After a long preparatory work and thanks to the strong mindedness that we already recognize to him, on March 10, 2018 Xi Jinping succeeded in imposing – with 99.86% of favourable votes – a constitutional reform enabling him to extend his stay in power without time limits.
It
should be recalled that the maximum limit of the two consecutive terms of
office was introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1982 to avoid the danger of a
“personalistic drift” (as Deng himself called it), which – according to that
ruling class, just getting over the Red Guards’ harsh attacks -had
characterized the last phase of Mao Zedong’s regime.
After
stabilizing his power within the Party and the State – with his loyal aides,
such as Wang Qishan, who managed the world financial crisis of 2008-2010 and
the relations with the United States, as well as Deputy-Prime Minister Liu He,
supervising economic and financial
policy, and Yi Gang, the Governor of the Central Bank – President Xi Jinping
established a large and cohesive negotiating group for international economic and
financial affairs, above all with the United States. In 2017 the United States
managed a trade surplus of 375 billion US dollars in favour of China, as well
as a volume of Chinese investment in US Treasury bills equal to 1,200 billion
US dollars and many other operations. At the core of them there is the New Silk
Road, which will characterize the strategic-economic and geopolitical nature of
China’s current foreign policy.
Power
projection in the Heartland and US potential exclusion from it.
As
Brzezinsky said, when the Heartland is united with the Eurasian peninsula,
there will be the end of US hegemony. Both in Europe and in the rest of the
world.
Furthermore,
Liu He and Yi Gang spent long periods in the United States to study
international finance and political science.
The
powerful anti-corruption campaign also contributed to the quick and effective
results of this great change in China’s leadership. Besides the thoroughcontrol ofthe ways and
procedures to select both the middle-low and upperranks of the Party and the
State, carried out directly by President Xi Jinping’s “internal” group, said
campaign was organized also by Wang Qishan, the powerful Head of the new
Party’s “control commission” and very loyal to President Xi Jinping.
An
essential aspect of foreign policy, which for President Xi Jinping and his team
is mainly economic and financial foreign policy, is the establishment of
independent Chinese initiatives abroad, in addition to expanding China’s role
in the WTO and in the other international organizations.
It is by no mere coincidence that the Chinese
intelligence services have a section dealing with the “use of international
standards”.
Initiatives
such as the Investment Bank for Asian Infrastructure (in which also Italy
participates) and the BRICS Investment Bank, which are essential for
understanding the role of China as a country within the world trade flows, but also its strong
geopolitical autonomy.
These
phenomena will emerge above all in the 75 countries that have already joined
the New Silk Road.
Economic
ties with China, but adhesion of the 75 countries to China’s unwritten project
of hegemony in the new world order, which today, in particular, appears as a
structural weakening of the United States.
With
specific reference to diplomacy, the recently-drafted “Xi Jinping’s Thought on
Diplomacy” envisages that – as already
done for seven decades -the Party develops a diplomacy thought “with Chinese
characteristics” and that this Thought is defined directly by the CPC leaders.
While
today’s world is infinitely complex, as Chinese leaders maintain, the Chinese
diplomacy must also reach a new starting point.
A new
starting point that simplifies the initial approach and leads to a New World
Order, not focused on the United States, but linked – if anything – to a
Chinese diplomacy operating bilaterally in all economic and political spheres
and in all areas of the world.
Hence,
following President Xi Jinping’s diplomatic policy line means – first and
foremost -to remain loyal to the peaceful development pathway, with a view to
furthering cooperation with all countries to achieve win-win results. It also
means to support the formal architecture of the current international system,
with a view to finally achieving a better external environment for all States
and making definitive progress towards world peace and human progress.
Hence
President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy means – first and foremost-support for the
gradual and ongoing opening up of global markets, especially today when Western
countries tend to protectionism, but is also designed to foster relations with
the countries that the West is neglecting or still considers mere “deposits of
raw materials”, such as Africa or Latin America.Said diplomacy, however, works
above all to avoid the creation of hotbeds of crisis.
In a
nutshell, albeit with some degree of legitimate simplification, President Xi
Jinping is turning most of Mao Zedong’s “Three Worlds Theory” into diplomacy
doctrine.
It
should be recalled that it is a classification dividing the countries according
to their hegemonic claims and designs, as well as to their power projection.
The
“imperialist” West and the “revisionist” USSR, or rather the First World, would
wear themselves out, with their cold wars, on the ground of the “great European
plain” they both want to conquer, while all the vast world that is not yet
developed will be led by the People’s Republic of China.
The
Second World was made up of the developed countries, but the marginal ones
compared to the nations of the First World.
Analyzing
President Xi Jinping’s doctrine on Chinese diplomacy more in depth, we realize
that these times have already come.
As to
the First World, the USA is under crisis, while Russia is now part of the
Chinese-led Heartland. The Second World’s countries can all now be part of a
bilateral win-win project guaranteed by the new Chinese superpower.
Firstly,
China has experienced 40 years of continuous development, i.eafter the Four
Modernisations and the subsequent economic and political reforms.
Currently
China is the second largest economy in the world and, in 10 years’ time,
Chinese analysts reasonably expect it will outperform the United States.
On the
other hand, as seen above, there is the progressive expansion of protectionist
practices that lead to strong strategic and economic tension between States.
In this
case, precisely with his diplomacy doctrine, President Xi Jinping maintains
that the domestic choices must always be coordinated with those in the
international sphere.
There is
no separation – which is eminently non-dialectic – between domestic and
international policy in a country.
Again
according to President Xi Jinping’s doctrine, at world level the guidelines can
only be those of mutual respect for global peace(hence never non-hegemonic) and
of mutual development, not only at economic, but also at human level.
It is a
Western-rooted humanism, albeit “with Chinese characteristics”, as Chinese
would say.
Hence
President Xi Jinping’s Diplomacy Doctrine strongly supports multilateralism,
both at political and economic and financial levels. It also promotes free
trade and facilitatesinvestmentand finally tends to renew and “rejuvenate” the
system of global relations as against the US “unilateralism”, which is closely
related to protectionism.
Obviously
an exporting economy such as China’s, which is however expanding also in the
internal market, wants free trade. It is less obvious, however, that a country
dominating the world financial system like the United States is linked to the
protection of its industries, which are often mature or even decocted.
The
primary factor is that, in the idealistic diplomacy resulting from President Xi
Jinping’s Thought, what is noted by many Chinese scholars and diplomats is the
significant and specific contribution of the country to human civilization – a
contribution that, in Chinese leaders’ minds, no other country can currently
provide.
It is
not a secondary and rhetorical factor: humanism with Chinese characteristics
shows that China holds universal values, while the West is ever less globalized
in its values and lifestyle.
The
China that has expanded throughout the world, in the 40 years since the Four
Modernizations, is a primary part of the international community. Its interests
have spread across the world, which implies that China has a perspective and a
way of assessing facts in a global and not strictly nationalistic way.
Chinese
humanism as hegemony of soft power.
Hence, also the West – which is obviously not
satisfied with China’s quick, stable and powerful growth – cannot even
understand how, according to Chinese analysts, the country can have the
perception of its universal commitments and interests.
A
Chinese diplomat said that they have been accustomed to be modest, but they
have begun to engage deeply in international and global issues, with a view to
leading “the reform of globalization” – which is the key to President Xi
Jinping’s geopolitics – particularly after the 18thCPC National Congress.
With
specific reference to the relations between the USA and China, President Xi
Jinping’s theory of Diplomacy maintains that cooperation always achieves
win-win objectives, while confrontation always entails a loss for both actors.
According
to President Xi Jinping, those who still have a cold war mentality isolate
themselves from the world, and those who currently use zero-sum games will
never be able to avoid confrontation without suffering great damage.
If the United States creates the conditions
for a hard confrontation with China – and powerful enemies emerge – it will
reach a condition in which the contrast, even peaceful, will be so hard as to
severely undermine the US world rank, as well as its status as first global
economy.
As to
the relations between China and the Russian Federation, President Xi Jinping
regards the two nations as global strategic partners in all areas.
Currently
the relations between the two countries are “rock solid” – just to put it in
President Xi Jinping’s Doctrine. Together they are becoming a strategically
very important force for maintaining peace in the world.
Common
Russian-Chinese interests are always expanding, but they never negatively
affect a third party and are never influenced by the decisions of a third
party.
It is
the current Chinese definition of the classic term “independence”.
Esoterically, the Void between two Full.
Hence,
just to recap, President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy doctrine consists of ten simple
points:
a)
always supporting the CPC Central Committee’s policy as if it were the
essential principle for action, underlining the function of the centralized and
unified direction of the Party as far as all relations with foreign countries
are concerned.
b)
Supporting the development of diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, with a
view to fulfilling the mission of national rejuvenation. The internal and
external spheres are linked and must never be treated separately.
c)
Preserving world peace and reaching a common level of development among peoples
and nations, with a view to building a large community, with a shared future
for all ankind. Chinese global humanism seen as a Vase of Kingdoms for every
national and humanistic tradition.
d)
Strengthening all countries’ strategic trust in Socialism with Chinese
characteristics.
e)
Continuing to work for the Belt and Road Initiative in view of all member
countries’ common growth, through discussion and collaboration.
f)
Following the path of peaceful development, based on mutual respect and win-win
cooperation. Respect, not asymmetrical hegemony, but symmetrical hegemony – in
the Chinese view – since it is the result of the political effects of a win-win
relationship.
g)
Developing global partnerships while proposing a diplomatic agenda.
h)
Leading the reform of the global governance system, based on the concepts of
justice and fairness – i.e. non-hegemonic concepts of a cultural and political
nature.
i)
Taking the Chinese national interests as the bottom line for safeguarding
China’s sovereignty, security and development interests. It is once again the
link between the outside and the inside of the same Vase, namely domestic policy
and foreign policy.
j)
Nurturing the growth of a specific style of Chinese diplomacy, combining the
fine tradition of China’s “external work” with the current needs and
characteristics of the international environment. This means to link the
Confucian and elitist Chinese tradition with the daily practice of diplomacy.
According to the Party’s current leadership,
the study of President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy thought is an essential part of
the thought on Socialism “with Chinese characteristics”, so as to achieve a New
Era, which is designed to be the start of a global and peaceful diplomacy led
by China.
A
diplomacy mainly supporting the reform of globalization, the deep core of
President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy thought, as well as the global spreading of
China’s win-win relations with all the countries of the world.
From
this viewpoint, and without ever losing sight of the goal of Chinese national
rejuvenation and universal human development – another essential feature of
President Xi Jinping’s diplomacy thought – new types of international relations
will be established, based on mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win
cooperation. Global multilateralism.
In the
future, the diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, introduced by President Xi
Jinping, will promote a new international order, resulting from an inclusive
world of stable peace, universal security and common prosperity.
This is
not propaganda. It is a project that – in the specific terminology of the CPC
Central Committee -is building China’s new foreign policy.
Without
this kind of political eschatology, we cannot fully understand President Xi
Jinping’s thought on international relations.
For a
modern, but also for a traditional Chinese, the Confucian metaphysics of
principles is what metaphysics was for Aristotle: “the science of ends” – ends
which are as real as means.
In fact,
Father Matteo Ricci S.J. regardedConfucius as “the Aristotle of the East” and,
in the “Rites controversy”, which involved the Jesuit and the Franciscan
Fathers, the former supported the sinicizationof the Holy Mass because, despite
everything, the Chinese tradition was comparable and consistent with
Aristotle’s tradition that had refounded Catholic Metaphysics, through St.
Thomas Aquinas.
Moreover,
it is a moral and cultural standing proposing itself as a new leadership, in a
world of political materialism – especially in the West – and of short-term
operational and practical visions.
Hence,
there is a successful merging of Marxist analysis and Chinese cultural
tradition – a modern cultural and political tradition that is now also ancient.
Therefore,
this is another essential point of President Xi Jinping’s Thought on foreign
policy.
President
Xi Jinping’s diplomacy is an important achievement of the now successful
turning of Confucian thought into “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
In
President Xi Jinping’s mind, arts and culture – which are also essential in the
current Chinese power projection – are based on some points that can be taken
from various speeches and documents and can be summarized as follows:
1) contemporary
art must take patriotism as its primary theme (patriotism and not Marxism),thus
leading the crowds to have correct
visions of history, nationality, the State and
culture. Confirming the integrity and self-confidence of the Chinese
people – here lies mass pedagogy, which applies also to foreign policy.
2) Some
artists ridicule the sublime (and much could be said in relation to the Western
theory of the sublime) and even offend the classics, thus depriving the crowds
of heroic figures. The world upside down, the good as the bad, the evil
becoming good, the ugly becoming beautiful. Here President Xi Jinping, who
knows the European culture well, will certainly remember a scene of the tragedy
that built the Western culture: the ritual of the Three Witches around the
cauldron in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
3) The
market value of arts is completely irrelevant, compared to their social value.
Another problem of pedagogy in arts, while the West tends to exclude the public
from the works of art and is scandalized – following Walter Benjamin -by their
technical reproducibility. The economic benefits are always worth less than
social ones – and this is another very important factor to understand President
Xi Jinping’s thought. Nevertheless, the independence of arts and the autonomy
of their aesthetic value is indisputable. Autonomy, not exclusion from the
public.
4)
Chinese art must never chase the foreigner. Provincialism is the absolute evil.
We cannot say President Jinping is wrong.
5)
Providing sound, healthy and progressive content to mass fashions coming from
abroad.
In
essence, it is a transposition – within the arts – of the same principles that
President Xi Jinping has developed for the art of diplomacysince last June.
In other
words, the values of all behaviours;the universal effect of behaviours; the union
between the private and the public sphere, i.e. between the external (foreign
policy) and internal domains (national life).
The
Chinese still view diplomacy as an art, unlike the West, which now regards its
diplomats as sellers of goods and services, as financial promoters or advisors,
and possibly as brokers of contracts.
This
will never be the diplomacy of a prestigious, influential and successful
country.
The New
Chinese Diplomacy, however, also concerns President Xi Jinping’s attempt to
capitalize on Donald J. Trump’s isolation on the world scene.
So far,
however, only 19% of the citizens in 25 Western countries like China as world
leader, while a US Rule is still acceptable to 25% of the world public.
Not even the US results, however, are very
brilliant.
After
all, President Jinping’s goal is to make China rapidly becoming a global
superpower, thus creating a protective network of allied countries, with a view
to counterbalancing the equivalent US structure of international relations. Once
again the Void and the Full exchanging their roles.
In fact,
one of the reasons underlying the Belt and Road Initiative is to create a
network of long-term allies for China, capable of covering at least the whole
Eurasian Heartland, thus blocking it in the face of the US power expansion.
Once
again the Void and the Full, two terms of the Chinese esoteric tradition: the
Full will be China’s and the Russian Federation’s undisputed power over the
entire Eurasian Heartland, with ramifications towards an increasingly weaker
Eurasian peninsula in geopolitical and military terms.
The Void
will be the US strategic autonomy around China – at least for the time being.
There
may also be a structural Chinese contrast with India, a future great power,
also at economic level, but to the south, at the crossroads between the
Heartland and the great line of communication between the Asian Seas and the
Persian Gulf, and finally the Mediterranean.
For the
time being, the EU irrelevance will suffice. An unbeatable guarantee for both
the USA and the other major global players.
The
void, more important than the full, is currently the still decisive US presence
in the primary and secondary seas, with little penetration into Africa, very
strong US presence in Europe and the North American management of the break
between Eastern Europe and Russia, which is capable of making the Heartland
open and “viable” and depriving it of strategic value.
This is
the great picture in which President Jinping’s Diplomacy Doctrine shall be
seen.
Hence,
we are still in the phase of the speech delivered by President Jinping to the
CPC Central Committee in 2017, when he said that “China would stand tall and
strong in the East”.
In a
phase of globalization crisis, we are still reinterpreting the theme of
China’s “central interests” – an issue
that had been discussed by the Chinese leaders, especially in the early 2000s.
On the
basis, however, of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and of the
“Chinese dream”, two essential themes of the 18th CPC Congress that crowned Xi
Jinping as leader.
The
President has quickly become China’s “central leader”, especially through the
great campaign against corruption.
At
international level, Jinping’s Presidency differs greatly from an essential
strategic theme of contemporary China: the low profile imposed, at the
beginning, by Deng Xiaoping.
Deng
seemed to think that China should be allowed to build a modern economy, which
was its first and fundamental objective, but should not be bothered with the
major geopolitical and military issues, which were still out of reach and
diverting the country from its primary objective.
President
Jinping has instead overturned this principle: China certainly has world
ambitions, which are also its primary interests.
Hence
China’s core interests are well known: the establishment of the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank;the One Belt, One RoadInitiative; the construction
of artificial islands in the Sea of Japan; the building of the Djibouti base
and the silent participation in many world conflicts and tensions. These are
all ways to further China’s global power and protect its primary interests.
We
should also recall “China 2025” and “Amazing China”, two projects that are far
from negligible in this new Chinese plan that consists in regulating, reforming
and even regaining globalization, while other countries, such as the USA,
temporarily recreate their economy and their labor force returning to
protectionism. Inevitably, this will always recoil on them.
Protectionism
is a drug with short-term effects.
The
alternative option is twofold: to continue the game of globalization – which
has now almost completely deindustrialized the nations that began the
Industrial Revolution of the 19th century – or to temporarily strengthen the
country with protectionism.
On the
one hand, however, China can afford globalization because it has a different
productive formula but, on the other, it could play even the game of
protectionism, using the belt of the Silk Road countries, which can easily
maintain and absorb an acceptable level of Chinese exports, even under the
terms and conditions set by China.
Hence,
are we now faced with a new cold war, the one between China and the West?
Probably,
but only a Third Type one, with an economic war characterized by Second Type
skirmishes, halfway between the symbolic and the strictly military domains.
China
has already tried to close operations with an alliance between it and the EU,
Russia and Japan.
Nevertheless,
considering the current configuration of world trade, the attitude has been
lukewarm.
The USA
has instead reactivated part of its trade with the EU, by greatly strengthening
its historic relationship with Japan.
Hence,
there is once again the spectre of China’s closure within its traditional
borders – a danger that President Xi Jinping wants to avert ab ovo.
As early
as 2009, China’s “central interests” were theorized in the Central Committee
as: 1) China’s fundamental system and State security; 2) the State sovereignty
and territorial integrity; 3) the stable development of the economy and
society.
The 2011
White Paper added “peaceful development” and “national reunification” to these
fundamental policy lines.
That is
the one with Taiwan.
Currently
China makes it increasingly clear that respect for its core interests is
essential to create the win-win relations that characterize its bilateral
economic relations.
This is
one of the primary aims of President Xi Jinping’s Diplomacy Doctrine.
Moreover,
China, is no longer encouraging Chinese companies’ investment abroad, thus
reuniting all what was previously scattered everywhere in the sole Belt and
RoadInitiative, which is currently part of the Constitution and the Party’s
Basic Policy Line.
The Belt
and Road Line was born from that of the “March to the West”, a strategy
initially developed by the international policy expert Wang Jisi, who believed
China had to go towards Central Asia and the Middle East, with a view to
minimizing the tensions with the United States in East Asia.
An
essential area for the United States.
Currently,
however, the “Belt and Road” initiative is a global and not a regional
initiative – as Wang Jisiinitially thought – a project that will lead to
geopolitical upheavals not yet predictable.
The
project stems from two essential needs: China’s exit from its unsafe
traditional borders and the continuous, stable internal economic development
that, where lacking, would put the power of the Party and the State to a hard
test.
These
are the economic and political mechanisms that President Xi Jinping’s Diplomacy
Theory wants to expand and protect.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2019/09/11/president-xi-jinpings-diplomacy-doctrine/
***Giancarlo
Elia Valori: Advisory Board Co-chair
Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist
and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national
orders. Mr. Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the
world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs
“International World Group”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy,
economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group. In 1992 he was appointed
Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this
motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in
2002 he received the title “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de
l’Institut de France. “