Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed a legislation to cease the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s influence in Florida. The legislation prohibits land purchases by the CCP, blocks access to CCP-linked apps on government and educational institution servers and devices, and prevents the CCP from influencing Florida’s education system.
“I signed the strongest legislation in the nation to stop the influence of the Chinese Communist Party. The legislation prohibits land purchases by the CCP, blocks access to CCP-linked apps on government and educational institution servers and devices, prevents the CCP from influencing our education system,” the Florida Governor tweeted on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Jessica Chen Weiss, an author and China expert at Cornell University, recently wrote in The New York Times (NYT) that President Xi Jinping of China has vowed to thwart what he views as US-led efforts to “contain, encircle and suppress” China and has said, “capitalism will inevitably perish and socialism will inevitably triumph.”
However, most Communist states have collapsed, and the Chinese leadership fears being next. Moreover, China’s economy today is more capitalist than Marxist and highly dependent on access to world markets. China has fed these fears by building up its military, partnering with Russia, pressing disputed territorial claims, and with its own rhetoric.
But such ideological proclamations are in part motivated by insecurity. China’s long-term ambitions are difficult to know with certainty, and they can change. But it is far from clear that it can, or even seeks to, replace the United States as the world’s dominant power, said Weiss.
Xi and the Communist Party of China (CCP) apparently see the United States as trying to keep China perpetually subordinate and vulnerable, opposing whatever China does or advocates in an international system that Beijing believes favours the United States and developed democracies. However, China seems more intent on modifying aspects of a system under which it has prospered, making it safer for autocracy, rather than replacing it, reported NYT.