China's major-country diplomacy progresses on all fronts
- By He Yafei
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E-mail China Today, March 23, 2016
This is evident in the successful visit by the Chinese president to the U.K. last October. The deals struck during this visit, covering in-depth bilateral cooperation in the fields of nuclear power, high-speed rail, and finance, break new ground for production capacity cooperation between China and developed Western countries. With the demise of the dichotomy hitherto bifurcating international relations – often demarcated along the lines between the West and East and northern and southern hemispheres – a global partnership based on shared interests now enjoys wide currency. China's thinking on common development and win-win cooperation, therefore, is gaining popularity.
Mid-sized Western powers like the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, and Italy reserve many differences with the U.S. over their foreign strategies. In the manner of major developing countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey and Indonesia, they advocate a multi-polar world and democratic international relations. These countries saw in the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing economic and debt crisis the pressing need to reform the global governance system – including its monetary system – to reduce systemic risks. They espouse many of China's ideas on global governance, and are willing to coordinate efforts with it to improve the global governance system in a way that reflects the changes occurring in the international tableau.
Given the growing influence of mid-sized powers in international affairs, China should accord due attention to them in the construction of the global partnership network, as they serve an indispensable function in regional and international affairs. These countries include both Western and other developed countries – the U.K., France, Germany, South Korea, Canada, Italy, Spain and Australia – and developing countries – Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The mid-sized powers share the trait of pursuing relatively independent foreign policies in varied areas of international relations that allow them room for maneuver. With their respective distinct features, these countries constitute the "middle class" and "upper-middle class" of the international community, the force driving transformation of the international power structure in a planar direction. For instance, the Uniting for Consensus movement, spearheaded by South Korea, Mexico, Pakistan and Argentina, has proven a strong counterweight to attempts by Japan, Germany, India and Brazil to gain permanent seats on the UN Security Council in a collective deal.
All developing countries whatsoever will remain the bedrock and strategic focus of China's major-country diplomacy with its own indigenous characteristics. China remains keenly aware of its identity as a member of the developing world.
As President Xi reiterated at the activities marking the 70th anniversary of the UN, the country's vote at the organization will always go to developing countries. The memory will never fade of how its developing peers "hoisted" China into the UN by voting for Resolution 2758 in 1971, which recognized the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations. This bond between China and other developing countries, as inseverable as that between flesh and blood, is the foundation of China's major-country diplomacy with its own characteristics.
As the gap between developed and developing countries narrows, dual shifts are underway in the world economic growth pattern. One is a steady increase in the contributions by developing countries, including China (whose share has topped 30 percent for successive years), to world economic growth, which is causing its center of gravity to migrate from the developed to the developing world. The other is closer economic ties between China and other developing countries – as reflected in the new emphasis in China's foreign trade from developed to developing countries.
At the start of the 21st century developed and developing countries respectively contributed 80 percent and 20 percent to global GDP growth. By the 2010-13 period, these figures had reversed, at 19 percent and 81 percent, and China's share was the largest, at about 35 percent.
Export statistics for recent years reveal that developing countries are now China's trade partners with the highest growth rates and greatest potential. In the 2013-14 period, China's export growth dipped to 7.2 percent, while that to G7 countries dropped to 4.4 percent, to other developed countries to 7.4 percent, and to other BRICS countries to 6.1 percent. By contrast, growth with other developing countries remained robust – 12 percent, with ASEAN states topping the chart at 16 percent.
As regards China's export proportions, at 2000 G7, other developed countries, BRICS and other developing countries, accounted for 48 percent, 35.2 percent, 2.7 percent and 13.9 percent respectively. By 2014 these figures had shifted to 3.9 percent, 30.8 percent, 6.2 percent and 29.2 percent, signifying a 19 percent upsurge for developing countries.
China's foreign policy must evolve in lockstep with the times. It must therefore attend more to its partnerships with other developing countries. This is China's motive for advancing the Belt and Road Initiative. Also for shifting the focus of the country's opening-up from prioritizing developed countries to giving equal attention to developed and developing countries, wherein littoral developing countries receive preferential treatment. This move chimes with the vision of Deng Xiaoping – celebrated as the chief architect of China's reform and opening-up – of a comprehensive opening-up to different types of countries.
China is developing, as is the world as a whole, and this is triggering historical changes in their relations.
He Yafei is deputy head of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and a former deputy minister of foreign affairs.
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