Xi Jinping and His Vision of China As the Leader of a New World Order: Capabilities in Cyberwar, Space War, Conventional War, and Economic War

The current reign of Xi Jinping in China marks a high point in the consolidation of power and control. This can be seen de jure by the large number of official titles he has amassed for himself: Secretary General of the Communist Party of China, President of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Chairman of the National Security Commission of the Communist Party, Chairman of the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, Chairman of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, Chairman of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, and many others.

He holds all of these offices simultaneously. Like Louis XIV in France, Xi Jinping would be correct if he said, L’etat, c’est moi: ‘I am the state.’

Aside from the official titles, it is simply the case de facto that Xi is a dictator and an absolutist.

Robert Maginnis, as an insider in America’s military intelligence agencies, finds a quote from Steven Mosher accurate:

Dr. Steven Mosher, author of the 2017 book, Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream Is the New Threat to World Order, said: “Xi Jinping is the new Chairman Mao, a thoroughly Communist dictator who has managed to seize control of the Party, the Army, and the Government. The new Red Emperor, as we should call him, is likely to be in power for decades to come. And he is not our friend. He is carrying out a new Cultural Revolution in China. Communist Party leader Xi’s China ‘Dream’ is the world’s nightmare. Xi ‘dreams’ of overturning the current U.S.-led world order and replacing it with [a new world order] … dominated by China. A world dominated by China would be less free, less democratic, and less safe, not only for Americans, but for the Chinese people themselves. Xi believes that international law and agreements are, as he has said, just ‘waste paper,’ or better put, ‘toilet paper.’”

As an uncontrolled autocrat, Xi Jinping poses a threat both to the Chinese people and to the global community of nations at large. It is clear that diplomacy is meaningless to Xi, and that negotiated treaties with him are a futile exercise, as Robert Maginnis writes:

China’s constitutional change to make Xi Jinping president for life is a harbinger of the authoritarian nation’s direction and a strategic threat to America.

To be sure, between Mao and Xi, China has had a number of leaders, all of whom demonstrated a relatively high degree of authoritarianism and absolutism. But Xi represents a zenith of those qualities, even in China.

It is easy for diplomats from other nations to misunderstand the situation in China, because the degree of autocracy and of a willingness to deceive are so extreme that the situation is non-intuitive for emissaries from other countries. Robert Maginnis quotes from a report given to Congress by Admiral Harry Harris:

“China has taken advantage of our openness,” Harris told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2018. “Our hope in the past has been that if we bring China into organizations like the World Trade Organization and include China in our military exercises and the like, and that somehow China will become like us.”

“The reality is that’s simply not true. China has taken advantage of our openness … to continue the path that they’ve always been on and we’re seeing that play out now in 2018. Certainly over the next 20 years or so that will be a concern,” Harris said.

Even while engaging in seemingly amiable talks with other governments, China is preparing for a variety of offensive scenarios. One outline goes like this: a three-pronged operation in which, simultaneously, China’s attack satellites would disable several U.S. satellites, instantly reducing communication, GPS, and logistical coordination capabilities; would hack into and disable computer networks on the ground in the United States, further handicapping transportation and communication, and crippling our economic infrastructure; and would move its armed forces into the South China Sea, an occupation which the U.S. would then be powerless to challenge or resist.

In such a scenario, China would have gained control of what is arguably the world’s single most important shipping lane, and have obtained hegemony over the nations around the South China Sea: Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc.

Admiral Harris explained that Beijing seeks regional hegemony and intends to oust America from Asia. It is developing the means to do that via systems such as the hypersonic glide weapons and stealth fighters. Besides, the admiral expressed concern about China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and its acquisition of icebreaker ships, although it has no Arctic coast.

China’s pronounced military buildup in recent years has a double motive: on the one hand, it can use massive armed forces to gain by threats and extortion what it wants, and so dominate without firing a shot; on the other hand, China is more than willing to go to war to achieve its objectives, and will use its military that way if necessary.

Beyond the South China Sea, Xi Jinping’s ambitions extend to Africa and beyond. Among smaller, less-developed “third world” nations, China’s tactic is a Mafia-like racket. It begins with China offering to help one of these nations with infrastructure project: building roads, dams, hospitals, water and sewage systems, electrical generating plants, etc. Such nations can’t afford to pay for these items, so China generously extends credit. When the nations are unable to make the payments on the loans, China offers to “forgive” the debt in return for placing permanent military bases in these nations, in return for rights to ship into, out of, and through these nations, and in return for exclusive rights which lock other nations out of what by now has become a vassal state.

Water Becomes Political: Nobody Need Thirst

Water is the world’s most abundant resource. Lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds - not to mention rain - water crops around the world. Fresh drinking water is more available than ever before. Even oceanic saltwater - once thought irredeemably unpotable - is now subject to desalinization at ever shrinking prices.

Why, then, would any human being not have enough water to drink?

Yet it is the case that water is in some places scarce - even to the point at which lives are lost.

The problem is not the amount of water on the planet - there’s more than enough of that. The problem is politics.

While most of the human race has plenty of fresh clean water, people are thirsting and even dying in specific places: (1) nations with socialist or communist governments, (2) Islamic republics, and (3) nations with notoriously corrupt governments.

It’s worth noting that there’s a difference between “Islamic republics” on the one hand, and “Muslim majority” or “majority Muslim” nations on the other.

In any case, water shortages are unnecessary, as author David Wallace-Wells writes:

Today, the crisis is political — which is to say, not inevitable or necessary or beyond our capacity to fix — and, therefore, functionally elective. That is one reason it is nevertheless harrowing as a climate parable: an abundant resource made scarce through governmental neglect and indifference, bad infrastructure and contamination, careless urbanization and development. There is no need for a water crisis, in other words, but we have one anyway, and aren’t doing much to address it. Some cities lose more water to leaks than they deliver to homes: even in the United States, leaks and theft account for an estimated loss of 16 percent of freshwater; in Brazil, the estimate is 40 percent.

A political problem demands a political solution - not an engineering or climatological one.

An infinite amount of pipelines and wells will not solve the world’s water problem; neither will gerrymandering human behavior to impact the climate.

Only when a nation has a government which has at least a modicum of respect for human life - only then will the water problem be solved.

China’s Two-Pronged Strategy: Cyber Warfare and Military Buildup

In the early twenty-first century, foreign policy analysts have paid a great deal of attention to China, even if the news media and public at large failed to do so. On those rare occasions when China was the focus of news coverage, the topic was often trade agreements.

The analysts, however, are more concerned about China’s teams of hackers, and about China’s military buildup.

China’s cyberwar teams have gone beyond mere theft of intellectual property. They now focus on disruptive techniques to take American systems offline entirely.

China’s physical military has constructed islands out of concrete and cement in the South China Sea. These islands are home to sophisticated weapons and radar systems, as well as bases for soldiers, as Jim Sciutto writes:

By the mid-2000s, China’s national effort to steal US technology and state secrets was already in high gear and logging up enormous successes in both the public and private sectors. In 2014 China defied both international law and the laws of physics to manufacture entirely new sovereign territory in the middle of the South China Sea, beginning construction of a string of man-made islands in waters claimed by several of its Southeast Asian neighbors. China was also expanding its military capabilities and military footprint from under the waves all the way into space, with the express intention of surpassing the United States and — if necessary — defeating the United States in war.

What’s at stake? Here’s one of many possible scenarios: China could activate its killer satellites to destroy several American satellites. This would cause disruptions in all manner of telecommunication, paralyzing the military, the government, and the businesses of the private-sector economy. Next, China’s hackers overwhelm or otherwise crash major computer systems, further paralyzing the nation and potentially causing permanent loss of data.

Finally, with the U.S. paralyzed, the Chinese military would be positioned in the South China Sea to carry out a sort of piracy or extortion. Passing freighters would be made pay cash or a fraction of their cargo to pass through was are supposed to be free international waters.

Estimates state that perhaps between 30% and 40% of the world’s cargo shipping passes through the South China Sea. Any nation which could control that region would have a stranglehold on the global economy.

Not only have the media failed to inform the public about Chinese threats, but even officials inside the U.S. government often fail to assess or respond to China’s slow-motion aggression, as Jim Sciutto reports:

Inside the US government and the intelligence community, these aggressive steps were first missed and then downplayed. US officials, led by President Barack Obama, accepted China’s assurances it would not militarize its man-made islands in the South China Sea — assurances Beijing reneged on almost immediately. Obama would later accept Chinese assurances that Beijing would dial back its cyber theft of US corporate secrets, malicious activity that remains rampant and aggressive today. Even after finally acknowledging these acts of aggression, many US officials and policy experts continued to portray them as short-term or easily reversible.

As serious as other situations may be — Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan, etc. — China has the potential to easily become a much graver danger than any of the others.

Yet media reporting and government diplomats fail to emphasize the seriousness of China’s long-range plans to dominate not only the South China Sea, but larger segments of the global economy. Smaller ‘developing’ nations in Africa and Asia have already fallen victim to China’s program to reduce them to vassal states.

China offers to help these nations with large infrastructure projects (roads, dams, etc.). When these ‘third-world’ countries are unable to pay the ensuing debts, China offers to ‘forgive’ the debt in return for the rights to permanently station Chinese military units in those nations, and in return for rights to in, around, and through those countries.

Under this pattern, called the “Belt and Road” initiative, China would dominate both world trade and transportation. This goal has been deliberately articulated among the highest levels of Chinese leadership.

One possible response to China would be for American leaders to publicly explain China’s tactics and goals, to create a global awareness. The leaders of many nations could be expected to unite on this matter, even if they disagree about many other topics.

New Global Configurations: The Hostile Beginning of the Millennium’s World Order

Early in the new millennium, a type of book began to appear with increasing frequency. This set of books offered a fresh analysis of the global diplomatic situation.

Exemplary of this category were Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert Kaplan, which underscored how little attention was being paid to southeast Asia by the mainstream American news media; The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China’s Secret Operations to Defeat America by Jim Sciutto, which pointed to the coordination of seemingly unrelated events; The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury, which encompassses a longer view of China’s global ambitions; and The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David Sanger, which highlights the relentless, constant, and hidden cyberwar unfolding across the globe.

Although two of these works contain the word ‘America’ in their subtitles, none of them are parochial in perspective. The systemic patterns which they reveal will interest readers in Zambia and Chad, in Paraguay and Bolivia, in Cambodia and Thailand.

Neither are these books overly sensationalistic, although their publishers may have titled and marketed them with passion.

The picture which emerges from these books is that any and every nation around the globe is under constant cyberattacks. Every country must therefore be engaged in cybersecurity and countermeasures.

This ceaseless cyberwarfare is no mere harassment, but can be quite deadly, and is also coordinated with economic pressure and occasionally with direct military action. This ongoing conflict is invisible and largely ignored by the news media.

While huge amounts of media coverage were and are devoted to Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea, actions undertaken by the much larger aggressors - Russia and China - go unreported by newspapers and unchallenged by world governments, as Robert Maginnis writes:

A major factor in the new great power competition is the leadership at the helm of these countries. Both China and Russia are headed by autocrats who test international order just as the United States seems to be losing its way.

China and Russia carefully watch any response to their espionage and weaponized cyber activity. When they see little or none, the increase such efforts. Robert Maginnis continues:

In the fact of this confrontation, the West seems feckless at stopping Putin’s and Xi’s great power ambitions, efforts driven by their authoritarian personalities and evidently accepted and cheered by their domestic power bases.

The nations of the world need a greater degree of awareness, both about China’s and Russia’s plans and goals, and about the consequences which the world would endure, should those goals be realized.

China’s “Belt and Road” strategy includes selling technology and construction projects to ‘emerging’ third-world nations. When those nations can’t pay the debts incurred by those purchases, China offers to ‘forgive’ the obligations in return for permanently stationing Chinese military in those nations, and in return for trade and transportation rights being given to China in, around, and through those countries.

The global community of nations also needs to form a steady resolve to resist, and to engage in countermeasures against, cyber aggression and economic extortion by Russia and China.

Spain’s Conviviality: How It Ended

The 711 A.D. marks a turning point in the history of Spain. Prior to that year, a diversity of people lived peaceably with each other.

The cultural diversity included Germanic Goths, Romans, native Celts, and Semitic individuals from the Middle East. The linguistic diversity was composed of Latin, Germanic dialects like Gothic, Hebrew, and Celtic. Religious diversity consisted of Jews, Christians, and a few reclusive adherents of Celtic paganism.

These groups coexisted in a largely amiable way. Certainly they did not agree with each other on all points, but there was no large-scale conflict or violence among them.

The year 711 A.D. would change that.

An Islamic invasionary fleet landed on Spain’s southern coast. The officers were largely Arabic; the soldiers and sailors were mainly recruited from the Berber population of northern Africa. As historian Dario Fernandez-Morera writes, “Spain was conquered and colonized by the forces of the Islamic Caliphate.”

To make their intentions clear, the Muslim officers burned their ships after the invasionary force had landed on the beaches. The message to the soldiers was clear. There was no option for retreat. The only way to survive was to defeat the inhabitants of Spain.

“The conquest was carried out by force,” as Fernandez-Morera notes. After conquering large portions Spain, the remaining portions sometimes chose to surrender and submit to a life of dhimmitude. The word ‘dhimmitude’ describes a non-Muslim who has been allowed to live in an Islamic region; the non-Muslim must agree to an inferior status as prescribed by Islamic law.

The Islamic invaders burned Jewish synagogues and Christian churches. The rules of dhimmitude, sometimes referred to as the ‘Pact of Umar,’ prevented non-Muslims from wearing certain types of clothing or constructing any house or building of significant size.

Even if they had to endure the humiliation of Islamic ‘Sharia’ law, many of the Spaniards chose to surrender to the Muslim armies, so that they could at least live and hope for the eventual liberation of Spain:

The Muslim conquerors used force to defeat the resistance of the Christian Visigoth kingdom, a nascent civilization. But they also granted pacts to those Visigoth lords and Christian leaders who saw it as advantageous to accept the offered “peace” and become dhimmis (those Christians and Jews living in sub­altern status in Islamic lands) rather than face the consequences of resisting. Behind the “peaceful pacts” was always the threat of brutal force.

Thus began several centuries of “religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life and the marginalization of certain groups — all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities.” Spain was not fully liberated until 1492.

But neither was Spain fully subjugated. The Spaniards resisted. Some parts of northern and northeastern Spain were never defeated by the Islamic armies. The Spaniards defended those regions successfully.

Even in the regions which were occupied by the Muslim armies, many Spaniards risked their lives by secretly engaging in acts of defiance, meeting to carry on their religious traditions.

Austria’s Place in the World: Mutating from Century to Century

The modern nation of Austria is geographically smaller than Germany or Poland, and a bit smaller than Hungary too. Austria’s population is likewise smaller than the populations of Germany, Hungary, and Poland.

In previous centuries, however, Austria was bigger in terms of geography, in terms of population, in terms of world influence, and in terms of historical importance.

During the early Middle Ages, Austria did not exist as a concept. Rather, a number of smaller kingdoms which occupy the area which is now Austria functioned semi-independently of each other. Starting in the 700s and 800s, the region came under the influence of the Frankish Empire, which would later be known as the Holy Roman Empire (HRE).

In the late 1200s, the Habsburg family rose to power within the HRE, and would remain in power until 1806. The Habsburg dynasty was an Austrian family, and so the Austrians took control of the empire which had at first been an external influence on Austria. The Habsburg dynasty would develop influences reaching as far as Spain, and therefore be at least the nominal head of nearly all of Europe.

The rulers of the HRE did not have absolute power like the earlier Roman emperors or the later French monarchs. Their reigns were contingent on forming a consensus among a group of electors, called Kurfürsten, of whom there were approximately six.

So for nearly a thousand years, Austria’s identity was that of a loosely connected collection of kingdoms within the HRE, but forming a significant power bloc in the empire because, for the last five centuries of that millennium, the ruling dynasty had its family roots in Austria.

A significant change in Austria, as well as throughout the rest of Europe, happened in 1806. Napoleon’s French army was on a rampage. He was attempting to make himself ruler of all Europe – as well as parts of Africa, Asia, and the Near East. Napoleon, despite some early brilliant victories, failed decisively. In the aftermath, however, the HRE was dissolved.

Austria emerged as its own standalone empire, allied for the most part with the various Germanic kingdoms which would later combine to form Germany. But in the 1860s, Austria pivoted away from those alliances, and formed new alliances, primarily with Hungary. Hungary had been a territory under the rule of the Austrian Empire, but became a proper part of the empire in the 1860s. This new entity was called the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Also incorporated into this new empire were parts of Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia, as well as all of Bohemia, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bohemia would later be known as the Czech Republic. Austria also included Tyrol, part of which is in modern-day Italy.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was large: it included approximately 240,000 square miles of territory, compared to Austria’s area of 32,382 square miles at the beginning of the 21st century.

The Habsburg dynasty retained control, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a major political, diplomatic, economic, and military player in European affairs.

Prior to 1900, people rarely confused Austria with Germany. But today, partly due to sloppy education in American high school History classes, such mixups are common, as historian Lonnie Johnson writes:

Austria is often almost exclusively associated with its imperial past or frequently confused with Germany. Germany began to play a much more important role in Europe at about the same time that Austria gradually lost influence in European affairs towards the end of the 19th century.

For nearly all of its existence, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was ruled by Francis Joseph I, or Franz-Josef I. He was coronated as Emperor of the Austrian Empire in 1848, and became Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. He reigned until his death in 1916.

Because of his long reign, Franz-Josef was influential, well-known, loved by many, and hated by some.

When World War I ended in 1918, the empire was dissolved. Austria became a standalone country without an empire, assuming its present geographical boundaries. The Republic of Austria lasted from 1919 to 1933, when it ended abruptly by means of external and internal Nazi takeovers.

At the end of World War II in 1945, Austria’s future was in peril. It seemed as if the Soviet Socialists would enslave Austria as they had enslaved Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other eastern European nations. The Austrians, however, managed to buy their freedom from the Soviet Socialists. The Soviet army, which had occupied much of Austria in 1945, left in 1955, and the Austrians gave the Soviets $152 million dollars and ten million metric tons of crude oil.

The modern nation of Austria has a complicated past, and unless the details of this past are studied, misunderstandings abound, as Lonnie Johnson notes:

With the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, Austria assumed a role in Europe comparable to its radically reduced size, and this is one explanation for the fact that so many Austrians associations tend to predate World War I. They have the faded charm of old photographs and awaken nostalgic or sentimental feelings about the good old imperial days of Strauss waltzes, operetta, or the grandfatherly emperor Francis Joseph. Associations with Germany, on the other hand, are frequently as harsh as a 20th century newsreel: World War I, Hitler (incidentally one of the most frequently disclaimed Austrians), World War II, the Iron Curtain, or the Berlin Wall. However, if these historical associations are not present in one way or the other, Austria is nowadays sometime[s] confused with Germany or demoted [in people’s imaginations] to the status of being some kind of a German province.

At the beginning of the 21st century, then, Austria shares a language with Germany, but also has huge cultural influences from Serbia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The daily customs and cultural life grow out of a shared past with other German-speaking regions, but modern Austria, especially the eastern half of the nation, is socially and ethnically shaped to a significant degree by the Slavic regions of eastern Europe.

Austria has its own distinct identity. Students of history and culture will note the differences, and anyone walking the streets of Vienna will not confuse them for the streets of Berlin.

The Slow-Motion War Between Russia and Ukraine: The Church Stands for Freedom

When the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991, Ukraine again became an independent sovereign nation. But its independence was endangered from the start.

During the Soviet Socialist era (1917 to 1991), and during earlier Czarist times, Russian ambitions included Ukraine, which Russia thought to be its possession. During the years in which Gorbachev held office in the USSR, and during the years in which Yeltsin held office in post-Soviet Russia, the Russians seemed, if not friendly, then at least a bit less hostile to Ukraine.

Since Vladimir Putin took office in Russia, however, his policies, reminiscent of the older Soviet Socialist policies, have been more aggressive, including the 2014 military occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Working for Barack Obama, diplomat Victoria Nuland urged that the United States and the European Union together take a firm stance against Russian aggression. The credibility of Obama’s and Nuland’s diplomacy dwindled, however, when it was discovered that they were meddling in Ukraine’s domestic politics.

Obama and Nuland were using their positions in the United States government to interfere in questions which were Ukraine’s to resolve.

Nuland further undermined relations between the US and EU when she dismissed the EU’s ability to be helpful in the Ukraine situation.

Inside Ukraine, the Orthodox Church took on a renewed significance as the Russians escalated their threats. In a December 2018 edition of the Wall Street Journal, James Marson reported:

For 27 years of Ukraine’s independence, its only internationally recognized Orthodox Church was controlled by Russia, a pillar of the Kremlin’s continued influence in its former vassal.

But 4½ years into an armed conflict against Russia and separatists in the country’s east, Ukraine on Saturday founded its own national church, endorsed by the foremost leader of global Orthodoxy.

The church, an essentially spiritual institution, would not allow itself to be an instrument of Russian foreign policy. The creation of a Ukrainian church manifests the church’s alliance with the oppressed, despite the oppressor’s attempt to use the church.

Although the event was formally the creation of a new church, it was more a redefinition of an already-existing church. Both the clergy and the members of the new church are largely from the old church, as James Marson writes:

“We will get out from under Moscow’s hoof,” said Viktor Kolesnyk, a 67-year-old retiree who was among several thousand people gathered near St. Sophia Cathedral, where bishops from three Orthodox churches met for a Unification Council.

The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a signature victory for U.S.-backed President Petro Poroshenko, whose country has lost control over parts of its territory in the conflict, which has left more than 10,000 people dead. Mr. Poroshenko, who faces an election in March, told the crowd that “today we finally attained our Ukrainian independence from Russia.”

The assertion of the church is a “setback for” Russia’s “Putin, who has used” Russia’s and Ukraine’s “shared cultures and pasts to justify his efforts to keep Ukraine in the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.”

The Russian-backed church leadership had “long been a proponent of close ties with Russia, supporting politicians favored by Moscow.” The priests and ordinary members of the church refused to endure such political influence in the church.

Russian influence in the church directed church leaders to give “vague statements calling for peace without condemning Mr. Putin.” Now, the true nature of the church emerges, favoring no political agenda. Churches, and groups which merely claim to be churches, routinely call for peace and justice. But to make concrete steps toward those noble goals, the church must deliberately distance itself from the ghosts of Soviet Socialism and its imperialist desires.

The Orthodox Church survived over seventy years of Soviet Socialist persecution. Despite the surveillance, imprisonment, beatings, torture, and murder of both church leaders and ordinary members, the church did not surrender its belief in Jesus.

The era of Putin presents the same challenges. The church is responding with the same steady conviction. The ability of the church to endure, and to continue advocating for the oppressed, derives from its understanding of Jesus.