PoliSci 346 Essay II

 

Despite increasingly close economic bonds and cooperation between China and US, EU and East Asian countries, the multiple strands of relationship are clearly weaving a network of instability, with the central nod being China. Most western critics kept a despicable attitude towards China’s commercial and political policy and define China’s defiant actions in territorial expansion and violating IPR rules as self-absorbing, some others would place China's foreign policy in a two level game, which considers external political outcomes as natural continuations of application of internal policy. Outside observer has to understand the real intention of China’s domestic policies to understand China’s position in the global community. As Deng Xiaoping once said, “hide our light, bide our time”. This might be the accurate depiction of China’s foreign policies as outcome of its domestic policies. Thus, evaluation of foreign policy has to adhere to the two-level game theory. According to “Contemporary International Relations”, and recent news articles, this paper will argue that the root of China’s increasingly volatile foreign policy is fueled by not only growing mistrust but also from its domestic political situation.

 

One key point to understand the domestic motives behind many foreign policies after 1989 is that China sees democracy as an existential threat. During the 1989 democracy movement, the Party realized that the Western liberal ideology would inevitably lead to the decline or the collapse of the CCP’s power. Therefore, for the survival of the Party, it is essential to counter the spread of Western democracy, and in Friedman's words, make the world safer for the Chinese Authoritarianism. Thus, it is easy to understand why China would back up undemocratic regimes around the world, knowing that they will undermine China’s relations with OECD countries. For example, during the recent Syria civil war, despite global pressure to overthrow the Assad regime, China still vetoed intervention in Syria.

 

Domestically speaking, the top priority of the CCP regime is to stay in power. Thus keeping the pace of economic growth is essential to this project, because after Mao’s death, the legitimation of the CCP’s rule depends on the promise of making China a modernized and wealthy country (L). Moreover, one of the essential goals of the Hu and Wen’s regime is to promote the “harmonious society”. However, the three decades of economic reform brought mass inequality among the population. Social conflicts are on the rise increasingly (Lec). Therefore, keeping the economic growth at a steady rate is of grave importance to have a secure and stable society for the CCP regime. China’s attitude towards foreign energy, and energy competition with US are natural projections of party’s interest maintaining economic stability especially in the energy sector. As Zhao Hongtu contends, the U.S. began to search alternative energy since the early 1970s, and thus is more energy independent than China. comparing to China. China only realized its energy demand in 1993, and has to rely heavily on foreign oil (C, 63). As the two biggest economies in the world, China and the U.S. are constantly compared and competed for the same pool of resource. Therefore a potential US oil spike in US might serve best interest of China because China could take advantage of the oil price. China’s energy foreign policy hence takes shape under two conditions: one is how to manage energy supply so that Chinese industry can keep growing, and the other is how to manage energy competition with the U.S. (e). As a result, on the front of China’s energy competition are the SOEs as the important domestic players, which play significant roles in mediating and translating Chinese domestic necessities into foreign quests. The importance of the petrol SOEs also originates from their connections from the top Chinese officials and the new interests they gained for their families (L). Moreover, Petrol SOEs are the winning industries internationally not only because of government subsidies but also their voraciously accumulating in foreign asset forage, which caused scrutiny from the U.S.(e). For example, CNOOC’s recent completion in acquiring Canadian oil company Nexen, but in 2005 the U.S. blocked a CNOOC $18.5 billion bid to buy Unocal because of financial concerns (e). Although petrol SOEs are not the best and brightest industries in china, they accounts for large portion of China energy GDP and are critical in maintaining trading economic growth, energy supply and employment (Lec). One can observe that China’s energy policy is largely shaped by its domestic political situations.

 

Fear for democratization, on the other hand, characterizes one of the fundamental aspect of the current CCP regime. This also explains why China has little tolerance for countries that attempt to promote or push China to make any political reform. For example, China would punish countries that criticize China for her human rights conditions or lack of democracy (L). In this case, China’s major rival is the U.S., who has been continuously identifying China’s growth and as attempt to expand undemocratic powers and overlooking human rights issue regarding its development. In return, China refused American’s offer in potential economic cooperation (e). Previously, during the fourth round of Sino-US strategic and economic dialogue, Chinese officials raised the ideas of a Sino-US cooperation based on mutual progression. However, the U.S. declined the bilateral relationship due to less mutual trust and potential political deadlock (C, 16). As a result of the U.S.’s denial, in the recent East Asian summit, China’s opposition to the U.S. to become a permanent partner of the ASEAN also delivered the message of China’s intention to exclude America from regional cooperation, and will not tolerate American intervention in any form (e). According to an American intelligence assessment of global trends, China is projected to outstrip US as the leading economic power before 2030 (e), this might also be the worst outcome the U.S. can project and America increasingly sees China as re-arranging international order in China’s own favor. China and the U.S. unattainable alignment is the outcome of each others’ differentiated political goals and competition in the global leadership, thus generating increasing mutual distrust (C, 36). China’s national interest will strictly adhere to the its domestic goals, including: securing domestic economic stability, CCP’s image-promotion, and reduction of western democratic intervention to a minimum level. Consequently China is always in lines with developing countries and willing to be treated as LDC that are less institutionalized(e). China’s opposition towards US leadership stem from its protection towards its national economy and CCP’s political interest. Despite the fact that China enjoys a high GDP growth rate and large volume of trading, the single party political system cannot afford constant confrontation with the outside calling for political reform.

 

Chinese domestic policies has deep implications for its foreign policies in a way that they foreign policies always serve the domestic political interests, which, fundamentally, is the preservation of the CCP’s regime. In other words, Chinese foreign policies are used to keep domestic economy and politics stable. Whether it is Chinese energy quest, China’s intention to parent and lead southeast asia, or China’s growing forces as a global power are by no means approaches to merely elevate china’s international standing, but to serve and preserve CCP’s national management.