Sunday, March 29, 2020

The West Needs to Wake Up to China's Duplicity

China is waging a double information war: one abroad and one for its own public, both led by the Chinese authorities with President Xi Jinping at its head. They apparently see the West as weak and submissive.

China has been able to grow into a superpower because it adopted economic practices from the West.

We in the West thought that a modernizing China with a rising GDP would also democratize and come to respect transparency, pluralism and human rights.

"We had an ideological and security antagonist who was not an economic competitor. There was a Chinese wall between the economies of the West and the Soviet Union. Today, we are confronted with an opponent who is a powerful economic competitor and intricately involved in the political economy of the West. At the same time, we also depend on cooperation with China on transnational issues such as climate change and pandemics. China's authoritarian state capitalist system with its hegemonic ambitions is by far the most difficult strategic challenge the West has faced to date".

China opened markets in the West while it offered to its own people a kind of devil's bargain: give up your ideas and principles and you will enjoy material improvement and societal security.

According to a Bloomberg report, China is also infiltrating Europe's political landscape by supporting political parties and inviting politicians to China.

The West needs to wake up to China's duplicity.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15804/china-duplicity

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