Paper #53. The PRC’s “One Country, Two Systems” Deception: Narrative Strategy for Information Advantage

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The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) “One Country, Two Systems” narrative toward Taiwan out-competes the US “strategic ambiguity” and “one China” policies even though it’s false. How? The narrative operates as a strategy to gain information advantage by propagating meaningful identity in structured content. In short, Narrative = Meaning, Identity, Content, and Structure (Ajit Maan, Dangerous Narratives: Warfare, Strategy, Statecraft, Narrative Strategies Ink, pp. ix).

The narrative is a deception. While touting social diversity, the Communist Party of China (CPC) suppresses any non-CPC political, cultural, educational, or economic system, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, other non—Han ethnic groups, religious organizations, and influential businesses and individuals. CPC propaganda particularly promotes a racist Han ethnic identity loyal to the CPC. The meaning of that identity defines Chinese citizenship in terms of ideological compliance and perpetual  struggle against foreign imperialism. The United Front Work Department runs influence operations overseas to enforce ethnic loyalty among PRC citizens and non-citizens. Chinese Party-government propaganda structures the narrative’s content via official and social media. In truth, there is only one permissible system in the country—single-Party control of politics, economics, and social behavior, guided by “Xi Jinping Thought for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

Two pivotal applications of the One Country Two Systems principle influence domestic and foreign views regarding any territory the CPC claims as China’s. The most recent framing of the idea is yet another dogma, this time on a global scale, to prevent or displace rival institutions, the “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind.”

Pivot #1: Taiwan to Hong Kong

In 1984, Deng Xioping, the de facto post-Mao PRC leader at the time, proposed that Taiwan retain its political, economic, military, and social systems in return for agreeing Taiwan was part of the People’s Republic of China. Deng also promoted domestic CPC reforms. He and subsequent party-government leaders, until Xi Jinping, largely kept their negotiated agreements. One Country Two Systems was a negotiating principle that might have provided a basis for cooperative competition. The CPC’s main problem was, Taiwan refused the deal from the outset. 

Rejected by Taiwan, Deng patiently applied the principle to negotiations with the United Kingdom over the reversion of Hong Kong to the PRC, scheduled for 1997.

Historical Background

That date came from the 1898 leasing agreement known as The Second Convention of Peking, a deal whose terms the British empire forced on China after winning two “Opium Wars” (started in 1842). The 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration approved the 1997 PRC takeover in exchange for a One Country Two Systems PRC policy for 50 years—until 2047. Incidentally, the Portugal colonial empire seized Macau from China in 1557. Democratic Portugal signed a similar agreement with the PRC in 1987, and transferred sovereignty to the PRC in 1999. That One Country, Two Systems’ expiration date is 2049.

As revealed by PRC behavior today, well before 2047, Xi’s CPC broke its promise to preserve Hong Kong’s judicial system, allow legislative and executive autonomy, and permit freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, travel, movement, correspondence, strike, occupation, academic research, and religious belief. The PRC compelled and coerced changes in Hong Kong’s political system to ensure only one system existed—the CPC system of authoritarian control. Party spokespersons claimed two systems existed, of course. CPC authorities installed Hong Kong’s chief executive (a business mayor), punished any city council member who opposed Xi Jinping’s policies, and jailed or otherwise eliminated opposition leaders under the pretext of COVID lockdowns and antiterrorism.

The CPC’s self-justificatory narrative asserts that legitimate party and government authorities rule Hong Kong in a benevolent socialist democracy. The domestic common destiny is progressive socialism with Chinese characteristics. The latter justifies any means to maintain CPC control. The CPC constantly portrays Hong Kong citizens as victims of domestic and foreign threats seeking to undermine the CPC’s righteous rule. Naturally, counter-terrorist methods are necessary. What does this approach portend for Taiwan?

Pivot #2: Hong Kong to Taiwan

While Deng hoped the One Country Two Systems-based Hong Kong agreement would facilitate Taiwan’s unification with the PRC, Xi’s China’s actions in Hong Kong and seizure of territory in the South China Sea erode support in Taiwan for unification. As a result, Xi’s application of the One Country Two Systems principle toward Taiwan lacks credibility. Few believe Xi’s China will honor its stated commitments. Beijing’s diplomats continually demand international “respect,” which means complying with China’s demands. For their part, the people of Taiwan have endured many authoritarians, from imperial China, Portugal, Spain, and Japan to martial law under the Kuomintang (KMT). They’ve governed themselves independently since 1949.

Historical Background

Imperial China alternately seized and lost territory as its dynasties rose and fell. Changes in borders were routine as emperors sought to subjugate those they could (the tributary system) and defend against those they could not (rival dynasties and foreign powers). In 1644, an ousted Ming dynasty warlord defeated the Dutch in Taiwan. The Dutch had ruled “Formosa” since 1624, having defeated Spanish forces that seized northern Taiwan. In 1683, the Qing dynasty (Manchus) which overthrew the Ming (Han) sent an army to defeat the Ming in Taiwan and annexed the island. In 1895, the Japanese empire defeated the Qing in Korea, forcing their own treaty that ceded Taiwan to Japan. Upon Japan’s surrender in 1945, US forces in Taiwan turned control over to Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek. The CPC’s PLA defeated KMT forces on the mainland, and Chiang retreated to Taiwan to establish the Republic of China in 1949. The PRC has never recognized the 1895 Treaty because it was forced upon China, but it does recognize territories the PRC acquires by force. The latter are “liberated.” 

Taiwan-PRC Negotiations.

Both the ROC and PRC claim to be the legitimate government of all China. The CPC refers to a PRC-KMT agreement, the 1992 Consensus, to present a false history portraying its narrated destiny as inevitable. There are at least three renditions of the so-called agreement. The first two are held by the two major political parties in Taiwan, the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party. They agree on the ROC government of Taiwan being the one China but disagree over eventual unification (KMT) or independence (DPP). A KMT government negotiated the 1992 Consensus and today still debates its different interpretation and whether to keep the Consensus in the party’s platform. The third rendition is the CPC’s view that the Consensus agreed on the eventual “reunification” of Taiwan with the PRC, the latter being the the one China.

US-PRC Negotiations.

The US has supported a “one China and Taiwan is part of China” policy since abrogating its mutual defense treaty with Taiwan and recognizing the PRC instead of the ROC. That particular pivot was based on judgments of long-term US interests in three bilateral communiqués (1972, 1978, and 1982), the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA, U.S. Congress, 1979), and Six Assurances conveyed to Taiwan (1982). These documents acknowledge, but do not necessarily accept, the Chinese position that there is one China and the PRC is its sole legal government. The agreements also reject any use of force, maintain US cultural, commercial, and other ties with Taiwan, and agree that the US may sell arms to Taiwan for self-defense. The TRA is a non-commital US domestic commitment to defend Taiwan—a policy often referred to as “strategic ambiguity.”

While the US policy pinned its hopes for a peaceful resolution on a liberalizing CPC, the CPC under Xi consistently adheres to its goal of “reunifying” Taiwan with the PRC, including breaking its promise to renounce any use of force. Recall that in 2021 President Joe Biden stated the US would defend Taiwan if the PRC were to invade, comparing the TRA to NATO. The President was subsequently corrected by White House officials who insisted the US commitment reamained strong, without specifying what that commitment was.

US Strategy Needs More Options

Cooperation and confrontation, including conflict (violent confrontation), are competitive. The decisive contest is over what rules, if any, govern competition. To that end, US strategy needs to shape the information environment to advance US and allied interests and values. Is “strategic ambiguity” up to the task? The changing character of the information environment suggests it is not.

Strategic ambiguity was designed to deter Taiwan from declaring independence and deter the PRC from using force against Taiwan. However, the contemporary information environment enables more ways and means for the PRC to force Taiwan unification short of what US policy regards as the use of force. The latter is warfare, as US policy recognizes it.

In contrast, the PRC recognizes more forms of asymmetric warfare to include political warfare, anti-splittist warfare, legal warfare, cyber warfare, network warfare, informationized warfare, and intelligentized warfare. The CPC’s ability to fuse what many democratic systems deliberately separate—civil affairs and military security—enable it to combine physical and psychological instruments of power. This characteristic produces broader options, including strategic ambiguity.

For the PRC party-government, the One Country Two Systems claim generates useful ambiguity across ends, ways, and means. It’s clear from PRC actions that One Country means a single CPC-run system. Left conveniently unclear, however, is any accountable standard by which the people of China might hold the CPC accountable for its failures. The party-government is always right. The CPC strives to control, directly or indirectly, all the political, economic, military, and social methods and resources in the PRC to achieve its goals.

Such strategic agility is not “winning without fighting.” It’s winning in ways capable competitors fail to recognize as fighting. The combined effect strategy and influence model featured in many ICSL papers identifies eight basic options: deterring, defending, securing, dissuading, compelling, coercing, inducing, and persuading. Democracies only regard defending and coercing as fighting because those involve lethal force. As a result, we fight at 25% of our capacity. We also miss opportunities to shape the use of force. We must win lethal engagements, but that is not enough to prevail in the information environment. 

Fighting to win requires more than lethal force. Information wins wars in two ways. First, operationalizing information can produce advantages associated with faster, more accurate and influential decisions. Second, informatizing operations makes them strategically relevant. It’s the information effects of military, political, economic, and social operations that determine whether victorious battles translate into wars won, not lost. 

Democracies operationalize information well. However, we fail to informatize operations in competition that does not meet our self-imposed, narrower definition of warfare. We must broaden our strategy language to compete across the spectrum of cooperative and confrontational relationships.

This change requires being more realistic about competition. Competition is inherent to cooperation, confrontation, and lethal conflict. All rules-based relationships are competitive to some extent—a common market, business partnerships, even close alliances.

Rather than a common destiny under authoritarian control, democracies promote transparent, accountable rules-based processes that balance free and fair competition. That truthful narrative will not idealistically prevail over the CPC’s false narrative. To do that, we need a broad, persistent  approach for information advantage and a strategy language beyond coercive deterrence, coercive compellence, and brute force.    

 

jgawlowski
Author: ICSL admin

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