Few, however, discern the pattern in the PRC’s inroads in every region of the world, much less the specific form of preeminence to which the CCP aspires. The failure to understand China’s interests and objectives derives in no small measure from neglect of the CCP’s governing ideas.1 Just as America’s commitment to a free, open, and rules-based international order composed of sovereign nation states arises from our dedication to “unalienable rights” — the language that America’s Declaration of Independence uses to describe the rights inherent in all persons2 — so too does the PRC’s determination to achieve “national rejuvenation” and transform the international order so that it places China at the center and serves Beijing’s ruling ambitions stem from the CCP’s Marxist-Leninist ideology and hyper-nationalist convictions.3
The conventional wisdom long supposed that China is best understood in accordance with ideas of reasonable state behavior. For decades, influential observers in and out of government viewed China’s rise as an opportunity to enlarge the world market and thereby benefit all nations through increased global commerce. They lauded Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s decision in the late 1970s to introduce capitalist elements into the PRC’s state-controlled economy, which — over time and with assistance from the United States and other advanced industrial nations — spurred rapid modernization and generated double-digit economic growth. They hoped that incorporating a rising China into the established international order would induce Beijing to fully open and privatize its state-directed economy; to liberalize its authoritarian regime; and eventually to become a “responsible stakeholder” upholding the international order. Even after the CCP’s bloody June 1989 crackdown on hundreds of thousands of prodemocracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and throughout the country, many in the United States and around the world clung to high hopes for China.4
But the much-anticipated political liberalization did not occur. China might have chosen the democratic path of former dictatorships in East Asia like South Korea and Taiwan. Speculations about “the end of history” — that liberal democracy, owing to its reasonableness and universal appeal, was spreading around the globe — nourished the faith.5 But the CCP has stuck to its authoritarian convictions. The party consistently affirmed its fidelity to Marxism-Leninism as a paradigm for China’s governance, and socialism — the state control of economy and society — as a model not only for the PRC but also for other nations and as the basis of an alternative world order.6 Still, some persist in believing that China’s conduct will stay within recognizable boundaries and that Beijing merely acts as would any great power in its geopolitical circumstances.7
