China: Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping
Has Chinese leadership assigned greater priority to foreign policy and diplomacy under Xi? What are the possible implications for China’s international behavior?
Executive Summary: Foreign policy in China has gained increasing importance over the last few decades. Under Xi Jinping this trend has accelerated. The increasing focus on foreign policy should be viewed as a strategy for increasing Xi and the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy at home. Achieving the ‘rejuvenation’ of the Chinese nation, as Xi’s ‘China Dream’ campaign promises to do, will increase the legitimacy of Xi and his Communist Party domestically. Foreign policy under Xi has two core elements: geo-economics and sharp-power. Geo-economics encapsulates Xi’s substantial expansion of development loans, construction projects, and economic relations with other countries (done largely under the umbrella of the Belt and Road Initiative), while sharp-power refers to China’s increasing use of manipulation abroad to coerce foreign populations into viewing China-related issues favorably. As China continues to rise, its foreign policy will be increasingly assertive. Although China continues to work within the confines of the existing international order, its increasing demands presage a new era of great power relations with Chinese characteristics.
Discussion:
The Jiang and Hu era was characterized by the increasing bureaucratization, pluralization, professionalization, and globalization of China.[i] China’s economy, continuing on the trailblazing path set by Deng Xiaoping, has grown rapidly and become increasingly interconnected with the world-at-large. China’s total trade was worth less than $40 billion in 1985. As of 2015, Chinese trade was worth over $4 trillion.[ii] By the time Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China was already a deeply integrated and globalized power that placed substantial emphasis on foreign policy. Xi’s tenure thus far, though different in many ways from Jiang’s and Hu’s, demonstrates a continued, if greater, emphasis on foreign policy.
A key change in Chinese foreign policy under Xi is a shift away from Deng’s long heeded advice to ‘hide one’s strength and bide one’s time’ (taoguang yanghui) and toward, as Xi said in a 2013 speech, a strategy of ‘striving for achievements’ (fenfa youwei).[iii] Indeed, Xi’s grand ambitions for China necessitate increasing emphasis on foreign policy. Xi envisions China regaining the preeminent world position it once had.[iv] In this sense foreign policy must also be considered directly related to Xi and the CCP’s domestic situation in China. Although Xi is a powerful authoritarian leader, he and his Party are deeply concerned about the regime’s stability, which is predicated on whether or not the Chinese public views the regime as legitimate. The two primary forms of legitimacy the regime relies upon are nationalistic pride and economic performance.
Foreign policy can thus be viewed through this lens as a tool for augmenting these two forms of domestic legitimacy. Xi and the CCP believe that by achieving status as a great power, the populous will herald them as the legitimate stewards of China.[v] But, as Xi understands, this will require successfully navigating and operating in the foreign policy arena. Chinese foreign policy is thus a two level game that attempts to deftly balance the interests of China’s domestic and international constituencies.
Over the last several decades, the Party has meticulously utilized the long standing narrative of China’s ‘100 Years of Humiliation.’ The CCP portrays themselves as the strong source of stability that brought an end to the era of injustice wherein China was subordinate to foreign powers. This rhetoric has increased under Xi.[vi] Furthermore, the fundamental campaign identified with Xi, the ‘Chinese Dream,’ strives to portray Xi as ‘rejuvenating’ the historically great Chinese nation and restoring its place as not only a great power, but as the historically important Middle Kingdom. In order to make good on his rhetorical flourishes over China’s place as a great power, Xi must engage with and meld the international system to China’s interests. Three strategies exist for doing so: coercion, payment, or attraction.[vii] Chinese influence abroad thus far relies predominately upon the first two.
China is establishing new economic partnerships near and far[viii]. In what many view as a ‘Westward March,’ China is cultivating close relationships with the Central Asian countries that, in addition to being viable markets for Chinese goods, can provide much needed energy resources.[ix] In Asia more generally, China has created the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and secured substantial buy in. In Africa, the fastest growing region in the world by population, China has invested substantial amounts of capital and financial resources, and sent substantial numbers of Chinese to aid in construction projects in places like Kenya and Tanzania, all in service of what China considers to be a new, ‘no strings attached’ China model of economic diplomacy (while also establishing its first overseas military base in Djibouti). And in South America, China has supplied over $150 billion to the region since 2005, primarily to Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador.[x]
Meanwhile, just two of China’s development banks, China’s Export-Import Bank (CHEXIM) and China Development Bank (CBD), hold equivalent global assets to the six largest Western development banks combined.[xi] And, of course, all of this is interconnected with China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, publicized as China’s modern reincarnation of the historic Silk Road.[xii] These new trade and economic partnerships, if successful, will allow China to maintain high-octane economic growth (i.e. maintain performance legitimacy), while also creating jobs (over 5 million Chinese workers are estimated to be abroad).[xiii] Equally important, as part of China’s two level game, these investments and developments send a strong signal to the world, and to the domestic population, that Chinese geo-economic power is massive, and that the Chinese nation is strong.
Coercion is another prominent focus of Xi’s foreign policy. Far from ‘soft power’, which relies upon principles of attraction to affect influence, the instruments of influence Xi favors are best considered ‘sharp power,’ as they strive to aggressively manipulate people abroad, similar to what occurs domestically.[xiv] One journal accurately called China the ‘meddle kingdom.’[xv] United Front Work, the Party’s institution for coercion of non-Communist groups inside and outside of China, has expanded its role sizably.[xvi] Additionally, the Ministry of Education has utilized Confucius Institutes to spread Chinese propaganda abroad to students via Chinese language courses (there are 500 registered in the US alone)[xvii]. Similarly, many members of the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) have been coerced or bribed into serving as the CCP’s agents abroad.[xviii] The Party has also exercised greater use of Chinese media (e.g. CGTV and Xinhua) to further influence Chinese living abroad.[xix] As one scholar succinctly put it, “Xi Jinping’s ambitious strategy to harness the overseas Chinese population for the CCP’s current economic and political agenda, builds on existing practices and then takes it to a new level of ambition.”[xx]
While many view China’s foreign policy as one of pure self-interest, Xi has also taken part in several efforts to reinforce China’s international image as a legitimate and beneficent actor on the world stage. This includes unprecedented engagement in the United Nations via sending troops to South Sudan for the first time, sending troops on a peace keeping mission to Mali, and drastically increasing China’s peacekeeping funding.[xxi] However, China continues to stridently maintain its anti-regime-change stance and continues to reject a pro-human rights status quo, while China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, insists on actively bending international norms to China’s will on these issues.[xxii] Indeed, China is likely averse to these notions due to its own increasingly heavy-handed and abusive handling of its ethnic and religious minorities in periphery provinces of Xinjiang and Tibet. Thus while we see a China increasingly utilizing and engaging with the existing international order, we also see China’s interests diverging sharply from it. In conjunction with this divergence, China’s nascent development of its own multilateral institutions (AIIB, Silk Road Fund, and the New Development Bank) portends the rise of a competing system in which China’s norms and desires are predominant.
Perhaps the most significant institutional development related to foreign policy under Xi Jinping is the establishment of the Central National Security Commission. This new commission centralizes national security issues under Xi’s purview and cements the connection between external and domestic security as well as the importance of the Party over these issues.[xxiii] Another important development is the creation of the ‘Voice of China’ which, centralizing propaganda authority under the Party, has drastically increased China’s external propaganda work since Xi’s time in power.[xxiv] The Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (LSG) has now been upgraded to a commission, the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, indicating its increased importance and closer ties to the Party.[xxv] As referenced above, the United Front Work Department has now taken on a far greater role in overseeing and influencing Chinese abroad, as well as strategizing how to handle ethnic and religious minorities within China. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, despite increasing professionalization, continues to lack representation in the Politburo and continues to recede in importance as other, more specialized ministries (e.g. Commerce, Public, and State Security) gain influence.[xxvi] Finally, Xi has also aggressively and decisively consolidated power over the PLA.[xxvii] These trends point collectively to Xi’s attempt to centralize control over foreign affairs within the Party and within his own hands.
Yet despite Xi’s attempt to streamline and concentrate foreign affairs policy, two problems persist. First, despite Xi’s desires, China is still lacking in foreign policy coordination. Incredibly, despite the Belt and Road Initiative’s staggering plan to spend $1 trillion on investment (equal to roughly 7 Marshall Plans), there continues to be little coherent oversight of it,[xxviii] aside from a new leading small group within the NDRC (China’s economic planning organization, which many believe has itself been demoted after the 19th Congress).[xxix] Second, the lack of planning and coordination of policy is compounded by the larger problem of centrifugal forces, particularly the provinces and commercial actors, whose varied interests continue to pull China’s foreign policy in divergent, and sometimes problematic, directions.[xxx] This ‘fractured authoritarianism’ continues to present problems, and Xi has specifically sought to resolve it. As a party publication has said, “the key to running things well in China and realizing the China Dream lies in the Party”[xxxi] and to do this the Party ultimately needs “a disciplined, focused, and loyal cadre of Party workers.”[xxxii] The recent creation of the National Supervisory Commission, which “extends the Party’s jurisdiction in granular fashion down to ‘literally anyone doing anything with a link to governance and organization’”[xxxiii] demonstrates the degree to which Xi intends to resolve these issues.
Although China still has a plethora of substantial developmental problems, it is a simple fact that China has grown more powerful and more bold. Whereas Deng traveled, hat-in-hand, to America, Japan, and other developed countries to humbly request technical and financial assistance for his “backward country” in the 1980s[xxxiv], Xi now confidently strides to foreign capitals to make demands. In the short-run, the two most prominent demands are that China be recognized as a great power in the councils of the world and that China be allowed to regain its historical sphere of influence in Asia.[xxxv] When Secretary Clinton spoke at the ASEAN Regional Forum in 2010 to discuss a pivot to Asia, she directly, if inadvertently, stepped on both of these demands at the same time.[xxxvi] Similarly, the demand for regional influence helps explain China’s refusal to recognize the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea’s ruling against it, and its continued building of islands in the South China Sea.[xxxvii] Finally, in the short-run, Xi has staked a large portion of his legitimacy and reputation on making China great again, and thus sets himself up for a crisis of legitimacy if he is perceived to have failed. This is likely to make China even more assertive of its interests. It behooves world leaders to understand the new great power logic China operates under so as to avoid confrontations.
The more distant future portends grander Chinese ambitions. While China continues to benefit mightily from the US led international order, it is increasingly clear its interests are not perfectly aligned with it. Indeed, China is already taking decisive steps to develop its own international order. China’s longer game may culminate in a modern tianxia; an attempt to regain its status as the ‘Middle Kingdom’ perched between Heaven and Earth.[xxxviii] The United States would do well to keep China’s grand vision in mind.[xxxix]
[i] These are the four meta-trends highlighted in:
Lampton, David M. Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping. (University of California Press, 2014), 13–136
[ii] Allison, Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (New York: Mariner, 2017), 6.
[iii] Nien-chung Chang-Liao (2016) China’s New Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping, Asian Security, 12:2, 82–91, DOI: 10.1080/14799855.2016.1183195
[iv] Minxin Pei. “A Play for Global Leadership.” Journal of Democracy 29, no. 2 (2018): 37–51. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed October 12, 2018).
[v] Lampton, D. (2016). China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China. JOHN W. GARVER . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. xviii 868 pp. £32.99. ISBN 978–0–19–026105–4. The China Quarterly, 227, 825–826. doi:10.1017/S0305741016000886
[vi] French, Howard W. “China’s Quest to End Its Century of Shame.” The New York Times. July 13, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/opinion/chinas-quest-to-end-its-century-of-shame.html.
[vii] Joseph Nye, “What China and Russia don’t get about Soft Power,”Foreign Policy, April 29, 2013, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/29/what-china-and-russia-dont-get-about-soft-power/
[viii] Aisch, Gregor, Josh Keller, and K. K. Rebecca. “The World According to China.” The New York Times. July 24, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/business/international/the-world-according-to-china-investment-maps.html.
[ix] Wang Jisi, “‘Marching Westwards’: The Rebalancing of China’s Geostrategy,” International and Strategic Studies Report, 73 (Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University: October 2012)
[x] Gallagher, Kevin P. and Margaret Myers (2017) “China-Latin America Finance Database,” Washington: Inter-American Dialogue. https://www.thedialogue.org/map_list/
[xi] Gallagher, Kevin, Rohini Kamal, and Yongzhang Wang, “Fueling Growth and Financing Risk: The benefits and risks of China’s development finance in the global energy sector,” GEGIWorking Paper 2, May 2016. https://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/files/2016/05/Fueling-Growth.FINAL_.version.pdf
[xii] For an example, see: “Xinhua Headlines: New Silk Road Brings More than Trade to China, Europe.” Xinhua Headlines: New Silk Road Brings More than Trade to China, Europe — Xinhua | English.news.cn. August 18, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2018. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-08/18/c_137399857.htm.
[xiii] Fulton, Jonathan. “China’s strong arm: protecting citizens and assets abroad”. By Jonas Parello-Plesner and Mathieu Duchâtel, International Affairs, Volume 92, Issue 5, 1 September 2016, Pages 1287 1288, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12736
[xiv] Walker, Christopher, and Jessica Ludwig. “The Meaning of Sharp Power.” Foreign Affairs. October 26, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2017-11-16/meaning-sharp-power.
[xv] “Australia Battles Chinese Political Influence.” The Economist. June 15, 2017. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/06/15/australia-battles-chinese-political-influence.
[xvi] Brady, Anne-Marie. “New Zealand and the CCP’S “Magic Weapons”.” Journal of Democracy 29, no. 2 (2018): 68–75. doi:10.1353/jod.2018.0026.
[xvii] Ha, Melodie. “Hidden Spies: Countering the Chinese Intelligence Threat.” The Diplomat. August 03, 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/hidden-spies-countering-the-chinese-intelligence-threat/.
[xviii] This report highlights the results of an investigation into CSSA’s on multiple college campuses in the US and finds substantial attempts to coerce and / or pay off Chinese students:
Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany. “China’s Long Arm Reaches Into American Campuses.” Foreign Policy. March 07, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/.
[xix] CGTV and Xinhua have increasingly served as mouth pieces for Xi and the Party’s interests, and their propaganda efforts have increased. As a result, the US recently ordered these Chinese media outlets to register as Foreign Agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act:
Kuo, Lily. “Beijing Complains as US ‘orders Chinese Media to Register as Foreign Agents’.” The Guardian. September 20, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/20/beijing-complains-as-us-orders-chinese-media-to-register-as-foreign-agents.
[xx] Brady, Anne-Marie. “New Zealand and the CCP’S “Magic Weapons”.” Journal of Democracy 29, no. 2 (2018): 68–75. doi:10.1353/jod.2018.0026.
[xxi] Pauley, Logan. “China Takes the Lead in UN Peacekeeping.” The Diplomat. April 18, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/china-takes-the-lead-in-un-peacekeeping/.
[xxii] Fung, Courtney J. “Separating Intervention from Regime Change: China’s Diplomatic Innovations at the UN Security Council Regarding the Syria Crisis.” The China Quarterly 235 (2018): 693–712. doi:10.1017/S0305741018000851.
[xxiii] Wuthnow, Joel. “China’s New ‘Black Box’: Problems and Prospects for the Central National Security Commission.” The China Quarterly 232 (2017): 886–903. doi:10.1017/S0305741017001308.
[xxiv] Bowie, Julia, Anne-Marie Brady, Kerry Brown, Timothy R. Heath, Samantha Hoffman, David Gitter, David Shambaugh. “Annual Report | Party Watch.” Center for Advanced China Research. October 18, 2018. https://www.ccpwatch.org/single-post/2018/10/18/Party-Watch-Annual-Report-2018
[xxv] Legarda, Helena. “In Xi’s China, the Center Takes Control of Foreign Affairs.” The Diplomat. August 01, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/in-xis-china-the-center-takes-control-of-foreign-affairs/.
[xxvi] Sun, Jing (2017) Growing Diplomacy, Retreating Diplomats — How the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been Marginalized in Foreign Policymaking, Journal of Contemporary China, 26:105, 419–433, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2016.1245895
[xxvii] As the author puts it: “CCP-PLA relations in the Xi Jinping era are characterized by the centralization of power in a single civilian individual.” Kou, Chien-wen. “Xi Jinping in Command: Solving the Principal–Agent Problem in CCP–PLA Relations?” The China Quarterly 232 (2017): 866–85. doi:10.1017/S0305741017001321.
[xxviii] Ang, Yuen Yuen. “Needed for China’s Belt and Road: A Roadmap” Bloomberg.com. September 27, 2018. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-27/china-s-belt-and-road-initiative-is-a-campaign-not-a-conspiracy.
[xxix] “China Sets up Leading Team on Belt and Road Initiative.” China Sets up Leading Team on Belt and Road Initiative — Xinhua | English.news.cn. March 29, 2015. Accessed October 27, 2018. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-03/29/c_134107435.htm.
[xxx] Provinces pursue their own parochial economic interests and can even lead Beijing into troubling developments, for example commercial interests encouraging island building in the South China Sea, see:
Wong, Audrye. “More than Peripheral: How Provinces Influence China’s Foreign Policy.” The China Quarterly 235 (2018): 735–57. doi:10.1017/S0305741018000930.
[xxxi] Joseph Fewsmith, “Xi Jinping’s Fast Start,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 41, Spring 2013, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/CLM41JF.pdf
[xxxii] Bowie, Julia, Anne-Marie Brady, Kerry Brown, Timothy R. Heath, Samantha Hoffman, David Gitter, David Shambaugh. “Annual Report | Party Watch.” Center for Advanced China Research. October 18, 2018. https://www.ccpwatch.org/single-post/2018/10/18/Party-Watch-Annual-Report-2018
[xxxiii] Ibid.
[xxxiv] Garver, John W. “Opening to the Outside World.” In China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190261054.003.0013, 365
[xxxv] Allison, Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (New York: Mariner, 2017), 109.
[xxxvi] Tiezzi, Shannon. “Why China Dreads a Hillary Clinton Presidency.” The Diplomat. February 13, 2016. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2016/02/why-china-dreads-a-hillary-clinton-presidency/.
[xxxvii] Hayton, Bill. “Two Years On, South China Sea Ruling Remains a Battleground for the Rules-Based Order.” Chatham House. July 11, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/two-years-south-china-sea-ruling-remains-battleground-rules-based-order.
[xxxviii] Thayer, Bradley A., and John M. Friend. “The World According to China.” The Diplomat. October 03, 2018. Accessed October 27, 2018. https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/the-world-according-to-china/.
[xxxix] Recommendations for the United States
· Bolster US ‘soft-power’ by maximizing the strength of civil society. China’s model is inherently unattractive to many, and only has legitimacy due to its economic growth, which is likely to slow and falter due to secular problems in China.
· The United States should focus predominately on resolving its many domestic problems and not on containing China. If it can do that, then it, not China, will be able to bide its time.
· Maintain and strengthen existing alliances and institutions without excluding China.
· Increase development assistance funds for developing countries around the world.
· Re-engage in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ensure that countries in China’s near-abroad always have an alternative to the China model, even if they choose to embrace China.
· The US should continue to be more forceful in demanding China comply with norms of the US-led international system (e.g. property rights), and use a carrots and sticks approach, which China will understand, to incentivize better behavior.
