One month after the US general election, the two candidates are still locked in a battle. On the contrary, Xi Jinping, who managed to secure his lifetime presidency by merely pointing the knife inward, is implementing big plans to pursue his “Chinese Dream”, and he wants to promote the China model to the whole world.

The China model emerged following the Beijing Olympics, when Hu Jintao was the president. Over the past eight years since he took power, Xi has been using the governance model of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to invade the world, leveraging his “Four Confidences”. In his new book, Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, says Beijing’s goal is to establish “a new network of strategic partnerships with China at the center”, and to create a new world order that is “more compatible with the CCP’s own authoritarian governance”. If realized, the new world order would look similar to that of China under the CCP’s rule - there would be more oppression, greater reliance on social

control, coercion and tools of oppression, and society would become more closed and undemocratic. According to Blumenthal, such a world order is “the China Nightmare”.

Without doubt, Donald Trump is the US president with the biggest strength to prevent the China Nightmare. He corrected the appeasement policy adopted by four former US presidents, a policy that made it possible for the CCP to invade the world. Whether Trump gets to be reelected or not, the three sets of legacy left by Trumpism described by Miles Maochun Yu - namely to stop playing the China card, to shun the China-centric policy and to recognize that the CCP is not equal to the Chinese people - has become an important legacy for the 21st century.

During his election campaign, Trump pushed the policy of rigorously scrutinizing CCP members entering the US, stepped up actions against CCP spies, prohibited Americans from investing in 31 Chinese companies connected with the Chinese military, and imposed sanctions on the anti-democratic China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation, which supports Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

On November 24, the New York Times published an article co-authored by Fu Ying, former vice minister of foreign affairs of China, who stressed that China would not be decoupled from the US and that the two countries would develop a kind of “coopetition”. Fu criticized Trump for imposing sanctions and containing China. That was tantamount to asking Joe Biden to leave China to its own devices, and to respect and recognize China’s political system. The following day, Xi called Biden to congratulate him for getting elected.

On November 11, the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Congress passed a resolution authorizing the Hong Kong government to disqualify four Hong Kong legislators, a move that prompted a total of 15 pro-democracy legislators to resign en masse. This further erosion of the rule of law - the bedrock of the “one country, two systems” arrangement - came just a few months after a decision was reached at the “two sessions” in Beijing to impose the National Security Law on Hong Kong. It is also an assault on the separation of powers under Hong Kong’s political system, which is supposed to be safeguarded by the Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Among all CCP leaders, Deng Xiaoping was the first to oppose the separation of powers. After his making a comeback following the Cultural Revolution, he told visiting foreign leaders that China would not practice the separation of powers. On May 27, 1987, Deng told Zhao Ziyang to go to his home. He opined on the report of the 13th National Congress, saying: “We do not copy the separation of powers, and you guys never wrote about it. But you did copy a bit of it, didn’t you? We’ve made up our mind and we should stick to our decision. This is our advantage which must not be lost. We must not give up our dictatorship. We shouldn’t accommodate the pro-democracy sentiments.”

The separation of powers is the cornerstone of constitutional democracy in the West. As Deng wanted China to practice dictatorship, the separation of powers had no place in China. Deng’s bottom line for political reform was “separation of the party from the government”. He said “the report is successful so long as people can see from it that China will continue the reforms”.

In January 2013, the first year of his rule, Xi said “the two 30 years does not contradict each other”. In April that year, he released Document Number Nine, which warns of seven dangerous Western values. He restored the practice of the party ruling everything. Today he does not even pretend to implement the reform and opening up.

Xi keeps reading his important speech on “opening up a new era” drafted by his secretaries. When he was the personal secretary for General Geng Biao, Xi often traveled around in Geng’s car and listened to the music of pop singer Teresa Teng and other Hong Kong and Taiwanese singers. It is said that he still likes listening to music. During a gathering with his siblings, he stayed in a room and listened to music on his own. When everyone asked him to come out, Xi said: “I didn’t expect people love me so much.” One can only conjecture that he now listens to a different kind of music.

(Lui Yue, veteran Chinese journalist)

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