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Profile picture Peter Mattis @PLMattis Profile picture May 11th 2020, 30 tweets, 11 min read

I’m taking this seriously because this argument is being used inside and outside gov’t., so this is going to be a thread. I care less about what direction policy goes (OK, I have preferences) than I care that the US approach is based in reality. 1/30

Josh Shifrinson @shifrinson IR & Most China Scholars: "Don't listen to cheap talk, it can often be for a domestic political purpose."

China Hawks: "ONLY LISTEN TO CHEAP TALK!"

[note: the disjuncture between what Sov leaders claimed their ambitions were & actual Sov policy was huge] https://twitter.com/PLMattis/status/1258952003671199746 …

Peter Mattis @PLMattis Replying to @PLMattis If you can't be bothered to read what Chinese Communist Party leaders from Mao through Xi say about their ambitions--or the documents produced by regular conferences/congresses/plenums--then at least find analysis like this from people who will: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/testimonies/SFR for USCC TobinD 20200313.pdf …

93 11:16 PM - May 9, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 26 people are talking about this If you want to argue party congress & plenary documents, certain kinds of speeches & essays are cheap speech, then you must make the argument. Dismissing them challenges established scholarship on how the CCP functions. A WP is cheap speech, not a party congress work report 2/30 Dismissing docs as “cheap talk" has three problems. (1) Its a warped view that “most China scholars” dismiss policy docs (2) The process for key party docs matters and is more substantial than say a State of the Union speech (3) Domestic “propaganda” often is policy guidance 3/30 "Most China Scholars..." is an appeal to authority that is useless w/o citing people.

Every analyst I know who focuses on PRC/CCP policy recognizes a clear hierarchy of documents/statements that signal how authoritative they are. 4/30 Any characterization of "Most China scholars" that puts Alice Miller, Paul Godwin, @CNA_org China Studies, @AndrewSErickson, @CCPWatch, Tim Heath, @sinopsiscz, @Anne_MarieBrady, @jmulvenon, David Shambaugh, etc. on the outside is a pretty misguided view of China-watching. 5/30 Saying “hawk” w/ intent to discredit is just an excuse to not to read. You want to make that case for @robert_spalding fine, not entirely fair but OK.

For @Anne_MarieBrady, that's calumny. At most, she is pro-NZ and wants people to see reality. Same for @RollandNadege 6/30 Do the research they did, or at least read Dan Tobin's 104 footnotes & sources therein and see where you end up: uscc.gov/sites/default/…

As for authority & documents, see, for example: China’s Forbearance Has Limits: Chinese Threat and Retaliation Signali Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has employed military force in defense of China’s security and territorial integrity. In many such instances, Beijing implemented a https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/717729/chinas-forbearance-has-limits-chinese-threat-and-retaliation-signaling-and-its/

Finklestein's chapter in files.ethz.ch/isn/48426/Righ…

7/30 On to (2), how party docs get written makes them more substantial than many Western equivalents, such as the US National Security Strategy and State of the Union Address. The prep for a party congress shapes what the central party-state bureaucracy does for months on end. 8/30 The party congress exists—especially in today’s more institutionalized form—to formalize what already has been established as policy, per Wu Guoguang (who actually did participate in one): cambridge.org/core/books/chi… 9/30 The process requires inputs from across the party. The support requests for the writing process—overseen from the highest levels—shapes how the gov’t acts, what cadre do day-to-day, and then delegates must endorse the report. 10/30

This is a much more in-depth process than the coordination than any US Gov’t policy document. And it is repeated for five-year plans as well as special initiatives. Other less authoritative docs translate the ambitions into action. 11/30 For a good discussion of how this works, see, Tim Heath’s book on the implication of the party’s shift to being a “governing party”: amazon.com/Chinas-Governi… 12/30 Which is a good transition to (3), an average party secretary wields a lot of power w/in their sphere, but they do not necessarily get a lot of direct guidance. And even if they did get direct guidance, would/should they trust their superior? 13/30 They have to rely on their interpretation of signals from the center to decide how to conduct themselves and be sensitive to political winds. (The Party Schools have classes on how to do this). 14/30 The propaganda for party officials is less about rallying them around the party and more about policy. The CCP provides a lot of top-down direction; however, there is room for a lot of policy experiments. 15/30 This was the case even under Mao, and that legacy lives on. amazon.com/Maos-Invisible…

There is a lot of room for initiative w/in rough guidelines, but the consequences for stepping outside the accepted politics are high.

16/30 Trying to get the millions of party members to move government in the desired direction is not a trivial problem. A certain amount of transparency is necessary, so everyone knows roughly what they are supposed to do. This is why "party-building" is 1 of the 3 magic weapons 17/30 You can disagree about how to interpret the party documents, but they cannot be dismissed as they were so cavalierly done here: afsa.org/american-diplo…

And here: Are the US and China in an Ideological Competition? The event will be webcast live from this page. Among the growing sources of tension between the US and China, an underexplored topic is the potential for ideological competition. In addition to battl… https://www.csis.org/events/are-us-and-china-ideological-competition

18/30 The consistent message from the party is that there are three main objectives: