China syndromeChina exerting “sharp power” influence on American institutions
China is penetrating American institutions in ways that are coercive and corrupt, while the United States has not fully grasped the gravity of the situation, a Hoover Institution expert says. “An ultimate ambition for global hegemony” is driving China’s multifront efforts to manipulate US state and local governments, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, and the Chinese American community, said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Hoover.
China is penetrating American institutions in ways that are coercive and corrupt, while the United States has not fully grasped the gravity of the situation, a Hoover Institution scholar says.
“An ultimate ambition for global hegemony” is driving China’s multifront efforts to manipulate US state and local governments, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, and the Chinese American community, said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Hoover and at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, who recently codirected the report, “Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance.”
Researchers convened by the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations, along with support from The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, contributed to the research findings. Project cochairs included Diamond and Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations.
Diamond was recently interviewed about the issue:
Hoover Institution: What were the three most important findings of your report?
Larry Diamond: The most important finding is that we are in a new era in several respects. First, China is now a genuine superpower in terms of global reach, influence, and ambition, arguably rivaling the United States and even in some places eclipsing it. Second, it is racing forward technologically to economic and potentially military superiority in many cutting-edge fields, in part because of relentless efforts to misappropriate Western (particularly US) intellectual property. Third, to achieve its global ambitions it is exercising a new form of power—not the hard power of military force, but not the soft power of transparent persuasion either. Rather, this is “sharp power” that seeks to penetrate the institutions of democracies in ways that are often what a former Australian prime minister called “covert, coercive, or corrupting.” We need to learn to recognize these forms of influence and strengthen our institutions to resist them.
