Home » World » About wolf warriors and the climate of fear: China’s CP celebrates its 100th birthday

About wolf warriors and the climate of fear: China’s CP celebrates its 100th birthday


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Xi Jinping at the Communist Party Museum in Beijing

picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS | Koki Kataoka

China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping rules the billion-dollar people with a hard hand. The economy is booming and the virus is under control, with which the communists score points in the system dispute with democracies. But the relationship with the rest of the world is worse than it has been for a long time.

In China’s diplomacy, “wolf warriors” are increasingly setting the tone – foreign policy mouthpieces for the leadership in Beijing, who, especially in social media, raise the mood against supposed “enemies of the people” with unusually tough and sometimes aggressive demeanors.

The party stirs up national pride as a social cohesion. “Red genes” count again. On July 1st, the Communist Party celebrates its 100th birthday.

On its 100th birthday, the Chinese Communist Party seems more unassailable than ever in its position of power. The party has gone through many turmoil in its history, plunging the country into chaos under the revolutionary Mao Tsetung – but today China’s leadership is bursting with self-confidence. “The east is rising while the west is in decline,” Xi Jinping is often quoted as saying. The head of state and party wants to take a top position in China’s long history with the big anniversary celebrations on July 1st.

The unpredictability of the presidency of Donald Trump in the USA, the often demonstrated indecision of the liberal West in dealing with the corona pandemic, the cracks in the old world order are seen by the ideologues in Beijing as evidence that China has actually long since won the system competition. There is talk of the “contrast between the order in China and the chaos in the West”.

The world is proudly demonstrating that China has the coronavirus under control. Life has been back to normal for a year. There is a strict “zero covid policy”. There are only a few small outbreaks that are successfully combated with mass tests, curfews, quarantine rules and contact tracing. The country is sealed off with strict restrictions and quarantine on entry, which has also reinforced the political trend, which has been evident for years, to reduce the presence of foreigners and the influence of Western norms and values ​​in the country.

Foreign tensions are more acute than ever in China’s recent history. The image of the People’s Republic among the peoples of the world is worse than it has been for a long time. The second largest economic power is widely perceived as a rival and a threat. The China euphoria of the reform and opening times is gone. Unfair trade practices, human rights violations against minorities such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, saber rattling against liberal Taiwan, military muscle games in the South China Sea and the repression of the Democrats in Hong Kong – all of this is causing sympathy to dwindle.

In China’s diplomacy, “wolf warriors” are increasingly setting the tone – foreign policy mouthpieces for the leadership in Beijing, who, especially in social media, raise the mood against supposed “enemies of the people” with unusually tough and sometimes aggressive demeanors. The fact that the new US President Joe Biden is restoring confidence in democracy and the leadership of the United States and reviving international cooperation with China is condemned as “bloc and power politics” or “Cold War mentality”. The contrast between totalitarianism and democracy determines the new world order with the emerging China.

Even if the party is firmly in the saddle, it is riding through risky terrain, says former politics professor Wu Qiang. “There is a risk of falling from a mountain slope at any time,” said the expert who was dismissed by Tsinghua University because of his critical stance. “The greatest danger for China is the international isolation it has fallen into.” And the country continues to close. “China will decouple itself from globalization.”

Back to the Future? The party is again relying on ideologization and revolutionary mobilization to combat chronic problems such as bureaucracy and corruption. If former party leaders such as Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin still allowed leeway, all dissenting voices are silenced under Xi Jinping. The system only appears so stable because Xi Jinping rules with a hard hand, not because it is really that robust, says the ambassador of an important country. There is “a climate of fear”.

“Collective fear permeates everything and helps China’s rulers exercise power,” says Professor Wu Qiang, one of the last courageous voices. Like a religion, the worship of the party is promoted “like a god”. China’s current system is “confrontational”. He warns that the risk of a military conflict over democratic Taiwan, which is considered part of the People’s Republic, or in the controversial South China Sea is increasing.

The party fuels national pride as a social cohesion. “Red genes” count again. Not just for the 90 million party members. The party even wants to fulfill its dream of founding a CP cell in space in its future space station “Tiangong” (Heavenly Palace). The three astronauts who are circling the earth for the anniversary celebration are all party members.

Millions of Chinese, including more and more young people, make pilgrimages to revolutionary sites, monuments, the birthplaces of communist leaders and even to trees that are said to have planted them. The Foreign Ministry proudly announced that “Red Tourism” poured the equivalent of 52 billion euros into the travel industry’s coffers in 2019. Those who visit the “Holy Land of the Revolution” “will never forget where we come from”, it was said: “From small to large, from weak to strong.”

Under the one-man rule of Xi Jinping, who is surrounded by a personality cult like in Mao’s disastrous times, all power again belongs to the party. It directs state capitalism, drives digitization, and uses mountains of data for surveillance purposes. The power apparatus makes use of the Internet giants, evaluates the trustworthiness of its subjects and companies via a “social point system”. Critics warn that China is creating the world’s first “digital dictatorship”.

There are also economic reasons why the party is unchallenged. It delivers unprecedented prosperity – or at least gives individuals the feeling that the future can get better, even if the gap between rich and poor will only widen.

As self-confident as the party leadership is, it is just as aware of the vulnerability of the system it has created. “China under Xi Jinping is in a state of alarm, which international observers often overlook,” says Miko Huotari, head of the Merics China Institute in Berlin. “Xi Jinping’s increasingly firmly rooted philosophy of rule is built around crisis prevention and risk management.”

lp/dpa

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