US-China Relations- How difficult is the relationship?

This week I, and just about everybody else holding some interest in sport, or at least in innovative commercials were distracted by the events leading up to, and including, the 58th Super Bowl. Notwithstanding the quickening approach of this Super Bowl Sunday, however, I was drawn to an examination by a number of experts for the Brookings Institution of the US-China relationship.

So in this somewhat shortened Post, thanks to the Event,  I thought I might pay a bit of attention to their useful views.

Graham Allison, one of the experts called on to respond to the question, pointed to the issue posed to the experts:

The invitation from Brookings’ debate organizers asked: “Is the U.S.-China relationship the most consequential bilateral relationship for the United States in the world?

He went on to lay out just why the bilateral relationship is so consequential:

My answer is: yes. If not China, who?

China is:

– one of only two nations that poses an existential threat to the United States.

– the only nation that poses a systemic threat to the U.S. position as the global leader, architect, and guardian of the post-World War II international order.

– the largest emitter of greenhouse gases—accounting for more emissions in 2022 than the United States and Europe combined.

– the second backbone of the world economy: the manufacturing workshop of the world, the No. 1 trading partner of most countries in the world (including the European Union and Japan), and the supplier of most critical items (including everything green and clean) in global supply chains.

– both a classic Thucydidean rival and America’s inseparable, conjoined Siamese twin.

The folks who commented included, as I noted above, Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor – Harvard, and additionally, John Cartin, Adjunct Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service – Georgetown, Elizabeth Economy, Senior Fellow – Hoover Institutions and Susan Thornton, Senior Fellow – Paul Tsai China Center, Yale Law School, and nonresident fellow, the Brookings Thornton China Center.

It is, for sure, a significant question. After all, the state of the US-China relationship, largely without question, drives the geopolitics of current international relations. And the answers did not fail to satisfy. The assessments by these experts are all very revealing and if you have a moment the answers are worth a read. I say this notwithstanding that not all even saw the relationship as most consequential. In fact Elizabeth Economy promoted a somewhat contrary notion. As she argued:

There are many ways to describe the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. For example, the relationship is the world’s most complex, most challenging, or most competitive. However, the relationship is not “the most consequential in the world for America. Far more consequential is the United States’ relationship with its network of allies and partners in Asia, Europe, and North America. Unlike China, the United States’ allies and close partners share the same values, norms, and strategic objectives. … However, over the almost half-century since the normalization of the U.S.-China relationship, the bilateral relationship has never realized the potential Washington imagined. The two countries’ values, norms, and interests have increasingly diverged, and the ties that have bound them together have increasingly frayed.

In his response, Allison is unwilling to let the Economy argument pass and sets it out his views starkly:

In arguing against the significance of the U.S.-China relationship, both Economy and Cartin duck the reality of China’s existential threat. The brute fact is that China is one of only two nations in the world with nuclear arsenals that constitute genuine “existential” threats—meaning threatening existence.

While not unanimous, then, still I think most would underscore that the US-China bilateral relation is highly consequential. Having said that though, I was most taken with Susan Thornton’s response. Now admittedly I know Susan most of all the experts as she is a key figure in our own China-West Dialogue (CWD). But she argued and targeted exactly what I would have also zoned in on. Susan accepted that the relationship was indeed the most consequential but then targeted what I would have as well: the key to the relationship and its likely impact on the global order is the state of domestic affairs in the US. As Susan argued:

And just to be clear, relations with or actions taken by any other single country will have little consequence for Americans in the world compared to our own decisions and actions. Our fate lies in our own hands. … In short, America cannot escape “China impact.” China is big, capable, changing rapidly, and operating in all priority zones. Still, obsessing over what China does or might do is a mistake that will carry large opportunity costs for America that it cannot afford. China may be the most consequential “other country,” but we need to take responsibility for our own future, a future that will involve “China impact,” but that we can shape.

Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. In the face of the real possibility of a return of Donald Trump as American President, most anything, and likely everything else pales in comparison to that reality and the real chaos likely to be generated by his return both for domestic and US foreign policy.

Image Credit: MIssouri State University

This Post originally appeared at my Substack, Alan’s Newsletter. https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/us-china-relations-how-consequential?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Feel free to subscribe there and coments are welcome

 

Maintaining ‘Entanglement’: APEC Summit Discussions including the Xi-Biden Bilateral Summit

Doing some quick catch up on the APEC Summit that was held between November 11th and 17th in San Francisco. The main event, as it turned out, was the much discussed bilateral summit between China’s Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden. While the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) meetings to receive some attention – more for what didn’t happen than what was secured – the APEC gathering activity was dominated by US-China Bilateral Summit and there was some attention paid to the other bilateral Summit of note that between President Xi and the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The Post here is constructed from several Substack Posts in Alan’s Newsletter: “Maintaining ‘Entanglement‘: APEC Summit discussions and more” and “It’s working; just not like what was anticipated: The sudden rise of Bilaterals”; and “So Success, or What? Final thoughts on the Summits in San Francisco”. Feel free to subscribe to my Substack: Alan’s Newsletter

Maintaining ‘Entanglement’: APEC Summit discussions and more

It appears that we are likely to see a meeting this month of President Xi and President Biden at the margins of the APEC Summit. I think that is a good thing. What can we, or should we, expect from such a summit of leaders of the two leading powers? While contemplating this question, I was caught by two articles written by Brookings colleague, Ryan Hass. Ryan has recently been named director of the John L. Thornton China Center and holds the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies at Brooking is also a senior fellow in the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. Ryan has contributed two first rate articles on US-China relations – what they are, and what they need to be.*

First, there is the big question of where US-China relations are, and then where they need to be? There is little question that Ryan is correct in believing that the US and the global order would be far worse off if China were to exit the current international system fragmenting what is still a critical -and I believe necessary – ‘single international community’. As Ryan urged in one of the two contributions, this a recent Foreign Affairs piece:

Washington should aim to preserve a functioning international system that supports U.S. security and prosperity—and that includes China rather than isolates it. Meanwhile, the United States should maintain a strong military to deter China from using force against the United States or its security partners and seek to sustain an overall edge over China in technological innovation, particularly in fields with national security implications. … Washington’s goal should be to keep China entangled in a global system that regulates interstate behavior and pushes Beijing to conclude that the best path to the realization of its national ambitions would be to operate within existing rules and norms.

‘Entanglement’ as a strategic aim strikes me as ‘right on target’.

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Advancing Global Governance by Revitalizing a Regional Institution

While I have suggested earlier that I don’t think an initial  focus on building regional or multilateral institutions is necessarily the best first step in global governance and possibly a means to ‘tone down’ geopolitical competition rhetoric and action, I am now about to contradict myself and this position. For, in the end, there are some obvious regional and international institutions that could encourage collaborative action and push global governance collaboration. And, in fact, I have in mind an obvious one that has – as a current Chinese slang term might well describe it – ‘tang ping’  躺平 – or ‘lying flat’. It is the Trilateral Summit.

Trilateral Summit, you say. Well, yes, actually. The Trilateral Summit is, periodically, a Summit of the ‘key’ East Asia leaders – South Korea, Japan and most meaningfully,  China. A little history here. The Trilateral Summit was first proposed by South Korea in 2004. At that time the three powers met for a separate session at the ASEAN gathering, described as ASEAN plus three. In 2007, at the eighth meeting of the ASEAN plus Three, the leaders agreed to initiate a separate Trilateral Summit. And, in December 2008, the first separate summit was hosted by Japan at Fukuoka. At its initiation the three powers saw the Summit focusing on: closer trilateral relations, the regional economy and disaster relief.  One of the regional security issues that has been in front of leaders repeatedly has been the nuclear weapons program of the Democratic Republic of Korea, the DPRK. In the 2018 summit the FT  described the leaders’ view of the DPRK nuclear weapons program: “the three leaders agreed to co-operate over North Korea and called for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons completely.” While that agreement may no longer hold, it shows the value of this Summit.

The Summit is not quite a leaders’ gathering. While South Korea is often represented by its President and Japan by its Prime Minister, China has generally been led by its premier, not the President.

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Focusing on the China-West Dialogue Project (CWD); Advancing Global Governance; and Improving US-China Relations

Now, turning back to the Global Summitry Project (GSP) and the Vision20 – collective efforts of Yves Tiberghien, Professor of Political Science and Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Colin Bradford, nonresident Senior Fellow from Brookings  and myself, the Director of the Global Summitry Project. We have initiated various research initiatives.

A critical major effort over some three years has been the China-West Dialogue Process (CWD). The CWD has been Co-Chaired with Colin Bradford, the lead Co-Chair of the CWD and myself. This initiative has held some twenty plus virtual gatherings and many participants are set to gather in person for the first time in years at the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin May 15-16th <https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/programs/china-west-dialogue/?utm_source=MASTER_Verteiler&utm_campaign=33fe63ffef-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_11_10_44_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f4e08bb85-33fe63ffef-447373003> to focus on US-China relations and assess how the G20 can advance critical, and dramatically needed global governance issues – global debt management, climate change policy, global food security and health security.

What is required, however, and is currently missing, is that the two leading powers turn their minds to such critical global governance policy efforts – both bilateral and multilateral.  From the beginning the CWD has targeted first Trump policy and now Biden foreign policy. Trump Administration officials made it clear that ‘engagement with China’ born in the Nixon Administration was at an end. Both Administrations called for competition though not for conflict. The outcome so far, especially for bilateral relations has been dismal.

As my Co-Chair Colin Bradford wrote on March 7th: “The strategic competition between the US and China is real and must be accepted and managed. But the confrontational narratives of this binary relationship are dominating and weakening global leadership and governance and present a threat to the global order.”   As the Editorial of the NYTimes, today, March 12th, urges: “Americans’ interests are best served by emphasizing competition with China while minimizing confrontation. Glib invocations of the Cold War are misguided. It doesn’t take more than a glance to appreciate that this relationship is very different. Rather than try to trip the competition, America should focus on figuring out how to run faster, …” <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/11/opinion/china-us-relationship.html?referringSource=articleShare>. Competition is not the problem for the Biden Administration; but collaborative policy making certainly appears to be. And current policy has made it more difficult. All one needs to do is to examine the interaction of the Biden Administration and the Chinese Government and Party on “balloon gate”. As Paul Herr of the Chicago Council identifies in his post at EAF: <https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/03/12/ballooning-mistrust-in-the-us-china-relationship/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter2023-03-12> “Washington and Beijing’s response to the appearance of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the United States in February 2023 illustrates several aspects of the current US–China relationship that will make it very difficult to reverse the downward spiral in bilateral ties. The episode displayed mutual distrust, latent hostility, a failure to communicate and the adverse impact of internal politics on how the two sides deal with each other.”

As the CWD has identified at the GSI CWD Website – <https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/programs/china-west-dialogue/> “The CWD’s fundamental goal is to help reshape the narratives and behaviours of US-China relations from friction to function by engaging other middle and major powers and emerging powers in a reframed China-West relations in G20 processes and other public forums. The aim of the Project is to identify new political dynamics that yield more productive relations in the international system.” At the CWD has identified, and noted by Colin Bradford on March 7th: “The CWD has concluded that the G20 is the most important platform for profiling and actualizing these alternative political dynamics in the year-long official G20 processes, which could enable convergence on systemic threats and ease geopolitical tensions.”

It is a challenging  goal in the face of current difficult US-China relations – but crucial for settling global order relations that have become ‘so rocky’ and unsettled in the last several years.

March 12, 2023

 

Impact of zero-Covid Policies on the CPC, the Government and Xi Jinping

Protests against the zero-COVID policy in China quickly spread across the country. While Anti-COVID protests are certainly not a new global phenomenon, such a public and widely spread expression of frustration towards the Chinese government is rarely seen.

This note examines the Chinese top level leadership’s approach to the zero-COVID policy; why it led to mounting public anger and frustration; and where it may lead.

The Initial Approach – Central Government’s Blame Avoidance

 While President Xi vowed that he will “supervise and deploy (COVID-19 prevention operations) personally”, the COVID-19 prevention throughout the country took on a decentralized approach.[1] In other words, the order (of no COVID cases) was delivered by the Central Government, but it was up to the local authorities to interpret the order and execute it. For instance, each province has its own mandatory QR code system that rated users’ risk of exposure to COVID-19, and each province had its own domestic and international arrival quarantine requirements.

As power becomes more consolidated within the CPC, it would only appear plausible that the whole country would take on a centralized approach for COVID-19 strategy such as a national QR code system and a standardized requirement for traveling and quarantine. Nevertheless, these decentralized approaches were permitted to continue in the past two years. Frequently, these inconsistent COVID policies among provinces and regions in China caused confusion and frustrations among residents and travellers. This could be viewed as the Central Government’s strategy for ‘blame avoidance’. By providing an opaque order of “no COVID cases”, the Central Government shifts responsibilities to the local governments while leaving them to interpret its own plan. If the strategy is successful, the Central Government, or President Xi himself, could take credit as the operations are overseen by him “personally”.[2] In the event that the strategy is unsuccessful, or controversial, residents naturally would hold the local government accountable as they implemented these procedures.

Too Little To Lose?

A stable society based on rapid economic growth has been a key goal of the CPC. The idea of “you can earn money and spend money but don’t touch politics” is an unspoken social contract among many Chinese and foreign citizens and companies. While China enjoyed rapid economic growth, so also its middle class. Owning at least an apartment and a vehicle and living comfortably have already become the default goal of many middle class citizens. Based on the prerequisite of not participating in politics, these goals are achievable when the balance of the ability to earn a decent wage and reasonable cost of living is maintained. The Chinese citizens know very well that what they have accomplished and acquired could be lost very quickly if they are disobedient to the government. Therefore, most citizens have chosen to refrain from directly criticizing the government for its actions.

With a decelerating economy, however, this balance of economic advancement and political silence is eroding. In major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, it is hardly possible for youth to find a job that pays high enough to support themselves and afford an apartment or vehicle. The draconian COVID measures further impeded citizens’ ability to find jobs and get paid; hence, their ability to make new purchases. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, real estate development between January 2022 to July 2022 dropped by 6.4 percent while residential investment dropped by 5.8 percent.[3] On the other hand, major online shopping platforms often publish sales volume during November 11th, Single’s Day.[4] According to Sohu News, online shopping platforms such as Alibaba and Tmall both recorded double digit or triple digit growth in sales volume in the past several years.[5] Nevertheless, Tmall did not disclose its sales volume for 2022, instead it published a statement that “the sales volume was largely the same as last year”.[6] These moderated data could also suggest that the general public prefers to save their money instead of spending it given their job stability is affected by the unpredictable COVID policies.

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: “Symbolically significant”, for now

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leader-led summit was held in Samarkand in this September. It brought global attention to the group first established by Beijing at the start of the 21st century. Not only was it Xi Jinping’s first trip outside the country since January 2020, with the ongoing war in Ukraine, but the meeting was also an opportunity for a sit down between Xi and Putin on the margins of the summit. That meeting was the immediate point of interest for the global media. In Samarkand, India’s PM Modi was openly critical of Russia as he tried to carve out a leadership position for the South Asian republic. While commentators noted that PM Modi did not hold a bilateral with President Xi indicating that the warmth of 2018’s Wuhan Summit between the two has not yet been rekindled.  Iran participated for the first time with the group now representing 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly a third of global GDP and all of which, barring India, are decidedly illiberal regimes.

While the SCO has more than two decades of existence, the summit is of interest not just because of the high-level leader diplomacy but on the peculiar qualities of a multilateral institution that is often neglected by Western scholars and analysts.

The SCO was established in 2001 by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with the intention of providing stability to the former Soviet Central Asian spaces with a particular focus on cooperation to combat what the members called the ‘three evils’ of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. This initial motivation reflected China’s broader concerns about counterterrorism and Islamic extremism in the early 2000s as well as long term anxieties Beijing has had about the threat to the Communist Party of China (CPC) rule at the peripheries of the China.

The initial work of the SCO focused on coordinating the members’ security policies and sharing information, as well as conducting regular military exercises. The group added narcotic trafficking to its counterterrorism agenda and began to talk about economic collaboration and had periodic rhetorical flourishes about global governance and international order. From its initial membership of: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the SCO has expanded to include India and Pakistan in 2017and now Iran.

While the SCOs public diplomacy has been wide ranging, the group was, and remains at its heart, interested primarily on matters of international and transnational security. Yet as many analysts point out, Beijing and the members often appear disinterested in many quite obvious regional security matters, the most immediate example of which is the deadly clash between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan taking place barely 200 km from the current Summit which elicited neither comment nor action from individual leaders or the group as a whole.

Multilateral institutions often serve both symbolic and substantive functions. With the former, symbolic functions provide the opportunity to signal intent, represent collaboration and more broadly to perform statecraft. But substantive functions can provide the means to advance actual policy coordination and, in their more advanced forms, bind members into strict policy commitments, most famously exemplified by the EU and WTO. Most initiatives provide a blend of performance and policy as well as offering a platform at which ad hoc diplomacy can take place, such as the China-Russia meeting this year.

The SCO today is, however, a grouping that is long on symbolism and short on substance. At first glance it appears to be a good example of institutional balancing, that is when states use international institutions to balance against the influence of major powers. In this case the intention is to use the SCO to ensure that the US and its allies’ influence on the geopolitical dynamics in the Eurasian heartland is blunted. From this perspective bringing India into the fold was intended to hedge against Delhi’s growing alignment with Washington.

More broadly, it also represents a desire for a more multipolar and multimodal international order in which the North Atlantic powers have less influence; and liberal values are diluted as well.

While the symbolism is strong, and in the current moment it has particular salience given the Ukraine war illustrating starkly the clash between authoritarianism and democratic systems, there is little sign of the SCO making any meaningful progress on the substantive side of the ledger. One might be tempted to view the SCO as a nascent Central Asian NATO, yet the preferences of the key SCO powers remain low on concrete commitments as well as exhibiting not inconsiderable tensions between various members. At least for now, it is unlikely that the SCO will take any steps to move beyond the symbolic.

It is tempting, therefore, to write off the SCO as another example of shallow diplomacy in which grand statements of intent and photo opportunities are confused for actual statecraft. That is certainly true right now, but in the building of the foundations for collaboration among  influential and illiberal states in a geopolitically crucial zone of world politics, the members in general, and China in particular, have established a solid platform from which members may ultimately make good on their very real ambitions to transform the principles and practice of the regional order and possibly the international order.

Image Credit: YouTube

Struggling to Keep UN Multilateral Institutions Relevant

She sought to put her best foot forward in her first appearance following her controversial visit to China. In the opening moment of her statement Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reflected the positive aspects of her trip:

Let me start by thanking the Government of China for its invitation. For the first time in 17 years, a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been able to travel to China and speak directly with the most senior Government officials in the country, and other interlocutors on key human rights issues, in China and globally I appreciate the Government’s efforts in making this visit happen, particularly the arrangements for my virtual meeting with President Xi Jinping.

She has received dramatic criticism from the human rights community. As identified in the NYT, the comments from Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch dismissed the Commissioner’s efforts: “That mandate requires a credible investigation in the face of mountains of evidence of atrocity crimes, not another toothless dialogue.”  A second comment by Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch underscored the harsh negative view expressed by the human rights community (NYT, June 13, 2022) : “There was no condemnation from Madame Bachelet even remotely commensurate with the severity of the atrocities being committed in Xinjiang, … She gave up her most powerful weapon for a back room dialogue which will be meaningless.”

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Summit for Democracy – Who and Where is the Threat?

 

So, the Summit for Democracy has come and gone. Much commentary preceded, accompanied, and then followed this December 9th and 10th gathering. Truth be told there is a continuing stream of observations still. Various countries openly applauded the Summit though unsurprisingly those uninvited pushed back starkly including in the case of China holding a conference of many of the uninvited.

The lingering question for the global order and its key participants remain: what does this Summit announced early on by then presidential candidate Joesph Biden tell us about current US foreign policy; what is Biden’s strategic policy framework particularly in relationship to China and Russia – the two most evident rivals and authoritarian states; and what is the conclusion drawn by close US allies and partners? What has been gained; what has been hindered and harmed?

The lack of clarity over the purpose of this Summit is fairly evident. This Administration has left seemingly a variety of presumed goals ‘on the table’. It appears in fact as though  the Administration identified at least three goals: an anti-corruption initiative; a protection of human right and more broadly a protection of democracy; and an autocracy versus democracy foreign policy approach, presumably part of a US democracy promotion goal.

On the democracy protection front the Administration offered a number of policy initiatives, including funding: As President Biden identified these efforts in his opening remarks:

Working with our Congress, we’re planning to commit as much as $224 million[$424 million] in the next year to shore up transparent and accountable governance, including supporting media freedom, fighting international corruption, standing with democratic reformers, promoting technology that advances democracy, and defining and defending what a fair election is. 

This initiative was part of the US effort to encourage all participants to set goals and report back in a follow up on these commitments. As the President expressed it:

… and to make concrete commitments of how — how to strengthen our own democracies and push back on authoritarianism, fight corruption, promote and protect human rights of people everywhere. To act. To act. This summit is a kick-off of a year in action for all of our countries to follow through on our commitments and to report back next year on the progress we’ve made. 

Still the clarity surrounding the Summit was never very evident to most.  Indeed there appears to be no agreement on the nature of the declared initiatives . Observers have taken the above to be democratic promotion and not protection.  This multiplicity of goals and their accompanying confusion have enabled experts, officials and commentators to choose their own goal from the menu of options offered by the Administration. Ben Judah at the New Atlanticist described one view of the Summit: Continue reading

The Current Narrative of the Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Policy: “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”?

When it comes to China’s current foreign policy, phrases such as “Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy” (WWD) and “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) frequently appear. The name WWD originates from a Chinese film series, “Wolf Warrior”, which depicts a patriotic solider battling foreign powers and mercenaries. Nowadays, many refer to China’s increasingly strong statements and assertive diplomatic declarations as WWD.

On the other hand, BRI refers to global infrastructure development projects led by China to promote international cooperation, multilateralism, and trade. It may appear that these two sets of foreign policy approaches rather conflict. However, the phrase “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind” (人类命运共同体), a part of the official narrative of China’s foreign policy may have led to both of these contrasting approaches. What is “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”? How does this phrase explain trends in China’s recent foreign policies including WWD and also BRI?

What is “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”?

By literal translation, the above phrase means “A Community of Shared Fate for Mankind” (SF) rather than, as it is often expressed in English, “A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”. SF suggests a global order described by China’s President Xi Jinping encompassing the shared rights and responsibility of each nation in terms of “politics, security, economy, culture, and environment” in a globalized world. In President Xi’s words SF is: “to build A Community of Shared Future for Mankind [to] construct a beautiful and clean world with long lasting peace, general security, mutual prosperity, openness, and inclusivity”. At a United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meeting in July, 2020, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi argued that China will push to build SF by promoting multilateralism in accordance with international laws and “… denounce global hegemony and protectionism”. These and other  remarks by China’s leaders demonstrate, it would seem, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambition to achieve greater global influence, and that China is prepared to work with all nations to build a SF. Indeed, not all nations may be agreeable with the ideology of SF. It is inevitable that the CCP will face some frictions when it tries to expand the influence of SF in the world. Therefore, the CCP may have to use a tailored approach in its foreign policies to push its SF agenda.

SF as an Umbrella term for China’s Foreign Policy

President Xi has publicly made statements such as “[the CCP] will reference history and create the future. It must continuously push and construct A Community of Shared Future for Mankind”. Under this guidance, top Chinese officials have made clear that China’s foreign policy will revolve around SF. China’s approach to global order, then,  promotes politically correct topics such as climate change, global disparity, and it also opposes terrorism and hegemony. Although it encourages cross-cultural exchange, it makes no explicit mention of protecting the rights of marginalized communities. The vague language in the SF permits CCP officials greater flexibility in deciding what kind of matters are consistent with the SF and therefore align with President Xi’s agenda.

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How Japan Can Navigate Growing US-China Tensions

US-China tensions have emerged to dominate the geopolitical space. How is this rivalry affecting states, particularly in the Asian context? Japan, a long-standing ally to the US, and at the same time a key economic partner to China, finds itself, as do other states in the region, in a difficult position. Still the US-China rivalry alone fails to fully define the foreign policy challenges Japan faces currently. With the Olympics just recently completed in Japan, and COVID-19 numbers on the rise, vaccination numbers still relatively low, continuing cool relations with South Korea, nuclear tensions with North Korea, and finally a looming national election, it is important to recognize that there are a variety of serious issues that Japan’s current political leadership faces.

The US provides Japan with defence and security, but China boosts the Japanese economy, with 22% of Japanese exports going to China in 2019 alone and increasing another 5.1 percent in 2020. Japan is wary of losing its status as a major power but understands that choosing between the two superpowers is surely a lose-lose proposition.

Territorial Disputes

Territorial disputes are a long-standing issue for Japan. Between 2010-2012 tensions began escalating with China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. However, while the Senkaku Islands remain an area of contention, the question of Taiwan is a cause for even greater concern. Japan’s southernmost island, Yonaguni, is just some 111km east of Taiwan, and in recent months, China’s presence around Taiwan has grown. Threats have increased. In April 2021, when Prime Minister Suga visited President Biden in Washington, their joint statement on the renewal of the US-Japan partnership mentioned “Taiwan” for the first time since 1969: “We underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”

Beijing responded harshly to the statement and accused the US of interfering in “internal affairs”. For a country like Japan, a response of this nature raises concern: China’s been known to utilize economic means to retaliate against countries that condemn their actions. Therefore, while it may be important for Japan to collaborate and work with the US on matters relating to Taiwan, Japan is treading quite carefully with China.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama argued that the US-Japan Joint Statement’s mentioning of “Taiwan” was counterproductive to seeking cooperative relations with China. However, various US military officials in the Indo-Pacific have argued conflict between China and Taiwan is highly probable in the next six years. Given Japan’s proximity to Taiwan and the US’s presence in the region, Japan must consider the wider geopolitical implications.

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