Chinaa rethinking it's role
With China positioning itself as a leader on the world stage, its government is drawing on memories of the role the country played in shaping the post-War order. This raises tough questions about China’s self-image.
Chinese soldiers march for the 70th anniversary of victory in World War Two
Chinese soldiers march for the 70th anniversary of victory in World War Two. Credit: Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images.
The globe has not lacked World War II analogies in 2020. The Covid crisis has been perhaps the most transformative single global event since the conflict against fascism, and metaphors relating to it have flowed naturally into politicians’ language. Fittingly, this year marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe and Asia.
For China it has been a visibly momentous occasion. When the pandemic broke out in Wuhan, the Chinese state quickly turned to a metaphor taken straight from Mao Zedong’s campaigns against the Japanese in the 1930s. The response was described as a ‘people’s war’ against the virus. This year’s Chinese cinematic blockbluster (The Eight Hundred) and top-rated television series (Autumn Cicada) are set in World War II-era Shanghai and Hong Kong respectively.
And perhaps most significantly for the changing global order, at the Munich Security Conference in February, foreign minister Wang Yi included in his comments an observation it is hard to imagine his Maoist predecessors making. The world should remember, he said, that in spring 1945 China had been the first signatory to the Charter of the new United Nations. Wang Yi’s statement was part of a wider argument now increasingly heard in China: that the country’s role as one of the Allied powers in World War II made it a shaper of the post-war global order, and that it should retain that role in the present day.
China’s global rise is now clear. To transition from a desperately poor and isolated country less than half a century ago to the world’s second largest economy with global reach is not trivial. To become perhaps the second most innovative tech eco-system on the planet, with competitive capacity in biotech, artificial intelligence, and 5G provision, is also worthy of more than passing mention. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people live comfortable lives and have professional aspirations that were unthinkable two generations ago. Economic freedoms in China are among the most productive on earth, allowing a Jack Ma, or millions of other lesser-known entrepreneurs, to flourish (or in many cases, to drown – not for nothing is the Chinese expression for going into private business xiahai – ‘jumping into the sea’).
Yet all of these achievements have taken place under a political system which has, over time, increased economic freedom and security while steadily eroding individual political liberties. While the level of civil liberties in China has always fluctuated, the 2010s have seen a steady erosion on bellwether issues such as the press’s capacity to undertake investigative journalism; freedom to criticize the government (and top leaders) on social media, and the ability of lawyers to take cases of rights violation to courts. The ‘re-education’ camps for Uighurs in Xinjiang and the chilling of critical speech in Hong Kong under the new National Security Law have given the wider world a strong sense that China may be more powerful, but it is becoming distinctly less free.
China is aware that its real achievements are overshadowed, particularly in the western world, by its repression of political freedoms. It has therefore been seeking creative ways to recast its global image. The Belt and Road Initiative, with its promise of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, has been a powerful tool in China’s attempt to create a more positive global brand. There is also evidence that in some parts of Asia (such as Pakistan), sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, there is a greater willingness to give China credit for its financial assistance. Yet these efforts remain patchy, not least because the BRI is still inchoate. While China has been successful at portraying itself as a powerful actor in global politics, it has been much less successful portraying itself as a moral actor
