'Is China under the CCP's rule an authoritarian or a totalitarian regime? So far, this issue has not been clearly understood by either party in the US..
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It is important to remember that the People’s Liberation Army is a "party-army", responsible solely to the CCP as the ruling party and not the nation, state, or government of the PRC.'
- Cai Xia
'..As a former member of the CCP system, looking back at the changes in China-US relations over the past fifty years, I have three basic perspectives that I wish to share with Americans, so that they can more clearly see the CCP and its strategies for what they are.
First, in the more than seventy years since it came to power, the CCP has treated domestic and foreign affairs as “one integrated game,” with the top priority of strengthening the CCP’s control and preventing the collapse of the regime. In this regard, diplomacy is an extension of domestic affairs and is seen as a device to keep the party in power.
Second, as far as the CCP’s global strategic objectives are concerned, China-US relations are the primary, and most important, factors among all. Therefore, the CCP’s attitude toward China-US relations and the engagement policy is determined by how well they serve the CCP’s internal political needs.
Third, international engagement and economic development have failed to soften the political character of the CCP regime. Its combination of ideology and extreme repression make it a totalitarian regime, and the sophisticated digital nature of its surveillance and repression has given totalitarian control a new dimension. All of this makes China a more dangerous adversary for the United States. (p. 2 & 3)
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..Nixon forgot to ask if communist China could be easily integrated into the international community. (p. 3)
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As a leading Chinese propagandist, the former head of the State Council’s Information Office, Zhao Qizheng, cynically explained, “The ‘peaceful’ is for foreigners, and the ‘rise’ is for us Chinese.”
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..In fact, the CCP regime has always been a totalitarian, one-party dictatorship. (p. 22)
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..In short, the CCP is the greatest threat to American security and world peace, and the CCP regime has no moral compass. (p. 25)'
- Cai Xia,
China-US Relations in the Eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, June 28, 2021
Notes[7] An internal CCP narrative at the time argued that, on the one hand, the governments of developed countries in Europe and the US publicly announced sanctions against China, but secretly big European and American companies lobbied their governments to relax sanctions for their own interests and they maintained contacts through some unofficial channels. This emboldened Deng Xiaoping and other high-level CCP officials. I clearly remember the content of this talk circulated internally at that time.
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[30] For example, Spain realized peaceful democratic political transformation, and its foundation was established in the last ten years of General Franco’s rule. At that time Spain was already a de facto authoritarian regime. Yet in the former Soviet Union, although there was no large-scale bloodshed in the process of political upheaval, it did not smoothly move toward a democratic political system, and in fact stayed at the stage of Yeltsin-Putin’s strongman-type authoritarian rule. This shows that the totalitarian system cannot directly advance to the democratic political system, but authoritarian rule can.
Context The Broken Promises of China's WTO Accession: Reprioritizing Human Rights - '..reduce supply chain reliance on China.'China's Xi Faces no 'Power to Constrain Him' - Xi Brings 'Era of Exquisite Totalitarianism' - '..ever since Xi took office in 2012 .. It is as barbaric and ferocious as Hitler’s rule..' - Cai XiaFor Freedom, Justice, and Love - '..Chinese people learned about freedom, rule of law, human rights, and civil society. In some places, they found ways to practice democracy and freedom..'(Spanish, English, Chinese) - The Values: 'You only have to read one book, "The History of Spain" by Father Juan de Mariana.' - Thomas Jefferson