China’s Xi Jinping, who has never missed a G20
summit since taking power in 2012 will not attend the years submit . Premier Li
Qiang, the country’s second-ranking leader, is expected to attend in Xi’s
place.
Xi’s expected no-show at the G20 could also signal
his disillusion with the existing global system of governance – and structures
he sees as too dominated by American influence. Instead, Xi may be prioritizing
multilateral forums that fit into
To some analysts, Xi’s absence may mark a shift in
how
Since its first leaders’ summit in 2008,
Since then, however, relations between the world’s
two largest economies have been fraught with rising tension and rivalry. Now, “
About half of the group’s members are US allies,
which the Biden administration has rallied to take a tougher stance in
countering
Divisions over the
“
Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor
at Renmin University, said the G20 has become a more “complicated and
challenging” stage for Chinese diplomacy compared with several years ago, as
the number of members friendly to China has dwindled.
Xi last attended the G20 summit in
Since then, a long line of foreign dignitaries have
knocked on Beijing’s door to meet Xi, including G20 leaders from Germany,
France, Brazil, Indonesia and the EU, as well as US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken.
All the while, Xi has only made two trips abroad
this year – and both are central to his attempt to reshape the global world
order.
In March, Xi traveled to
BRICS expansion is a big win for
The expansion, hailed as “historic” by Xi, is a
major victory for
Magnus, the expert at
In recent years, Xi has laid out his vision for a
new world order with the announcement of three global initiatives – the Global
Security Initiative (a new security architecture without alliances), the Global
Development Initiative (a new vehicle to fund economic growth) and the Global
Civilization Initiative (a new state-defined values system that is not subject
to bounds of universal values).
While broad and seemingly vague in substance,
“they’re designed as an umbrella under which countries can coalesce around a
narrative set by
Next month, the Chinese leader is expected to host
the Belt and Road Forum to mark the 10th anniversary of his global
infrastructure and trade initiative – a key element in Beijing’s new global
governance structure.
Magnus said initiatives like the Belt and Road,
BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – in which
“These entities exist as alternative structures to
the ones which
“It’s also sending a message to the rest of the
world – not just Global South countries but also wavering countries in the
liberal democracy world – that this is China’s pitch.”
The acronym BRIC, which did not initially include
South Africa, was coined in 2001 by then Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim
O'Neill in a research paper that underlined the growth potential of Brazil,
Russia, India and China.
The bloc was founded as an informal club in 2009 to
provide a platform for its members to challenge a world order dominated by the
The group is not a formal multilateral organisation
like the United Nations, World Bank or the Organisation of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC). The heads of state and government of the member
nations convene annually with each nation taking up a one-year rotating
chairmanship of the group.
.
South Africa, the smallest member in terms of
economic clout and population, was the first beneficiary of an expansion of the
bloc in 2010 when the grouping became known as BRICS.Together the countries
account for more than 40% of the world population and a quarter of the global
economy.
Apart from geopolitics, the group's focus includes
economic cooperation and increasing multilateral trade and development. The
bloc operates by consensus. All the BRICS countries are part of the Group of 20
(G20) of major economies.
Over 40 countries, including
They view BRICS as an alternative to global bodies
viewed as dominated by the traditional Western powers and hope membership will
unlock benefits including development finance, and increased trade and
investment.
Dissatisfaction with the global order among
developing nations was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic when life-saving
vaccines were hoarded by the rich countries.
Oil heavyweight
Update Sep 9 2023
James M. Dorsey (00:06):
Hi, and welcome to the Turbulent World with me, James
M. Dorsey, as your host.
It's a no-brainer to suggest that we live in an
increasingly polarised world. Geopolitics are polarised, so are societies.
Polarisation marks the transition from a unipolar world dominated by the
The polarisation is fueled by populism and
civilizationalism, led by men with little regard for international law or rules
of the game that would limit their freedom of action. To be fair, adherents of
the rule of law also ignore international law when convenient. The result is a
breakdown in conflict prevention mechanisms; the
(01:27):
Polarisation
is also driven by a clash between liberal and conservative values in which both
sides attempt to impose their definitions of all kinds of rights. Jason Pack,
my guest today, argues the coherent management of the world order has been
replaced by what he calls the Global Enduring Disorder. Jason suggests that
conventional geopolitical theories fail to explain a world in which many states
no longer rationally pursue their long-term interests. A Middle East expert
focused on Libya, Jason is the host of the Enduring Disorder Podcast out now with Goal Hanger Podcasts, a
senior analyst for emerging challenges at the NATO college in Rome, and the
author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder published in 2021 by Oxford University
Press.
Jason, welcome to the show
Jason Pack (02:36):
It's a pleasure to be back with you. James,
James M.
Dorsey (02:39):
Let's start with you telling us your story. What got
you interested in the
Jason Pack (02:51):
Yeah, that is an interesting way to start, but today,
looking at the world affairs and how our daily lives play out, it is, as you
say, a no-brainer that we live in a polarised and disordered world, and it's
such a no-brainer that you have a podcast called The Turbulent World, and I'm
going to have one called Enduring Disorder. It was not such a no-brainer when I
got into international affairs 20 or more years ago. In other words, it's been
a journey for me to come to realise that international actors were not
coordinating as they once did, and that we were not reaching optimal outcomes.
How I had this realisation has very much to do with how I ended up studying
(03:55):
But then we had the 9/11 in my senior year of
university, and I wasn't there. I was in
(04:59):
I ran a small trade association with members that no
one has ever heard of, like Conoco Phillips and Pepsi and Hess Oil, and that
was called the US Libya Business Association, and I had the idea at that time,
oh,
James M.
Dorsey (06:33):
Before we delve in greater depth into the enduring
disorder, let me come at you, for a moment, out of left field. We've known each
other for almost a decade, but I only recently realised that we share a passion
for backgammon and that you are a backgammon champion. You've written about
backgammon and geopolitics. What is the connection between the two?
Jason Pack (06:57):
Wow, thank you for that compliment. Always good to
have a little left field action. I also kind of found backgammon randomly when
I was living in
James M.
Dorsey (08:04):
I'd love to come back to that. I think that's a
fascinating question. But let's start off with, define for us what you mean
with a global enduring disorder. The implication is that great power rivalry is
not about creating a new world order, but about permanent disorder and
unbridled competition. Is that what you envision?
Jason Pack (08:27):
Not exactly, but you hit on some important points. If
I could push back against some traditional views that you might've referenced,
I do not think that we're moving from an American-led hegemony to a bipolar
struggle or cold war with
(09:38):
I think it's important to make a contrast between the
conflict with the Soviets and the conflict with Putin. So, when we in the West
had a conflict with the Soviets, Stalin, or Khrushchev, they had a fully formed
ideological and economic system. They want to export it to
(10:52):
He's exporting disorder, James. It's not a system, and
I think that that's critical. Putin wins by destabilising our elections and
destabilising our societies and stirring up racial tension by problematizing
Black Lives Matter or having vaccine conspiracies. He's not exporting a world
vision or world order. And I see Trump quite similarly and many other actors,
some such as international corporations. Facebook wins by selling ads and
YouTube and Twitter polarise us. They're not exporting a world order, and this
Global Enduring Disorder concept gets at the fact that this may be a novel way
of looking at global affairs, of many nodes who are not competing for order,
they're competing to disorder the world.
James M.
Dorsey (11:46):
In effect, you're describing a world without global
leadership. The question is how much of this is also a world encountering the
limitations of the nation-state in confronting global challenges and that at
the same time is challenged by leaders who think in civilizational rather than
national terms.
Jason Pack (12:07):
I think that's a part of it. The nation-state was able
to handle most problems that arose until the pre-World War I era because you
didn't have massive financial flows and the world was on the gold standard. We
didn't have to have international monetary policy and there was no such thing
as tax havens. Really, the line of change, of course was in the distant future.
So, today's problems are all global. The Chinese emit a lot of pollution, and
it affects someone in
James M.
Dorsey (13:04):
And to what degree is the global disorder or the
enduring disorder fueled by the lack of attractive governance models? Democracy
is in crisis. Western powers are hampered by hypocrisy and double standards and
marred by efforts to impose their values.
Jason Pack (13:31):
That's a key part of why western Democratic popular
votes go for what I call anti-politics. People didn't really want what Trump
was offering. They just weren't angry and wanted to vote against someone they
perceived as the global elite. A lot of Brexit voters didn't actually think
that Brexit would make
James M.
Dorsey (15:09):
Which leads me to my next question, which is crafting
a new world order is the preserve of elites with vested interests. You argue
that one essential ingredient in crafting that world order is grassroots
pressure. How would that work effectively, particularly in a world in which
popular revolts like the uprisings in the Middle East have failed to achieve
sustainable change, counter revolutionist, triumph, political rights are
curtailed and authoritarianism and adequacy are riding high?
Jason Pack (15:44):
James, there are lots of problems with grassroots
mobilisation, but I think it's the only chance that we have. We need both
bottom-up and top-down simultaneously. We need a better than Obama figure who
doesn't want to just solve things for the US but wants to work with Chile and
Taiwan and Mozambique and work on enforcing limits that will help climate change
and curb emissions. But then we needed bottom grassroots up, like those
extinction rebellion protests, but actually with concrete solutions that
corporations can get behind, whereby the youth have something that they want,
but it's pragmatic enough that they're going to get CEOs who are willing to
spend hundreds of millions of dollars to actually implement, whether it's the
green vision or new kinds of taxes on illicit funds and the problems that we
face are of a scope and scale that has never been faced in human history. And
when people say, oh, but we had World War II. World War II was a very, very
different kind of problem than this and didn't necessitate the kind of global
institutional challenges.
James M.
Dorsey (17:16):
The question is how do you get from A to B? I mean, I
fundamentally agree with you, but if we look at civil society, certainly civil
society in Western countries, as a matter of fact, many of the non-governmental
organisations we talk about are institutions with their own vested interests.
So the question is how do you get to a grassroots movement that genuinely is
capable of crafting something that is new and that is workable?
Jason Pack (17:52):
This is something we discuss on the Disorder podcast.
I got fed up of think tanks that publish articles about this problem, that
problem, and then you read the paper and it's this crisis. These people have no
solutions. I have many friends who have great podcasts with titles like Power
Corrupts and Doomsday Watch, and I realised these are amazing podcasts, but
where are the solutions? So, at my podcast, the Disorder podcast, we deal with
the problem each episode that might be tax havens, it might be the struggle for
global leadership, in other words, issues like what we're talking about. But
then at the end we have the ordering the disorder segment where the expert that
I have on the show that week proposes an actual solution, and it might be
something implementable like here's a tax that can whatever. Or you might be
surprised and think that the Russian oligarch should destabilise our elections
in this way and that way.
(18:50):
But actually if the EU, the
James M.
Dorsey (19:46):
We recorded a discussion when your book launched
roughly 18 months ago, at the time you talked about becoming a
Jason Pack (20:30):
I don't think that's completely fair. I want to just
say I don't think that I can change nearly anything, and having a title or a
fellowship is not necessarily the way to make change. I think having a podcast
and trying to get people behind an idea is much more likely to do that. So,
just with that as a preface, I do think that NATO can have a role to play other
than just collective defence against
James M.
Dorsey (22:12):
What is it that makes NATO a better functioning
organisation or structure than, for example, the EU? And to what degree is that
really replicable given the nature of NATO?
Jason Pack (22:29):
Fantastically worded question, I think that hits the
nail on the head. One, NATO is a better institution in many ways than the EU or
IMF or UN. Two, it may not be very easily replicable. Now, let me unpack why
that's the case. Here's a fascinating statistic that I think a lot of people
know intrinsically, but they don't know extrinsically. If you go into the 28 or
now 30 NATO member states and you ask them, do you or trust NATO or the
leadership or bureaucracy of your own state, in most cases, the populace of the
country says, of course, I trust NATO more than the Greek leadership or more
than the American leadership. And this is crazy. In the
(23:32):
That is unbelievably interesting because it doesn't
apply to the UN or the IMF, even though the American electorate also can't name
the UN or IMF leader at that time. But they have positive impressions, more
than their national leader, of NATO. So, this is extremely relevant to me
because it tells me that from
(24:57):
I spoke to Kurt Volcker this week for an episode
that's going to air on my show in November, and Kurt Volcker essentially said,
it's probably not replicable because we all agree on the fact that we don't
want to get blown up in a nuclear bomb strike. We don't necessarily all agree
that there even is climate change. We don't necessarily agree that there should
be any taxes and therefore even the most basic parts of the solution are
disagreed upon because one man's misinformation is another man's truth. Whereas
there's a very small constituency for I want to get blown up in a nuclear
attack, and therefore NATO addresses a threat which is more globally recognised
among Western democracies than these other threats. And these other threats of
misinformation or tax havens may be more divisive as threats. I don't think
that that needs to be the case. I think we don't want to live in a world where
the AI robots run wild or where deep fakes get to such a level that we can't tell
what's a speech that our actual political leader gave as opposed to the speech
that the political leader gave. And I think we can use lessons from how NATO
operates to create institutions that deal with those threats.
James M.
Dorsey (26:16):
Just for our listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, Kurt
Volcker was
Jason Pack (26:24):
He was the
James M.
Dorsey (26:40):
I want to come back to something that you said, early
on in the conversation, in which you talked about
Jason Pack (26:51):
Sure. I mean, I have a sense that in the 18th and 19th
centuries, the kind of classical days of gentlemanly diplomacy, the William
Pitts and Edmund Burkes, and then, later on, the Castlerays and Tallyrands and
Metternichs of the world understood game theory better than we do now that
we've invented game theory as a discipline and that we've gone wrong in how we
look at diplomacy. We train our diplomats by having them sit in the State
Department and read think tank papers. Maybe that's wrong.
James M.
Dorsey (27:29):
Let me interrupt you for a second. Tell us what game
theory is.
Jason Pack (27:34):
Sure. It's difficult to explain exactly what game
theory is, but in 1945, a group of economists, many of whom were central
European Jews who had fled to
(28:45):
So, these are game theory problems and game theory is
a science that economists have developed gradually from World War II to the
present. I'm making the contention that although we have more theoretical
understandings of game theory and more scholarly papers about it, our politics
and our politicians make choices which are very stupid and don't incorporate
basic game theory that people who've never studied game theory know anyway. And
that in the classical heyday of diplomacy, that 18th and 19th century era when
no one had ever heard of game theory, they made decisions that were much more
sophisticated and drew on the key principles of this theory beforehand. Now, if
we look at
(29:52):
But it turns out that giving Hitler the
(31:14):
And what did we do? Pretty much nothing. We made some
sanctions. We said, you are a really naughty boy Vlad. Vlad, you're going to
have to sit in your room. The oligarchs can't have all their bank accounts, but
then we let all the oligarchs have their bank accounts. So, we got this wrong
from a game theory perspective and Putin concluded the West will do nothing. I
can even take Kyiv and they'll do nothing. So, he actually also miscalculated
as a result of our miscalculations. We appeased him so much that he thought, I
can just go in and take Kyiv. They're never going to arm them, they're never
going to do anything. And I see this whole situation as entirely avoidable. We
could have deterred him in a million different ways and prevented this
situation.
James M.
Dorsey (32:05):
Put very simply, what you're really saying is that the
West should have stepped in at the first moment that Putin was taking these
kind of steps and breaking international law, and we should have halted it
right then and there rather than let this escalate.
Jason Pack (32:25):
I don't want just policy wonks who produce papers to
make my political decisions. I want people who know a little bit about game
theory and psychology and are game playing out this into the future. We made
decisions that made it more likely that we would have an international crisis
with Putin when in fact, if we had threatened him back or said, Vlad, if you do
this, we are going to respond by turning the lights out in St. Petersburg. I
don't think he would've done it, but we didn't say that.
James M.
Dorsey (33:04):
Again, going back to our discussion early last year,
but also at the beginning of this conversation, you saw
Jason Pack (33:37):
Exactly.
(34:43):
People have always died in earthquakes and floods, and
I can kind of accept that, but I can't accept that 10 million US dollars was
allocated in 2020 to fixing these dams, and that money was never spent. It
wasn't that the money was corrupted, it was that it was never spent due to
inefficiencies and the difficulties in processing Libyan letters of credit.
Then, when the rains were happening in southern
James M.
Dorsey (35:23):
The LNA being the Libyan National,
Jason Pack (35:25):
Excuse me. What was he told by the Libyan National
Army and the rogue General Khalifa Haftar, who essentially is an autocrat
controlling the eastern part of the country? He was told everyone should
shelter in place. We can't have the authority questioned by having people out
on the streets. So, that situation was avoidable, and that to me is the global
enduring disorder. It's in the best interest of everyone that these people
didn't die. It's in the best interest that the dams were repaired and the
people were evacuated. It's not like the Libyan National Army actually wanted
to kill the people. They didn't. It's not like some corrupt genius was like,
aha, I'm going to steal the money for the dam. It's just a constellation of
disordered factors leading to a suboptimal outcome, and that is exactly how I
see the international system.
James M.
Dorsey (36:24):
So, in your mind, what would it take or what would
potentially be the one thing that would start to get people thinking
differently?
Jason Pack (36:35):
Well, I know this is depressing, but I think it's
going to get worse before it gets better. And those of us who have podcasts
called things like The Turbulent World or Disorder or Doomsday Watch or Power
Corrupts, we're going to be in business for quite some time because, I think,
people need to get so fed up at the nation-state level that they stop voting
for neo-populists and nationalists and that they vote for internationalists and
institutionalists, but we don't even have that on the left. It's not like Biden
is running as an internationalist institutionalist. He's only running as an
anti-Trump. He says, I want to return to how
(37:48):
Hillary was maybe the best opportunity for win-win,
optimal, really thought through policy solutions, but she couldn't sell them to
the American people because she had no vision, and she had no way of explaining
why is this good for you. And we're just not there yet. We are not there as a
global society whereby Italians and Germans who are fleeing to the AfD, the
Alternative for Deutschland, or Georgio Maloney's, neo-populist, essentially
neo-fascist party in Italy, see that the Italy First and Germany First and
America First doesn't work. America First puts
.
The white paper, titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions," introduced the background for China to raise the concept of a global community of shared future as the world is undergoing changes on a scale unseen in a century with various problems posing unprecedented challenges for human society. The zero-sum game is doomed to fail, the white paper said. But certain countries still cling to this mindset, blindly pursuing absolute security and monopolistic advantages, which will do nothing for their development in the long run but create a major threat to the world.
It is increasingly obvious that the obsession with superior strength, and the zero-sum mentality are in conflict with the needs of our times, the white paper said, pointing out that the new era calls for new ideas.
To build a global community of shared future is to pursue openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefit, equity and justice, the white paper said. The goal is not to replace one system or civilization with another. Instead, it is about countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories, shared rights, and shared responsibilities in global affairs.
The vision of a global community of shared future stands on the right side of history and on the side of human progress. It introduces a new approach for international relations, provides new ideas for global governance, opens up new prospects for international exchanges and draws a new blueprint for a better world, according to the white paper.
Such important vision transcends outdated mindsets such as zero-sum game, power politics, and Cold War confrontations. It has become the overall goal of China's major-country diplomacy in the new era, and a great banner that leads the trend of the times and the direction of human progress.
The concept of a global community of shared future has deep roots in China's profound cultural heritage and its unique experience of modernization. It carries forward the diplomatic traditions of China and draws on the outstanding achievements of all other civilizations, the white paper said. It also manifests China's time-honored historical traditions, distinct characteristics of the times, and a wealth of humanistic values.
The white paper also pointed out the direction and plan to build a global community of shared future including pressing ahead with a new type of economic globalization in which countries need to pursue a policy of openness and explicitly oppose protectionism, the erection of fences and barriers, unilateral sanctions, and maximum-pressure tactics, so as to connect economies and jointly build an open world economy.
Some countries are seeking to decouple from China, enclosing themselves in "small yards, high fences," which will ultimately only backfire, the white paper said. Also, some people overstate the need to "reduce dependence" and "de-risk," which is essentially creating new risks.
The direction and the plan also include following a peaceful development plan, fostering a new type of international relations, practicing true multilateralism and promoting the common values of humanity.
Over the past decade, China has contributed its strength to building a global community of shared future with firm conviction and solid actions.
For instance, by July 2023, more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations had signed agreements on Belt and Road cooperation with China. The BRI originated in China but the opportunities and achievements it creates belong to the whole world. It's an initiative for economic cooperation, not for geopolitical or military alliances, and it's open and inclusive process that neither targets nor excludes any party, the white paper said.
Among those BRI projects, for example, the China-Laos Railway began operation on December 3, 2021, with 167 tunnels and 301 bridges built in 11 years along its total length of 1,035 kilometers. The railway construction created more than 110,000 local jobs, and helped build about 2,000 kilometers of roads and canals for villages along the railway, benefiting local people.
Besides the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative have evolved into a crucial cornerstone for building a global community of shared future, offering China's solutions to major challenges pertaining to peace and development for humanity.
Facing constant flare-ups of hotspot issues, China has been committed to fulfilling its role as a responsible major country, pushing for the resolution of international and regional flashpoints, such as the Korean Peninsula, Palestine, the Iranian nuclear issue, Syria and Afghanistan, the white paper said.
On the Ukraine issue, China has actively promoted talks for peace, put forth four points, four things that the international community should do together and three observations, and released China's position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis and has dispatched the special representative of the Chinese government on Eurasian affairs to engage in extensive interactions and exchanges with stakeholders on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.
Also, through the mediation of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran achieve historic reconciliation earlier this year, setting a fine example for countries in the region to resolve disputes and differences and achieve good neighborly relations through dialogue and consultation, and catalyzing a wave of reconciliation in the Middle East.
China has also proposed a range of regional and bilateral initiatives on building communities of shared future and working with stakeholders to build consensus and expand cooperation, there by playing a constructive role in promoting regional peace and development. It also boosts international cooperation in fields including fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing disorder in cyberspace governance and dealing with the global climate challenge.
Over the past decade, the vision of a global community of shared future has gained broader support. More countries and people have come to the understanding that this vision serves the common interests of humanity, represents popular calls for peace, justice and progress, and can create the greatest synergy among all nations for building a better world, the white paper said.
“Changes of the world, of our times, and of historical
significance are unfolding like never before,” Xi told his audience at the Belt
and Road Forum.
Xi’s vision — though cloaked in abstract language — encapsulates the Chinese Communist Party’s emerging push to reshape an international system it sees as unfairly stacked in favor of the United States and its allies.
Viewed as a rival by those countries as its grows increasingly assertive and authoritarian, Beijing has come to believe that now is the time to shift that system and the global balance of power to ensure China’s rise — and reject efforts to counter it.
In recent months,
For many observers, this campaign has raised concern that a
world modeled on
But
All this coincides with longstanding calls from countries across the developing world for an international system where they have more say.
Many of those countries have substantially enhanced their
economic ties with
It remains to be seen how many would welcome a future that hews to China’s worldview — but Xi’s clear push to amplify his message amid a period of unrelenting tensions with the Washington elevates the stakes of the US-China rivalry.
And as the procession of world leaders who have visited
Chinese President Xi Jinping poses for a group photo with
distinguished guests attending the third Belt and Road Forum for International
Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in
A more than 13,000-word policy document released by Beijing in September outlines China’s vision for global governance and identifies what it sees as the source of current global challenges: “Some countries’ hegemonic, abusive, and aggressive actions against others … are causing great harm” and putting global security and development at risk, it reads.
Under Xi’s “global community of shared future,” the document says, economic development and stability are prioritized as countries treat each other as equals to work together for “common prosperity.”
In that future, they’d also be free of “bloc politics,” ideological competition and military alliances, and of being held responsible for upholding “‘universal values’ “defined by a handful of Western countries,” the document says.
“What the Chinese are saying … is ‘live and let live,’ you may not like Russian domestic politics, you might not like the Chinese political regime — but if you want security, you will have to give them the space to survive and thrive as well,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, his French counterpart Emmanuel
Macron and European Commission President Ursula von de Leyen meet in
World leaders are lining up to meet Xi Jinping. Should the
This vision is woven through three new “global initiatives” announced by Xi over the past two years focusing on development, security and civilization.
The initiatives echo some of
But together, analysts say, they present a case that a US-led system is no longer suited for the current era — and signal a concerted push to reshape the post-World War II order championed by it and other Western democracies.
That current international framework was designed to ensure, in theory at least, that even as governments have sovereignty over their countries, they also share rules and principles to ensure peace and uphold basic political and human rights for their populations.
Just over two decades later,
The
This has driven
The
In response, Xi has ramped up longstanding efforts to undercut the concept of universal human rights.
“Different civilizations” had their own perceptions of
shared human “values,” Xi told leaders of political parties and organizations
from some 150 countries earlier this year as he launched China’s “Global
Civilization Initiative.” Countries wouldn’t “impose their own values or models
on others” if
This builds on Beijing’s argument that governments’ efforts to improve their people’s economic status equates to upholding their human rights, even if those people have no freedom to speak out against their rulers.
It also links to what observers say is growing confidence among Chinese leaders in their governance model, which they see as having played a genuinely positive role to foster economic growth globally and reduce poverty — in contrast to a US that has waged wars, sparked a major global financial crisis and faces fraught politics at home.
“All this makes
“(
Who’s listening?
For strongmen leaders and autocratic governments, Xi’s vision has obvious appeal.
While Russia’s Putin, accused of war crimes and continuing his brutal invasion of neighboring Ukraine, and Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders are shunned in the West, both were welcomed to Xi’s table of nations in Beijing last month.
Just weeks earlier, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad — who
has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people — was feted
at the Asian Games in
A headline in the state-run Global Times portrayed Assad’s visit as one from the leader of a “war-torn country respected in China amid Western isolation” — providing a glimpse into the through-the-looking glass scenarios that could become the norm if Xi’s world view gains traction.
But Beijing’s broader argument, which implies that a handful of wealthy, Western countries hold too much global power — resonates with a wider set of governments than just those at loggerheads with the West.
Those concerns have come into sharper focus in recent weeks
as global attention has focused on
In recent years, even some countries that have for decades
embraced a close partnership with the
“
But there are also many governments that also remain wary of
its politics and ambitions, or of appearing to side with
“We’ve kept our relationship with all nations open,” Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told CNN on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum last month, where he delivered a speech calling for more green energy investment in his country under the China-led initiative.
“We relate to the West, we relate to the East … We maintain a straight line, we don’t compromise our friendship with all people,” he said.
And while others may be ready to back
“China can count on Brazil day and night to say that multilateralism is important, and we have to revisit global governance … however, there’s a very important ‘but,’” according to Rubens Duarte, coordinator of LABMUNDO, a Brazil-based research center for international relations.
He points to questions circulating within some countries, like Brazil, about why China is now championing concepts promoted in the Global South for 70 years — and claiming them as its own.
“Is
Expanding ambitions
For decades,
It was in this vein that Xi launched his flagship Belt and Road financing drive in 2013, drawing dozens of borrowing nations closer to Beijing and expanding China’s international footprint a year after he became leader with the pledge to “rejuvenate” the Chinese nation to a place of global power and respect.
“
But as
The war in
This “served as a wake-up call to the Chinese that the great power competition with the United States, ultimately, is about (winning over) the rest of the world,” said Sun from the Stimson Center in Washington.
Then, faced with mounting pressure from the West to condemn
Two months after Russian troops poured into
It was an apparent reference not to the Russian aggressor,
but to NATO, which both
Xi’s words were far from new for Beijing, but Chinese diplomats in the following months ramped up their promotion of that rhetoric, for example calling on their counterparts in Europe’s capitals, as well as the US and Russia, to build a “sustainable European security architecture,” to address the “security deficit behind the (Ukraine) crisis.”
The rhetoric appeared to catch on, with Brazilian President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva days after returning from a state visit to
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir
Putin shake hands after signing joint statement during Xi's state visit to
This gets to the heart of
Rather, it looks to cast doubt on that system, while projecting its own, albeit vague, vision for countries ensuring peace through dialogue and “common interests” — a phrasing that again pushes back against the idea that countries should oppose one another based on political differences.
‘“If a country … is obsessed with suppressing others with different opinions it will surely cause conflicts and wars in the world,” senior military official Gen. Zhang Youxia told delegations from more than 90 countries attending a Beijing-led security forum in the capital last month.
But Xi’s rhetoric falls flat for many countries that see
Speaking to CNN in September, Philippine Defense Secretary
Gilberto Teodoro Jr. accused
“If we don’t (push back),
Alternative architecture
Bolstering those groups — and positioning them as alternative international organizations to those of the West — has also emerged as a key part of Xi’s strategy to reshape global power, experts say.
This summer both the
Countries should “reform global governance” and stop others from “ganging up to form exclusive groups and packaging their own rules as international norms,” Xi told leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa after they invited Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join BRICS — the group’s first expansion since 2010.
Weeks later, he appeared to underline his preference for his own alternative architecture — skipping out on the Group of 20 summit hosted by New Delhi, where US President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders were in attendance.
But besides the splashy, high-profile events on China’s diplomatic calendar, officials are also broadcasting China’s vision and pitching its new initiatives throughout ministerial or lower-level regional dialogues with counterparts from Southeast Asia to Latin America and the Caribbean — as well as topical forums on security, culture and development with international scholars and think tanks, official documents show.
So far, China has appeared to have little trouble getting dozens of countries to at least cursorily back aspects of its vision — even if it’s typically not clear who all these supporters are or whether their backing comes with any tangible commitment.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L), China's President Xi
Jinping (2nd L), Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro (C), South Africa's
President Cyril Ramaphosa (2nd R),India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) pose
for a family picture during the 11th BRICS Summit on November 14, 2019 in
Brasilia, Brazil. -
According to
This chimes with
But in addition to how much tangible support
There is a broad gap between
For now, experts say,
Success doing that could have implications for how the world responds to any potential future move it could take to gain control of Taiwan — the self-ruled, democratic island the Communist Party claims.
But
They also raise questions about how a more militarily and
economically powerful
“There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will
inevitably seek hegemony,”
Then, in an apparent reference to its own belief, or hope,
for the trajectory of the
Ever since
A summit in
And while Western leaders have talked about decoupling or
de-risking economic ties with
Long gone are the days when
In a speech at a United Nations conference held to mark the 50-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s joining the UN, Xi addressed China’s diplomatic rise and spoke of Beijing’s commitment to a world order defined by the pursuit of peace, democracy and human rights as well as the rejection of unilateralism, foreign interference and power politics.
In mid-March, at a so-called dialogue meeting between global
political parties in
In his keynote speech, Xi introduced the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) as a way of formalising these principles with the added purpose of encouraging countries to “fully harness the relevance of their histories and cultures” and “appreciate the perceptions of values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others”.
With the previously proposed Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI), the GCI appears to encapsulate – although in amorphous terms – much of the Chinese president’s overall vision for a new international order.
Yao Yuan Yeh teaches Chinese Studies at the
“It would be a world order that does not constrain communist
An alternative narrative
The purpose of the dialogue meeting in March was, to some
extent, to act as a Chinese counterpart to the
While leaders from
The Chinese leadership and state media portrayed the CCP’s
dialogue meeting as part of
Advertisement
The Chinese government’s willingness to engage with a variety of world actors has indeed been on display in recent months.
A view of the hall for the forum titled Chinese Modernization and the World. There are two large screens showing a formal portrait of Xi Jinping
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reads a letter from Xi Jinping at the Chinese Modernization and the World Forum in Shanghai in April [File: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]
Chinese diplomacy played a role in the rapprochement between
In April, Xi held a phone call with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and, last month, his envoy attempted to build support for a
Beijing-led plan to end
Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Beijing-based
Center for
“It is less defined by shared values and more defined by a shared future,” he told Al Jazeera.
That means that while Western countries sometimes condition
interactions and cooperation on adherence to a set of values,
The policy largely follows a CCP conviction that development and prosperity do not have to lead to adopting these – so-called Western – values. The Chinese leadership has frequently criticised “certain countries” for supposedly imposing their principles onto others and lacking respect for the ways non-Western nations with different cultures and traditions run their affairs.
“I don’t see a change in the world order being a case of a new boss simply replacing the old boss.”
Reconfiguring the existing world order
Although the Chinese leadership regularly opposes the
imposition of Western values, this does not mean
Using
“They see these values as more relative terms and have in their own view provided a more inclusive definition of them with freedom from hunger and freedom from fear for your life being seen as examples of more basic human rights,” Mok said.
The modern understanding of human rights can be traced back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which details a set of basic rights and freedoms seen as inherent, inalienable and applicable to all people.
Adopted in the early years of the UN, the rights were
enshrined into the foundation of the international system. Since then, more
than 70 human rights treaties have sprouted from the UDHR, many of which have
been signed and ratified by
Trying to reinterpret the language on human rights and
democracy is therefore not something to be taken lightly, according to Elaine
Pearson, the director of the
“It is not up to individual states to redefine human rights as they like,” Pearson told Al Jazeera.
“Totalitarian
HRW warned in 2020 that
Its efforts come at a time when international NGOs and UN
bodies have expressed deep concern about the violation of basic freedoms and
rights in
When a UN report was released last year detailing possible
“crimes against humanity” by the Chinese state against the mostly Muslim
Uighurs in the far western Xinjiang region, Beijing responded with a report of
its own. It accused alleged anti-China forces in the
A vote in October at the UN’s Human Rights Council to debate the issue, however, was narrowly defeated.
Following the vote, human rights group Amnesty International accused the council of failing to uphold its core mission: protecting the victims of human rights violations everywhere.
“The Chinese government has gained more global influence in recent years and has been able to turn that influence into a greater sway at established international institutions,” Liselotte Odgaard, a professor of China Relations at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told Al Jazeera.
Additionally,
Could BRICS challenge
Besides developing a greater say in traditional global
institutions,
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS New
Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the
Silk Road Fund have all been spearheaded by
But they should not necessarily be seen as an attempt by
As UN cases show,
“We are seeing
Pursuing the Chinese Dream
The ultimate goal is achieving the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation also known as the Chinese Dream – a vision closely associated with President Xi since his early days in office.
The Chinese Dream represents
This includes developing
This includes disputed territory along the land border with
India and Bhutan, the Senkaku islands (that China calls Diaoyudao) administered
by Japan in the East China Sea as well as most of the
Above all else, however,
When the Chinese military conducts large-scale exercises
around
On the world stage, the Chinese government has repeatedly condemned violations of national sovereignty, foreign interference in other nations’ affairs and the unilateral use of economic sanctions.
But at the same time, it reserves the right to look past international rulings that go against it – such as the 2016 international court ruling that its historic claim to the South China Sea had “no legal basis” – and take action against those perceived to stand between Beijing and its path towards national rejuvenation.
When
In
Previous Canadian intelligence leaks have led to allegations
that
Chinese diplomatic staff have also been accused of election
interference in
In all these cases, Chinese officials have denied engaging
in any sort of tampering, claiming instead that forces with “hidden agendas”
were “fabricating lies” to “smear”
As Xi allegedly told US President Biden regarding US
engagement with
No comments:
Post a Comment