TED'S TAKE: CONSIDERING CHINA

Global Context. How differences and similarities might affect us

Recent happenings in China might be informative to us in how we view and interpret what goes in the rest of the world.

China’s political leadership, the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, is a centralized power structure that presumes the country’s military, the Central Military Commission, or CMC, is controlled by and has allegiance to the CCP. The CMC  has its own centralized structure. Both the CCP and CMC are led by President Xi Jinping. In other words: the Chinese political structure needs and requires the Chinese military to support its authority. As Mao stated it: the Party commands the gun.

Recently, the CMC removed two senior military officers from their posts believing they weren’t as loyal as President Xi deemed necessary. This has set up much turbulence within the Chinese military because of its internal allegiance structure wherein they were not directly following the orders of the CCP. This is becoming more severe as times goes on. Thus, it seems that the CCP’s action to retain or demand the allegiance from the military has had the opposite effect.  When the CMC does not fall in line with the CCP, the power and leadership of China begins to unravel or at least be questioned.

For China to defend itself or be aggressive, it requires its military follow commands of the Chinese leadership . They need to act as one. This goes for any country. If a country’s military does not follow the wishes of a country’s political leaders, then those leaders have less clout or impact when dealing with other nations of the world. 

While headlines and news shows continue to discuss the implications of China’s latest situation, we must recognize that other countries in the world have different power structures. They are much different than ourselves.  We cannot assume that they  will act like China or the U.S.

These differences are important in understanding what’s going on in the rest of the world; in how our country must and can deal with them; how we interpret what they say; and whether they can do as they say or imply. The key message here is context. What other countries say they are going to do is only as relevant as their ability to actually do it. If there is a destabilization of the structure within any country, then that destabilization must be a consideration in understanding what to do and how we interpret what that country can do relative to what they say they will do. 

We are seeing internal issues arise across the world. China and Iran are merely two notable, current examples.

To understand any country, we must understand the structure within that country and what is currently occurring. Only then can we understand and interpret what that county can truly do which influences what our county can and should do. Context is key!