XI DREAMS OF SHAKING DOCILE CHINA FROM ITS SLUMBER / THE FINANCIAL TIMES COMMENT & ANALYSIS

April 16, 2014 4:45 pm

Xi dreams of shaking docile China from its slumber

By Jonathan Fenby

The Ukraine stand-off offers Beijing a broader role, writes Jonathan Fenby

©Reuters

For the first three decades of economic reform and growth, China followed Deng Xiaoping’s advice to “hide brilliance, cherish obscurity” in global affairs, keeping a low profile as it expanded to become the world’s second-biggest economy. The current leadership under Xi Jinping does not hold with such self-abnegation. That much is clear, both from its campaign to assert itself in the South China Sea and its islands dispute with Japan.

Yet Beijing still fails to play a political role commensurate with its economic clout. Hobbled by domestic concerns, resource dependency and a reluctance to get involved in the quarrels of others, it has little to say about significant international issues and has been reticent about advancing proposals to reform global political and economic structures.

Since November 2012, when he took the top job as general secretary of the Communist party, Mr Xi has emerged as the strongest Chinese leader since Deng. In addition to his party role Mr Xi is state president, head of the Central Military Commission and chairs three new bodies. One of them, the National Security Commission, is charged with ensuring domestic stability. China spends more on internal security than on its armed forces.

But the NSC also has another role: sorting out China’s often disjointed foreign policy, which traditionally has been in the purview of a confusing array of overlapping ministries and Communist party bodies, each with its own agenda. In the past China was content if it could get its hands on foreign commodities, prevent outsiders from meddling in Tibet or Xinjiang, and deter them from poking their noses into its human rights record. The current leadership has grander ambitions. But, so far, it seems Mr Xi has not come close to achieving his “China dream” of national rejuvenation and recognition from the world’s great powers.

Events in Ukraine have provided an early test of China’s new foreign policy set-up. While global attention is focused on President Vladimir Putin’s trial of strength with Kiev and the west, what Beijing does in the coming weeks will reveal whether the Xi administration is ready and able to engage with a situation that could either embarrass it or open the potential for economic and foreign policy gains.

The embarrassment for Beijing is all too evident. China had cozied up to Viktor Yanukovich, notably when the former Ukrainian president paid it a state visit at the end of last year. China’s only aircraft carrier originated in Ukraine. The People’s Republic loaned Kiev a total of $6bn during Mr Yanukovich’s tenure, supposedly in return for wheat supplies and farm land. Those deals seem to have gone awry, with China getting little in return for its money.

When street protests in Kiev led to the overthrow of an authoritarian government, China’s Communist leadership was hardly minded to cheer given its own repression of dissent. But it could not approve of the annexation of Crimea, either, since a cardinal plank of its foreign policy is that states must not interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries. 

Beijing had little choice but to abstain when the matter came before the UN Security Council. When US President Barack Obama met Mr Xi at The Hague last month, he seemed to accept this was the most Washington could expect.

Meeting Mr Xi in Beijing on Tuesday Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, thanked China for its “unbiased position on Ukraine” and said ties were at an “unprecedented height” – though informed sources said China had not been happy when Mr Lavrov stated last month that Moscow and Beijing were in agreement.

Mr Putin travels to Beijing next month. On the table will be a big deal for Russia to supply gas to China, which wants to diversify its energy mix away from coal and cut air pollution. If the west tightens sanctions, Moscow might look to China as an economic partner. Mr Xi could push for a lower gas price, investment opportunities across the Siberian border, and an enlarged Chinese role in Russia’s oil and gas sector.

But if the Sino-Russian relationship becomes too close, it risks being seen as an anti-western coalition. That would raise Washington’s hackles. Midterm elections in the US will again bring attacks on the weakening of the Chinese currency, criticised by the US Treasury on Wednesday. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, might be emboldened by such developments – and Washington might become less inclined to rein him in.

Britain has been exercised this week by Beijing’s cancellation of talks on human rights between the two countries after criticism of its record in a government report in London. But this is only a speck on Mr Xi’s horizon – even if David Cameron, the British prime minister, had hailed the talks as signal progress. The Chinese leader must now decide whether the world’s second-biggest economy is ready to play a bigger political role. If it does, what happens next could change the shape of our multipolar world.


The writer is China director of the research service Trusted Sources and author of ‘Will China Dominate the 21st Century?’

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.