For Xi, co-opting the population of a country is proving to be an insurmountable challenge, in contrast to the success with which elites have been bought over to Beijing’s side.
BENGALURU: Wooing and winning over of elites has been central to the success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its efforts at China replacing the United States as the fulcrum of the global order. In countries where those elites who are in power refuse to fall in line with CCP dictates, such leaders are subjected to (mostly covert) efforts geared towards their overthrow. Brazil has long been a leader of the Global South, and it had been expected in several capitals that the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2019 to the Presidency of Brazil would herald a change in stance towards China. The incoming President of Brazil had long been considered a critic of the PRC, and was a voluble backer of the cause of Taiwanese freedom. In less than six months of Bolsonaro’s election, it became clear that such hopes were premature. As President, Bolsonaro opened up Brazil to unrestricted mineral extraction by Chinese companies, and in other ways as well facilitated their activities in Brazil. His successor, Luiz Inácio Lula is finding it a difficult task to rescue the rain forests and other natural wealth of Brazil from the rapacious appetites of the Chinese companies, especially those that began operating there since the Bolsonaro period. In the case of Germany, France and the UK, irrespective of which party has been elected to office, PRC interests have overall been protected and have in many instances been allowed to expand. Political leaders in significant countries who were critical of CCP policies while in opposition softened their tone once in power. Once in office, they went by the wishes of domestic corporate interests eager to make money for themselves by allowing Chinese companies to make even more money. As a by-product, vulnerability of such countries to hostile covert action by the PRC grew.
While the CCP succeeded over the years in inserting its agents into a multitude of organisations, many such groups have avoided any direct advocacy of PRC interests, confining themselves to weakening through character assassination and other means local influentials whom the CCP leadership considers to be present or potential foes of the primacy of PRC interests. For example, since the Doklam standoff in 2017, there has been a mushrooming of advocacy groups across the world that are engaged in targeting the Narendra Modi government. In the case of the US, an individual steeped in the atmosphere of Los Angeles politics, a city that has endured a significant degree of infusion of CCP networks, seems to have been unconcerned about the human rights violations being committed in the PRC while making several promises in public “to bring to account human rights violations” by the present government in India, a government that broke with the Nehruvian tradition to sign the three Foundation Agreements cementing the Indo-US strategic partnership. Many in Washington believe that President Biden erred in choosing as envoy to India Eric Garcetti, an individual who in their view seems to be unconcerned about the existential nature of the battle being waged between China and the US in Cold War 2.0. Biden’s critics say that this appointment reflects unconcern in the White House about the need to keep India on board so as to ensure a successful outcome of the new Cold War. Others say that Garcetti was simply playing to the anti-India Sino-Wahabi lobby in the US Congress in his (ultimately successful) efforts at getting Senate confirmation. They add that Garcetti is committed to building a strong partnership between Washington and Delhi to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific. It would therefore be premature to pass judgment on the approach that will be adopted by the new US ambassador to India. What is undeniable however, is the fact that in the Biden administration, a citizen of the PRC is being given a US visa in less than a hundredth of the time that a citizen of India is. It would be stating the obvious to point out that the greater the Biden-led western focus on Russia is, the better it is for Moscow’s “unlimited partner”, Beijing. There must be satisfaction in Beijing at Donald Trump being repeatedly characterised in the US as an “agent of Putin”. Where Xi is concerned, the Russian leader is thereby fulfilling the important task of being a lightning rod that diverts bolts of western ire away from Xi. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, China has been given a pass in the NATO obsession about Russia, much the way the PRC benefitted from the diversion of US attention after 9/11 from Chinese expansionist tendencies to Afghanistan and later Iraq.
CCP BUYS OVER ELITES
In countries where the broader populace has almost no relevance in matters of policy, co-opting elites has proven to be an effective way of the PRC getting countries to do what the CCP wants. The problem is that the circumstances surrounding the SARS-19 pandemic has caused a heightened awareness within the broader public across both sides of the Atlantic about Chinese influence operations and their malign results. Across the board, whether it be in Canada, the US, France or Germany, those in power who have been accommodative of CCP demands are losing popularity with their voters. While Wall Street remains committed to close ties with the PRC to the detriment of US security interests, Main Street has long been sceptical of such a view. In the US, it was the effect of Main Street that propelled Donald Trump to the Presidency in 2017, although he subsequently gave prime policymaking slots to Wall Street loyalists. Last week, while President Macron was being feasted by Xi, his own people were in revolt against him in the streets of French cities. And in the US, both Republican and Democrat legislators have united to challenge the soft approach taken by successive US administrations towards China. Among the few exceptions to this is Representative Ilhan Omar, who never fails to delight Pakistan and China with her invective against India.
PUBLIC FIGHTBACK AGAINST CCP INFLUENCE
It appears to be only a matter of time before the PRC component in consumer items will be indicated through labels at the retail level. At present, most items are labelled in a manner that conceals their actual origin, an issue that is engaging the attention of the public. Just as television talk shows and call-in radio increased the level of public interest and participation in matters of policy across several democracies, social media is doing the same these days. By 2026, more than a billion Indians will have online access, and given the number of tech start-ups that are proliferating in the country, there will be increased choice of platforms available. Elite capture is proving to be increasingly unsuccessful in inducing complacency within the democracies towards the activities of the CCP in multiple parts of the world.
Among the factors that are expanding a broader understanding of the China threat are (a) the way in which the origin of the SARS-19 virus was covered up by the CCP and its “useful idiots” in several other countries (b) the takeover by stealth and force of the South China Sea and the occupation of Mischief Reef, the Spratlys and other territories belonging to other countries, (c) the way in which the PLA is ensuring that mineral exploration in parts of the Indo-Pacific is made a PRC monopoly, and (d) the way in which social media platforms with a PRC link play a destructive role in social stability. Each of these, and other factors, have contributed to this awakening of the reality of the onset of Cold War 2.0, a concept that was dismissed as alarmist when first mentioned in these columns.
There was a time when for a politician to be praised by the US was to court unpopularity at home. These days, it is those who are the favourites of the CCP who are watching their support base diminish at home. Meanwhile, fierce electoral contests such as that taking place in Karnataka between the Congress and the BJP are proving false the rhetoric of the Sino-Wahhabi lobby and some others that democracy is being extinguished in India. Ordinary people are proving such diagnoses wrong by coming out to vote and ensuring that in any election in the world’s largest democracy, no party can take victory as a given. This is in contrast to the PRC, where zero votes were cast against Xi Jinping last year when he made himself President for Life of the PRC. For Xi, co-opting the population of a country is proving to be an insurmountable challenge, in contrast to the success with which elites have been bought over to Beijing’s side. Despite their resistance, the logic of Cold War 2.0 is steadily working to change the contours of policy in big democracies such as the US and India towards the PRC, a process of change that was heralded by the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue by Prime Ministers Abe and Modi in 2017.