Winston Churchill once stated that the United States and the United Kingdom were “two nations divided by a common language.” Too often, especially in negotiations or cross-cultural settings, we believe that each party assigns the same meanings to words we do. As the United States and China seek to address risks and threats posed by others, we need to better understand what each side perceives as the threat or risk posed by the other.
Let us begin by stating clearly what we mean by risk and threat. Risk is the potential for a negative outcome; threat represents an external statement of intent to inflict a negative outcome. Now, let us put this into a tangible representation. Taiwan has a risk of military action against it, and this threat comes from China. The risk and who is threatening to impose the risk is clear.
This approach may seem straightforward and obvious, but it is neither clear nor obvious that each side accepts these definitions of risks and threats.
How might China and the United States, as well as allied states, have different views of risks and threats?
Most people and states perceive risks and threats from others as tangible and explicit risks of harm. For instance, the protection of national security comes from investment in military assets against threats from external actors due to the risk of violence and loss of life. However, China relies on a more expansive and different use of risks and threats than other people and states.
Look at how China defines risk and threats domestically, where there is minimal chance of violence. China invests enormous energy and resources to ensure adherence by the populous to a mandated belief system restricting speech and political opposition. Risk and threats come not from the risk of violence to citizens or the state but from opposition to the mandated belief system in the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This supremacy of the Party above all things and the thread of non-adherence is taken to absurd extremes. Legally, the CCP renders verdicts on the faithful entry into the afterlife for all religions in China. The threat and risk don’t pertain to violence but rather the Communist Party not controlling everything.
China extends its understanding of risk and threats globally. Dissidents in the United States who pose no threat of violence are monitored because they pose a risk to the totality of thought control that threatens the CCP. The threat posed by critics is not physical violence but what people think. Put another way, the CCP perceives risk in what people think and is threatened by criticism.
Take another example of Hong Kong. The Beijing-backed government in Hong Kong has passed a draconian national security law imprisoning a wide range of people for retroactive infractions and meaningless infractions, such as even meeting with foreigners. These are risks Beijing perceives as threats to its domination.
The problem in geopolitics comes from allowing intangible risks of prohibited beliefs perceived by Beijing to permit the acceptance of explicit tangible threats of violence on other countries or peoples. China’s belief in the total supremacy of the CCP does not permit its paranoid view, scared of criticism, to allow violence upon other states. People’s or states’ beliefs are not a tangible threat and should not make them the target of violent reprisals. We must not equate the risk of intangible beliefs and tangible violence.
CCP propaganda thinking permeates how many outside of China seek to address conflicts. While understandably seeking to lower tensions, analysts face a Gordian knot: How can countries assuage Beijing’s demands to lower their perceived intangible risks and threats from ideas and speech when this requires external countries to impose CCP policies? No country poses a tangible threat to China of physical violence. China has convinced many that it deserves tangible concessions due to its regular discussion of the intangible threats it sees from speech and freedom.
All over the world, historical changes are underway with shifting alliances and willingness to adapt. The rights we hold dear as individuals of freedom should never be allowed to be equated to threats of state violence. The CCP may be threatened by ideas and speech, but we must never allow it to equate our freedom with its right to harm others.
