Hong Kong: China continued to encounter turbulence throughout 2024. However, all the difficulties that China is facing at home and abroad have made Chairman Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more determined to throw their weight around and irrepressibly bully those who disagree with it. In the coming year, it appears greater tumult lies ahead for both China and those who deal with it.
One critical area to watch in the coming year will be Sino-US relations after Donald Trump begins his second presidential term. Since Trump's election on November 5, 2024, and even before he is inaugurated on 20 January, China has pulled off many outrageous feats and set preconditions for ongoing bilateral ties. For example, Beijing has hacked the US Treasury Department and executed the "worst telecom hack in US history". China has also imposed severe export controls and sanctioned American firms.
Lyle Morris, Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy and National Security at the US-based Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, made four predictions regarding Sino-US relations in 2025. Firstly, "China will focus its rhetoric on areas of potential cooperation with Washington, which will include attempts to establish a 'fresh start' with the newly elected US president. However, Beijing will likely adopt more aggressive language over US actions that it regards as harming its core interests, including Taiwan and the South China Sea."
Secondly, the American academic foretold, "The United States will reach a consensus that China is its biggest strategic competitor, and China will continue to dominate the trade and national security agenda in Washington." Of course, Trump may act unpredictably, so their fragile relationship risks further destabilization.
Third, "Forging discrete areas of cooperation will remain key to arresting acute strategic competition," predicted Morris. "Even though the chances of a genuine thaw that resolves fundamental differences and leads to greater cooperation are low in 2025, recent agreements to enhance military-to-military communications and working groups to combat the illicit fentanyl trade are examples of the kinds of cooperation that can build positive momentum."
Finally, Lyle predicted, "Diplomatic engagement will remain a key source of structural stability in the bilateral relationship, and active diplomacy by both sides can keep ties from further fraying in 2025." However, questions remain over China's commitment to keeping communication channels open. The socialist regime has very thin skin, and it tends to pout and give the cold shoulder when it feels offended.
Consider also that Xi has had plenty of time to plan ahead on how to handle the USA under Trump a second time around. In Trump's first presidency, China scrambled for appropriate responses, but now Xi is more ready and will likely employ retaliation, adaptation and diversification at various points of their relationship. China's economy is arguably more self-reliant now, whilst the US economy is more fragile and its political spectrum is deeply divided. China is already tightening the screws on private Western and American companies operating in China, and Xi may use Elon Musk's financial interests there to exert influence on Trump too.
Furthermore, China will doubtlessly be hoping that Trump's erratic behavior will alienate friendly nations and acquaintances in Asia and elsewhere around the world.
Beijing will seek every opportunity to present its alternative worldview, and it is now better equipped to respond to Trump's mercantile gamesmanship.
Xi continues to remonstrate with the Chinese people to "struggle" against the "dangerous storms" lashing it. And struggle is what the Chinese government and military did against all-comers last year. Its prime target has been Taiwan, but it continues to contest Japanese-owned islands in the East China Sea as well. To illustrate, the number of Chinese government vessels spotted by the Japan Coast Guard in the Senkaku Islands contiguous zone hit 1,351 vessels, covering 355 out of 366 days, in 2024. This was the third record year in a row. China has upped the ante of incursions and is using larger vessels too.
Chinese ships are also accused of sabotaging undersea cables in both Europe and Asia. In the latest incident, on 3 January the cargo ship Shunxing39 is believed to have damaged a seabed communications cable - part of the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System that connects Taiwan's internet with the US west coast - after dragging its anchor and charting a crisscrossing course north of Taiwan for several days. The ship is registered to a Hong Kong company, whose director is from China. Such sabotage is common by Russia in places like the Baltic Sea, and China seems to be using the same playbook.
Cutting such underwater cables is the ultimate gray-zone activity, for civilian-flagged vessels can claim it was accidental. Therefore, as China exerts evermore pressure on Taiwan, we might expect Beijing to repeat such a modus operandi to further isolate and antagonize Taipei, as well as use intensified military incursions and multiple forms of coercion against the democratic state.
As well as the above actions during the intervening period between Trump's election and swearing-in ceremony, China's military has been very active. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the largest naval drills in decades, specifically rehearsing how to cut off Taiwan and intercept American military assets from reinforcing the island. The PLA also practiced a naval blockade near Japanese islands for the first time, as well as continuing to agitate in the South China Sea with its maritime militia and law enforcement fleets.
The Philippines has borne the brunt of China's wrath in the South China Sea. As soon as Manila began asserting its legal rights in the maritime area and complained against Chinese encroachment, Beijing removed the velvet glove from its iron fist. There have been repeated clashes in various locations, including Philippine efforts to resupply its garrison at Second Thomas Shoal well within its own exclusive economic zone.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, Chief of Coast Guard Staff for Human Resource Management of the Philippine Coast Guard, has highlighted numerous nefarious activities by China. He noted, for example, "It's clear that the Chinese Coast Guard is engaging in automatic identification system (AIS) spoofing to mislead the international community, confuse authorities and instigate public concern. It's particularly ironic that maritime safety, a fundamental responsibility of any coast guard organization, is compromised by China's disregard for the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, especially the mandatory AIS requirements outlined in Chapter V for certain vessels." Tarriela accused China of exploiting AIS signals of other vessels for their spoofing activities, and said it is likely utilizing dredgers to help facilitate this AIS manipulation.
Technologically, the PLA is advancing at a rapid drumbeat, showing and introducing equipment in classes not even the USA is currently fielding.
For example, China recently launched its first Type 076 amphibious vessel, the largest of its kind in the world, and one that can accommodate fighter jets on its flight deck. Add to that the stunning achievement of successfully staging the maiden flights of no fewer than two sixth-generation aircraft types plus a new airborne early warning variant of the Y-20 aircraft on December 26, 2024, and it can be seen that Chinese confidence and technological knowhow is soaring.
Not nearly so much is heard of Xi's blue-ribbon Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Launched in 2013, BRI is now more than a decade old but it is in decline after peaking in 2018. Instead, China has transferred its attention to three vague initiatives launched in 2021-22: the Global Data Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative. All this - as well as Chinese and Russian efforts to promote the BRICS grouping and to attract new members - are designed to exert greater influence over the Global South and to contribute to either the perception or reality of a US decline.
Indeed, Xi remains a stalwart support of Vladimir Putin, despite his military failures in his Ukraine war. Beijing pretends to be neutral, but most thinking people realize China is anything but impartial. It remains firmly on Moscow's side. As Hua Chunying, China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, said soon after the Russian invasion, "China stands ready to join hands with Russia and all other progressive forces around the world who oppose hegemony and power politics, to reject any unilateralism, protectionism and bullying, firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests and uphold international fairness and justice."
Such comments are laughable. Like in George Orwell's dystopian vision of the future, the CCP has stripped language of meaning. The Chinese regime twists and eradicates ideas opposed to its own version of reality, and so phrases like "progressive forces" and "upholding international fairness and justice" have no meaning in China. Reality and truth are the real enemies to regimes like the CCP.
Hua also went on to say: "We Chinese value peace, harmony, sincerity and integrity. We never pick a fight or bully others, but we have principles and guts." Again, such statements about "peace and harmony" are completely at odds with China's aggressive behavior. Still, not everyone in the world recognizes the odious ideologies and aims that lie behind China's thinly veiled veneer of uprightness.
Human rights are almost nonexistent in China, and yet Beijing is promoting such policies and vision to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, international attention on China's detention centers for Uyghurs in Xinjiang has waned, but China's trampling of human rights has not disappeared. Indeed, as at the end of 2024, there were at least 218 "custody centers" dotted around China to support China's liuzhi (literally "retention in custody") policy. This detention system was established under China's National Supervisory Commission set up in 2018.
A recent report published by the CNN believes the number of detention centers is much higher than that. Additionally, provinces with higher numbers of ethnic minorities have greater concentrations of detention centers. Furthermore, the CNN investigation found at least 127 senior executives of publicly listed firms have been imprisoned. Such detainees caught up in Xi's anti-graft crackdown can be held for six months without seeing a lawyer or family members, plus the system is prone to abuse in terms of torture and ill treatment.
Hong Kong, as far as China is concerned, is a success story. The territory's police apparatus, a blunt political tool in the CCP's hands, has stifled all dissent and every form of public protest. Ongoing prosecutions for spurious crimes such as wearing T-
shirts with slogans are more than enough to remind the populace to toe the line and to avoid complaining about the CCP's lackeys in charge there. Since around 2020, thousands deserted Hong Kong, unwilling to live in such a police state. Indeed, from 2020-22, the territory's labor force declined by 1,40,000.
Nonetheless, the Hong Kong government is happily replacing these emigres with people from mainland China. Interestingly, the territory's population increased 2.1 per cent from mid-2022 to mid-2023, mostly due to immigration from China. Around a third of Hong Kong's current population has actually originated from China, indicating the great demographic shift that has occurred there.
However, corruption and political schisms continue to afflict the CCP, adding to Xi's paranoia over job security. The year 2023 was a bad one already, as Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu bit the dust. Also to fall victim were the top two commanders of the PLA Rocket Force. Yet, 2024's anti-graft campaign netted even more high-profile military leaders, a 25 per cent jump in fact. A record number of 56
senior cadres at the vice-ministerial level or above were investigated in 2024.
Does this mean that Xi would therefore be cautious about sending the PLA into a conflict, because he lacks full confidence in the purity of the military? Euan Graham, a Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, noted, "Corruption is endemic to CCP governance. Even deeply corrupt militaries (Ukraine) can fight very well, while combat itself is a sort of reform (Russia)."
Unfortunately, more tensions, more confrontations and greater unpredictability are on the cards for 2025. This is the great vision, the "community of common destiny", that Xi and China are offering the world.
