The word ‘statesmanlike’ can never be used for Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the event celebrating 100 years of the ruling Chinese Communist Party on July 1, he spoke like a pub brawler: “Anyone who dares try to… [bully, oppress or subjugate China] will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” This was typical of the leader of a party which has transmogrified an ancient civilization into the world’s most powerful and dangerous rogue state.
The CCP is the most lethal entity in the world because its soul is the result of an unusual genetic engineering: two violent ideologies, nationalism and communism, have blended together wonderfully, begetting a creed far deadlier than either of its parents. It is like successfully mating a piranha with a king cobra; the offspring would be venomous with razor-like teeth.
More than anybody else, Xi seems to have nurtured the genetically engineered beast with utmost care. He has been fanning hyper-nationalism. In his centenary speech, for instance, he said, “The Chinese nation is a great nation. With a history of more than 5,000 years, China has made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization. After the Opium War of 1840, however, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and suffered greater ravages than ever before. The country endured intense humiliation, the people were subjected to great pain, and the Chinese civilization was plunged into darkness. Since that time, national rejuvenation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.” What he didn’t say but did imply was that the dream is being realized under him.
Glorification of China has been a major plank of Xi’s vision and policy. In July 2016, for example, the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a list of 88 major scientific and technological achievements in ancient China. This included not only invented papermaking and the compass, but also the decimal system and wheat cultivation (https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/994372.shtml).
Now it is a well-known fact that Indians invented the decimal system. As for wheat cultivation, the reputed science Nature magazine informs us that the Chinese learnt wheat cultivation from West Asia (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0141-x).
Further, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, “Wheat was one of the first domesticated food crops and for 8 000 years has been the basic staple food of the major civilizations of Europe, West Asia and North Africa.”
But then glorification of the past and mendacity are integral parts of nation-building.
Xi has also striven to depict communism and socialism as essential for China’s existence. A Wall Street Journal report of June 15 said, “Officials commissioned concerts with orchestral renditions of patriotic songs such as ‘Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China.’ Bureaucrats and students competed in quizzes testing their knowledge of party trivia. Authorities revised books to play down Mao’s despotic missteps. The education ministry added questions on party history to this year’s college-entrance exams, to ‘guide students to inherit red genes’.”
Xi delivered the centenary speech wearing the Mao suit, a sartorial statement underlining his allegiance to the Great Helmsman. Unsurprisingly, he has striven to improve the image of Mao Zedong, the Red monster responsible for the death of 40-70 million people. So there was no mention of the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Instead Xi said that “only socialism could save China, and that only socialism with Chinese characteristics could develop China.” Further, “to realize national rejuvenation, the Party united and led the Chinese people in freeing the mind and forging ahead, achieving great success in reform, opening up, and socialist modernization.”
The CCP, Xi claimed, “founded, upheld, safeguarded, and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
It is not the first time the world has witnessed national socialism; in the last century, there was Nazism. After all, the word ‘Nazism’ meant national socialism in every sense of the word. This explains Xi’s aggression; it is perceptible in policy pertaining to economy, society, politics, foreign affairs, military—in short, everything.
Xi’s centenary speech has confirmed, if any confirmation was needed, that under him the CCP will remain as obnoxious, bellicose, and wolfish as ever. Repression and suppression at home will continue, with the ethnic and religious minorities bearing its brunt. The economy will remain on a tight leash. The neighboring nations will continue to face territorial aggression. And wolf-warrior diplomacy is likely to become nastier.
Xi and the CCP have left made it clear that they are not going to mend their ways; they will continue to be as odious and unconscionable as they are now. It is now for the politicians and opinion makers of the world to react. They can continue with the policy of appeasement. Or they can take on the red dragon. Will they?