What do Xi Jinping’s speeches to his military say about US-China relations?

Hailey Brown – What to do about China has been a hot-button issue in the news and among U.S. politicians for many years. The common goal among politicians, regardless of partisanship, is to ensure the U.S. maintains a competitive relationship with China. What can we learn about China’s fears and intentions? Speeches Xi delivered to the Chinese military offer insight into the leader’s personal understanding of China’s geopolitical code and the country’s complex relationship with the United States.  

In his speeches, Xi outlined China’s need to compete on the global stage. He believes the U.S. is losing power on the global stage, a reality underscored by the 2008 financial crisis. In Xi’s eyes, China is in a position to change the geopolitical world order. To do so, China would need to compete with the U.S. economically, militarily, and ideologically. Xi knew that by choosing to compete with the U.S., China would be welcoming Western backslash, as was the case during the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. Xi’s concern is how to compete with the U.S. while avoiding a failure like the collapse of the USSR. The South China Sea has become one avenue to grow military strength and bolster security. China has also focused on expanding its technological and economic sectors. As Xi predicted, China’s growth has been seen as a threat to the United States and the Western world order. For decades, the U.S. has been the most powerful country in the world. It has led the world in innovation and free trade, launched its military around the globe, and influenced multilateral institutions and decisions. Now, as U.S. leaders fear it may be losing its global dominance, it has resorted to attacking Chinese expansion.  

Power is an incredibly important piece of geopolitical relations. Material power is the capacity to act, such as the strength and size of a country’s military or the size of its industries. China has focused on increasing its material power to compete with the relational power of the U.S.While it has outpaced the U.S. in select industries, China lacks the key component of power which the U.S. has maintained throughout most of the world: ideological power. The U.S. has successfully influenced the actions of other countries for decades, and now, it seeks to convince the world of the dangers of a rising China. China will need to garner similar power to create a new world order.  

^{Image source: White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}