China Turns Up the Rhetoric Against the WEst

China Turns Up the Rhetoric Against the West - NYTimes.com Some have questioned the sincerity — or pointed out the hypocrisy — of the party’s tirades against the West, noting that many party officials have children or other family members living and even applying for citizenship overseas. Mr. Xi’s daughter, Xi Mingze, attended Harvard University under a pseudonym. “How can Chinese officials really be anti-American?” asked Zhan Jiang, a media studies professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. “Anti-foreign sentiments will always be present in China because of China’s unique history,” he said. “However, the public’s opinion of the West will not change because of what the party says.”

Related: Beijing Aims to Blunt Western Influence in China  - WSJ “It used to be that everyone thought ‘Oh, we’ll get in there, get some capitalism going, and China will flip eventually.’ Well that hasn’t happened,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the New York-based Asia Society. “Not only has it not happened, but China has demonstrably declared that it isn’t their intention or goal.” In December 2012, shortly after he was named Communist Party chief, Mr. Xi suggested to Mr. Carter that his center change tack. The Carter Center had been working in China since the 1990s, monitoring village elections and, later, researching government transparency. Still, Mr. Xi told Mr. Carter the research institute should refocus on U.S.-China relations, according to the people.  //  seems to be a creeping realization that the liberalization promised to help sell engagement over the last 3 decades is not really happening...bit late, not many other good options

Related: Xi’s Rapid Rise in China Presents Challenges to the U.S. - NYTimes.com At the same time, Mr. Xi’s administration has resurrected and amplified traditional party themes that China’s woes have been exacerbated, even instigated, by “hostile forces” controlled by Western governments. Chinese officials accuse the United States of seeking to topple Communist Party rule, most recently by supporting pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, a charge the United States government denies. “There is this contradiction between this Cold War ideological thinking about hostile foreign forces and U.S. subversion, but at the same time saying that they want to have this new type of great power relationship,” said Susan L. Shirk, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who was a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration.