Foreign policy of Xi Jinping (2012 - onward)

  • President since 2012

    • China’s rise seemed inevitable

    • 2008 - economic crisis

      • China’s economic model was superior to the West

        • The crisis exposed vulnerabilities in Western economies and highlighted the resilience of China’s economic model

        • Model was superior to the West in terms of rapid growth and state-led development

      • developing a strong self-esteem

New era, new attitude

  • Still in the making and started before Xi (2009)

    • Had to react to the changes in international and national environment

      • the Biden administration followed the footsteps of the Trump era in adopting a more confrontational stance toward China, continuing the trend of strategic competition

    • Probably had thoughts of foreign policy before being a president

    • Time for China to show its strength

  • The end of the conservative and low-profile approach, PRC Diplomacy 3.0 (preceded by revolutionary diplomacy and development diplomacy)

    • Great power rivalry foreign policy

      • High-profile, more assertive diplomacy with greater emphasis on China’s global influence

    • The GDP surpassed the GDP of Japan in 2010, making China the world’s second largest economy

    • Olympics, Shanghai Expo - China was on the rise, gaining international recognition

  • Increasingly active and confident approach, more emphasis on FP, international engagement

  • The global financial crisis and surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest economy boosted the confidence of Beijing

  • Previous leaders insisted upon diplomatic strategy that would best ensure the country’s prosperity, while now the country’s prosperity should assist its diplomacy

  • New model of major power relations (US) / XJP thought on diplomacy

    • Announcing the end of the old world order

    • New world order: China influence = US influence

  • National Security Committee (2013)

    • similar to US Security Council, lead by Xi

    • Centralizing foreign and security decision-making

    • The Americans realized the changes in domestic policy - centralization

      • Different decision system making from Mao - more centralized control and institutionalized mechanisms

    • Centralized decision making - threat for the US, might be preparation for war

  • Initiatives to enforce sovereignty claims

    • They can wait, now the focus is on domestic development

      • The leadership abandoned this strategy

      • Militarizing … islands

  • Economic sanctions to punish countries it considers hostile

  • More flexible attitude towards Beijing’s traditional non-interference principle

  • War of narratives: Covid-19, wolf warrior diplomacy (diplomatic overstretch?)

    • Confucius Institute - established in 2005

      • The chines started to value soft power

      • Might be serving Chinese national interests, propaganda

    • Covid-19: break in China’s global prominence, challenging international image

    • Wolf warrior diplomacy

      • represents a more confrontational and nationalistic diplomatic style

      • Wolf warrior: Chinese movie

      • rising China’s self-awareness

      • politicians should also be wolf warriors

      • supporting the ideas of the leader - getting promoted

        • the colleagues started to follow the lead

New slogans to shape IR discourse (or new propaganda)

  • China needs to offer its vision (alternative to the West)

    • previous decade: low-profile policy

    • now: high-profile, alternative to the West, start of an ideological competition

      • “no strings attached” - nothing in exchange like the West asked

      • popular among the elites of the countries - no democracy needed

    • Building the counter pillars of the AU

      • Exchange: work with Chinese companies, loan

  • China Dream and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation: vague, aspirational and open-ended

    • BRI - feature of Chinese concept

    • Problem for the US - hard to define it → hard to fight against it

  • Win-win situation

    • Trying to convince the world that is is a mutual benefition

    • Europe plays a zero-sum game

    • joke: “China wins twice”

      • BRI = loan + construction with a Chinese company

    • Duo diligence: investigating the partner before giving a loan

    • “no strings attached”

      • not caring about the domestic political situation

      • offering loans for corrupt regimes

      • using legal elements to get the money back in any situation

        • if the host country can’t pay, the Chinese are getting the infrastructure for 99 years

  • “Regional and later global community of common destiny of mankind” - Xi’s motto

    • includes nothing and everything

    • Rather liberal than Chinese

    • The Chinese are eager to put their concept into international documents

      • Can lead to legal problems

      • Global fights of narratives

      • so vague that they can easily say that pl. the UN has already used this concept – global fight of narratives – legal pattern

  • New Asian Security Concept: Asian problems should be solved by Asians themselves (XJP, 2014)

    • Comes from the Monroe doctrine

    • Not successful attempts by the Chinese

  • Socialism with Chinese characteristics “offers a new option for other countries and nation who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence” (2017)

  • XJP defended globalization at the WEF (2017)

    • The US is protectionist

    • The US has large industrial producers - interest in decolonization

  • BUT: XJP thought on FP is de facto Western liberalism (interdependence, coop, insitutions, connectivity, integration, globalization and idealism) at least in rhetorics

    • Belt and Road: infrastructure investments in Eurasia

      • goal: all roads should lead to Shanghai

        o   political and economic influence along the road

        o   internationalization of the yuan

        o   in case of a conflict/blockade on the Eastern shores of China, then these land connections will be super important

    • Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

    • TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership

    • Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

      ·         influencing the global and regional order through institutions

      o   they have wanted to have a bigger say in the existing international system

      ·         only the US has veto power in the World Bank

      ·         IMF – countries have a say based on their GDP – China’s growing GDP in the past decades – the US didn’t want this even though they were the ones who created this rule – China got fed up, starting to create their own institutions

  • Meanwhile: security realism (core interests), Westphalian approach

  • China’s re-emergence: a benignly hierarchical order that would bring shared prosperity and peace Asia (new tributary system?)

Shortcomings and failures

  • Increased Chinese assertiveness triggered an international backlash

    • China’s new assertive and aggressive FP alarmed countries - destabilizing regional security and global norms, undermining China’s earlier efforts to present itself as a peaceful rising power

  • Retaliation against the EU in 2021 (CAI)

    • In late 2020, the EU and China reached a political agreement on the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)

    • However, in 2021, the EU imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang - China imposed counter-sanctions

  • 2020 clash with the Indian army in the Galwan Valley

    • 1 soldier died (officially, possibility of more)

    • Showed the world that China found its new aggressiveness - damaging its image as a responsible regional power

  • Trump administration

    • Short pain, long-term benefits

  • Russian invasion of Ukraine

    • China lost its European supporters - effect of China’s perceived political alignment with Russia

  • Taiwan - turning itself into a hedgehog – asymmetrical warfare

  • Hong Kong - big clash

  • Australia

    • Australia became a target of Chinese economic coercion after it called for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and criticized China’s human rights record

  • Failing BRI?

    • While the BRI aimed to expand China’s global influence through infrastructure investments, it has faced criticism for creating debt dependency, environmental concerns, and geopolitical pushback

    • Some projects have stalled or been scaled back

  • Quad (Japan, India, Australia and the US – surrounding China), NATO, AUKUS (security pact between Australia, the UK, and the US)

    • The Biden administration has continued and expanded the Trump-era focus on countering China, particularly through reinforcing alliances like the Quad, to rebalance China’s influence

  • Yes-men around XI?

    • Loyalty comes first

    • nod and say yes, zero criticism

    • Putinization of Xi

  • Sidelined MFA and TAO

    • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), traditionally responsible for diplomacy and Taiwan policy, have reportedly been sidelined by Xi’s centralized decision-making

    • Good and bad at the same time