Medhavi Shankar
Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ is among the most widely quoted books in modern strategic disclosure. Two concepts outlined in this book – “all warfare is deception” and “the best way is to win without fighting” seem to have become the guiding principles of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ever since Xi Jinping and his CCP silently declared war on the existing global order, there has been steady and widespread use of lies, half-truths, false promises and misinformation, to advance their agenda. As the world faces unprecedented challenges in health, economy and socio-political domains, the CCP, instead of bridging existing trust deficits resorts to lying blatantly rather too often.
Recently, the Philippines Foreign Minister issued a remarkable ‘expletive – laden’ statement to Beijing asking them to remove all Chinese fishermen and militia from Manila’s EEZ. This is a remarkable event given how Beijing and Manila had sought deeper ties ever since President Duterte took office in 2017. CCP always assured Manila that they would respect the latter’s concerns and provide a win-win situation for both nations particularly in the disputed waters. In the last few years, multiple instances have emerged when Chinese militia have been seen in waters claimed by Philippines, but the Duterte administration has played these down, in the hope of eventual compromise and positive actions by Beijing. However, in April 2021 a huge force of the Chinese Militia positioned itself off the Philippines’ Whitsun Reef and refused to move even when directed to do so by the Coast Guard. An official statement from the CCP said that the vessels were taking shelter during bad weather – a blatant lie – as the weather in the region was absolutely fine. This is not the first and only example of how Beijing continues to lie, with no apparent trepidation or moral constraint.
The perfidy of global trust in Hong Kong is another example. In 1997, Beijing and London had signed the ‘one country two systems’ Joint Declaration, wherein Hong Kong would retain its legal systems, borders, and rights (assembly, speech and press) for 50 years. However, since 2019, new laws passed by CCP proxies in Hong Kong, have given Beijing sweeping powers over the people of Hong Kong. As a result, the freedom of the press, as well as curriculum of academic institutions has undergone severe transformation. Not withstanding widespread protests, the CCP has pushed through these ‘reforms’ to ensure the Hong Kong falls into line with the Party’s vision. Pertinently, in May 21 poll indicated that close to 35% of Hong Kong natives were pursuing options to send their families overseas for education/ employment. At the turn of the century, the world was fooled by the CCP into believing that it would not interfere with Hong Kong’s way of life catalysing greater social change in China…the truth on ground is exactly the opposite.
The betrayal of basic human values in Xi Jinping is another stark example of the CCP’s inherent duplicity. A series of extremist attacks by Uyghur Muslims a few years back gave the CCP an excuse to undertake widespread actions in the region under the ruse of national security. Consequently, nearly 2million Uyghur Muslims in this region have been forced into ‘re-education camp’ to de-radicalise them. The severe and inhuman actions of the CCP against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including mass sterilisation, forced labour, and religious ‘re-education’ have resulted in severe global outcry. The US, Canada, Sweden and Dutch governments have already termed CCP actions against Uyghurs as genocide and many more are debating the issue at present. As the extent of atrocities committed by the State against Uyghurs becomes clearer, the CCP continues to use misinformation, propaganda and outright threats to counter the growing global call for corrective action in the province.
China’s ambitious aircraft carrier programme was also born from a lie. The Varyag, an unfinished Ukrainian aircraft carrier, was bought through a private company (owned and led by CCP affiliated individuals). This was declared to be headed for Macau as an offshore casino, critical and central to the economy of Macao – as popular Ukrainian sentiment was against sale of such niche warship technology. The same story was used to convince Turkey to allow the ship to pass through the Bosphorus Strait – an aircraft carrier could not legally pass through this waterway. However, once the vessel had reached China, it never went to Macau, heading instead to the Dalian Naval Shipyard, where it was extensively repaired and inducted into CCP Navy as the Liaoning. Pertinently, the Varyag has four fully operational engines, which Beijing never declared to the world, and also came with 30 tonnes of documentation on Aircraft Carrier construction – the true blueprints of the CCP aircraft carrier programme!
In the last decade when China started constructing artificial islands in disputed waters of the South China Sea, there was a global call for Beijing to cease these activities. The opposition was so loud that Chairman Xi Jinping personally assured the US President Obama that the artificial structures would never be militarised. Once again, these assurances were taken at face value by the international community. Today these islands are credible military outposts of the CCP that allow them to dominate the disputed waters of the region. They are home to extensive military infrastructure and capabilities including warplanes, missiles, patrol boats and troops. The CCP can never be trusted to do what they say, and (affected players) not realising this has led to a marked change in the status quo of South China Sea – a veritable ‘win’ without fighting.
In trade, China’s actions post inclusion in WTO is a clear example of its perfidy. According to a US congressional report – China has pursued industrial policies and unfair trade practices – including dumping, discriminatory non-tariff barriers, forced technology transfers, over capacity, and industrial subsidies which have allowed It to unilaterally gain from its WTO membership. The trade imbalance which has been enabled by these practices has provided Beijing with immense global clout. Notably at the time of joining WTO, China had committed to open markets and globally consistent policies – neither of which has materialised thus far. Today, CCP is using the wealth it has gained from such unethical trade practices to gain influence in emerging markets and developing economies around the world – to effectively re-make the global order as per its world view.
The BRI, which is the flagship megaproject of the CCP, is also revealing itself to be major breach of trust for the nations involved. For example, a railway line in Kenya constructed under the BRI, cost a staggering US$ 7bn, a significant portion of the country’s GDP. The CCP promptly suggested that the strategic port Mombasa could be leased as ‘collateral’, similar to the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, revealing the true intent of Beijing. While Kenya has turned down the suggestion, how the country overcomes its debt problems remains to be seen. Even Pakistan which is well on its way to becoming a CCP Province, has initiated a holistic review of all its BRI projects, as the debt these are accruing far exceed their value generation. As more countries across the world are taking a deeper look at these investments, the widespread corruption, factual inaccuracies and financial inconsistencies are becoming clear. The CCP’s poisoned gift of the BRI has led multiple economies into sustainable debt…allowing Xi to wield greater influence over these developing and vulnerable nations.
Perhaps the most dangerous deception of Xi and his CCP is ‘Wuhan Virus cover-up’. By Dec 19, the CCP was well aware of human-to-human transmission of the virus but did not reveal this fact to the WHO till Feb 2020. Notably, the misinformed WHO, characterised the virus as ‘Pneumonia of Unknown Cause’ as late as 5th Jan 2020…which resulted in countries across the world not taking precautions in time. Moreover on 11th and 20th Jan 2020 the CCP declared that there were no new cases since 3rd Jan 3020… a blatant lie, the consequence of which the world continues to suffer. Only on 14th Feb 2020 did Beijing finally acknowledge that over 1500 medical personnel had been infected. The selfish and malicious decision to control the details about the viral outbreak from Nov 2019 to Jan 2020, and the continued efforts to deny investigating agencies credible understanding about the origins of pandemic are a clear and potent reminder of what the world should expect from the CCP. As millions of people across the world suffer from the ongoing pandemic, Beijing continues to use the crisis to gain influence through condition-based vaccine supply, sanctioning of emergency supplies, economic arm twisting, and ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy. Recently, the CCP offered through its vaccine to Paraguay, conditional to it terminating diplomatic relations with Taiwan. While India promptly stepped in and provided the vaccines unconditionally, CCP’s willingness to exploit the pandemic for its own ends was proved to the world.
Periods of transition in global order are when ‘peace’ is most vulnerable. At these times, the powers which have capacity and influence to enhance stability must do so by building trust and transparency. However, the great tragedy of our times is that China, which has the ability to do, is controlled by a CCP which is addicted to lying. Deception and misdirection seem to be so deeply ingrained in the Party’s ideology, that even when their lack of good faith is exposed – they double down and expand the lie. Goebbels would have felt proud indeed!
Nations across the world have had their fingers burned by CCP’s most relentless deception…resulting in a situation that trust is almost non-existent in international affairs. This is indeed a recipe for disaster, one that the CCP’s leadership seems intent on leading the world towards – in their quest for global dominance!
