The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) increasingly relies on a range of economic tactics to silence opposition, persecute ethnic and religious minorities, and bully, coerce, and manipulate foreign powers, said panelists at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Committee on China held on Dec. 7. Although such behavior on the part of the CCP is not a new phenomenon, it has grown increasingly blatant and targeted in recent years, the panelists said. Bonnie S. Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States said that given China’s status as the world’s top trading nation, its second largest market, and one of the largest providers of development finance, the communist regime is in a position to exert enormous influence through the use of what she called economic sticks and carrots. Beijing has put such tactics to use regularly in recent years to gain economic concessions from counterparties, …