A Communist mouthpiece again touted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s old slogan, “The East is Rising, the West is declining,” against the backdrop of China grappling with sluggish consumption and the real estate bubble bursting. China affairs commentators collectively agreed that it is propaganda to serve the domestic populace and the countries under its Belt and Road Initiative.
Recently, Guangming Daily ran an article titled “Badmouthing China Can’t Halt the Trend of Rising East and Declining West,” by Zhang Yongjun, who previously worked at the National Information Center and now serves at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, overseen by Beijing’s National Development and Reform Commission.
Xi first brought it up during a seminar for provincial-level officials in early 2021. It suggested that the party-led regime represents the rise of the East while the West, epitomized by the United States, is declining.
However, the regime’s stringent lockdown measures over the pandemic significantly impacted the Chinese economy.
China has struggled with economic recovery. Import and export activities, consumption, and investment have all decelerated, foreign investment in China has declined, and youth unemployment rates have surged. The global outlook on China’s economy turned increasingly pessimistic.
In early January, Cai Qi, Xi’s propaganda chief, called for “positive publicity and public opinion guidance” and “sing loudly about China’s bright economic prospects” in dealing with the collapsing ideology.
Xi’s Image Propaganda
Professor Yuan Hongbing, a renowned dissident living in exile in Australia, said the media’s claim aimed to bolster Xi’s image.“Xi Jinping’s personal authority faces significant challenges as the CCP grapples with internal and external challenges and the increasingly adverse impacts of economic decline,” Mr. Yuan said to the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times.
As for the author who wrote the article, Mr. Yuan said it clearly reflects the work of a regime hack who lacks the scholarly qualities one would expect.
“He [author] argued by categorizing countries into developed nations with the United States taking the lead, and developing nations led by China. The argument per se is a political hoax. China’s position as the foremost nation among developing countries is questioned,” said Mr. Yuan.
He indicated that developing nations such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines all demonstrate significant economic momentum. “They don’t align themselves under China’s leadership. Instead, many nations harbor profound concerns about the CCP’s authoritarian rule,” said Mr. Yuan, “In fact, India and Vietnam view the CCP’s regime as an economic adversary.”
Mr. Yuan indicated that historically, totalitarian regimes, such as the former Soviet Union, North Korea, and the CCP, couldn’t achieve significant economic progress. China’s substantial economic growth from the 1990s to the early 21st century was largely attributed to “over two decades of appeasement policies of the West towards the CCP. Ironically, this allowed the affluent CCP to enforce even more severe authoritarian control.”
He admitted that there are lingering remnants of appeasement in the West, “but it’s generally acknowledged that reverting to a policy of appeasement towards the CCP is no longer feasible,” he said. Consequently, China’s economic development has “lost the support of international factors and missed its strategic window of opportunity.”
Domestic Propaganda
Kuo-Hsiang Sun, a Professor at the Department of International Affairs, Nanhua University, Taiwan, also agreed that judging from the time the article was published, it obviously serves the CCP as internal propaganda.He said that while the United States undeniably faces certain challenges, it remains fundamentally market-driven. “The structural integrity of the U.S. economic system stands firm,” he said. In contrast, China’s economy grapples with “both structural and systemic challenges alongside complicating issues such as population aging, all contributing to the vulnerabilities of the so-called, ‘rise of the East, fall of the West.’”
He believes the CCP can only continue the superficial propaganda to cover up the substantive issues surrounding the structure and system of the economy.
“CCP’s economic structure and system are riddled with countless problems, which continually surface from various aspects. Ultimately, it will pose a major threat to the regime,” said Mr. Sun.
