in military modernization continue to be sources of frictions in China’s external relations.
Uncertain about China’s long-term intentions, many of its neighbors have adopted a “hedging” strategy or a balanced approach. They remain engaged with China economically and diplomatically, but at the same time they reach out to the United States for security reassurance. For example, worried about big power rivalry in Asia, Southeast Asian nations have taken such a dual-track policy and have become some of the strongest advocates of strong relations with both the United States and China since they do not want to take sides between the two powers (Lemon, 2018). These countries also urge the two powers to maintain friendly ties and resolve differences peacefully.
Aspiring to be a global power, China seems aware of the need to balance its national interests and its increasing global responsibilities. Its foreign policy is not radical or ideological but more pragmatic, calculated, and sophisticated now. It is still in transition and will keep adjusting to the changing international and domestic conditions while upholding long-standing principles.
As the second largest economy, China is expected by the international community to play more leadership roles in world affairs, yet despite its expanding global reach, China considers itself a developing nation and does not want to shoulder too many responsibilities. China may be doing what it thinks is right to defend its national interests, but some of its behaviors are regarded assertive and even aggressive by other countries. These two contradictions will continue to characterize China’s relations with other countries. A variety of external and internal factors will make conducting Chinese foreign policy more complicated in the years ahead.
Key External Factors
It appears that Deng Xiaoping’s cautious “Tao Guang Yang Hui” policy no longer dominated China’s strategic thinking in the 2010s. There have been calls, especially from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and some nationalistic scholars, that China should and can play a bigger role in international affairs and be tougher in dealing with disputed issues. Increasingly, Chinese leaders were talking confidently about the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the mid-21st century.
China’s rapid rise since the 1990s has triggered some concerns about how it is going to use its power. As a response to the growing “China threat” sentiment in some parts of the world, the Chinese government under Hu Jintao’s leadership (2002–2012) proposed policies of “peaceful development” (heping fazhan 和平发展) and “harmonious world” (hexie shijie 和谐世界) to ease anxieties about China’s global expansion of trade and influence. However, with the change of leadership in Zhongnanhai (中南海 the headquarters for the CCP) in 2012, such policies have been deemphasized somewhat, and external concerns about China’s rise have grown.
Conflicts, wars, and revolutions in different parts of the world pose serious challenges to China as it tries to maintain a peaceful environment for continued domestic growth. Security challenges in Asia directly affect China’s foreign policy outlook. East Asia is one of the most economically dynamic regions, yet it is also home to some of the world’s potentially most dangerous hotspots — the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea. China has been directly involved in all these cases since the very beginning, and any conflict in East Asia will affect China’s security and stability. In addition, China has unresolved territorial disputes with Japan, India, and several Southeast Asian nations. In 2016, almost 80 percent of China’s oil imports passed through the South China Sea via the Strait of Malacca and nearly 40 percent of its total trade transited through the South China Sea,6 yet China does not have a strong blue-water navy to protect its energy transportation and overseas interests. This “Malacca dilemma” will continue to frustrate China in the near future. While China has improved relations with its Asian neighbors, its security environment is far from satisfactory.
As globalization widens and deepens, China has begun to embrace multilateralism, which it shunned in the past. Over the past 40 years, China has transformed itself from a “taker” of the norms and rules in the international system to a combination of both a “taker” and a “maker” of these norms and rules. In 2001, it became a WTO member after some 15 years of tough negotiations. China has been an active member since, both following the existing trade rules and helping make new ones as part of WTO reforms. China is a founding member of the SCO and has worked with Russia and several Central Asian nations to cooperate on economic, trade, and security issues in the region. China has been a strong advocate of peaceful conflict resolution and opposes the use of force in international affairs. It played a leadership role in convening the Six Party Talks in an attempt to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue peacefully in the 2000s.
While the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” remain guiding principles of Chinese foreign policy, over the years China’s policies have been adapted to changing international conditions and its own capabilities.7 In the past when China was weak, it opposed international intervention in a country’s internal affairs as China itself was often the target of such intervention. Today as a major power in the world, it faces increasing pressure and demand for defending justice in international affairs and protecting its own interests overseas. China has been “free-riding” for long; now it is prepared to provide international public goods. For example, China has long been accused of ignoring genocide in Sudan. In response, China appointed a special envoy to Sudan in May 2007, helping to mediate between rebels in Darfur and the Sudanese government. China has also appointed special envoys to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. By doing so, has China interfered in other countries’ internal affairs? When China hosted the Six-Party Talks, was China interfering in North Korea’s internal affairs? These are interesting policy questions to ask as we study changes and continuities in Chinese foreign policy.
China is still clumsy in public relations. Its reaction to Liu Xiaobo’s winning of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize is quite telling of China’s poor public relations campaign. The Chinese government condemned the Nobel Committee and the Norwegian government for the award and exerted pressure on a dozen plus countries so that they would stay away from the award ceremony in Oslo. All this backfired and deeply hurt China’s reputation. The empty chair reserved for Liu at the award ceremony served as a powerful reminder that the international community was disapproving of China’s human rights record and its high-handed diplomatic approach.
China does not have much “power of discourse” or “pouvoir du discours” (话语权). Take the BRI as an example. This massive project will undoubtedly benefit China the most economically and diplomatically, but it will also obviously help many developing countries enormously in their development. It is a true opportunity for win–win cooperation in international political economy. However, Western media and governments have largely portrayed it in a negative light and focused on potential debt crisis in some developing countries and unsubstantiated assumption about China’s ambition to replace the United States as the global hegemon. The Chinese responses so far have been weak and ineffective.
Among all external factors, the United States obviously remains the most important for China. The U.S. presence in Asia has a direct bearing on China’s foreign policy. Since the end of the Cold War, the lone superpower and the emerging global power have developed a highly interdependent relationship. However, with the disintegration of their common enemy — the Soviet Union, the two countries have been struggling to find new common ground and they remain suspicious of each other strategically today. From anti-terrorism to climate change, and from trade to Asian security, none of the new shared interests have been strong enough to serve as the cornerstone of the relationship in the 21st century. Though China has expressed no intention to exclude the United States from Asia, it is concerned about renewed U.S. commitments in Asia. For example, the United States has reached out to countries including India and Vietnam, both of which feel uncomfortable living in the shadow of a giant neighbor. The publicly denied but widely understood rationale is that the United States wants to work with China’s
