Hi, China Watchers. This week we parse Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Middle Eastern diplomacy strategy, examine how last month’s mass street protests are prompting a surge in political asylum queries and unpack China’s Great Covid Propaganda Backpedal. And we’ll profile a book that reveals how Xi’s economic policies are direct descendants of the ruinous economic engineering experiments of Chairman Mao Zedong.

Let’s get to it. — Phelim

Chinese paramount leader XI JINPING is taking China’s geostrategic competition with the U.S. to the Middle East this week with a starring role at twin Arab-China summits.

It’s Xi’s big moment to pitch China to regional leaders as a credible superpower alternative to the U.S. at a time of frosty Biden administration relations with Saudi Arabia. Xi will press the flesh with at least 14 Middle Eastern leaders at the Gulf-China Summit for Cooperation and Development and the first-ever Arab-China Summit for Cooperation and Development — which run through Friday.

Expect red carpet rollouts, warm embraces and expressions of unconditional partnership crafted to contrast with the frosty fist bump and stern lecture on human rights that President JOE BIDEN delivered to Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN during his visit in July.

Xi’s gambling that China has an historic opportunity to displace U.S. diplomatic and economic influence in the Middle East as the Biden administration diverts attention and resources to counter China’s perceived threat in the Indo-Pacific.

“The Chinese see the Middle East as a place where you make your name as a great power,” said MICHAEL SINGH, former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council and managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson MAO NING declared on Wednesday that Xi’s diplomacy will reap “an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations.”

Xi’s handicap in rallying Arab leaders to a closer alignment with China is Beijing’s close partnership with Iran, which Gulf states see as an existential enemy.

Read my full story on Xi’s Middle Eastern charm offensive here.

China protests boost U.S. asylum queries

The dramatic protests that erupted in Chinese cities last month have dissipated. And the Chinese government has eased some of the more draconian elements of the zero-Covid strategy which sparked them.

But the protests — and the Chinese police moves to find and silence protesters — have prompted hundreds of Chinese citizens to seek information about political asylum in the U.S.

FELIPE ALEXANDRE, partner at Irvine, CA-based AG Immigration, has recorded an explosion of interest in U.S. asylum application procedures in the days following the protests. Alexandre markets immigration services to Chinese citizens through YouTube, Twitter and accounts on Chinese social media accounts including WeChat.

Prior to the protests “we were getting 20-30 queries [from Chinese citizens] per day, now we’re getting 10 times that number,” Alexandre told China Watcher. “The vast majority are directly asking me about asylum, saying ‘I want to get the heck out of here… do I qualify?’”

Those inquiries are powered by concerns that China’s pervasive state surveillance system will identify anyone it identifies as associated with those protests. “They’re concerned about their safety in China,” Alexandre said. “They’re saying ‘I went to the protests, or I know somebody that was arrested at the protests. I posted some things online. I'm afraid — is that enough for asylum?’”

Alexandre hasn’t yet landed any new clients directly related to the recent protests but expects that to change in the short-to-medium term. “I think in the next few weeks we'll start getting some people who will start retaining us,” he said.

The annual number of Chinese citizens who have sought political asylum has risen from 15,362 when Xi assumed power in 2012 to 107,864 in 2020, according to United Nations Refugee Agency data. Three quarters of them applied for asylum in the U.S.

There’s a history of the U.S. working to protect Chinese citizens fearful of political retribution from their government. The administration of George H.W. Bush passed the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 that granted permanent residency to Chinese students present in the U.S. in the aftermath of the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing. That paved a path to citizenship for 54,000 Chinese citizens.

There’s no sign that anyone in Congress has similar ideas in 2022.

TRANSLATING WASHINGTON

— HAWLEY: ARM TAIWAN AHEAD OF UKRAINE:  Sen. JOSH HAWLEY (R-Mo.) wants the Biden administration to prioritize arming Taiwan to deter an invasion by China over sending weapons to Ukraine, POLITICO’s CONNOR O’BRIEN reported on Tuesday. "We should be clear: Taiwan is more important for U.S. national interests than Ukraine," Hawley argued in a letter to Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN. Hawley contends the nearly 10-month effort to arm Ukraine against Russia's invasion is "impeding" the ability of the U.S. to provide needed weapons to Taiwan.

 — FBI: CHINA HARASSING U.S.-BASED DISSIDENTS: FBI director CHRISTOPHER WRAY said Beijing is actively trying to silence Chinese citizens in the U.S. who are critical of the Chinese government. “We have countless cases now where you have the Chinese government essentially sending people over here to threaten, harass, stalk, blackmail, surveil Chinese dissidents, who have been calling out the behavior of the Chinese government,” Wray said in a discussion at the University of Michigan on Friday.

— SHERMAN WARNS OF CHINA WAR RISK: Deputy Secretary of State WENDY SHERMAN warned that military conflict is possible with China over Taiwan. “I do believe war is potentially possible with the now complete control of Xi Jinping,” Sherman told students at American University on Friday. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN dodged comment on Sherman’s warning by telling CBS on Sunday that the U.S. is seeking to ensure tensions with Beijing don’t “veer into conflict.”

— LAWMAKERS CAUTION BEIJING OVER PROTEST RESPONSE: A bipartisan coalition of 42 lawmakers has warned the Chinese government against a strongarm response to demonstrators who flooded the streets of major Chinese cities last month to protest China’s zero-Covid policy. A violent crackdown on peaceful protesters will reap “grave consequences for the US-China relationship,” the lawmakers said in a letter to the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., QIN GANG. “We firmly oppose those who use the Covid policy to interfere in China's internal affairs and play political games,” embassy spokesperson LIU PENGYU replied in a statement.

— REPORT: CAR INDUSTRY’S UYGHUR SLAVERY LINKS: The supply chains of automobile manufacturers including Ford, Tesla and General Motors are implicated in forced labor of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region, concluded a report published Tuesday by the Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy International Justice Center.

“More than 50 international automotive parts or car manufacturers (or their joint ventures) are sourcing directly from companies operating in the Uyghur Region or from companies that have accepted Uyghur labor transfers across China,” according to the researchers.

The report prompted the Union of Auto Workers to demand that U.S. automakers “shift their entire supply chain” out of Xinjiang.

 — TAIWAN STRAIT: HERE COME THE CANADIANS: The Canadian government will deploy naval flotillas through the Taiwan Strait with greater frequency. “We had a frigate going through the Taiwan Strait this summer, along with the Americans, [and] we’re looking to have more frigates going through it,” Canadian Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday. Joly said those deployments will underscore the waterway’s “international” status. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson MAO NING called the plan a “threat against China’s sovereignty and security.”

— GERMANY’S SCHOLZ WARNS AGAINST ISOLATING CHINA: German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ said he opposes moves to decouple from China economically in response to Beijing’s perceived security threats. “China’s rise does not warrant isolating Beijing or curbing cooperation,” Scholz wrote in a Foreign Affairs oped out Monday. Scholz’s comments were welcomed in Beijing. “Isolating China and curbing cooperation with it serves no one’s interest,” the Foreign Ministry’s Mao said Tuesday.

TRANSLATING CHINA

— THE GREAT COVID ZERO PROPAGANDA BACKPEDAL: Xi Jinping’s signature Covid-zero policy appears to be in retreat. In the aftermath of last month’s mass street protests, there are signs the Chinese government may be pursuing a less draconian approach to Covid mitigation. China’s State Council on Wednesday announced a rollback of some measures including an end to mandatory quarantine in state facilities for those with mild Covid symptoms and an easing of lockdown restrictions. Mao at the Foreign Ministry didn’t link the policy change to recent protests (which the Chinese government has declined to publicly comment on) and instead attributed them to “the new circumstances,” without elaborating.

 The government has been preparing the ground for this policy since last week by shifting its narrative about Covid. For most of the pandemic, the message has been that it’s a deadly menace. Chinese state news agency Xinhua warned in September of “disastrous” consequences if the government didn’t maintain the zero-Covid policy. In October Xi Jinping said he would pursue the policy “without wavering.”

But as Beijing relaxes its Covid control protocols, the story it’s telling Chinese people is that – suddenly – Covid isn’t so bad after all. State media advised on Friday “not to panic about Omicron” because of its “weaker ability to cause diseases combined with a lower virulence.” That same day state media dismissed the existence of long Covid, despite research suggesting it affects up to 30 percent of people who contract the illness.

The government’s poster child for this public downgrade of Covid’s peril is HU XIJIN, a nationalist firebrand and government-backed Twitter troll. Hu announced Friday that he’s “mentally preparing to be infected with Covid within the coming month” but was unafraid due to what he said was the small risk “of getting seriously ill.” State news agency Xinhua followed up with an editorial on Monday that announced that pandemic-wise “the most difficult period has passed.” That’s despite projections in a peer-reviewed article in the journal Nature in May that lifting zero-Covid would result in up to 1.6 million deaths.

“They can put all the rhetoric out they want but you can't talk a virus out of doing what it's going to do,” said MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It's going to kill a lot of people and it's going to stress the healthcare system a lot.” Osterholm recommended that the Chinese government drop its comforting rhetoric on what will happen as Covid controls ease and start “preparing the population for what might happen…and what are the plans for how they’ll address it.”

HEADLINES

Wall Street Journal: “Why China Isn’t Facing Another Tiananmen Moment”

MIT Technology Review: “How Twitter’s ‘Teacher Li’ became the central hub of China protest information”

NBC: “Hackers linked to Chinese government stole millions in Covid benefits, Secret Service says”

HEADS UP

 — JAPAN’S LDP POLICY CHIEF TAIWAN-BOUND: The chairman of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Research Council, KOICHI HAGIUDA, will make a three-day visit to Taiwan starting Saturday. Hagiuda said the visit will “raise the level of negotiations and build a network of connections” between Japan and the self-governing island. Brace for a barrage of angry rhetoric from Beijing accusing Tokyo of violating the One-China Policy.

The Book: Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise

The Authors:  CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS and KUNYUAN QIAO. Marquis is Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge. Qiao is a faculty member at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

 Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What is the most important takeaway from your book?

The foundational ideas and institutions set during the tenure of Chairman MAO ZEDONG have a strong and enduring influence on contemporary business, politics and society in China.

That’s why the idea that guided Western policy and engagement for the last 40 years – that markets and globalization will lead to political liberalization – is wrong. We were blinded by the assumption that “reform and opening” meant China was becoming more “like us” and so we ignored that since Mao, the CCP has been a hardline totalitarian regime that engages in ruthless tactics to support its rule.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book?

How the famine that followed the Great Leap Forward endowed those who experienced it with a mindset that focuses on more efficient and creative resource use.

We in no way mean to discount the incredible suffering and over 30 million deaths that occurred in the Great Famine, but many well-known entrepreneurs claim this experience led them to be more effective at cost reduction and gave them the ability to “think outside the box.” We are able to show this connection through rigorous statistical analyses of thousands of entrepreneurs. As Nietzsche said, “What does not kill you makes you stronger.”

What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations?

Relations between the two countries will likely get worse. Xi is in a dominant position following the 20th Party Congress, and Mao’s ideas have clearly shaped Xi’s approach in a number of ways that do not bode well for China’s future. China’s economy under Mao was a disaster and it seems that — like Mao — Xi values ideology over expertise.

The legitimacy of regimes like the CCP are in part based on economic performance, and as problems in the economy become worse, Xi and the CCP will become even more desperate to prove themselves, which could mean invading Taiwan or some other foreign relations strategy that further isolates it from the West.

Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at [email protected]

Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Matt Kaminski, Connor O’Brien and digital producer Andrew Howard.Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week's items? Email us at [email protected]