Elizabeth C. Economy - The World According to China

In many developing and middle-income countries, as well, the export of China’s development model through the BRI is incurring significant political and economic costs. There are frequent popular protests around the lack of transparency, weak environmental and labor safeguards, and concerns around debt repayment plans. COVID-19 placed particular stress on BRI deals, with the Chinese government reporting that 60 percent had been adversely affected. Newly elected leaders often seek to reset BRI deal terms, describing them as grossly unfair and the product of their predecessors’ corruption or weak negotiation skills. Several countries in Central and Eastern Europe have become disillusioned with the paucity of Chinese investment and are considering withdrawing from the 17+1 framework. The BRI also has not yielded significant political benefits for China more broadly. There is no correlation, for example, between states that receive the most BRI investment and those that support China on thorny political issues such as Xinjiang, Hong Kong, or the South China Sea.

Fourth, China’s exercise of sharp and hard power in the Asia Pacific has served to bind more tightly rather than unravel US-led alliances and partnerships. Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomacy, defiance of freedom of navigation norms in the South China Sea, aggressive military activity around sovereignty issues, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Sino-Indian border, and the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, and crackdown on Hong Kong have all contributed to strengthen relations among the larger Asian powers, such as the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. In the face of Chinese assertiveness, major European countries, including the UK, France, and Germany, are also all becoming more deeply engaged in Asian regional security. Popular opinion polls throughout Asia indicate significant distrust of Xi Jinping and little interest in Chinese regional leadership, even among countries deeply dependent on China, such as Cambodia. This backlash raises the costs for China of future efforts to assert sovereignty over Taiwan and the South China Sea and constrains its ability to achieve its objective of replacing the United States as the preeminent power in the Asia Pacific.

Fifth, China does not appear prepared to supplant the United States as the world’s sole superpower. Across a range of issues, including climate change, public health, trade, and economic development, China’s leaders desire to occupy a position in which their values and policy preferences determine the nature of the institutions, but in which their contribution to those institutions and to global public goods is aligned closely with their own narrower domestic political and economic interests. They seek a voice in shaping the international system that is equivalent to, or greater than, that of the United States, but they do not want to shoulder the burdens associated with the latter’s sole superpower status.

Finally, China’s emergence as a global power is typically portrayed as a story of a rising power threatening the status quo power, in this case the United States. Xi himself gives credence to this framing with his frequent references to “the East is rising and the West is declining,” and by asserting in March 2021 that the United States was the “biggest threat to our country’s development and security.” 73Certainly, the United States has played an important role in identifying the challenges presented by Xi’s ambition and strategy and in mobilizing others to resist Chinese efforts to transform the geostrategic landscape in ways that undermine norms and values such as freedom of navigation or the rule of law.

Framing the challenge in this bilateral, zero-sum way, however, is misleading and serves China’s interest: any relative gain by China as the rising power is immediately perceived as a loss for the United States; Beijing can characterize any competitive or even confrontational US policy as simply trying to contain China; and it isolates the United States from its allies and partners by suggesting that it has a unique set of China-related interests and concerns.

Instead, the fundamental challenge presented by China is to the broader values, norms, and institutions that underpin the current rules-based order. As China’s senior-most foreign official, Yang Jiechi, stated in March 2021, “What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called rules-based international order.” 74Notwithstanding the fact that the rules-based order established in the post-World War II period is enshrined in a wide array of UN laws and conventions, as the following chapters reveal, the challenge China is delivering to both the rules-based order and the UN system is evident. And framed this way, the rest of the world also has a much clearer stake in the outcome.

1 1. “Speech by President Xi Jinping at opening of 73rd World Health Assembly,” Global Times, May 18, 2020.

2 2. “He talks: from disorder to a new world order,” Video, China–US Focus, December 14, 2018.

3 3. William Zheng, “China’s officials play up ‘rise of the East, decline of the West’,” South China Morning Post, March 9, 2021.

4 4. Kayla Wong, “China trumpets popular narrative that ‘the East is rising & the West is declining’,” Mothership, March 11, 2021.

5 5. Yan Xuetong, “The rise of China in Chinese eyes,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 10, No. 26 (2001), 33.

6 6. “中美经济对话格局生变 攻守更平衡 [A changing posture for Sino-US economic dialogue: toward a better offense–defense balance],” CCTV, June 19, 2008.

7 7. “Speech delivered by President Xi at the NPC closing meeting,” China Daily, March 22, 2018.

8 8. Xi Jinping, The Governance of China: Volume One (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), 261.

9 9. Ibid., 273.

10 10. Xi Jinping, The Governance of China: Volume Three (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2020), 540–7.

11 11. Ibid.

12 12. Xi, The Governance of China: Volume One, 390.

13 13. Wang Jisi, “A community with a shared future starts from the Asia Pacific,” China–US Focus, December 15, 2019.

14 14. Wei Pan, “Western system versus Chinese system,” China Policy Institute, July 2010.

15 15. Frank Ching, “China’s economy not a model for emulation,” Japan Times, August 31, 2011.

16 16. “关于坚持和发展中国特色社会主义的几个问题 [Several issues on upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics],” Qiushi, April 1, 2019.

17 17. “Full text of Xi Jinping’s report at 19th CPC National Congress,” China Daily, October 18, 2017.

18 18. Yan Xuetong, “China model not for other countries,” Global Times, July 23, 2019.

19 19. “Xi urges breaking new ground in major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics,” Xinhua, June 24, 2018.

20 20. “The Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs was held in Beijing,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, November 29, 2011.

21 21. Huang Jing, “The shield of multilateralism,” China–US Focus, August 7, 2020.

22 22. Xi Jinping, The Governance of China: Volume Two (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2017), 488.

23 23. Ying Fu, “Discussing changes in the international order,” China–US Focus, July 31, 2018.

24 24. “Full text: Fu Ying’s speech at Chatham House in London,” China Daily, July, 8, 2016.

25 25. Liza Tobin, “Xi’s vision for transforming global governance: a strategic challenge for Washington and its allies,” Texas National Security Review, Vol. 2, No. 11 (November 2018).