By Iliana Fragkiadaki, A Level Student at Lancaster Girls Grammar School
The process of globalisation has helped to give legitimacy to authoritarian regimes across Asia. Unprecedented levels of economic growth combined with a vast decrease in poverty, otherwise known as performance-based factors, caused a mass tolerance and even acceptance of socialist governments that very often toe the line of crossing into totalitarianism. Indeed, China is one of the biggest anomalies in the modernisation theory, which links economic development and globalisation with democracy. After Xi Jinping became leader in 2012, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has often been characterised as a ‘Neo-stalinist’ institution. The rise of a ‘one-man’ rule under Mr. Xi has demonstrated explicit signs of no toleration for independent media, suppression of citizens’ rights and rigorous control over the economy, in order to maintain political authority and stability.
Honk Kong’s national security law, which was unanimously passed in China on 30 June 2020, poses a significant threat to the civil liberties of individuals and groups. It is a vague law that covers an extensive range of practices that can be deemed as offences that endanger ‘national security’. The words ‘secession’, ‘subversion’ and ‘terrorism’ have become an excuse to prosecute individuals and civil society who exercise their human rights of freedom of speech by organising peaceful protests, criticising the government, and promoting political views that do not conform with the CCP’s ideology. In fact, Amnesty International have documented the use of this law to jail hundreds of pro-democracy journalists, lawyers, and activists in mainland China. Apple Daily – a newspaper that was formerly a vocal advocate of the pro-democracy movement- was forced to shut down. Reporters without Borders claim that ‘media oppression’, especially after the enactment of this law, is ‘rampant’.
Aside from restricting independent journalism, this law also tightens control over education and social media. Tough crackdowns on student protests, the removal of the Pillar of Shame and the Goddess of Democracy statues from two of Hong Kong’s oldest universities, and the prohibition of singing songs, chanting slogans, or conducting activities that contain political messages on campus are all clear examples of political censorship.
What is even more concerning, is the application of the national security law on everybody internationally. Anyone who is deemed to violate this law, including foreign residents who have never been to China, may be persecuted if they are under Chinese jurisdiction. Not only does the CCP not tolerate any criticism from within mainland territory but it has now expanded its powers to exercise legal authority abroad too.
Furthermore, the internet and social media are powerful tools that have shaped the 21st Century. They provided a new sense of community amongst the Chinese, increased transparency and wider access to information. Xi Jinping thought otherwise, summing up his view in a leaked speech in 2013: “The internet has become the main battlefield for the public opinion struggle.” Thus, it came as no surprise that China became the largest online censorship platform in the world. The CCP sought to take advantage of the internet’s benefits such as innovation and digital propaganda, whilst curtailing the risk of political change through the rise in technology. Government supervision of the internet and social media was a natural step to prevent foreign ideas and public dissent from infringing the Party’s values and vision. Even before Xi Jinping’s admission to office in 2006, Beijing had blocked Google and introduced a censored version of ‘google.cn‘ instead. Then, in January 2015, the government blocked many of the VPNs that citizens used to circumvent the Great Firewall. In Spring 2015, it launched the Great Cannon – an internet attack tool that is used as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) to tackle any opposition against the government, most commonly pro-democracy protests.
The strength of the government’s control over the digital world has been elucidated in the targeting of prominent individuals. In 2013, it imposed restrictions on well-known Chinese influencers, causing a drastic fall of 70% in the number of Sina Weibo posts from 2011 to 2013. Other regulations included the shutdown of 100,000 Weibo accounts that, according to the CCP, did not disseminate ‘appropriate content’. The Freedom of the Net 2021 report states that China is the ‘world’s worst abuser of internet freedom’ through its acts of repressing discontent against the government and extending legal repercussions for violating these censorship laws.
Aside from the internet, individuals that are at the top of the social ladder are also deemed as a potential adversary to the state. Many Chief Executives of prominent companies have disappeared without warning in recent years as part of an ‘anti-corruption crackdown’ waged by Xi Jinping. Such individuals include Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Guo Guangchan, Chairman of Fosun International often called China’s Warren Buffett, and Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of Anbang Insurance Group. Statistics from Chinese press published by the Party itself detail this further: ‘Among the 72 billionaires, 15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from accidents, 14 were executed according to the law and 19 died from diseases.’ The 72 billionaires that had suffered premature deaths in the previous eight years are no coincidence.
The government’s sovereignty over the corporate world has also expanded into the private sector. The CCP aims to establish a more tenacious grip on private companies and individual entrepreneurs who could become rivals to the state. For example in 2018, the securities regulator issued a new corporate governance code requiring many firms, at home and abroad, to include in their internal guidelines the party’s association with the company. Research in 2021 has shown that the party penetration of large companies is almost total, with over 92% of China’s top 500 private enterprises hosting party cells. The fall of the Evergrande property developer group that has shook the Chinese economy and investors is perhaps a warning, in the government’s eyes, on the fatal consequences that can be caused by a lack of complete control over companies.
Foreign companies have also felt pressured to accommodate the CCP in their firm’s decision-making. Companies ranging from L’Oréal to Walt Disney and Dow Chemicals, all have party committees. However, this oppression was faced with backlash, as the EU business chamber in China formally complained about party organisations trying to extend their influence in their member companies in 2017.
Another sign of the Chinese government’s shift from a socialist government to a totalitarian, perhaps dystopian one, is the introduction of a social-credit surveillance system. It is a set of databases that include financial, criminal and governmental records as well as data from online platforms supplied by third-parties, which monitors and assesses the trustworthiness of individuals, companies and government entities. It ranks citizens and corporations based on their ‘social credit’ and the Party has started punishments for those who rank low on their social score through economic and social behaviour, which includes bad driving, posting on social media or wasting money on frivolous purchases. In addition, the government is experimenting with collecting data from video surveillance and real-time data transfers. Although the government claims that the system is ‘an important component part of the Socialist market economy system and the social governance system”, it also serves as a tool to impose government control over every aspect of citizens’ lives.
The political ideology of the Communist Party to improve the ‘well-being’ of the Chinese people poses a direct antithesis to their central goal of ‘cementing Xi as China’s most important leader since Mao and Deng.’ Xi has waged several powerful moves to reinforce his power, ranging from draconian steps on media oppression and internet crackdowns to the chilling disappearances of high-profile individuals and a surveillance system that infringes basic human rights. The only question is: how long can economic growth and prosperity be used a justification to legitimise the totalitarian measures of the CCP?
Iliana Fragkiadaki
Hi, my name is Iliana Fragkiadaki and I'm an aspiring corporate lawyer, hence I'm interested in Law, Politics, Economic Affairs, Philosophy, and International Relations. In my free time, I enjoy reading books (particularly classics), going to the gym and painting. I am additionally a linguist and enjoy learning different languages (I speak Greek and Spanish but I aim to learn Italian, French, and Japanese as well).