An Update on China's Strategic Goals and Initiatives, Part I

The Trump administration is developing countermeasures

Xi Jinping and Other Chinese Communists

Tanner Greer is Director of the Center for Strategic Translation, which is a research center that investigates and analyzes Chinese politics. He postulates that the overriding strategic goal of the Chinese Communist Party (and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in particular) is “to restore China to a position of glory and influence commensurate with its ancestral heritage.” To this goal should be added a commensurate domestic objective to maintain the legitimacy of the authoritarian rule of the CCP in perpetuity, including the crushing of all dissension and threats to the CCP.

Upon ascending to power in 2013, Chinese leader Xi Jinjing has periodically proclaimed various grandiose strategies and initiatives aimed at achieving the required restoration with Chinese characteristics. These include various initiatives framed using a belt-road metaphor and others that include the word “global” in their titles, which signify Beijing’s intentions to heavily influence (if not dominate) their focus areas. Xi also makes public pronouncements from time to time that are intended to add further substance to those initiatives and also to maintain the psychological momentum of the “inevitability” of communist China’s ascension to world leadership.

Recent examples of those pronouncements include the following (note that state-run Chinese media are Xi Jinping’s megaphones):

On 19 January, the state-run Xinhua news agency announced that a 2024-2035 “education masterplan” was jointly issued by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council. According to the Daily Caller, the plan is aimed at “strengthening its education system by 2025” and bolstering the country’s “international influence” by building “a strong education system of socialism with Chinese characteristics [that] will feature powerful ideological and political leadership, talent competitiveness, scientific and technological underpinning, livelihood security, social synergy, and international influence.” The latter is key and is to be achieved by attracting foreign students to top Chinese universities to promote joint research opportunities and scientific and cultural exchanges (and espionage) in later years.

On 9 February, state-run Global Times stated that China's Ministry of Transport (MOT) has established “the development of standards for road and air collaboration in low-altitude transport and artificial intelligence (AI)” (in other words for drone technology and control systems) as key priorities for 2025. This is in keeping with China’s Digital Silk Road which is intended to facilitate the development and adoption of incompatible Chinese technology standards by foreign countries with a goal of supplanting international standards as feasible over time.

On 20 January, Chinese startup DeepSeek released a cheap AI competitor to chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT that roiled US tech shares, as reported by Fox Business. Also part of the Chinese Digital Silk Road, this is just the latest Chinese offering intended to undercut US/Western technologies in the race to set international standards (and capture future market share) for artificial intelligence capabilities, cloud computing, e-commerce and mobile payment systems, and other technologies-of-the-future.

While the DeepSeek introduction was perhaps timed to detract from President Trump’s inauguration, a more direct statement of Beijing’s intentions to counter Trump’s America First policy was conveyed in a Global Times editorial on 26 January. Tariffs and other forms of “economic nationalism” should be set aside, according to the communists, in favor of continued “economic globalization.” Unspoken is that China has been the primary beneficiary of this policy, as evinced by massive Chinese economic growth and commensurate military modernization over the past three decades. From the editorial: “China's experience demonstrates that promoting a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization can contribute to shared development of all countries in the world. This is why China is committed to pursuing a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, expanding voluntary and unilateral opening up in an orderly manner, steadily expanding institutional opening up, and pushing for an open world economic system.” All this while holding out the carrot of a future global “digital, green and smart economy” that will benefit all nations. These statements echo and reinforce the supposedly beneficial platitudes of all of Xi Jinping’s grand initiatives that have been endlessly repeated by Xi, Chinese diplomats, and state-run media over the past decade.

The above are merely the latest in a continuing series of Chinese efforts to stake claims of leadership in important areas of human endeavor while seeking to supplant existing international norms, standards, and ethics with replacements with Chinese characteristics. The interactive goals among Xi’s various strategic initiatives are intended to stimulate Chinese rejuvenation as the dominant global economic and military power, as well as to psychologically condition the world to eventual Chinese global leadership.

Let us examine the purpose and intent behind each initiative and their outlook vis-à-vis ongoing efforts to counteract these communist schemes.

BELT-ROAD INITIATIVE

This trillion-dollar spider’s web is the centerpiece of Xi’s strategy to remake the world in Beijing’s eyes. BRI initially consisted of two major components: the Silk Road Economic Belt (絲綢之路經濟帶) and the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road (21 世紀海上絲綢之路).

A principal BRI objective is to develop a global manufacturing infrastructure controlled by communist China, with the various “roads” serving as spokes in a wheel that service the hub (mainland China). The infrastructure elements are largely focused on the development of transportation assets, including roads, ports, railroads, bridges, etc., that are exploited by Beijing to transport the resources and raw materials needed to fuel Chinese industries, as well as support the exportation of finished Chinese goods to overseas markets around the world.

Countries are enticed to participate in BRI projects by proffered Chinese loans. These Chinese investments come with strings attached (“debt traps”), as they are not grants but rather loans that must be paid back. Countries often pay back the loans by granting the Chinese long-term exploitation rights for natural resources and/or long-term lease arrangement for ports, railroads, and other infrastructure developed using BRI loans, which amounts to a loss of sovereignty as the Chinese gain control over local economies.

Xi’s soothing words used to sell BRI projects to unwitting countries include euphemisms such as “high quality Belt and Road cooperation” and “closer partnerships for openness and inclusiveness.” Countries are learning that the benefits accrue only to China in these days: an influx of Chinese workers to work the projects, debt service on Chinese loans that leads to a transference of resource development control to Beijing, the presence of PLA ships and personnel at bases and ports, and a general resentment of being fleeced.

The best US/allied countermeasures to BRI expansion include diplomatic efforts aimed at exposing the lessons-learned of BRI investments to countries considering initiation of new projects, encouraging China to forgive BRI-related loans, and implementing a comprehensive US strategy and plan to counter the BRI. These efforts will be fortified by the Build Responsible Infrastructure Development for the Global Economy (BRIDGE) Act, which was introduced in the US Congress in 2023 to specifically counter the BRI. If passed into law, the bill would “direct the Department of State, with other relevant government agencies, to develop a comprehensive, government-wide strategy on countering China’s BRI.” The goal is to develop a strategic plan that is fundamentally linked to “broader US national security priorities and objectives, including the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy.” This is becoming an increasing imperative as there is growing bipartisan recognition that communist China is the number one security threat to the US (and the world).

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This ends the first part of a series that examines the various Chinese strategic initiatives that have been enacted and modified since Xi Jinping became Chinese leader in 2013. The next part will concentrate on related initiatives that employ the belt-road metaphor, including the Arctic Silk Road (北極 絲綢之路), the Space Silk Road (太空丝绸之路), the Health Silk Road (健康丝绸之路), and the Digital Silk Road (数字丝绸之路).

The end.