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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.