China’s ruling communist regime considers the United States to be more of an outright enemy than an economic competitor, according to one former telecommunications executive.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader Xi Jinping believe that the United States is an adversary of China and are pursuing policies accordingly, said Jon Pelson, former chief convergence officer for British Telecom.
“We have to realize that what we call the economic front is very different for them [the CCP]; they don’t see it really as an economic front at all,” Pelson said during an Oct. 18 interview with NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.
“The end that he [Xi] sees is not raising the quality of life and the standard of living for his people. He sees commerce and technology as a tool, really, to [pursue] hegemony in the region and in the world.”
Pelson said that while the United States and other nations attempt to see China as a belligerent trading partner or economic competitor, CCP leadership views the West as an ideological and military adversary.
“As much as we want to see China as a trading partner, they see us as a rival; they see us, I think, even as an enemy. And we have to recognize that and deal with them accordingly,” Pelson said.
“We really have to look at what we can do to restrain and hold back China’s economic power because they’re using it as a tool [against us].”
This is a particular problem for capitalist nations, Pelson said, because such nations are likely to consider any profitable trade with China as a success, even if that trade results in China receiving strategic advantages in the diplomatic or military space.
The CCP is on a war footing, however, and its view of trade is something altogether darker, Pelson said.
“China’s view is success means they become more powerful than we are, even if it costs them money, even if their people become poor in the process,” he said. “As long as they create a gap over the United States and the West and [other] free countries, that’s a win for them.”
“It’s an awful way of looking at things, but I really think they’re viewing it the way two countries do when they go to war.”
Pelson said that the CCP is modernizing its military with technology gleaned through trade with the West and that the United States’ desire for more and more trade is fundamentally undermining its long-term security.
Still, he said, a total decoupling of the two nations’ economies would be “catastrophic” for the world economy and is likely a non-starter.
To that end, Pelson said that the CCP would need to be defeated in the technological and commercial spaces before its leadership would allow China to become a more open and liberal society.
“I think it’s going to be a long slow grind for China to ever reach a point of true liberalization,” Pelson said. “And it’s probably going to have to come from defeats. I hope it won’t be done on the battlefield.”
“I hope it’ll be commercial and technological and social where they [the CCP] say this is not working, and the people at the top decide they want to have leadership that really is going to liberalize because their people will be more successful.”
