In Forum: 2024 — China’s policy towards the West
In Forum: 2024 —
China’s policy towards
the West
12 January 2024
China has increasingly turned inward under Xi Jinping, with policies such as the dual circulation strategy aiming to make the country less dependent on external trade relations.
However, the last months of 2023 saw a seeming shift in Beijing’s narrative on relations with Western democracies. China and Australia appear to have patched things up, and more conciliatory tones are even heard about relations with the United States following Xi’s visit in November. In this In Forum, 9DASHLINE asks a number of experts to weigh in on how these two narratives come together, and whether we can expect the improving ties to continue through 2024.
CHINA REEVALUATES ITS FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGIES, BUT THERE WILL BE NO FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT
DR SELINA HO — ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND CO-DIRECTOR, CENTRE ON ASIA AND GLOBALISATION, LEE KUAN YEW SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
Great power rivalry appears to have entered a more stable phase towards the end of 2023. The meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in November 2023 has put China’s relations with the United States on a more even footing. The softer tone of Chinese diplomacy towards the United States and the West, including Australia, signals a reevaluation of Chinese foreign policy strategies. Both international and domestic pressures have moderated China’s approach. Chinese leaders have realised that China’s strident rhetoric and policies have been counter-productive. Not only has its “wolf warrior” diplomacy led the West to coalesce against it, its smaller neighbours, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, have strengthened security relations with the United States. Domestically, China’s political and economic problems provide strong motivations for stabilising relations with the United States and the West. The sudden and unexplained ousters of China’s foreign and defence ministers, and US sanctions against Chinese companies have spooked foreign governments and investors. The easing of some US sanctions on Chinese companies resulting from Xi’s meeting with Biden and a less confrontational stance towards the United States will help reassure them as well as Chinese citizens, who are increasingly doubtful about Xi’s economic and foreign policy directions.
Nevertheless, these positive developments do not indicate a fundamental shift in Xi’s ambitions or the overall thrust of Chinese foreign policy. Xi’s goal of ensuring that China takes its rightful place in the world has not changed. He remains determined to make the Chinese economy self-reliant and Chinese society free from Western influences. The possibility of a shift back to a more pugnacious foreign policy should not be ruled out if the present softer tone fails to produce results, such as a further easing of sanctions on Chinese companies and increased foreign investments. China’s stance on Taiwan has not changed and neither is it likely to back off from its muscular posture in the South China Sea. These remain hotspots that could ignite conflict between China and the United States.
DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS UNLIKELY TO SIGNIFICANTLY ALTER UNDERLYING TRAJECTORY OF CHINA'S POLITICAL ECONOMY
DR JEAN CHRISTOPHER MITTELSTAEDT — LECTURER IN MODERN CHINESE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
On the surface, China's policy trajectory under Xi Jinping presents a stark juxtaposition: on one side, the pursuit of self-reliance, encompassing economic, technological, cultural, and political dimensions, among others; on the other, a recent shift towards mending and improving relations with Western democracies and neighbouring countries. This apparent contradiction may be unravelled by considering these strategies as operating on different, yet interrelated, levels.
The push for self-reliance is a structural and holistic approach, deeply embedded in China's political rhetoric, policy documents, and institutional practices. It reflects a broader, long-term vision of China's place in the world, emphasising independence in various spheres. Conversely, the recent diplomatic endeavours, including the 'patching up' with Western countries, can be seen as tactical manoeuvres. These efforts, aimed at facilitating a smoother transition towards greater self-reliance, are reactive and situational, addressing immediate geopolitical and economic challenges while keeping the overarching goal of self-reliance intact.
For 2024, I expect this duality to persist. Short-term diplomatic engagements, particularly those improving economic and technological cooperation, will likely continue as part of China's strategic flexibility. However, the broader commitment to self-reliance will progressively encompass new areas, reinforcing China's long-term structural transformation. The potential for improved diplomatic relations will exist, but it will be overshadowed by enduring challenges like territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the global implications of China's expanding exports, particularly in green technology and electric vehicles. These tensions indicate that while diplomatic efforts may ease surface frictions, they are unlikely to significantly alter the underlying trajectory of China's political economy. Thus, any superficial harmony in 2024 would merely mask deeper, ongoing imbalances rather than signify a fundamental shift in China's strategic approach.
CHINA'S LATEST CHARM OFFENSIVE IS A TACTICAL RETREAT
DR JUSTYNA SZCZUDLIK — DEPUTY HEAD OF RESEARCH AND COORDINATOR AND CHINA ANALYST, POLISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (PISM)
The fact that China is presenting two contradictory narratives and behaviours — wolf-warrior vs. smile diplomacy — is nothing new. It is the standard line of PRC foreign policy. However, since Xi Jinping, the differences between the two have become more apparent. Why? Because, as Susan Shirk outlined in her latest book, Xi's overreaching. The more China overreaches, the more conciliatory it will be to temper this overreach, leaving experts more confused. Nevertheless, the overall policy remains unchanged.
China does not see these two approaches as contradictory and they serve Chinese interests — to please others, lull their vigilance, and put up a kind of smokescreen by improving the atmosphere and de-escalating tensions. This approach has recently been called a "strategic pause". The rationale is to buy time in order to have more leeway to achieve clearly defined hardline goals: strengthening the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its power, and increasing China's global influence. This has been practised for years. Deng Xiaoping's "keeping a low profile" dictum introduced after the Tiananmen massacre was a kind of tool to mitigate overreach. Over the past year — precisely, since the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022 — China has been conducting "smile diplomacy" in a very visible way.
What is behind this year-long charm offensive that accelerated in recent weeks and even put a lid on the wolf-warrior diplomacy? The goal is to buy time in the process of implementing China's de-risking agenda, known as ‘dual circulation’. This agenda involves reducing China's dependence on imports of raw materials and technology as well as stimulating export of Chinese components to entangle them in new supply chains. These are mostly located in developing countries, thereby creating new strategic dependencies. This de-risking is not an easy or quick process, and China still needs the West as a source of technology and open markets. The current domestic economic headwinds and the West's unity in criticising China (e.g. on Russia and Hamas), restricting technology transfers, and deploying anti-coercion tools do not help Beijing either. In short, China's latest charm offensive is a tactical retreat.
It seems that Beijing will continue its dual diplomacy in 2024. However, the question remains which element — soft or hard — will prevail? Certainly, 2024 will be a volatile year with many events that could affect China and its behaviour: elections in Taiwan, in the EU, the US, and the economic and social situation in China, to name a few. It will all depend on a calculation of which approach best serves Chinese interests. However, Beijing’s behaviour in some situations seems clear. For instance, we can expect overreach if the DPP wins the Taiwan elections and a charm offensive right before the EU elections. Another thing is certain: this will be a difficult year for both China and the West as a whole. The latter should not overestimate China’s soft approach. This will be only a tactical pause.
BEIJING’S EXTERNAL POLICY IS NOT A UNILATERAL PROCESS
ZICHEN WANG — RESEARCH FELLOW, CENTER FOR CHINA AND GLOBALIZATION (CCG) AND FOUNDER AND EDITOR, PEKINGNOLOGY
In a public assessment of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States, China's top diplomat Wang Yi said the bilateral meetings with heads of state or government, along with the China-US summit, and participation in the APEC meeting were all instrumental in fostering a conducive international environment that supports China's pursuit of high-quality domestic development. The developments in relationships between China and the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and more recently the European Union and Vietnam, may all be understood within the framework of cultivating a more favourable global milieu.
Drawing from the principles of materialist dialectics — the philosophical basis of Marxism and cornerstone of the Communist Party of China's ideology — internal dynamics are the primary drivers of change, with external conditions playing a secondary, facilitating role. For a country as large and developing as China, unstable, uncertain, and unsafe factors in the external environment have always existed to varying degrees and sizes, but ultimately, they should be considered external factors and do not play a decisive role. As China gears up to cope with, manage, and try to overcome significant challenges in its economic and social development, prioritising domestic development can be expected. It would, however, be unrealistic to expect China to make concessions on what it defines as core interests, such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The shaping of Beijing's external policy is certainly not a unilateral process; it is also heavily influenced by the actions of other nations, particularly the US. As Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made abundantly clear in early December, Washington sees China as an enemy and is hell-bent on not just competing with it but containing its technological advances. That is despite China's conciliatory tones on bilateral ties. For example, Xi repeated in San Francisco that "it is wrong to view China, which is committed to peaceful development, as a threat and thus play a zero-sum game against it...China has no intention to challenge the United States or to unseat it". There is a tendency among Western policymakers and observers to overstate China's ambitions and capabilities. It would be helpful to remind them that China is disinterested in threatening, let alone actually using coercive measures on international matters to which it is not a direct party. This is a significant, long-held self-limiting principle and a key difference between the external approaches of China and the US.
SUBTLE CONTRASTS IN BEIJING’S LANGUAGE ON AUSTRALIA AND THE US
DR ANDREW CHUBB — SENIOR LECTURER IN CHINESE POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
Many analysts believe the PRC’s patching up of relations with Western states is a tactical rather than strategic reorientation. I think this is probably more true of the China-US relationship than China-Australia, where the PRC’s approach is more of a response to the opening created by the change of government in Canberra in 2022. In particular, the Albanese government has been much more measured in its public discussions of China than its predecessor, and the PRC has responded by gradually lifting some of its undeclared trade sanctions on Australian goods.
The subtle contrast is apparent in the movement in the PRC’s diplomatic language on both relationships: during Xi’s visit to San Francisco in November 2023, he acknowledged for the first time that the US-China relationship is characterised in part by “competitive elements”, whereas when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Beijing he maintained the fiction that there are no fundamental conflicts of interest between China and Australia. So Beijing seems to be pushing for a return to business as usual with Australia, but Xi is clear that there’s no prospect of that with the US.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform. Image credit: Flickr/The White House.