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2013-January-14

China’s New Leadership and the World

 

ZHU FENG

is a professor with the School of International

Studies, Peking University.

China’s foreign relationship in the Xi era will inevitably be tinged with the Xi style, which features a strong will and a personality that has both a soft and a tough side. How will this easy-going, smiling leader perceive and handle China’s relationship with the world? We have good reason to believe that he will bring more smiles and greater ease to this relationship. Xi Jinping heralds a diplomatic revolution in China.

CHINA elected its fifth generation leadership last November at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Leading the ranks is Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission. He takes up office as Chinese president this March.

Grueling tests and challenges as well as the dazzling limelight of honor and power await this new helmsman of the world’s most populous country. How will he lead the country towards development and reform? What is his vision of the country’s foreign relations, and what measures might he take in this respect? Will China’s diplomatic strategies change in the new era? These questions hover in the minds of China watchers. Sapient judgments of them offer clues as to how China will handle its domestic and foreign affairs in the coming years.

Whatever the answers turn out to be, one thing is for sure. China under the stewardship of Xi Jinping will continue to promote common prosperity, stability and development in the world.

Unlike their predecessors, Xi’s generation had been through higher education and embarked on careers at the time of the launch of the country’s opening-up and reform. In 1978, when China opened its door to the world, Xi and his peers were eager to learn from the West. They embraced the notion that knowledge has the power to shape the fate and future of their country, and were heartened at Deng Xiaoping’s pragmatic proposal to cast aside the fetters of ultra-leftist ideology.

The experiences of their early years and the views they formed have left indelible traces in their thinking. Those that have risen to the pinnacle of the country’s power hierarchy have in their hearts the same yearning for new learning as in their youth. They are, as before, ready to learn from the world, and in the process of change to work towards achieving China’s best interests.

Xi Jinping was a county official in agrarian Hebei Province in 1985 when he went to Iowa, the state his father had visited during his sole trip to the U.S. Impressed with the development of American agriculture, Xi gained inspiration during this sojourn for his work in local administration. On his return visit to Iowa in February 2012 Xi paid a visit to local farmer Rick Kimberley’s family and tried his hand at driving a tractor.

After his visit to China in September 2011,Vice President Joe Biden remarked to reporters on his Chinese counterpart’s keen interest in the U.S. political system, albeit from the angle of how it could strengthen his country.

Deng’s legacy of pragmatism is believed to influence Xi’s approach to thorny issues in China’s foreign relations, notably those with the U.S. The schedule of Xi’s 2012 visit to the States more or less replicated that of Deng’s visit in 1979. He held talks with President Obama, toured the Pentagon, addressed a luncheon, enjoyed chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, revisited his farmer friends in Iowa, and watched NBA games.

Like Deng back in 1979, Xi went beyond official talks in the White House to come into direct contact with American society and culture. Rather than talking about politics and strategies, he instead gave ingenuous expression to his thoughts on bilateral relations. Xi pointed out, for instance, that there is in the breadth of the Pacific enough space for the two big countries. Although unhappy about the U.S.’s pivot, or rebalancing, towards the Asia-Pacific, his sole comment on the topic was that diplomatic relations in the region should not be excessively dependent on military presence. On the subject of human rights, he tactfully bypassed the fundamental points of discord between the two countries, stressing that although there is always room for improvement in human rights, they can indeed progress.

Such remarks signify a key leadership quality – that of facing weighty issues with calm and composure. Whatever the problems, conflicts or even clashes that might arise between China and the U.S., leaders of the two sides should ultimately have faith in their sincere will to cooperate. Any preoccupation with contentions and calculations stemming from underlying interests would obscure the leaders of the two countries’ vision of the bigger picture.

The new-generation Chinese leaders are statesmen steadfast in the “Chinese faith” who have gained mature and profound knowledge of world affairs. China’s foreign policies in the Xi era are hence expected to adhere to both core principles and flexibility, to place equal emphasis on good sense and pragmatism, and to promote Chinese development as well as world well-being.

Since the 17th CPC National Congress in 2007, Xi Jinping has visited 32 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. These tours have thoroughly acquainted him with world affairs and given him the chance to display both his wit and thinking.

Xi reiterated at the 9th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in September 2012 the commitment of the Chinese government to the peaceful resolution through friendly negotiations of differences with its neighbors concerning territorial and maritime rights and interests.

On the subject of the Diaoyu Islands crisis, ignited by the “purchase” of the Japanese government, however, Xi was nonetheless quoted as saying at the first World Peace Forum last July that China will “make no recession” on issues of territorial rights in the face of attempts by Japanese right-wingers to alter history and overthrow the post-war regional order in East Asia.

The disputes in the South China Sea and over the Diaoyu Islands are fundamentally different. Xi’s remarks concerning them reflect the respective strategic thinking and stance of the Chinese government in this respect.

China’s foreign policies during Xi’s tenure will reflect the new Chinese leadership’s confidence in the nation’s development path – one that is centered on opening-up, reforms and economic development. This confidence does not arise from official ideology or the existing political system; it is instead shored by China’s achievements and prospects of greater ascendance. The experience and know-how Xi and his team members have cultivated during their long years working in local governments endow on them the mission of ushering China into a new growth cycle and fresh stage of peaceful development.

In this sense Xi must be a leader of strong nationalist sentiment. For Xi and his team, building a more prosperous and stronger nation is the wish of their fathers’ generation, who founded Red China, as well as the goal of their political careers. They aspire to draw plaudits both at home and abroad.

In Xi’s worldview, as long as China ably handles its own business, the world should show it due respect and courtesy. Malicious inveighers who confront the new Chinese leaders’ country-building efforts can therefore expect vehement retaliation. Xi is not a leader prone to hiding his personal views when dealing with foreign affairs. During a meeting in Mexico with Chinese ex-pats in February 2009, he made the widely quoted remark: “Some well-fed foreigners have nothing better to do than to point their fingers at us. China doesn’t export revolution, poverty or hunger, nor does it make trouble for others. What more do they want?” China’s new leadership is fully confident in its ability to build a better China that will better serve the world.

The world nevertheless wants more; it expects China to help make it a better place. And there are concerns that a better China by Chinese standards might make the world a worse place. In the “Xi-era” China, there must be a more balanced and constructive understanding of “a better China” and “a better world.”

China’s foreign relationships in this era will inevitably be tinged with the Xi style, which features a strong will and a personality that has both a soft and a tough side. This is evident in Xi’s 2012 visit to the U.S. He is remembered as a Chinese leader with a ready smile and relaxed manner even when faced with barrages of cameras. He is also the first Chinese leader to be frank about the pleasure he finds in American culture, having admitted to a liking for Hollywood movies and being a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers. How will this easy-going, smiling leader perceive and handle China’s relationship with the world? We have good reason to believe that he will bring more smiles and greater ease to this relationship. Xi Jinping heralds a diplomatic revolution in China.