Since the US and the UK are predominantly Protestant, the growing understanding between the Vatican and Beijing could lead to closer ties between the West and China., and reduce the US-led West’s resistance to China’s rising influence.Gopal Misra
Chinese President Xi Jinping, since being elevated to lead China more than a decade ago, has successfully been implementing strategies and policies for enabling his country to attain a superpower status. In other words, he is trying to accommodate other nationalities other than the Hans, and religious groups in the Chinese nation.
For this, Xi Jinping has adopted the pragmatic policies of Deng Xiaoping, the successor of Mao Zedong, while keeping dictatorial control of the founder of the communist government in the country.
It may be recalled that during his tenure 1978-79, Deng Xiaoping, as China’s paramount leader, had introduced the market economy. Interestingly, the Chinese Communists, who had branded Nikita Khurshev a revisionist, introduced repressive systems depriving working classes of their legitimate rights being enjoyed by their counterparts in the West. During the past four decades, China has become a coveted destination of the Western capitalists for setting up their industrial units. It offers a competent trained workforce by paying a pittance of the wages they had to cough up to their industrial workers. Even by paying unemployment allowance to their people, it is much cheaper and hassle free for the West to use China as their manufacturing base for the world markets
The ruling elite in China comprising the leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have also immensely benefited from the Western capital and the influx of the state-of -the art technology. The young generation, which has been fed with the ideology of the supremacy of China for years, is now being told that China is at the threshold of becoming a Superpower.
Religious tolerance
XI Jinping has to be admired for converting his country’s market economy into a strong asset for attaining the Chinese dream to become a Superpower. He has also proved his political skills in camouflaging Deng’s bid to open up the country’s financial systems as the socialist-market economy. His decision to give some breathing space to the Christians is a part of his strategy to win the world’s most popular faith to serve the Chinese agenda of extending its influence across the continents.
