For more than two millennia, the monarchs who ruled China made their country one of the world’s dominant players. The concept of zhongguo – the Middle Kingdom, as China is called – is not only geographical. This implies that China is the cultural, political, and economic center of the global. This Sinocentric global vision has shaped China’s view of global governance into many tactics: the rules, norms, and establishments that govern foreign cooperation. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese influence worldwide was reduced for more than a century.
Over the past two decades, China has re-emerged as a primary power, with the world’s second-largest economy and a world-class military. It is increasingly announcing itself to recover its centrality in the foreign formula and in the establishments of global governance.
These institutions, most of which were created by Western powers after World War II, include the World Bank, which offers loans and grants to emerging states; the International Monetary Fund, which works for the stability of the global financial system; and the United Nations, among others. President Xi Jinping, China’s toughest leader since Mao Zedong, has called on China to “lead the reform of the global governance system,” transforming institutions and norms in a way that reflects Beijing’s values and priorities. .
China is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy for global governance. It supports foreign institutions and agreements aligned with its goals and standards, such as the World Bank and the Paris Agreement on climate change. However, on issues where Beijing deviates from the norms of the existing system, such as human rights, it seeks to undermine those values and create institutions and models of choice. In spaces where norms and institutions are still being established, such as Internet governance, China is competing with other authoritarian powers such as Russia to create norms. that reflect your interests.
China has a hard force in global governance. Their efforts seem to be deepening divisions with other countries, that is, with democracies rooted in existing norms and institutions. Ultimately, this divide can make it more difficult for states to collaboratively confront major external challenges. This split could even create two distinct systems of global governance, seriously compromising multilateral cooperation.
For more than two thousand years, from the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) to the collapse of the Qing (1636-1911), the monarchs who ruled China rightly invoked a mandate from heaven to legitimize their own rule and assert rhetorically their rights. force. their own centrality to the global order, even if they never built a de facto global empire. Even as China’s influence collapsed in the 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese elites dreamed of regaining global influence.
China’s imperial rulers favored diplomatic rituals that reinforced their own ideal of global centrality. Given this symbol of themselves, they had territories and kingdoms orbiting China that sent envoys to carry out ritual submissions. Indeed, given their abundant economic and military power, the Ming and Qing empires shaped the regional order around their ideal of Chinese centrality.
Until the 1840s, China remained a primary power. But China’s regional dominance was destroyed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Britain defeated it in the Opium Wars and other great powers gained territory. in the country. The last dynasty collapsed in 1911.
Despite the defeat, China’s leaders maintained the concept that one day the country would once again be in the middle of the world. Sun Yat-sen, known as the father of fashionable China, was one of the first to advocate the “revitalization of China. ” nation. “But the Republic of China (founded 1912) was a weak state, unable to play a role in global governance. A long civil war in the 1930s and 1940s between communist and nationalist forces further weakened China.
At the end of World War II, China became an early member of the United Nations and was poised to play a larger role in the new foreign order. But after the Communist Party won the civil war and gained strength in 1949, China rejected the foreign formula and attempted to help create a select global governance order.
Frustrated by the existing foreign formula – the Republic of China (Taiwan) remained a member of the UN Security Council, rather than the People’s Republic of China – Beijing promoted select values and institutions. In 1953, Premier Zhou Enlai promulgated “The Five Principles. “of Peaceful Coexistence”: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and non-violent coexistence. Backed by the leaders of many newly independent former colonies, those principles shaped the foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of the 1960s. The NAM has a counterweight to Western-dominated global governance.
In the 1960s, Beijing attempted to overthrow the existing foreign order more directly, through the export revolution. China has trained and armed anti-government guerrilla forces in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
China returned to the foreign formula in the early 1970s and rebuilt its ties with the United States. In the 1970s, it accepted a weaker external role and sought to participate in the institutions and regulations imposed after World War II. In October 1971, the United Nations General Assembly voted to admit the People’s Republic of China as a member and one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
After the end of the Mao era, China opened up in the 1980s and 1990s, reformed its economy and improved its role in global governance, contributing to cooperation with foreign institutions. During this period, China adapted many national laws to match those of other countries.
After Mao’s death in 1976, China joined many foreign organizations, but remained a weak player in global governance. In 1977, China belonged to twenty-one foreign organizations, but few Chinese citizens held high positions there.
Deng Xiaoping, who eventually succeeded Mao, oversaw major economic reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which heralded China’s expansion and, ultimately, greater global reach. Deng pushed for market reforms and encouraged the inflow of foreign capital and technology, among other measures. During this period, China has also joined more global monetary and industrial institutions, adding the International Monetary Fund, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Asian Development Bank.
In 1989, the Chinese government violently cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in the country, drawing widespread foreign condemnation. To help rebuild its reputation and ties with other countries, beginning in the early 1990s, Beijing increasingly embraced multilateralism and integration with global governance institutions. Beijing has signed multilateral agreements that it has been reluctant to join in the past. It acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992, signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, and signed the 1998 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
During the first decade of the 21st century, China has shown itself willing to respect foreign regulations and norms. However, as its economy grew, Beijing took a more active role in global governance, demonstrating its potential to lead and challenge existing establishments and norms. The country strengthened its strength in four ways: it took on a larger role in foreign institutions, announced its growing influence, laid the groundwork for the creation of some of its own organizations, and, on rare occasions, subverted the regulations of global governance.
In 2010, China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy and earned the third-largest percentage of votes in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, Chinese nationals have risen to senior positions in foreign organizations. In 2006, Margaret Chan was appointed Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). In power, she maintained several of Beijing’s goals, adding that she supported its plan to promote classical Chinese medicine.
During the 2007-2008 currency crisis, Beijing participated in efforts to coordinate macroeconomic responses. Before attending the Group of Twenty summit in 2008, China echoed the United States’ call for a massive, coordinated fiscal stimulus. Domestically, Beijing has unveiled a $580 billion stimulus plan for its economy. Beijing then used state media and equipment to make countries aware of China’s role in the recovery of the global economy.
China also began creating its own Beijing-dominated institutions, a process that would expand into the 2010s. In the last decade, Beijing had created the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was based on the organization of the five from Shanghai and brought together China, Russia and the Central Asian states. In the 2010s, the SCO became a way for China to challenge existing global norms, for example by selling its concept of a closed Internet controlled through governments, rather than an open global Internet.
Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Washington has at times accepted that Beijing increasingly supports global governance norms and establishments. In 2005, United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick publicly suggested China as a “responsible stakeholder” in the foreign system. The administration, on the other hand, has expressed greater fear over Chinese efforts to roll back existing rules and has rejected Beijing’s attempts to use foreign institutions to advertise Chinese foreign policies and systems such as the Belt and Road Initiative.
Under Jiang Zemin’s successor, Hu Jintao, China has more brazenly defied foreign norms. Beijing has claimed that its sovereignty over disputed areas in the South China Sea is a “fundamental interest” and “non-negotiable”, despite its participation in the negotiations. with other plaintiffs. Beijing has also expanded its presence in the South China Sea, building military installations on disputed islands and artificial zones. And it has extended its attendance around the world.
Since the early 2010s, as China’s economic and military strength has grown, so has its ambition and ability to reform the global governance formula to reflect Beijing’s priorities and values.
Some of the priorities Beijing promotes in global governance are defensive in nature and reflect long-standing Chinese goals: avoiding complaints about Chinese human rights practices, preventing Taiwan from assuming an independent role in foreign institutions, and protecting Beijing from commitments about its sovereignty. But China is now also trying to shape the global governance formula in a more offensive way, to advance its style of political and economic progression. This style of progression reflects a broad status over politics and society, as well as a combination of market-based practices and statism in key sectors of the economy.
Xi Jinping called for more shared global governance. He said China deserves to “lead the reform of the global governance formula with the concepts of fairness and justice. “The terms fairness and justice call for a more multipolar world, in which the United States could play a smaller role in setting foreign rules. The retreat of global leadership from the administration of Donald J. Trump has increased the opportunity for China to fill the vacuum and promote multipolar global governance.
China has gained influence in foreign organizations governed through Western countries. In June 2019, for example, Qu Dongyu, China’s vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, softly defeated the United States-backed candidate for director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Today, Chinese officials head four of the UN’s fifteen specialized agencies.
Beijing is also building its own China-centric institutions. In 2013, Beijing introduced the Belt and Road Initiative, a sweeping plan to use Chinese aid to fund infrastructure in and with other countries. Beijing’s more proactive global strategy serves the Xi administration’s dream of restoring China to its former glory.
China’s evolving strategy for global governance is evident in four main issues: global health, governance, climate change and development financing.
In some vital respects, China is at the forefront of global fitness governance at a critical time. Dangerous pathogens such as the new coronavirus are emerging around the world and non-communicable diseases are becoming more prevalent. Many poorer states do not have the budget to address serious health problems. China is stepping in to fill this gap. It cooperates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other groups and, over the past decade, has increased its physical assistance to emerging states. China is leading the global effort to eliminate malaria in East Africa. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, China introduced its largest-ever response to a foreign humanitarian crisis, contributing $123 million.
However, China is also pushing physical fitness governance in other revisionist instructions, instructions that may undermine global cooperation on public fitness. Beijing acts unilaterally and distributes aid in an opaque way, another technique of classic donors such as the United States. Instead of announcing aid projects and then publishing formal tenders, China asks potential beneficiaries to apply for support, without asking for formal proposals. The Chinese technique also emphasizes infrastructure, such as hospitals, but does little to promote transparency in recipient countries.
Beijing’s reactions to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak mirror this technique for global fitness governance. It first acted opaquely, concealing the scale of the crisis, and then used strict quarantine measures for the national outbreak. promoted its style of fighting COVID-19 and presented assistance to countries such as Iran, Italy and Spain. As the United States grapples with the outbreak, China’s technique (and assistance) has earned it applause from the WHO and some other states. But many countries remain furious at China for its lack of transparency at the start of the epidemic and the quality defects of some of its aid. Moreover, it remains unclear whether China’s aid and promotion of its COVID-19 style of reaction will stand up to other states’ considerations about how Beijing first dealt with the virus.
China seeks to become a leader in global Internet governance and promote the concept of “cyber sovereignty,” according to which a state deserves to operate on the Internet within its borders. In October 2017, Xi Jinping revealed his plan to turn China into a “cyber superpower. ” The country already has the largest number of Internet users in the world. Chinese corporations are also leading the race for patents and criteria for fifth generation of wireless communications (5G). Globally, Beijing is selling its national cyber superpower. -Sovereignty technique for Internet governance, which is based on censorship and the Communist Party. Xi’s administration is employing increasingly complex technology to dominate the domestic web and social media, blocking global search engines and social media sites and selling domestic versions.
China’s internal network offers a choice between existing models of freer web governance, and Beijing is also using its influence at the United Nations and other forums to pressure countries to adopt more closed networks. Meanwhile, Chinese corporations like Huawei and CloudWalk have provided the repressive governments of Venezuela and Zimbabwe with surveillance equipment as a generation of facial popularity. And the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) comprises a “Digital Silk Road” initiative that includes inviting foreign officials to participate in workshops on data generation policies, in addition to the Internet.
Over the last decade, China has moved from resisting to supporting foreign cooperation on climate change. For years, Beijing has been skeptical of multilateral approaches to climate replacement, fearing they could simply curb Chinese expansion. China has joined forces with Brazil and India to block a potential multilateral climate change deal in 2009. China’s staggering economic expansion and heavy reliance on coal have helped make it the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
Domestically, however, Beijing has begun to take steps to combat emissions, in addition to combating its own significant air pollution. China has reduced the role of fossil fuels in its energy mix and has the world’s largest investor in renewable energy.
China’s local activism has been accompanied by new activism on the global stage, where it has worked with existing foreign institutions and been a leader on climate change. In 2015, the United States joined forces with China to push through a strong, legally binding treaty that eventually became the Paris Agreement. Today, Beijing is seeking to salvage the deal while others, notably the United States, are backing down. However, foreign observers have criticized China for proceeding to export coal-fired power plants through the BRI, even as it has reduced its use in the country.
China has pursued unilateral and multilateral approaches to financing progress. The world faces an infrastructure financing gap. In response, China created two new institutions. In one case, Beijing operates by its own standards; in the other, it followed foreign aid standards.
China introduced the BRI in 2013. The initiative – a vision to deepen physical infrastructure, financial, political and security ties in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East – put Beijing in the position of shaping norms and rules of global aid. Infrastructure and logistics of the arsenal. As a component of this initiative, China announced loans of more than $460 billion for BRI projects. But the BIS’s lending practices do not align with those of other foreign banks and donor countries. Some foreign leaders and civil society groups have criticized BRI practices, accusing them of lacking transparency, failing to meet environmental and safety standards and causing recipient states to take on greater debt.
But in addition to the BRI, China also introduced the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015. The AIIB is a multilateral monetary establishment that invests in infrastructure projects and other productive sectors in Eurasia. Unlike the BIS, the AIIB sometimes follows foreign lending criteria and cooperates with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to finance projects.
In some vital respects, China is at the forefront of global fitness governance at a critical time. Dangerous pathogens such as the novel coronavirus are emerging around the world, and noncommunicable diseases are becoming more prevalent. Many poorer states do not have the budget to deal with serious health problems. China is stepping in to fill this gap. It cooperates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other groups and, over the past decade, has increased its physical assistance to emerging states. China is leading the global effort to eliminate malaria in East Africa. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, China introduced its largest ever response to a foreign humanitarian crisis, contributing $123 million.
However, China is also pushing fitness governance in other revisionist instructions, instructions that may simply undermine global public fitness cooperation. Beijing acts unilaterally and distributes aid in an opaque manner, a different technique from that of classic donors such as the United States. Instead of issuing aid projects and then issuing formal tenders, China asks potential beneficiaries to apply for its support, without soliciting formal proposals. China’s technique also focuses on infrastructure, such as hospitals, but does little to promote transparency in recipient countries.
Beijing’s responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak reflect this strategy for global fitness governance. First it acted opaquely, hiding the magnitude of the crisis, and then used strict quarantine measures in the face of the national outbreak. He promoted his style of fighting against COVID-19 and presented aid to countries such as Iran, Italy and Spain. As the United States grapples with the outbreak, China’s technique (and help) has earned it applause from the WHO and some other states. But many countries remain angry at China for its lack of transparency at the start of the epidemic and quality flaws in some of the aid it provided. Furthermore, it is unclear whether China’s aid and promotion of its style of fighting COVID-19 will stand up to other states’ considerations about how Beijing dealt with the virus in the first place.
China seeks to become a leader in global Internet governance and promote the concept of “cyber sovereignty,” according to which a state deserves to operate on the Internet within its borders. In October 2017, Xi Jinping revealed his plan to turn China into a “cyber superpower. ” The country already has the largest number of internet users in the world. Chinese corporations are also leading the race for patents and criteria for fifth-generation wireless (5G) communications. Globally, Beijing is selling its national cyber-superpower. -Sovereignty technique for Internet governance, which is based on censorship and the Communist Party. Xi’s administration is employing increasingly complex technology to dominate the web and domestic social media, blocking global search engines and social media sites and selling national versions.
China’s internal network offers a choice between existing models of freer web governance, and Beijing is also using its influence at the United Nations and other forums to pressure countries to adopt more closed networks. Meanwhile, Chinese corporations like Huawei and CloudWalk have provided the repressive governments of Venezuela and Zimbabwe with surveillance equipment as a generation of facial popularity. And the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) comprises a “Digital Silk Road” initiative that includes inviting foreign officials to participate in workshops on data generation policies, in addition to the Internet.
Over the past decade, China has moved from resisting foreign cooperation on climate change to supporting such cooperation. For years, Beijing has been skeptical of multilateral approaches to climate renewal, fearing they could curb Chinese expansion. China allied with Brazil and India to block a possible multilateral agreement on climate change in 2009. China’s rapid economic expansion and heavy dependence on coal have helped make it the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
At home, however, Beijing has begun to take steps to combat emissions, in addition to combating its own significant air pollution. China has reduced the role of fossil fuels in its power plant and has the world’s largest investor in renewable energy.
China’s local activism has been accompanied by new activism on the global stage, where it has worked with existing foreign institutions and been a leader on climate change. In 2015, the United States joined forces with China to push for a strong, legally binding treaty that ultimately became the Paris Agreement. Today, Beijing is seeking to save the deal as others, particularly the United States, are backtracking. However, foreign observers have criticized China for proceeding to export coal-fired power plants through the BRI, even as it has reduced their use at home.
China has pursued unilateral and multilateral approaches to development financing. The world faces a huge infrastructure investment gap. In response, China has created two new institutions. In one case, Beijing operates by its own standards; in the other, it has followed foreign aid standards.
China introduced the BRI in 2013. The initiative, a vision to deepen physical infrastructure, financial, political and security ties in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, has positioned Beijing to shape global norms and rules of aid, infrastructure and logistics. As a component of the initiative, China has announced loans of more than $460 billion for BRI projects. But BIS’s lending practices are not in line with those of other foreign banks and donor countries. Some foreign leaders and civil society outfits have criticized the BRI initiative. practices, accusing them of lacking transparency, failing to meet environmental and protection standards, and causing recipient states to incur large debts.
But in addition to the BRI, China also introduced the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015. The AIIB is a multilateral monetary establishment that invests in infrastructure projects and other productive sectors in Eurasia. Unlike the BIS, the AIIB sometimes tracks foreign loans. criteria and cooperates with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to finance projects.
Over the past two decades, China has regained much of its influence in the world, as Beijing moves toward its dream of restoring what it sees as its rightful prestige as a marvelous power. Beijing has strengthened its influence over global governance in particular, gaining influence in organizations while launching new assignments such as the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s growing involvement in global governance increases its foreign policy influence, is helping it exercise its comfortable power, and also promotes its domestic economic development.
In the future, if its economy continues to grow in the long run, China will set the terms of global governance more strongly. It will exert greater force within long-standing organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations and also in new institutions governed through China.
Beijing’s most assertive technique can take down the foreign system. China could simply take on more jobs abroad and pressure global governance institutions to better fulfill the wishes of emerging powers. This could facilitate foreign responses on the climate update in particular. And Beijing has shown, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that it can create a system that operates within existing global governance norms.
But China’s increasingly assertive presence can prove divisive, especially in spaces like progression finance, where Beijing’s technique may simply marginalize existing institutions. Such divisions may simply cripple collaboration in critical spaces of global governance. And while in some spaces, such as climate change, China does not seek to impose its own visions and models, in the spaces of human rights and web governance, Beijing seeks to publicize its own, more authoritarian criteria. In May 2020, Beijing passed a new law giving China broad powers to stifle dissent in Hong Kong, severely threatening the autonomy of the special administrative region. If China (and Russia) can identify criteria for internet governance, for example, they could pave the way for other countries to embrace cyber sovereignty, triggering a divided world with two internets: one open and the other closed and favored by autocracies.