The West needs to wake up to the threat of Chinese hegemony

You have probably heard about the Orwellian ‘Social Credit System’ being trial-tested by the Communist Party. The ambitious scheme plans to integrate a patchwork quilt of various public and private credit-rating organisations which already rule over many citizens’ lives. Complex algorithms working for the benefit of the government will automatically rate each citizen based on ‘good behaviour’ (points subtracted for spitting on the metro, for example) and, more perniciously, loyalty to the Communist Party. Successful implementation of the plan will make Black Mirror look like child’s play. And it’s just the beginning.  

With cutting-edge totalitarian methods at home and a clever mixture of soft and hard power abroad, the Chinese government is consolidating its plans for a world in which the United States and its allies are no longer hegemons.

Let me be clear: there are a lot of nasty things we can say about the U.S.-led post-war world order. My government has assassinated elected leaders, sponsored bloody coups and covert death-squads, rigged elections, sold weapons to despots and terrorists, slaughtered women and children en-masse — and has even shot to death its own citizens when they protested these acts. 

How much worse could China be? Much worse, actually. Recently the Washington Post reported on an incident in which a Chinese man posted a critical comment about an important government official: ‘[the man] was detained by local police. He was held for 10 days fined 500 yuan, or about $79, for his public criticism of the celebrated state hero. His verified social media account was deleted by Sina, the tech company behind Weibo.’ President Bill Clinton once remarked breezily that the CCP attempting to crack down on dissent on the internet would be ‘like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.’ Two decades later one might say that the Chinese have accomplished this impressive feat. What was once thought to be an unshakeable bastion for the free expression of thought and the unfettered exchange of ideas is now just another convenient tool in the hands of totalitarian propagandists and censors. 

Naturally, it gets far worse than that. Perhaps the most egregious example of China’s are the chain of brutal ‘re-education camps’ designed to terrorise the country’s millions-strong Muslim ethnic group, the Uighurs. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that 

‘Detainees are forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, they say, as well as sing praises for communism and learn Mandarin. Some reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, with some saying they were forced to undergo abortions or have contraceptive devices implanted against their will. Some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.’

And yet even this pales in comparison to the actions of, for example, Saudi Arabia, which routinely beheads or crucifies its own people and is conducting a genocidal war of extermination in Yemen. So why worry so much about China specifically?

Fortunately, neither Saudi Arabia nor other similarly-brutal nations like North Korea have the capability to challenge the post-war liberal world order. Not even Russia has that power. But China does — or will do, very soon. Unfortunately, Western governments and businesses from Germany to the U.S. are happy to aid and abet the CCP and its proxies as long as they have access to China’s incredibly lucrative economy. Policymakers in the West would be well to wake up to the disturbing reality of Chinese rule before it is too late.