Chinese imperialism | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 中國帝國主義 | ||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 中国帝国主义 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中華帝國主義 | ||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 中华帝国主义 | ||||||||
|
Chinese imperialism refers to the expansion of China's political,economic,and cultural influence beyond the boundaries of the People's Republic of China. Depending on the commentator,it has also been used to refer to its artificial islands in the South China Sea [1] and the persecution of Uyghurs in China. [2] [3] Although there has not been a long-standing imperial regime in China since the 1911 Revolution and the country is officially a People's Republic,some refer to China as an imperialist country. This includes socialist parties in the Pacific such as the New People's Army,Japanese Communist Party,some Maoist parties,and the New Left (especially some of the Chinese New Left). China's relations with Africa have also been accused of being "neo-colonialism". [4] [5] [6]
Part of a series on the |
History of China |
---|
The Chinese Empire [7] expanded across large parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia from around 3rd century BC until 1912. [8]
Since the Chinese economic reform of 1978, China became a new economic, military, and political great power. As China transformed, there were hopes that the Chinese government would give up its expansionist ideas. [9] However, since Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping's rise to power, and as a result of increasing territorial conflicts in which China stated that most of the disputed lands belong to China, it is generally believed that China continues to adhere to irredentist claims. [10] [9]
Jeffrey Reeves argues that since 2012, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping has demonstrated "a concerted imperialist policy" towards its developing neighbor states to the south and west, especially Mongolia, [11] Kazakhstan, [12] [13] Tajikistan, [14] [15] Kyrgyzstan, [16] Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, [17] Myanmar, Cambodia, [18] [19] [20] Laos, [21] and Vietnam. [22] This is associated with criticism of debt trap diplomacy. [6] [23] [24] [25] [26]
With China's rapid economic development and its increased investment in Africa, a new round of debate has emerged over whether Chinese investment in Africa is imperialistic. Horace Campbell has called this debate "superficial" and considers China's involvement as still distinct from Western imperialism. [27] Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) coordinates much of the investment. According to Evan Hsiang in Harvard International Review , China's investment in countries such as Zambia, which had a debt crisis in 2020 and had the "highest number of Chinese lenders of all African states", has been seen with the lens of economic imperialism, but may result from mismanagement and lack of regulations rather than planned debt traps. Nonetheless, Hsiang also cites "China's structural dominance" in the Zambian mining industry and that many of the projects neglect working conditions due to "China's unchallenged power" and the projects go through due to pressure by Chinese bureaucracy on African governments. He recommends that greater scrutiny of FOCAC would limit exploitative interactions. [28]
China official sources have pointed out that countries were not compelled to take the loans and they came with no strings attached in their agreements; however outside observers have noted that many of the debtor countries have entered fiscal difficulty, such as Sri Lanka, who defaulted on its sovereign debt. [26] Sri Lanka's Hambantota International Port has been leased to China for 99 years starting in 2017. [29] China signing a 99-year lease on a foreign port is seen as both a current erosion of sovereignty and a symbolic one similar to 19th century colonialism, because that is the amount of time Britain leased colonial Hong Kong from China in 1898. [29] [30] [31] [32] China has also leased Gwadar Port in Pakistan for 43 years, [33] significant protests have occurred against Chinese interests in the port of Gwadar. [34] The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been seen as a geostrategic effort to advance the PRC's influence. Baloch insurgent militant groups in Pakistan have also labeled the CPEC as an imperialist endeavor by China. [35] [36] According to The Economic Times , Chinese state interests in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh form a cohesive strategy to encircle India. This overall strategy, named by U.S. and Indian commentators, is the String of Pearls which is a combination of economic and naval interests by China surrounding India. [37] [38] Supporting India's claim is the ability of the Gwadar port to host naval ships, and with the increasing presence of China there, the People's Liberation Army Navy may be able use Gwadar as a forward base. [37]
However other researchers dispute this view. An October 2019 report by the Lowy Institute said that China had not engaged in deliberate actions in the Pacific which justified accusations of debt-trap diplomacy (based on contemporaneous evidence), and China had not been the primary driver behind rising debt risks in the Pacific; the report expressed concern about the scale of the country's lending, however, and the institutional weakness of Pacific states which posed the risk of small states being overwhelmed by debt. [39] [40] A 2020 Lowy Institute article called Sri Lanka's Hambantota International Port the "case par excellence" for China's debt-trap diplomacy, but called the narrative a "myth" because the project was proposed by former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, not Beijing. The article added that Sri Lanka's debt distress was not caused by Chinese lending, but by "excessive borrowing on Western-dominated capital markets". [41]
According to The Diplomat, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investment also exacerbates separatism and ethnic tensions in host countries, because the PRC government and state-backed corporations "preference for dealing exclusively with the those who hold positions of power. Analysis of the BRI should go beyond the 'debt trap', geopolitics, or economic spillovers, but also examine the social fissures that emerge from the massive inflows of Chinese capital in host countries." [36]
Xinjiang internment camps were established in the late 2010s under Xi Jinping's administration. [42] [43] Human Rights Watch says that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014. [44] [45] [46] The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment, rape, and torture, [47] with some of them alleging genocide. [48] [49]
With the 1978 Chinese economic reform launched by Deng Xiaoping, China has increased its political stance, its influence and its power abroad. [50] China has increased its influence, while using military and economic wealth and claims to island territories that have caused anxiety in neighbors to the east, such as the Philippines and Japan. [51] [52]
The South China Sea disputes involve both island and maritime claims of China and the claims of several neighboring sovereign states in the region, namely Brunei, the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The disputes are over islands, reefs, banks, and other features in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands. The main point of criticism is that the PRC is building artificial islands to extend its claims into other nations' territorial waters and militarizing the islands. [53] [54] [1] Chinese salami slicing strategy and cabbage tactics describe the way the PRC has used small provocations to increase its strategic position. [55]
Tibetan Review evaluated the China's government policy on Tibet as colonial based on several criteria, including "forced penetration of the colonizing group", "social destructiveness", "external political control", "economic dependence of internal groups", "sub-standard social services", and "social stratification". [56] [57] [ better source needed ]
Global media and international communication scholars theorize, research, analyze, discuss, and debate the dimensions of China's media and cultural imperialism. [58] Building upon the frameworks of media imperialism and cultural imperialism, researchers have focused on everything from the international expansion of China's Internet companies [59] and movie industries [60] to the "soft power" and public diplomacy campaigns of China's state media companies in other countries [61] as examples of media imperialism. [62]
Some Western and non-Western news media stories have also begun to frame China as an incipient media and cultural imperialist. For example, CNN notes that Confucius Institutes have been criticized for promoting a political narrative or surveilling overseas Chinese instead of solely promoting Chinese culture. [63] Also, according to The Diplomat , Korean commentators have said that there is a dimension of cultural imperialism by China, including China's censorship of Korean content [64] and claiming some Korean historical figures as Chinese. [65] Furthermore, an article in Time compared the late 19th-century American culture of promoting masculinity and foreign colonization to the promotion of masculinity in China in recent years, and claimed that China is no different from other empires in this regard. [66]
Part of a series on |
Conservatism in China |
---|
Traditional Taiwanese independence activists advocate the establishment of a "Republic of Taiwan" in line with Taiwanese national self-determination, which is not influenced by Chinese imperialism; in the late 1980s, the short-lived far-left Taiwan Revolutionary Party, defended Taiwan's independence from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, criticizing the "People's Republic of China" as "great power" (列強). [67] Many Taiwanese nationalists compared Taiwan under Kuomintang rule to South Africa under apartheid. [68] The Taipei Times linked the CCP's term "united front" to Chinese imperialism and expansionism. [69]
Hong Kong's Trotskyist political organization Socialist Action criticizes CCP-led "Chinese imperialism" for its political repression and economic colonization of Hong Kong. [70]
Freedom House also reported that China has supported authoritarian dictatorships in internet censorship and cyber surveillance, advancing the PRC's political model, having "supplied telecommunications hardware, advanced facial-recognition technology, and data-analytics tools to a variety of governments with poor human rights records, which could benefit Chinese intelligence services as well as repressive local authorities". [71] [72]
There are fierce debates among left-wing intellectuals in China and around the world about whether China has become an imperialist country. [73] Li Minqi, a member of the Chinese New Left, believes that China is becoming increasingly important in the global capitalist system, but is still "semi-peripheral" rather than an imperialist country. [74] Wang Hui is also critical of China's changes: he argues in New Left Review that China has become one of the "strategic partners" of imperialism, and that any analysis that attempts to point out the social issues would be accused of wanting to "return to the days of the Cultural Revolution". [75]
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a Maoist party of the Philippines, views the CCP as an imperialist party attacking Filipino fishermen and the Filipino people, and in collusion with Duterte. "The CCP pays lip service to Mao occasionally, especially in happy rituals, and avoids offending the great number of Chinese people and party cadres and members who love his memory and agree with his ideas and deeds," said Jose Maria Sison, a key figure in the party. [76] The New People's Army, the armed wing of the CPP, has been ordered to attack Chinese businesses in the Philippines due to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and dissatisfaction with Chinese investments. [77]
In 2020, the Japanese Communist Party criticized the CCP for engaging in "great-power chauvinism and hegemonism" as "an adverse current to world peace and progress". The JCP also removed a line from its platform which described China as a country "that is beginning a new quest for socialism". JCP members have stated that this was due to human rights conditions in China. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China denounced the accusations of the JCP as "groundless and biased". [78] [79]
In a 2017 paper David A. Lake argued the autocratic system of the People's Republic of China would "make it harder for the country to commit credibly to limits on its authority over others. [...] In the absence of such credible restraints, potential subordinates will be far more reluctant to accept the authority of China over their affairs. It will be harder for China to build international hierarchies in the twenty-first century than it was for Britain or the United States during their respective rises to power." [80]
Edward Wong, former Beijing bureau chief of TheNew York Times, believes that both China and the United States are empires, and the US as an empire is known for its soft power, while China is known for its hard power. [81] Tanner Mirrlees, a political economist, conducted a comparative analysis of the economic, military and media-technological power of the United States and China. He argues: "the United States and China are clearly the world's most significant imperial powers...but not yet equal powers because the United States outmatches China in many ways. If there is an incipient inter-imperialist rivalry between the United States and China, it is an asymmetrical one because the United States possesses greater structural capacities and resources to achieve its goals in world affairs than China currently does." [62]
Chinese exceptionalists and nationalists argue that although China is unique in terms of its culture and traditions, "it is like the Roman Empire, but as if the Roman Empire had continued to this day!" and China has never been a global imperialist force in its thousands of years of history. [82]
China has one official overseas base in Djibouti but probably has approached other countries as well. [83] [84] [85]
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the world's second-most populous country. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land. With an area of nearly 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third-largest country by total land area. The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions: 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the national capital, while Shanghai is its most populous city and largest financial center.
The Three Principles of the People is a political philosophy developed by Sun Yat-sen as part of a philosophy to improve China made during the Republican Era. The three principles are often translated into and summarized as nationalism, democracy, and the livelihood of the people. This philosophy has been claimed as the cornerstone of the nation's policy as carried by the Kuomintang; the principles also appear in the first line of the national anthem of the Republic of China.
Chinese nationalism is a form of nationalism in which asserts that the Chinese people are a nation and promotes the cultural and national unity of all Chinese people. According to Sun Yat-sen's philosophy in the Three Principles of the People, Chinese nationalism is evaluated as multi-ethnic nationalism, which should be distinguished from Han nationalism or local ethnic nationalism.
The United Front Work Department (UFWD) is a department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tasked with "united front work." It gathers intelligence on, manages relations with, and attempts to gain influence over elite individuals and organizations inside and outside mainland China, including in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in other countries.
Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.
Chinese-United Kingdom relations, more commonly known as British–Chinese relations, Anglo-Chinese relations and Sino-British relations, are the interstate relations between China and the United Kingdom.
Corruption in China post-1949 refers to the abuse of political power for private ends typically by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who hold the majority of power in the country. Corruption is a very significant problem in China, impacting all aspects of administration, law enforcement, healthcare and education. Since the Chinese economic reforms began, corruption has been attributed to "organizational involution" caused by the market liberalization reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Like other socialist economies that have undertaken economic reforms, such as post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia, reform-era China has experienced increasing levels of corruption.
The Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, also known domestically as reform and opening-up, refers to a variety of economic reforms termed "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that began in the late 20th century, after Mao Zedong's death in 1976. Guided by Deng Xiaoping, who is often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on December 18, 1978, during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. The reforms briefly went into stagnation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, but were revived after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992. The reforms led to significant economic growth for China within the successive decades, considered to be one of the economic miracles in human history. In 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP, before overtaking the United States in 2016 as the world's largest economy by GDP (PPP). On the other hand, a parallel set of political reforms were launched by Deng and his allies in the 1980s, but eventually ended in 1989 due to the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests, halting further political liberalization.
China–Sri Lanka relations are the bilateral relations between the People's Republic of China and Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. There is a Chinese embassy located in Colombo and a Sri Lankan embassy situated in Beijing. Historical and cultural ties between the two countries extend back hundreds of years.
A triad is a Chinese transnational organized crime syndicate based in Greater China with outposts in various countries having significant overseas Chinese populations.
The National Security Commission is a commission of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) responsible for national security work and coordination.
China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a 3,000 km Chinese infrastructure network project in construction in Pakistan. This sea-and-land-based corridor is aimed to secure and reduce the passage for China's energy imports from the Middle East, by avoiding the existing route from the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, which, in case of war could be blockaded, and thus hamper the Chinese energy-dependent economic avenues. Developing a deep water port at Gwadar in the Arabian Sea and a well built road and rail line from this port to Xinjiang region in western China would be a shortcut for boosting the trade between Europe and China. In Pakistan, it aims to overcome an electricity shortfall, infrastructural development and modernize transportation networks. Along with shifting it from an agricultural based economic structure to industrial based.
Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is opposition to imperialism or neocolonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment typically manifests as a political principle in independence struggles against intervention or influence from a global superpower, as well as in opposition to colonial rule. Anti-imperialism can also arise from a specific economic theory, such as in the Leninist interpretation of imperialism, which is derived from Lenin's 1917 work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. People who categorize themselves as anti-imperialists often state that they are opposed to colonialism, colonial empires, hegemony, imperialism and the territorial expansion of a country beyond its established borders.
The Belt and Road Initiative, known in China as the One Belt One Road and sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organizations. The BRI is composed of six urban development land corridors linked by road, rail, energy, and digital infrastructure and the Maritime Silk Road linked by the development of ports.
Debt-trap diplomacy is a term to describe an international financial relationship where a creditor country or institution extends debt to a borrowing nation partially, or solely, to increase the lender's political leverage. The creditor country is said to extend excessive credit to a debtor country with the intention of extracting economic or political concessions when the debtor country becomes unable to meet its repayment obligations. The conditions of the loans are often not publicized. The borrowed money commonly pays for contractors and materials sourced from the creditor country.
Community of common destiny for mankind, officially translated as community with a shared future for mankind or human community with a shared future, is a political slogan used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to describe a stated foreign-policy goal of the People's Republic of China. The phrase was first used by former CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao and has been frequently cited by current General Secretary Xi Jinping. As the term's usage in English has increased, "shared future" has become more frequently used than "common destiny," as the latter arguably implies a predetermined path. The phrase was included in the CCP Constitution in 1997, and the preamble of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China when the Constitution was amended in 2018.
The foreign policy of Xi Jinping concerns the policies of the People's Republic of China's Xi Jinping with respect to other nations. Xi became the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and became the President of the People's Republic of China in 2013.
Wolf warrior diplomacy is a form of public diplomacy involving compellence adopted by Chinese diplomats in the late 2010s. The term was coined from the title of the Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 (2017). This approach is in contrast to the prior diplomatic practices of Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao, which had emphasized the use of cooperative rhetoric and the avoidance of controversy.
China's salami slicing is a geopolitical strategy involving a series of small steps taken by the government of China adding to a larger gain that would have been difficult or unlawful to perform all at once. Advocates of the term have cited examples such as the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and along the Sino-Indian border.
The Sri Lankan economic crisis is an ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka that started in 2019. It is the country's worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948. It has led to unprecedented levels of inflation, near-depletion of foreign exchange reserves, shortages of medical supplies, and an increase in prices of basic commodities. The crisis is said to have begun due to multiple compounding factors like tax cuts, money creation, a nationwide policy to shift to organic or biological farming, the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. The subsequent economic hardships resulted in the 2022 Sri Lankan protests. Sri Lanka received a lifeline in the form of an Indian line of credit amounting to $4 billion. This substantial credit infusion served to cover the costs of importing essential goods and fuel. As a result, the foreign currency reserves of debt-ridden Sri Lanka experienced a notable improvement, reaching $2.69 billion.
The financing of so-called "belt and road" infrastructure projects has been viewed, at best, as a way for Beijing to extend its diplomatic soft power in developing nations and, at worst, a form of financial quasi-imperialism.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Today we know terms like "united front" in the context of Chinese imperialism and expansionism, but in the 1930s the term had another meaning: it encapsulated the desire of Asians struggling to form a "united front" against external imperialism.
The traditional Hong Kong capitalist tycoons who've been a key ally of the CCP for the last 30 years, since the CCP carried through the return to capitalism in the 1980s and 90s, these traditional Hong Kong tycoons are now increasingly being squeezed out economically by mainland China capitalist groups. Therefore, what we have alongside the political repression is an aggressive economic colonization of Hong Kong and this is one of the features of Chinese imperialism, which is something that is crucial to understanding what is happening in China, Hong Kong, and how that fits in with the imperialist Cold War that is raging internationally.