[Correspondent Column] 30 Years Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union... and China

China Learning from the Soviet Union's Collapse
Endless US-China Conflict

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Jo Young-shin] On December 26, 1991, 30 years ago, the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) officially declared the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On the evening of December 25, 1991, the day before the official announcement of the dissolution, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, resigned. At the moment of his resignation announcement, the Soviet flag flying over the Kremlin was lowered. The Soviet flag is a symbol of socialism.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Soviet Union was a country established by the socialist revolution (October Revolution) in 1917. Vladimir Lenin, who seized leadership of the revolution, founded the USSR with the Bolsheviks in 1922. The USSR, the world's first communist state, divided the world along with the United States.

The cause of the Soviet collapse was the Cold War. To compete for hegemony with the United States, which represented liberal democracy, the USSR had no choice but to engage in an arms race. The competition with the United States ultimately led to economic collapse.

Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985, sought transformation by promoting Perestroika and Glasnost (reform and openness), but it was too late. As reform and openness began, the power of the Soviet federal government rapidly declined, and a wave of democratization swept through Eastern European countries. The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was also made around this time (1988). In August 1991, a coup even took place. Thus, the Soviet Union, the leader of communist countries, disappeared.

With the dissolution of the USSR, the Cold War that had disappeared for 30 years reemerged. This time, it is China. As China, the "world's factory," rapidly grows, it is eyeing the hegemonic position of the United States. China claims it is not interested in hegemony, but the Western camp, including the U.S., does not take China's words at face value. From sanctions on the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Western camp is continuously increasing pressure on China. China's backlash is also fierce.

On the 30th anniversary of the Soviet collapse on the 26th, an interesting column appeared in the Chinese state-run Global Times. It stated that the U.S. desperately wants China to become the second Soviet Union and that China should learn lessons from the Soviet collapse. It said that the Soviet leadership and intellectuals were naive and that Russia is still being harassed by the U.S. It also mentioned that the Soviet Union only competed with the U.S. in the arms race, and that the real competition with the U.S. was economic.

The column also criticized Gorbachev harshly. It dismissed him as merely an idealist who believed political reform could promote constructive national change. It pointed out that the weakening of the Soviet leadership's power was a major cause of the Soviet collapse. The logic was that as the Communist Party's power was transferred, the Soviet Communist Party collapsed, and the weakening of the Party's power led to the fall of the USSR. It argued that China should take the reasons and process of the Soviet dissolution as a cautionary example. If China loses in the U.S.-China conflict, it will later be harassed by the U.S., so it must never be defeated. To avoid losing, the power of the Chinese Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping, must be further strengthened, and the Chinese leadership should focus on economic development. This implies that Xi Jinping should secure a third term at next year's 20th Party Congress and that China should confront the U.S. centered on Xi.

Chinese state-affiliated scholars emphasize that the Chinese Communist Party is building socialism with Chinese characteristics. They argue that the Soviet Union and China are fundamentally different. They claim that the U.S., intoxicated by its Cold War victory, is repeating the tragic fate of the Soviet Union. In fact, the prevailing view is that China is overconfident in its economic power. Whether China will become the second Soviet Union or, as China claims, the U.S. will follow the Soviet path is unknown. What is certain is that there is no end in sight to the conflict between the U.S. and China, which began with the U.S.-China trade dispute. It is a conflict that will only end when one side takes the Soviet path.