Geopolitics

Ideology as the Terrain of Struggle against the Chinese Communist Party

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David Pan, Telos
As the rivalry between the United States and China heats up, it will be crucial to understand what it is that the United States is opposed to. In our podcast discussion of his recent essay “Escape from Civilization’s Predicaments,” Miles Yu, senior China policy and planning advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, emphasizes that we cannot look at the conflict as a civilizational rivalry, in which there is a fundamental contrast between China and the West. Such an approach minimizes the difference between Taiwan and China, suggesting that they in fact belong together as part of the same civilization. But as Yu emphasizes, it is crucial to hold on to the difference between Taiwan and China by recognizing that the real opponent for the United States is not the Chinese people themselves but the Chinese Communist Party. The basis of the conflict is not a difference in civilization but of ideology. Marxist-Leninist ideology drives Communist Party decision-making, and this ideology is of course not a Chinese invention but a Western one. As much as the United States will need to develop its hard forms of power in confronting the Chinese Communist Party, the underlying battle will be on the level of ideas. Spreading trustworthy information and insightful analyses of events will be a crucial way to counter the Party’s censorship and disinformation. At the same time, the United States will need to be wary of the Party’s ideological tools, not least the threat to U.S. domestic opinion posed by social media under Party control such as TikTok.

Miles Yu’s essay is available as a free download here. You can listen to our podcast discussion here.

Categories: Geopolitics

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