Chinese President Hu Jintao has left the world guessing as to his foreign policy beliefs by playing his cards very close to the chest at the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist party.
The Congress is the forum where the rulers of China gather to establish their pecking order and set policy guidelines for the next few years. His only visible move was to consolidate his power for the next five years and name new protegés to the nine-person Politburo Standing Committee, which stands at the apex of the Party’s apparatus and thus controls the country.
The fog continues and may even have become a little thicker on the crucial questions of human rights in China and whether it will behave more responsibly in international trade and world security. This is significant during a forthcoming period when many outside experts think his regime will face challenges of serious social unrest because of the glaring gaps between rural poverty and urban wealth.
A time-tested technique of hanging on to power despite failed domestic policies is to raise fears among the people of the hostile intentions of foreign “enemiesâ€. Mao Tse Tung used this bogeyman frequently and Hu gave no reassurance at the Congress that he will not use his local “cold war†over Taiwan or a “trade war†with Europe and the US for similar purposes. Hu must at all costs prevent erosion in the Communist Party’s dictatorship over China if rising trends in social unrest become uncontrollable.
Within the complex jargon of China’s ruling ideology, Hu has successfully injected his concept of “scientific developmentâ€. He wants this to be his legacy. It stands broadly for implementing a more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable approach to China’s economic growth while intensifying a drive against corruption.
Of course, these are fine ideals but the devil is, as always, in the details. Hu wields power at the apex while local bosses are the faces of power actually seen by the people. Their ideals are much less lofty than those of the President. From most accounts, they focus on lining their pockets through business cronies without regard to pollution or social justice. The President’s orders mean little if the local bosses avoid implementing them because their self-interest is not served.
With the 2008 Olympics round the corner, Hu faces greater pressure to present an image of serene power to the world. He has over a trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves gathered from trade surpluses and his people are estimated to have a personal savings treasure of over 2.5 trillion dollars.
Many around the world profit from the lower costs of consumer goods made in China, but feel trepidation at the financial power accumulating in Chinese hand. Beijing is already using it to buy Western companies and to wield political influence in the poor nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In particular, the European Union fears trade deficits with China and does not want to fall into the kind of abject public debt that the US has towards Beijing. Officials are currently preparing an offensive to punish China for “dumping†steel and other materials on Europe’s markets allegedly below cost.
If that happens in the next few months, a trade war scenario will develop between Europe and China especially since the US Congress seems determined to punish China for its allegedly undervalued currency. Some Europeans claim the Chinese are selling steel, shoes, textiles, computer parts and other materials as much as 40% below cost. Some influential Americans think the Chinese yuan is under-valued by as much as one third.
If this Western anger turns into punitive trade measures, Hu will fight back because he faces nearly 700 million have-nots in China, which is about half the population. He may even provoke the fight as a means of making his people accept more sacrifices for a little longer. This is an easier alternative to ending mismanagement, corruption and ignorance in his Communist Party bureaucracy.
Figures are unreliable but media reports suggest that Hu has faced thousands of demonstrations during the last four years by rural dwellers fed up of economic inequity, severe pollution and legal justice denied because of interference by local Party bosses on behalf of business cronies. Whatever the precise facts, Hu clearly fears social unrest or he would not have made “scientific development†his catchphrase and desired legacy.
Hu’s other catchphrase is “Go globalâ€, which implies an openness to the world. In practice, it means selling to the world and gathering political influence abroad without making the kind of foreign policy changes that would make China a more reassuring world citizen.
For instance, Hu has done nothing to improve China’s human rights record or tone down his rhetoric on Taiwan, which the Communist Party sees as a renegade province rather than a country. There are no softer words for the Dalai Lama on Tibet’s autonomy, no additional pressure on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons and no pressure on Iran to give up nuclear ambitions.
At the same time, China continues to exploit America’s distraction with Iraq to spread tentacles in Africa and Latin America. It is also doing very little to trade more fairly, reduce theft of intellectual property or change its obstructive behavior on security issues brought to the United Nations Security Council by the US and Europe.
The 17th Congress was quiet on almost all of these important matters. Perhaps, Hu wants harmony within China but he gave little indication of how he plans to work towards his third catchphrase: a “harmonious worldâ€. Confucius coined this catchphrase and for long, it meant that China remained isolated and distant from world affairs. That is no longer an option in our global village but the Chinese riddle remains as opaque as ever.