Opinion | China is rewriting the rules for its own ends – the world cannot sit idly by

Name: Coronavirus backlash further fraying China’s ties to global economy
Uploaded: 2020-07-10T19:00:19.000Z
Duration: 5 min 2 s
Description: Coronavirus backlash further fraying China’s ties to global economy

Hong Kong’s national security law is only the latest example of China’s challenge to the rules-based global order

Beijing cannot be allowed to use the Covid-19 crisis as a cover to advance its quest. The US and like-minded partners must be prepared to take collective action to safeguard peace and prosperity

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

David F. Helvey

Published: 3:00am, 11 Jul 2020Updated: 4:17am, 11 Jul 2020

With the swift passage of the national security law, China’s Communist Party leaders demolished the idea of Hong Kong’s autonomy and, with it, Beijing’s obligations under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and commitment to preserve the freedoms enjoyed by the Hong Kong people.

This action is only the most recent example of a pattern of behaviour where the Communist Party bends, disregards, or rewrites rules in its favour in the pursuit of domestic and geopolitical ends.

President Xi Jinping, more than any of his predecessors, has used this tactic to push an aggressive China-centric foreign policy. Xi’s introduction of the “Chinese dream” in 2013 foreshadowed a more concerted effort by party leaders to regain global prominence.

Since then, Xi has taken deliberate steps to increase China’s economic, diplomatic and military clout with the clear intent of returning China to the centre of the global order.

The Communist Party’s efforts, with Xi at the helm, to achieve geopolitical centrality, however, are as unstable as the sand on which many of their efforts are built. Rather than making headway, China is facing headwinds as party policies place the country firmly at odds with an international rules-based order that has yielded nearly 75 years of relative peace and increasing prosperity across the region.

05:02

Coronavirus backlash further fraying China’s ties to global economy

The Communist Party’s decision to ignore the rules and norms that have enabled nations to forge lasting economic, security and cultural bonds is a significant and costly oversight for the Chinese people, as it erodes the very foundation that all nations have benefited from.