Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise

How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise

The Origins of Overreach

• Overreach in 2008: China's overreach began around 2008, under Hu Jintao, manifesting in three main areas:

  • Economy: New industrial policies were launched, evolving into a state-directed, lavishly funded effort to establish China as a high-tech superpower, with a central objective of reducing dependence on foreign entities.

  • Social Control: On the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intensified its control over media, the internet, and society, an effort that has not abated since.

  • Foreign Policy: China adopted a more belligerent stance in international affairs.

• Catalyst: 2008 Beijing Olympics Events:

  • The Olympics were meant to signify China's peaceful rise but were overshadowed by violent protests in Tibet and Tibetan areas of other Western provinces against religious repression.

  • Tibetan autonomy supporters heckled and assaulted Chinese Olympic torchbearers in foreign cities.

  • Party leaders reacted by stirring up popular nationalism against the Dalai Lama and Western media that reported sympathetically on the protests.

  • **Tibet as a