SinoInsight 1
On July 23, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a major China policy speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California.
Key takeaways from Pompeo’s speech include:
- The U.S. cannot continue with the “old paradigm of blind engagement” with China “if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams.”
- Pompeo describes CCP’s ideology as a “virulent strain of communism” and a “bankrupt totalitarian ideology.”
- President Trump has said “enough” to the CCP’s increasing authoritarianism in China and aggressive “hostility to freedom everywhere else.”
- “The only way to truly change communist China is to act not on the basis of what Chinese leaders say, but how they behave. And you can see American policy responding to this conclusion … When it comes to the CCP, I say we must distrust and verify.”
- The U.S. must “induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways, because Beijing’s actions threaten our people and our prosperity.”
- The U.S. must “tell the truth” about the CCP and cannot treat “this incarnation of China as a normal country, just like any other.”
- American companies that invest in China “may wittingly or unwittingly support the Communist Party’s gross human rights violations.” The U.S. has begun sanctioning PRC officials and informing American CEOs “how their supply chains are behaving inside of China.”
- The U.S. Department of State has new policies for dealing with China that advance “President Trump’s goals for fairness and reciprocity, to rewrite the imbalances that have grown over decades.”
- The U.S. “must also engage and empower the Chinese people–a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.”
- The CCP’s “biggest lie” is speaking for “1.4 billion people who are surveilled, oppressed, and scared to speak out.”
- “Changing the CCP’s behavior cannot be the mission of the Chinese people alone. Free nations have to work to defend freedom.”
- The Trump administration’s China strategy is not containment. “It’s about a complex new challenge that we’ve never faced before. The USSR was closed off from the free world. Communist China is already within our borders.”
- Pompeo believes that the “combined economic, diplomatic, and military power” of existing international organizations and alliances (the United Nations, NATO, the G7 countries, the G20) is “surely enough” to meet the CCP challenge. However, “maybe it’s time for a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies.”
- “If the free world doesn’t change, communist China will surely change us … Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time, and America is perfectly positioned to lead it because our founding principles give us that opportunity.”
Coincidentally or otherwise, Pompeo gave his speech on the 99th anniversary of the founding of the CCP (July 23, 1921).
OUR TAKE
1. To many observers, Secretary Pompeo’s speech marks a clear and major shift in U.S. policy on China. Longtime SinoInsider readers, however, have long been privy to the shift. We wrote in July 2018 that the Trump administration intends to reshape the CCP-hijacked world order and is “seeking to build a new rules-based, reciprocal global trading system.” In August 2018, we observed an ideological turn in U.S. policy on China. And in July 2019, we noted that the Sino-U.S. conflict “is not just a trade war or a tech war, but a critical battle of ideology, value systems, and morality.”
Pompeo’s speech also makes several points similar to those we made in a response to a prominent open letter that called on President Donald Trump to rethink his China policy, drafted by over a hundred scholars, former diplomats and military officials, and business leaders.
- In our response, we noted that distinguishing between China/the Chinese people and the CCP is “arguably the most important distinction to make concerning U.S. policy on China.” In his July 23 speech, Pompeo said that the Chinese people are “completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.”
- In our response, we wrote that “the CCP has also found it useful to speak on behalf of all Chinese people and claim that ‘the Chinese people’s feelings have been hurt’ when it is accused of wrongdoing.” In his speech, Pompeo described the CCP’s claim to speak for 1.4 billion Chinese people as its “biggest lie.”
- In our response, we wrote that the CCP is a Marxist-Leninist organization whose ultimate goal is world domination, and represents an existential threat to America. Pompeo called out the CCP’s ideology in his speech and said, “if we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.”
2. Pompeo mentioned closure of the PRC consulate in Houston in his speech. The following day, the CCP ordered the U.S. to close its consulate in Chengdu, a city in southwestern China in retaliation.
Pompeo noted in his speech that President Trump is looking for fairness and reciprocity in the Sino-U.S. relationship, and has had “enough” of the CCP’s malign behavior. The CCP will be imperiling itself if it insists on a “tit-for-tat” response to the Trump administration’s effort to “rewrite the imbalances” in the U.S.-China relationship.
3. Pompeo’s talk of creating a “new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies” will likely benefit Taiwan. We noted in our China 2020 outlook that “Taiwan’s international standing will continue to improve amid growing Sino-U.S. rivalry” and it could see “unprecedented opportunities to gain diplomatic, military, economic, and intelligence support and cooperation.”
We do not rule out a U.S. push to re-admit Taiwan into the United Nations, or create a new international organization with the ROC, and not the PRC, as a member. Either move would gravely challenge the CCP’s legitimacy on the international and domestic sphere
4. Critics argue that Pompeo’s speech is part of Trump’s broader re-election strategy or is a cynical effort by “some American officials,” who worry that Trump could lose re-election, to “engineer irreversible changes” to the Sino-U.S. relationship. Other analysts say that the speech “would have little immediate impact on the already-frayed US-China relationship.”
Those who argue that the Trump administration is getting tough on China chiefly for re-election should carefully re-examine the 2017 National Security Strategy and what the administration has done on the China issue since the release of said strategy, vis-à-vis what the CCP has done to the U.S. and committed on the human rights front at home over the same time period. An appraisal of the Trump administration’s China policy and actions between 2017 to the present debunks the “Trump is going after China mainly due to election concerns” framing. We believe that this framing represents an oversimplification of the situation at best and serves as CCP-friendly disinformation at worst.
Pompeo’s speech and forthcoming U.S. action against the CCP will likely sharply raise economic and political risks in China, and hasten the arrival of a “Berlin Wall” moment for the CCP. Businesses, investors, and governments with deep interests in China need to prepare contingencies for a post-communist China and even a global “de-Nazification” campaign aimed at holding the CCP and its sympathizers accountable for the Communist Party’s crimes.
SinoInsight 2
On July 22, Xinhua republished a commentary titled, “Signaling Accountability With 20 Years of Retroactive Investigations” (「倒查20年」釋放的追責信號) by Legal Daily, the mouthpiece of the CCP’s political and legal affairs apparatus. The commentary noted that “special rectification” work into Inner Mongolia’s coal mining sector, including “retroactive investigations” spanning two decades, reveals extensive corruption in the sector. Investigations commenced near the end of February 2020 per the “suggestion” of the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission. The commentary added that there must be “broad consensus” on the notion of “lifelong accountability” (終身負責), be it on the ecological or political front. Furthermore, the commentary stressed that the recent “retroactive investigations” are meant to signal that “lifelong accountability” goes beyond lip service and “are being practically implemented.”
OUR TAKE
1. The Legal Daily report on 20 years of “retroactive investigations” in Inner Mongolia hints at intensification in the CCP factional struggle. Xi Jinping is likely putting factional rivals and even allies on notice ahead of the 20th Party Congress and this year’s Beidaihe meeting (if held).
2. Shi Taifeng, Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia, and Liu Qifan, the Inner Mongolia Commission for Discipline Inspection head, are both part of the Xi camp. Shi is close to retirement age (64; senior officials retire at 65), and would unlikely have initiated a massive “retroactive investigation” on his own without instructions from Xi Jinping as he would be offending his predecessors and an entire cohort of Inner Mongolia officials by “holding them accountable” for activities carried out over a 20-year span (an eternity in an official’s career, given the culture of corruption in the CCP).
The Legal Daily commentary notes that the “retroactive investigations” were instituted near the end of February. The timing of the “retroactive investigations” corroborate our analysis of dire escalation in the CCP factional struggle over the coronavirus in mid-February.
3. Inner Mongolia Party Secretaries over the past 20 years include:
- Chu Bo (Aug. 2001 – Nov. 2009)
- Hu Chunhua (Nov. 2009 – Dec. 2012)
- Wang Jun (Dec. 2013 – Aug. 2016)
- Li Jiheng (Aug. 2016 – Oct. 2019)
- Shi Taifeng (Oct. 2019 – present)
Inner Mongolia chairpersons over the previous two decades include:
- Uyunqimg (Aug. 2000 – April 2003)
- Yang Jing (April 2003 – April 2008)
- Bagatur (April 2008 – March 2016)
- Bu Xiaolin (March 2016 – present)
Of the aforementioned officials, Bu Xiaolin (granddaughter of founding Inner Mongolia chairman Ulanhu who is nearing retirement age), as well as Li Jiheng and Bagatur (Xi camp officials), pose no danger to Xi Jinping.
Xi would unlikely target Yang Jing, who was already investigated in February 2018 for “severe violations of discipline” and was eventually demoted to the ministerial level. It is also unlikely that Xi would go after Wang Jun, Chu Bo, and Uyunqimg, all of whom are either retired or are holding sinecure positions in the CCP’s rubber stamp legislature or political consultative body, and hence do not have much political influence.
Of all the Inner Mongolia Party Secretaries and chairpersons who served in the past two decades, Hu Chunhua represents the biggest threat to Xi Jinping. Hu’s name has constantly been brought up in discussions and speculation concerning heirs to the CCP General Secretary post. Hu Jintao was rumored to have “designated” Hu Chunhua as Xi’s successor. Also, Hu Chunhua was one of three officials observers believed that Xi would “designate” at his successor-in-waiting before the 19th Party Congress in 2017. That year, Sun Zhengcai, one of Xi’s rumored “successors-in-waiting,” was purged in the lead up to the major political conclave. Because Xi is almost certainly gunning for a third term in office, it is possible that he is using the Inner Mongolia “retroactive investigations” to caution both allies (Hu Jintao) and rivals (the Jiang Zemin faction) against forcing him to designate Hu Chunhua as his successor at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, as well as dissuade Hu from making any attempt to challenge him then.
4. Xi Jinping could also be looking to snare Jiang faction member and former Politburo Standing Committee member Liu Yunshan with the recent Inner Mongolia probe. While Liu served as Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia’s Chifeng City in the early 1990s before moving up to Party Central, his political networks in Inner Mongolia could be behind corruption in the region and he could have facilitated it by abusing his greater authority. Xi has ample reason to bear a grudge against Liu Yunshan—the CCP propaganda apparatus under Liu frequently challenged Xi, while Liu’s son Liu Lefei is suspected of having a hand in the 2015 “financial coup” against the Xi leadership.
5. The recent announcement of “retroactive investigations” in Inner Mongolia could be a warning by Xi to his factional rivals ahead of informal but important summer meetings at the resort town of Beidaihe. Personnel affairs are one of several key topics usually discussed at Beidaihe, and Xi’s opponents can be expected to pressure him to nominate a successor (and hence impose “term limits” on his presidency) at the Beidaihe meetings leading up to the 20th Party Congress.
Despite the coronavirus situation, recent tightening of security at Beidaihe District in July suggests the informal meeting of CCP elite could still be held.