The ongoing competition between China and the United States is not just an epoch-making event of this century but a pivotal one with profound implications for the world and humanity. This competition, viewed by most American strategic scholars as a battle between “peer competitors” is a formidable test of each nation’s hard and soft power. The US, they argue, will retain an overall advantage over China for the time being, particularly in terms of economic, technological, military and infrastructure strength.
It is puzzling that they seem to have overlooked China’s enormous political competitive advantages. A comprehensive analysis of this competition is crucial, as it could reshape the relations between the two superpowers as well as the global political landscape.
Compared to the US, China has strong, wise, pragmatic political leadership, a highly united country, strong national solidarity, super-competent organizational skills, and unparalleled political mobilization capacity. These advantages allow China to possess huge material and spiritual resources to achieve significant national goals, such as promoting the development of the economy and new quality productive forces, responding forcefully to massive natural disasters, building colossal infrastructures, and upgrading military power. President Xi Jinping, channeling his visionary leadership, once said, “Our greatest advantage is that our country’s socialist system can concentrate its efforts on major things.” The “whole-country system” he refers to is a comprehensive approach that mobilizes all resources and sectors of society toward a common goal, thereby demonstrating the power of China’s strategic planning. From the perspective of competition between China and the US, the political advantage of China’s “whole-country system” is its magic weapon or “trump card”. The decisive leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people’s unity and solidarity, as the nation’s backbone, testify to its strength and unity. These factors cannot be underestimated in the global arena.
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China, under the strong and wise leadership of the CPC, has achieved world-renowned economic, political, social and military miracles, completely getting rid of its past plight of poverty and weakness, and turning the country into a global superpower. Today, the CPC enjoys solid and lofty prestige in the hearts of the Chinese people. Numerous public opinion polls conducted in the US and other places in the West have unanimously found that the Chinese government led by the CPC is one of the few governments widely trusted and supported by the people. Most Chinese people agree with and support the national development strategy charted by the CPC, are fully confident in the country’s future, and are determined to work together for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As China’s ruling party, the CPC has a solid and united leadership team with General Secretary Xi Jinping at its core. It continuously formulates and reforms the country’s long-term development strategy in response to domestic and international challenges under the principles of integrity and innovation, seeks change while maintaining stability, and implements it with perseverance. The CPC has established a meritocratic selection system for Party and State-leading cadres to ensure that only cadres with ability, political integrity and excellent governance performance would be picked for appropriate leadership positions. Particularly significant is that the CPC has found the secret to long-term leadership, continuously nurturing and strengthening its mass base and improving its political and governance capabilities. As early as 1945, CPC Central Committee Chairman Mao Zedong declared that the CPC had found a new path that could break away from the historical cycle of the rise and fall of order, chaos, prosperity and decline, and ensure that the CPC could be in power for a long time. This new path is democracy: Only by allowing the people to supervise the government will the government dare not relax; only when everyone takes responsibility can the government avoid losing power. Decades later, in the report of the 20th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that the CPC had found self-revolution as the second answer to break out of the historical cycle of the rise and fall of order, chaos, prosperity and decline: That is, the CPC must constantly purify itself, seek perfection, undertake self-innovation, and pursue self-improvement. Forging ahead along these two roads to permanent leadership, the CPC has not ceased to courageously reform both its own and the country’s institutions, policies and practices, thus becoming a robust and stable force that leads the country to prosperity and national rejuvenation. The bold and continuous improvement in China’s political system is a testament to the Party’s and the nation’s dynamism. These forces of self-revolution are continually evolving and adapting to the changing national and global landscape.
Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have unprecedented unity and form a majestic and indestructible political force. A long time ago, Dr Sun Yat-sen, the pioneer of the Chinese revolution, lamented that the Chinese people were “a sheet of loose sand” devoid of leadership, organizational capabilities and national consciousness. China, as a fractured country, had been repeatedly bullied, oppressed, humiliated and invaded by Western powers and Japan. Not only had it been poor and weak for a long time, but its national sovereignty and territorial integrity had also been brazenly violated. Since 1949, under the leadership of the CPC, China has become a highly organized country. The nation’s organizational strength, breadth and tenacity are second to none today. Through the CPC establishing many administrative units, social organizations and grassroots groups “from top to bottom”, China has successfully constructed a tight and integrated national organizational network, incorporating all the Chinese people. The relationship between the government and the people is extremely close, and the central government’s decrees can effectively reach the grassroots level. Nearly 100 million CPC members are spread across the country in various organizations. Under the unified and centralized leadership of the CPC Central Committee, Party members also form a broad political network that closely connects and integrates different parts of the country and society. With the advancement of science and technology, especially the continuous development of infrastructure such as information technology, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, 5G communication technology, high-speed rail lines, bridges and superhighways, the organization of Chinese society continues to broaden and strengthen. In this highly organized and powerfully led country, the central government can promptly learn about the national situation and the people’s voices, difficulties and needs. The central government’s significant policies can be implemented more uniformly and effectively across the country, and the results of policy implementation can be swiftly fed back to the central government, making it easier for the central government to make timely policy adjustments or discard unpopular policies.
More importantly, a highly organized country also possesses strong mobilization capabilities, and China’s are exceptional when it comes to responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. China’s remarkable performance in the fight against SARS and the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reduced their effect on people’s lives, which amazed foreigners worldwide.
With its unparalleled mobilization and organizational capabilities, China can rapidly concentrate resources and manpower to improve its national defense capabilities and technological clout. Suppose China and the US unfortunately go to war due to the latter’s provocation and aggression. In that case, China’s solid organizational and mobilization capabilities and unprecedented national unity — in addition to its formidable armory — will be its powerful weapon to gain victory.
With the rapid rise of China, and mainly due to the various shortcomings and failures of the US in domestic and foreign affairs, the gap between the two countries in hard and soft power is constantly and irreversibly shrinking. Today, the US can no longer contain China militarily and economically. The democratic system, human rights and freedoms, and other ideals flaunted by the US are increasingly out of touch with its domestic reality, and the US’ self-righteous criticism of other countries’ human rights and politics appears to be highly hypocritical and demonstrates double standards. The US policy in the Middle East, especially in condoning and supporting Israel’s killing spree there, has dented severely the US’ international reputation and moral prestige. In non-Western countries, the political values, economic system, development model and concept of a “community with a shared future for mankind” advocated by China are increasingly respected and emulated. China’s global leadership and prestige are also increasing day by day.
Compared with China’s tremendous political assets, the US is obviously at a disadvantage, as it continues to deteriorate and is unlikely to recover in the foreseeable future. The “democratic” politics that the US has always been proud of has descended into minority rule and majority disempowerment, money politics and plutocracy, partisan confrontation, political elite rivalries, weak and ineffectual political leadership, political chaos, governance failure, profound internal political division, populist rage, internal friction, and significant policy failures and paralysis. It is a tragic situation that will be difficult to rectify. The interests and demands of the broad masses in the US are ignored; the people have lost confidence in political leaders and political systems; people are distracted; and there are significant and irreconcilable differences between all parties regarding domestic and foreign policy. This parlous situation might deteriorate further under the new Trump administration despite its dominance in Congress and its bolstering by a compliant Supreme Court.
This political situation is constantly hemorrhaging the US’ hard and soft power and undermining its capability to maintain its global hegemony. In the process of competition between China and the US, it will be difficult for the US to unite, mobilize, inspire and incentivize the American people on a large scale to fight against China.
Surprisingly, American strategic scholars rarely discuss the contrast in national power between the two countries from the perspective of political leadership and national solidarity. But this is not difficult to understand. For a long time, US political elites have firmly believed that the US political system is incomparably superior, even as the incarnation of “the end of history”, and firmly believe that China’s “authoritarian” or “autocratic” political system is backward, fragile and prone to be ultimately unsustainable. Some American scholars indeed admit that China’s system is attractive to many countries, but they are rare and are often chastised by the “mainstream” anti-China scholars. Under such blinding biased beliefs, American political elites can’t reflect on their defective political system and conditions, recognize the merits of China’s political system, and admit its competitive advantage vis-a-vis the US. The result is that the US will misunderstand China’s strengths and seriously overestimate the strengths of the US. Unsurprisingly, the US will adopt the mistaken strategy of struggle and containment against China, putting it on the path to eventual failure.
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Hsu Cho-yun, an accomplished historian who has lived in the US for over 60 years, has some very sharp and vivid descriptions of the country today. He feels that the vitality of American society is sapping. “The United States is lazy, old, tired, and content with the status quo. ... The United States currently has a democratic and equal system that allows free speech, but the aging process of society cannot be changed. This is a significant difficulty that the United States currently faces. ... With the decline of the role of the US federal government, the states will inevitably go their way, and states will tend to compete rather than cooperate. … The world is like this. A newly created country with a noble ideal was ruined in just 300 years.”
China’s current political configuration is like that of a young and energetic man, while the political form of the US is like that of an old and frail person. Any analysis comparing the power of China and the US must consider the political differences between the two countries. Otherwise, severe miscalculations and unfounded hubris will harm the US inordinately.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
