Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic and/or diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China


NC- Harms (CCP Stability) Frontline



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1NC- Harms (CCP Stability) Frontline




  1. Solvency Turn- the affirmative is actually bad for the Chinese economy. Increased regulations on labor rights will decrease foreign investment



Global Policy Forum, 2007 an independent policy watchdog that monitors the work of the United Nations and scrutinizes global policymaking. We promote accountability and citizen participation in decisions on peace and security, social justice and international law, https://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/46721-multinationals-to-china-no-new-labor-rights.html
While the extraordinarily rapid growth of the Chinese economy has often been noted, it is less often realized how much of that growth actually reflects the role of foreign corporations. According to Morgan Stanley's chief economist Stephen Roach, 65 percent of the tripling of Chinese exports - from $121 billion in 1994 to $365 billion in mid-2003 - is "traceable to outsourcing by Chinese subsidiaries of multinational corporations and joint ventures." The obvious motive for such foreign corporations to oppose the law protecting Chinese workers is their fear that it may eliminate the cheap labor costs they now enjoy. Even if the law itself is poorly enforced or does little to improve Chinese wages and employment conditions, it may set the stage for more organized demands from Chinese workers. Historical experience in the United States and around the world has shown that when workers realize that they are entitled by law to certain rights, they may well create the institutions needed to access and enforce those rights. Experience in many countries indicates that labor laws are often unenforced unless workers exercise the right to organize, bargain collectively, and strike. For that reason, corporations have reason to fear that even a limited guarantee of rights to Chinese workers will encourage their further efforts to form independent unions, elect their own leaders, and utilize their potential bargaining power. They fear, in short, that the proposed labor bill may be but one step in a new long march for Chinese workers as they fight for the legal rights due them and the institutional supports to enforce those rights.



  1. No impact: The CCP is becoming stronger


Foreign Policy, 2011 3/5- “5 Myths about the Chinese Communist Party” http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/5-myths-about-the-chinese-communist-party/
Yes it can. Or at least for the foreseeable future. Unlike in Taiwan and South Korea, China’s middle class has not emerged with any clear demand for Western-style democracy. There are some obvious reasons why. All three of China’s close Asian neighbors, including Japan, became democracies at different times and in different circumstances. But all were effectively U.S. protectorates, and Washington was crucial in forcing through democratic change or institutionalizing it. South Korea’s decision to announce elections ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, for example, was made under direct U.S. pressure. Japan and South Korea are also smaller and more homogeneous societies, lacking the vast continental reach of China and its multitude of clashing nationalities and ethnic groups. And needless to say, none underwent a communist revolution whose founding principle was driving foreign imperialists out of the country. China’s urban middle class may wish for more political freedom, but it hasn’t dared rise up en masse against the state because it has so much to lose. Over the last three decades, the party has enacted a broad array of economic reforms, even as it has clamped down hard on dissent. The freedom to consume — be it in the form of cars, real estate, or well-stocked supermarkets — is much more attractive than vague notions of democracy, especially when individuals pushing for political reform could lose their livelihoods and even their freedom. The cost of opposing the party is prohibitively high. Hence the hotbeds of unrest in recent years have mostly been rural areas, where China’s poorest, who are least invested in the country’s economic miracle, reside. “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose except your mortgages” doesn’t quite cut it as a revolutionary slogan. All this is why some analysts see splits within the party as a more likely vehicle for political change. Like any large political organization, the Chinese Communist Party is factionalized along multiple lines, ranging from local fiefdoms (exemplified on the national stage by the “Shanghai Gang” under former President Jiang Zemin) to internal party networks (like the senior cadres tied to the Communist Youth League through Jiang’s successor Hu Jintao). There are also clear policy disputes over everything from the proper pace of political liberalization to the extent of the private sector’s role in the economy. But highlighting these differences can obscure the larger reality. Since 1989, when the party split at the top and almost came asunder, the cardinal rule has been no public divisions in the Politburo. Today, top-level cooperation is as much the norm as debilitating factional competition. Xi Jinping, the heir apparent, is set to take over at the next party congress in 2012. Assuming his likely deputy, Li Keqiang, follows with the usual five-year term, China’s top leadership seems set until 2022. For the Chinese, the United States looks increasingly like a banana republic by comparison. The idea that China would one day become a democracy was always a Western notion, born of our theories about how political systems evolve. Yet all evidence so far suggests these theories are wrong. The party means what it says: It doesn’t want China to be a Western democracy — and it seems to have all the tools it needs to ensure that it doesn’t become one.


  1. No impact: The Communist Party will transition peacefully out of power



Bremmer, 2013 Ian – president of Eurasia Group, 7/19, “Will China’s slowing growth lead to unrest?”, Reuters, http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer/2013/07/19/will-chinas-slowing-growth-lead-to-unrest/
Recently, it seems no developing country is safe from sudden, unexpected protests. In Brazil and Turkey, empowered middle classes pushed back against perceived governmental injustice; protests erupted, and leaders’ approval ratings dropped precipitously. In Egypt, the economic picture was as ugly as the political one, and the military’s ouster of President Mursi has fomented conflict and instability.

China may look like a candidate for the type of protests currently sweeping the developing world. Not only is a newly empowered middle class demanding better services and more accountability from government — growth has also tapered off in recent quarters. Don’t hold your breath. At least for the time being, China is well-positioned to navigate such challenges far better than its emerging market competitors.Let’s start with the economy. For years pundits, and many Chinese government officials, thought that if China’s GDP growth rate ever fell below 8 percent, it would set off an unemployment crisis that would raise the risk of social and political instability in the country. Well, China’s finance minister was in Washington last week and said that the Chinese economy could handle 7 percent or even 6.5 percent growth — a lower rate than China has experienced in 23 years. But unlike many other emerging markets, China views slower growth as a manageable challenge. The government actually recognizes that a slowdown is necessary to meet its reform and rebalancing goals, and is working now to score political points among the population by arguing that it’s doing so. In particular, Beijing hopes that the slowdown will force industrial consolidation and less resource consumption, which could slow environmental degradation — which has been a major point of political vulnerability for the government. Slower growth should also calm the real estate sector, where rising prices have been a major sore point for urban Chinese. China’s new leadership is betting that progress on these fronts will outweigh the downside risks they’ll face as job losses tick up in the face of slower growth. From a global perspective, there is a strong case to be made that China’s slowing growth rate is actually a good sign. The fact that Beijing hasn’t just reflexively pumped capital into the system to keep growth rates up shows that it is willing to begin undertaking modest economic reforms; it is, in effect, letting bubbles shrink rather than grow until they pop. This approach is characteristic of the new leadership that took charge in March of this year: they are less risk averse and they have a more long-sighted handle on the necessary economic changes that China will have to undertake.The new president himself is a cause for optimism. Xi Jinping has a more assertive, off-the-cuff style; he is a more spontaneous, charismatic leader than his predecessors, and early reviews in China’s blogosphere suggest a favorable first impression. Xi is using this boldness to work to consolidate his support within the Communist Party. And the extent to which he is successful will mean even more capacity for even more reform over time. All of this doesn’t mean that China’s stability should be taken for granted, or that there aren’t looming problems on the horizon. The very fact that China doesn’t face significant near-term instability could lead to complacency and give it wiggle room to delay necessary reforms. China still needs long-term and significant economic and political transformations to get it from “developing” to “developed.” It has too many changes coming to its demographics, manufacturing costs, and environmental needs to get away with ignoring them in perpetuity. (The U.S. can sympathize.) While it’s a good sign that the current leadership is allowing lower growth rates in order to implement some economic reform, thus far, all changes are happening inside the system, not to the system itself. Easy growth was the low-hanging fruit for China over the past thirty years. Now the government is reaching a bit further up the tree. But they still have a very long way to go to get to the upper branches. China’s other major threat is the stratification that any developing country has to navigate. As I’ve written about in the past, the growth of the Chinese economy has created a new middle class that has different demands from the largely rural population that China is still trying to lift out of poverty. In the near term the new government’s tolerance for slower growth is actually positive for helping to address some of these concerns. But eventually, Beijing will have to reconcile two increasingly divergent populations. This, again, is a long-term issue. But as these issues go unaddressed, and as more Chinese become rich enough to prioritize new sorts of rights and privileges, the chances of unrest will rise. Don’t believe the idea that China is a ripe victim for this wave of developing world protests, or that China’s slowing growth rate is a sign of an imminent hard landing. China’s near-term picture looks surprisingly bright. But after that, the larger question still looms: Can Xi Jinping and his government handle the looming storm clouds while they are still a good way off?


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