China Wants to Rule the World by Controlling the Rules

To truly understand the contours of the growing competition between the United States and China, look beyond the corridors of power in Washington and Beijing, past the tensions in the waters and skies around Taiwan, away from the bellicose rhetoric at international forums, and even off the tennis court, the new front opened by the trauma of Peng Shuai. Instead, look to the courtroom.

In the U.S. and much of the liberal West, the concept of the “rule of law” is vital to a properly functioning society—the idea (at least in theory) that the law is impartial, independent, and applied evenly and consistently to all, and that it serves to protect the innocent, including from the state. China’s leaders, however, follow the concept of the “rule by law,” in which the legal system is a tool used to assure Communist Party dominance; courts are forums for imposing the government’s will. The state can do just about anything it wants, and then find some helpful language in the “laws” to justify it.

To see these differing perspectives in action, consider the case of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, who was arrested in Vancouver in late 2018 on behalf of the U.S. Justice Department, which . From the American point of view, the case was a matter of law enforcement: The Justice Department accused Meng of lying to a major international bank about Huawei’s business in Iran, causing financial transactionscountry. Prosecutors were vindicated when Meng confirmed the substance of the case in reached in September that allowed her to avoid a U.S. trial and return to China.