Where is China going, when Xi Jinping ordered the reopening of the country on January 8, in the midst of a dizzying recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic? Since that day, the quarantine has been lifted for travelers arriving at Chinese airports and the border with Hong Kong has been reopened. Is this a sign that the country wants to break its isolation and warm its relations with the West? Not really, according to sinologist Alice Ekman, Asia analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS). China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping is marked by an anti-Western ideology, she points out in her book Last flight to Beijing (Éditions de l’Observatoire) published at the end of 2022, before the reopening of the Middle Kingdom.
RFI: Your book is called Last flight to Beijing. China reopened its borders on January 8. We can therefore fly again to the Chinese capital. What inspires you?
Alice Ekman: Many questions necessarily, because it is an adjustment partly due to the protest movement that we did not see coming, most of us researchers working on China. It is an obvious reopening and at the same time, we already note measures of “reciprocity”, according to the expression used by the Chinese government, vis-à-vis certain countries. The non-issuance of visas for Japanese and South Korean citizens for example. We also note a relatively suspicious discourse vis-à-vis foreign countries and at the same time the pandemic crisis. So I don’t think we are moving towards a total opening up of China.
This is a major adjustment to follow, which in my view does not indicate a fundamental change of approach in China’s relationship with the West. Nor does it mark the end of China’s so-called “wolf fighter” policy. That is to say that criticism of the West, and certain European countries in particular, continues to be expressed by Chinese diplomats in very virulent terms in recent days.
You write that the coalition war in full swing, that it will intensify. What does it consist of? What is the ” coalition strategy ” from China ?
China’s coalition strategy is already publicly affirmed. That is to say, Xi Jinping has repeatedly said in recent years, including in his 2018 New Year speech, that it is time to expand the “circle of friends” from China. At that time, many said to themselves: China’s circle of friends, fine, but since China has no allies, it is not seeking to sign alliance treaties, well, it does not weigh heavily in the balance. First of all, as we have seen at the United Nations, it sometimes manages to block certain discussions or to promote its interests. Then, China’s economic and technological relations have been consolidated with a significant number of countries in recent years. And the Chinese coalition strategy tends to converge economic diplomacy, digital and defense of political interests.
Certainly, with a certain part of the world, China is losing ground. The image of the country has deteriorated in Europe as in many other countries now considered “Western”. But in other parts of the world, it continues to seduce. In any case, its diplomatic, technological or training actions, for example, continue to be welcomed there with open arms. And it is this differentiation that must be taken into account.
We are of course in an increasingly polarized world. I do not speak in my book of “bipolarization”, because the polarization is not strictly binary, it is not clear as at the time of the cold war. I’m talking more about “bi-globalization”, that is to say the restructuring of commercial exchanges, of the links of interdependence, so that these links are more “geocompatible”. This is not only the fruit and the will of Chinese diplomacy, but also of reflections in Washington as in Brussels. For example, Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, said she sees a ” globalization among friends to be less vulnerable to sanctions and counter-sanctions from countries that do not share the same political values or the same geostrategic positions.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, this restructuring has accelerated. Commercial and technological relations with Russia have been interrupted for the most part, while China maintains them completely. China has increased its hydrocarbon imports from Russia since the start of the war, becoming the top importer of Russian oil as early as June 2022.
In general, China considers that it is necessary to limit economic interdependence with hostile countries in the broad sense, and in the first place technological interdependence. Xi Jinping spoke “ self-sufficiency in his opening speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China last October. It is a question of tending towards self-sufficiency: it is not a total closure, but a partial closure to the countries which do not share the geopolitical and geostrategic positions of China. This means the intensification, the restructuring of exchanges with countries which would not risk sanctioning China: Russia, but let us also speak of Iran, of North Korea even if that may seem surprising, of a part countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Finally, that makes a significant number of countries. As such, I am not talking about deglobalization » nor of « regionalization of globalization because China’s “friends” are not only located in Asia, far from it.
Some warn of the risks of the decoupling between the Chinese economy and the American economy, which are very interdependent. Is “bi-globalization” good for China and its ambitions?
It is costly, this bi-globalization! China blamed the blow for US trade and technology sanctions. Some Chinese companies like Huawei have lost in terms of listing, market share in certain countries or regions. The list of Chinese companies and entities considered to pose security questions by the US administration is growing. Beijing now faces new restrictions imposed by the United States on semiconductor exports to China.
Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party considers that we must redouble our efforts in terms of research and development, for example in the field of semiconductors, but not only, to limit in the medium and long term this interdependence which remains strong today. today. Today, China pays the cost of these sanctions, but it is, according to her, a blessing in disguise, in the long term to be less dependent on the American market and its technologies, and more generally on foreign technologies. When Xi Jinping speaks of self-sufficiency, it is in the technological field.
Today, China, according to the statements of the Twentieth Congress, has tripled its expenditure on research and development in ten years, from 2012 to 2022. This does not mean that China hopes to be a closed technological power of the world. Instead, it hopes to consolidate its status as a technology export powerhouse in some part of the world.
You talk about China’s ambition to see the advent of a post-American world where it would occupy the dominant position “. That is to say ?
The dominant position is an interesting approach to analyze because China does not seek to be monopolistic, to rally all countries to its cause. She is well aware that this will be impossible. But really, this strategic rivalry, this dominant position, is already materializing in multilateral organizations. Ultimately, it is about ensuring that the votes at the United Nations are in favor of China, when it comes to fundamental interests for Beijing. It is about gaining market share in terms of exporting Chinese products and services abroad.
But it is also, of course, to marginalize in the long term the norms and standards which would not be Chinese or not compatible with Chinese technologies. Finally, it is a question of marginalizing in the international debate the ideas and definitions that are considered by Beijing as coming from the West. For example, the existence of universal rights, of everything related to universalism, the definition of an Internet that would be generally free and open to which China opposes the definition of a sovereign Internet, more managed and supervised by the state.
You speak of a very firm ambition towards a “final victory“. Is it really realistic? The United States, deemed declining by Beijing, are far from defeated, right?
Very far from being defeated! The Sino-American rivalry is open: the United States remains the world’s leading economic power. Moreover, today, doubts are emerging as to China’s ability to catch up and overtake the United States in this rank, particularly given the slowdown in the Chinese economy and new demographic challenges. But interestingly, this China-US rivalry from Beijing’s perspective is no longer seen as just a bilateral rivalry, but as a rivalry between two groups of countries. On the one hand, the Western alliance in the broad sense is being consolidated through various means (convergence of “Indo-Pacific” strategies, NATO enlargement, among others).
For its part, China describes all these developments as provocations. Moreover, she denounced the “Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States” as being a new form of NATO in Asia, illegitimate and doomed to failure – according to her. So today there is real opposition to the consolidation of the Western alliance: a consolidation of the coalition strategy on the part of China, which does not go through the signing of defense treaties, but which should not not be underestimated, at least at the diplomatic and technological level. We should not consider that China will succeed in marginalizing the Western alliance, that seems really simplistic. But in any case, the ambitions are there, the framework is set. In the context of the war in Ukraine which is protracted, China is not so isolated as that.
In particular, it will be very interesting in the coming months and years to continue monitoring and analyzing the Sino-Russian relationship. For the moment, we do not note any distancing from China vis-à-vis Russia, even if sometimes it would have certain European interlocutors believe it. We do not note any departure from this strategic framework, from this major joint declaration which was signed between the two countries on February 4, 2022.