China on the Rise

By Joseph Kim

Cypress High School

The Chinese Communist Party has made continuous efforts to increase its economic and geopolitical global dominance in recent times. Some examples of a more blunt approach to achieving this goal is China’s presence in the South China Sea. Warships were sent to patrol disputed waters and China started building artificial islands to build military bases. On the other hand, China uses more discreet methods such as surveilling people with apps, security cameras, and facial recognition software. Most recently the app TikTok has been put under the spotlight as a potential National Security Threat. The White House recently found that TikTok takes personal information such as location and browsing history to track federal employees, blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage. China has continuously denied all allegations of trying to increase its hegemony through discreet and blunt means. The consequences of this aggressive increase in Chinese hegemony can have devastating consequences. The Chinese Communist Party have a proven track record of human rights violations. Among these violations are suppression of free speech, censorship of information, and torturing ethnic minorities. If they obtain global hegemony they can impose these violations across more people. 

America is utilizing and considering several different approaches to curb China’s aggressive rush to global hegemony. There is a distinction to be made between hard power and soft power. Hard power is categorized as a more head-on approach that often is more coercive and militaristic; it is contingent on dominating others. The latter of the two, soft power, is described as a more diplomatic approach that is cooperative; it is contingent upon two states working together to come to a favorable agreement. Politicians disagree on how to take on  China. Trump is taking a hard power approach by banning TikTok while Presidential candidate Joe Biden suggested that we confront China about the human rights violations of the Ughyrs at the United Nations. Of the two options I believe taking a hard stance and reinforcing that stance with actions would be more effective. A soft diplomatic approach would not work for a couple of reasons. First, China’s influence in diplomatic institutions makes soft diplomacy almost impossible. To go back to the Joe Biden example, China holds a permanent seat on the United States Security Council and they could easily veto any resolutions that would restrict their aggressive push to hegemony. Second, negotiations is a compromise that both states agree to; however, China has clearly shown that it will not negotiate when it comes to expanding their power and influence. All the drastic steps the Chinese Communist Party have taken is indicative of its uncompromising stance to gaining global hegemony, thus we too should resort to hard power and fight fire with fire.

Two students add their point of view.

“Hard power vs soft power is a difficult question; I’m not sure what’s the answer.” - Eunice Kim, junior at Cypress HS

Chanah Park, a junior, explains, “If we were to use hard power the developed world would have to work together to influence China.”