Forging the Future

Ever since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, it has harbored an ambition to lead the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the summit of the international system. In the Party’s preferred historical analysis, it alone is able to overcome historical injustices and return China to a position of preeminent power in the world.

The country’s current leader, Xi Jinping, appears to believe that the PRC is within touching distance of achieving this ambition, which the Party calls “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Xi has set the target for realizing national rejuvenation as the middle of the twenty-first century, with certain milestones to be reached by 2027 and 2035.

Xi’s beliefs are increasingly supported by hard evidence. Experts within the Party have for decades attempted to calculate the aggregate strength of the nation and compare it to that of other major powers. Measuring the country’s “comprehensive national power” in this way involves assessing progress on a variety of indices such as military strength, economic power, and global influence. Under Xi, material progress on these and other components of national power have become impossible to overlook.

In Forging Order[AH1] , editors Peter Mattis and Arran Hope offer a new understanding of what the PRC has become and where the Party is headed. Collating writing by a wealth of expert analysts and China watchers, they show how Beijing has reasserted strict control over the Party, reinserted it into active roles within public and private institutions, and undertaken dramatic reforms to mobilize the state in a struggle for national rejuvenation. Military might, industrial and technological innovation, and an ever-evolving social world all play a part in the country’s bid for dominance on the world stage.

The book traces how everything from One Belt One Road projects across, the multi-domain degradation of the status quo with Taiwan, and cutthroat competition over artificial intelligence and other crucial technologies of the future form a complex strategy both visible and invisible. It also unveils the networks through which the Party seeks to extend its influence beyond the PRC’s borders. Examining the Party’s overseas united front efforts to cultivate relationships, shape narratives, and buy acquiescence toward Beijing’s interests, it raises difficult questions about foreign influence and the resilience of open institutions.

The PRC’s dramatic progress in just a few decades has presented a major challenge to democracies worldwide, particularly Canada, the United States and those in Europe. It is also undermining the institutions of the postwar international system. Beijing has been shaping an alternative (new) order more conducive to its interests. The West is only beginning to understand the scale of the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions and how far it has already advanced towards realising them.

Understanding how the Party conceives of its own power and position in the world is essential for recognizing the direction in which it is taking the PRC and, increasingly, impacting the rest of the world. Forging Order provides the tools to approach such an understanding. With incisive prose and analytic rigor, it describes the challenge posed to democratic nations by an increasingly powerful authoritarian state and demonstrates the urgent need for democracies to work together to protect the institutions on which open societies depend.

 [AH1]Didn’t we agree on “Forging the Future”?

 [AH2]ditto