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The only constant in the universe is Change. Political scientists and historians venture the evolution of power in a cyclical manner leading to changing order at national, intra-national, and international levels. History has witnessed a reshuffle of power between states and regions; fragmenting few and empowering others. Such demoting and promoting patterns not only influence inter-state relations but international power structure. The international strategic-political climate beheld uni-polarity, bi-polarity, and multi-polarity over different periods. The collapse of the Soviet Union in1991 led to a uni-polar world with the United States as the dominant player. But recent trends have started reshaping this power structure due to the emergence of new power centers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Yet geo-strategically, this change is led by Asian nations.
In addition to the power reshuffle, 21st century is witnessing power diffusion from state to non-state actors. History flows in its course. Asia has been advanced and the richest region for centuries in terms of culture, religion, resources, economy, and technology. However, in the past three centuries, it laid back while the west progressed at an incredible rate. Asia had half of the world’s population and half of the world’s products in the 17th century. In the 18th century, despite having more than half of the world’s population it owned only 20% of material products. Recent indicators suggest Asia is catching up with proportional growth with half of the world population and products at some point in this century. The rapid growth of the middle class, swift economic growth, daunting ecological constraints, and demographic changes in countries like Pakistan, India, and China would have gradual yet long-term implications for the region. Modernization and gradual reformation have enabled Asians to compete and even challenge the West in socio-cultural, political, economic, and military affairs.
The declining power of the US has been a hot topic since 2007. A major power player in the Asian region is China which is emerging as a united, assertive, and strong yet peaceful nation in the world. The dawn of the 21st century observed China’s growth in technology, economy, and military. Over the last three decades, the size of the Chinese economy has doubled every eight years as it became the manufacturing hub for most of the products used following economies of scale. It flaunts the world’s largest banking assets $4.2trillion in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and leadership in digital innovation, e-commerce, and tech.
China is expanding its soft power over the years through its diplomacy. It is the largest trading partner of nearly all Asian countries. In 2013, China launched Belt and Road Initiative (One Belt One Road, BRI) as a massive infrastructure strategy to enhance regional connectivity and economic integration through roads, buildings, railways, trade, and investment not only with its neighbors but trading partners in Africa and Europe as well. Funded by the Chinese Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and specific funds, BRI is a huge infrastructure project that would not only facilitate trade but decrease the dependence of participating economies on Europe and the United States. With 140 trading partners in BRI from Asia Europe, Oceania, and Africa, China is positioning itself as the leader of the new world order and champion of globalization. Yet it can pose risk for China when economies of lending contracts face a crisis.
Apart from an economic perspective, China is enhancing its global stand by pushing its allies and partners in United Nations Security Council and United Nations General Assembly. This stand is accompanied by the media strategy to shape the image of China and Chinese values in people throughout the world. Military, political, and economic reforms aimed at realizing vast potential have encouraged China to take leadership in regional and international domains.
The Chinese leadership has aligned soft power with hard power. An example is the opening of Chinese military bases globally as in Djibouti in 2017 and Equatorial Guinea in 2021. Currently, it has the largest standing Army with an estimated 2 million active soldiers. The second largest naval fleet in the Pacific region is flexed by China. Through its soft and hard power, China is trying to create a major influence in the Indo-Pacific region. All these advancements can lead to a transition in global power dynamics. Since 2013, the Chinese leadership is exhibiting remarkable diplomatic potential to manage relations with its neighbors i.e. Japan, Russia, Pakistan, and India.
Despite its huge growth potential China is not the only major player in Asia. Russia’s advancements in Ukraine manifest its assertive nature in the global arena. Though China and Russia are not formal allies, they have a shared desire to challenge US hegemony and curb its power. Last century notarized two liberal international orders; Pax Britannica and Pax Americana. But the rising power of China and the assertive nature of Russia are leading to power fragmentation. This power fragmentation can hatch new opportunities and challenges for regional countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Bangladesh. It is proposed for these countries maintain a balanced approach in their foreign policy because inclining towards a single side might pose serious threats and loss of opportunities.
Key Outcomes of CPC’s 20th National Congress
I am a student of Government and Public Policy at National Defence University Pakistan. The program has provided me better insight of regional policies and international political affairs. I have keen interest in policy process, international political climate and implications of geostrategic shifts on Pakistan.
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On October 16-22, 2022, the 20th Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) took place in Beijing. On October 23, the 1st Plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee was held, where the Secretary General of the CPC Central Committee, the Politburo and its Standing Committee were elected. These events marked the end of the previous five-year cycle in China’s political process and the beginning of a new, already the third five-year cycle with Xi Jinping at the helm of China.
Traditionally, CPC Congresses are perceived as milestones, symbolizing new stages in China’s development. This time there were no fundamental changes – on the contrary, the Congress confirmed the course of holding to the policy pursued over the past ten years. Even with this initially obvious arrangement, however, there was room for a few intrigues that had preoccupied Sinologists before the Congress. Now, a few days after its conclusion, it is possible to review the main outcomes and highlight the points worthy of note in the analysis of Chinese policy in the years to come.
Intrigue 1: Will there be a third term?
Everything is seemingly clear with this issue. Xi Jinping had done his best in good time to preclude the question of his successor being raised at the 20th Congress. This was necessary to ensure confidence in the future and stability of the system instead of stirring it in the lead-up to a programmed change of power. It is no coincidence that the Chinese have recently been talking so much about the malignancy of short electoral cycles in the U.S., when you have to vie for power every few years, leveraging your capitals.
Several institutional junctures pointed to the “third term”. First, the age limit is no longer relevant, so it is no longer imperative to fit one’s entire career into a span of up to 68 years. Five years ago, Xi Jinping, who will turn 69 in 2022, deliberately set a precedent for ageing leaders to keep getting new positions, having appointed the elderly Wang Qishan to the unimportant but still honorable position China’s Deputy Chairman. Second, at the last congress, Xi Jinping did not give prominence to any younger guys or specifically marked anyone as his “successor”. It is simply impossible to think of Wang Qishan as Xi Jinping’s successor. Third, the constitutional provision limiting the number of terms in the office of PRC Chairman was abolished (there had been no such limit for party leaders anyway). This meant that Xi Jinping would be able to combine the two highest positions in the Party and the state in the future for the same reason of concern over the regime stability and predictability.
Decisions of the CPC congresses are normally prepared in advance, with only ceremonial announcements made during the congress. So, one can be sure that both Xi Jinping and all 2,000 delegates were flocking to Beijing knowing full surely that the “party core” would retain their tenures at least for another five-year term. However, this information was inaccessible to outside observers, and so a certain intrigue—albeit largely far-fetched—loomed large till the last. Nevertheless, Xi Jinping’s supremacy was never challenged throughout the Congress, and it was announced on October 23 that at the 1st Plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping is elected General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee for the next five years.
Intrigue 2: Who will be the “right-hand man”?
While nobody was surprised at Xi Jinping leading a group of comrades entering the press hall in the afternoon of October 23, 2022 to hold a press conference on the plenum’s outcomes, those who followed him were gazed at with particular intensity. In recent months, the question of who will be the “right-hand man” in the party hierarchy, and hence the future head of government, was in fact the main cadre intrigue of the congress.
The current head of government (Premier of China’s State Council) Li Keqiang could not stay in office, because the two-term five-year limit in this post (two 5-year terms) was preserved in Article 87 of the PRC’s Constitution. In addition, there has been talk throughout the ten years of Xi Jinping’s rule that the Xi-Li tandem was the result of an intra-elite compromise, which Xi Jinping quickly became uncomfortable with, and now he can finally appoint “his own premier”.
Most analysts agreed that the government should be headed by one of the current deputy prime ministers, as had always been the case in previous years. Either First Vice Premier Han Zheng (68) or Hu Chunhua (59) in charge of agriculture and regional development were suggested as most likely candidates. Two other vice premiers, Liu He (70) and Sun Chunlan (72), were not taken seriously due to their age—high enough by the Chinese elite’s tacit rotation rules.
Shortly before the congress, the Western media began hectically circulating information that the new Premier of the State Council would be the 67-year-old Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Advisory Council (a specific “deliberative assembly” sitting simultaneously with the parliament). This was hard to believe.
By any standard, Wang Yang is already “past his prime,” since he holds the honorary but pre-retirement position of chairman, and he is also known for his conditionally liberal-market views which hardly resonate with Xi Jinping. Apparently, those analysts who were used to looking at the world exclusively through the prism of neoliberal discourse were so sure that only a liberal-market approach could help the Chinese economy that they simply indulged in wishful thinking.
Yet, Xi Jingping is not swayed by the views of Hong Kong analysts, and he made many people gape by his choice of the “right-hand man.” He stayed his choice on Li Qiang, the 63-year-old secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee, known for his allegiance to Xi. Li Qiang has long been on the radar as one of the members of Xi’s close circle, expected to be among the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee at the end of the congress. However, he had no experience of working in central agencies, much less leading the State Council, and this was thought to be an important hurdle.
As of now, loyalty turned out to be more important than experience. In circumvention of the deeply-rooted unspoken rules, Li Qiang was appointed “second in command” and party secretary of the Chinese State Council. This will allow him to oversee all HR and procedural decisions in the government already now, while six months later, in March 2023, he can expect to be elected as the new premier.
Li Qiang is virtually unknown outside China, although he has served as the head of three regions of the Yangtze River mouth (Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang). The fact that it was Li Qiang who authored the tough two-month lockdown in Shanghai in spring 2022 may give us some idea about this leader. If we continue the analogy, we can say that the course of zero tolerance for the coronavirus will be maintained nationwide, and in case of emergency the government will follow the “end justifies the means” principle.
Intrigue 3: Who will be members of Politburo Standing Committee?
Since the onset of the “reform and opening up” era at the cusp between the 1970s and 1980s, the Chinese carefully positioned the party’s mandarins as a “collective leadership,” – hence a special significance of the power balance in the party’s highest body, the Politburo Standing Committee, which has consisted of seven members in recent years.
And while the importance of the Standing Committee has declined amid the current situation of the “party core” reinforcement, the question of who exactly will be included in the “Magnificent Seven” is one of the main intrigues of the congress. If not for other reasons, then hierarchical rankings of the top-tier party members normally show who will occupy what position in the highest state bodies.
Already on October 22, 2022, when the list of those elected to the new Central Committee was published, it became clear that the Standing Committee would be renewed by more than half—Li Zhanshu and Han Zheng, who had exceeded the conventional limit of 68, were retiring, as were Li Keqiang and Wang Yang. Thus, Xi Jinping himself and his slightly younger sidekicks Zhao Leji and Wang Huning were those left.
Building on the results of the CPC Central Committee Plenum, it became clear that they would occupy the top government positions in the new five-year cycle. Xi Jinping, from the “first seat,” will also become Chairman of the PRC, Zhao Leji (No. 3 in the party hierarchy) will head the parliament, while Wang Huning (No. 4) will head the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (an advisory body).
In addition to Li Qiang (No. 2), the Standing Committee also includes three new members, ranked fifth through seventh in the party hierarchy. They are Cai Qi (former secretary of the Beijing Party Committee), Ding Xuexiang (head of the Central Committee Office) and Li Xi (former secretary of the Guangdong Party Committee). All of them are Xi Jinping’s protégés, his closest associates bound to him by personal loyalty.
It has already been announced that Li Xi will head the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a key body in the party structure that handles anti-corruption work. Cai Qi will become the “first secretary” of the CPC Secretariat – that is, he will take care of organizational work in the central office. No such announcement has yet been made concerning Ding Xuexiang, but it is clear that he will be promoted in the near future, too.
Ding Xuexiang, 60, is in the spotlight. He is now the youngest member of the Standing Committee and, what’s more, the only one in his generation to have received such an honor. Hu Chunhua and Chen Min’er, his peers long spoken of as candidates to become Xi Jinping’s “successor,” did not hit the list of the Standing Committee members (and Hu Chunhua slipped past the Politburo either, though he had previously served two terms there, which could be a sign of disfavor and even disgrace). If the March “two sessions” result in Ding Xuexiang promoted to PRC Deputy Chairman’s post, it would be safe to speak of him as Xi’s successor. However, it is more likely that Xi Jinping, who has not yet completed his mission at the head of China, will try not to make such obvious signals and will continue to keep the “youth” at a distance.
Intrigue 4: What will Xi Jinping’s keynote address be about?
Traditionally, one can judge what kind of mission this is by the statement delivered by Xi Jinping on the first day of the Congress. Previously, at even-numbered CPC congresses, such a final report used to be the summary of the ten-year rule and a kind of “precept” for descendants. Now, given the breakdown of the former elite rotation rules, the report should solely be perceived as a record of the political philosophy guiding Xi Jinping personally and the Party in general.
It should be noted that the title of the document is emphatically couched in the best traditions of the Chinese revolutionary narrative: “holding high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics… and striving in unity to build a modern socialist country in all respects…” Building a “modern socialist state” is the current goal of the Chinese Communist Party, meaning that by 2049 (the year of the PRC’s centennial) social development should be at such an advanced stage that will allow socialism to take hold and reign. “The great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics” is the means to achieve this goal, which comes down to the fact that in China it is necessary to have regard for local specifics (the huge population that until recently lived in poverty), local traditions (including Confucianism and the revolutionary practices of previous generations of Chinese communists), and so it is possible to depart from the “classical model of building socialism”, or to use market mechanisms, to be more exact.
Meanwhile, it follows from the address that the current leadership is abandoning its previous fixation on the market and high rates of economic growth in favor of a focus on social development. One of the report’s central concepts is the “human dimension”, people’s welfare and interests. Xi Jinping has emphasized that it is the individual who is the cornerstone of China’s development concept and, therefore, developing those areas of social welfare that were underestimated in previous decades—healthcare, the pension system, and insurance—is of particular importance.
As can be seen from Xinhua’s program article on the congress outcomes, titled Xi Jinping — the Man Who Leads China on a New March, the current leadership is even credited with “putting forward a new child-bearing policy, whereby a married couple can have three children, and taking measures to reduce the home assignment and extracurricular teaching burden on students.”
It should be understood that China does not resort to these measures for the mere fun of it. The country is on the verge of demographic crisis caused by a longtime policy of birth control, social inequality (one of its tools being a host of expensive tutors hired by well-to-do parents for their kids) has reached frightening proportions, while the emphasis on social aspects has been made only when the economy is obviously stalling.
Another top priority is security. The new report contains rather alarming notes: “At any time, there may be an escalation of external pressure and deterrence. China is entering a period of development, simultaneously abounding in strategic chances, risks and challenges, with uncertain and hard-to-predict factors being on a steep rise, while events labeled as “black swan” and “gray rhino” can occur at any time.
Terms of the Western political science, like “black swan” and “gray rhino”, reveal the hand of Wang Huning, the party’s chief ideologist and former dean of the Faculty of International Relations at Fudan University. Yet, the fact that China has approached Xi Jinping’s third term in office, facing most serious geopolitical challenges, is sensed by all. The main of them is surely the “Taiwan issue” that has sharply aggravated of late. In his report, the Secretary General has once again reiterated his adherence to the principle of “one China” and warned against attempts to declare Taiwan’s independence as well as against the interference of external forces (the same theses were entered into the CPC Charter). Neither the West, nor the United States, nor any other country is directly mentioned, but it is clear these very opponents of China are meant by “outside pressure and deterrence”.
In the context of security, another goal was named: By 2027, the centennial of the People’s Liberation Army of China, there should emerge a “Silent China,” a term that implies both the absence of threats within the country and China’s rightful place on the global stage, given that stable sovereign development is simply impossible without it.
U.S. observers were quick to say that China might try to establish control over Taiwan by 2027, but neither the text of the report, nor the accompanying documents and speeches give any grounds for this conclusion. In fact, a provocation on the “Taiwan issue” that would force China to strike back using military means can already occur at any moment—and this is the very “black swan” Xi Jinping really means.
If policy-makers on the banks of Potomac decide to abstain from launching this “bird” into the waters of the Taiwan Strait, it is likely that in the next five years China will be immersed in its internal issues associated with the restructuring of the very paradigm of socio-economic development: from staking on exports and GDP growth to refocusing on domestic consumption and social aspects. In the meantime, the policy of closeness due to the coronavirus pandemic, the trend for tough intervention of the government in the affairs of large corporations and further tightening of party control in all spheres of social life will obviously persist.
From our partner RIAC
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Critics maintain seeking to strengthen a strategic partnership with the US has been the cornerstone of Indian geopolitical thinking in recent years. Beijing might have been right in assessing that India is fast emerging as a staunch ally of the US in the Indo-Pacific with the aim to integrate itself more fully into Washington’s military strategy against China. However, the lingering war in Ukraine seems to have been causing a crisis in Indian geopolitical thinking regarding both the Indo-US alliance and how to tame the Chinese dragon.
Is China going to interact with the outside world any differently now that the 20th CPC National Congress is over and Xi has grown in stature with a 3rd Mandate of Heaven? Is it true that in Beijing’s list of five immediate foreign policy challenges China is facing, India figures as the third, defined as the “neighbor that refuses to acknowledge China’s rise?” Additionally, it was duly acknowledged and yet quite candidly rebuffed in Xi’s political report to the 20th party congress that the US and EU respectively have publicly let it be known that they are opposed to the CPC and its current leadership.
Recall soon following the announcement of the US chip and semiconductor embargo against China, the secretary of state Blinken “dared” Beijing while the 20th party congress was on, and without mincing words stated: “We have seen a very different China emerge in recent years under Xi Jinping’s leadership. It’s more aggressive abroad, and in many instances, that poses challenges to our own interests, as well as to our own values.” Not to anyone’s surprise, the US administration’s views were simply echoing the anti-China attitudes of both the Democrats and Republicans. Hours before the CPC party congress, a joint statement released by Senators Bob Menendez (D) and Jim Risch (R) said: “The CPC today under Xi is more aggressive and more emboldened than ever before.”
Meanwhile, in Europe, a day after the Chinese congress opened in Beijing, the foreign ministers from twenty-seven EU countries, in what is being described as a striking coincidence, gathered in Luxembourg to reassess Europe’s China policy. Describing foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg as a “remarkable moment,” Phelim Kine of POLITICO observed that the gathering in an unprecedented move shook up (the EU’s) previously stated official line and for the first time declared China “not just a competitor, but a tough competitor.” Unwilling to reveal his identity, an EU diplomat at the annual EU Council Meet confessed “Everyone is pretty much on the same page that the relationship with China is shifting more toward competition and rivalry.”
Likewise, in the Asia-Pacific region and in East Asia, the air is filled with uneasy feelings about the prospect of rising Chinese military hegemony as Beijing plans to accelerate its military modernization under Xi Jinping 3.0, as was declared in the party general secretary’s report on October 16. Reporting exclusively for the Australian ABC News, Peta Fuller wrote on October 20: “China claims its massive military build-up is for defense… The label ‘for defense’ is just a cynical and blatantly transparent excuse for needing a massive military for when it invades and usurps Taiwan.” Closer to China, in Japan, one of the country’s oldest and largest newspapers chose to highlight Xi’s “strong military” pledge in the party congress’s political report on its opening day.
Not surprisingly, the China watchers and New Delhi’s China policymakers have been alerted. With Xi certain to be installed for a third term as Chinese President in the spring of next year, the English-language national press, various TV news channels, and a couple of the largest digital news platforms in India have been quick to focus on the specter of an increased “dragon threat” staring at India. Take a look at some of the news headlines in India’s national press before and after the CPC congress: “Red Alert: What after the Chinese Communists’ 20th Party Congress?” “Xi’s Third Term Promises More Risks than Rewards for India,” and “How India Can Rise to the China Challenge?”
In a recent review, a serving Indian navy officer described journalist Ananth Krishanan’s just-published influential book India’s China Challenge as “a notable examination of the challenge posed to India by China’s meteoric rise.” A day after Xi presented his political report at the ongoing party congress, Vijay Gokhale, a seasoned China hand and former Indian foreign secretary (2018-2020), who was also New Delhi’s envoy to Beijing during the 73-day-long Doklam border standoff with China, told The Print – India’s largest viewed social media current affairs platform, “India must be prepared as Xi Jinping is likely to become China’s most powerful leader.” Another leading Indian short video news app aired an exclusive panel discussion entitled “As Xi consolidates power in China, how will India handle the rising dragon?”
In September, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar led the Indian delegation at the 77th session of the UNGA and spent 10-day in the US. A key objective of Jaishankar’s visit, as reported in the Indian and international press, including the Chinese media, was to maintain the momentum of the recently strengthening Indo-US military-strategic partnership. It is pertinent to mention, the so-called evolving India-US strategic relationship momentum – what the secretary of state recently termed “one of the world’s most consequential partnerships” – has increasingly come under stress since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. New Delhi’s refusal to break away with “all-weather friend” Russia since the war in Ukraine in February has angered the White House.
But why did Jaishankar need to “camp” in the US capital city for so many days?
As mentioned, the progress in Indo-US strategic partnership in recent years has been quite favorable to India – both politically and militarily. The following reasons are cited for a “turnaround” in the early 2000s in the US willingness to consider key areas for deepening bilateral and regional strategic cooperation with India. Namely, following 9.11, the US global war on terror aligned with India’s efforts to combat its own organized terrorism threats, which led to increased bilateral cooperation in intelligence, law enforcement, and military; more recently the cyber security cooperation has been steadily rising between the two countries; and, the increasing US realization that it is essential to enhance regional military-strategic cooperation with India to counter a rising China.
But the February 24 Russian military attack on Ukraine has indeed forced India into a corner. Even some staunch critics of New Delhi strategically having moved closer to the US have observed, “At first, it seemed as if the Russian invasion would force India to do a tightrope walk to maintain its relations with Moscow without causing a reversal of its growing ties with Europe and the United States.” This despite a section among the US strategic affairs analysts warning early on that “Washington would use every opportunity to disrupt and ultimately break India’s partnership with Russia.” According to John P. Ruehl, India continued to believe it has trodden carefully by not endorsing Russian actions until it received the first rude shock on April 11 when Blinken openly criticized India for human rights violations at the fourth 2+2 US-India Ministerial Dialogue in Washington DC.
Finally, with the internal economic slowdown to continue in the short run due to rigid, severe COVID-inflicted lockdowns, and externally, facing a long-term threat to economic growth as a result of the US “obsession” to “outcompete” China, the CPC’s rising nationalism will inexorably lead China into escalating military conflicts with countries in its neighborhood. The ongoing border standoff in the Galwan valley in June 2020 in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, caused by unprovoked Chinese military advances, is a manifestation of the aggressive Chinese behavior under Xi’s “new era.” The moot question India’s policymakers are confronted with is, what will be more effective in eliminating the specter of the dragon threat: to maintain its traditional foreign policy “autonomy” and refrain from fully becoming a part of the US-initiated “anti-China” security architecture or fully embrace the US security protection and dare and challenge Chinese nationalist “defensive-offensive?”
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There is no question that over the past decade, the United States has driven the India-Pacific strategy, e.g. the Quad and AUKUS, to contain the peaceful rise of China. In addition, Washington has made all efforts to persuade the countries in the region to support its geopolitical scheme. Vietnam is the focus that the U.S. and Japan have tryied to win over in the final competition with China. To that end, some of media, politicians and radical groups in the West have exaggerated the bitter memories of history entertained by Vietnam so that it will be aroused to confront China by its psychological and security concerns.
To that end, the U.S. has tirelessly wooed Vietnam to join its challenge to the legitimate claims of China in the South China Sea and its accusation of China to have held back large amount of the Mekong as it flows through six countries including Vietnam and China where the river starts. They claim that since China has unilaterally blocked free flow of the Mekong river for its own reservoirs, it has consequently led to a severe drought in other five countries concerned.
Actually, China has consistently called for the six Lancang-Mekong countries a de facto community with a shared future linked by the same river and also has regularly shared annual hydrological information for the other countries concerned so that they would jointly better utilize water resources while addressing climate change and the natural disasters involved. It is fair to argue that since the end of the Cold War, China has acted responsibly in terms of common interests with its neighbors including Vietnam.
In the study of international relations, the major considerations in foreign policy-making of each country are mainly geography, history and the shared interests as well as the ideological affinity. First, both China and Vietnam are well-aware that neither side could change the reality that the two countries are linked with each other by the shared mountains and rivers. More than that, as two largest Communist Parties in the world, China and Vietnam have shared the long-term friendship and solidarity in fights against the imperialism and hegemony during the 20th century. Now they are facing the historic tasks of how to build up socialist system in accordance with its own scenario. Beijing and Hanoi have made clear to further deepen good-neighbor relations in terms of good-neighborly friendship, future orientation and all-round cooperation in a constructive way. Cultural-ideologically, since the U.S. is so adamant in anti-Communist China, it would never be lenient to a Communist-led Vietnam or any one in the near future. Given this, China and Vietnam have no choices but work in concert on the issues of national security, social-economic security and ideological security to defend the common interests of socialist countries.
Internationally, although China and Vietnam are both the socialist countries under the Communist leadship, only five-claimed in the world today, they have been deeply involved in the global economic system. For instance, China is the largest economy in Asia and the second largest one in the world while Vietnam is seen as one of the most vibrant economies in the ASEAN. In addition, the two countries have agreed to synergize their development strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Two Corridors plus One Economic Circle. In return, they will further highlight and consolidate the socialist economic foundation between the two countries. For decades, China has been Vietnam’s largest trading partner and one of the major sources of foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite COVID-19 disruptions, Vietnam is still China’s largest trading partner in the ASEAN with bilateral trade exceeding $230 billion in 2021.
In the wake of his re-election to the General Secretary of the Chinese leading party, Xi Jinping who is also President of China formally invited his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong to lead a high-level delegation to visit China from October 30 to November 2. Trong and his entourage received the warm welcome in Beijing on November 31 including a solemn ceremony of presenting the Friendship Medal of China to him by Xi personally. It symbolizes the friendship of “comrades plus brothers” between the two countries and the two Parties as Xi and Trong vowed to cherish and preserve the foundation of the Sino-Vietnamese relations.
In history, the Party-to-Party diplomacy has played an integral role in effecting the general agenda of Chinese foreign relations since the early 1950s. Inherited from the first-generation leaders of the CCP, the current leadership headed by Xi has made remarkable progresses to promote the role of the Party-to-Party diplomacy in the new era. One seminal case is that the CPC held a high-level dialogues between the CPC and the political parties of the world in 2017 with the theme of rebuilding international community of shared future. As China and Vietnam are both the neighboring countries and the socialist states led by the Communist Party of each country, it is necessary to maintain the inter-governmental dialogues over the core issues while charting the course of the inter-Party coordination since they have revealed the sincerity and wisdom to seek an early settlement of maritime disputes and the core issues concerned.
In sum, Trong’s state visit to China sends a clear message to the world that Vietnam is not only a socialist cstate but also together with the ASEAN never be a sidekick of the US strategy against China. The ASEAN has their own interests to defend and their own strategy to implement. Prior to his trip to China, Trong had spoken to the effect that as Vietnam was now in the vortex of the intensified China-U.S. competition, it has to cautiously manage its relations with the two great powers. On the one hand, maintaining close relations with China has always been a top priority of Vietnam’s diplomacy; on the other hand, Vietnam has attempted to further develop relations with the United States. But Hanoi needs to allay China’s rising concerns about the fast-growing U.S.-Vietnam relationship in recent years, particularly the defense cooperation between Vietnam and the United States in the South China Sea.
It is enough to say that one fundamental principle of Vietnamese politics goes along the way to reach an equilibrium between Idealpolitik and Realpolitik that follows its “Four Noes” policy: “not to join any military alliance, not to ally with any country targeting the third party, not to allow foreign countries to set up military bases in Vietnam or use its territory against other countries, and not to use force or threaten the use of force in international relations.” Given this, China seems to have outmatched the U.S. India-Pacific strategy in terms of the peace and development in the region.
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