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Rising Chinese Power and its Implications

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December 17, 2017

What is the issue?

China’s rising geo-political influence and its potential for both overt & covert operations is largely been underestimated currently.

What are some aspects of the growing Chinese power?

  • The eagerness of China to safeguard globalisation and its ambitious designs for connectivity and economic integration has just started get noticed.
  • A policy paper that expressed the future possibility of Beijing influencing policies & election in US was discussed in the US Congress recently.
  • Another recent article stressed the growing influence of the Hong Kong based “China-U.S. Exchange Foundation” which conducts exchange programmes.
  • By partnering with many American think tanks, it organises joint conferences for Chinese & American journalists, scholars and political & military leaders.
  • Adding to these is the willingness of American tech companies to abide by China’s stringent rules to get business there.
  • It is also noteworthy that more than 100 American Universities/colleges host Confucius Institutes, an initiative started by Beijing in 2004.

What are the implications?

  • National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has termed these Chinese efforts ‘sharp power’ as opposed to ‘soft power’ that is advanced by the west through its cultural dominance.
  • It further stated that American institutions are being seduced into these designs due to the financial might of China.
  • As China continues to set standards based on its restrictive understanding of democratic values, these efforts are a direct threat to American liberalism.
  • But neither the lawmakers nor the witnesses could frame the illegality or even impropriety of these sophisticated Chinese advances.

How is it different from the geo-political approach of the US?

  • By such expensive outreaches, China is promoting a model of global cooperation in which national sovereignty is inviolable.
  • This is radically different from the traditional US approach of promoting free people to people contact without much government intervention.
  • But even within the US Senate, some don’t think the Chinese exchange programmes are any different from America’s own.
  • Notably, the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ approach sees resonance with the Chinese on upholding the primacy of national sovereignty.
  • But contrasting China, Mr. Trump doesn’t seem interested in expanding American global influence and considers such efforts a waste of money.

 

Source: The Hindu

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