{"id":1478,"date":"2019-12-30T07:56:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T07:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2019-12-30T07:56:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T07:56:03","slug":"chinas-leaders-seeking-to-draw-strength-from-weakness-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/?p=1478","title":{"rendered":"China’s leaders seeking to ‘draw strength from weakness’ in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In early December, China\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs jumped the Great Fire Wall used by Beijing to block access to many foreign websites, and joined Twitter to communicate directly with the outside world.<\/p>\n

Its tweets so far have ranged from calling the US a \u201cSUPER LIAR\u201d and upbraiding foreign journalists, to lauding China\u2019s victories: \u201cChina\u2019s vast land of 9.6 million km\u00b2 is free from war, fear, refugees and displacement. People of 56 ethnic groups live happy life, BEST human rights achievement!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Ministry of Foreign Affairs \u5916\u4ea4\u90e8\u53d1\u8a00\u4eba\u529e\u516c\u5ba4<\/span>(@MFA__China)<\/span><\/p>\n

“When presented with lies versus truth, every journalist is facing a test of conscience. Are you being truly objective and just or are you being selective and partial? What does your decision reveal?” TRUTH AIN’T LIE!\u00a0https:\/\/t.co\/nsK1INnVPL<\/a>\u00a0pic.twitter.com\/wd4tJjMsGE<\/a><\/p>\n

December 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

China\u2019s new, defensive, somewhat Trumpian, social media strategy betrays Beijing\u2019s anxiety over the country\u2019s image as it enters 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201c2019 has been a very, very bad year for China\u2019s international reputation across a whole range of fronts \u2013\u00a0Hong Kong<\/a>, Xinjiang, foreign interference, espionage, technology, strategic competition,\u201d said Adam Ni, co-editor of China Neican, a\u00a0a newsletter on Chinese policy.<\/p>\n

China under the leadership of\u00a0Xi Jinping\u00a0will enter 2020 on the back foot, after a year of converging crises. More than seven months of protests on its doorstep in Hong Kong have captured global attention and mobilised citizens to push back against Beijing\u2019s influence over the city.<\/p>\n

A year-and-a-half-long trade war with the US has escalated into near full-on rivalry with Washington. Meanwhile, China\u2019s ties with Canada, Australia, and the UK have all come under strain in the past year as concerns about Beijing as\u00a0a national security threat<\/a>\u00a0grow.<\/p>\n

\"\"Anti-government protesters in Kong Kong throwing molotov cocktails towards police vehicles during clashes in November. Photograph: Tyrone Siu\/Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n

More recently, two major leaks of classified government documents detailing China\u2019s programme of mass detention of Muslim minorities in\u00a0Xinjiang<\/a>\u00a0have emboldened critics, witnesses and other countries to speak out, and raised questions about possible dissent within government ranks.<\/p>\n

At home, the government faces a slowing Chinese economy, which is growing at its most sluggish pace in 30 years, raising fears about unemployment. Chinese residents have been hit by rising consumer prices, highlighted by the fact that the cost of pork, the country\u2019s staple meat, has skyrocketed, prompting the government to release strategic pork reserves.<\/p>\n

A recent high-level economic planning meeting, attended by Xi and other top officials, named \u201cstability\u201d as one of the key priorities for the government next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at a critical period,\u201d an official summary of the conference said, acknowledging \u201cdownward economic pressure\u201d and \u201cintertwined structural, institutional and cyclical problems\u201d. It said: \u201cWe need to be well prepared with contingency plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

But rather than weakening the ruling Chinese Communist party\u2019s hold, observers say chaos gives it pretext to exert yet more control. \u201cThe party draws a lot of strength from weakness. It\u2019s able to justify crackdowns, party loyalty campaigns,\u201d said Samantha Hoffman, who researches Chinese security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.<\/p>\n

The government has in the last few months released new\u00a0guidelines for patriotic education<\/a>, the training of party members,\u00a0morality guidelines<\/a>\u00a0for citizens, and new restrictions on content. Secondary and primary schools have been ordered to cull their libraries of \u201cillegal\u201d or \u201cimproper\u201d books \u2013 leading to\u00a0one incident of a book burning\u00a0at a county library.<\/p>\n

External pressures also give Beijing the ability to deflect. The Chinese economy was facing headwinds before the trade war, yet officials can now blame some of those problems on Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimilarly, even though the Hong Kong protests are fuelled by local concerns, the official media on the mainland has been working overtime to make them seem the result of foreign influence, which plays into the CCP narrative that the west is determined to do what it can to interfere with China\u2019s rise,\u201d said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, who teaches Chinese history at the University of California at Irvine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of nationalist sentiment that plays into the CCP\u2019s [Chinese communist party] hands, which is actually partly strengthened by the problems Xi Jinping and company face,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"FacilityFacility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained. Photograph: Greg Baker\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the pressure\u00a0China\u00a0faces in this next year is also self-inflicted. Xi has staked out \u201cthree tough battles\u201d that his party must win by the end of next year in order to be on track to achieve an even larger goal, the \u201cgreat rejuvenation of the Chinese nation\u201d by 2049, the 100-year anniversary of the country\u2019s founding. Xi has set 2021, which is also the centenary of the founding of the Chinese communist party, as the deadline for his government to have created a \u201cmoderately prosperous society\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking ahead to that, I\u2019m sure CCP leaders would prefer both their country and their party to be in a much stronger position. Right now, the CCP is playing defence on many fronts,\u201d said Maura Cunningham, a historian who specialises in modern China.<\/p>\n

Beijing has decided that one of those battle lines in 2020 will be western-facing social media. In addition the ministry of foreign affairs, Chinese ambassadors\u00a0to the UK, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, and Nepal have also joined Twitter in the last year.<\/p>\n

They are hitting back against criticism and presenting China\u2019s positions. Some, like the\u00a0former ambassador\u00a0to Pakistan, Zhao Lijian, who is now at the ministry of foreign affairs have become especially outspoken.<\/p>\n

Zhao recently launched a\u00a0diatribe\u00a0against journalists who did not report on a documentary on Xinjiang, released by state media.<\/p>\n

Observers say the strategy is unlikely to be that effective. \u201cThe CCP has traditionally been completely incapable of handling criticism. Again and again, party organs respond clumsily,\u201d said Cunningham.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might think that tweeting in English will help correct global misperceptions about the People\u2019s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist party, but instead they either look divorced from reality \u2013 or like trolls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early December, China\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs jumped the Great Fire Wall used by Beijing to block access to many foreign websites, and joined Twitter to communicate directly with the outside world. Its tweets so far have ranged from calling the US a \u201cSUPER LIAR\u201d and upbraiding foreign journalists, to lauding China\u2019s victories: \u201cChina\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinas-uyghur-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/akademiye.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}