China’s move from Authoritarian Governance to Autocratic Governance significantly Weakens China

China has seen unprecedented growth and raised hundreds of millions out of poverty over the past decades, and continued Chinese development and prosperity is in the world’s best interest. Unfortunately, looking at China's policies writ large, we're witnessing an integrity backslide.

While an authoritarian government, China has successfully navigated economic challenges in recent years. A structural weakness of authoritarian governance (i.e., one party rule) will be a stifling of policy options and repression of dissent, but this can be overcome with competent governance, as it was over the past decades. Democracy is prone to policy swings and a fickle electorate, where some may yearn for the stability of strongman rule, in the model of a prosperous China. But with Xi Jinping’s extended rule into an unprecedented third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, it has definitively moved from authoritarian governance where government could be counted on to manage itself responsibly, into governance that is squarely autocratic. Moving into this new category has intensified risks what were previously managed reasonably well.

From a foreign policy perspective, just as Russia can no longer accurately be referred to as the government of Russia but rather of Putin, so too China can no longer accurately be referred to as the government of China but rather of Xi Jinping. It’s reasonable to view some of this shift as a response to the United States’ Trumpian "America First" movement, which shuns international cooperation that has served the US so well for generations. China is mimicking such policies, heightening risks internationally, with a predictable loss of international friends and stature.

Autocratic governance under Xi Jinping values loyalty above competence, which, similar to Putin, already has seen intensification of nationalist policy over truth and reality. When dissenting voices are shunned and censored, and nationalist rhetoric are intensified in an echo chamber, repression domestically and militarism internationally will be the result. The economic implications are even worse, as economics provided the foundation of China’s economic rise.

China’s one-child policy has set itself up with huge demographic challenges that some analysts view as nothing less than calamitous. While this could be manageable, foreign investment has been the result of China’s more hawkish behaviors, as well as the loss of guardrails that go with one-man rule vs. one-party rule. It can be reasonable argued that much of China’s prosperity was the result of its opening up to the outside world, and that this will be reversed as it closes itself off.

Chinese, expatriates, diaspora, or anyone supportive of Chinese self-determination are invited to collaborate and strategize the promotion of China’s prosperity in the world community.
Global Publics aims to add another avenue to pressure the regime into promoting responsible governance.

Beyond the mandate of Global Publics to bind nations under precepts of collective security, environmental integrity, and anti-corruption, policies include:
• Whereas the current regime’s one China policy presents an existential threat to Taiwan, reunification can only occur by democratic means to be legitimate.
• Whereas the current regime persecutes minority religious views, notably Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and Buddhists in Tibet, freedom of religious belief will be respected.