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China on the march

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The end of the Cold War between 1989 and 1991 was without any doubt the most striking development in international relations in its time. It put paid to 40 years of political, economic and military confrontation between two rival blocs of countries and produced hopes of “a new world order.” While those hopes have been repeatedly dashed, there is no doubt that the peoples of the globe have welcomed the prospect of no longer being under the threat of a nuclear war between the then superpowers. While civil wars and quasi civil wars in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East have dominated the headlines in more recent times, none have posed an existential threat to any outside powers. In fact, the international community has during the past 30 years enjoyed a more benign international security environment than at any time since the start of the First World War in 1914. (The fighters of al-Qaida and the Islamic State cut a rather poor figure when stacked up against the German Wehrmacht or the Soviet Red Army.)

 

The past 30 years have been characterized by somewhat less dramatic events than world wars or cold wars. The relentless spread of globalization has had a major impact on national economies around the globe, producing many winners and some losers. The revolution in information technologies has also had a significant impact on the lives of people everywhere. (It is impossible to walk a single block along any street in Kingston without seeing a half-dozen people playing with their cellphones.) But if these are the dominant narratives in the socioeconomic and technological spheres, what of the geopolitical sphere? There, pride of place belongs to the rise of China.

When Mao Zedong died in 1976, he left behind a country that was at once very poor and very chaotic. In the 1980s, under the leadership of Deng Xiao Ping, China began to turn itself around. By the 1990s, the country began to register remarkable rates of economic growth, which saw millions of people emerge from poverty. And the Chinese economic miracle has carried on well into the 21st century. The country now has a large crop of billionaires and its corporations are heavily invested in countries around the world. China, which was once a political and economic backwater, became a force to be reckoned with politically, economically and militarily.

It was against this background that Xi Jinping became president and head of the Communist Party of China in 2012. Under his leadership, the pace of China’s emergence on the world scene has, if anything, accelerated. He began by consolidating his personal power. He launched a very popular anti-corruption campaign, which he used to sideline many of his potential rivals. Now long gone are the days when China used to put the emphasis on collective leadership. Xi has taken personal control of one government or party department after another. He has in particular gained total control over the armed forces by reducing the number of their commands and placing the remaining ones under generals totally loyal to him. It is widely held that no Chinese leader has wielded to much power since the days of Mao.

But Xi has not been content to accumulate power, he has also made extensive use of it in foreign affairs. Thus he early on launched the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIDB) as a Chinese rival to what was then the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The AIDB has flourished, acquiring ever more member countries, while the TPP suffered a severe blow when President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the negotiations of the partnership. Numerous Asian countries are now benefitting from loans from AIDB. Xi also launched the so-called Belt and Road initiatives, an ambitious investment and trade program aimed at the countries of Central and South Asia in an effort to eventually develop economic links between China and Europe. This is a massive enterprise involving hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese money and is testament to the country’s new-found wealth and economic power.

China has not, however, confined its economic diplomacy to such grand schemes. It has also made targeted use of it to circumscribe the power and influence of India. In a strategy frequently described as a String of Pearls, it has made inroads into a number of countries on India’s periphery. Through both aid and trade, it has greatly increased its influence in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Of greatest concern to India is China’s ever deepening economic relationship with Pakistan. Under the terms of a program known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China is in the process of investing $57 billion in Pakistan. Much of this money is destined for energy and transportation infrastructure projects, but the Indians suspect that some of it may be used to develop a Chinese naval base at the Pakistan port of Gwadar.

Under Xi, China has carried forward its relentless push to strengthen and modernize its armed forces. Its defence budget continues to increase at world record levels and its military presence expands apace. It has persisted in its program to establish military bases and air strips on contested islands in the South China Sea, despite the objections of many of its neighbours. It has beefed up its army garrisons in the high Himalayas facing India. Chinese naval ships now routinely patrol the waters of the Indian Ocean, to the dismay of India. And most recently, China has established its first overseas military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. All of these military developments are being watched with interest, and sometimes alarm, by observers around the globe. It would be distinctly premature, however, to describe China as a military superpower. Its nuclear weapons and power projection capabilities are still minuscule when compared to those of the United States. But China is slowly but surely catching up, and may well do so in the next 20 or so years.

President Xi Jinping has also deliberately sought to burnish his and China’s image on the world stage. At last year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, he emerged as a star performer for his stout advocacy of a liberal economic order and free trade. This was particularly notable because it contrasted so completely with the protectionist messages emanating from the White House. So, too, was Xi’s public persona in relation to the North Korean nuclear crisis. He adopted a high-minded and reasoned tone in advocating a diplomatic solution while Trump and Kim Jong Un were engaged in a juvenile slanging match. And Xi has not been backward in promoting his political ideas and ideology. The second volume of his book “The Governance of China” has been translated into nine foreign languages and been launched with great fanfare around the world. While this collection of Xi’s speeches and essays on “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has not become a bestseller in the West, it has attracted a fair amount of attention in political and business quarters that matter.

President Xi managed without too much difficulty to convince the rubber stamp Chinese parliament to prolong his stay in office for as long as he wants. This means that, barring illness or accident, he is likely to be around for a very long time. He will no doubt continue to consolidate and expand China’s ever growing role in international affairs. An American scholar once described the United States as “the essential nation” in world affairs. China is fast becoming the second-most essential nation.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University. 

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