Mike Pompeo apparently told a Sunday talk show host that the current version of the Chinese Communist Party is different than the one we knew ten years ago. Is that statement as absurd as it sounds?
Close, but not quite. The CCP has always been determined to maintain complete political control of China, to play the leading role in the country’s economy, and to stifle all meaningful dissent. That hasn’t changed. Two things have, however, changed: first, Xi has been given authority over the country and the party that his predecessors did not enjoy; and second, Chinese economic and military power have increased relative to American power over the last decade. The Chinese government has consequently become more openly assertive in its near abroad, and takes less interest in the opinions of other nations. It believes that virtually all opposition from foreign countries can be overcome through threats of force or the application of economic power. Deng and his immediate successors would never have taken that position, because they couldn’t.