Opinion: The future is now for China’s challenges and Xi Jinping’s ambitions

Michael Kovrig, South China Morning Post

uncaptioned image from article

China’s president has set out an era-shaping agenda along economic, security and institutional arcs, Michael Kovrig writes

Excerpt:

Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a roll. In October, the Communist Party he dominates used its national congress to accord him even more authority for his second term, embedding his core position and “thought” in its constitution. ...

This month Xi powered serenely through a series of high-level diplomatic meetings, including a summit parley with US President Donald Trump. Despite all the attention it attracted, the US chief executive’s “state visit plus” was more about pageantry, managing risks and deflecting potential problems. More indicative of Xi’s plans was his speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, where he called for “profound change”, and visits to Vietnam and Laos on which he sought to warm and deepen relations. ...

When Xi speaks of a “community of shared future”, he is calling for a paradigm shift away from a balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region in which most countries look to the United States for security, and to China as the economic dynamo. With his predilection for control and centralisation, Xi wants to move the region towards an increasingly Sinocentric order.

Driving this is a foreign policy based largely on chequebook diplomacy rather than security guarantees, and on bilateral arrangements and mutual interests rather than formal alliances. The party calls this approach “major-country diplomacy”. It has three axes of power projection: economic, military and institutional, each of them interwoven with propaganda, public diplomacy and influence campaigns that can change to intimidation when necessary. ...

China craves the respect, accommodation and soft power associated with providing global public goods. It also needs ways to protect its expanding network of overseas interests and citizens. The United Nations serves both ends, and Beijing is stepping up its engagement. China is already the largest troop contributor of any permanent Security Council member, with more than 2,600 personnel deployed across 10 missions. It is supporting new initiatives through a UN Peace and Development Fund, and in September registered an 8,000-strong standby peacekeeping force with the UN. China will nevertheless move cautiously when intervening in active or potential conflicts. ...