Search for a report, a publication, an expert...
October 2022

China Trends #14
Figures of Speech in China’s Foreign Policy

Asia International affairs
Share
Auteurs
Viviana Zhu
Viviana Zhu
China analyst, former Research Fellow, Institut Montaigne’s Asia Program

Viviana Zhu was Research Fellow at Institut Montaigne until January 2023. Prior to that, as Coordinator of the Asia Program of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Viviana  was responsible for event coordination, reporting, and research support.

François Godement
François Godement
Special Advisor and Resident Senior Fellow - U.S. and Asia

François Godement is Institut Montaigne’s Special Advisor and Resident Senior Fellow – Asia and America. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. and was, until the summer of 2024, an external consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs

Janka Oertel
Janka Oertel
Director of the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations

Janka Oertel est directrice du programme Asie du Conseil européen pour les relations internationales (European Council on Foreign Relations, ECFR). Elle était auparavant Senior Fellow - programme Asie au bureau de Berlin du German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Elle y suivait en particulier la politique transatlantique à l’égard de la Chine, notamment dans le domaine des technologies émergentes, la politique étrangère de la Chine et la sécurité en Asie orientale. Avant de rejoindre le GMF, elle était directrice de programme au bureau de la Körber-Stiftung à Berlin. Janka Oertel est titulaire d’un doctorat. 

Mathieu Duchâtel
Mathieu Duchâtel
Resident Senior Fellow and Director of International Studies

Dr. Mathieu Duchâtel is a Resident Senior Fellow for Asia at Institut Montaigne, and Director of International Studies.

Chiew-Ping Hoo
Chiew-Ping Hoo
Senior Lecturer at the National University of Malaysia

Hoo Chiew-Ping est maître de conférences en études stratégiques et relations internationales à l’Université nationale de Malaisie (UKM). Elle est en parallèle membre du Conseil consultatif de politique étrangère du ministère des Affaires étrangères de Malaisie, professeur adjoint au Collège de Défense des forces armées malaisiennes et à l’Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (Malaisie). Elle est titulaire d’un doctorat. 

Chow-Bing Ngeow
Chow-Bing Ngeow
Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya

Ngeow Chow-Bing est directeur de l’Institut pour les études chinoises de l’Université de Malaya (Malaisie). Il a été nommé Special Senior Research Fellow au sein du National Institute for Global Strategy de l’Académie chinoise des sciences sociales (2017-2020). En 2018, lors du 17e Shangri-La Dialogue organisé par l’Institut International d'Études Stratégiques (International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS), il a été délégué du Southeast Asian Young Leaders Programme (SEAYLP). Il est titulaire d’un doctorat.

Download
  • China Trends #14 (18 pages)

    • Introduction - François Godement
    The Remains of Global Governance: Shaping Multilateralism or Working In Small Groups? - Janka Oertel
    Xi’s Global Security Initiative: Rallying the Global South Against the West - Mathieu Duchâtel and Viviana Zhu
    Love Thy Neighbors: Policy Actions and Rhetorics in China’s Southeast Asia Policy - Hoo Chiew-Ping and Ngeow Chow-Bing

    About

    China Trends seeks understanding of China from Chinese language sources. In an era where the international news cycle is often about China, having a reality check on Chinese expressions often provides for more in-depth analysis of the logic at work in policies, and needed information about policy debates where they exist. China Trends is a quarterly publication by Institut Montaigne’s Asia program, with each issue focusing on a single theme.

    Introduction

    François Godement, Senior Advisor for Asia

    Any state has a declarative foreign policy which may differ from its acts in some aspects. "Organized hypocrisy" is a permanent feature of international relations. Norms are recognized but are also violated to varying degrees. Yet hypocrisy can also be a peacekeeper, preventing full-blown conflict and escalation, and providing negotiated ways out of conflict.

    Since Xi Jinping’s predecessor Hu Jintao in 2007, "soft power" has become a key concern of China’s CCP. In international relations, it is frequently expressed as "discourse power" (话语权). Zheng Bijian, Deng Xiaoping’s key international adviser and the promoter of China’s "peaceful rise", appears to be the first who used the term in a 2004 Shanghai Oriental Television interview. Although Xi Jinping frequently refers to discursive power, and emphasizes the need to "tell China’s story well" since 2013, his own expressions about China’s international stance are frequently laced with exhortations towards "struggle", a notion directly connected to his vision of the CCP’s role at home. On the eve of the CCP’s 20th Congress opening on October 16, 2022, "struggle" is still his key message, in a context of "great changes unseen in a century" in the world where the CCP must stay ahead. At other times, he has celebrated a "once in a hundred year strategic opportunity for China".

    That is not the core of the elements of Chinese foreign policy that our sources find in this issue of China Trends. Instead, several trends stand out. One is the presentation of China as non-hegemonic, constructive, rational - in almost constant opposition to the behavior attributed to America or sometimes Western powers. The international order is outdated, but the reason cited is not a hypothetical power shift from America and its allies to emerging and developing countries (Chinese sources do not use the term of "Global South", just as they never used the term of "Third World" until Deng Xiaoping gave it a new meaning after 1978). Indeed, the use of force, coercion, manipulation remain Western attributes.

    Yet hypocrisy can also be a peacekeeper, preventing full-blown conflict and escalation, and providing negotiated ways out of conflict.

    Instead, many Chinese authors point out the inability of the old leaders of the international order to solve multiple problems. From climate mitigation to economic governance and international security, China offers solutions that are a potential model and should position it at the heart of a new global order. Xi Jinping’s new Global Security Initiative, far away from his rhetoric of struggle, is all about dialogue and consultation, the UN Charter, cooperative and sustainable security. With ASEAN - in some ways an ideal regional partner given its professed neutrality and China’s leverage in Southeast Asia, one expert goes as far as to cite the building of "emotional trust".

    Realism intervenes in two directions: one is the economic influence that China has gained at every level, including for one source as a "shaper" of global economic policies. But the other consists of warnings or reservations. These are minority views expressed by Da Wei, a Tsinghua University don, Zheng Yongnian, a well-known returned overseas expert, and, more surprisingly, Dong Chunling, a junior member of the think tank operating under the Ministry of State Security. Da Wei reminds readers that economic dependence goes both ways, and that the West has proven to be surprisingly united in front of the war on Ukraine. For Dong Chunling, US-China cooperation on terrorism has been useful, and much of the differences obstructing US-China cooperation today are ideological. Zheng Yongnian hints at a possible analogy between the Ukraine and South China Sea issues: a hardline attitude from China may usher in an "Asian Nato", and China should therefore make more efforts towards ASEAN.

    Again, these are almost anecdotal reservations - although Tsinghua’s Da Wei has the most factual and argued reasoning. Apart from these, one problem stands out: our Chinese sources never go into specifics, and never outline a concrete and factual proposal from China. Yet these exist - from the huge Belt and Road loans to China’s rare but real pledges on environmental issues, or to its contributions to international organizations. China’s experts, at least in their publications, appear focused on systemic issues and on broad-brush diplomatic initiatives. Clearly, these are directed at SCO members, BRICS and non-Western G20 participants: they do represent the largest constituency in the international community. Again, it is Da Wei who quite rightly points out the need for "positive" Chinese offers.

    We often tend to confuse China’s policy of influence and coercion, running through its immense trade leverage over exporters of primary products, debtors through large Chinese-run projects, and business lobbies with a genuine form of soft power. China exploits obvious gaps in Western offers to the world - and, one might add - too much Western reliance on the power of common values over practical interests. Its own offer is much more woven with trade dependency and the perception that crossing China is likely to be punished: coercion plays an increasing role. Aid is through loans rather than grants, vaccines are sold rather than given, contributions at times of crises are typically limited, especially if one considers the size of China’s economy.

    While China’s stand on international issues needs to be assessed seriously and has large consequences for the resolution of many global issues – or for the lack of a solution ‒ the gap between rhetoric and actions remains huge.

    When Xi Jinping announces an emergency humanitarian supply for developing countries at the September 2022 Shanghai Cooperation Summit, the total amount comes to €215 million, or 0.0000625% of China’s foreign trade in 2021. Similar discrepancies could be pointed out in other areas.

    There are accordingly good reasons for China’s experts to avoid specifics, and to stick with figures of speech. While China’s stand on international issues needs to be assessed seriously and has large consequences for the resolution of many global issues - or for the lack of a solution - the gap between rhetoric and actions remains huge, and is not only attributable to "red" or "wolf warrior" ideologies. A strategic weakness in China’s future global role is its almost sole focus on self-interest, and stinginess over international cooperation. It remains to others, of course, to prove that they have a better offer to the world.

    The Remains of Global Governance: Shaping Multilateralism or Working In Small Groups?

    Does China still have an interest in global governance structures, or does the leadership under Xi Jinping regard them as obsolete in an era of great power competition, dominated by power maximization and nationalism? Janka Oertel, Director of the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, examines a selection of Chinese writings to understand the Chinese leadership’s current approach to global governance.

    Chinese scholars argue that Beijing is far from declaring global governance dead, but instead actively contributing to shaping and restructuring an order that is more attractive for China to operate within, that reflects "Chinese wisdom" while offering "Chinese solutions". At the same time, they do acknowledge existing weaknesses that would become more evident if the existing mechanisms of global governance were not in place.

    Xi’s Global Security Initiative: Rallying the Global South Against the West

    Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) is almost six months old. The concept does not get much traction in Europe, to say the least. Inside China, however, the Global Security Initiative receives a strong political push. Mathieu Duchâtel and Viviana Zhu, respectively Director of the Asia Program and Research Fellow at Institut Montaigne, look into Chinese commentaries regarding the nature, meaning, and value of the GSI.

    What China rejects is clear, while what it proposes is less so. Despite vague and abstract language, the GSI does not outline concrete solutions to security challenges the world faces and fails to explain how the world should collectively move towards the Chinese proposed model. However, the Chinese narrative deserves attention, as it reveals the strategic interests and a deep-rooted hyperrealist vision of the international order behind the cooperative language of the GSI.

    Love Thy Neighbors: Policy Actions and Rhetorics in China’s Southeast Asia Policy

    Southeast Asia has become the key contesting ground between China’s neighborhood diplomacy and the US’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Although most analysts in the Western world will highlight the contentious issues between China and ASEAN countries, Chinese scholars generally prefer to portray positive developments between China and ASEAN/ASEAN member-states. However, China’s actions don’t always and necessarily match with policy rhetoric and scholarly writings.

    Hoo Chiew-Ping and Ngeow Chow-Bing, respectively Senior Lecturer at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) and Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, analyze Chinese perspectives on ASEAN and Southeast Asia as part of its "neighborhood". Overall, while China’s neighborhood diplomacy, with ASEAN as the high priority, is welcomed in the region, it still has a long way to go in building trust and goodwill with ASEAN.

    Viviana Zhu
    François Godement
    Janka Oertel
    Mathieu Duchâtel
    Chiew-Ping Hoo
    Chow-Bing Ngeow
    Print
    Share
    Download
    China Trends #14
    (18 pages)
    Receive Institut Montaigne’s monthly newsletter in English
    Subscribe