The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a firm grip on power in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), there are a number of ethnic, religious, and economically-motivated groups which pose a number of threats to the control that the CCP holds over the politics, people, and territory of the PRC.

The local populations in the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang have historically sought greater autonomy from Beijing. Many in both regions desire complete independence from China. The Communist Party leadership perceives any separatist sentiments as a threat to internal order and, ultimately, party control over the country.

To combat separatism, the central government has implemented programs designed to assimilate local populations into a dominant “Chinese” national narrative. In Xinjiang, up to a million Muslim Uyghurs (a Turkic-ethnic group largely concentrated in the restive western region) have been reportedly interned in “reeducation” labor camps. Those who have managed to avoid the internment camps are subjected to near-totalitarian levels of surveillance and security measures.

On the economic front, a multitude of issues could pose major threats to the Communist Party’s power monopoly. Any significant economic disruption or slowdown could reduce public confidence in the party and potentially lead to political destabilization.

Ensuring sustainable economic growth is key to the Communist Party’s hold on power. Now that CCP Chairman Xi Jinping has consolidated power and begun his second term, China’s debt-laden economy will continue to undergo substantial reform in order to ensure the state’s control over economic activities.

The Communist Party is taking steps to mitigate the risk of social unrest in the event of an economic downturn.

When it comes to economic threats to the Communist Party, the next several years—or even decades—will be critical in sustaining party control and legitimacy. The government has elevated the status of Xi Jinping, in both the party and the state, to a level not seen since the days of Mao Zedong.

Xi’s purported anti-corruption drive will persist, if not escalate, and Xi’s economic policies, which have resulted in millions losing their jobs, will proceed as well. The anti-corruption drive has been a vehicle to rid the party’s upper-echelons of any challengers to Xi’s authority. Xi’s economic reforms stand in contrast to the policies pursued by his more market-oriented predecessors, as Xi strives to ensure state-dominance over China’s economic affairs.

Both Chinese state-owned and private companies are laden with increasing levels of debt, and a number of firms are failing as a result. If discontent were to persist, the growing number of unemployed could present a threat to the party. However, the government has offered urban unemployed job opportunities in rural infrastructure development, tourism, and education in China’s eastern provinces.

Programs such as these offer urban-dwelling unemployed wages they would otherwise be unable to earn. They also serve the dual-purpose of dispersing highly-concentrated urban populations to rural provinces, reducing the likelihood of large-scale societal unrest in the event of a sharp economic downturn.

In a similar vein, the central government has offered economic incentives to members of the majority Han ethnic group to establish themselves in both Tibet and Xinjiang. Ostensibly, Beijing argues that it is merely providing opportunities for unemployed or underemployed citizens along China’s densely populated eastern coast.

What’s more likely, however, is that Beijing is counting on significant numbers of Han Chinese relocating to China’s western regions incrementally suppress Tibetan or Uyghur identities. This would effectively reduce the threat of Uyghur or Tibetan separatism as both groups are forcibly assimilated into a national “Chinese” identity.

Beijing is Increasingly Wary of Separatism

Tibet has historically sought complete independence, rather than autonomy from the People’s Republic of China. Having achieved total independence from China after the demise of the Qing dynasty’s rule in Tibet in 1912, the Tibetan people enjoyed sovereignty for approximately 36 years. After the Chinese Civil War, the CCP emerged as the dominant power in Mainland China and subsequently incorporated the region of Tibet into their territorial holdings.

The CCP granted a significant amount of autonomy to Tibet, which was renounced during the failed Tibetan Rebellion of 1959, during which the Tibetan government, including the Dalai Lama, the head of the Tibetan faith, fled to India. It is important to note that the Tibetans did not perceive the Chinese invasion as a threat to the territorial integrity of Tibet, although Tibet had assumed a distinct geographical entity as a nation beginning in the seventh century. The assault was seen more as a threat to their faith. Since this so-called offensive against the Tibetan faith occurred, the CCP has treated the citizens of the Tibetan region much differently than citizens of the rest of the country.

In 2008, violent protests and riots, caused by resentment towards the inequalities that Tibetans experience relative to other parts of China, erupted throughout Tibet. Tibetans were angered by inflation, inadequate education and low access to employment. The riots were mainly ethnically driven, as rioters attacked business owners and pedestrians of the Han and Hui ethnic groups. These actions by the people of Tibet are indicative of a desire for greater independence from the government of the PRC, reveal the fact that Tibet is a significant threat to the CCP’s authority.

This is because it is an issue of ethnicity and religion, rather than being an issue of government reform or democratization. The desire for equality and with that, independence is something that the CCP cannot reform without weakening itself by sacrificing territory. This issue will continue to plague the Party until Tibet wins full autonomy or is obliterated by the CCP.

There are a significant number of Tibetan exiles living outside the reach and influence of the central government, who can both influence foreign governments to take action against Beijing and provide valuable information and assistance to activists within Tibet. The fact that there are elements outside of the party’s control concerning the issue of Tibet—variables that it cannot predict or control—makes this an even more substantial threat from Beijing’s perspective.

Preventive Oppression and Cultural Cleansing of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang

Beginning in the 1990s, the CCP started to tightening restrictions on religious practices as part of a crackdown on Xinjiang’s Muslims in response to public demonstrations in the 1980s and a violent mass uprising in 1990. Today, Xinjiang has effectively become a totalitarian police state. Residents are subjected to regular security checks, mandatory spyware, and there are reportedly anywhere from several hundred thousand to over a million Uyghurs in “reeducation” or internment camps.

The repression of Islam in Xinjiang has gone so far that the government has mandated that mosques be closed and that clerics submit to supervision by party officials. As Islam is no doubt a large part of the Uyghur population, as part of their spiritual and cultural expression, this is viewed as a highly oppressive act by the central government.

This oppression exists because China’s leadership perceives the practice of religion as a potential threat to the integrity of the atheist state and CCP authority. Likewise, they fear that the free practice of Islam encourages radicalism and separatism among Uyghurs and other Muslims in China.

This fear of radicalism has encouraged both the Party and government to go so far as charging individuals who try to practice Islam peacefully of ‘separatism,’ and it persecutes religious leaders and Muslim opposition figures linking them to terrorism.

Beijing has implemented a number of programs designed to systematically assimilate members of non-Han ethnic groups such as Uyghurs. Education policies in the region are designed around integrating youths of Uyghur and non-Han ethnicities into Chinese society through means such as Mandarin language instruction, while discouraging or prohibiting the use of the native languages of these ethnic groups.

While it can be said that the central government’s fear of dissent by the population of Xinjiang has motivated their policies of religious intolerance and discouragement of native languages, these policies are most likely encourage anti-social activities on the part of the Uyghur populace. The statement that the ruling party enacts more oppressive policies when it feels threatened reigns very true in this instance.

As the elite of the CCP reacts to its fears of separatists in Xinjiang, it only encourages more resentment from the people it fears. In 2009, a small percentage of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang reacted to the oppressive policies of the CCP, attacking members of the Han ethnic group in Xinjiang, and encouraging protests in cities as far away as Beijing.

While the CCP realizes the legitimacy of this threat, CCP policymakers will likely find it difficult to address the long-term separatist risks as long as Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang perceive the PRC policy in Xinjiang as unjust and oppressive.

China perceives its actions in Xinjiang as both a means of population management and as a national security strategy.

The same goes for the population of Tibet. Oppressive policies and omnipresent surveillance creates a sense of inequality for residents. The separatist sentiments that exists in both Xinjiang and Tibet will only grow larger as Beijing attempts to oppress the population through harsher means.

Affirmative Action With Chinese Characteristics?

While the government’s repressive tactics are well-documented in both Tibet and Xinjiang, Beijing has stepped up its use of “soft-power” in both regions. Alongside the discouragement of the use of local languages in favor of Mandarin in schools, Beijing has encouraged Tibetans and Uyghur students and young people with education opportunities, offering them disproportionate acceptance rates to state universities, similar to Affirmative Action programs in the United States.

Dissimilar to the programs in the United States, China’s were conceived to assimilate a potentially separatist population into a constructed national culture, rather than to correct a historical discrimination and injustice. In short, China perceives its version of “affirmative action” as both a means of population management and as a national security strategy.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Biggest Fears are Separatism and an Economic Crisis was originally published on Global Security Review.

For decades, Western academics, policymakers, and analysts assumed that China’s embrace of capitalist economic policies would set the stage for democratic reform. Almost three decades later, however, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains firmly in power under the increasingly autocratic leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping.

While the CCP-controlled government faces a range of threats from groups within its borders, the idea of a downturn in the Chinese economy remains a very legitimate threat.

The Chinese government has radically modernized its economic policies over the past three decades, completely reversing their initial Marxist or Maoist aversion to providing monetary compensation for labor.

These reforms are responsible for the significant growth of the Chinese middle class, which has the potential to be the most influential group in China when looked at in regards to socio-economic status.

As a result, the considerably large middle class has come to perceive the CCP as being responsible for their rising levels of prosperity.

China has undoubtedly experienced the effects of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis; it indeed fared much better than the majority of the world. However, China still faces many hurdles to overcome.

Rising Debt and Escalating Unemployment for Chinese College Graduates

It is becoming increasingly difficult in China for college graduates to find jobs, the volume of China’s exports is dropping, and tens of millions of workers are out of work. The possibility of a financial crisis in China could challenge Beijing’s ability to hold up its side of the deal with the population.

Since the inception of Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents,’ meant to attract private entrepreneurs to party membership, the middle and upper classes have seen the party as being responsible for their economic well-being.

The government provides an environment for a healthy, regulated economy, to encourage the creation of private wealth and property, and in return has its rule legitimized by its people.

Arguably, while it is individuals are responsible for the creation of personal wealth, the party made it possible. If the government or party cannot guarantee jobs to the people, there remains the little reason for the people to tolerate the strict control that the party maintains over the state.

If the CCP-controlled government cannot sustain economic growth, it could be perceived by members of the growing middle class as violating the social contract that has existed between China’s citizens and the country’s ruling party elite.

The CCP could face a challenge to its legitimacy if and when the time comes that it is unable to guarantee a healthy economy, prompting potential discontent from the middle class.

Beijing has a track record of effectively suppressing unrest

The Chinese government has become particularly adept at maintaining or regaining control over its people via means of physical repression, censorship, and through the creation of an environment where fear of speaking out is a legitimate means of control. Indeed, the likelihood of an economic downturn eliminating the CCP’s influence is minimal.

Rising social discontent isn’t likely to be enough to force the party itself from power, but it might be sufficient to tempt some members of the elite to take advantage of the situation to their political benefit, thus leading to internal instability within the party and damaging its credibility.

While the CCP has an extraordinary ability to suppress dissent, many argue that it can only contain such dissent for so long.

However, due to the rapid proliferation of advanced technologies including surveillance, censorship, and controlled access to information, the Chinese authorities are empowered as never before, to monitor, identify, and censor those whose activities are a perceived threat to the party.

Nevertheless, a sustained economic downturn poses a threat to the CCP’s legitimacy.

Continued civil unrest on the part of groups desiring independence from CCP rule as a result of religious suppression and ethnic inequality illustrate not-insignificant threats to the party’s ability to maintain total control over the Chinese state.

Regardless, the most significant threat to the power monopoly held by the CCP is a pronounced economic downturn.

While the party may not be overthrown if segments of the Chinese populace make their economic grievances known, the likelihood that the CCP would emerge unscathed is slim.

The party is increasingly structured around a rigid hierarchy and personality cult that is centered around Xi, a drastic shift from the somewhat meritocratic structure of the CCP that existed under the tenures of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao.

In China, Change Trickles Down from the Top

There has recently been an increased desire for greater citizen participation in local politics, along with calls for an end to the one-party policy from Chinese intellectuals. However, the latter are fewer and far between, as the message doesn’t resonate with many in China.

However, that doesn’t mean the party would disintegrate. More likely, it would reorganize itself. Change in China is significantly more apt to come from the top rather than the bottom.

Not only would it create very a substantial amount of public dissent, but it could encourage a power struggle within the ranks of the party elite.

Party officials seeking to take advantage of such a situation might break away from the party to seek public approval to gain more authority, power, and perceived legitimacy for themselves.

The likelihood of an individual taking advantage of a situation like this is higher than the removal of the party itself from power. Furthermore, the mobilization of a large segment of the Chinese population, organized around a common goal, remains unlikely.

Removal Two-Term Limits Signals Potentially Significant Reforms

The party has argued that abolishing term limits for the party leader puts the chairmanship in line with the unlimited tenures for the party and military heads — and that strengthening this “trinity” of leadership is good for long-term political stability.

Xi Jinping holds both the top leadership positions within the Chinese Communist Party and the military (the People’s Liberation Army).

Xi’s consolidation of power serves several purposes—both in the domestic and international arenas.

Domestically, the removal of the term-limits gives Xi the bandwidth necessary to initiate major, strategic structural reforms to the Chinese economy, society, and the party bureaucracy.

Xi would be hard-pressed to deliver on his pledges to make China a truly global power in three stages: 2020, 2035 and 2050. Militarily, for example, Xi proposed that China’s military would complete mechanization efforts by 2020, modernization by 2035, eventually evolving into what he termed “a world-class army by 2050,” complete with a blue water navy capable of hemispheric, if not global force projection.

Economically-speaking, the seeming indefinite nature of Xi’s rule allows a degree of leeway in pursuing domestic economic policies that could be painful to many Chinese in the short-term. Xi can pursue policies he believes will be beneficial in the long-term, without having to concern himself with the short-term implications as they relate to his political position.

Internationally, the removal term limits could signify stability and continuity, at a time when many governments and world leaders are questioning the reliability of the United States as the traditional guarantor of international security and order.

In light of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal (signed and negotiated during the previous Obama administration), the reforms in China could be a signal to China’s partners and potential partners that they can rely on stability and continuity, as opposed to the unpredictability emanating from the White House.

An Economic Downturn in China is the Greatest Threat to Chinese Domestic Security was originally published on Global Security Review.