China's Plan for Total World Domination
By: Yusuf Shah
Tags: Us China Relations, Chinese, China, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy

"Let the Lion Sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world", is a quote famously attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte where he refers to China as a Lion; this article will be an inquiry into how true this statement holds and what Bonaparte's prophecy means for China and The World.

In this article, we will discuss Chinese Ideology, the vision of the CCP for the next century, and how it plans to achieve this using Chinese Foreign Policy (CFP), and other strategies. This article is purely objective and should not be construed as the personal opinions of the author

We study the past to understand the present and we understand the present to guide the future. So to take a look at China's vision for the future and to understand where we are headed from here, we need to take a look at what led us to this point, and how we arrived here. What were the guiding principles of China? What has shaped its present and set it up on the path for the future? China is poised for a meteoric rise in the coming decade, and this is all thanks to the vision of the leaders at the helm of the Chinese Dragon Boat. Visions of world domination have always been a recurring theme in the communist ideology, tracing origins back to Karl Marx. For China, this is blended with its long history. To the outside world, it isn't clear whether this is simply rhetoric to keep the Chinese peasantry in line or if China sees this as their destiny, and Xi Jinping believes he is the leader who will deliver this vision.(Hille, 2020) With thousands of years of continuous history, Ancient China to date is unabated as one of the world's most significant players, in terms of trade, population, and culture. In the book, "The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower", Micheal Pilsbury goes into depth about China's plan for world domination. And how they aim to do this by 2049, the centennial of China's communist revolution. So the theory being discussed in this article is neither a foreign one nor a conspiracy theory as some Chinese mouthpieces may claim it to be. It is rooted in evidence and statistical data. To understand how China arrived at this point, let's dive into the Cold War era, where the generation of Xi Jinping was coming of age. The birth of Xi Jinping was around the same time as the start of the Cold War, and during those years China was a huge, impoverished nation. In the 1970s as China slowly started opening up to the west, it gradually unfolded itself and by the 1990s China wanted to step into the modern world along with the rise of Globalization. In 1980 Chinese GDP was under $90 billion in current dollars, whereas today it is over $12 trillion. This kind of exponential economic growth is unprecedented. Simultaneously In the 1990s the Internet was booming and the Soviet Union seemed to have collapsed, the US, as a sole superpower exploited these opportunities and shifted large parts of its production to lower-cost countries which ushered in the aforementioned era of Globalization. The Western world arrogantly thought that everyone else wanted to be like them, as looking back their ideas seemed to have made sense. They won WW2 and the Cold War with their technology and overzealous ideals of freedom and democracy. To the Americans, their way seemed the best, but apart from the Americans that hadn't seemed so obvious to people elsewhere, especially China.

Beijing may have admired American achievements, but not enough to abandon Communism. China seems to have adapted and rebranded its idea of Freedom. Modern Communism is quite distant from Maoism. The -ism that present-day CCP has gone with is "Xiism" (as I like to call it) or "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" also abbreviated as Xi Jinping Thought; as most people refer to it, is understood to be a dynamic, capitalistic, totalitarian, top-down structure with rigid rules and social restrictions. The Xi Jinping Thought consists of 14 principles, which can be found in this BBC article His own words: The 14 principles of 'Xi Jinping Thought'. This ideology is largely seen to be the guiding principle for the rising Chinese Star. All these seem to be rapidly happening since 2013 when Xi ascended the throne and took office as the President of China. Much of his thought seems to come from his 2013 speech where he discusses Marx and Mao, China's place in history and the competition of the state with other capitalistic nations, and a plea to adhere to Communism.

credits : BRAHMA CHELLANEY

Xi is also seen to be consolidating power and is seen as the most powerful Chinese leader, especially since the ending of the two-term limit for presidents. Pre Xi, leaders mainly focussed on a collective leadership image, Xi seems to have departed from it and moved into a cult of personality. With books, cartoons, mass media, and propaganda honoring his rule. He has also set up many administrative bodies and appointed himself in key positions which help him dish out his agenda more effectively. Most notable he is the leader of the cyber security and internet policy body, and the National Security Commission of the CCP gives him control over the internet and national security affairs. So we can see how internally and externally this affects Chinese foreign policy.

In pure numbers, China is set to overtake the US economy in less than a decade. This is in large part thanks to China's accelerated production and growth, coupled with the USA's plateauing economy, as is the case for developing and developed economies respectively. We will also be taking a look at how China is growing, not just by ramping up production within its borders but by also playing a strategic game of Wei Qi ( or Go in English) on the world stage. To understand Strategic behavior, we must decode strategic thinking. Thinking that originates from a nation's history and culture. It is a uniquely Chinese game that is believed to be the oldest board game in the world, having originated 2500 years ago in China. The goal of the game is to slowly and patiently build up assets and tip the game in one's favor. The strategic end is not full victory, but relative victory and is a long strategy game. In English, it translates to a game of surrounding pieces. This might sound eerily familiar, China is playing this game in real-time, In real life. We just have to take a look at the activity in the South China Sea, surrounding pieces, and usurping assets that they do not own. ("WION — Does This Board Game Explain China's Expansionist Strategy?" |2020) China has had a long history of strategic acumen being used by Leaders, including the immortalization of the book, The Art of War by the Ancient military general and strategist, Sun Tzu. In recent years, the world has seen a rightward pro-aggressive nationalism shift on the political spectrum with China being no exception. You have Modi for India, Trump for the USA, Bolsanaro for Brazil, Boris for the UK, et al. And all of these leaders subscribe to a similar school of thought. Xi has adopted a hard-line on security and foreign affairs, appearing to be a more assertive and nationalistic player. It has even been termed the wolf warrior diplomacy by some academicians, referring to a Rambo-style Chinese movie by the same name. In comparison, the prior Chinese diplomatic practice was to avoid controversy and the use of cooperative rhetoric. The present style seems to be confrontational and combative and given China's size and ability to bully other players, it comes as no surprise that Xi is ramping up this diplomacy style. Ironically Wolf Warrior 2's tagline is "Whoever attacks China will be killed no matter how far the target is." The Chinese Foreign Ministry is one of the organs increasingly employing aggressive diplomacy tactics. This diplomacy has been noticed since 2017 and has increased in the run-up to Covid. European leaders have also been taken by surprise because now China is engaging with them in a tone of opposition rather than collaboration, where previously this style of dialogue would have been reserved for smaller or weaker countries (Hille, 2020). This is characterized by an incident late last year, where the foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted a photo of a child having their throat slit by an Australian soldier (Rej, n.d.). This was understood by political analysts as an attempt to escalate the Chinese-Australian dispute. Reuters reported that the Australian PM termed this post repugnant and that the Chinese government should be ashamed of this post. The next day the foreign ministry rejected the demand for an apology. Furthermore, the engagement of Chinese diplomats on Twitter has also grown fourfold from April 2019 to April 2020. A culmination of these foreign policies and ideologies in the past year has seemed to manifest itself very aggressively. It has taken a rather dramatic and sinisterly aggressive turn. It has lashed out at Australia, for questioning its handling of the Covid 19 Pandemic, tightened its hold in the South China Sea, clashed with India in regions like Aksai Chin and the Himalayas, deployed warplanes across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, and even boosted patrol around Japanese controlled Islands. Within Hong Kong, we are no stranger to China increasing its grip over the autonomous region in recent times. We have observed and been witness to the crackdowns on free speech and dissent within the SAR. It has enacted a far-reaching national security law and arrested multiple pro-democracy activists in the process. This is the most striking of all as Hong Kong has for a long time been treated as its special region, but the Pearl of the Orient seems to be rescinding its status as a world city and is slowly falling back into the shadow of the Mainland.

Moving on, we have gathered a brief understanding of What China's guiding principles are, a brief rundown of its ideologies, and what its internal system looks like. To answer the questions of What? Why? And How? We have understood the 'What' and the 'Why', now let's take a look at the 'How'? To recap: ● What? Chinese World Domination ● Why? Chinese ideology and Rejuvenation of the Chinese dream. ● HOW? What strategies and techniques are being used? Strategic Trade routes and economic relations with other players. How does China plan to dominate global trade? A few key concepts we will be exploring are the String of Pearl's theory, the Belt and Road Initiative, Debt Trap diplomacy, and the Salami slicing strategy. The String of Pearl's theory is a geopolitical theory of how China plans to strategically place points of control and the Chinese intentions in the Indian Ocean region. In theory, a pearl refers to a military base, mega infrastructure project, economic corridor, or other such locales where China has a geostrategic advantage.The string of these pearls refers to China's possibility to connect these pearls via a maritime route.Chinese development over the last quarter-century has been heavily dependent on foreign sources of energy, and sustained growth would require a consistent energy source. To meet future demand, China has signed several projects to develop Iranian Oil Fields and to build a pipeline, port, and refinery in Sudan for oil exports. International responses have been varied and accusatory towards China. But China seems to view its actions in an entirely different light, calling it an effort to establish and strengthen the efforts of a Maritime Silk Route. China ramping up its economic investments has raised concerns about the political stability of the countries they are investing in. Secondly, we need to look at the Belt and Road initiative or the BRI which is the second piece to the puzzle of China's trade route, along with the Maritime Silk route. It is considered the centerpiece of the CCP's foreign policy under Xi Jinping. We can term it as Xi's crown jewel, it is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted in early 2013 to invest in nearly 70 countries and international organizations. Some estimates peg the amount to be invested by 2027 to be nearly $1.3 Trillion, which is a mind-boggling amount. The project also has a completion date of 2049, which coincides with the centennial of the PRC. Many observers including the US, interpret it as a plan for a Sinocentric international trade network. Simply put China is trying to buy friendship and political influence by building and investing massive amounts of money in infrastructure projects along with the One Belt One Road initiative. The stated objective is to construct a unified large market whilst making full use of the international and domestic markets, through cultural exchange and to enhance mutual understanding and trust among members resulting in a pattern of capital inflow, talent pools, and technology databases.(The Belt and Road Initiative, n.d.) It has even been incorporated into the constitution of China in 2017, the CCP calls this a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future. There has been a range of mixed reactions, from many African countries seeing this as their ticket to independence from foreign aid and foreign influence. More than 130 countries have issued endorsements.Many countries support this and see it as a way to boost trade. But some pockets have heavily opposed this and leveled accusations of neocolonialism against the Chinese State. Some western countries have accused the BRI of being predatory and neocolonialistic in nature due to China's debt-trap diplomacy to fund the infrastructure projects of the initiative Next, we will discuss what debt-trap diplomacy is and why China is engaging in it. Simply put, debt-trap diplomacy is a theory to describe a powerful lending institution or country seeking to saddle a borrowing state with enormous debt to increase leverage over it. The term is attributed to an Indian Academic Brahma Chellaney in early 2017 and has widely garnered traction to describe China's lending policies. In simple terms, this Chinese development policy is called the Debt Trap diplomacy, because once indebted economies fail to repay their loans, they are pressured to support China's geostrategic interests (Abi-Habib & Bradsher, 2020). In April 2019 China released a Debt Sustainability Framework which has been described as being virtually identical to that of the World Bank and the IMF(Center For Global Development, n.d.). Oftentimes China has also been accused of imposing unfair trade and financial deals when cash-poor countries are unable to do without Beijing's money. China has also been accused of requiring secret negotiations and non-competitive pricing on projects, in which bidding is often closed and must go to Chinese players. Lastly, we will be taking a look at the Salami slicing strategy being used by China. It refers to a series of many small actions, none of which warrant heavy opposition by itself, but the cumulative result is a large one that would be difficult or unlawful to perform all at once. The String of Pearl's theory is seen to be a manifestation of this strategy. The BRI and its debt-trap diplomacy are said to be the economic slice of the strategy. It has various other dimensions such as culture and demographic slicing ( Sinicization and Re-education of minority groups), and Territory Slicing ( Indian dispute in the Himalayas, etc) among other things. Throughout this article, we have observed many aspects of China's salami-slicing strategy, keeping this in mind If we were to re-read the article: we would look at the bigger picture and be able to connect the dots and see that China is making its moves in a calculated manner. "Today, the lion has woken up. But it is peaceful, pleasant, and civilized," said Chinese President Xi Jinping while addressing a meeting in Paris. Indeed it looks like Napoleon Bonaparte's prophecy has been fulfilled (China, The Sleeping Lion Has Woken Up, Says Xi Jinping, 2014). In Conclusion, China is going to become a force to reckon with in the near future. And if any other nations want to challenge its dominance, they have to act fast and they have to act first. Some might speculate that it is already too little, too late, and to better ally with China rather than oppose. Indeed this may be true and the rejuvenation of the Chinese Dream is en route, and Xi Jinping will deliver China to the Promised Land. In 2049, Xi will be 95 and the PRC would be celebrating its centennial anniversary. 2049 seems to be the grand milestone and culmination date for a lot of Chinese Milestones, it should come as no surprise that this is going to be the greatest year in Modern Chinese history. The realization of many of the dreams of Xi and the Chinese Dream seems to be on schedule. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that this man has left a mark on China's history and has ushered in China's most significant era in modern history.