II. Disaggregating the Risks

This chapter unpacks the array of issues the party-state and its supporters’ political activities have presented to liberal democracies in Xi’s ‘New Era’ of PRC power, highlighting significant variation in their causes, the actors involved, comparative context, and their relationship with local laws and institutions. The most basic distinctions concern three different objects of risk or threat: national security; civil liberties; and academic freedom. Some of the activities under discussion present security risks by potentially impacting the integrity of democratic systems of representation and government. However, the most directly impactful activities threaten the political rights and freedoms of particular individuals and groups, especially dissident individuals and émigré ethnic and religious groups. The third set of risks relate to the special responsibility of higher education institutions to ensure freedom of speech and intellectual enquiry for their staff, students and visitors. Various PRC overseas political activities, meanwhile, constitute normal exercises of democratic rights. The comparative context, causes and effects of different PRC overseas political activities are also varied. In some cases, other foreign states or domestic actors conduct comparable activities, while in others the PRC’s stand out as either quantitatively or qualitatively different. Significant diversity is also apparent in the causes of the risks identified. Some are straightforwardly the result of repressive policies formulated and coordinated in Beijing. Others, however, have arisen primarily from technological developments, the growth of China’s economic heft, and the increasing mobility, financial means and self-confidence of PRC citizens and consumers. Finally, many of these risks are a result of shortcomings in local institutions. This is crucial for policy purposes, as it implies that the challenges raised by the PRC’s overseas political activities may also represent opportunities to strengthen liberal-democratic institutions, a theme to which Chapter IV will return.