The Eight-Nation Alliance signed the Boxer Protocol 120 years ago, so what has it got to do with the CCP? It has already started its propaganda machine before the China-U.S. talks have even concluded and promoted nationalism internally, associating the talks with the Eight-Nation Alliance. The CCP diplomacy is actually not dealing with foreign affairs but an extension of domestic affairs.

The CCP history studied the Sino-Soviet split toward the end of the 1950s. The general understanding was that it was caused by Khrushchev denouncing Stalin. But the real reason was Mao Zedong’s radical reform line of the Three Red Banners’ Great Leap Forward, which had created conflicts within the CCP. The Soviet Union’s public criticism of the People’s commune had added fuel to the fire. Pravda, the newspaper of the Soviet Union, reported in 1959 that Khrushchev openly said practicing communalization in the Soviet Union would not be very effective. So while Mao was reviewing the Great Leap Forward at the Lushan Conference when Peng Dehuai condemned the Three Red Banners, Khrushchev, in Poland at the time, publicly criticized the CCP’s communalization movement! Mao believed Peng had colluded with the Soviet Union, and the struggle started. Mao labeled Peng as being in the “Peng-Huang-Zhang-Zhou anti-Party clique.” As a result, from correcting the left to opposing the right, the power struggle within the party escalated again. Mao was against Soviet Revisionist Social Imperialism because he wanted to use it against his political enemy within the party. Later, the Cultural Revolution unfolded, which caused national unrest and seizing of power.

The BBC described the latest meeting between China and the U.S. as an “unusually undiplomatic sparring match.” The foreign media did not understand that the target audience of the very unprofessional “performance” of Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi during the opening photo session, when they sputtered insults aggressively for nearly half an hour, was the enthusiastic crowd in the mainland. The news source reported that the meeting afterward was more substantive and serious. But the opening photo session was being broadcast live, so the mainland audience could witness the CCP’s tough anti-U.S. stance, which lifted the Chinese spirit and Xi’s reputation. Unbelievably, the CCP has inherited the diplomatic model from the “Kim dynasty” of North Korea. The U.S. is also an expert in making propaganda. The Washington Post wrote that the Biden administration has demonstrated its confidence in the face of Chinese aggression in the talks and set the tone for what Blinken has called the China-U.S. relations “biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.” The reporter also found that many expected Biden to return to a traditional approach after former president Trump’s erratic style of diplomacy. But the new administration has not shied away from impugning China and its leader. Apparently, being brave enough to criticize Xi Jinping is already a big achievement of the Biden’s government! So talking aggressively and making a show, Blinken turned out to be the same as Yang Jiechi after all.

Both sides have acted tough in public to please their audience, as it was difficult to abruptly change stance when both have been encouraging their people to adopt a confrontational attitude in the past two years. The CCP took the opportunity to swallow up Hong Kong during the pandemic and the U.S. transition of power. It made large-scale arrests on people from the opposition, who became its bargaining chips. If the CCP continues its stalling tactic and doing its wolf-warrior political show to help its leader’s lifetime in power campaign, has the U.S. any way to counter-attack? For the CCP leader, achieving its goal of being in power for life in 2022 is the big game he and his party care about. The anti-U.S. movement is only needed for the CCP’s populist politics, just like Mao against the Soviet Revisionist Social Imperialism back in the days.

(Simon Lau Sai-leung, political commentator)

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