The only infraction the four ever committed was straying from their oaths during the swearing-in ceremony to voice their desire for their city to democratise.
The two news stories, less than 24 hours apart, share a chilling symmetry. 

They underscore the Chinese government’s growing intolerance for dissent on both the mainland and the territories it controls.
But Beijing’s tightening grip comes at a cost. 

In Hong Kong, Liu’s death has rekindled an anti-mainland sentiment that has been smouldering for years. 

To the seven million citizens who watched Liu’s slow death in equal parts horror and grief, any remaining pretence that modern China is a benevolent paternal state that has moved beyond a brutal response to political debate has been shattered once and for all. 

And all current and future attempts by Beijing to win over Hong Kong people, especially the younger generations, are doomed to fail. 

The indelible images of a skin-and-bone dissident on his deathbed or of that famous empty chair in the Oslo City Hall have been seared into their collective mind. 

China has lost Hong Kong forever.
Similarly, the removal of four pro-democracy lawmakers is not without consequence for Beijing. 

By reinterpreting the oath-taking provisions in the Basic Law, the Chinese government has sidestepped the judiciary in Hong Kong and dealt another blow to the city’s rule of law. 

Each time the NPCSC rewrites the rules and overrides local judges, Hong Kong’s independent judiciary—the bedrock of its economic success—means a bit less. 

With each heavy-handed attempt to squash the opposition, “one country, two systems”—the framework of happy coexistence for Hong Kong that Xi Jinping is fond of parading in front of world leaders and hopes that Taiwan will one day embrace—looks a little more like a broken promise.
What’s more, the loss of four pro-democracy seats has removed the checks and balances in Hong Kong’s bicameral legislature – the Legislative Council – which comprises the democratically-elected Geographical Constituencies and the undemocratic Functional Constituencies stacked with pro-business special interest lobbyists. 

The unseating of the foursome has cost the opposition its majority in the Geographical Constituencies, which means that any unwanted bill proposed by a pro-Beijing lawmaker will sail pass both houses.
One of the first things that the pro-Beijing camp plans on doing is amend the voting procedures in the legislature to put an end to filibusters. 

Without the ability to block that amendment, the opposition will see its only effective weapon against the government taken away. 

That means there will be nothing to stop the Hong Kong government from pushing through Beijing’s political agenda for Hong Kong, from the passing of a highly unpopular anti-subversion law to the approval of multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects for great economic integration with the mainland.
All that will work in Beijing’s favour in the short run, but the headache won’t be far behind. 

A legislature that acts with complete impunity will further embitter the population and destabilize Hong Kong. 

By pushing the opposition out of the legislature and back onto the streets, Beijing may have inadvertently set in motion a new era of resistance.
The same ingredients that ignited the Occupy Movement three years ago will once again bubble to the surface, pushing the city toward a political movement of a larger scale and with more far-reaching repercussions. 

None of that is in Xi’s interest, considering that the senior Chinese leadership is already mired in factional infighting and an increasingly ungovernable Hong Kong will hurt the strongman image that Xi has so carefully crafted for himself.
What separates a skilled autocrat from the rest of the mad dictators is his ability to judge the difference between going too far and just far enough. 

Control may be the Chinese Communist Party’s best substitute for legitimacy and a necessary condition for self-perpetuation, but how much control is too much continues to confound –and may one day trip up – Xi’s leadership. 

What happened to Liu Xiaobo and the four ousted lawmakers in Hong Kong suggests that Beijing is now dangerously close to overstepping that line. 

The price for misjudging the situation will be high, and while most of it will be borne by mainland dissidents and the citizens of Hong Kong, it may pack enough punch to upset the ever-delicate balance in the house of cards.

Rogue Nation

Under Xi Jinping, China is increasingly silencing sources of dissent 

By Nathan Vanderklippe

For a decade now, Jiang Hong has travelled to Beijing in early spring to call for a different China, one where free speech can flourish and government opens its books to its people.
But this year is almost certainly his last. 

Voices like his have become less welcome in a country that has sought to mute those advocating for change.
“There has been very little progress in the past 10 years,” he said. 

“Personally speaking, I get the feeling that things are even changing in the opposite direction of what we expected.”
For most of the year, Prof. Jiang teaches at the Shanghai University of Finance. 

But he is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the 2,000-person advisory board to the central government that comes together for meetings during China’s annual legislative session, which is now under way.
For Prof. Jiang and others – including artists, scientists and business leaders – the sessions have traditionally provided a unique venue, where they could more openly make appeals that would not normally be allowed in the blanched pages of the state press.
“The purpose of these institutions historically has been to provide a way for people to reveal their grievances to the government,” said Rory Truex, an expert in Chinese politics at Princeton University, whose book Representation Within Bounds examines China’s legislative process.
“It’s a way for the government to learn something about the population, and for the population to feel that they’re being represented in some way.”
Now, however, even that space is growing smaller, as China under Xi Jinping steers a more authoritarian course that has sought to root out Western influence, quiet dissent and reassert the primacy of Communist Party leadership.
The changes have grown obvious in the increasingly bland content of entertainment, the closing of news outlets and the imprisonment of human-rights critics, some of whom have provided detailed accounts of their torturous mistreatment in detention.
The tighter environment has extended to the joint “two sessions” meetings of the CPPCC and National People’s Congress, which has over the history of Communist China, acted “as a barometer of what was happening in the broader society,” said Kevin O’Brien, a professor of Asian studies at University of California, Berkeley. 

His 1990 book, Reform Without Liberalization, traces the history of the National People’s Congress until 1989.
In the tumult of the 1960s, the legislative meetings were cancelled entirely; in the 1980s, as China began to open to the world and consider new ways of running the country, the legislative sessions became a forum for discussion of real reforms – before that ended when soldiers opened fire on students around Tiananmen Square.
“It does move with the political winds,” said Prof. O’Brien.
“If you’re seeing a lack of dissent, it probably means they’re trying to circle all the wagons.”
The push to do so has been explicit.
National People’s Congress chairman Zhang Dejiang this week called on delegates to more closely unite around the top leadership of the Communist Party “with Xi Jinping as the core.”
The message appears to have been effective, with proposals from lawmakers this year taking on a patriotic fervour, such as eliminating English from national college tests and more than doubling holiday time at Lunar New Year.
Quiet has descended even among artist and entertainer members of the CPPCC who once had a freer hand to complain.
In 2014, filmmaker Feng Xiaogang openly criticized China’s strict censorship of films and called for a “big loosening,” saying: “Don’t make directors tremble with fear every day like [they’re] walking on thin ice.” 

Actor Jackie Chan warned that interference from censors was damaging Chinese cinema.
In 2016, screenwriter Gao Mantang described having to seek authorization from six government departments – including the National Energy Administration and the Ministry of Land and Resources – to produce a single show. 

“It’s getting increasingly hard,” actor and producer Zhang Guoli said during a CPPCC arts and literature panel last year.
At a similar panel this year, no one, including Jackie Chan, spoke a word against the government.
“Chinese culture is the only civilization in the world that has continued unbroken,” said Hai Xia, a state television presenter. 

He then went on to cite Xi: “if we abandon tradition, we will abandon our roots, which is like severing our own spiritual lifeline.”
As recently as 2015, Chinese state media published articles urging people like Prof. Jiang not to be “three-hand delegates,” the kind of lazy and unquestioning person who merely shakes hands and applauds.
The idea is that “delegates should not come to Beijing to merely listen to instructions in conferences, but to supervise the government,” Prof. Jiang said. 

“In fact, it raised the bar to quite a reasonable level for delegates.”
This year, when delegates passed around old links to such articles – hosted on the websites of China’s chief propaganda news organs – they were surprised to find them unavailable. 

Some were later made accessible again, but to Prof. Jiang it was an unmistakable sign that even those nominally charged with delivering suggestions to government are no longer welcome to do so.
In early January, for example, Deng Xiangchao, a professor in the art institute at Shandong Jianzhu University, was fired for making “erroneous remarks” about Mao Zedong. 

Had Mao “died in 1945, China would have seen six million fewer killed in war,” Prof. Deng wrote.
Prof. Deng had been a member of his local Shandong provincial CPPCC, but his membership was quickly cancelled.
“It is now obvious that when some people have different opinions and complaints, they are severely punished,” Prof. Jiang said.
Last year, local media published his own complaints, including a comment that “the rights to speak freely must be protected.” 

This year, none dared and his posts to social media were quickly expunged.
Prof. Jiang has decided he’s done as a government adviser. 

“This is the last year of my term. Next year, I won’t come,” he said. 

Asked what he plans to do instead, he said: “enjoy life.”