This commentary was first published by the Los Angeles Times.

The 104-minute speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the country’s 20th party congress reveals a leader who believes he is on a historic mission to save China’s self-described socialism in the 21st century.

Xi’s Oct. 16 speech launched the twice-a-decade meeting, which concludes this weekend, where the national Communist Party appoints its leadership and announces China’s policy direction for the coming years. The address reads very much like a sequel to his previous one five years ago. At that time, Xi cryptically said China had entered a “new era” of socialism. This time, he characterized his aim as “building a modern socialist country,” which the state media touted as the highlight of the speech. This statement clarifies his ambition to prove the superiority of socialism by 2049, with an implicit aim to surpass the U.S. by the centennial anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s founding in 1949.

Xi is driven by the grand “Chinese dream,” the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” that he referenced in his 2017 and 2022 National Congress speeches. He appears to view himself as the sole individual who can achieve this dream in the 21st century, perhaps casting himself as a 21st-century Mao Zedong. His plans — including “common prosperity” and “socialist modernization” — are long term and unlikely to shift even following the recent turmoil caused by COVID-19, China’s harsh lockdowns in response and the resulting economic pains.

These ambitions are the same ones promoted by the Xi administration over the last decade. But by the end of this latest congress, Xi will have cemented an unprecedented third term as president, and he can now be more aggressive than before in their pursuit.

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It follows then that U.S.-China relations are unlikely to improve in Xi’s next term. He has shown, time and again, that he differs from his predecessors, except Mao, in that he does not shy away from conflict with the United States. Xi has felt comfortable declaring that “the East is rising while the West is declining” and positioning the U.S. as a challenge to overcome, rather than an obstacle to avoid, on the road to the Chinese dream.

On the other hand, China will probably strengthen ties with Russia, North Korea and other like-minded authoritarian nations, just as the U.S. is strengthening alliance networks in the region, including with Japan and South Korea. We are, as Henry Kissinger once said, in the “foothills of a Cold War.”

The Taiwan Strait remains central to how quickly and drastically conflict could escalate. Xi’s latest speech reiterated that China wanted to gain Taiwan peacefully but “will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.” He frames unification not as a choice but as a historical responsibility, which has been placed on his shoulders. Xi’s direct mention of Taiwan unification at the party congress suggests that he will use that issue as a justification for his long-term reign.

One factor that will help determine the actual longevity of Xi’s rule is whether meaningful protests against him will emerge. Xi’s policies and crackdowns against dissent have yielded sporadic protests that made international headlines. In China, however, the threshold for revolution is quite high, creating major barriers to a regime change. A large dose of state-led nationalism and indoctrination convinces people that the U.S. in particular is determined to torpedo China’s quest for modernity, creating an enemy to rally the country around.

China’s economic challenges pose another hurdle for Xi’s long-term agenda. The country’s rigid zero-COVID policy has limited growth, and Xi has displayed a heavy-handed approach toward private businesses, dampening entrepreneurial spirit. If Chinese people come to think of Xi’s anti-market tendency as the underlying problem, it will erode his authority.

To stave off such threats, Xi is likely to continue his iron-fist rule. He has purged enough rivals and earned enough grievances over the years that relaxing his power grip at this juncture will likely invite criticism, if not revenge, toward him. He is eager to turn China into a global power that will awe the West. As Xi put it at the 2017 party congress, China is increasingly taking “center stage in the world.” With Xi still at the helm, we should expect a more aggressive China and increasing turbulence in the regional and global order.

Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Seong-Hyon Lee is a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.

This commentary was first published in The Hindu.

India and China appear to be mending fences, gingerly. Relations have been icy since China launched multiple incursions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh in mid-2020. After years of inconclusive military talks and halting “disengagement” from sites of confrontation, the rivals made inching progress last week. They completed disengagement in an area known as Patrolling Point 15 (PP15), pulling troops back to create a demilitarized buffer zone, and their leaders met in person at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand.

The tentative conciliatory steps between two nuclear-armed rivals are important; but they also carry risks, especially for India.

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Despite the latest round of disengagement, the LAC remains deeply unsettled. Observers have pointed out that the buffer zones produced by the crisis inhibit India’s ability to patrol its own territory. And India and China have tacitly agreed to postpone settlement at two other confrontation sites, including a particularly tactically valuable area known as Depsang. The buffer zones and Depsang’s status both suit China’s objectives because they limit India’s military activities near the LAC, which analysts judge had partly motivated China’s initial incursions in 2020.

Similarly, the military threat on the border is not only undiminished, but has actually grown over the course of the crisis. The reinforcements that each side deployed since 2020 have not returned to garrison. Even if future rounds of talks continue “disengagement and de-escalation,” and reduce those forces, returning to the status quo ante is now impossible. Both sides have raced to build permanent military infrastructure near the border, to help them surge forces to the border. Unsurprisingly, China seems to have outpaced India in building these roads, helipads, and communications nodes. 

China still claims Arunachal Pradesh as its own, and just as it has pressed its maritime claims once its growing capabilities permit, its military build-up may portend increasing pressure in coming years. Even without a deliberate attack, the increasing capabilities and mobility on both sides of the border means that a crisis can more quickly escalate to a large military stand-off anywhere on the LAC, and possibly even trigger a conflict.

Strategic implications
 

As vexatious as the tactical picture may be on the border, the strategic implications are more dire. For over two years, the land border has become the overwhelming priority in India’s military competition with China. India has reassigned one of three originally Pakistan-facing Strike Corps to the China front. It has deployed its newest artillery, fighter jets, and drones to the China border. 

At the same time, India has not significantly improved its capabilities or posture in the Indian Ocean region. Granted, a suite of impressive new capabilities — from cruise missile-equipped fighters and U.S.-origin naval helicopters to a brand-new indigenously-built aircraft carrier — are inching towards fruition. But these programmes were all initiated before the border crisis, when the Indian military was incrementally modernising its capabilities for the Indian Ocean.

Whether or not by design, this must delight Beijing. As India and China jostle for security and influence in Asia, the contest in the Indian Ocean will inevitably intensify. Their respective capabilities to project military force across the Ocean, to coerce or defend smaller regional States, and to establish an enduring strategic presence there, will determine the Asian balance of power. With the border crisis, China seems to have successfully fixed India’s gaze to the land border, at the expense of that more consequential competition over the Indian Ocean.

Disengagement at PP15, and especially continued “disengagement and de-escalation,” has the potential to ameliorate this strategic trap. A progressively less urgent threat will tempt New Delhi to de-emphasise military readiness on the border. This could be a golden opportunity for Indian planners to work towards long-term military modernisation and political influence across the Indian Ocean region. But a likelier and riskier outcome is that decision makers will prioritise other, more politically salient issues, like gaining quick wins in the campaign for Atmanirbharta in defence industry — which may come at the expense of modernisation.

Paradoxically, then, a cooling crisis on the border may teach India the wrong lesson: that the short-term expedient of greater readiness is enough to see off the Chinese threat. In fact, and especially for the strategic prize of the Indian Ocean region, the challenge posed by China cannot be met without long-term growth in Indian national capacity. That, in turn, requires coherent strategic assessments and the political will to balance readiness with modernisation.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite applications for a suite of fellowships in contemporary Asia studies to begin fall quarter 2023.

The Center offers postdoctoral fellowships that promote multidisciplinary research on contemporary Japan and contemporary Asia broadly defined, inaugural postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions as part of the newly launched Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, and a fellowship for experts on Southeast Asia. Learn more about each opportunity and its eligibility and specific application requirements:

Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Japan

Hosted by the Japan Program at APARC, the fellowship supports research on contemporary Japan in a broad range of disciplines including political science, economics, sociology, law, policy studies, and international relations. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2023. The application deadline is December 1, 2022.