Opinion | Two lessons for China on how to avoid a Soviet-style collapse in its new cold war with the US

Minxin Pei says Beijing is on track to lose its new cold war with the US, as it is failing to recognise and rectify the two mistakes that proved fatal for the Soviet Union: economic mismanagement and imperial overreach

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Chinese flags fly over the Great Hall of the People, the site of the Communist Party Congress, in Beijing. One problem for China’s party is that state-owned enterprises play a vital role in sustaining one-party rule, but the bloated and inefficient firms suck scarce resources out of the economy. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:00am, 8 Sep 2018Updated: 9:05am, 8 Sep 2018

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the Communist Party of China became obsessed with understanding why. The government think tanks entrusted with this task heaped plenty of blame on Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist leader who was simply not ruthless enough to hold the Soviet Union together.

But Chinese leaders also highlighted other important factors, not all of which China’s leaders seem to be heeding today.

To be sure, the Communist Party has undoubtedly taken to heart the first key lesson: strong economic performance is essential to political legitimacy.

And the party’s single-minded focus on spurring GDP growth over the past few decades has delivered an “economic miracle”, with nominal per capita income skyrocketing from US$333 in 1991 to US$7,329 last year. This is the single most important reason why the Communist Party has retained power.

But overseeing a faltering economy was hardly the only mistake Soviet leaders made. They were also drawn into a costly and unwinnable arms race with the United States, and fell victim to imperial overreach, throwing money and resources at regimes with little strategic value and long track records of chronic economic mismanagement.