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9 October 2023

Xi Jinping: China’s New ‘Dragon Emperor’

Mark Toth and Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet

Two 30-foot, carved white marble columns — “huabiao” in Chinese — stand guard over the entrance to the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. Perched atop each huabiao, gazing southward, are two mythical dragons, known as Denglong, who, as legend has it, warned Chinese emperors when they had been away from the Forbidden City for far too long, or more ominously, howled to let a ruler know it was time to abdicate.

Mythology notwithstanding, Chinese President Xi Jinping is well aware of the usefulness of the symbolic power of the dragon. It encapsulates his vision of China, now and into the future. During a state visit by then-President Donald Trump in November 2017 to Tiananmen Square, Xi noted that “Chinese civilization is a unique lasting culture in the world, that passed down through generations consistently.”

During their walkabout, Xi pointedly underscored to Trump: “We call ourselves descendants of the dragon.” Left unsaid was that Xi, wittingly or not, views himself as China’s modern-day heir of Qin Shi Huang. Known as the “Dragon Emperor,” Qin Shi Huang, beginning in 221 BC, was the first Chinese monarch to unite the country under “a new Chinese script, a new currency, and a new system of weights and measures.” He was responsible for the “life-size terra-cotta army” and for connecting the Great Wall of China.

Since becoming General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, Xi has been as ambitious as Qin Shi Huang. His estimated $8 trillion, modern-day Silk Road equivalent — the Belt and Road Initiative — is threefold in purpose: geopolitical, economic and military. Already, 147 nations have signed on.

Under Xi’s direction, China is extending Beijing’s reach even further, building a spaceport in Djibouti and dominating the disinformation ecosphere in Africa, particularly via the free delivery of the Chinese StarTimes satellite media network and CGTN and Xinhua News services across much of the continent.

Now, Xi appears to be focusing on militarily dominating the Indo-Pacific. The Dragon Emperor, allegorically speaking, is turning his focus back to his watery origins and, like the mythical Chinese Dragon Kings of the Four Seas, is seeking to control the South China Sea, the East China Sea, Qinghai Lake, and perhaps even (to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chagrin) Lake Baikal, now part of Russia.

This, despite Xi’s assuring former President Barack Obama in 2015 during a White House visit that “relevant construction activity that China is undertaking in the Nansha Islands [Spratly Islands] does not target or impact any country and there is no intention to militarize.” Notably, however, Xi stated during their meeting that the “islands in the South China Sea, since ancient times, are Chinese territory.”

That was then; this is now. Eight years later, the modern-day Dragon Emperor appears to have won the contest of wills with Washington. China has militarized the Spratly Islands and — as if in a nod to Xi’s channeling Qin Shi Huang — now-retired Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., former commander of U.S. Pacific Command, described the Chinese president’s power move as building a “Great Wall of SAMs,” meaning surface-to-air missiles.

To date, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan — all of which also claim ownership of the contested islands — have stood by helplessly as Xi transformed the South China Sea into a string of strategic People’s Liberation Army air and sea installations via extensive reef reclamation. The islands are essentially equidistant from the capital cities of Manila and Ho Chi Minh City, which are only 870 nautical miles from each other.

Instead of peaceful waters dividing the Philippines and Vietnam, now Chinese “anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets” are placed between them, directly threatening the two South China Sea countries and the global sea and air commerce that passes through those waters. As we have noted, it is estimated that between 20% to 33% of global trade passes through these waters.

Therein lies the primary target of Xi’s Pacific dagger: global trade. Whereas Putin sought to weaponize oil and gas in Europe as a means of controlling Brussels, Xi has ambitiously embarked upon a course of dominating vital shipping lanes throughout the Indo-Pacific to create a far-reaching check on the United States, European Union and their Pacific allies and trading partners: Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Xi is expanding his Indo-Pacific flex by intensifying his designs on the Senkaku Islands in the East Asia Sea, contesting Japan’s sovereignty. Beijing refuses to rein in North Korea and stop Pyongyang’s ballistic missile tests over the Sea of Japan, opting instead to allow the launches to act as a check on Tokyo. Xi continues to court Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands, taking aim at the archipelago’s strategic trade waters that are vital to Canberra, Wellington and Washington’s economic and national security interests.

Plus, Beijing’s new naval facility in Ream, Cambodia, is nearing completion, aiming to economically and militarily dominate Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore via the Gulf of Thailand and the Singapore Straits. Xi’s potential stranglehold on Indo-Pacific trade is nearly complete and Washington’s ability to catch up is severely handicapped by China’s superior “shipbuilding capacity.” Simply put, the United States and its Pacific and European allies are over-exposed.

Washington is reaching critical inflection points in the Indo-Pacific. First, in terms of its resolve to keep key trade routes between the U.S. and its Pacific allies open. Second, the prepositioning of sufficient military forces, weapons and munitions to defend Taiwan, if Xi attempts to retake Taipei. Third, in the construct of a Pacific version of NATO. While AUKUS is a start, it is not enough — and its chief deterrent, submarines, are years in the future.

Xi’s Dragon Emperor is a threat that was years in the making. If left unchecked by the U.S. and its allies, he will be well along the way to constructing a water-based version of the Great Wall of China — in essence, Xi’s unifying vision of “One China” on land and sea.

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