Beijing Weakens Its Competitors to ‘Expand Its Own Power While Looking Like a Peacemaker’: Expert

China shares internet control tactics with Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping enter a hall during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. Alexey Maishev/ Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

As Russia faces increasing isolation due to its invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has extended a helping hand to Russia, from military, economic, and political cooperation to teaching dictatorial tactics.

A China expert believes that the CCP’s strategic intent is to intensify global conflict, weaken the democratic camps, and ultimately take advantage of the situation to achieve its ambition of world domination.

CCP Weakens Competitors While Appearing as ‘Peacemaker’

Anders Corr, the founder of Corr Analytics Inc. and publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, told The Epoch Times on April 8 that the CCP “sees both Russia and the United States as stumbling blocks to its own acquisition of global hegemony. The CCP successfully hid its strength for decades and uses both the United States and Russia ... to advance its own power.

“But it has never been a true friend to either country,” Corr stressed.

He believes the CCP under Xi Jinping is repeating its old tricks of preserving power at times of war, as former Communist Party leader Mao Zedong did during World War II by watching the Nationalists suffer heavy casualties when fighting the Japanese.

“Mao then emerged victorious in 1949 against the weakened Nationalists. Xi is apparently attempting to follow Mao’s strategy on a global level,” he said.

“There is evidence that Beijing’s strategy is to foster conflicts worldwide, including in Ukraine, the Korean peninsula, the Middle East, and South Asia while staying out of the fighting itself, which preserves its power. After the fighting weakens its competitors, it can expand its own power in those regions while looking like a peacemaker.”

Internet Censorship

According to Radio Free Europe, since Xi visited Russia in 2013, the two sides have had close contact, particularly in strengthening cooperation on internet censorship. Based on leaked documents and recordings, officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Russia’s communication regulator held closed-door meetings in 2017 and 2019 to enhance cooperation.

On July 4, 2017, the first closed-door meeting between China and Russia on internet censorship was held in Moscow. Alexander Zharov, then head of Russia’s telecommunications regulatory agency Roskomnadzor, met with a delegation led by Ren Xianliang, then-deputy minister of the CAC.

Russian officials learned from their Chinese counterparts about how to disrupt VPNs, Tor, and other anti-censorship tools, monitor social media platforms, and methods for decrypting network data. In July 2017, Zharov also requested Ren’s help arranging for Russian experts to visit China to study the operation of China’s Golden Shield Project, a comprehensive internet blockage, censorship, and surveillance system.

Internet users in Beijing on June 3, 2009. Internet control in China is among the strictest in the world, according to a 2014 human rights report by Freedom House. Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images

In return, during the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, in China’s Zhejiang Province, in October 2019, Roskomnadzor and the CAC signed a cooperation agreement to combat the spread of “forbidden information.”

Two months later, citing this agreement, Chinese officials requested that Russia delete a BBC report headlined “Xi Jinping wants to carry out the ‘toilet revolution’ to the end,” a blog post discussing Xi’s back injury, and an article on the GitHub website explaining how to bypass China’s “Great Firewall.”

The Toilet Revolution is a campaign Xi advocated to improve bathroom conditions, especially at tourist sites, across the country. Most Western media mocked the situation.

The CCP also asked Russia to block the website of The Epoch Times, according to Radio Free Europe. Founded in New York in 2000, The Epoch Times is an international multilingual newspaper and online media outlet based in the United States. It is known for exposing the CCP’s atrocities of human rights violations.

CCP’s Comprehensive Support to Russia

The CCP has strongly supported Russia in diplomatic settings, justifying Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

For example, when Li Zhanshu, the third-ranked CCP leader, visited Russia in September 2022, he claimed that “the United States and NATO have directly pushed Russia to the doorstep, which involves Russia’s national security and the safety of its people” and “Russia was pushed to the corner and it had to take counterattacks to safeguard its core interests.”

In addition to imparting internet censorship technology, the CCP also supports Russia’s economy and military.

The trade volume between the two countries increased to as high as $189 billion in 2022. In March of this year, Xi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, reaffirming the deepening political and economic ties between their countries. Xi and Putin signed 10 documents on economic cooperation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Russian officials revealed that the two sides are advancing plans to build a second pipeline to transport natural gas from Siberia to China. Russia needs to increase natural gas sales to China to sustain the war in Ukraine because its main European customers have stopped buying Russian natural gas.

China is also strengthening its military cooperation with Russia. From 2003 to 2022, the two countries conducted at least 78 joint military exercises, more than half of which were held after 2016.

A 051C missile destroyer of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy arrives in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, near the North Korean border, on Sept. 18, 2017. China and Russia conducted a joint naval exercise in seas adjacent to the Korean peninsula last week. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Corr said that in today’s world, the United States, Europe, and India are “the three great power centers of democracy globally.” The CCP has been obtaining cheap energy and technology from Russia, hoping to deploy Russia against the democratic camp.

“If Russia fights the United States and Europe, weakening all three, China can then expand into the power vacuum that results,” Corr said.

He hopes the Russian people can realize the danger ahead of them and take action.

“The Russian people should look at Putin’s increased cooperation with Xi and worry for their future. They should remove Putin from power for both his war and for his increasing controls on Russian civil society.”