Taiwan Neg Supplement

China Say No

Say No – General (Glaser Spec)Grand bargain fails and China says noKim 16 (Spring 2016; Patricia Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University and a research fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University; “Grand Bargain or Bad Idea? U.S. Relations with China and Taiwan”; http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_c_00239)

In “A U.S.-China Grand Bargain?” Charles Glaser suggests that the United States should strike a grand bargain with China by ending its commitment to Taiwan in exchange for Beijing’s promise to peacefully resolve its maritime disputes and to accept the U.S. security

presence in East Asia.1 Although Glaser’s desire to mitigate the chances for future conflict with an increasingly powerful and ambitious China is laudable, his proposed grand bargain is a nonstarter . Glaser acknowledges that territorial accommodation could come at the cost of downgrading China’s assessment of U.S. resolve to protect its interests and allies in Asia, compromising American values, and damaging U.S. credibility in the eyes of its

allies. He insists, however, that by demanding China keeps its side of the bargain and by enhancing U.S. military capabilities in the region, the United States would signal its determination to stand by American interests. Glaser’s proposal is unsound for several reasons. First, if the U nited S tates did not damage its image by attempting such a bargain in the first place, it would not need to redemonstrate resolve . Second, such a bargain would undercut one of the fundamental reasons why the U nited S tates stands with its friends and allies in East Asia —a shared appreciation of democracy and liberty. Third , Glaser emphasizes that regardless of whether the United States and China were able to strike a grand bargain, the very attempt would provide useful information about China’s foreign policy decisionmaking and long-term aims

(pp. 79–82). En gaging in such a costly and risky exercise to gauge Chinese motives is imprudent to say the least, especially because motives evolve and are contingent on the behavior of other actors . Fourth, giving any state a concession for doing something it ought to do sets a dangerous precedent . China and other claimant states should solve their maritime disputes peacefully and refrain from unilateral moves. Even if one were to set aside all of the above concerns, history shows that Glaser’s proposal is infeasible , because Chinese leaders do not see the abrogation of the U.S. commitment to Taiwan as an issue over which they must bargain and offer concessions. For example,

President Richard Nixon attempted a similar grand bargain while negotiating the opening of Sino-U.S. relations from 1971 to 1972 . At the time, one of the Nixon administration’s greatest concerns was ending the Vietnam War. Beijing’s greatest priority was obtaining U.S. recognition of Taiwan as a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and securing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the island.2 Understanding Beijing’s desires, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger strategized that they would offer to remove U.S. troops in exchange for China’s help in achieving peace with honor in Vietnam. Nixon’s handwritten notes for his historic trip to China demonstrate the bargain he wanted to strike: Taiwan Vietnam trade off 1. Your people expect action on Taiwan 2. Our people expect action on VN Neither can act immediately—But both are inevitable—let us not embarrass each other.3 In preparation for Nixon’s official visit, Kissinger made a secret trip to Beijing in July 1971 and proposed the bargain to the Chinese leadership. In a meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Kissinger stated that because two-thirds of the U.S. forces in Taiwan were related to American efforts in the Indochina theater, the withdrawal of those troops would depend on the resolution of the Vietnam War.4 He reasoned that although the United States was sincere in wanting to end the war, several issues— ranging from war reparations to the North Vietnamese

government’s refusal to talk with the South Vietnamese government—stood in the way of an “honorable” exit.5 Kissinger implied that China’s help in pressuring its North Vietnamese ally to accept the administration’s peace terms would speed the exit of U.S. troops from Taiwan. Chinese leaders , however, refused to strike such a bargain. In their eyes, Taiwan was a rightful part of the PRC and they did not owe the United States anything in exchange for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from territory they considered theirs. Zhou, for example, told Kissinger during their July 1971 meeting that attempting to attach conditions to the recognition of China’s sove reignty over Taiwan was as absurd as China

questioning U.S. sovereignty over Hawaii or Long Island. He emphasized that the United States should “unreservedly” recognize the PRC’s sovereignty and withdraw all U.S. troops, as this was “the natural logic of the matter.”6 Again when Nixon suggested during his trip to Beijing in February 1972 that ending the war in Vietnam would “help the direction on Taiwan,”7 Zhou replied subtly that China was willing to “wait a little while,” and that because Taiwan was China’s “internal affair,” Beijing could not “place too much hope on the U.S. and Mr. President to achieve this.”8 Moreover, China continued to fund North Vietnam’s war efforts in the name of aiding nationalist revolutions abroad. Instead of pressuring its ally, Beijing sent unprecedented

amounts of military assistance to North Vietnam between 1971 and 1973.9 China today is much more con- fidant and ambitious than the China Nixon visited in 1972 . Th ere is little reason to believe that Beijing would entertain a bargain similar to the one it rejected decades ago. Whereas Glaser’s grand bargain is infeasible, the benefits associated with territorial accommodation, such as satisfying a rising power to reduce the chance of conflict and sending reassuring signals, are worthy of serious thought. To satisfy and reassure China, one must decipher what it wants. Determining exactly what Beijing desires may be difficult, if not impossible, given multiple interests within the Chinese state and the evolving nature of any state’s aims. The central government, however, has repeatedly articulated two broad goals: the “rejuvenation” of the Chinese state at home and abroad. In fact, Xi Jinping’s first remarks after his appointment as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012 were that the party’s responsibility was to work toward “the great revival of the Chinese nation,” so that China can “stand more firmly and powerfully among all nations around the world and make a greater contribution to mankind.”10 Since then Xi has promoted the idea of the “Chinese Dream,” or zhongguo meng, which essentially consists of achieving prosperity at home and expanding China’s role and prestige in the global arena.11 Importantly, these twin goals are not necessarily incompatible with U.S. interests. A domestically stable and prosperous China with a satisfied citizenry could reduce pressure on the central government to avenge China’s “century of humiliation” by outsiders. Furthermore, a wealthy and civic-minded China with an expanded international role would not necessarily threaten U.S. interests. The world could benefit from China’s contribution to disaster relief efforts and environmental issues, its leadership in combating terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and its generous aid to

developing countries. Chinese leaders today believe that the United States is determined to contain and divide China internally.12 To reassure Beijing that this is not its intention, the United States can assist China in its rejuvenation efforts. For example, it can deepen economic interdependence through initiatives such as the U.S.-China bilateral investment treaty, which is currently being negotiated; share information and ideas on issues such as health care and social safety net programs; and support China’s desire for a greater role in the global arena by welcoming Chinese initiatives such as the recently established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In addition, China could be given a greater role in existing institutions such as the

World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.13 Giving China a bigger voice at the table will inevitably lead to disagreements, but it is better to debate and compromise with China at the same table than to have it create separate venues in which the United States has no influence. To conclude, a one-time territorial accommodation is not the answer to dealing with an increasingly powerful and ambitious China. Acknowledging China’s fundamental goals and shaping its behavior through engagement are better approaches to dealing with a power that is here to stay. Moreover, the United States’ Asian partners would welcome such a move instead of unnecessary confrontation or compromise.

Grand bargains don’t work, China says no, and Glaser is deludedJackson 8/6/15 (Van Jackson, Dr. Van Jackson is an Associate Professor in the College of Security Studies at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI-APCSS) in Honolulu, where he specializes in Northeast Asia, military trends and modernization, strategic studies, and international relations theory. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, as well as a Senior Editor for War on the Rocks, “The Myth of a US-China Grand Bargain,” The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/the-myth-of-a-us-china-grand-bargain/)

The latest salvo in this “America must accommodate China” literature hails from an accomplished political scientist at George

Washington University, Charles Glaser, writing in the most recent issue of International Security. Glaser makes the sweeping and somewhat unhelpful claim that military competition is risky and therefore undesirable. As

an alternative he suggests that if only the United States would abandon commitments to Taiwan, China would be willing to resolve its territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, thereby sidestepping military competition. Prior to around 2008, proposals for U.S. accommodation of a rising China made much more sense, or at least

could be taken more seriously. But times have changed. China’s ambitions have changed. And so has its foreign policy behavior. These contextual changes matter for whether and when accommodation can have the desired effect. More to the point

though, there are a number of problems with the grand bargain line of argumentation. First, any proposal

for a Sino-U.S. solution to regional problems is by definition taking a great power view of Asia that marginalizes the agency and strategic relevance of U.S. allies and the region’s middle powers. In the brief period (five to ten years ago) when a G-2 concept was taken semi-seriously in Washington, allies—especially South Korea and Japan—chafed. The region’s middle powers would be unlikely to simply follow the joint dictates of China and the United States without being part of it, and attempting a G-2 could ironically create a more fragmented order as a result. Including others, at any rate, is antithetical to the concept of a Sino-U.S. G-2 arrangement. As early as the 1960s U.S. officials tried to rely on China to deal with regional issues spanning from North Korea to Vietnam. It was almost always to no avail. Second, and as I’ve written about extensively elsewhere, Asia is rife with security concerns that have nothing to do with China directly, so any understanding reached with China would leave

unresolved many of the region’s latent sources of potential conflict. Sino-U.S. grand bargain proponents forget that China and the United States only have real conflicts of interest by proxy . Every conceivable conflict scenario involves China and some other Asian state—Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Korea. The United States only becomes part of the picture because of a commitment to regional order, including its alliance network. Third, as its recent stock market crash makes all too obvious, China remains a “fragile superpower,” to quote Susan Shirk. Many factors in its domestic political situation—corruption, growing wealth disparities, and many forms of civil challenges to government legitimacy—make it an unpredictable player. Nor is China showing meaningful signs of political liberalization. There’s so much brewing underneath the surface in China that dealing with China today as if it were a hegemon tomorrow assumes too much, and grants China too much credit too soon. Fourth, there’s a defunct theory that’s been smuggled into arguments about changing Chinese behavior through U.S. accommodation. Political scientists call it “neofunctionalism,” a term rarely used these days, even though its spirit is pervasive in grand bargain arguments. Neofunctionalism came about in the 1950s as a failed way to account for and push for European integration.The basic idea involved an assumption that low level and innocuous types of cooperation would “spillover” into still more and better quality cooperation. Comity among nations, it was thought, would be the eventual outcome of mundane socioeconomic interactions. But by the 1970s, the theory had become largely discredited. Nevertheless, echoes of neofunctionalism remain in contemporary claims that properly calibrated restraint, accommodation, or appeasement can have a transformative effect on a relationship. Ironically, these arguments tend to come from scholars, not policymakers. The idea that the United States can induce China into resolving its East and South China Sea disputes by “giving” it Taiwan reflects precisely this type of expectation, as do calls for the United States to make small concessions to China in hopes that it will enable a more stable situation. None of this means that accommodative gestures or strategies should be outright dismissed. There were numerous periods of detente with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and that rivalry was much more confrontational. China and the United States, moreover, have a number of overlapping—not just conflicting—interests. I might even go as far as saying that neofunctionalism has a bit of a bad rap; there are times when trivial or non-costly forms of cooperation can lead to greater and deeper cooperation, but political scientists haven’t convincingly figured out what those

conditions are. But grand bargains rarely work. There’s a dangerous naivete in abandoning U.S. commitments on the hope that China will then be more willing to resolve its other disputes .

And policies of accommodation will not suspend military competition because that involves more than present day concerns with surveillance overflight missions, territorial disputes, and current political commitments. Regardless of the policy and crisis management decisions we make today, military competition plays out over years and decades; it relates to force structure investment and doctrinal decisions that can’t be sacrificed for political promises. China’s concerns will only be assuaged when the United States divests of the military force structure that makes it possible to project power globally, uphold its commitments,

and bolster the regional order. The U.S. military will be unable to pursue such a course as long as China maintains openly expansionist geopolitical ambitions and a force structure designed to achieve it . Competition, it seems, is the logic of the situation. We ignore that at our own peril.

Say No – China CheatsChina says no and can back out of dealRoy 15 (June 24, 2015; Denny Roy is a professor in the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu and has Ph.D. in political science from University of Chicago; “The Impossible Price of a U.S.-China Grand Bargain: Dumping Taiwan”; http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-impossible-price-us-china-grand-bargain-dumping-taiwan-13177)

Glaser ’s case has other weaknesses . He assumes that the US abandonment of Taiwan would “dramatically improve” U.S.-China relations , and that “China can be very secure with the United States maintaining its alliances and forward deployment” as long as Taiwan is no longer in play. This is believable only if we posit that Beijing has no aspirations for regional leadership or revisions of the current order beyond gaining control over Taiwan, both now and in the future. The “grand bargain” idea probably resonates less with Beijing than Washington . From Beijing’s point of

view, this would be asking it to trade something it believes it already owns for something else it believes it already owns. If they did agree, how the “bargain” would be operationalized is unclear. What would it mean for China to “officially accept” U.S. alliances and military bases in the Asia-Pacific ? This would seem to require Beijing to renounce its proudly “principled” opposition to any country having “ Cold War era” alliances and foreign bases. At the same time, it is easy to foresee China continuing its pre-bargain activities (military buildup, maneuvers with Russia, naval patrols in the East and South China

Sea, etc.) while claiming these were not attempts to drive U.S. influence out of the region. Glaser recognizes that Chinese leaders may intend to push out their U.S. rival. He argues his proposal would answer the question of whether this is Beijing’s plan. If Beijing accepts the proposal, it would indicate that China has limited aims and can tolerate continued U.S. regional hegemony. If not, China intends to usurp that role from the United States. If we now recognize that expelling U.S. strategic leadership may be Beijing’s intention, unilaterally assisting the Chinese by abandoning Taiwan is not the most sensible policy if the

US hopes to retain its accustomed role. The timing of Glaser’s proposal is particularly bad given that Xi Jinping’s government seems to represent a shift toward a more assertive Chinese foreign policy that has grown impatient with waiting for the United States to decline on its own. Even if the current regime in Beijing does not plan to dismantle U.S. regional leadership, the United States cannot be sure the leaders of a future, stronger China will think the same way. China could renege on Glaser’s proposed deal more easily than the US could. China is a local power with relatively short supply

lines to the East and South China Seas. In the case of the S outh C hina S ea, China enjoys a hug e and growing military force projection disparity in its favor relative to the other claimants. But to cance l its part of the deal, the U nited S tates would have to cross the Pacific Ocean to invade and capture a Taiwan defended by ensconced PLA forces only 100 miles from China’s mainland.

Say No - SCSConcessions on SCS would be a deal-breaker for ChinaBlanchard & Petty 7-14 (Ben and Martin, regular Reuters contributors, “China vows to protect South China Sea sovereignty, Manila upbeat”, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-ruling-stakes-idUSKCN0ZS02U)

China vowed to take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty over the South China Sea and said it had the right to set up an air defense zone, after rejecting an international tribunal's ruling denying its claims to the energy-rich waters. Chinese state media called the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague a "puppet" of external forces after it ruled that China had breached the Philippines' sovereign rights by endangering its ships and fishing and oil projects.

Beijing has repeatedly blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, where its

territorial claims overlap in parts with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. "China will take all necessary measures to protect its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests," the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily said in a front page commentary on Wednesday. The case, covering a region that is home to one of the world's busiest trade routes, has been seen as a test of China's rising power and

its economic and strategic rivalry with the United States. U nderscoring China's rebuffing of the ruling, state media said that two new airports in the Spratlys, on Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, both received test flights from civilian aircraft on Wednesday. Beijing called the Philippines' claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea " baseless" and an "act of bad faith ". In a government

white paper published on Wednesday, China also said its fishing boats had been harassed and attacked by the Philippines around the disputed Spratly Islands. "On whether China will set up an air defense zone over the South China Sea, what we have to make clear first is that China has the right to... But whether we need one in the South China Sea depends on the level of threats we face," Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters in Beijing, adding that China hoped to return to bilateral talks with Manila. "We hope that other countries don't use this opportunity to threaten China, and hope that other countries can work hard with China, meet us halfway, and maintain the South China Sea's peace and stability and not turn the South China Sea into a source of war." U.S. officials have previously said they feared China may respond to the ruling by declaring an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, or by stepping up its building and fortification of artificial islands. China's Liu also took aim at the judges on the tribunal, saying that as not one of them was Asian they could not possibly understand the issue and it was unfair of them to try. RELATED COVERAGE › Indonesia hopes fishermen can net its South China Sea claims COMPLICATED, UNCLEAR The Philippines reacted cautiously to the ruling late on Tuesday, calling for "restraint and sobriety", but the mood at President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet meeting on Wednesday was "upbeat", presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said. Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he had spoken to U.S. counterpart Ash Carter ahead of the ruling who told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and the U.S. made the same assurance. Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added. "The ruling can serve as a foundation on which we can start the process of negotiations which hopefully will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of the maritime dispute in the South China Sea," Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs, said. One of the lawyers who argued the Philippines' case said how and when the country would enforce the tribunal's ruling was complicated. RELATED VIDEO Video China claims right to air defence zone "There's no timeline for this game. It might have an extended period of gestation," said Florin Ternal Hilbay, a former solicitor general. "I would assume our diplomats have read the decision and understand the complexities and consequences of enforcing the decision." Global intelligence firm Stratfor said fishermen from China or the Philippines were the greatest potential disruptors in the region, beyond the easy control of law enforcement. "The greatest struggle for both countries will be to rein them in, preferably before they get to sea, lest they disrupt the delicate peace," Stratfor said in a note. In moves likely to antagonize Beijing, the coastguards of Japan and the Philippines took part in simulated rescue and medical response exercises off Manila Bay on Wednesday, part of what the two countries have called efforts to improve maritime security and combat crime and piracy. Japan and China are involved in a separate territorial dispute in the East China Sea and Beijing has warned Tokyo against meddling in the South China Sea dispute. RELATED

COVERAGE › Chinese civil aircraft land on new South China Sea airports PIVOT PRESSURE Beijing's ambassador to the United States earlier blamed the rise in tension in the region on the United States' "pivot" toward Asia in the past few years . Cui Tiankai said the arbitration case "will probably open the door of abusing arbitration procedures. "It will certainly undermine and weaken the motivation of states to engage in negotiations and consultations for solving their disputes," Cui said at a forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. "It will certainly intensify conflict and even confrontation." South Korea on Wednesday announced the planned location of a U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense unit against North Korea's missile and nuclear threats, a system that has angered China and prompted a North Korean warning of retaliation. President Barack Obama's top Asia policy adviser, Daniel Kritenbrink, said the United States had no interest in stirring tensions in the South China Sea as a pretext for involvement in the region. "We have an enduring interest in seeing territorial and maritime disputes in the Asia Pacific, including in the South China Sea, resolved peacefully, without coercion and in a manner that is consistent with international law," Kritenbrink said at the same forum. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen boarded a navy frigate in southern Taiwan ahead of its departure for the South China Sea early on Wednesday, a regular patrol pushed forward due to the Hague decision, which Taipei rejected. "This patrol mission is to show the determination of the Taiwan people to defend our national interest," Tsai said from the warship. China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province to be united with the mainland eventually, and by force if necessary.

China says no – South China Sea sovereignty too important to ChinaCheng 15 (Dean, contributor to The National Interest, “How China Views the South China Sea: As Sovereign Territory”, The National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-china-views-the-south-china-sea-sovereign-territory-14249)

The Chinese formulation underscores that, from Beijing’s perspective, the central issue is a basic one of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Chinese leadership since at least Deng Xiaoping has consistently characterized its approach to various maritime

disputes in the same way: “Sovereignty is ours; defer disputes; engage in joint development.” When Deng set forth this formulation in the 1980s, the emphasis [8] was on the second two clauses. At the time, he suggested that this issue could be set aside for the next—and perhaps wiser—generation to resolve. In the meantime, China was open to joint

exploitation of resources. But where the emphasis under Deng was on rapidly pushing economic development, the focus under Hu Jintao, and even more under Xi

Jinping, has steadily shifted to the first clause: “sovereignty is ours.” Part of this shift is likely rooted in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS required states to file formal declarations of their baselines by May 2009, or else risk losing their rights to seabed and offshore resources. As the various parties to the Spratlys dispute (including not only the PRC and Taiwan, but also Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam) all had economic interests, it behooved them to file formal claims—claims which Beijing sees as jeopardizing its own claims to sovereignty. But China’s

posture as the aggrieved party is not solely rooted in UNCLOS filings. One striking theme that arises in any discussion with Chinese officials regarding the South China Sea is the view that the neighboring states have been encroaching on China’s territories—deliberately. Some of this, as General Fang Fenghui indicated [9] when he visited the United States, is seen as inspired by American encouragement. But as important is the argument that China’s neighbors are exploiting Beijing’s patience and forbearance. Chinese interlocutors note that China has not drilled as many wells, has not built airfields and did not first expand its islands. The Chinese position is that they have shown restraint in not reacting to these

activities—even though they are presumably occurring on Chinese territory. This is the crux of the matter. For Chinese decision makers, the South China Sea—both the waters and the islands within it—are and have always been Chinese territory. The neighbors’ actions are not merely alternative claims; they are an effort to amputate a piece of China. In this context, China is not Germany: China is France or Poland. The same reasoning means that China is not intent upon establishing a sphere of influence over the South China Sea, in a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine. The United States dominated the Gulf of Mexico and Central America, but made no claim that Haiti or Guatemala was part of the United States itself. China, on the other hand, has

made clear in its behavior, if not in its enunciated policies, that it views the waters and islands of the South China Sea as part of its sovereign territory. Hence, Chinese construction of artificial islands is perfectly within its rights, since it occurs within Chinese territory; China has no more need to consult with others over such construction than they would if they were building a new expressway in Beijing. Sovereignty as a Core Interest: The situation is further exacerbated by the overall Chinese attitude

toward sovereignty. There is probably no greater supporter of the Westphalian system of nation-states, and the attendant adherence to the sanctity of borders, than the PRC. It is the basis for China’s claims to not only the South China

Sea, but Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet. Given the Chinese experience with the “century of humiliation,” when China confronted the real potential of dismemberment by the colonial powers, such a perspective should not be surprising. Consequently, China views sovereignty, along with territorial integrity, as a “core interest .” Dai Bingguo, then State Councilor for Foreign Affairs, stated [10] in 2009 that for China, core interests are those that touch upon how the state is governed: i.e., the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party, issues of territorial integrity and national sovereignty, and the ability of the PRC to develop its economy and society. Some Chinese and American analysts question whether the Chinese specifically used the term “core interest” in connection with the South China Sea, but China’s behavior suggests that it views the region as, in fact, a

core interest. This view is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future . Indeed, China’s growing military capability would suggest the exact opposite. In the 1980s and 1990s, China’s military power was exceedingly limited; at the time, it was said that China had the world’s best obsolete equipment. In that context, it was not in China’s interest to press sovereignty claims even in the “near seas,” as its air and naval forces were largely limited to coastal operations. Today, however, China’s military is a far more substantial force [11]. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) easily outmatches any navy in Southeast Asia, especially among the rival claimants. Moreover, it can count upon the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the Second Artillery to support it in any “near seas” or even “far seas” operations. The PRC is therefore far more able to uphold its sovereignty claims than in the past. At the same time, its

interest in the South China Sea has assumed even more of a security aspect . Hainan Island, an undisputed part of China, is rapidly becoming one of the most heavily militarized locations in China. It already hosts a carrier berth and submarine pens for China’s seagoing nuclear deterrent and its

attack submarines. It is also the home of China’s newest spaceport, and multiple airbases are located there as well. China has a clear interest in keeping foreign interlopers out of the adjoining South China Sea.

Say No – Have Taiwan NowChina gets Taiwan in the squo – The US can’t continue to back TaiwanMearsheimer 14 (John, Political scientist at UChicago, “Say Goodbye To Taiwan”, The National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931?page=4)

While the United States has good reasons to want Taiwan as part of the balancing coalition it will build against China, there are also reasons to think this relationship is not sustainable over the long term. For starters, at some point in the next decade or so it will become impossible for the United States to help Taiwan defend itself against a Chinese attack. Remember

that we are talking about a China with much more military capability than it has today. In addition, geography works in China’s favor in a

major way, simply because Taiwan is so close to the Chinese mainland and so far away from the United States. When it comes to a competition between China and the United States over projecting military power into Taiwan, China wins hands down.

Furthermore, in a fight over Taiwan, American policy makers would surely be reluctant to launch major attacks against Chinese forces on the mainland, for fear they might precipitate nuclear escalation. This reticence would also work to China’s

advantage. One might argue that there is a simple way to deal with the fact that Taiwan will not have an effective conventional deterrent against China in the not-too-distant future: put America’s nuclear umbrella over Taiwan. This approach will not solve the problem , however, because the United States is not going to escalate to the nuclear level if Taiwan is being overrun by China. The stakes are not high enough to risk a general thermonuclear war. Taiwan is not Japan or even South Korea. Thus, the smart strategy for

America is to not even try to extend its nuclear deterrent over Taiwan. There is a second reason the United States might eventually forsake

Taiwan: it is an especially dangerous flashpoint, which could easily precipitate a Sino-American war that is not in America’s interest. U.S. policy makers understand that the fate of Taiwan is a matter of great concern to Chinese of all persuasions and that they will be extremely angry if it looks like the United States is preventing unification. But that is exactly what Washington will be doing if it forms a close military alliance with Taiwan, and that point will not be lost on the Chinese people. It is important to note in this regard that Chinese nationalism, which is a potent force, emphasizes how great powers like the United States humiliated China in the past when it was weak and appropriated Chinese territory like Hong Kong and Taiwan. Thus, it is not difficult to imagine crises breaking out over Taiwan or scenarios in which a crisis escalates into a shooting war. After all, Chinese nationalism will surely be a force for trouble in those crises, and China will at some point have the military wherewithal to conquer Taiwan, which will make war even more likely. There was no flashpoint between the superpowers during the Cold War that was as dangerous as Taiwan will be in a Sino-American security competition. Some commentators liken Berlin in the Cold War to Taiwan, but Berlin was not sacred territory for the Soviet Union and it was actually of little strategic importance for either side. Taiwan

is different. Given how dangerous it is for precipitating a war and given the fact that the United States will eventually reach the point

where it cannot defend Taiwan, there is a reasonable chance that American policy makers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.

A US offer would cause conflict and China has no reason to agree to the termsEasley 5/18/16 (Leif-Eric, Easley is Assistant Professor in the Division of International Studies at Ewha University and Research Fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, “Grand Bargain or Bad Idea? U.S. Relations with China and Taiwan,” MIT Press Journal, http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ISEC_c_00239#.V5kQxlf3Uhs)

Applications of bargaining theory are generally unsupportive of appeasement, stressing incentives that governments have to misrepresent their intentions.6 An accommodation strategy might make sense for a weak power with reliable intelligence that its adversary has limited aims or for a relatively matched power that seeks to buy time for rearmament.7 These conditions do not apply to the U.S.-China case, however. The United States lacks reliable intelligence on China's limited aims, but it is not a weak power and it has no need to abandon Taiwan for the sake of improving its military capabilities. Glaser suggests that the United States seek accommodation before Beijing amasses greater power, but China's economic growth is slowing; corruption and skills

gaps plague its military ; and the Communist Party faces crise s of social stability, governance and legitimacy over economic inequality , land use, public safety, and environmental pollution. The theoretical need to accommodate China is thus not established. MIS-ASSESSMENT OF COSTS AND BENEFITS: Glaser nonetheless sees benefits in accommodating China on Taiwan. He opines that current Taiwan policy could precipitate a U.S.-China cold war, even though the United States has much greater economic interdependence with China than it did with the Soviet Union and even though China is more globalized today than the Soviet Union ever was. He worries that the U.S. commitment to Taiwan will fuel an arms race, even though China is currently the only one racing.8 Glaser identifies U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a major stumbling block for improving U.S.-China relations and winning the “hearts and minds of 1.3 billion people” (p. 71). But the sales have been defensive in nature and limited in scale.9 Although the United States' “six assurances” to Taiwan specify that arms sales not be suspended as a result of negotiations with Beijing, such sales have been slowed by U.S. bureaucratic considerations and budgetary debates in Taipei. Glaser does not mention how Barack Obama's administration came to office focused on strategic reassurance with China, including delaying arms sales to Taiwan and, controversially, issuing a joint statement respecting Chinese “core interests.”10 Despite these efforts at accommodation, Chinese foreign policy became more assertive rather than more cooperative. Points of friction in U.S.-China relations abound—from cyber espionage and human rights to trade disputes and financial governance. Abandoning Taiwan will not stop Chinese military modernization, antiaccess/area denial development, or the targeting of U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea with Chinese missiles.11 The United States has numerous reasons for conducting surveillance and freedom of navigation operations, so those activities Glaser identifies as irritants to China would not end, even if Taiwan were no longer a subject of disagreement . Foreign policy ambition in Beijing has outgrown the 1950s and 1990s cross-strait crises; Chinese internal debates tend to paint the United States as a global competitor, benchmark U.S. global capabilities, and derive legitimacy from contrasting Chinese political values with “Western” or “universal” values.12 Glaser does not mention Chinese efforts at building up alternative institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, Boao Forum for Asia, and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or China using issues of historical animosity to drive a wedge between Japan and South Korea. He thus underestimates the apparent Chinese strategy of not directly confronting the United States globally, while attempting to dilute U.S. alliances in Asia, pursuing a Chinese-centered regional architecture, and changing the status quo in maritime areas without going so far as to trigger conflict or a coherent balancing coalition.13 Rather than alleviate frictions, a grand bargain would likely motivate beliefs that China could eventually dismantle the U.S. security architecture in Asia, emboldening actors on the Chinese side to pursue their interests more assertively. U.S. abandonment of Taiwan would entail repealing the Taiwan Relations Act, ending the legal basis for defense cooperation and arms sales, immediately undermining deterrence, and steadily degrading Taiwan's defense capabilities in ways difficult to reverse.14 Meanwhile, China's salami tactics, in combination with its ability to quickly redeploy military assets it might agree to pull back and its demonstrated long-term approach to the East China and South China Seas, make any such deal as Glaser suggests not credible. Chinese official documents give no reason to believe that Beijing would be conciliatory on other claims if the United States accommodated China on Taiwan .15 Taipei also claims sovereignty over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Beijing's legal

claim to these islands, which it calls the Diaoyu Islands, heavily relies on the history of the Republic of China and the status of “Taiwan Province.”16 Meanwhile, Taiwan maintains troops and recently upgraded its facilities on Taiping/Itu Aba, the largest naturally occurring feature of the disputed Spratly Islands, where China has been engaged in land reclamation and construction on features it controls. U.S. abandonment of Taiwan would likely make Chinese decision makers believe they could strengthen their claims in the East China and South China Seas by coercing Taipei to consolidate its positions with those of Beijing. Beijing's assertive policies contrast to the responsible, measured, and cooperative approach Taipei has taken to managing disputed claims in the East China and South China Seas.17 Far from being the dangerous source of entrapment Glaser describes, Taiwan is a valuable strategic and economic partner.18 In June 2015, the United States and Taiwan signed the Global Cooperation and Training Framework agreement to jointly offer capacity building in areas such as public health, women's empowerment, environmental protection, and maritime safety. Leaders across Taiwan's political spectrum have internalized lessons from the provocative Chen Shui-bian years and are not about to risk the lives and treasure of their people for the sake of forcing Washington's hand vis-à-vis Beijing. Moreover, the United States has historically managed to deter challengers and restrain partners, preventing both sides from initiating or escalating conflicts.19 The U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan is not preventing something good from happening, but rather preventing some seriously bad things from happening.20 U.S. defense exchanges and intelligence sharing with Taipei may annoy nationalists in Beijing, but they help avoid miscalculation, support escalation control, and discourage provocation and aggression. Glaser discounts the negative effects of abandoning Taiwan on U.S. military capabilities and intelligence gathering in Asia, freedom of navigation, and maritime and energy security. Under his proposed bargain, the United States would be avoiding hypothetical costs and pursuing uncertain benefits while giving up known military benefits and incurring unnecessary strategic costs.

Nuclear War Adv

Internal Link TurnUS involvement will only make matters worse – China is on the brink of militarizing SCS like the ECSPetty and Blanchard 7/14/16 (Martin, Petty is Bureau Chief, Vietnam, Deputy Bureau Chief, Thailand & Indochina at Reuters News Agency, Ben, Blanchard is senior correspondent, in charge of political and diplomatic news coverage for China, “China vows to protect South China Sea sovereignty, Manila upbeat,” Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-ruling-stakes-idUSKCN0ZS02U)

China vowed to take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty over the South China Sea and said it had the right to set up an air

defense zone, after rejecting an international tribunal's ruling denying its claims to the energy-rich waters. Chinese state media called the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague a "puppet" of external forces after it ruled that China had breached

the Philippines' sovereign rights by endangering its ships and fishing and oil projects. Beijing has repeatedly blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, where its territorial claims overlap in parts with

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. "China will take all necessary measures to protect its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests," the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily said in a front page commentary on Wednesday. The case, covering a region that is home to one of the world's busiest trade routes, has been seen as a test of China's rising power and its economic and strategic rivalry with the United States. Underscoring China's rebuffing of the ruling, state media said that two new airports in the Spratlys, on Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, both received test flights from civilian aircraft on Wednesday. Beijing called the Philippines' claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea "baseless" and an "act of bad faith". In a government white paper published on Wednesday, China also said its

fishing boats had been harassed and attacked by the Philippines around the disputed Spratly Islands. "On whether China will set up an air defense zone over the South China Sea, what we have to make clear first is that China has the right to ... But whether we need one in the South China Sea depends on the level of threats we face," Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters in Beijing, adding that China hoped to return to bilateral talks with Manila. "We hope that other countries don't use this opportunity to threaten China, and hope that other countries can work hard with China, meet us halfway, and maintain the South China Sea's peace and stability and not turn the South China Sea into a source of war." U.S. officials

have previously said they feared China may respond to the ruling by declaring an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, or by stepping up its building and fortification of artificial islands. China's Liu also took aim at the judges on the tribunal, saying that as not one of them was Asian they could not possibly understand the issue and it was unfair of them to try. The Philippines reacted cautiously to the ruling late on Tuesday, calling for "restraint and sobriety", but the mood at President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet meeting on Wednesday was "upbeat", presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said. Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he had spoken to U.S. counterpart Ash Carter ahead of the ruling who told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and the U.S. made the same assurance. Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added. "The ruling can serve as a foundation on which we can start the process of negotiations which hopefully will eventually lead to the peaceful settlement of the maritime dispute in the South China Sea," Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs, said. One of the lawyers who argued the Philippines' case said how and when the country would enforce the tribunal's ruling was complicated. "There's no timeline for this game. It might have an extended period of gestation," said Florin Ternal Hilbay, a former solicitor general. "I would assume our diplomats have read the decision and understand the complexities and consequences of enforcing the decision." Global intelligence firm Stratfor said fishermen from China or the Philippines were the greatest potential disruptors in the region, beyond the easy control of law enforcement. "The greatest struggle for both countries will be to rein them in, preferably before they get to sea, lest they disrupt the delicate peace," Stratfor said in a note. In moves likely to antagonize Beijing, the coastguards of Japan and the Philippines took part in simulated rescue and medical response exercises off Manila Bay on Wednesday, part of what the two countries have called efforts to improve maritime security and combat crime and piracy. Japan and China are involved in a separate territorial dispute in the East China Sea and Beijing has warned Tokyo against meddling in the South China Sea

dispute. Beijing's ambassador to the United States earlier blamed the rise in tension in the region on the United States' "pivot" toward Asia in the past few years. Cui Tiankai said the arbitration case "will probably open the door of abusing arbitration procedures. "It will certainly undermine and weaken the motivation of states to engage in negotiations and consultations for solving their disputes," Cui said at a forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. "It will certainly intensify conflict and even confrontation." South Korea on Wednesday announced the planned location of a U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense unit against North Korea's missile and nuclear threats, a system that has angered China and

prompted a North Korean warning of retaliation. President Barack Obama's top Asia policy adviser, Daniel

Kritenbrink, said the United States had no interest in stirring tensions in the South China Sea as a

pretext for involvement in the region. "We have an enduring interest in seeing territorial and maritime disputes in the Asia Pacific, including in the South China Sea, resolved peacefully, without coercion and in a manner that is consistent with international law," Kritenbrink said at the same forum. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen boarded a navy frigate in southern Taiwan ahead of its departure for the South China Sea early on Wednesday, a regular patrol pushed forward due to the Hague decision, which Taipei rejected. "This patrol mission is to show the determination of the Taiwan people to defend our national interest," Tsai said from the warship. China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province to be united with the mainland eventually, and by force if necessary.

Abandoning Taiwan does no good for anyone – damages US credibility and military, and triggers JapanRoy 1/21/16 (Denny, Roy is Senior Fellow and Supervisor of POSCO Fellowship Program, Research Program and has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, “Trading away Taiwan is no bargain for the USA,” PacNet, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/Pac1537.pdf)

The argument that Washington should abandon support for Taiwan to gain favor with Beijing faces strong counter- arguments that have prevailed in policy-making up to now. George Washington University professor Charles L. Glaser presents a fresh reboot of the idea in the spring 2015 issue of the journal International Security. Glaser says protecting Asia-Pacific allies is a vital US interest, but protecting Taiwan is not. Yet Taiwan is the main cause of Chinese opposition to US strategic leadership in the region. Meanwhile, tensions between China and rival claimants over disputed territory in the East and South China Seas threatens to spark military conflict, and foreign governments wish for more clarity in Beijing’s longer-term strategic intentions – specifically, whether it is a “greedy state” that seeks to replace the United States as regional hegemon. Glaser proposes solving all of these problems through a Sino-US “grand bargain”: the United States government “ends its commitment to defend Taiwan” in exchange for Beijing’s promise to “peacefully resolve” its maritime territorial disputes and “officially accept the United States’ long-term military security role in East

Asia.” The case for abandoning Taiwan typically meets at least three large barriers: the betrayal of US ideals, harm to America’s reputation as a reliable security partner, and Taiwan’s strategic value. Glaser’s argumentation does not overcome these barriers . Glaser says he recognizes that a foreign friendly country’s hard-won civil liberties “are important values” that Washington “should be reluctant to jeopardize,” but in the end they are not “key national interests” for the United States and are therefore expendable. It is debatable that the preservation of a democratic Taiwan is not a key US interest. Recent US presidential administrations representing both major political parties have affirmed a US strategic interest in spreading democracy because democratic countries are generally supportive of the US-sponsored international system of liberal norms and institutions. Glaser focuses on the US interest in avoiding a war with China. But what about the US interest in preventing a Taiwan-China war? One of the main reasons for US forward deployment is to help keep the region stable. The PRC argues that the Taiwan “separatist” challenge would quickly dry up if the US stopped selling weapons to Taiwan, but Taipei has argued the opposite: cross-Strait stability is possible only if Taiwan feels secure, and the Republic of China (ROC) will not negotiate with China under the gun. Beijing should not assume Taiwan would be quick to surrender even in a

disadvantageous situation. Abandoning staunch, long-time friend like Taiwan would damage US credibility in the eyes of other regional governments. Glaser argues that in the case of Japan, this damage would be containable. Tokyo realizes that compared to Taipei, its relationship with Washington is more strongly institutionalized. Japan also has nowhere

else to go, he says, other than sticking with the United States. This is probably true, although US abandonment of Taiwan would reinforce Japan’s fear regarding the long-term US reliability to stand up to a strengthening China. This would embolden Japanese advocates of accommodating China, as well as those who call for a militarily strong Japan unleashed from the alliance. What about the damage to the reputation of the US among friends in Seoul, Canberra, Manila, and elsewhere? Glaser mentions only Tokyo, the relatively easy case. On the subject of Taiwan’s strategic value, Glaser spends most of his effort arguing against his own thesis. He points out that Taiwan acts as a huge

barrier, creating choke points for the deployment of PLA naval forces, while possession of Taiwan would give the PLAN direct access to the deeper waters of the Pacific, would increase the Chinese A2/AD capability, would extend the range of air cover for the Chinese navy, and particularly would make it easy for Chinese submarines to enter the Philippine Sea and threaten US carrier battle groups there. Having made these points, Glaser unconvincingly concludes that controlling Taiwan would not “significantly increase”

Chinese military leverage. Glaser’s case has other weaknesses. He assumes that the US abandonment of Taiwan would “dramatically improve” US-China relations, and that “China can be very secure with the United States maintaining its alliances and forward deployment” as long as Taiwan is no longer in play. This is believable only if we posit that Beijing has no aspirations for regional leadership or revisions of the current order beyond gaining control over Taiwan, both now and in the future. The “grand bargain” idea

probably resonates less with Beijing than Washington. From Beijing’s point of view, this would be asking it to trade something it believes it already owns for something else it believes it already owns. If they did agree, how the “bargain” would be operationalized is unclear. What would it mean for China to “officially accept” US alliances and military bases in the Asia-Pacific? This would seem to require Beijing to renounce its proudly “principled” opposition to any country having “Cold War era” alliances and foreign bases. At the same time, it is easy to foresee China continuing its pre-bargain activities (military buildup, maneuvers with Russia, naval patrols in the East and South China Sea, etc.) while claiming these were not attempts to drive US influence out of the region. Glaser recognizes that Chinese leaders may intend to push out their US rival. He argues his proposal would answer the question of whether this is Beijing’s plan. If Beijing accepts the proposal, it would indicate that China has limited aims and can tolerate continued US regional hegemony. If not, China intends to usurp that role from the United States. If we

now recognize that expelling US strategic leadership may be Beijing’s intention, unilaterally assisting the Chinese by abandoning Taiwan is not the most sensible policy if the US hopes to retain its accustomed role. The timing of Glaser’s proposal is particularly bad given that Xi Jinping’s government seems to represent a shift toward a more assertive Chinese foreign policy that has grown impatient with waiting for the United States to decline on its own.

Proliferation DA

Links Grand Bargain kills the US-Japan alliance and causes weaponization – their authorGlaser 15 — Charles L. Glaser, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, Fellow in the Kissinger Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former Emmett Dedmon Professor of Public Policy and Acting Dean at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, former Strategic Analyst for the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 2015 (“A U.S.-China Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice between Military Competition and Accommodation,” International Security, Volume 39, Number 4, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via MIT Press Journals, JSO)

A third potential security danger is that accommodation by the United S tates could undermine its allies’ assessments of the credibility of the U nited S tates to come to their aid if attacked by China. More speciªcally, critics believe that ending the U.S. commitment to Taiwan could lead the Japanese to doubt America’s commitment to defend Japan, which would undermine the U.S.-Japan alliance and in turn reduce U.S. security. Tucker and Glaser argue, “A U.S. decision to abandon Taiwan —leading to uniªcation of an unwilling Taiwan with China— would be particularly alarming to Japan. . . . If Japan begins to doubt U.S. reliability , that could deal a fatal blow to the U.S.-Japan alliance .” 97

CCP Collapse DA

1NCCCP stable now Bell ’12 (Daniel, Philosopher, Tsinghua University; author “The China Model”, “Why China Won’t Collapse (Soon)”, The World Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-a-bell/chinese-government-legitimacy_b_1658006.html)

The purge of Chongqing’s Party chief Bo Xilai is China’s most serious political crisis in recent decades. What seemed like a relatively stable system of political transition — two five year terms for top leaders — has been thrown into chaos. Or so we are told. Such predictions about the collapse of China’spolitical system have been constantly repeated since the suppression of the pro-democracy uprisings in 1989. But the system didn’t collapse then, and it won’t collapse now . The key reason such dire predictions are taken seriously — especially in the West — is that non- democratic regimes are seen to lack legitimac y. A political regime that is morally justified in the eyes of the people must be chosen by the

people. In the case of China, the political leadership is a self-selected elite. Such mode of rule is fragile, as the Arab Spring has shown. But this view assumes the people are dissatisfied with the regime. In fact, the large majority of Chinese people support the single-party state structure. Since the 1990s, scholars in the West and China have carried out many large scale surveys into the legitimacy of Chinese

political power and by now they have virtually arrived at a consensus: the degree of legitimacy of the Chinese political system is very high. Surveys have been modified to prevent people from telling lies and the results are always the same. To the extent there is dissatisfaction, it is largely directed at the lower levels of government. The central government is viewed as the most legitimate part of the Chinese political apparatus. How can it be that the Chinese government

managed to achieve a high level of political legitimacy without adopting free and fair competitive elections for the country’s leaders? However paradoxical it may sound to Westerners, the Chinese government has succeeded by drawing upon sources of non-democratic legitimacy. The first source of non-democratic legitimacy can be termed performance legitimacy, meaning that the government’s first priority should be the material well-being of the people . This idea has long roots in China — Confucius himself said the government should make the people prosperous — and the Chinese

Communist Party has also put poverty alleviation at the top of its political agenda. Hence, the government derives much, if not most, of its legitimacy by its ability to provide for the material welfare of Chinese citizens. It has substantially increased the life expectancy of Chinese people, and the reform era has seen perhaps the most impressive poverty alleviation achievement in history, with several hundred million people being lifted out of

poverty. The second source of non-democratic legitimacy can be termed political meritocracy: the idea that political leaders should have above average ability to make morally informed political judgments. It too has deep historical roots. In Imperial China, scholar-officials proved their ability in a fair and open examination system, and consequently they were

granted uncommon (by Western standards) amounts of respect, authority, and legitimacy. Political surveys have shown that Chinese still endorse the view that it is more important to have high-quality politicians who care about the people’s needs than to worry about procedural arrangements ensuring people’s rights to choose their leaders . In recent decades, the Chinese Communist Party has increased its legitimacy by transforming itself into a more meritocratic political organization, with renewed emphasis on examinations and education as criteria for political leadership. The third source of non-democratic legitimacy is nationalism. An important part of legitimacy can be termed “ideological legitimacy”: the regime seeks to be seen as morally justified in the eyes ofthe people by virtue of certain ideas that it expresses in its educational system, political speeches, and public policies. The CCP was of course founded on Marxist principles, but the problem is that few believe in the communist ideal anymore. Hence, the regime has increasingly turned to nationalism to secure “ideological legitimacy”. Nationalism has more recent roots in China: in Imperial China, the political elites tended to view their “country” as the center of the world. But this vision collapsed when China was subject to the incursions of Western colonial powers in the mid-twentieth century, leading to a “century of humiliation” at hands of foreign powers. The CCP put a symbolic end to abuse and bullying by foreign powers with the establishment of a relatively secure state in 1949 and it

constantly reminds Chinese of its function as protector of the Chinese nation. In short, it should not be surprising that the CCP is widely seen to be legitimate in the eyes of the people, and barring unforeseen events there is no reason to expect imminent collapse of the regime. But the key word is “imminent”. In the absence of substantial political reform, China’s non-democratic sources of political legitimacy may not be sustainable in the long term.

Chinese nationalist sentiments strong and surrendering SCS will undermine the regime’s legitimacy.Chen-Weiss 7-14 (Jessica, Washington Post contributor, “Here’s what China’s people really think about the South China Sea”, Washington Post, July 14, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/14/heres-what-chinas-people-really-think-about-the-south-china-sea/)What’s the next step for China after the international tribunal’s July 12 ruling on the South China Sea? As anticipated, the Chinese government declared the ruling “null and void,”

and without any “binding force.” Along with Chinese strategic interests in the South China Sea, the popular pressures on President Xi Jinping to respond are likely to be influenced by the words and actions of the rest of the world. Yes, Chinese people feel strongly about China’s island claims . Nationalist sentiments represent both an opportunity and a challenge for the Chinese government, which wants to harness public opinion but fears its power to destabilize the regime . So far, Beijing has reiterated that the islands in the South China Sea have belonged to China “since ancient times” and unequivocally rejected the jurisdiction of the international tribunal. As Chinese censors work to rein in the most extreme online voices calling for war, it remains to be seen whether popular nationalism over the South China Sea will pose a net benefit or liability to the Chinese leadership. The Chinese government’s bluster

and patriotic propaganda can be effective at rallying popular support, as I note in a working paper with Allan Dafoe. In two national survey experiments we ran between October 2015 and March 2016, we found that Chinese Internet users or “netizens” approved of symbolic expressions of government resolve , even when tough action did not follow tough talk on China’s maritime and territorial disputes. And those netizens who were primed with reminders of China’s “national humiliation” by foreign powers between the 1840s and

1940s were also more likely to approve of the government’s current foreign policy performance. But by fanning nationalist sentiment, the Chinese government has also amplified the domestic risks to the regime. In a parallel paper, we find that disapproval of the government increased when netizens were reminded that the United States had sent B-52 bombers through China’s air zone in the East China Sea and defied Chinese warnings against close-in reconnaissance flights, a pattern that escalated with the EP-3 collision and death of a Chinese fighter pilot in

April 2001. By rolling out our survey in real time, we found that public approval dipped after each of the U.S. military’s freedom of navigation patrols through the South China Sea on Oct. 27, 2015, and Jan. 30, 2016. These patrols were both innocuous and legitimate to Washington and its allies, but Chinese state media denounced the “provocative attempts to infringe on China’s South China Sea sovereignty.”

CCP collapse decimates the stability of the international order – laundry list of conflicts.Perkinson 12 — Jessica, Faculty of the School of International Service of American University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in International Affairs; reviewed by: Quansheng Zhao, Professor of international relations and Chair of Asian Studies Program Research Council at American University, and John C. King, Assistant Professor School of International Service, 2012 (“The Potential for Instability in the PRC: How the Doomsday Theory Misses the Mark,” American University, April 19th, Available Online at http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/10330/Perkinson_american_0008N_10238display.pdf?sequence=1)

Should the CCP undergo some sort of dramatic transformation – whether that be significant reform or complete collapse, as some radical China scholars predict2 – the implications for international and US national security are vast . Not only does China and the stability of the CCP play a significant role in the maintenance of peace in the East Asia n region, but China is also

relied upon by many members of the international community for foreign direct investment, economic stability and trade . China plays a key role in maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula as one of North Korea’s only allies, and it is argued that instability within the Chinese government could also lead to instability in the already sensitive military and political situation across the Taiwan Strait . For the United States, the effect of instability within the CCP would be widespread and dramatic . As the United States’ largest holder of US treasury securities, instability or collapse of the CCP could threaten the stability of the already volatile economic situation in the US . In addition, China is the largest trading partner of a number of countries, including the US, and the US is reliant upon its market of inexpensive goods to feed demand within the US.

It is with this in mind that China scholars within the United States and around the world should be studying this phenomenon, because the potential for reform, instability or even collapse of th e CCP is of critical importance to the stability of the international order as a whole . For the United States specifically, the potential - or lack thereof - for reform of the CCP should dictate its foreign policy toward China. If the body of knowledge on the stability of the Chinese government reveals that the Chinese market is not a stable one, it is in the best interests of the United States to look for investors and trade markets elsewhere to lessen its serious dependence on China for its economic stability, particularly in a time of such uncertain economic conditions within the US.

2NC UQCCP legitimacy is stable now, but fragileRuan 15 (September 30, 2015; Lotus Yang Ruan is an M.A. candidate in Asia Pacific Policy Studies at the University of British Columbia. Formerly a China-based journalist and freelancer, she writes on China’s current affairs and studies social media; “The Chinese Communist Party and Legitimacy”; http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/the-chinese-communist-party-and-legitimacy/) //JDM

Earlier in September, Wang Qishan , Chinese President Xi Jinping’s de facto right hand man, openly discussed the question of the Chinese Communist Party’s ( CCP ) legitimacy at the “Party and the World

Dialogue 2015” conference in Beijing, China’s capital. “The CCP’s legitimacy lies in history and popular support from the people. The Party is the choice by the people,” Wang said to more than 60 politicians and academics from home and abroad, including former South African President Thabo Mbeki and former Australian Prime Minister

Kevin Rudd. Chinese senior cadres have long blocked public mention of the party’s legitimacy , especially by high-ranking officials. Yet, private discussion and academic studies on this subject have actually intensified in recent years among scholars and policymakers . Why the sudden mention of legitimacy in public? How is the issue of legitimacy laid out in Chinese official discourse? The most obvious and perhaps oxymoronic explanation why someone like Wang, a member of the CCP ’s Politburo, would raise the topic in public is that they have to . Sixty-six years after it came into power, the CCP is no longer a revolutionary party (ge ming dang) but a governing party (zhi zheng dang). German sociologist Max Weber concluded that political legitimacy may derive from tradition, charisma, and legality or rationality. Although these are simplified ideal types, Weber’s theory of legitimacy nonetheless provides a useful framework within which to answer why the CCP has decided to bring up its legitimacy issue in a seemingly sudden way. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full

access. Just $5 a month. Ideology For a long time before and after it became the ruling party of the People’s Republic of China, the CCP did not need to and in fact could not talk about seeking legitimacy from the people because of Marxist ideology that emphasized the centrality and vitality of class struggle. Its legitimacy was thus ratified not by ballot but by people’s voluntary cooperation and participation in massive political and social movements. As a revolutionary party, the CCP

only claimed to be the party of the workers and peasants. Its basis for legitimacy came from a system of majority tyranny supported by these social classes, or, as Mao Zedong famously put it, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” While Mao is still frequently brought up and worshipped by the Party as a “great patriot and national hero,” his influence is and probably will not ever be as large as that before 1978, when the Party’s legitimacy was, consciously or unconsciously, based on the charisma of the leader. Not only was Mao seen as the one man who possessed the right to lead by virtue of power and heroism, his

thoughts were considered as “invincible.” The appeal to class struggle and ideology, however, soon failed as a source of legitimacy and led to the chaotic Cultural Revolution . It was then that Deng Xiaoping and his successors began to put seeking legitimacy from a wider social base on the party agenda. The Party has used two main sources to claim its legitimacy: history, or what Max Weber defined as “traditional authority,” and developmentalism , or as some refer to as the so-called “East Asian Model.” Wang’s speech, though a rare public mention of legitimacy, resonates with the official Party rhetoric; that is, the CCP is legitimate because it has always existed. In addition, authoritarian regimes are usually headed by a strong man who is determined and able to justify most political repression by promises of economic success that benefits a majority of the dominated. Take South Korea. While many criticize the late President Park Chung-hee as dictator, Park turns out to be South Koreans’ most popular president ever. Under his rule, South Korea, once occupied by Japan during World World II and devastated by the Korean War in the 1950s, was transformed into one of the most developed countries in East Asia and the world. Or a more recent case: Singapore, whose 2015 general elections

came just two days after Wang Qishan’s speech. Contrary to what most Western scholars and media predicted, Singaporeans handed the ruling People’s Action Party ( PAP) a sweeping victory, with 83 of the 89 seats in parliament, while the opposition Workers’ Party winning just six seats. Some analysis suggested one reason for the surprise result were Singaporeans’ feelings of nostalgia for Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father who died earlier this year . Lee’s iron-fisted political rule, pro-business, anti-corruption approach to government helped transform Singapore into one of the wealthiest countrie s it is today . Chinese analysts and party schools have long looked to

Singapore’s governance and political model to justify authoritarianism and the CCP’s one-party rule. One of the frequent references they turn to is Singapore. Soon The Beijing-based newspaper Global Times, one of the CCP’s mouthpieces, was quick to describe the Singaporean election as a robust victory for the PAP after the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, citing PAP’s economic success. This is not to say authoritarian regimes boasting strong leadership traditions and economic success are immune to legitimacy issues. In fact, legitimacy crises is more evident than ever in most authoritarian countries. With the death of Lee Kuan Yew, the apogee of strong-man politics that began in the 1960s has passed. Facing a more confident and contentious public, these regimes had only economic performance to justify their authorities. And when the “economic miracle” gradually loses its magic power, accompanied by growing social inequality, that legitimacy weakens. The PAP in Singapore may have won a resounding victory in the recent elections, but it has had to move rapidly to respond to growing complaints from Singaporeans.

This potential legitimacy crisis also explains why the CCP would rather take the risk of raising its legitimacy in public than passively wait for others to define for it. The “Theory of Three Represents” proposed by former President Jiang Zemin, the “Scientific Outlook on Development” offered by former President Hu Jintao, and the “Chinese Dream” introduced by President Xi Jinping are the latest efforts by the CCP to address its concerns over the these

ideological crisis of its legitimacy. If we were to sum up these official discourses, they all emphasize the Party’s legitimacy not with reference to the CCP’s revolutionary past, but to the vitality of the CCP resulting f rom its ability to adapt to an ever-changing environment and to reform itself from within. Unlike the PAP, however, the CCP’s claims to legitimacy seems to be much less persuasive, even among its own members.

I n recent years, the PAP in Singapore has adjusted and appealed to the rationality embedded in the constitutional and legal system ; popular support manifest in the votes won through open and competitive elections becomes the new source of legitimacy. While Singaporeans can express their dissatisfaction by vot ing for the Worker’s Party, the complaints in China are reflected in the fact that people, some of them CCP members, are divide d into those in favor of free markets and developmentalism, and those who want to return to the Mao era , and others. In the face of such public doubts, the CCP has chosen to cling to the economic miracle and resort to costly repressions, as sources of legitimacy. Even in Wang’s recent

speech, there is no actual substance suggesting the Party will try to seek rationality or other news sources for its legitimacy. In sum, while it may be a first for a CCP’s high-ranking official to publicly discuss the legitimacy issue, there is no reason to become excited about any hidden meanings behind Wang’s move. And as much as authoritarian states like China and Singapore share traits, such as an emphasis on developmentalism, analysts should not be overly optimistic about China’s chances of replicating the PAP’s success. The PAP has actively established its legal and rational authority in Singapore . The CCP has far more work to do in that regard.

2NC Link ExtChina can’t back down from SCS – key to appease nationalistBabones 7/16/16 (Salvatore, Babones is a comparative sociologist at the University of Sydney. He is a specialist in global economic structure, “Why China cares about the South China Sea,” Aljazeera, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/07/china-cares-south-china-sea-160714105126859.html)

China's true interest in the South China Sea has much more to do with history and politics than with oil and security. The South China Sea dispute is not about China's interpretation of international law. It's about China's interpretation of itself. Chinese politicians and China scholars like to pretend that China is a timeless civilisation that dates back past the dawn of history. But the real roots of modern China can be found in the Ming dynasty that unified the Chinese empire under Chinese rulers nearly eight centuries ago, in AD 1368. It was then that China recognisably assumed more or less its modern borders. Perhaps more importantly, it was under the Ming dynasty that China first encountered the Western world, emerged from feudalism, and formed many of the basic social structures that persist to today. Ming China had no serious challengers among its neighbours. Unlike Europe, where many small states vied for territory - and survival - China reigned supreme over its region. Ming China had no need for well-defined borders because all of East Asia was to some degree under Chinese control, contained within China's "tianxia" or system of rule. When the first Portuguese adventurers reached the mouth of southern China's Pearl River Delta in 1513, this system began to break down. At first the Portuguese were treated as just another minority group. Over time, the Western powers (and Japan)

became more aggressive in asserting territorial claims. Though they never conquered China itself, the Western colonial powers did carve up most of Southeast Asia. They also carved up the oceans. Vietnam's maritime claims in the South China Sea are based on old French colonial claims, and the Philippines traces its claims back to the Spanish colonial period. Though the countries of Southeast Asia have every right to their

contemporary borders, it still irks many Chinese people that those borders were drawn by others, mostly without China's consent. The maritime borders of the South China Sea were set in stone (as it

were) by strong Western countries at a time when China was too weak to contest them . Now the Western powers are gone and China is the strong one, once again surrounded by a panoply of relatively weak neighbours, just as it was 500 years ago. This must be very frustrating for Xi Jinping and the rest of China's contemporary leaders . It is certainly frustrating for Chinese nationalists. But for good or for bad the borders are what they are. Many Chinese people, perhaps the majority, feel that their country has been unfairly treated by history. They are probably right. China is a great and ancient civilisation that experienced its weakest period just as the map of the world was solidifying into its current form.

Chinese nationalism strongly correlates with state support—computational models prove (M.B.)Darr ’11 (Benjamin Joseph. "Nationalism and state legitimation in contemporary China." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2011. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2690.)The overall process of state legitimation through popular nationalism is the central focus of this dissertation as well as its organizing principle. While the third, fourth, and fifth chapters examined key mechanisms at the disposal of the state for the formation of national identity, this chapter turns to the intended consequences of individuals’ national identity and attachment to it. Specifically, it looks at the role of national identity and national attachment in producing popular support for the state. From the state’s perspective,

this is the crucial endpoint of the entire process, the reason for building national identity. Even if state channels like the media and the educational system effectively develop national identity, the effort is a waste of state resources unless this national identity effectively translates into support for the party and the current political system. Viewing the process from this top-down angle, state support is the point of nationalism. The findings from the previous three chapters offer a good deal of support to this state-led interpretation of Chinese nationalism , as Chinese national identity has been shown to be shaped by the state through various means. As mentioned earlier , the Chinese state’s insistence on the term ‘patriotism’ ( 爱国主义 aiguozhuyi, literally ‘love country doctrine’) also indicates an intentionally strong link between national sentiment and state support.Before continuing, a caveat is in order. Lucian Pye (1996) has argued on similar grounds that Chinese nationalism is essentially bankrupt, especially when compared with the nationalisms of the West. Instead of emphasizing political values like democracy and independence, Chinese nationalism, in Pye’s view, appears to mean little other than support

for the current state and its policies. While in other countries the substantive 154 content of national identity can be brought to bear as a critique of the government and its policies, in China nationalism is “reduced to merely the sum of current policy preferences” (Pye 1996, 107). Thus, according to Pye, no critique of the state can be made on the grounds of nationalism, since this is inherently contradictory to the meaning of Chinese nationalism. The preceding chapters, along with the works of other scholars, have shown that Chinese nationalism is to a certain extent state-led. This does not necessarily justify Pye’s claim, however. I contend that there is in fact substantive content to Chinese nationalism—specifically, a meaningful group identity (although the meaning is of course not universally agreed upon) with a shared history and a narrative of national suffering followed by a rise to regain national glory, led by a set of historical herofigures. This fits the template of nationalism found in the developing world, and does not differ greatly from the nationalisms of the developed world. Perhaps the only thing missing from Chinese nationalism is the Western political ideal of liberal democracy as the means to achieve national liberation. However, Chinese nationalism does not lack political ideals altogether. On the contrary, one can argue that economic development and the re-attainment of China’s past international status have been the ends that Chinese nationalism has cherished. In the case of the United States, nationalism has often meant the idea that the U.S. be a shining beacon to lead other countries by example. This makes sense given the early modernization and subsequent international dominance of the United States. In its glory days Chinese emperors also thought the same of China. But as a developing country that is still modernizing, China’s national mythology cannot now carry this meaning. Instead, it must first catch up in economic development, so that is the 155 current thrust of its national story. To point out this difference between U.S. nationalism and Chinese nationalism as a lack of meaning on the part of Chinese nationalism is misguided.71 So, while it is true that Chinese national identity is to a certain extent successfully molded by the state, this does not mean that Chinese national sentiment equates with support for the Chinese state and its policies. However, nationalism and state support are two separate concepts, and this chapter explores the relationship between them. Moreover, even if a strong and robust relationship is found here, this does not lead us to the conclusion that Chinese nationalism has no independent meaning. Hopefully the previous chapters have already dispelled the reader of this notion. The first section below explains what is meant by state support and shows how much support the Chinese government currently enjoys by means of a number of survey measures. It also introduces the measure of state support used as a dependent variable. The second section reviews the relevant literature on the link between nationalism and state support in China and describes the measures used for nationalism and other explanatory variables, and the third section presents a multivariate analysis of this link. The fourth section explores how the content of an individual’s national identity can serve as a condition under which the link between nationalism and state support may be strong or weak, and summarizes the findings of the chapter. A final section serves as a conclusion to the dissertation, offering a summary and interpretation of its overall findings. 71 Furthermore, Pye’s claim that Chinese nationalism is simply support for state policy is directly contradicted by many protests in the name of nationalism against state policy. When the state is seen by the public as too conciliatory to foreign interests, nationalist protests against the state often arise (Gries 2004a; Zhao 2004; Shirk 2007). If Pye’s claim were true, Chinese nationalists would by definition support state policy. 156 State Support in Contemporary China Nationalism is often interpreted as being synonymous with support for the state. After all, it is in a state’s interest to blur the distinction between nation and state, in order to harness national sentiment for its own ends. What it means to ‘love one’s country’ is often interpreted, knowingly or not, as support for the government’s policies. Thus Pye’s argument, explained above, that Chinese nationalism basically amounts to support for current state policy, rings true to a certain extent in many societies, insofar as love of country is confused with love of the state. So how can these two concepts be usefully disentangled? In chapter 2, David Easton’s (1965) framework of diffuse support was reviewed as a way of conceptualizing regime support as apart from national sentiment. To review, Easton argues that political support can be either specific (related to specific government outputs or accomplishments) or diffuse (a generalized reservoir of support). Each type of support can be directed to one of three targets: 1) the authorities, or incumbent leaders in office; 2) the political regime, or the set of institutions that structure authority; and 3) the political community, or the people(s) and territory that the state claims. These are not completely separate targets, however, and support often overflows from one to the other. We can think of support for the political regime as state support, and by the same logic, support for the political community can be conceived of as one’s attachment to Chinese national identity. Thinking within Easton’s framework, then, the question of interest for this chapter is how support for the political community overflows into support for the regime. 157 Easton’s distinction between diffuse support and specific support is also useful. However, this distinction is based on the sources of political support and not its targets.72 As we are interested in explaining individuals’ overall support for the current political and institutional regime of the party-state, the sources of this support should not to be assumed to be either specific or diffuse. Put another way, this chapter’s dependent variable is political support for the regime, and whether that support is diffuse (caused by generally supportive sentiment) or specific (a result of policy decisions) is an empirical question. Existing work on regime support in China has found it to be high. To be fair, this recurring conclusion is largely due to the fact that expectations for regime support in an authoritarian state are typically low. However, the main puzzle that has driven research on this topic is the existence of an unequivocally authoritarian system of government with high marks of approval from the Chinese public. Figure 6.1 displays the mean levels of trust in government from the countries included in the 2005 World Values Surveys. Respondents were asked whether they trust the government in their nation’s capital a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or not at all. By the resulting four-point scale, Chinese people trust their government more than citizens of all the other countries except for Jordan and Vietnam. Trust of government in China surpasses that of any of the developed democracies on the list by a substantial margin. Similar results obtain if we look at other measures of political trust, such as trust 72 Easton does indicate (as do later scholars) that specific support is more often directed at particular authorities, while diffuse support is more often associated with regimes and political communities. As Kennedy (2009) points out, surveys in China very rarely ask about specific support of particular political leaders. This is another consideration which makes the distinction between diffuse and specific less relevant in China. 158 Figure 6.1. Citizen trust in national government by country Source: World Values Survey 2005 Official Data File v.20090901, 2009. 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 peru east germany poland romania serbia slovenia ukraine italy ethiopia moldova west germany trinidad and tobago japan bulgaria taiwan argentina andorra australia usa sweden brazil mexico thailand spain chile s korea zambia burkina faso cyprus indonesia morocco india finland switzerland turkey s africa ghana mali malaysia china jordan vietnam 159 Figure 6.2. Citizen evaluations of ‘democraticness’ by country Source: World Values Survey 2005 Official Data File v.20090901, 2009. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ethiopia ukraine bulgaria morocco moldova serbia andorra peru burkina faso poland italy east germany romania slovenia turkey trinidad and tobago brazil usa s korea cyprus indonesia india mexico zambia china japan taiwan argentina chile malaysia mali thailand australia west germany s africa finland spain sweden switzerland jordan vietnam ghana 160 in parliament and trust in the civil service. In each of these measures, China is second only to Vietnam.73 Interestingly, even survey measures of ‘democraticness’ have China scoring well. Figure 6.2 shows that, when respondents are asked to evaluate “how democratically this country is being governed today” on a ten-point scale, China is still above average, scoring higher than democracies such as the United States, Italy, Mexico, and Brazil. The 2008 China Survey also contains useful measures of this. One striking result from this survey is that 57% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “a system with just one main party is most suitable to China’s current circumstances.” Taking all of these measures at once, it is hard not to be surprised at just how much popular support the Chinese government enjoys. A broader conclusion to draw from Figures 6.1 and 6.2 is that, when compared to state support in democratic societies with freer media systems and less state control over education, support for authoritarian states is strikingly high. As the previous chapters have suggested, this may be an intended result of state policy through the state’s strong influence in the media and education (Kennedy 2009). Pippa Norris (2011) has studied the opposite side of this coin: the lack of popular support for democratic governments. She has argued that the relatively low levels of popular legitimacy in democratic countries are due to three factors: “growing public expectations, negative news, [and] failing government performance” (Norris 2011, 5). A related interpretation of this 73 It is often argued that survey results on questions such as these lack validity in authoritarian contexts such as China, where respondents may fear giving answers that criticize the government. If this political fear did affect survey measures, we would expect a larger proportion of respondents who respond with “don’t know” or otherwise refuse to give answers. However, in the WVS, there is no such spike in nonresponses. This fits into the broad scholarly consensus that the effect of political fear on survey responses in China is weak, and no greater than the universal effect of social desirability (Tang 2009, Yang and Tang 2010). 161 phenomenon is that democratic elections promote the airing of criticisms of political leaders. Democracy decreases trust in leaders precisely because it increases transparency. This is evident when comparing state support in democracies with that of autocracies, and it is also evident when we compare support for local government officials in China to that of central government officials. Support is lower for officials at the local level (Li 2004), the only level at which elections are used to select leaders. Perhaps democracy itself inherently reduces regime support. I construct an index of seven separate items from the 2008 China Survey in order to measure regime support. In the first item the respondent is asked to agree or disagree, on a five point scale, with the statement that “I am generally satisfied with government policies”. The second, third, and fourth items are all responses on a ten-point scale of how satisfied or unsatisfied the respondent is with each of the following: the central government, the county or urban district government, and village or urban sub-district government. The final three items ask the respondent how much he or she trusts officials at each of these three levels of government. Each of these seven measures is equally weighted and added together with the others to form an index that varies from 0 to 1. I use these particular items because as an index these variables provide a high reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha = .79), indicating a single underlying dimension of political support for the existing regime. One possible objection to grouping these items together is that Chinese citizens make a sharp distinction between local government and the central government in Beijing, and that therefore it is useless to lump these into one category of state support. Tang (2009) has shown that Chinese citizens generally are more trusting of central officials, and less trusting of local officials, due in part to 162 stronger perceptions of corruption at the local level. The data from the China Survey do show that people are more trusting of, and more satisfied with, central officials than local officials. However, the correlations between the variables in the index mean that someone who trusts the central government is also more likely to be trusting of local government as well, and vice versa. This points to an underlying current of support toward the political regime more generally, which is exactly the concept that we aim to measure. Figure 6.3. Distribution of state support index Source: The China Survey, Official Data File, 2008. 163 Figure 6.3 displays a histogram of the distribution of the state support index. Like the national attachment index, this variable is also somewhat skewed toward the higher end.74 In addition to the peak at 0.7, there is another peak at the highest possible score. In fact, the most common score on the seven-point index is the maximum of 1. This variable corroborates other evidence in demonstrating China’s high levels of state support, but it also showcases plenty of variation to explain at the individual level. Explaining State Support The main concern of this chapter is finding the causes of regime support at the individual level: who are the people that are more likely to support the state? More specifically, in what ways and under what conditions do sentiments of national identity produce state support? First we shall address the more general question of the factors that produce state support. A variety of explanations have been offered for the high levels of regime support in China. The two key arenas of nation-building examined in this dissertation, education and mass media, have already been shown to have direct relationships with political support. Similar to findings concerning education’s impact on national sentiment in Chapter 4, Kennedy (2009) shows that one’s level of education has an effect on regime support, but that this effect drops off at higher educational levels. At the same time, Chen (2004, p. 114) found a monotonic relationship in which diffuse support for the state simply decreased as education increased. The findings with respect to media exposure have been mixed. Xueyi Chen and Tianjian Shi (2001) found that media exposure actually had a negative correlation with

74 This skewness is not a statistical problem, however, as the skewness statistic of -.40 falls well short of the critical level of -.7. 164 political support for the state, concluding that the state-led process of legitimation through the media had failed. However, others (Li 2004; Bernstein and Lu 2000; Kennedy 2009) have found just the opposite: that those who consume more media are more likely to support the state. The findings on television viewing from Chapter 3 also corroborate this finding. Of course, other basic demographic attributes have impacts on state support. Age has been shown to impact regime support, as older citizens show more support (Chen et al. 1997). Men have also been shown to be more politically supportive than women (Chen 2004). Income and occupation also matter: those with higher economic status and those with occupations tying them to the state have higher levels of state support.75 Unsurprisingly, members of the Communist Party are also more likely to be supportive (Chen 2004, 116). Attitudinal factors also have been shown to influence individual-level support for the state. These include evaluation of state policies, life satisfaction, interest in politics, and fear of sociopolitical chaos (Chen et al.1997), as well as ideology and satisfaction with economic reform (Tang 2005). Other attitudinal correlates of regime support include democratic values, support for reform (Chen 2004), as well as a hierarchical orientation (Shi 2001). Of course, the attitude we are most concerned with here is national sentiment, or an individual’s sense of attachment to their Chinese national identity. The link between nationalist sentiment and state support has been documented before. Jie Chen (2004) includes an index of nationalist sentiment in his model explaining support for the state in 75 Corroborating this, Zhengxu Wang (2005) found an economic connection to levels of state support in the aggregate: economic development produced government support in the short term. 165 urban China. Using survey data, he finds that nationalism’s effect on diffuse support for the state is small but statistically significant. Surprisingly, few other studies have directly examined the effect of national sentiment on political support. While attitudes such as life satisfaction, fear of sociopolitical chaos, democratic values, and hierarchical social orientation are often included in models that explain state support, nationalism is often left out (Chen et al. 1997; Shi 2001; Chen and Shi 2001; Chen et al. 2007; Yang and Tang 2010). In still other cases, attitudinal variables are completely left out of models explaining political support or trust (Li 2004).76 The dearth of measures of nationalism in empirical examinations of state support is particularly confusing when one reads the literature on Chinese nationalism, where the idea that nationalism produces popular support for the state seems to be an omnipresent theme (Zhao 2004; Gries 2004b; Strecker Downs and Saunders 1999). What is equally striking is that the existing quantitative literature on Chinese nationalism does not seem to directly address this question either. One exception is Tang and Darr (2011), who analyze nationalism’s relationship with attitudes toward democracy, trust toward the central government, and political tolerance, and find that, overall, nationalism works against the prospect of democratization in China and promotes the legitimacy of the current regime. While the attitudes measured are all closely tied to state support, the analysis lacks a full and dedicated measure of this concept. Although survey studies of Chinese nationalism are relatively new, the central proposition that connects nationalism to state legitimacy still has only scarcely been put to the test. 76 There is some methodological justification for this: presuming that some attitudes are the causes of other attitudes is theoretically problematic. 166 So, in order to put this proposition to the test, the measure of nationalism from the 2008 China Survey introduced in Chapter 3 will again be used. This time, however, the index will serve as the main independent variable rather than the dependent variable. The index includes responses to the following five survey items: “I would rather be a citizen of China than of any other country”, “China is a better country than most other countries”, “When my country does well in international sports it makes me proud to be Chinese”, “How proud are you to be Chinese?”, and “one should sacrifice self-interest for the benefit of the country”. All of these items are meant to measure a respondent’s attachment to their Chinese national identity. Like the state support index, this index is reliable: all its components correlate strongly, showing an underlying dimension of national attachment (Cronbach’s alpha = .70). Like state support, it is skewed in a positive direction: as we saw in Chapter 3, the Chinese, generally speaking, have a lot of national sentiment. The bivariate correlation between the measures of nationalism and state support is .30. In other words, as nationalism goes from its minimum to its maximum, it produces a 30% rise in state support. This is evidence of a positive relationship which is solid but not overwhelmingly strong. The fact that the correlation is not stronger is evidence that, contrary to Pye (1996), Chinese nationalism means something besides support for the state and its policies. In fact, this bivariate statistic surely overestimates the strength of the relationship. Other relevant variables must be considered and controlled for in order to see exactly how much influence national sentiment has on state support. Using multiple regression, the next section does just this. 167 Multivariate analysis A number of control variables are included in the model in order to parse out the effect of national attachment. Number of years of education will be included alongside its mathematical square in order to test for a nonlinear effect. Chapter 4 demonstrated that education had a nonlinear diminishing effect on nationalism, and it would make sense to leave this model open to the same possible effect. In Chapter 3, we saw that media effects on nationalism differ depending on which type of media is consumed, so the model here will control for the two main types of media consumed. TV news is a measure of how many days of the past week the respondent received political information from various television sources. Newspaper is a dichotomous measure indicating that the respondent reads a newspaper. A dummy variable for Communist Party membership is also included, as is a dummy variable for those who profess a religious affiliation. Demographic variables are included as well to control for gender, family income, ethnic minority status, and residence in a rural area. Political attitudes also have effects on state support, and several attitudinal measures are controlled for in the model. Political interest has been shown to increase state support, as has life satisfaction (Chen et al. 1997), and a direct survey measure for each of these is included. Preference for social stability over economic growth is included in the model. Sometimes conceived of as fear of political chaos or as a major part of political conservatism or traditionalism, a preference for stability has a strong relationship with support for the existing political regime (Chen et al. 1997; Chen 2004; Tang 2005). Of course, the multivariate model operates on the assumption that national attachment is causally prior to state support, rather than vice versa. However, it is 168 possible to argue that there is an endogeneity problem in the model, in that a person’s state support might affect his or her national attachment. The theoretical relationship between these two concepts has already been discussed at length in the second chapter, but the most powerful and concise response to this objection is that attachment to one’s national group is a much more stable and foundational political attitude than support for the state, which is more likely to change in response to unfolding events.77 The column marked “Model 1” in Table 6.1 shows the results of the full model. The results demonstrate the impact of national attachment on support for the state, even when other relevant factors are taken into account. The other three attitudinal variables— political interest, life satisfaction, and a preference for stability—also have positive significant effects on state support. Results from Models 2 and 3 are shown in order to show the predictive power of national attachment in comparison to the other attitudinal variables in the model. Model 2 excludes the other three attitudinal variables, while Model 3 excludes national attachment. Comparing these two models’ R-squares, it seems that the model performs better when only national attachment is included than when all three other variables are included instead. These results show that nationalism is the most powerful attitudinal predictor of state support among the attitudes considered here. This finding is also supported by comparing the variable coefficients. Since each variable is coded on a scale that varies from 0 to 1, we can compare the coefficients of the variables to interpret the size of their individual effects. The coefficient for national attachment is the largest of all the 77 There are empirical methods, such as intermediating variables, designed to address endogeneity problems, but this is ultimately a question for theory. Statistical methods can show evidence of correlation, but the attribution of causation is always, in the end, a matter of theoretical interpretation. 169 Table 6.1: OLS models explaining state support Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Variable Coef. Coef. Coef. S.E. S.E. S.E. National Attachment 0.262*** 0.325*** --- 0.019 0.019 --- Political Interest 0.057*** --- 0.080*** 0.010 --- 0.010 Life Satisfaction 0.124*** --- 0.143*** 0.011 --- 0.011 Prefer Stability 0.016* --- 0.028*** 0.008 --- 0.008 Years of Education -0.109** -0.108** -0.051 0.035 0.035 0.035 Years of Ed. Squared 0.071 0.067 -0.013 0.042 0.043 0.043 TV News Exposure 0.011 0.033*** 0.018† 0.010 0.010 0.010 Newspaper reader -0.020** -0.011† -0.027*** 0.006 0.006 0.006 Age -0.002 -0.012 0.018 0.045 0.046 0.046 Age Squared 0.086 .118* 0.071 0.052 0.053 0.053 Party Member 0.001 0.008 0.008 0.010 0.010 0.010 Religious -0.010 -0.005 -0.005 0.008 0.008 0.008 Female 0.008 0.006 0.013* 0.005 0.006 0.006 Family Income -0.009 -0.002 -0.024† 0.014 0.014 0.014 Han Ethnicity -0.043*** -0.039*** -0.028*** 0.009 0.008 0.008 Rural 0.013* 0.017** 0.012† 0.006 0.006 0.006 N 3183 3253 3317 R 2 0.182 0.135 0.128 ***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; †p<.10. Source: The China Survey, Official Data File, 2008. 170 variables in the model. Introducing control variables has not substantially changed the strength of the bivariate relationship between national attachment and state support. Continuing to compare coefficients, the second strongest effect is that of education. Two coefficients were estimated for education in order to test for nonlinear effects. The simple term, years of education, has a strong and significant negative effect, while the squared term has no significant effect. This result suggests that education’s effect on state support, unlike its effect on national identity, is largely negative. Interestingly, education’s negative effect is not statistically significant when national attachment is dropped in Model 3. This result some support for the idea of education legitimating the state through its overall positive impact on national sentiment. The direct effect of education on state support is negative (Models 1 and 2), but when we do not control for national attachment (Model 3) this effect washes away because education’s positive indirect effect on state support through national attachment ‘cancels out’ the direct effect. Another thing to note from Table 6.1 is the effects of media consumption. One clear finding is that newspaper readers, all else being equal, are less likely to support the state than those who do not read newspapers. By contrast, the more television news a person watches, the more likely she is to support the state. This relationship is not significant in the Model 1, but keep in mind Chapter 3’s finding that television news watchers also have stronger nationalist sentiment. The presence of national attachment and the other attitudinal variables, as possible intervening variables, may be ‘soaking up’ the effect of television news in Model 1. The significance of TV news exposure in Model 3 is compatible with just such an interpretation. Television news watchers have 1 172 among Han Chinese than minorities. This hypothesis naturally arises if we recall that those who represent the government at high levels are predominantly Han Chinese. Thus, having a strong national attachment will have more of an effect on Han Chinese than on ethnic minorities who do not share the same ethnic link to those at the most uppermost visible levels of the party-state. Han Chinese are probably more likely to hold constitutive norms of ‘Chineseness’ that are drawn along ethnic lines, while minorities are more likely to have a broader idea of Chinese national identity.78 The finding that minorities are more supportive of the state than Han Chinese is not incompatible with the idea that the effect of national attachment on state support would be stronger for Hans than for ethnic minorities. Another one of the ways national identity varies among individuals is in its social purpose. Abdelal et al. (2006) define the social purpose of a group identity as “the goals that are shared by members of a group” (p. 696). However, these goals are contested as much as they are shared, and ordinary Chinese people may disagree as to what the fundamental goal of China really is. Some may see economic development as China’s main purpose, while others may see the regaining of China’s international stature— whether that means military security or international prestige—as the most important purpose for China. Still others may see China’s purpose in less material terms. For example, some may see the Chinese nation’s main social purpose as enabling its citizens to exercise their self-expression or political rights. 78 Unfortunately, this proposition has had to go untested in the third chapter due to the limitations of both the WVS and the 2008 China Survey. In the absence of a more direct measure of constitutive norms in the China Survey, ethnicity here is being used as an indirect measure to test for the effects of constitutive norms. 173 Social purposes offer another way to look for the conditions under which national attachment leads to state support. One way of thinking about this relationship is in terms of performance evaluations: a citizen should express support for the government if the government has aimed at what that citizen considers to be China’s most important goals. A person’s attachment to their national identity will positively affect their support for the state if she believes the state to value the same national goals that she does. The China Survey offers useful measures of social purposes. Democratic social purposes can be measured by respondents who choose, when asked which goal should be the first priority for a society: “give the people more

say in governmental decisionmaking” or “guarantee freedom of speech”. Alternatively, those who select “maintain public order” here believe that keeping order is the main social purpose of the nation. The fourth and final alternative available to respondents is to “control rising prices”, which might serve as an indicator for people who believe in economic development as China’s social purpose; however, another question contains a more valid measure of this. This item asks respondents to choose which of four responses is “the most important goal for China.” The first is “a high level of economic growth”, which is a more appropriate measure for the social purpose of economic development. The three alternatives to this response are: “seeing that people have more say about how things are done on their jobs and in their communities”, “trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful”, and “making sure this country has strong defense forces”. The last of these will serve as a good indicator for those who believe that regaining international power is the most important goal of China. 174 In total, we have hypothesized five conditions that might affect the relationship between national identity and state support: Han ethnicity, democratic social purposes, order-keeping social purposes, economic social purposes, and defensive international social purposes. The full model was tested again, this time including dichotomous variables for each of the five concepts above, as well as terms in which each was interacted with national attachment. Separate models were tested for each variable in order to allow for full specification of each interactive term and its corresponding constitutive term. Testing separate models avoids overcomplicating one model with too many interaction effects and it also avoids multicollinearity problems that might stem from this. Table 6.2 displays the results of this analysis. Notably, the independent effect of national attachment remained strong in all models, indicating the robustness of the effect. The above hypothesis that there is a stronger link between national attachment and state support among Han Chinese is supported by these results. To interpret the results of Model 4, Han are less supportive of the state than minorities, but nationalism brings up support among the entire sample, and this effect on state support is indeed stronger among the Han. Turning to the four measures of China’s social purposes, in Models 5 and 7 we see that democratic social purposes and economic social purposes have no statistically significant effects, interactive or otherwise. However, in Models 6 and 8, both the constitutive terms and their interactions with national attachment are significant. The results can be interpreted similarly to the results concerning state support among the Han Chinese. Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, those who see the chief social purpose of 175 Table 6.2. OLS models demonstrating conditional effects of national identity Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Variable Coef. Coef. Coef. Coef. Coef. S.E. S.E. S.E. S.E. S.E. National Attachment 0.143*** 0.265*** 0.228*** 0.281*** 0.228*** 0.041 0.02 0.023 0.023 0.022 Han -0.152* -0.04 -0.038 -0.038 -0.039 0.035 0.008 0.008 0.008 0.008 Han * Nat. Attach. 0.151* --- --- --- --- (Interactive term) 0.045 --- --- --- --- Social Purposes Democracy --- -0.034 --- --- --- --- 0.046 --- --- --- Democ. * Nat. Attach. --- 0.015 --- --- --- --- 0.058 --- --- --- Order --- --- -0.067* --- --- --- --- 0.03 --- --- Order * Nat. Attach. --- --- 0.103** --- --- --- --- 0.037 --- --- Economic growth --- --- --- 0.042 --- --- --- --- 0.029 --- Growth * Nat. Attach. --- --- --- -0.041 --- --- --- --- 0.037 --- National Defense --- --- --- --- -0.12*** --- --- --- --- 0.032 Defense * Nat. Attach. --- --- --- --- 0.135*** --- --- --- --- 0.039 ***p<.001; **p<.01; *p<.05; †p<.10 Note: Though not shown, all models include the remainder of the variables shown in Table 6.1. Estimates are produced using OLS multiple regression. Source: The China Survey, Official Data File, 2008. China as keeping order in society are less likely to support the state, all else being equal. The same can be said for those who see China’s central social purpose as building up a 176 strong national defense.79 However, for each of these two groups of people, national sentiment has a stronger effect in producing state support than it does among other groups, as indicated by the positive and significant coefficients for the respective interactive terms. We can conclude from these findings that qualitatively varying features of Chinese national identity—such as people’s ideas of who ‘counts’ as Chinese and their conceptions of China’s main goals—can structure nationalism’s relationship with state support. While attachment to one’s national identity does tend to produce support for the regime, how effective it is at doing this depends on the substance and meaning of each individual’s national identity. It is apparently most effective among Han Chinese, and among those who believe China’s main priorities are national defense and the preservation of order. We might venture to say that the state gets the most political support ‘bang’ for its nationalism ‘buck’ among those who hold to these conservative social purposes.

This chapter has shown that nationalism does indeed produce support for the state . While this finding is

unsurprising, the strength of this relationship compared to that of other factors is striking: national attachment is the most powerful predictor of state support in the model tested here (see Table 6.1). The fact that nationalism’s impact on state support is not substantially reduced by controlling for other important variables demonstrates the robustness of its effect. However, given the bivariate correlation and the overall performance of the multivariate model, it is clear that the relationship is not 79 It should be noted that when the same models are specified without the interactive term, the effect of both Order and National Defense is positive. 177 overwhelming, and that Chinese national sentiment means more than simply supporting the state. We have also found evidence that the effects of education and media use on state support work through the mechanism of national identity attachment. If we control for national attachment, the effects of

education and the media seem to wash out. However, if we leave remove national attachment from the equation, educational and media effects appear strong. We can conclude that nationalism is the mechanism through which these relationships work . Moreover, the different meanings that individuals attribute to their own Chinese national identities have effects on this relationship. How nationalism affects support for the government is conditional on an individual’s own interpretations of his or her national identity. However, we should not take this conclusion too far: the

constitutive term for national attachment had a strong effect on state support for the entire sample in all models. Nonetheless, these interactive effects cannot be denied : the relationship between national identity attachment and state support does depend on what an individual’s national identity means to that individual.

2NC I/L ExtensionPerception of legitimacy key to Chinese stabilityFisher 12 (January 5, 2012; Max Fisher is a former writer and editor at The Atlantic; “How China Stays Stable Despite 500 Protests Every Day”; http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/how-china-stays-stable-despite-500-protests-every-day/250940/ ) //JDM

About a week after protesters in the southeastern Chinese village of Wukan forced out all police and political officials, establishing a brief independence from Beijing, they taped a sign to the wall of the makeshift press center where foreign reporters congregated. It instructed journalists, in English and in

Chinese, not to call their movement an uprising. " We are not a revolt. We support the Communist Party. We love our country," it read. Wukan's movement in December was not as unusual as it might have seemed. China saw 180,000 protests, riots, and mass demonstrations in 2010 alone -- on average about 500 every day -- a number that has likely since increased. The villagers' complaints were common ones: local officials exploiting land sales for personal gain and violently repressing dissent (a village advocate had died while in police custody). That the protesters won some real concessions from the authorities was also not unheard of, although the one-sidedness of their victory was rare, as was the international media attention they garnered (that media attention likely secured the victory, for now). But what is perhaps most remarkable, and remarkably typical, of the Wukan movement was the protesters' insistence on declaring fealty to the

Chinese Communist Party. Though China's 2011 could have possibly seen more mass demonstrations than the entire Arab world, this is one reason that China probably remains far away from an Arab Spring-style revolutionary movement. Popular movements here seem to express relatively narrow complaints, want to work within the system rather than topple it, and treat the Communist Party as legitimate. Protests appear to be part of the system, not a challenge to it -- a sort of release valve for popular anger that, if anything, could have actually strengthened the Party by giving them a way to address that anger while maintaining autocratic rule. In the absence of real democracy, this give-and-take between state and society could actually help maintain political stability in China -- for now. That tradition goes back at least a decade , to a climax of labor movement

protests in spring 2002. In the steel city of Liaoyang that May, thousands of workers massed in protest . Corrupt local officials had siphoned small fortunes out of the town's factories, forcing many of them to shut down and send their workers home without their pensions, which the officials had also plundered. Liaoyang's problems then, like Wukan's today, were not atypical: the national movement toward privatization had given party officials special access, allowing them to get rich overnight as part of a new and burgeoning crony capitalist class

while powerless workers went hungry. As in Wukan last month, Liaoyang's 2002 protest was exceptional for its size -- tens of thousands marched over several days, shutting down the city and forcing senior Communist Party

officials to respond -- but its leaders deliberately stopped short , even after being attacked by security forces, of publicly questioning the Communist Party's total rule . They wrote letters to senior officials, whom they addressed as "respected elder" or "beloved," emphasizing that the protesters were loyal to the Communist Party and asking only for those officials to enforce preexisting laws against corruption. Philip Pan, a former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief, reported in his 2008 book Out of Mao's Shadow that the protest leaders privately agreed that single-party rule was the underlying cause of Liaoyang's problems, but were afraid to

publicly criticize it or call for democracy and ultimately decided to appeal to senior Party leaders rather than challenge them. As long as the political system remained unchanged, they agreed, those with positions of power could always abuse it, and workers could hope only for marginal improvements in their lives. For real progress, they thought democratic reform was necessary, and they believed that most workers supported such a goal. But they also

knew that persuading workers to participate in a protest advocating democratic change would be all but impossible. The workers had internalized the lessons of the Tiananmen massacre. Everybody knew that the party would quickly crush a direct challenge to its authority, and nobody wanted to go to prison. People were too afraid. The memory of Tiananmen has faded in the decade since 2002. But the dynamic of China's hundreds of daily demonstrations has remained the same . So

has the Party's uncanny ability to keep dissent both "within-system" and small-scale, almost never revolutionary in nature or even publicly critical of the autocracy inherent in Communist Party rule. Officials are too smart to believe their own rhetoric about the benevolence or necessary permanence of single-party rule -- the CPP is not Bashar al-Assad, and they know better than to meet every dissenter with a bullet. But so are Chinese, whether activists or workers, aware of the Party's sensitivity to popular anger. So, over time, an informal but well-honed process has developed. And though it allows protesters to often come away unscathed and sometimes with real concessions, just like in Las Vegas, the house

always wins. Again, from Out of Mao's Shadow: Workers from other factories were staging similar protests every day [in spring 2002] across the rust belt. Like the men and women from [Liaoyang], they had concluded that such acts of desperation and defiance, while risky, were the most effective way to draw attention to their problems in a political system in which the media, courts, and labor unions were controlled by the party. When they sought help through formal channels, the party ignored them. But when they took to the streets, the party snapped to attention. Party officials could be recklessly corrupt, but they we re also a nervous and fearful bunch. They understood the depth of discontent with their rule, and they worried that any protest, if handled improperly, could gain momentum and spin out of control. The workers used this fear to their

advantage. The bigger and more disruptive the protest , they realized, the quicker the party would respond and the more likely it would be to address their concerns. But if workers were able to win concessions by protesting, the party always gained more than it gave away. It defused demonstrations by dividing workers, paying some while holding out against others, and in doing so, it blunted demands for systemic change, too. The protests at Liaoyang ultimately won two

of their biggest demands: a large chunk of their pensions and the imprisonment of several corrupt local officials. The protest leaders , however, mostly end ed u p in prison along with the officials , whose seniors in the party escaped

unscathed. The causes of the corruption -- single-party rule, state control over industry, a lack of checks against Party corruption -- went unaddressed, in part because the protests did not dare challenge them.

South China Sea ImpactCCP instability prompts Chinese lash-out to tap into nationalist tendencies, specifically in the South China SeaCole 14 — J. Michael Cole, editor and chief of www.thinking-taiwan.com, a web site operated by the Thinking Taiwan Foundation—an educational foundation, former analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 2014 (“Where Would Beijing Use External Distractions?” The Diplomat, July 10th, Available Online at http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/where-would-beijing-use-external-distractions/, Accessed 6-30-16)

Throughout history, embattled governments have often resorted to external distractions to tap into a restive population’s nationalist sentiment and thereby release, or redirect, pressures that otherwise could have been turned against those in power. Authoritarian regimes in particular, which deny their citizens the right to punish the authorities through retributive democracy — that is, elections — have used this device to ensure their survival during periods of domestic upheaval or financial crisis. Would the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ), whose legitimacy is so contingent on social stability and economic growth, go down the same path if it felt that its hold on power were threatened by domestic instability ?

Building on the premise that the many contradictions that are inherent to the extraordinarily complex Chinese experiment, and rampant corruption that undermines stability, will eventually catch up with the CCP, we can legitimately ask how , and where, Beijing could manufacture external crises with opponents against whom nationalist fervor , a major characteristic of contemporary China, can be channeled. In past decades, the CCP has on several occasions tapped into public outrage to distract a disgruntled population, often by encouraging (and when necessary containing) pro tests against external opponents, namely Japan and the U nited S tates.

While serving as a convenient outlet, domestic protests, even when they turned violent (e.g., attacks on Japanese manufacturers), were about as far as the CCP would allow. This self-imposed restraint, which was prevalent during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, was a function both of China’s focus on building its economy (contingent on stable relations with its neighbors) and perceived military weakness. Since then, China has established itself as the world’s second-largest economy and now deploys, thanks to more than a decade of double-digit defense budget growth, a first-rate modern military.

Those impressive achievements have , however, fueled Chinese nationalism , which has increasingly approached the dangerous zone of hubris. For many, China is now a rightful regional hegemon demanding respect, which if denied can — and should — be met with threats , if not the application of force. While it might be tempting to attribute China’s recent assertiveness in the South and East China Seas to the emergence of Xi Jinping, Xi alone cannot make all the decisions; nationalism is a component that cannot be dissociated from this new phase in Chinese expressions of its power. As then-Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi is said to have told his counterparts at a tense regional forum in Hanoi in 2010, “There is one basic difference among us. China is a big state and you are smaller countries.”

This newfound assertiveness within its backyard thus makes it more feasible that , in times of serious trouble at home, the Chinese leadership could seek to deflect potentially destabilizing anger by exploiting some external distraction . Doing so is always a calculated

risk, and sometimes the gambit fails, as Slobodan Milosevic learned the hard way when he tapped into the furies of nationalism to appease mounting public discontent with his bungled economic policies. For an external distraction to achieve its objective (that is, taking attention away from domestic issues by redirecting anger at an outside actor), it must not result in failure or military defeat. In other words, except for the most extreme circumstances, such as the imminent collapse of a regime, the decision to externalize a domestic crisis is a rational one: adventurism must be certain to achieve success, which in turn will translate into political gains for the embattled regime. Risk-taking is therefore proportional to the seriousness of the destabilizing forces within. Rule No. 1 for External Distractions: The greater the domestic instability, the more risks a regime will be willing to take , given that the scope and, above all, the symbolism of the victory in an external scenario must also be greater.

With this in mind, we can then ask which external distraction scenarios would Beijing be the most likely to turn to should domestic disturbances compel it to do so. That is not to say that anything like this will happen anytime soon. It is nevertheless not unreasonable to imagine such a possibility. The intensifying crackdown on critics of the CCP , the detention of lawyers, journalists and activists , unrest in Xinjiang , random acts of terrorism, accrued censorship — all point to growing instability. What follows is a very succinct (and by no means exhaustive) list of disputes, in descending order of likelihood, which Beijing could use for external distraction.

1. South China Sea

The S outh C hina S ea, an area where China is embroiled in several territorial disputes with smaller claimants, is ripe for exploitation as an external distraction. Nationalist sentiment , along with the sense that the entire body of water is part of China’s indivisible territory and therefore a “core interest,” are sufficient enough to foster a will to fight should some “incident,” timed to counter unrest back home, force China to react . Barring a U.S. intervention, which for the time being seems unlikely, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has both the numerical and qualitative advantage against any would be opponent or combination thereof. The Philippines and Vietnam , two countries which have skirmished with China in recent years, are the likeliest candidates for external distractions , as the costs of a brief conflict would be low and the likelihood of military success fairly high. For a quick popularity boost and low-risk distraction, these opponents would best serve Beijing’s interests .

Taiwan ImpactCCP instability causes a Taiwan war – goes global.Perkinson 12 — Jessica, Faculty of the School of International Service of American University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in International Affairs; reviewed by: Quansheng Zhao, Professor of international relations and Chair of Asian Studies Program Research Council at American University, and John C. King, Assistant Professor School of International Service, 2012 (“The Potential for Instability in the PRC: How the Doomsday Theory Misses the Mark,” American University, April 19th, Available Online at http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/10330/Perkinson_american_0008N_10238display.pdf?sequence=1)

However, a period of significant reform within the CCP could lend itself to instability on the Taiwan Strait . There is no guarantee that pro-independence factions within Taiwan would not take advantage of the CCP and PLA’s distraction with their own transformation to take dramatic, perhaps militaristic, steps toward independence . For example, during Taiwan’s most recent election cycle, the pro-independence candidate Tsai Ing-wen , though she lost the election, garnered enough support to make the government in mainland China nervous about her rise in support.166 The potential destabilization of the Taiwan Strait could spell disaster for the entire region , as other countries and allies could be pulled into a protracted conflict between the two regions.

East China Sea ImpactCCP instability causes a conflict over the Senkaku islands – goes global.Perkinson 12 — Jessica, Faculty of the School of International Service of American University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in International Affairs; reviewed by: Quansheng Zhao, Professor of international relations and Chair of Asian Studies Program Research Council at American University, and John C. King, Assistant Professor School of International Service, 2012 (“The Potential for Instability in the PRC: How the Doomsday Theory Misses the Mark,” American University, April 19th, Available Online at http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/10330/Perkinson_american_0008N_10238display.pdf?sequence=1)

A third region that has a deep interest in China’s political stability is their neighbor Japan . Not only is Japan deeply integrated economically into the Chinese trade system, it also has a number of ongoing territorial disputes with the country . For example, in January 2007, total trade between China and Japan was $18.1 million. That amount spiked to $344.9 million in December, 2011 (an 1808.1% increase)167, a clear indicator that China and Japan are growing their trade dependence at an astounding rate. In addition, Japan and China continue to disagree over the status of some hotly contested territories, including the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands . Not only do both countries have a territorial claim to the islands, but the area contains vast amounts of oil and natural gas resources that both countries want to develop. For example, it is estimated that the Japanese side of the disputed East China Sea area contains up to 500 million kiloliters of crude oil volume.168 As China is the world’s second-largest consumer of oil and Japan third, with Chinese demand for oil expected to rise 14% by 2025, these oil deposits are of crucial national security interest to both countries.169 Tension in the region has been rising as China has continued to press closer to the median line that Japan has drawn around the islands, at one point coming as close as five kilometers from the line.170 The consistency of the Chinese message on the status of these disputed territories, though tense and combative for the Japanese, have at least lent a level of predictability to China’s stance and actions. However, should the CCP undergo a period of instability and reform, and if their message or actions were to change regarding the status of these islands, it could cause a significant conflict over these territories between China and Japan, and could severely destabilize an already weakened Japanese economy . Much like the potential destabilization of the Taiwan Strait, the destabilization of the East China Sea region could draw the countries’ regional neighbors and international partners into a protracted conflict between the two nations.

US–China Relations ImpactCCP instability prevents effective US-China relations.Perkinson 12 — Jessica, Faculty of the School of International Service of American University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in International Affairs; reviewed by: Quansheng Zhao, Professor of international relations and Chair of Asian Studies Program Research Council at American University, and John C. King, Assistant Professor School of International Service, 2012 (“The Potential for Instability in the PRC: How the Doomsday Theory Misses the Mark,” American University, April 19th, Available Online at http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/10330/Perkinson_american_0008N_10238display.pdf?sequence=1)

Though the potential consequences of Chinese political instability for the international community are grave and vast, there are few regions of the world whose cooperation with China is more important than that of the United States. The hegemonic leader of the international system and of all major international institutions for more than the last two decades, the stability and continuation of the US’s growing cooperation with China are more critical to the stability of the entire global order than any other relationship . Because the United States continues to grow both its economic and security commitment not only with China, but with the entire East Asian region , it is increasingly critical that China’s government maintain a stable and secure internal environment . Various aspects of US national security that could be affected by Chinese political instability include its military commitment to East Asian countries such as South Korea , Taiwan and Japan , its interests in the denuclearization of Iran , and the stability of its already volatile economy .

CCP Collapse AFF Answers

2AC BlockCCP collapse inevitable now —Middle class becoming dissatisfied Saikia 7-16 (Makhan, PhD. Senior editor of the Pioneer, “CHINA’S RISING MIDDLE CLASS A THREAT TO ITS STABILITY”. The Pioneer. http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/chinas-rising-middle-class-a-threat-to-its-stability.html)China’s post-Mao reform era is largely seen as beginning of a “transition” and the numerous manifestations of the impact of the market on the socialist nation. In this historic shift, China’s burgeoning middle class has been scripting a new future for rising China either knowingly or unknowingly. The legitimacy of the post-Communist regime was primarily moulded around the simultaneous development of two significant aspects: material (wuzhi) and spiritual (jingshen). China’s material ladder of the civilisation refers to the growth element of the model and the spiritual aspect the social control aspect of the same. Deng Xiaoping’s call for a “xiaokang” (well-off) society in the 1980s and Hu Jintao’s trademark evocation of a “hexieshehui” (harmonious society) largely reflects how the future of the country would be determined by the growing middle class, but of course no one can be really immune from political conditioning imposed by the all powerful Communist Party of China (CPC). The grand “China dream” of Xi Jinping under which he aspires to rejuvenate the whole nation is adding both flavour and friction to a much wider debate around how the CPC will fit into or fulfil the fast growing demands of the middle class

while bolstering the relevance of it. As of today, China has a huge middle class , which sits between the ruling elite of the CPC and the poor. McKinsey, a global consultancy, in its report records that China’s middle class is estimated to be 225 million households compared to just 5 million in 2000. The yardstick it has used was an annual income of 75,000-2,80,000 yuan i.e. $11,500-43,000. This report predicts that between now and 2020 another 50 million households will join its ranks. They are spread across the country, but are highly concentrated in urban areas; around 80 per cent of them own property; and they include many of the Communist Party’s 88 million members. When China got Independence in 1949, the country had a small section of bourgeoisie. Again, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which ended with his death in 1976, people possessing wealth, education and interested in western culture were either harassed or eliminated by the so-called “Red Guards” across the country. But with liberalisation, the country has registered considerable progress; and particularly its middle class has come a long way on the economic

ladder. The biggest worry for the middle class is that the wealth of the top rich class has surged much ahead of them . On record, Beijing now has more billionaires than New York and this contributes to the increasing gap between the super rich and the middle class . The combined net worth of the country’s 568 billionaires is almost equivalent to Australia’s GDP. Besides, the gap between the upper and the lower ends of the middle class is growing much faster than ever before. On the other hand, the

most of the members of the China’s middle classes own property and they have decent jobs either in the Government sectors or in esteemed private sector companies. Still they worry that they are being constantly squeezed both from the top and the bottom as they are not getting enough space for free expression of their ideas and restricted in voicing their woes to the political authority. The recent history shows that by 1980s, China was among one of the most equal societies in the world with a Gini coefficient of 0.3, but in 2008, the country had gone up to 0.49. Though the past seven years have shown a declining trend as pay for both rural and blue collar jobs has been on the rise than the white collar jobs,

but today with Gini coeficient at 0.46, it is still much higher than the rich OECD club of countries. It is an alarming rate and it rightly demonstrates the countries sharpening gap between the rich and the poor . The stress on harmony as a rationality of

the Government at this turning point is not coincidental, rather it is an utter necessity for the CPC to restore order and normalcy in the country. Today the Chinese society is described as complex by its own political elites, which largely incorporate diverse and often conflicting interests. And all of them are looking for representation and better enhancement of their facilities as time passes by. However, in a dominant society like that of China, these tendencies are not been portrayed as being at opposing ends of the CPC. The post-Mao leadership tries to refer them as non-antagonistic and the objective of the Government is to accommodate them as far as possible. The idea behind is crystal clear — avoid conflict and larger socio-political chaos in the country. Else it would simply mean an immediate challenge to the authority of the CPC and its losing relevance in the Chinese society. It is argued that although harmonious society does not appear to constitute a departure from traditional paternalistic type of governance that the CPC wants to impose on its people by creating a unique set of institutional mechanism. In reality, the political apparatus of the socialist hierarchical state is still in vogue and after three decades of marketisation, hardly there is any sign of what

the system might successfully supplant it. Nonetheless, the monolithic state is adapting so quietly that outsiders cannot feel the growing conflicts within except on rare occasions. As Luigi Tomba states, “The rationalities of Government and the subjects, it attempts to produce today, are different from those thirty years ago. Today the State requires citizens who are both autonomous (so they can participate in the market)

and responsible (so they will maintain the political status quo).” Thus the Government has purposefully shaped the middle class to serve its long-term interests but not to fulfil their far cry for more rights and liberties. Many middle class folks feel that they are being rewarded lesser than what they deserve . They see society as unfair as their demands are gradually been sidelined by the Government. They are squeezed further by zoning them in marked areas so that the Government can control their anger better than in a society wherein the middle class is spread across. Thus the outcome is a classification of society into those who are bearers of modernity and can be trusted to govern themselves and those who need to be improved and governed. It stresses on the latter class for

improvement and adjustment in the governing process. Whatsoever it may be, China’s middle rung people may one day be one of the main irritants to the CPC which created the same for serving it. In fact, this class which has fashioned their lifestyle much like their western peers may have the potential to destabilise the longstanding rule of the CPC . It is ironical also why a section of society which can see life beyond the borders of the traditional Chinese society will

ever listen to the age old maxims of the CPC. The party has helped hundreds of millions get richer but has done little to ensure that their assets serve them the way they want. Pension and insurance schemes are too weak in China and many think that Government is totally irresponsible in meeting the demands of the middle class . The party does not offer any explanation. Even if the people want to approach the judiciary, it is again a party controlled machine . Then where to go? The ordinary people either stay clueless or give up the hope for getting justice ever in their life. The biggest myth about China is that its people do not have the power to vote their leaders in a popular election and it is easy for the CPC to control the emerging conflicts. For decades, the CPC has been claiming to represent the will of the people. “Since 1980 it has often done that for pragmatic reasons. It has remained in power largely by letting its

citizens get richer and staying ahead of their expectations, occasionally even bending to some of their demands.” This shows how the CPC is scared of the growing awareness of the people about their unholy alliance with power. The control over the commons is now fraying and it might so happen that China will see its doomsday soon. Finally, it can rightly be argued that China’s long-term policies to curb public anger will prove to be disastrous one fine day for sure. People are angry about corruption, pollution and inequality in society. Drumming up national sentiment on issues related to South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang will not always help the

CPC retain power forever. China’s challenge will most probably come from within than from outside . Its global march to reach out to all corners of the world and teaming up with an anti-western brigade of nations or at times offering support to African dictators may lose the relevance of its growth model soon. Mainly, China’s much ambitious route to “peaceful rise” was decried by most of the Asian nations and the way Xi Jinping is trying to bring back the Maoist ethos back will further deteriorate the regional power balance in the coming days. China’s empire building efforts must reflect the realities it has been facing inside the country.

Its citizens are not getting adequate space to ventilate their grievances and hence the CPC must realise the futility of extending its arm beyond its capacity . Xi’s constant call to love the Communist Party and actively practise socialist core values may not take him and his beloved party farther. It has been observed that the CPC will rather look for, and always used to, authoritarianism rather than taking resort to accountability, even in the event of a possible middle class upsurge across China. It is certain that there may not be an immediate revolt or civil rights movement anytime

soon, but the huge middle class is definitely looking for a change. The CPC’s iron grip over the party and the policy making may require an urgent adjustment so that it will be able to douse the fire in the middle class gradually . The writing on the wall is clear: internet and social media have exposed the people to the outside world beyond China’s Great Wall, so now they will demand more and more freedom the way others are enjoying across the world . The CPC’s policy of balancing freedom of expression with repression is no longer sustainable and it may invite major setback to the survival of the party. It is time now to gear up to go ahead with the changing dynamics of a globalised society. The CPC’s control over the masses needs to be redefined. The social engineering of the urban middle class may bring unrest unless the CPC brings forth gradual changes in the process of governance and accordingly spare more spaces for them.

Taiwan key to CCP legitimacy Deans 2005 (Phil, Deans is Director at the ContemponaryChina Institute, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, “Nationalism and National Self-Assertion in the People's Republic of China: State Patriotism versus Popular Nationalism?” https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjG_uuUvZvOAhXD7IMKHf54ArgQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcjas.dk%2Findex.php%2Fcjas%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F39%2F52&usg=AFQjCNF3FWk9B-hXB2HZOwPOrNZSHJ4f8w&sig2=r1RdwbDO6m4pE00sx7blCA&bvm=bv.128617741,d.amc&cad=rja)

Since the foundation of the PRC, the CCP has derived a key source of its legitimacy from its nationalist credentials and its pursuit of a nation- alist project. Of course, the CCP's legitimacy derived from more than just this source - its programmes of social and economic reform were also vital - but these programmes were inseparable from the national- ist agenda (Pepper 2004).From the early 1950s until the 1980s the CCP routinely mobilized nationalism as a

vehicle to maintain its power and achieve its objectives . The PRC in this period (with the possible excep- tion of the chaotic first two years of the Cultural Revolution, 1966-68) was a strongly authoritarian Leninist regime in which the party-state aspired to exercise almost total control over society. However, by the late 1970s and following the death of Mao, the CCP faced increasing problems with its legitimacy. The mistakes within the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the death of the charismatic revolutionary leader, and the visible reconfigurations of the PRC's international relations all combined to undermine the authority of the CCP. Deng Xiaoping's response was to begin a series of political and economic reforms to reinvigorate the economic credentials of the CCP. While economic legitimacy was the key strategy for Deng, appeals to patriotism remained important throughout the 1980s, and Pye, Zheng and others have argued that nationalism increasingly replaces Marx- ism-Leninism as the underlying ideology of CCP rule (Pye1996; Zheng 1999). Nonetheless, as the Leninist authoritarianism of the Mao period declined, the CCP faced increasing challenges from Chinese society, especially during periods of economic difficulty . The CCP leadership continued to appeal to Chinese nationalism (minzuzhuyi) to legitimize its role , using state media and the education system to promote a particular vision of China and its future. However, disagreements within the leadership over emphasis and tensions over nationalist aspirations within the Chinese periphery (most notably in Taiwan and Tibet) saw a shift towards a more inclusive patriotism (aiguozhuyi).Patriotism in this context is inspired by a 'love of country' that is accessible to all citizens of the state, whereas nationalism is typi- cally a more narrow ideology centred on a specific ethnic group. In this way, 'patriotism' should be seen as the officially sanctioned discourse of nationalism in China (Zheng 1999: 88). Immediately after the tur- moil of the student-led reform movement in 1989, the CCP under the direction of Jiang Zemin and Li Ruihuan initiated a series of patriotic campaigns which focused on China's past humiliations and on the role of the CCP in defending China (Zhongyaowenxian zhaibian 1990).As Xu demonstrates, anniversaries of 'public humiliations' such as the Opium Wars were commemorated with a very high profile by the senior leader- ship (Xu 2001), and this culminated in 1994 with the publication of the 'Outline for the Implementation of Patriotic Education' (Renmin Ribao, 6 September 1994). Significantly, nationalism and patriotism became the rallying cry of those who challenged the CCP on a range of issues. In the 1980s many Chinese intellectuals paid great attention to western countries as po- tential models for China, and there was widespread criticism of many aspects of China's past as being a hindrance to China's development. However, the 1990s saw the emergence of a growing rejection of the west and western models and focus on 'Chinese'solutions to China's problems (Xu 2001). The student-led reform movement of 1989 is per- haps the turning point in the emergence of a new, popular nationalist discourse in the PRC to exist outside the control of the Communist Party. The excellent analysis of China's new nationalism by Peter Hays Gries shows how growing nationalist sentiment in Chinese society during the 1990s increasingly became a problem for the Chinese leadership (Gries 2004).The mid-1990s saw a growing expression of popular nationalism throughthepublicationof bookssuchasSongetal.'sZhongguokeyishuo ' bu ' [The China that Can Say 'No'](Songet al.1996) and the widespread use of the internet as a vehicle for discussion by Chinese nationalists (Deans 2004b). While the CCP has continued to mount patriotic cam- paigns and engage in the promotion of nationalism as a mechanism for promoting legitimacy, a popular nationalist discourse has increasingly offered a challenge to the CCP, as was seen in popular reaction to the dispute with Japan over control of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and the death of a Chinese pilot following a collision with an American spy plane (Gries 2004). What is interesting about the PRC is that the end of the Cold War, an event

that dominates the politics and international relations of Europe and North America, is relatively unimportant with regard to China's relations with other Asian countries. It is significant mainly in the context of the PRC-USA relationship, but the fundamental shift in the PRC's relations with other Asian countries takes place in the 1970s. There has been a tendency in the literature to overstate the significance of the end of theColdWarforthePRC.Inthe1990sithasbeentheinternaldvnam- ics of the reform process and the unresolved tensions within Chinese nationalism, rather than change in the international system, that has had most significance for Chinese self-assertion. Complementarity between the economic goals of the reform pro- gramme and national self-assertion is not guaranteed. The greatest ten- sions exist when more narrowly defined nationalist objectives conflict with the wider economic priorities of the reform programme. This is visible in a number of policy areas, including the PRC's approach to cross-Strait relations and bilateral relations between the PRC and the United States and Japan. Conflicts exist in the Chinese leadership over the relative emphasis that should be placed on national self-assertionand economic growth, and these tensions, combined with growing popular nationalist aspirations, may significantly hinder the autonomy of the Chinese state to pursue rational and coherent strategies in this regard. The Chinese state remains very powerful, but it is no longer able to exercise the all-pervasive power of Chinese society that it enjoyed be- fore the start of the reform programme in 1978. The reform programme has seen a gradual and ongoing reduction in both state autonomy (the ability of the central government to make planning decisions without excessive or undue influence over these decisions) and state capacity (the ability to physically implement a decision once it is taken, i.e. to enforce the law, make local authorities follow central directives and to extract, regulate, legitimate and coerce) (Deans 2004a). As was shown in 1989, when faced with serious levels of unrest, the CCP is able and willing to use lethal force to ensure its continuing rule, but the costs of this are well understood by the leadership. The costs must be counted not just in human terms, but in potential damage to the Party's cred- ibility, economic costs in terms of the impact of falling investment and possible sanctions, and the damage done to the PRC's international reputation and prestige and pursuit of a peaceful and stable interna- tional environment. Maintaining high levels of surveillance and control over society, especially in the context of new forms of media such as the internet, is expensive and possibly unsustainable (Deans 2004b). The senior Chi- nese leadership fears that public pressure over an ostensible 'patriotic' concern- such as the desire for national reunification with Taiwan or holding Japan to account for its past abuses of China- may result in direct attacks on say, American or Japanese interests in the PRC. Even more troubling, the criticism could be directed at the CCP'shandling of these events, and snowball into mass anti-government demonstrations that mobilize nationalism as a mechanism to attack the CCP. Controllin and policing this kind of unrest is possible in the short term, but the medium- to long-term costs could be highly damaging, especially if, as in 1989, the protestors seek legitimacy though appeals to nationalism. It is in this area that state patriotism could clash with popular nationalism, and where societal demands for greater self-assertion by the Chinese state could lead to conflict, both within the PRC and between the PRC and other members of international society .

South China Sea not key-legitimacy hinges on the success of Xi’s anti-grafting campaignShintao 7-1 (Jin, contributor to the South China Morning Post, “Corruption fight set to headline Chinese president’s Communist Party anniversary address”, South China Morning Post, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1983766/corruption-fight-set-headline-chinese-presidents)

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to underscore his resolve to fight rampant corruption in a speech on Friday morning marking the Communist Party’s 95th anniversary, according to mainland observers. In response to public discontent over a slew of economic, social and environmental woes, Xi is also expected to stress the need for his hallmark “supply-side reforms” in another

bid to rally support for structural changes in the country’s sluggish economy. Despite much-touted achievements in Xi’s sweeping crackdown on corrupt officials, which snared a long list of high-ranking “tigers” and lowly “flies”, Xi and his top anti-graft aide Wang Qishan have admitted that there is little room for complacency, given the scale of corruption within the party. Analysts warned that the party’s legitimacy was hanging on the success of the anti-graft drive, which Xi launched after taking office in late 2012. “ The party has reached a point where its legitimacy and more importantly, its very existence are at stake ,” said Professor Wang Yukai, from the Chinese Academy of Governance. Both Wang and academy colleague Professor Zhu Lijia, said the party was grappling with a more complex and challenging global and domestic environment compared with four years ago. “The world has changed a lot since Xi took office,” Zhu said, adding that the uphill battle to rein in corruption and cope with China’s slowing growth, compounded by growing international scepticism over the country’s rising clout, posed greater risks to the party’s rule. “That’s why the party has rolled out one education campaign after another in a bid to seek unity among the more than 87 million party members and rally public support,” Zhu said. As with previous years, Beijing has unleashed a propaganda blitz ahead of the party’s anniversary. State media have published numerous articles over the past few weeks, bragging about the party’s achievements over the past nine decades and its ability to escape the dynastic cycle of rise and fall repeated throughout the ages. Citing Singapore as an example, party mouthpiece People’s Daily insisted in an article this week that the single-party system was fully equipped to tackle corruption and build a clean government. But analysts doubt the effectiveness of such top-down media

campaigns. Legitimacy is the underlying theme of this year’s commemorations, analysts say, but it is a politically sensitive

word and Xi may not utter it his speech. That’s despite Wang Qishan , head of the party’s anti-graft watchdog, break ing a long-standing taboo by openly discussing the issue last year . “ The party’s legitimacy arises from history and is determined by popular support. It is the people’s choice,” he said. Beijing-based political analyst Zhang Lifan said Xi would try to use his speech to justify one-party rule and burnish his own achievements while tightening his grip on power in the lead-up to next year’s leadership reshuffle. “Xi may want to use the propaganda machine as well as his speech to disseminate his messages to the Chinese public that the party under his rule is capable of meeting all sorts of challenges both at home and abroad,” Zhang said. “But unfortunately, such distorted media campaigns, which rarely mention the [party’s] grave errors and countless man-made disasters, such as the Cultural Revolution and persistent power struggles, is too late to help ease widespread public dissatisfaction and

disillusion.” Zhang also said Xi’s anti-graft drive and personnel changes over the past few days were largely warning shots to his opponents against political manoeuvring ahead of the party congress.

CCP is resilient and other factors outweighChen 15 — Dingding Chen, Assistant Professor of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau, Non-resident Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, Founding Director of the Intellisia Institute—an independent think-tank focusing on international affairs in China, PhD and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, 2015 (“Sorry, America: China Is NOT Going to Collapse,” The National Interest, March 10th, Available Online at http://nationalinterest.org/feature/sorry-america-china-not-going-collapse-12389?page=2, Accessed 6-22-16)

Second, would a slowdown, or even a massive financial meltdown lead to widespread disruption in Chinese society? The answer actually depends on how the effects of the slowdown are distributed throughout society . As Confucius pointed out long ago, Chinese people tend to get riled up more about inequality than scarcity(患均不患寡), which is just as true today. Most ordinary Chinese hate a high level of inequality, especially if such inequality is a result of corruption rather than legitimate hard work. While a severe crisis would lead to a massive loss of

jobs and lower incomes, if the U.S. economy survived the 2008 global financial crisis, there is no reason to believe the Chinese economy cannot overcome a similar one.

Third, even if a severe economic crisis hits China and causes greater social grievances, why does this mean that social unrest will automatically lead to an uprising against the regime? In other words,, this claim is premised on the belief that the Chinese government’s legitimacy relies solely on economic performance.

Unfortunately this assumption, though widely held among scholars, is no longer true . Economic growth is certainly important for most Chinese people, but education, the environment, corruption, and legal justice matter just as much as growth. As long as the Chinese government seriously tackles problems in those areas, support for the CCP will remain high . This explains why the Xi administration has initiated bold reforms in all these areas.

Finally, even if there is political unrest will it necessarily topple the regime ? This depends on the balance of power between the government and the dissenters. Where is the political opposition in China today? Does the political opposition enjoy the widespread support of ordinary Chinese people ? Is there any leader who might want to play the role of Gorbachev? None of these factors exist in China.

1AR Link Turn ExtTaiwan key to CCP legitimacyFeng 4 (Zhu, visiting fellow at the Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, WHY TAIWAN REALLY MATTERS TO CHINA, The Jamestown Foundation, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news5D=26929&no_cache=1#.V5zEcLgrI2w)

In order to understand the Chinese leadership's absorption with the eventual reunification of Taiwan with China, it is necessary to appreciate the ramifications that the loss of Taiwan would have to China, both domestically and internationally. As the Communist Party strives to maintain its relevance in a globalizing China, encouraging Chinese nationalism helps bolster its legitimacy. By making unification with Taiwan a core goal of the party , Beijing has effectively linked Taiwan with the party's legitimacy. A failure to bring about reunification would certainly present a home-grown challenge to the Party's continued rule. Additionally, a failure would create a permanent "humiliation," opposite of the one resolved by the hand over of Hong Kong in 1997.

The perceived foreign intervention in Taiwan is at the core of the split, making it even more deeply felt. Chinese elites hold a deep-seated culture against "defecting," particularly to a foreign, or "outside" forces. The concept of "traitorous Chinese" makes the Taiwan issue particularly galling for many on the Mainland . Reflecting the almost sacrilegious nature of the civil war, Chiang Kaishek during the Second World War once referred to the Communists as a "disease of the heart," compared to the invading Japanese army who were a disease of the skin.

Taiwanese independence spills over to broader independenceFeng 4 (September 29, 2004; Zhu Feng is currently the visiting fellow at the Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Professor Zhu is the director of the International Security Program at the School of International Relations at Peking University; “WHY TAIWAN REALLY MATTERS TO CHINA”; http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=26929&no_cache=1#.V5zGqzWAOko)

Threat to the Party's Legitimacy Taiwan has a direct impact on the Communist Party's legitimacy, particularly because it has placed the issue of Taiwan so high on its agenda, linking the Party's success to reunification. Earlier this month, Vice President Zeng Qinghong outlined the Communist Party's three main tasks

for the 21st century: modernization, reunification of the motherland, and safeguarding world peace. Because of the importance placed on bringing Taiwan back under mainland control, no Chinese leadership group can afford to be the one who lost Taiwan. At this point, Taiwan could potentially disrupt the first peaceful, institutionalized transfer of power in China , making it a liability for current leaders by providing opportunities for other factions to usurp power. Additionally, leaders in Beijing often state that Taiwan could exacerbate domestic social and political tensions , which raises the issue of the Party's "mandate of heaven" to rule China. If the Party is unable to maintain peace and stability, widespread disaffection among elites, similar to the May fourth movement is feared. Taiwan could

become an excuse for dissidents and activists to oppose the Party. Furthermore, the loss of Taiwan could spur dissent in other provinces with separatist tendencies, such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet. Losing Taiwan could upset the regional long-term plans for incremental integration that have been relatively successful to date. Lastly, foreign influence in Taiwan sets a dangerous precedent for Xinjiang and Tibet, where international support for independence movements already exists.

Issue of Taiwan linked directly to legitimacyFeng 4 (September 29, 2004; Zhu Feng is currently the visiting fellow at the Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Professor Zhu is the director of the International Security Program at the School of International Relations at Peking University; “WHY TAIWAN REALLY MATTERS TO CHINA”; http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=26929&no_cache=1#.V5zGqzWAOko)

Conclusion In order to understand the Chinese leadership's absorption with the eventual reunification of Taiwan with China, it is

necessary to appreciate the ramifications that the loss of Taiwan would have to China, both domestically and internationally. As the Communist Party strives to maintain its relevance in a globalizing China, encouraging Chinese nationalism helps bolster its legitimacy. By making unification with Taiwan a core goal of the party, Beijing has effectively linked Taiwan with the party's legitimacy. A failure to bring about reunification would certainly present a home-grown challenge to the Party's continued rule. Additionally, a failure would create a permanent "humiliation," opposite of the one resolved by the hand over of Hong Kong in 1997.

The perceived foreign intervention in Taiwan is at the core of the split, making it even more deeply felt. Chinese elites hold a deep-seated culture against "defecting ," particularly to a foreign , or " outside" force s. The concept of "traitorous Chinese" makes the Taiwan issue particularly galling for many on the Mainland. Reflecting the almost sacrilegious nature of the civil war, Chiang Kaishek during the Second World War once referred to the Communists as a "disease of the heart," compared to the invading Japanese army who were a disease of the skin.

1AR No Collapse — IdeologyNo collapse — the CCP can use ideology to control the impact of economic decline on legitimacy using propagandaZeng 16 — Jinghan Zeng, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, Associate Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick, Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, M.A. from the University of Pittsburg, 2016 (“The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule,” Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, Published by Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-349-57455-1, p. 71-73)

As mentioned in the Introduction chapter, there is no empirical evidence to prove that the CCP’s legitimacy solely relies on economic success . Arguably, there are two major problems in the relevant literature: the exclusion of ideological factors and the narrow focus of government performance.

The major problem with the socioeconomic performance approach lies in its exclusion of ideological factors, which leads to many problematic arguments and predictions. The performance legitimacy approach implies a problematic relationship between economy and politics (White, 1986). The argument – that legitimacy of the CCP primarily relies on economic performance – implies that economic crisis or the slowdown of economic growth would lead to some kinds of legitimacy crises or major disasters in China . This is also explicitly warned by many who argue that economic deterioration will unavoidably lead to political crisis (Krugman, 2013; Zhao, 2009). This kind of argument implies that economic factors are the independent or dominant variables , while political factors are subordinate or dependent variables. It is flawed to contend that the regime is helpless in an economic crisis. This book endorses White’s assertion (1986) on the primacy of politics – that proper political actions can fill the deficit in legitimacy created by economic difficulties .

As mentioned in the Introduction chapter, legitimacy directly comes from neither economic crisis nor economic growth per se (Gilley and Holbig, 2010). Ideological factors will transform economic performance into people’s subjective perceptions of economic performance, and regime legitimacy is based on “those perceptions” rather than on economic performance per se . As such, an economic crisis is not a direct threat to a regime – its impacts on political legitimacy depend on people’s perceptions of the crisis and the regime; thus, how the government frames this crisis is crucial (Gilley and Holbig, 2010). In other words, how political actors use ideological factors to frame people’s perception s of the crisis (i.e., discourse) is key to deciding the impact of the crisis on legitimacy .

Proper political actions and effective crisis management will contribute to minimize legitimacy loss or even sometimes enhance legitimacy. As discussed below, there is much room to manipulate people’s dependency on the government and on its irreplaceable role during a crisis . This is especially true in China, where people’s dependency on the government is more obvious because of historical traditions (Tong, 2011). The CCP has abundant experience and the capability to market its authoritarian rule through information control and powerful propaganda campaigns . In the 20 08 financial crisis, for example, the Chinese government actually won , rather than lost, legitimacy credits. The regime strategically manipulated this crisis

as an opportunity to achieve its political purposes i ncluding the promotion of Scientific Outlook of Development (Holbig, 2011). The Chinese media highlighted China’s good performance in coping with the financial crisis domestically in contrast with the disaster that this crisis caused in other countries, and the official media also made efforts to project international recognition onto China’s crisis management. By using those propaganda strategies, the CCP successfully transformed its performance during this crisis into positive perceptions, thus legitimacy (Holbig, 2011).

1AR No Collapse — Party AdaptsCCP adaptability ensures stability and economic resiliencyLi 13 — Eric X. Li, venture capitalist in Shanghai, serves on the board of directors of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and is vice chairman of its publishing arm CEIBS Publishing Group, a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, 2013 (“The Life of the Party: The Post-Democratic Future Begins in China,” Foreign Affairs, February, available online at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2012-12-03/life-party, accessed 6/30/16) JL

In November 2012, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its 18th National Congress, setting in motion a once-in-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of leaders. As expected, Xi Jinping took over as general secretary and will become the president of the People's Republic this March. The turnover was a smooth and well-orchestrated demonstration by a confidently rising superpower. That didn't stop international media and even some Chinese intellectuals, however, from portraying it as a moment of crisis. In an issue that was published before the beginning of the congress, for example, The Economist quoted unnamed scholars at a recent conference as saying that China is "unstable at the grass roots, dejected at the middle strata and out of control at the top." To be sure, months before the handover, the scandal surrounding Bo Xilai, the former party boss of the Chongqing municipality, had shattered the CCP's long-held facade of unity, which had underwritten domestic political stability since the Tiananmen Square upheavals in 1989. To make matters worse, the Chinese economy, which had sustained double-digit GDP growth for two decades, slowed, decelerating for seven straight quarters. China's economic model of rapid industrialization, labor-intensive manufacturing, large-scale government investments in infrastructure, and export growth seemed to have nearly run its course. Some in China and the West have gone so far as to predict the demise of the one-party state, which they allege cannot survive if leading politicians stop delivering economic miracles .

Such pessimism , however, is misplaced. There is no doubt that daunting challenges await Xi. But those who suggest that the CCP will not be able to deal with them fundamentally misread China's politics and the resilience of its governing institutions. Beijing will be able to meet the country's ills with dynamism and resilience, thanks to the CCP's adaptability, system of meritocracy, and legitimacy with the Chinese people . In the next decade, China will continue to rise, not fade. The country's leaders will consolidate the one party model and, in the process, challenge the West's conventional wisdom about political development and the inevitable march toward electoral democracy. In the capital of the Middle Kingdom, the world might witness the birth of a post-democratic future.