The Chinese Communist Party will convene the 20th Central Committee of the Third Plenary Session in July. According to reports from the Chinese Communist Party media, the Third Plenum may introduce new measures to deepen reform and expand openness.
From common sense and historical perspective, the Chinese government’s openness to the outside world begins with its largest developed country, the United States. The United States’ advanced technology, vast market, abundant talent resources, massive capital, and efficient financial services are powerful boosters for China’s openness to the world.
If China truly wants to expand its openness, it should prioritize developing relations with the United States.
However, since Xi Jinping’s second term began, Sino-U.S. relations have been on a downward trend. Prior to the 20th Central Committee of the Third Plenum, there were no signs of improvement in Sino-U.S. relations; on the contrary, they continue to deteriorate. Key points include:
– On May 14, the White House announced that President Biden will maintain tariffs on China imposed by former President Trump due to China’s unfair practices posing an “unacceptable risk” to U.S. “economic security.” Additionally, other tariffs will be increased on products such as steel, aluminum, semiconductors, batteries, critical minerals, solar panels, ship-to-shore cranes, and medical products valued at $18 billion.
– On May 24, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office announced that President Biden will terminate tariff exemptions and reinstate tariffs on hundreds of Chinese imports.
Some experts believe that China and the United States are becoming embroiled in a comprehensive trade war which could escalate further.
On May 9, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security added 37 Chinese entities, including the Beijing Quantum Information Science Research Institute, to the “Entity List,” imposing strict export controls. The current government has placed 355 Chinese entities on the Entity List, the highest in U.S. history.
Companies sanctioned on the Entity List must obtain licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce to purchase American technology, but may likely be denied under the pretext of “harming national security.”
On January 31, the U.S. Department of Defense added 16 Chinese companies, including the China Aerospace Industry Group, to the Chinese Military Companies (CMC) List. By February 2024, 73 Chinese companies were on this list.
Companies on the CMC list are prohibited from conducting transactions with the U.S. Department of Defense.
On May 1, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added 22 Chinese companies, including Wuhan Guoxin Technology Co., to the “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons” (SDN) list.
As of March 24, 2024, there were 508 Chinese entities on the SDN list. The OFAC primarily imposes sanctions on these Chinese entities by freezing assets, prohibiting transactions, restricting investments, limiting exports, and banning trading of government bonds, among other measures.
The sanctioned Chinese entities involve key technology areas such as high-end chips, biopharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, drones, high-altitude projects, missile research, and nuclear technology.
The United States has also established the “Chip Alliance” to implement export controls on China. Under pressure from the Trump administration in 2019, Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML ceased exporting the most advanced EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography machine) to China. Biden has pushed the Netherlands to further implement export controls. In March this year, the Netherlands planned to restrict the export of more advanced versions of ASML’s older DUV (deep ultraviolet lithography machine) to China.
In April, Reuters reported that the United States is pressuring the Netherlands to prevent ASML from providing maintenance services for some chip equipment to China.
These measures will impact the entire core of China’s chip industry.
On May 20, Tsai Ing-wen was inaugurated as the 16th President of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Since Tsai Ing-wen was elected President of Taiwan, China has not been pleased. China has been interfering in Taiwan’s presidential elections. From 2016 to 2020 to 2024, in three presidential elections, attempts by China to influence the elections have all failed, and the Democratic Progressive Party, which China vehemently opposes, has been reelected three times.
China has labeled Tsai Ing-wen as “pro-independence,” and just three days after Tsai’s inauguration, on May 23, without warning, China launched “island encirclement drills,” escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
However, the U.S. government, Congress, and officials have congratulated Tsai Ing-wen on her election and inauguration.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Tsai Ing-wen on becoming Taiwan’s fifth democratically elected President, acknowledging the strength and resilience of Taiwan’s democratic system. He emphasized the expansion and deepening of the partnership between the American and Taiwanese people in trade, economy, culture, and personal relationships and looked forward to working with President Tsai to advance shared U.S.-Taiwan interests and values, and maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman McCaul visited Taiwan at the request of House Speaker Johnson on May 26. On May 29, U.S. Senator Duckworth led a delegation of 16 heavyweight lawmakers to visit Taiwan.
Concerning China’s “island encirclement drills,” the U.S. State Department issued a statement urging Beijing to exercise restraint and warning that using the normal, routine, and democratic transition of the Taiwan authorities as an excuse for military provocation could lead to escalation and erode the long-standing norms that have maintained peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for decades, which are crucial for regional and global security, prosperity, and an international focus.
President Biden has publicly stated four times that the United States will defend Taiwan.
As tensions in the Taiwan Strait intensify due to China’s increased pressure on Taiwan, the U.S. military is active from the South China Sea to the East China Sea, to the broader Indo-Pacific region.
On May 26, the U.S. Navy announced that the USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71 aircraft carrier, a Nimitz-class carrier and flagship of the Ninth Carrier Strike Group with a displacement of over 100,000 tons, was conducting routine operations (transiting the South China Sea) in the U.S. Seventh Fleet Area of Responsibility.
On the same day, the U.S. Navy conducted flight deck exercises aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt and maintained MH-60R “Seahawk” helicopters and F/A-18E “Super Hornet” strike fighter jets. These actions demonstrated the carrier’s combat readiness and its ability to project force and ensure stability in the region.
The U.S. military presence in the Philippines has increased from five bases to nine, including three on Luzon Island, which is only 400 kilometers from Taiwan, overlooking the sea.
The Wall Street Journal reported on May 26 that during joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises held from April 22 to May 10, several small teams flew to three small islands strategically located in the Luzon Strait near Taiwan. This was seen as preparation by the U.S. Marine Corps for a potential conflict involving Taiwan.
On May 22, the United States announced that the “Rim of the Pacific” (RIMPAC) military exercise for 2024 will take place from June 22 to August 2 in the Hawaiian Islands and surrounding waters.
Participants come from 29 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Tonga.
Some analysts believe that military exercises serve to convey a message to China: that China’s expansion in the Western Pacific will be met with resistance and defeat.
In fact, China supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, backs Hamas terrorism against Israel, supports Iran’s disruptions in the Middle East, and supports North Korea’s provocations in Northeast Asia, leading to global opposition with the United States.
On May 29, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell revealed to the media in Brussels that he had warned European diplomats at NATO that China’s support for Russia is continuous, comprehensive, and “supported by China’s leadership.” The objective is to provide all necessary support to Russia from behind the scenes.
NATO, led by the United States, is the most important military alliance of the free world, with 32 member countries. This year marks NATO’s 75th anniversary, and a NATO summit of national leaders will be held in Washington, D.C. in July, where a strong message to China is expected to be sent.
On May 16, U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel spoke on the issue of Russian President Putin’s visit to China, saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” It is impossible for China to both desire good relations with Europe and other countries while supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, exacerbating the greatest threat to European security.
Patel continued, saying that this is not only the U.S. position, but also the common position of the G7, U.S.-EU collaborations, the U.S.-NATO alliance, and the U.S.-EU partnership.
The world is now divided into the democratic camp led by the United States and the authoritarian camp led by China.
The United States has allies around the world, while China only has a few difficult and distant relations like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The United States is strengthening multilateral mechanisms through enhanced integration of the Group of Seven (G7) countries, the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council coordination mechanism, the U.S.-Japan-South Korea-Philippines military alliance, the U.S.-Japan-India-Australia Quadrilateral Security Mechanism, the U.S.-UK-Australia military, diplomatic, and security partnership, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (including the United States, Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, among others, to counter China.
China has been trying to exploit the weaknesses of American democracy and engage in propaganda against the American people.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is an important platform for Chinese propaganda in the U.S. TikTok has around 170 million users in the U.S.
After a terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 last year, videos with the hashtag #freepalestine on TikTok garnered 946 million views in 30 days, with more than half being young people aged 18-24.
At the same time, a letter from the late terrorist Osama bin Laden, written for the 9/11 attacks, received millions of views on TikTok, filled with anti-Western, anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Subsequently, 25 U.S. congressional members, led by Rep. Buddy Carter, collectively condemned TikTok for promoting terrorism and anti-Jewish rhetoric.
In early February last year, U.S. Senators Jerry Moran and Richard Blumenthal wrote to Treasury Secretary Yellen, raising concerns about TikTok posing threats to U.S. national security and consumer privacy, calling for structural restrictions on TikTok’s operations in the U.S. by January 19 next year.
The letter said TikTok not only collects account data and tracks information through ad trackers but also monitors personal videos and discussions of millions of Americans and controls recommend systems with powerful algorithms. “We are concerned whether Chinese entities are helping in promoting or serving the interests of the Chinese government,” especially for political purposes.
On April 23, the U.S. Senate passed a bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19 next year, or TikTok will be banned. The next day, President Biden signed the bill into law, starting a 270-day countdown.
Previously, over half of U.S. states, as well as Congress, the military, had banned government employees from using TikTok on government devices.
Moreover, the U.S. is countering China in financial regulation, investment, anti-spying efforts, anti-Chinese agents, economic coercion, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, human rights, among other areas.
Given the continued deterioration of U.S.-China relations as described above, it is personally believed that there should be no hope placed on the so-called new reform and opening measures of the Third Plenum. The Third Plenum is unlikely to make any substantive breakthrough in reform and opening up.
As Deng Xiaoping stated back in 1986, “Without political system reform, economic system reform cannot succeed.”
Since Deng ordered the crackdown of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he personally stifled political system reform in China.
Since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, political system reform in China has not only made no progress but has regressed towards the Cultural Revolution, and authoritarianism.
An emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarianism is Xi’s repeated emphasis on “the Party leads everything.” The inevitable result of “the Party leads everything” is that power plays a decisive role in resource allocation, contrary to the market economy, which allows market forces to determine resource allocation, and corresponding democratic checks and balances.
The authoritarian ideology of the Chinese Communist Party is rooted in Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism is anti-capitalist, prioritizing the acquisition, consolidation, and maintenance of power above all else.
This is the root cause of the continuous deterioration of U.S.-China relations and why the Chinese Communist Party is unlikely to deepen reform and opening up at the Third Plenum.
Epoch Times Exclusive Writer Yang Jiekai interviewed a former TikTok influencer, Oli London, under China’s ByteDance Company. London stated, “TikTok had the most significant impact on me. It completely changed my identity. It introduced different concepts to me that previously I might not have considered. TikTok truly became a big deal in my life, making me addicted. It was almost like a digital opiate.”
In early February last year, U.S. Senators Jerry Moran and Richard Blumenthal wrote to Treasury Secretary Yellen regarding TikTok’s threat to U.S. national security and consumer privacy, requesting structural restrictions on TikTok’s U.S. operations by January 19 next year.
The letter stated, “Not only does TikTok collect account data, track information through ad trackers, and monitor personal videos and conversations of millions of Americans, but also use powerful algorithms to control recommendation systems.” They were concerned about whether Chinese entities were helping in promoting or serving the interests of the Chinese government, particularly for the political interests of the Chinese regime.
As of April 23, the U.S. Senate passed a bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19 next year, or the use of TikTok will be prohibited. The next day, President Biden signed the bill into law, initiating a 270-day countdown.
Previously, over half of U.S. states, as well as Congress, the military, had banned government employees from using TikTok on government devices.
The U.S. is countering China in various areas such as financial regulation, investment, anti-spy efforts, anti-Chinese agents, economic coercion, addressing issues in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and human rights, among others.
Given the continued deterioration in U.S.-China relations as described above, it is personally believed that no hope should be placed on the so-called new reform and opening measures of the Third Plenum. The Third Plenum is unlikely to make any substantive breakthrough in reform and opening up.