Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China next week. There he finds a country that now sees foreign policy primarily as a struggle and wants to reorganize the world.
Beijing/Munich – Friendly diplomacy was yesterday. Today is about competition, struggle and bold words. At least in China: At the Communist Party Congress that just ended, leading Chinese foreign politicians invoked an undaunted “fighting spirit” in the country’s diplomacy. “We cannot be swayed by deception, deterred by intimidation, or intimidated by pressure,” Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said at one of the few press conferences held on the sidelines of the meeting. It is the spiritual nature of Chinese diplomacy to dare to fight. Ma is considered a candidate for the post of minister when the state government is reorganized in March.
The days when China and the West silently cooperated on substantive issues, despite differing political systems and ideological views, seem to be over. In the West, the concept of “change through trade” applies in the face of the increasingly authoritarian government under President Xi Jinping than failed: Instead of more openness, there is less freedom for people in China. Conversely, China sees forces at work, especially in the USA, who want to prevent the country’s rise by any means possible – and only pretend ideological differences. Behind closed doors, some experts partially agree with this view. And at the latest since the corona pandemic with many deaths in Europe and the USA, Xi has been certain: “The West is in decline, the East is rising.”
It is on this premise that Xi is likely to shape his policies in his third term. The strategy: China’s economic clout to wrestle with the West for political influence in the world. For China to have its proper place in the world order.
China wants to change the world order
That would be enough of a challenge for the West if China were a democracy with tangible interest-based politics, as is also the case in the USA. But China is a socialist one-party state that is currently rapidly transforming into a one-man dictatorship. Xi sees foreign policy – of course – as a top priority and largely shapes it himself. China’s foreign policy has therefore been in a “much more activist phase” since 2013/2014 than before, said former Australian Prime Minister and current President of the Asia Society Kevin Rudd the presentation of his book The Avoidable War (“The Avoidable War”) on the US-China conflict.
Xi Jinping wants to change the situation in China’s immediate vicinity as well as the international system, which is now dominated by the West, Rudd said. The aim is to make the system “more compatible with China’s interests”. China, for example, partnered with Russia against the US and has sought to use human and financial resources to influence international organizations such as the United Nations. With the New Silk Road infrastructure program, China finances railway lines or power plants in countries, which then usually coordinate with Beijing at the UN, for example when it comes to rejecting criticism of China’s human rights violations.
Xi Jinping’s foreign policy: Keep it up after party congress
So when Chancellor Olaf Scholz lands in Beijing for his “day trip” next week, he will find a different China than his predecessor, Angela Merkel. A country that relies more on economic autonomy cares little about the negative views of foreigners and is pursuing a strict zero-Covid policy until further notice. Scholz has a business delegation with him, but the enthusiasm of the company leaders has decreased significantly. Some, such as SAP or Deutsche Bank, do not travel, others even criticized the trip. The chief executives of companies with particularly extensive business activities in China, such as VW, BASF or Siemens, are present.
Despite concerns about excessive dependence on China, Scholz pushed through the participation of the Chinese state shipping company Cosco in a container terminal in the Port of Hamburg on Wednesday. Although the compromise prohibited share purchases over 24.9 percent, which means that there is no influence on the business. Nevertheless, the criticism of the deal is also great within the traffic light coalition. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in the process of developing a China strategy. There is agreement that “we must drastically reduce our vulnerability,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recently. The lesson to be learned from the mistakes in Russia policy must be “that we no longer make ourselves existentially dependent on a country that does not share our values”.
China and the US: Times of Crisis
The US is already one step further; they calculate with competition and rivalry, want to slow down China’s rise. US President Joe Biden puts in his new security strategy a focus on China and Russia. China poses a greater challenge to the international order than Russia, it says. It is now a matter of “beating China in competition and enclosing Russia”. A few days later, Washington severely restricted the sale of chips and components to China. China, meanwhile, refuses to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, instead blaming the US and NATO for the escalation. Relations have been at a freezing point since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
China and the US could be approaching a Cold War, fears Jia Qingguo, a professor of international studies at Beijing University: “I have the feeling that national security issues are being overemphasized in both countries,” Jia said in a report by the US Carter Center think tank published interview. “Some people in both countries believe that the other side poses a serious threat to their own national security and that they must respond.” Any new weapon or high technology from the other country would be considered a serious threat.
Many experts believe that the United States dominated foreign policy thinking in China. Forming small circles, drawing ideological boundaries, fomenting confrontation by forming blocs and “harassing” others are the “biggest threats to world order,” Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said. Shen Beili, vice head of the International Department at the CCP Central Committee, added that Beijing will remain firmly opposed to “any form of domination and power politics.” It is the typical choice of words in connection with the USA.
China’s CP sees Xi Jinping’s foreign policy as a success
From the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party, however, Xi Jinping’s foreign policy has had solid achievements, analyzed Mikko Huotari, Director of the Merics Institute for China Studies, immediately after the party conference: “The ‘escalation’ of foreign policy from an ambitious regional power to a major power with a claim to global leadership clearly bears his signature.” The New Silk Road launched by Xi in 2013 is only a first been an experimental field. With his new global initiatives on “security,” “data security,” and “development,” Xi is now “drawing the contours of a new China-centric world order,” Huotari said. The head of state warned internally of the risks of an intensification of the long-term systemic and structural conflict with the USA and “prepared China for this fight.” According to Huotari, Xi has already achieved one of his goals: ultimately negotiated on China’s terms.”
Meanwhile, in his backyard, Xi has fortified sandbars in the South China Sea, despite other states claiming the waters. He has military exercises carried out around Taiwan and at the party congress again threatened to take the country by force if peaceful reunification does not succeed. China expanded its nuclear weapons arsenal, which is still relatively small, in order to develop a global deterrent effect.
All of this is problematic from Europe’s point of view. From a geopolitical point of view, however, a minimum of communication remains important. States must continue to work together with China on climate policy. Conversely, China owes its rise to exchanges with other countries and the rule-based order that is so hated in Beijing today. It is therefore not to be expected that both sides will stop the talks completely. But the time for fair-weather politics is over. Scholz will feel that in Beijing.
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