The Shifting Landscape of Progressive Engagement with China

The Rise of Chinamaxxing

Chinamaxxing, a trend where youthful influencers adopt traditional Chinese medicine-based wellness routines, celebrate the Blade Runner aesthetic of Chongqing, and marvel at Chinese mass transit, has gained significant attention online. This trend breaks from the overwrought national security focus of most debates about China in Washington, D.C., and presents a refreshing, human-scaled conversation across cultures.

The Limits of Chinamaxxing

However, the "China" of Chinamaxxing is not a China with which any sort of real solidarity is imagined by its enthusiasts. The trend assumes that the only political opinion that ordinary citizens of China are capable of is incredulity at the backwardness of American public services, and regurgitated rhetoric from the country's state socialist past. There are no social movements in China, it seems. No debates. No counterparts for the politically active American to engage.

A Shift in Progressive Engagement

The change between then and now can be attributed in large part to China's crackdown on civil society under President Xi Jinping. Chinese authorities decimated labor activism starting in 2015, detained the "Feminist Five" the same year, and responded to previous year's mass protests in Hong Kong with a repressive new national security law. In the U.S., the Trump administration's mass detentions of immigrants, abrogation of collective-bargaining rights for federal workers, and threats against left-leaning nonprofits have also likely tamped down enthusiasm for progressive Sino-American exchanges among the people who were most active in them.

A New Era of Engagement

When cross-Pacific exchanges between activists are one day able to pick back up again, the constellation of institutions involved will have shifted. The breakaway Change to Win union federation that spearheaded official dialogues on the U.S. side is no more. China's edgier nongovernmental organizations have been replaced by government-backed groups with more of a social service orientation. The China obsession of U.S. universities has cooled. At the same time, democratic socialists in the United States are now winning major elections and debating what their foreign-policy stances ought to be, including with respect to the People's Republic.

The Future of Progressive Engagement

Progressives in both places should start thinking now about how they want that engagement to unfold. Curiosity about other countries is always to be encouraged. In many ways, today's Chinamaxxing is just the latest iteration of a popular fascination with China that goes back to the first tourists who arrived in the 1980s. However, the issues of shared concern will have changed, too. For instance, the rights of tech workers and gig workers in both countries might become a focus. Climate change may loom larger. Americans will have to grapple with Beijing's ramped-up campaign to erase Uyghur and Tibetan culture. Chinese will have to deal with a United States that has isolated itself on the world stage.

Conclusion

As the world grapples with the complexities of China's rise, progressives must navigate a changing landscape of engagement with the People's Republic. The future of progressive engagement with China will require a nuanced understanding of the shifting power dynamics, the evolving security calculus, and the changing constellation of institutions involved. It will also require a willingness to engage with the complexities of China's rise, rather than simply adopting a simplistic or romanticized view of the country.

Editor's Note: The analysis is based on available information and may be subject to change as new developments emerge.

Source referenced: FOREIGNPOLICY

This brief was synthesized by our Editorial Engine and reviewed by The Ground Narrative team.