New Development in Global Politics and Rethinking on China’s Multilateral Diplomacy
2010/07/01
abstract
Since the new China was founded sixty years ago and particularly over the past thirty years, multilateral diplomacy has provided a broad arena for improving our diplomatic capabilities and national image, enhanced our skill in dealing with international hot-spot issues, and is growing into an institutional platform for China’s constructive participation in the transformation of the international system. The present new historical epoch sees a widening gap between new developments in global politics and the capacity of global governance, escalating frictions between the reality of uneven development in international multilateral mechanisms and increasing demands for a global, participatory, and collaborative system of governance, and continually rising outcries for the reform of international multilateral mechanisms. At the same time, as China’s involvement in the international system reform activities deepens, it faces constantly changing external pressures challenging its position on and role in multilateral diplomacy. China, while sticking to its principle of keeping a low profile, needs to become more proactive and set for itself a higher goal of achievement, to contribute more efforts to the planning and building of both regional and global mechanisms conducive to defending and expanding China’s national interests, and to steer the international order toward a more just, democratic and rational direction. China’s multilateral diplomacy needs to constantly renew its substance, update its strategy, and come up with new policy plans.
I. The Increasing “Capacity Deficit” of Global Governance
At the present-day, new development in global politics has three impacts on the overall structure of the international relations. One is that many important global issues concerning the survival of humanity have moved up in the political prioritization of many countries. Concepts like cooperation, coordination and common progress have advanced into the policy and strategy arena. However, the other side of the picture is that global governance mechanisms, in the meantime, face an increasing problem of “capacity deficit.”
The critical global challenges facing the human race did not only appear yesterday. For example, the cold war era was shrouded in the overcast of nuclear confrontation and the menace of nuclear destruction, and the 1970s have brought up environmental and sustainable development issues to the horizon. However, since our entrance into the new century, not only the existing international system but also the environment and conditions of human existence are faced with serious dangers of devastation and even annihilation. These dangers result from a range of factors including the links between the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the spread of extremist and terrorist acts globally, the massive humanitarian crises and regional instabilities caused by the lack of de facto sovereign power of the marginalized countries, accelerating climate change and its disastrous consequences for the environment, and the capricious international financial system and the uneven development of the global economy. The new agenda of international relations requires members of the international society, especially those situated at the center of this community, to pay closer attention to the “generational factor,” meaning it is necessary to adopt a strategic consciousness that goes beyond its preoccupation with the “current development issues” and has a “future-oriented” vision.[①] As a result, the idea of cooperation, especially where it advocates more space for coordination and collaboration, cooperation and win-wins, and cooperative governance among major powers, is becoming more appealing and lively in the arrangements of the international system.
Under the impact of globalization and with the onset of global issues concerning the entire humane existence, the existing multilateral international governance mechanisms are plagued by a severe imbalance in adequacy and efficacy. The goals, functions and conceptions originating from the times of foundation of many current international institutions are no longer adaptable to the full pace of globalization and the problems created by such a leap, the result of which is the inability of the current international institutional frameworks to provide adequate solutions to the problems created by globalization. For example, the United Nations, born after WWII in response to the need to manage global politics and security, was founded on the Yalta system and addressed traditional conflicts among the states through the consensus of major powers. Today, 60 years after its inception, the U.N. is facing a fundamental change in the kind of international security threats it is supposed to manage, as the previous focus on traditional security issues in an inter-state system has now extended to include “big security” issues such as those that concern the development and subsistence of the entire humanity. The problem is that the U.N. system and institutions are not keeping pace in reform with the shift of the focus to the “big security” picture.[②] In the arena of international economy, the Breton Woods-dominated international financial system also faces the challenge of failing sufficiency. The 1997 financial crisis across East Asia is a showcase of the lack of precautionary principles, preemptive measures, crisis management skills, and coordination in the global financial system. The same issues revealed again in the 2008 U.S.-originated global financial crisis, which exposes the serious incompetence of the existing international financial mechanisms in monitoring the globalizing financial market, fighting the financial crisis on an international scale, and responding to a world economy in recession. [③]
Inefficacy is also becoming a more salient problem, and it first has to do with the disjoint between the actual capacity of global multilateral mechanisms and the objective needs projected by globalization. For instance, the U.N.-led collective multilateral actions on security, economic and social issues have long been plagued by problems of low efficiency, slow response, unclear authorization, lack of authority, and meager resources.[④] The Breton Woods institutions and their current arrangements and operating mechanisms, which actually are inherited from the post-war liberalization, provide another example. Their complete dependence on the market to adjust the disequilibrium in the international balance of payments and the short-term aid policy of the International Monetary Fund are not compatible with the requirements of economic globalization. The problem with the international development aid mechanisms, of which the World Bank is a leading agency, rests in their lack of regulation and political neutrality that have often been the causes of compromised outcomes in aid operations administrated by aid institutions. The problem of inefficacy is also generally related to the relationship between the sources of power for sovereign states and international institutions. At present, there are two significant issues to the inefficacy problem. One is the tendency of hegemonic states to “privatize” international institutions and their selective support for institutions that are conducive to the expansion of their interests. In the latter case, hegemonic states often force other states to participate. When the institutions and norms are not friendly to their rights and interests or even pose obstacles to their national interests, these hegemonic states often resort to unilateral action and, by doing so, render international institutions invalid. [⑤] Another issue arises when the international society fails to intervene collectively through decent, legitimate mechanisms or provide effective aid in situations of massive humanitarian disasters of real or hidden significant menaces to regional and even global stability, often a result of the serious inability of some sovereign states to exercise sufficient de facto sovereign power.[⑥]
The other two developments with overall impact on global politics are the shift of power center from transatlantic nations (the U.S. and Europe) to other regions and the global spread of “political energy/euphoria,” which, indeed, has intensified the insufficiency of the current international governance mechanisms, especially with regard to their claims to legitimacy.
The series of military, diplomatic and strategic missteps committed by the U.S. in the wake of the September 11 event, and particularly the U.S.-originated financial crisis and economic recession, has wreaked damage to the economic development institutions, the international leadership, and even the national image of the U.S., impairing its governance and ruling capacity in global affairs. The rise of the emerging power bloc, with China as the representative case, is transforming the international power structure, activating quantitative changes in big power relations, precipitating the trend toward multipolarization, and bringing more clarity to the multipolar pattern. In future rivalry, different types of big powers will become more invested in building international system, cooperating and competing over global issues, and vie for the power to shape the discourses on the model of future development and global political issues.
The global political euphoria is not a new phenomenon, but breakthroughs in modern communication technology has had an accelerating effect on the scope and depth of this development, giving rise to increased interactions globally between different political, religious and ethnic identity groups who now join hands in their protest against what are seen as the “unfair” and “unjust” status quo of human society. Some protests are articulated in a relatively peaceful and moderate manner, such as the contest over global economical, political, security, cultural and environmental issues between the global civil society and sovereign national governments; some protests take a more extreme and violent approach, with the various species of international terrorism as an example. In sum, the rising sensitivity to “inequality” on a global scale has also obliged the international society to put more stress on the importance of respecting multiculturalism and advocating reconciliation and harmonious coexistence between diverse cultures. [⑦]
The shift of the international power center and the global spread of “political euphoria” roused more questions by the people about the legitimacy of international multilateral governance mechanisms. Inadequate representation reflected in the decision-making processes and the content of their outcomes is the center of challenge against the legitimacy of multilateral governance mechanisms. Inadequacy in representation leads to questions about legitimacy. The legitimacy deficit varies in severity across different international institutions, and it also takes different forms. Within the U.N. framework, legitimacy is an uneven issue with manifold manifestations. One form of legitimacy dispute arises when the member states and major powers with more contribution and greater capacity express discontent with the “lack of equity” of the “one country one vote” rule in decision-making[⑧]; another legitimacy crisis which has caused significant international concern is related to the attempts by hegemonic and unilateral powers, with the U.S. as the most salient example, to bypass the collective resolution of the U.N. Security Council (such as in the war waged against Iraq in 2003) or to marginalize the role of the U.N. by fostering instead the “Alliance of the Willing” (such as in the case of the U.S. war against terrorism and of the U.S. post-war reconstruction policies in both Afghanistan and Iraq). In addition, the issue of uneven legitimacy within the U.N. framework is also reflected by the widespread discontent with “inadequate representation” in U.N. Security Council reform procedures and during the establishment of the Human Rights Council. In particular, many developing countries’ demand for more power in the decision-making process of the Security Council has made legitimacy one of the most disputed issues about the institutional reforms of U.N. agencies. The same lack of sufficient legitimacy is also manifested profoundly in the international multilateral financial agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, and centers on the disproportion between the voting power of the emerging economies and their actual status within and contributions to the international financial system.
The uneven development of legitimacy is also caused by different perspectives taken by different members of the international society on the operating norms of international mechanisms in the context of globalization. For example, U.N. members diverge significantly in their opinion over issues ranging from “non-interference in domestic politics” and “sovereign responsibility” to the “use of force and preemptive strikes in the fight against terrorism” and “how to define terrorism.” With globalization and the development of a prospering global civil society, civil society organizations have articulated a stronger demand to participate in international multilateral mechanism, while, at the same time, also demonstrating improved capabilities and increasing importance. This phenomenon accentuates the legitimacy issue of international multilateral mechanisms still following the traditional state-centered structure, raising questions about whether such national interests-dominated multilateral mechanisms are able to represent the interests of the global civil society, especially the interests of those vulnerable domestic groups on the margin of power within every country. The complexity and plurality of the interests articulated by the civil society from the global bottom-up have begun to weaken the legitimacy foundation of the traditional multilateral mechanisms. [⑨]
In sum, new global political developments and the emerging need for global collaborative governance not only set the direction for the future evolution of international multilateral mechanisms, they are also a source of constant supplies of new energy and motivation to the next round of international multilateral reforms.
II. The Rising Challenge of “China’s Leadership” and “International Responsibility”
The rapid growth of China’s comprehensive national power as a result of 30 years of opening-up and reform policy and China’s extensive participation in various multilateral mechanisms of the current international system have made significant changes to China’s role in the international society. In the meantime, how China will identify and position itself across a spectrum of miscellaneous international multilateral mechanisms, what role it is going to play, and what kind of international public goods China can offer have already drawn intense attention from both domestic and foreign observers. “China’s leadership” and “China’s responsibility” continue to be discussed as popular international topics.[⑩] How to balance its international responsibility with its need to develop strategic relations is putting China’s multilateral diplomacy to a new test.
First, with regard to what constitutes China’s international responsibility, the domestic and the international community share quite limited consensus. They also have different expectations for and needs of China’s influence and part in international multilateral mechanisms, the balance of which is an increased challenge to China. In addition, China is still forming its own identity, standpoint on interests, and strategy with regard to the international system and multilateral mechanisms, a fact that has added more difficulty to our attempts to strike a balance between international responsibility and development of strategic relations. [11]
International responsibility is the cost assumed by members of international society in running and maintaining a regular international system. It coordinates rights and obligations as a unity. The U.S. and other developed countries in the West, to keep their dominant position within the current system, have become more evading of international responsibility and more in favor of a transferring approach to responsibility. On the one hand, they are trying to get away from their responsibility for the history of Western colonization and aggression; on the other hand, they are demanding developing countries to share more international responsibility with developed countries in addressing climate change, protecting the environment, stabilizing the currency, balancing the trade, etc. At the same time, developing countries, especially the emerging powers among them, have also become more active in adopting and claiming international responsibility. In general, the collective rise of non-Western powers is picking up pace, while the U.S.-led Western powers are losing their ability to control the international system, which, as a result, pushes Western powers to transition from “exclusive leadership” to “collaborative leadership”, put more emphasis on “multi-partner cooperation,” enhance the inclusiveness and openness of their institutions, circumscribe the emerging powers with norms, and maintain their leading position through regime-making activities for the next generation of multilateral mechanisms. [12] At present, the hotly debated issue of “China’s international responsibility” recapitulates the power struggles within the international system and its continued evolution.
In the meantime, the international society holds divergent demands and expectations for “China’s responsibility.” The U.S. hopes that China will share the costs entailed by U.S. hegemonic governance; Europe wants China to strengthen cooperation with the European Union on development, human rights, energy and environment issues in Africa. However, both require China to emulate the model of Western democracy and rule of law in China’s domestic politics. Many developing countries expect China to defend their rights and interests in the innovation and reform process of international multilateral mechanisms. There is also a considerable gap in the demands between the emerging powers and the weak and poor states for China’s responsibility among developing countries. India, Brazil, South Africa and some other countries, on the one hand, urged China to take a clear stand to support their quests for the permanent member state seat in the U.N. Security Council; on the other hand, they showed disappointment and displeasure toward the decision of the International Monetary Fund to increase the voting power of a few selected countries, including China. China’s accumulation of more rights and obligations is bound to invite higher demands on China’s balancing efforts in relations to other developing countries. Some developing countries, to promote their own interests, have either made deliberate exaggerations about China’s international influence and responsibility or questioned China’s identity as a developing country. All of these issues have added to the difficulty of China’s bid to balance the interests of different parties in the reform and establishment of international multilateral responsibility.
Second, the rise of the call for “China’s international responsibility” is an outcome of the mutual effects of external pressures and internal needs, and it puts to serious test the policy planning and implementation abilities of the Chinese government to coordinate both the domestic and international situation. International discussion of China’s responsibility is a direct response to China’s rising status and power within the international system, and also the fact that China exercises a strategic role in maintaining the stability of the current system. The relations between China’s and the world economy provide an example here. In recent years, the breakneck speed of China’s economic growth has made China one of the locomotives driving the global economic growth, a fact that is simultaneously reflected in China’s emergence to be the globe’s fastest growing importer of energy and raw materials, largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and increasingly highlighted friction point of trade disputes with many countries because of China’s over-reliance on exportation-oriented economy. Whether China is able to sustain its development will have a blunt impact on the stable growth of global economy, the improvement of global ecological environment, and the health of China’s relations with external economies in the world. Since the mid-1980s, China’s economic growth has apparently outpaced its reform of social systems, magnifying the disharmonious factors on the at home.[13] China has entered a critical stage of reform and development. As for China’s GDP per capita, our economic growth falls right within the critical range going from 1000 to 3000 dollars. Based on international experience, this is a stage of golden opportunity for development as well as a period where problems will stand out. With the China’s ever growing industrialization, urbanization, and economic structural adjustment, the problem of uneven development becomes more salient, social interests become more plural, and frictions and problems of all breeds are bound to surface in the near future.[14] Regarding the issue of China’s economic development, to accelerate the pace of transforming China’s development course and its economic structural adjustment is the major goals directing the future trajectory of economic development within the broad context of world economic crisis.[15] This trajectory is shaped by the mutual effects of the status quo in world’s economic development and of China’s needs of self-development. It is also an important “responsibility” on China’s part toward the objective of maintaining the global economic system on a path of healthy and stable development, a responsibility that constantly raises new requirements to and mounts new pressure on China’s ability to self-reform and evolve its mechanisms, law and institutions as a transitioning country.
Third, the pluralizing and decentralizing trend of international actors in international system increases the difficulty of living up to “Chinese responsibility.” Globalization has brought to the arena of international relations a diverse and disparate set of politically and economically dynamic actors. Governments, enterprises and non-governmental organizations all have become important participants in global political and economic activities. Responsibility-bearing actors include agents active on both the macro (e.g. government) and the micro (e.g. businesses) levels. Since these two types of agents operate by different rules and conditions, responsibility is also defined differently, with responsibility compartmentalization and, sometimes, an ambivalent sense of responsibility sharing a troublesome result. However, the adoption of China’s responsibility is a common task involving both these actors who not only relate to but also answer to each other on this goal. From the perspective of the Chinese government, “responsible state” is a rich concept defined at its core by a state’s willingness to share opportunities for development and to undertake all manner of challenges with other states with the goal of promoting peace and development for humanity. In the arena of world economics, China exercises responsibility as a promoter of collaboration supplying mutual needs and offsetting mutual lacks, a stimulating force to regional and world development by developing itself and expanding common interests with different parties in the meantime, and a considerate partner who, while focused on achieving development for itself, does not forget to look after other partners’ proper concerns, especially those from developing countries. At the same time, in terms of improving and facilitating institutional building of international multilateral economic mechanisms, China should continue to follow the current international rules of expanding market entry, providing legal protection for collaborators’ rights and interests, amending international trade and financial institutions, further liberalizing and facilitating trade and investment, and managing trade conflicts through mediation and cooperation.[16] Take Chinese enterprises as an example, they are not only the major agents of China’s opening-up strategy, but also the major owners of the “mutually beneficial and win-win strategy for opening up” in the new Chinese era and the bearers of the important task of defending China’s overseas national image on China’s strategic agenda of “going out”. On the other hand, globalization brings more non-profit making social responsibilities to enterprises, an increasing number of which have become involved in cooperation and alliance with both governmental and non-governmental organizations to contribute to common social progress. All these new developments and changes mentioned above require Chinese enterprises to modify their business strategy, incorporate more social objectives into its accounting system, acquire a deeper understanding of the close connection between business and social goals, and achieve the integration of “strong enterprises” and “good enterprises.” However, examination of either their management systems or their management principles shows that Chinese enterprises are still in the transition stage of modernization and have also just begun to make foreign investments, suggesting significant distance and obstacles between the reality of Chinese enterprises and their social objectives. Some research points out that, due to Western companies’ early arrivals, many programs in which Chinese businesses are participating find themselves mired in developing countries with little stability in political system, minimum reliability in means of implementation, and scarce access to environmental and labor laws, all factors associated with an aggravating impact on the political, social and environmental risks for the foreign investments of Chinese businesses. Western countries often accuse Chinese businesses of not abiding by international labor standards, not following international environmental requirements, and lacking financial transparency in foreign investments and business operations, and connect these accusations to the issue of “China’s responsibility.” Therefore, how to integrate the concept of mutual benefits and win-wins into attempts to upscale the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises so that the overseas operations of our businesses bolster, but not harm, China’s national image has become an important subject of study as well as a challenge to China’s opening-up strategy in the new era.
Fourth, China faces the challenge of formulating an international strategy and a decision about its international responsibility. As pressure from both developed and developing countries continues to mount in the diplomatic area of strategic planning and institution building, and as new situations in global politics require China to make adjustments in its diplomatic strategic deployment and to coordinate plans for both the internal and external situation, it only becomes increasingly difficult for China to balance its principle of low-profile approach with its need to achieve policy implementation. In the new era, diplomacy acquires an increasingly richer array of meanings, as new forms emerge in economic diplomacy, such as sports diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, academic diplomacy, etc.; multilateral diplomacy carries on and develops a composite profile in its emerging characteristics of “multiple actors, issues, roles, and values,” all of which demand China of enhanced efforts to provide long-term plans and institutional guarantee for cultivating high-level multilateral human resources, to improve our ability to set agenda on international multilateral and diplomatic issues, and to raise our capacity to lead multilateral mechanisms in the transition from “soft laws” to “hard laws.”
Domestically, there is a significant gap between the strategic demand for China to share international responsibility and provide international public goods and our current strategic plans and implementation status in the area of multilateral diplomacy. China has yet to foster a mature multilateral strategy and a set of detailed rules and roadmaps in our multilateral diplomacy to guide our strategic goals, interest orientation and coordination of diplomatic efforts at both the issue- and regional levels. Multilateral strategy should be an overall approach. With the pluralization and decentralization of our diplomatic organs, it is even more necessary for the diplomatic department to exercise its role in providing strategic guidance and policy plans to ensure the coherence of our national interests, the lack of which will fit ill with the advancement of our overall national interests and diplomatic strategy.
III. Strategic Thinking and Policy Priorities of China’s Multilateral Diplomacy in the New Era
As one of the key countries with the capabilities to shape the future international system, China calls for the construction of a new international order defined in substance by “gradual peace process, multilateral negotiations, mutual benefits and common wins, respect for diversity, and collaborative common progress.” Meanwhile, in this process, China needs to develop a fuller concept of multilateral diplomacy, broaden its strategic planning of multilateral diplomacy, and come up with a more solid set of policy instruments.
First, on the premise of China remaining a long-term member state of the developing world, China needs to step up and adjust to its new identity as a “developing power,” making decisions about our scope of interests, orientation in values, and boundary of responsibility in a context of continued changes in the global and regional multilateral arenas, and providing supervision for the making of our goals and policies in multilateral diplomacy.
In the foreseeable future, a pluralistic and overlapping national identity will remain a pronounced feature of how our nation positions itself on the international stage. Over 30 years of reform and opening-up, China’s international identity has largely completed the transformation from an “outsider” and a “subverter” to a “defender” and “constructor” of the international system. However, the specifics of China’s role and self-identity (including the international responsibility and obligations that come with them) within the international system is still in evolution. We are of the view that to continue to insist on our identity as a member of developing nations is one of our departure points in diplomacy. This identity claim not only accords with the basic circumstances, nature and capabilities of our country at its current stage of development, it is also helpful to clarifying the fundamental boundary of our national interests and to promoting recognition and acknowledgement by the international society for China’s placement in the assembly of international powers, providing the principles by which to adopt our responsibilities and obligations for international affairs in a rational manner. In the meantime, retaining a long-term membership among developing countries and striving to obtain security, development and security interests for the large community of developing countries conforms to our core values in diplomacy. More importantly, developing countries as a whole are situated disadvantageously in the international system, but, as the prime force driving the democratization of international relations, they are our major support in the reforms, in which we are participating as a constructive player, of international multilateral mechanisms and international system aimed at making them more just and reasonable.
However, no matter it is in terms of the future course of the development of China’s comprehensive national power (including economic power, military power and the power of rule-making in international issues) or in terms of both the domestic and international expectations and demands of China’s leadership and obligations in international affairs, it requires us to take a more spontaneous and active approach of adjustment to our identity as a “developing power,” i.e., a developing country with increasing global influence. Such adjustment not only accords with the objective reality and future prospect of a China with ascending comprehensive power, expanding global impact, and multiplying international responsibilities, it is also compatible with our strategic principle in diplomacy of keeping to a low profile while taking more action in the new era. When we are seeing to the continuity of our long-term membership among developing countries, it also gives breathing space to our broadening category of interests and growing diplomatic capabilities. Sticking to our identity as a member of the big family of developing countries in the long run, at its core, means restraint in exercising one’s abilities in international affairs in order to avoid drawing fire to oneself and taking up undue shares of “leadership responsibility” beyond one’s capabilities and interests. Taking an active approach of adjustment to our new identity as a “developing power,” on the domestic side, is conducive to cultivating a sense of responsibility and demeanor in us befitting our status as a developing power. It is also beneficial to improving our planning mechanisms and capacity building in diplomatic interactions with other major powers. On the external side, it means China needs to take a more active part in making international rules and reforming international financial and economic systems, take a more outspoken stance in defending the interests pursued by developing countries, and take a stronger and more extensive role in resolving the hotspot international issues bearing on our core and other significant interests.
Second, we have to coordinate our plans for advancing the reform and modification of region- and issue-specific multilateral mechanisms in both strategy and deployment, and pursue the principle of integrating long-term goals with short-term breakthroughs. At the current stage, we have to seize the unique opportunity offered by the international financial crisis. And, in terms of augmenting China’s participation in the making of international rules, we need make it our priority the task of boosting the response of international financial system to the internationalization of finance and empowering developing countries with more voice and right to be involved. Meanwhile, we have to create a strategic environment and ensuring institutions for our goal of peaceful development while promoting institutional collaboration with other developing power. We also have to lift China’s capabilities and influence as a participant in the reforms of international financial and economic systems while advancing financial and economic cooperation within the Asian-Pacific region.
The current international financial crisis constitutes a special phase of China’s strategic development opportunity period. The revamp of international financial agencies has become the most important task on the agenda of building a new global financial order. Therefore, China should take a more active approach to advocating the IMF-centered reform of the international financial system in order to strengthen IMF’s status in international finance, improve its command of available financial resources, and expand the scope of its influence. At the same time, China should be clearer in asserting reform as the precondition of a more versatile and influential IMF, give particular emphasis to the fundamental issues of developing countries’ discursive rights and decision-making mechanisms in such reform, and incorporate demands such as those to enlarge developing countries’ share and give them more voting power with the IMF, so that more developing countries will be able to be included in relevant international rule-making activities.
At the same time, we have to have a realistic and clear grasp of the basic circumstances and course of development related to China’s participation in the reform. In the foreseeable future, the Western developed powers will retain without much challenge their dominant position within the current major international financial and economic organizations, the foundation supporting their economic lead will remain, dollar’s status as international currency will be hard to contest against in short term as its economic self-repairing ability will continue to be competitive. Emerging market powers, in spite of their fast economic growth, will find them still located in the lower phase of development, still lagging noticeably behind the developed countries in the main economic domains of the world (e.g. finance, trade, technology, transnational corporations). The international financial crisis created opportunity for the rise of the G-20, but whether it will be able to become the core governance mechanism of world economy in the post-crisis context remains unpredictable. The BRIC summits and the negotiations among the five leading developing countries demonstrate the resolution and determination of developing countries to exercise more power as a collective force. Whether they will be able to become important as global governance mechanisms depends on how developing countries will define the strategic identity of these mechanisms and if they can expand cooperation with each other in important issue areas, enhance coordination of external policies, and acquire more strategic consensus. So long as emerging developing powers lack sufficient controlling power in any particular economic area, it will be difficult for them to subject the current major international financial and economic organizations to a fundamental reform.
To support our country’s participation in the reform of international financial mechanisms and also the international financial system on the global level, we have to devote more efforts to regional strategic thinking and improve our planning for regional cooperation in different areas. Since the mid-1990s, China has invested more heavily in multilateral diplomacy and gradually formed its strategic perspective on the issue of regional cooperation. China has always been an active participant and promoter of financial cooperation in Asia, advocating energetically for the set-up of a regional foreign-exchange reserve pool. One of the fundamental motives behind this strategic thinking is for defending stability and sustainable development in the region, which will benefit not only China but also other countries in the region. From the geopolitical and geoeconomic perspective, as China’s development is rooted in Asia, maintaining a stable financial environment in Asia is the objective need of China’s economic development. China has agreed to set up a regional foreign-exchange reserve pool and also promised to contribute 32% of the total reserve. The establishment of a regional foreign-exchange reserve pool is also a positive factor for facilitating Sino-Japan cooperation, improving Sino-Japan relations, and advancing regional cooperation in Asia as a whole. Under such regional institutional arrangements, how much voice and influence China will be able to exercise will be proportionate to China’s contribution and role. In the bilateral currency agreements China signed with numerous Asian countries, a scheme has been added to make Renminbi the settlement currency for bilateral trade balance, setting the stage for Renminbi’s transition from a regional currencyto an international one.
From the more macro geopolitical and geoeconomic perspective, China should further upgrade the substance of intra-regional and inter-regional cooperation. China’s cross-regional cooperation should be matched more closely with issue-specific cooperation. At the regional level, the key is to cultivate good relations with major powers in establishing a new framework for major power relations between China and the U.S., a particularly important task. The framework should be based on mutual respect for each other’s core interests, engineered by a regional and global order aimed at promoting peace and sustainable development through cooperation, ensure that international responsibility be allocated in accordance with a country’s capabilities, enable the mechanisms of strategic and economic dialogue to play their role, and facilitate China and U.S. to bring more breadth and depth to the overall meaning of their coordination and collaboration. Second, engaging actively with the construction of major power cooperation framework through small multilateral initiatives is an important platform for increasing China’s diplomatic influence. This approach includes coordinating cooperation frameworks with new powers like Russia, India and other countries, strengthening the three countries’ consensus on strategic interests, and establishing mechanisms for strategic communication between the three countries so as to enable them to play a collective leadership role in Eurasian cooperation. At the same time, China should focus initiatives on building Asian-Pacific coordination and cooperation mechanisms of mutual and complementary benefits to the participant countries. The key is to set up a dialogue mechanism among China, the U.S. and Japan as the extension of both the Sino-U.S. and Sino-Japanese relations, and to help the three countries acquire the habit of thinking in coordination and cooperation with each other on important regional and global issues. Third, we need to pay more effort to bolster sub-regional cooperation within the overall framework of Asian development, including accelerating the integration of ASEAN 3, enhancing the adaptability (such as expanding the membership of East Asia Summit) and identification (such as developing all-round cooperation in politics, economics, humanities, environment, climate and other issues) across regional cooperation initiatives of East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, in order to pave the way for the ultimate goal of institutionalizing the regional mechanisms for Asian regional cooperation.
In addition, fleshing out the substance of new power cooperation provides an important pillar in support of our country’s participation in the global reform of multilateral mechanisms, and the key to this is to enhance the mechanism- and capacity building on both the “primary track” and “secondary track,” on the basis of existing mechanisms. At the official level, we need to consider the possibility of setting up more institutionalized and representative mechanisms for meetings among the leaders, prime ministers and treasury chairs of developing countries. At the unofficial level, we should pay significant effort to advancing the establishment of the “Think Tank Network of Developing Powers,” “Financial Forum of Developing Powers,” and “Development Forum of Developing Powers,” etc. We also have to convey our strategic intentions and goals to the world through the collective advocacy of new powers, and strive for consensus as soon as possible on how to decide on priorities, define our tasks, integrate different mechanisms, and establish core membership according to different tasks.
Third, to make China’s new diplomatic thinking in the new era, especially the advocacy for advancing and establishing a harmonious world, the core to refine and develop China’s multilateral diplomacy; enhance China’s soft cultural power and strengthen the congeniality, appeal, influence, and competitive edge of China’s development model, way of life, and cultural values across the world so that they become the essential foundation to form China’s relations to the world.[17] President Hu Jintao has given a comprehensive and thorough review of the basic principles and substance embodied by the concept of harmonious world. Its five subject areas of the politics, economics, culture, security and environment already incorporate the principled framework of the “new world perspective” of Chinese characteristics. Accordingly, we have to make effort to think about how to elaborate and refine this concept through diverse multilateral diplomatic initiatives.
First, we have to disrupt the mainstream narrative of the monist view of history dominating the current discourse system of the international society, emphasizing harmonious coexistence among diverse elements as the objective and inevitable trend. At the conceptual level, the monist of view of history remains to be the mainstream narrative of international political ideology. The so-called “Abrahamism” holds that history is driven by a single and original purpose,[18] which diverges from and also conflicts with the concept of “harmonious world”, a structural and philosophical view stressing the vision of a pluralist coexistence among a multitude of original values. At the current stage, as a result of increasing strategic reliance of the U.S. on China and the improved self-restraint of U.S., China may be able to avoid open confrontation temporarily, but this does not mean that the clashes between our original values have disappeared. “democratic peace” is the dominant ideology of Western countries and those countries influenced by Western mainstream ideological thinking. Even though the argument for “forced expansion of democracy” was dealt a severe blow during the Bush administration, the idea that “domestic institution of democracy determines a country’s external behavior,” embedded in the concept of “democratic peace” persists strongly. The “inclusive plus defensive” strategic approach to China--pursued by the U.S. and the West in general is a typical reflection of the Western mentality.
Second, we have to elaborate and substantiate the idea of “sovereign responsibility” embodied by the harmonious world concept so that it will make it more convenient for us to connect to other rational thoughts in today’s discourse system of the international society. Harmonious world entails a set of basic and principled requirements regarding the responsibility of nations (sovereign nations), and also carries an implicit critique of the harms of “power and hegemony politics”. However, the concept does not address another important challenge threatening international security today, which is the harm caused to other members of the international society as a result of nation’s eclipsed sovereign power and capabilities. We have to acquire an adequate assessment of the fact that an international consensus on “sovereign responsibility” is arriving soon and discussions about issues such as “non-interference” have become more concrete. Our harmonious world concept has to reflect this change timely and, at the same time, on the basis of the “non-interference in domestic politics” principle, take more initiatives to strive toward the desired result of “constructive contact and persuasion” in practice,[19] so that our idea will have more resonance in international discursive interactions.
Third, we have to find an integral way to incorporate the goal of establishing Chinese core values into our efforts of building and refining our concepts. Contemporary China should concentrate on how to contribute to the fundamental processes and ideas of the evolution of world history, which shall include our guiding concepts and core values for envisioning human society’s way of life, its values, national beliefs, the role and effect of the institution, the aspirations and outlooks of a society, and its way of behavior. In this respect, since the foundation of the new China, and particularly since the reform and opening-up began 30 years ago, China has made significant contribution to the evolution of the world’s modern values and even more so to the world’s economic growth. However, China has yet to make creative contribution to the refinement and development of the world’s core values. The key tasks for China in the future remain the tasks of making domestic investments in the building of soft power, creating a cultural conscientiousness, and accomplishing the rejuvenation and renaissance of the Chinese civilization. The future Chinese civilization should become this brand new breed which is simultaneously rooted in the traditions of our own civilization and takes the best from other world civilizations, and is created as the offspring of the perfect marriage between scientific socialist ideals and successful practice.
