Logan Dopp

Since the formation of the Chinese Communist party, the world has watched China evolve into the world power it is today. While it is clearly evident that China is continually increasing its soft power around the world, it is less evident that China is in the midst of serious economic woes. Many of China’s efforts to expand its soft power focus on utilizing its comparative economic might, others, however, focus on expanding China’s culture. Through its acclaimed Confucian Institutes, China is planting footholds throughout Africa. These footholds increase awareness and notoriety for China throughout the entire continent. In addition, China is pouring capital into Africa, Iceland, and the United States. These foreign investments indicate a weakening homeland where Chinese billionaires do not want to store their capital. China is playing a deceiving game of economic protectionism masked by a rise in soft power. Given China’s current track, competing world powers need not fear China’s total economic dominance.

The Chinese government’s understanding of human rights is fundamentally different from that widely held by much of the West. Additionally, many human rights lawyers oppose the Chinese government’s views and practices. This dissonance poses a threat to the stability of the region, especially considering China’s common historical cycle of oppression, protest and revolution. While potential protests may indeed bring about change, possibly even a positive one, instability is a probable byproduct, as seen in China’s own revolutionary past. However, change will come slowly in the People’s Republic of China until the majority of its population is aware of the ruling party’s human rights violations. There are several groups fighting for this change and as a result, China is seeing new laws that can improve the human rights situation. A special group of lawyers, called human rights lawyers seek to enforce these laws within the government. While it may be an uphill battle, human rights lawyers need to continue to pressure the government within their rights, and they will need support from the international community. Stability in China is of top priority for U.S. national security. A new level of chaos in the region could translate to a decline in the Chinese economy, which is so vital to the world market, in particular the U.S. economy.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea have a complicated relationship built on similar ideology and mutual economic gain. In fact, Support began in the Korean war in the 50’s when china obviously supported other communist regimes. In 1961, the two countries signed the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, whereby China pledged to immediately render military and other assistance by all means to its ally against any outside attack. This treaty was prolonged twice, in 1981 and 2001, with a validity till 2021. The PRC in recent years has been the most powerful ally of the small pariah state. From this relationship, the PRC fills its need for raw materials, and its need for regional power. North Korea obviously stands to gain from having a large friend in the region, in addition to receiving its largest supply of food, arms, and fuel. However, China’s stance on UN sanctions against N Korea indicates that raw goods and ideology are not sufficient leverage for N Korea to hold so powerful an ally.

China stands as a rising global power in an increasingly interconnected world. Therefore, the United States must adopt a foreign policy that maintains stability in East Asia. However, relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US have undergone many changes in recent years, some for the worse. The most striking point in PRC-US relations is the fact that China views the independence of Taiwan as the continuation of civil war. Understandably, US support of Taiwan only furthers the tension within the region. Consequently, US-Taiwan relations are an ever-changing aspect of US foreign policy that attempts to balance its delicate relationship and maintain peace in the region.

XinJiang, the Uyghur Autonomous Region, stages some of China’s most violent separatist movements, the most violent of which are developing terrorist- threats. In April, President Xi Jinping visited the region and spoke specifically on the issue of combating terrorism. While China has not officially declared a counterterrorism program, it has developed a new National Security Commission designed to counter “unconventional security” threats. China has modeled much of its new commission after that of the U.S. and may, in the future, follow the U.S. model further by developing a comprehensive counterterrorism program. Given the escalating situation in various autonomous regions, the likelihood that China will develop a broader official counterterrorism strategy is high. This analysis takes into consideration two simplified factors: the development of separatist movements in a Chinese national context, and the evolving Chinese policy of dealing with regional security threats.

Praemon is proud to release the 2014 Annual Threat Report. This collaborative project constitutes dozens of hours of research and analysis on various national security threats. The analyses included in the Annual Threat Report cover some of the most pressing threats to U.S. national security over the next year.