Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Erin Baggot Carter and Brett Carter describe how Beijing’s repression reaches all the way to American classrooms.
The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home and exporting these technologies abroad. Do these technology transfers help recipient governments expand digital surveillance, impose internet shutdowns, filter the internet, and target repression for online content? We focus on Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications provider, which is partly state-owned and increasingly regarded as an instrument of its foreign policy. Using a global sample and an identification strategy based on generalized synthetic controls, we show that the effect of Huawei transfers depends on preexisting political institutions in recipient countries. In the world’s autocracies, Huawei technology facilitates digital repression. We find no effect in the world’s democracies, which are more likely to have laws that regulate digital privacy, institutions that punish government violations, and vibrant civil societies that step in when institutions come under strain. Most broadly, this article advances a large literature about the geopolitical implications of China’s rise.
A warming planet. Backsliding in democracy at home and abroad. Competition with China. And active war in Europe. Broadening conflicts in the Middle East.
The world today is facing no shortage of overlapping, multilateral challenges. At a recent panel titled, “Global Threats Today: What's At Stake and What We Can Do About It,” scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) had an opportunity to delve deeper into what the data says about how these global threats are evolving, and how we should be thinking about how to address them.
The discussion, which was held as part of Stanford University's 2024 Reunion and Homecoming weekend, was moderated by Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute, and featured Marshall Burke, Didi Kuo, Amichai Magen, Oriana Skylar Mastro, and Steven Pifer.
In the highlights below, each scholar shares what they wish people understood better about climate change, the war in Ukraine and Russia's aggression, China's strategy for building power, the health of American democracy, and how the fighting between Israel and Hamas fits into the geopolitical struggle between democracies and autocracies.
Their full conversation can be heard on the World Class podcast, and the panel can be watched in its entirety on YouTube.
Follow the link for a full transcript of "Global Threats Today: The 2024 Edition."
Around the world, we are seeing a new axis of influence coalescing. Some have called it the "axis of misery" or the "axis of resistance." It is composed of Russia and Iran and North Korea, with a lot of Chinese involvement as well. It is transforming our international system in unbelievable ways. It is united by the desire to dismantle the liberal international order, and we're starting to see the nature and the interconnectivity of this new axis of chaos much more clearly.
You see North Korean soldiers fighting for Putin in Ukraine. You see Putin helping the Houthis attack international Western shipping in Yemen. We see North Korean tunnel technology turn up in Lebanon with Hezbollah and then with Hamas in Gaza. The interconnectivity is something that we really need to know much more about.
Historically, emperors, kings, dukes, used to spend 50% of their resources on preparing for war or waging war. But in the post-Second World War era, we built a critical norm that we've called the liberal international order. And the miracle of the liberal international order is that we've managed to take global averages of defense spending from about 50% to a global average of about 7%. And the resulting surplus wealth has allowed us to invest in education, health, and scientific discovery.
What is at stake now is the possibility of a return of a norm where states are destroyed and disappear. And we have currently three states in the international system, at the very least — Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — that are at risk of annihilation. To that end, we must articulate a positive strategic vision for the Middle East that will strive towards a two state solution, that would give the Palestinian people the dignity and the freedom that they deserve alongside a safe and secure Israel, and that will leverage the new spirit of cooperation that exists in the Middle East.
If we allow the norm of the non-disappearance of state to erode and collapse, we will go back to the law of the jungle, where we will have to spend so much more money on the wrong things. That is what is at stake in Ukraine, in the Middle East, and with Taiwan.
Many people think that the threat to democracy comes from outside our borders, particularly from countries like Russia and China that are asserting themselves in new and aggressive ways.
But the real threat to democracies that we're seeing across the globe is coming from within. Leaders come to power through democratic means, but then they begin to erode power from within. They attack the electoral system and the process of democratic elections, and they take power from other branches of government and aggregate it to themselves within the office of the executive.
The good news is there are examples of countries like France, Brazil, and Poland where illiberal leaders have been stopped by pro-democracy coalitions of people who came together. These coalitions don't necessarily agree with each other politically, but they've come together and adapted in order to foreclose on these anti-democratic forces.
That flexibility and adaptability is the reason democracies succeed. We see this over and over again in the the United States. When our institutions have become out of date, we've changed them. We extended suffrage, first to Black Americans who were formerly enslaved, then to women, then to Native Americans. We eliminating poll taxes and rethought what it means to have a multiracial democracy. We have a long track record of making changes.
Today in 2024, some of our democratic institutions are antiquated and don't reflect our contemporary values. This is a moment where we should lean into that flexible strength of democracy and think about institutional reforms that will both strengthen our system against illiberal creep and help us better achieve the ideals that we aspiring to as a people.
There's a narrative that's taking place that Russia is winning the war, Ukraine is losing, and it's only a matter of time. And it is true that Russia has captured a bit more territory than they occupied at the start of the year. But they've only achieved that at enormous cost.
As of September, the Pentagon says Russia had lost 600,000 dead and wounded soldiers. To put that in context, in February of 2022 when this major invasion began, the total Russian military — not just the army, but the total Russian military — was 1.1 million people. And the British Ministry of Defense earlier this week assessed that Russia now is losing 1,200 soldiers killed or severely wounded per day. You have to ask how long that's sustainable.
When I talk to Ukrainians, they still regard this war as existential. They're very determined to win, and we need to do a better job of supporting that. A stable and secure Europe is vital to America's national security interests, and you're not going to have a stable and secure Europe unless there's a stable and secure Ukraine. So we need to both provide them the weapons they need and relieve some of the restrictions we currently have and allow the Ukrainians to use those weapons to strike military targets in Russia.
Because we have to ask ourselves: what does an emboldened Vladimir Putin do if he wins in Ukraine? I don't think his ambitions end with Ukraine, perhaps not even with the post-Soviet space. There's going to be a much darker Russian threat hovering over Europe if Putin wins. So let's not count the Ukrainians out.
There is a lot of discussion right now about the fact that the economy in China is slowing down and its demography is undergoing significant changes. What I'm here to tell you is that the challenge of China is not over, and is not going to be over any time soon. China has built power in a different way than the United States, and we have to reassess how we understand that power if we want to effectively deter, blunt, and block them from acting out in ways that threaten our partners and allies.
Since the 1990s, China has developed a significant amount of political, economic, and military power. They've gone from having an economy smaller than France’s to the second largest in the world. They've gone from not being involved in international institutions to a great degree, not even having diplomatic relations with major countries like South Korea, to now having stronger and greater diplomatic networks, especially in Asia, than the United States.
What we really need to understand is that the U.S.-China competition is not about the United States or about China; it's about the rest of the world, and how the rest of the world sees us and how China interacts with us. The balance of power is shifting, and we have to be a lot smarter and a lot faster if we want to make sure it shifts in favor of our interests.
The United States hasn't had a comprehensive strategy towards the developing world in a long time. And we are running out of time to get that balance right in Asia. We don't have the right stuff. We don't have it in the right numbers, and it's not in the right place. Some of this is about deterring war over Taiwan, but it's also about generally maintaining peace and stability in Asia.
Many people don't recognize how much progress we're actually making on climate issues. Emissions have fallen by 20% since 2005. We're actually speeding up the amount of substantial progress being made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with the core climate change problem, which is the human emission of greenhouse gasses.
In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act and the subsequent implementation of various rules the Biden administration has championed has given a huge boost in transitioning our economy to greener energy technologies, transportation technologies, and other kinds of infrastructure. We're moving a lot of cash to get that done, and the president is trying to get as much of it out the door as he can before his term ends.
Globally, the progress has been less rapid. Emissions are roughly flat. But overall, we're still making progress. I co-teach an undergraduate class on climate change, and we've had to update our slides on how much warming we're expecting over the next century. We thought it was going to be four degrees Celsius. Now we think it's going to be something between two and three degrees Celsius.
But the flip side of that is that we're still going to get warming of two to three degrees Celsius. We're already experiencing warming of about a degree Celsius, which is about two degrees Fahrenheit, and it's projected that we're going to get another three to five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is a lot of warming, and we are not prepared to deal with it. We need to do much more on mitigation and much more on adaptation if we're going to meet the realities of living in a changing climate.
So we've had progress on the one hand, but there's still a lot of work left to do in the coming decades.
At a panel during Stanford's 2024 Reunion weekend, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies shared what their research says about climate change, global democracy, Russia and Ukraine, China, and the Middle East.
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Thesis Advisor: Jean Oi
Tentative Thesis Title: Exploring Stakeholder Decision-Making and Incentive Dynamics in Chinese Development Projects
Future aspirations post-Stanford: After graduation, I hope to 1) pursue a graduate degree in international policy and/or law and 2) work at a think tank or geopolitical research firm, with the eventual possibility of joining the Canadian government. Climate tech is another passion of mine, so I will always remain open to joining a startup too.
A fun fact about yourself: People always think being from Canada is a fun fact... but I'll say that I'm ambidextrous.
Major: International Relations
Hometown: New York City
Thesis Advisor: Michael Bennon
Tentative Thesis Title: Words and Actions: China in the Post-BRI World
Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to work at the intersection of foreign policy and international business. I am interested in how policy change, both directly related to and unrelated to trade, impacts global markets and how this trickles down to individuals around the world. After a few years of working, I also plan to consider graduate school — perhaps a joint MIP/MBA or something similar.
A fun fact about yourself: I have dual citizenship in Italy and the US. I can also type 124 words per minute, which will hopefully serve me well in the next year.
The war in Ukraine has altered the course of global history. These authors explore how.
When Vladimir Putin's forces sought to conquer Ukraine in February 2022, they did more than threaten the survival of a vulnerable democracy. The invasion unleashed a crisis that has changed the course of world affairs. This conflict has reshaped alliances, deepened global cleavages, and caused economic disruptions that continue to reverberate around the globe. It has initiated the first great-power nuclear crisis in decades and raised fundamental questions about the sources of national power and military might in the modern age. The outcome of the conflict will profoundly influence the international balance of power, the relationship between democracies and autocracies, and the rules that govern global affairs. In War in Ukraine, Hal Brands brings together an all-star cast of analysts to assess the conflict's origins, course, and implications and to offer their appraisals of one of the most geopolitically consequential crises of the early twenty-first century. Essays cover topics including the twists and turns of the war itself, the successes and failures of US strategy, the impact of sanctions, the future of Russia and its partnership with China, and more.
Contributors: Anne Applebaum, Joshua Baker, Alexander Bick, Hal Brands, Daniel Drezner, Peter Feaver, Lawrence Freedman, Francis Gavin, Brian Hart, William Inboden, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Michael Kimmage, Michael Kofman, Stephen Kotkin, Mark Leonard, Bonny Lin, Thomas Mahnken, Dara Massicot, Michael McFaul, Robert Person, Kori Schake, and Ashley Tellis.
Chapter in War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, edited by Hal Brands
Why have democracies failed in curtailing Xi Jinping’s human rights abuses? And how can they better insulate themselves from Beijing's transnational threats? At a CDDRL research seminar, Sophie Richardson — CDDRL Visiting Scholar and former China Director at Human Rights Watch — presented her research on the Chinese government’s deteriorating human rights record.
While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s human rights violations are longstanding, Richardson noted, they witnessed a notable escalation under Xi Jinping’s rule. Among them are free speech restrictions, the silencing of civil society, increased surveillance, and forced labor.
But, as Richardson pointed out, these violations do not stop at China’s borders and have taken on a transnational dimension.
Illustrating the severity and scope of Beijing's human rights abuses, Richardson provided examples of both activists and party members who have been targeted by the CCP. These include an activist who was arrested on the charge of “picking quarrels and causing trouble” and later fell ill and died in detention, as well as the former Chinese ambassador to the US — a loyal party member — who was called back to China and disappeared for some time.
What have democracies done in the face of these abuses? Sanctions, visa bans, and import/export controls are common levers. Some countries — Canada being a prime example — have expanded their refugee status for communities targeted by Chinese authorities.
Notwithstanding these initiatives, Richardson argued, the reach of the CCP’s repression may be much larger than conventionally assumed. Understanding the transnational scope of its repression is key to any effort to devise mechanisms to combat it.
A prime example is the threat that the CCP continues to pose to democratic elections in other countries. Richardson cited efforts by the CCP to ensure that officials friendly to Xi’s government are elected. Threats of censorship, surveillance, harassment, and physical violence against Chinese students abroad have hampered academic freedom in democracies. Regime actors also threaten the UN human rights system, blocking unwanted scrutiny of the CCP’s human rights transgressions.
High-profile individuals with relatives in China remain vulnerable, as authorities can retaliate against their family members if they voice critical views.
As the scope of Xi’s influence becomes more evident, the question remains: Why have democracies failed to contain it? Richardson believes they are in denial of the overall trajectory, choosing to prioritize other interests at the expense of human rights. Their inability to coordinate in the long term presents an additional challenge. Finally, many democracies have dismissed anti-democratic threats posed by the CCP on grounds that they are idiosyncratic and unworthy of a broader response.
Richardson underscored the importance of greater precision in characterizing the threats posed by the Chinese government to democracy and the imperative to build an international commitment to protecting human rights in China.
Why have democracies failed in curtailing Xi Jinping’s human rights abuses? And how can they better insulate themselves from Beijing's transnational threats? CDDRL Visiting Scholar and former China Director at Human Rights Watch Sophie Richardson presented her research on the Chinese government’s deteriorating human rights record.
The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University is proud to announce the appointment of Sophie Richardson as a Visiting Scholar. Dr. Richardson, a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy, will be in residence with the Center through December 2024.
From 2006 to 2023, Dr. Richardson served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, spearheading the organization's research and advocacy efforts. She has published extensively on human rights and testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China's foreign policy since 1954's Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policymakers.
Dr. Richardson speaks Chinese and earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia and her BA from Oberlin College. Her current research focuses on the global implications of democracies’ weak responses to increasingly repressive Chinese governments, and she is advising several China-focused human rights organizations.
During her tenure at Stanford, Dr. Richardson will embark on individual research endeavors while focusing on completing her forthcoming book project, titled "Great Changes Unseen in a Century: How to Save Democracy and Human Rights from Xi Jinping."
During her tenure at Stanford, Dr. Richardson will embark on individual research endeavors while focusing on completing her forthcoming book project, titled "Great Changes Unseen in a Century: How to Save Democracy and Human Rights from Xi Jinping."
Most public opinion research in China uses direct questions to measure support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government policies. These direct question surveys routinely find that over 90 percent of Chinese citizens support the government. From this, scholars conclude that the CCP enjoys genuine legitimacy. In this paper, we present results from two survey experiments in contemporary China that make clear that citizens conceal their opposition to the CCP for fear of repression. When respondents are asked directly, we find, like other scholars, approval ratings for the CCP that exceed 90 percent. When respondents are asked in the form of list experiments, which confer a greater sense of anonymity, CCP support hovers between 50 percent and 70 percent. This represents an upper bound, however, since list experiments may not fully mitigate incentives for preference falsification. The list experiments also suggest that fear of government repression discourages some 40 percent of Chinese citizens from participating in anti-regime protests. Most broadly, this paper suggests that scholars should stop using direct question surveys to measure political opinions in China.
Sophie Richardson is a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the organization’s research and advocacy. She has published extensively on human rights, and testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China's foreign policy since 1954's Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers. She speaks Mandarin, and received her doctorate from the University of Virginia and her BA from Oberlin College. Her current research focuses on the global implications of democracies’ weak responses to increasingly repressive Chinese governments, and she is advising several China-focused human rights organizations.
