2022 in China

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The most important political event in 2022 is doubtlessly the 20th Party Congress, through which Xi secured his third term as the paramount leader of China. Sitting on the top chair for three consecutive terms itself is not a guilt, as Angela Merkel, for example, was the Chancellor for 16 years. However, China after Deng Xiaoping has an unwritten rule that sets the term limit for the paramount leader as 2 terms, which Xi, with the tacit consent of top Party members, unapologetically violated. In Xi’s defense, China has continuously progressed under his leadership, at least for the majority of Chinese who are “wise” enough not to dissent. The Party has responded to inequality by “common prosperity”, to rampant corruption by continuous anticorruption campaigns, to perceived increasing foreign aggression by “standing up for Chinese interests”, etc. Although it is fair to suggest that the world is living through “changes unseen in a century”, it is still dangerous to break political norms. Scholars of authoritarianism have argued that lacking institutionalization in succession tends to increase instability. Surely nobody wants the Lin Biao drama to repeat in Chinese politics again.

In February, Russia surprised the world with a “special military operation”, which China has yet to object. China’s inaction has led to Western criticism towards China. China certainly would like to appear as respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity, because it sees itself as a victim of Western aggression. However, Russia is obviously “the enemy of my enemy” for China, and instead of repeating the courting of China under Nixon, the U.S. and its allies have agitated China greatly by, for example, not objecting their senior politicians to visit Taiwan. For these reasons, China, officially, neither supports nor objects the Russian actions, and the West knows what it needs to do if it really wants the support of China. Merely criticizing China for not adhering to Western values or interests only serves to unite the West while distancing China.

Cross-strait relations is arguably the most critical foreign affairs issue in 2022. To this date, it is still shocking to me that Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, because I do not think that Beijing did anything too provocative to receive such a drastic countermeasure from the U.S.. Although one may argue that Pelosi was a “lone wolf” who does not represent the opinion of the U.S. government, her visit is still deemed as U.S. hypocrisy that violates the 1972 Shanghai communiqué. When analyzing Chinese politics, Western observers cannot simply adopt Western norms. In the case of Taiwan, it is neither a colonized territory like the Bahamas or Curaçao, nor a conquest territory like Scotland or Catalonia. The Taiwan problem should be understood as a problem of “two Chinas”, i.e. a continuation of the unfinished civil war between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC).

However, Beijing does not like having “two Chinas” and instead prefers the “One China policy”, which unrealistically argues that there is only one Chinese government. This policy was drafted out of expediency when the PRC was unable to obtain the international recognition that it so desperately needed under Mao Zedong. Now that the PRC, with its growing influence, has successfully persuaded most countries to recognize Beijing as the legitimate Chinese capital, but most countries still have informal diplomatic ties with Taibei. Then, the “One China policy” does not diminish Taibei’s de facto global influence. Moreover, there is an unexpected negative side effect of “One China policy”: for some, if Taiwan cannot be allowed to be considered as a version of China, it should not be considered as China at all. This negative consequence became the Taiwan independence movement, which Beijing responded with intensive military drills in August. Instead of playing the war game, a solution is to promote a renewed version of the “One China policy” by constructing a “Federation of China” which includes both the PRC and the ROC. This strategy is more representative of the reality, and satisfies Beijing’s “One China policy”. The goal of this project is to promote an affirmation of the Chinese identity in Taiwan, which itself is a prerequisite of the project. It takes political brilliance and courage to push for such a bold project, but it is still better than a war, and for some, the “One Country, Two Systems”.

Lastly, China’s COVID-19 policy has taken an unexpectedly rapid change in 2022. For months, the West has blasted China for its “zero-COVID” policy. Seeing how the rest of the world has embraced COVID, after some tragedies, unusual protests erupted in many sites across China to demand changes in COVID policy and even the political system. Reading some protest flyers, I find that there are certainly anti-regime sentiments within the protest, but as the reality suggests, nothing has changed politically. For COVID policy however, Beijing speeded up its loosening of restrictions, leading to a nationwide inflection, as almost everyone I know in China was infected in December. Now, some people are complaining about COVID death. Granted, the Chinese government could have done much more to protect its citizens, such as mandatory vaccination for old people, introduction of more effective foreign vaccines, and a more organized loosening of restrictions. However, this does not excuse the almost schizophrenic behavior of many who criticize Beijing regardless of its policy orientation. The Chinese society and government have decided to embrace the human cost of economic development under COVID, which has disappointed many supporters of “zero-COVID”. But as Beijing’s propaganda suggests, loosening under Omicron is better than under Delta, and that the government has protected the people for three years.

Chinese politics continues to be messy, and incremental improvements of the Chinese political system is desperately needed, as Beijing cannot always guarantee performance legitimacy. However, criticizing China using Western values from a moral high ground does not work, unless the Western values are necessarily better and that Western criticism is not seen as double-standard or schizophrenic. Although further conflicts are more likely, I still dream of deepening cooperations between China and the West.