(Still) Worrying about China

By Deauwand Myers

An expert on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry recently said the Chinese were “ruthlessly pragmatic.” He’s half right: they are ruthless.

Since the last time I wrote about its growing power, China has only reified my fears. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) breached Indian sovereign territory very recently, for no reason, except to show it could. It has proclaimed all of the South China Sea (international waters!) as its own economic zone, threatening military action against its much smaller South Asian neighbors.

It continues to wage an effective cyber war with American and European businesses, a form of sloppy corporate espionage sanctioned, and often funded, by the Chinese government. More disturbingly, China’s army of hackers have acquired sensitive, highly classified files of the American military, including missile systems, logistical data on how to use them, and even, as reported last year, the schematics of America’s nuclear arsenal, the largest and most powerful network of atomic weapons on the planet.

The problem with nuclear-armed China is the problem with North Korea. We don’t know what we don’t know. The PLA is reportedly ascendant in China’s gargantuan government, but to what end?

China desperately wants to copy Western business models of corporate governance and free market principles. But how can a thriving capitalist system be effectively superimposed on a quasi-communist state, one in which the rule of law and true socioeconomic reforms are badly needed?

Such reforms include (but are not limited to): liberalizing capital markets, allowing China’s private sector to fairly compete with state-sponsored companies, revaluing the yuan, raising workers’ wages, bettering working conditions, increasing domestic consumption, creating an effective social safety net for the elderly, and seriously implementing environmental protection.

Rank graft and corruption within the Communist Party’s elite, especially in provincial and local townships, will make an economic reformation within China harder still.

Some believe America and China should put their differences aside and work on mutual cooperation, with North Korea, Syria, the Sudan, and in doing so, better trade and trust will follow.

The problem with this: China is a closed state. We don’t know what atrocities the Chinese government is committing against Tibetan descendants, Muslim minorities (like the Uyghurs), and Chinese activists itching for more freedoms and a more transparent, democratic society. We don’t know if China will attack Taiwan, its South Asian neighbors, or whether it will finally cut off all aid to North Korea, or help sustain the impoverished hermit state.

We don’t know what we don’t know. We do know a lot, however. When people show you who they are, believe them. The PLA crushed a democratic movement culminating in the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which hundreds, if not thousands, were murdered. Activists and citizens are beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and executed without trial or evidence.

Further, when the Communist Party feels pressure from its populace, it often employs nationalism to bolster its grip on power, so anti-Japanese war movies and TV dramas are sanctioned and tacitly encouraged by the government. (Now, to be sure, the Japanese government under Prime Minister Abe created this situation, as members of the Diet still make pilgrimages to honor their war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine, or as it still tries to whitewash war crimes it committed before and during World War II, including ravaging Nanking, invading and occupying Manchuria, sexual slavery, and medical experiments on human subjects).

President Obama and other world leaders, especially from OECD countries, would be wise to be wary of China’s methods and motives. As China’s biggest trading partner, America has some leverage on China’s behavior. Meanwhile, I’m still worrying about China.

The writer holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory and is currently an English professor outside of Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.