By Lau Siu-kai

The past year can be billed as the year of a bumper harvest for China’s diplomacy. Through arduous and skillful diplomacy, China has dramatically expanded its international space to maneuver, significantly enhanced its influence and voice in international affairs, greatly strengthened its leadership in the non-Western world, laid a more solid foundation for the construction of a new international order, and created broader prospects for its long-term economic development.

From another perspective, China’s diplomatic achievements show that China can effectively and forcefully counter the United States’ and the West’s ruthless efforts to contain, encircle and isolate China, the most sinister one being the “NATO-ization” of Asia. China’s diplomatic achievements also indicate that though they can strengthen their internal unity to contain China, the clout of the US and the West is declining elsewhere in the world, and they have difficulty finding reliable allies. The international order they dominate is also in the course of inevitable decline.

In the years when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, China’s diplomatic work encountered tremendous difficulties. However, its diplomatic activities have shown explosive growth with the pandemic’s end. Many heads of state and government leaders have visited China. President Xi Jinping, other national leaders, and central government officials have also made frequent foreign visits, testifying that China has entered the center of the world and has effectively executed the responsibility and functions of a great power.

In the past year, China’s notable and significant achievements in diplomacy were mainly in the following aspects:

After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US and the West inflicted unprecedented and all-around sanctions against Russia to severely damage its economy, diminish its national power, and isolate it internationally. However, these destructive actions by the US and the West have wholly extinguished Russia’s residual illusion about the West. They have prompted Russia to strengthen all aspects of its ties with China and other Asian countries. China’s diplomatic efforts have taken advantage of the opportunity to comprehensively reinforce Sino-Russian relations. In the past year, Sino-Russian strategic cooperation reached an unprecedented high. Under the new Sino-Russian ties, the trade volume between the two countries has increased enormously. China’s energy, resources, food and national security have been enhanced. Russia sells more oil and natural gas to China. In future, the two countries will jointly develop the resource-rich but largely untouched Russian Far East. There will be a tighter alignment of the Eurasian Economic Union, advocated by Russia, and the Belt and Road Initiative, promoted by China. Russia allows China’s Jilin province to use Vladivostok as a transit port for domestic trade goods. All these developments will significantly benefit China for many years to come.

Relations between China and the Middle East have experienced several breakthroughs in the past year. The background to this development is that the status and influence of the US in the Middle East continues to decline, and countries in the region are eager to reduce their mutual hostilities and bring about a more peaceful situation. Under China’s mediation, two longtime rivals in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran, reached a historic agreement, thus triggering the reconciliation process for other Middle Eastern countries and sowing the seeds for future peace and stability in the region.

At the end of last year, President Xi went to Saudi Arabia to attend the first China-Arab States Summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit. He also made a state visit to Saudi Arabia. President Xi’s diplomatic trip to the Middle East is a milestone in international affairs with manifold consequences on the balance of power in the world. It formulates the framework for the future construction and promotion of a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Arab countries, and even a China-Arab community of a shared future. It has significantly enhanced China’s influence in the Middle East. Its status and power are of extraordinary significance to China’s long-term security and development.

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter. At the SCO Heads of State Council meeting in September 2022, the member states agreed to build a closer SCO community with a shared future. The SCO’s original purpose was to safeguard its member states’ security, especially in combating terrorism, separatism and extremism. However, as time goes by, the functions of the SCO have continued to expand, and the areas of cooperation have also increased continuously.

President Xi proposed at that meeting that the SCO strengthen people-to-people exchanges and promised that China will assist member countries in achieving sustainable development and provide food and other humanitarian aid to needy countries. At the SCO Heads of State Council meeting in July, Iran was officially accepted as a member, and Belarus signed the memorandum of obligations for joining the organization. Looking to the future, the scale and functions of the SCO will continue to grow. Since all SCO member states are closely involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, the continued growth of the SCO will provide more robust support for its development.

A more world-renowned achievement of China’s diplomatic work lies in expanding the scope of cooperation among BRICS countries and enlarging its membership. After the 15th BRICS leaders’ meeting in August, the leaders announced they had invited Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to become new members. All the new members occupy superior strategic positions in their respective regions. More developing countries are also keen to join BRICS, reflecting the Global South’s discontent with the US-led international order and its desire to build a new one in which equality, inclusiveness, and fairness prevail. With the expansion of BRICS, it becomes more and more prominent as the representative and vanguard of the Global South, giving developing and underdeveloped countries more power and clout to compete and bargain with the Western camp. The areas of cooperation between BRICS countries will also continue to expand. In addition to trade, infrastructure, transportation and communications, they cooperate in finance, currency, science and technology, culture, environmental protection, health, society, security, and global governance. It will also continue to become more powerful.

China has played a significant and indispensable leadership, promotion and support role in the abovementioned developments. What is more apparent is that they are all concrete examples of the incipient and emerging new international order. What is particularly important, and what makes the US and the West jittery, is that they all embody the basic principles of the new international order advocated by China to varying degrees. These principles were expressed in President Xi’s report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2022. The purpose of China’s foreign policy mentioned in the extensive report is clearly articulated. China’s foreign policy aims to “promote world peace and development and build a community with a shared future for mankind”. Three key paragraphs in the report have guided China’s diplomatic work in the past year. They are:

“Guided by the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith and with a commitment to the greater good and shared interests, China strives to strengthen solidarity and cooperation with other developing countries and safeguard the common interests of the developing world.”

“(China) strives to create new opportunities for the world with its development and to contribute its share to building an open global economy that delivers greater benefits to all peoples. China adheres to the right course of economic globalization. It strives to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, advance bilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation, and boost international macroeconomic policy coordination. It is committed to working with other countries to foster an international environment conducive to development and create new drivers for global growth.”

“China is prepared to invest more resources in global development cooperation. It is committed to narrowing the North-South gap and supporting and assisting other developing countries in accelerating development.”

Accordingly, it can be argued that the success of China’s foreign policy in the past year has much to do with the fact that the global development concepts advocated and practiced by China through its diplomacy have been widely recognized and appreciated in the Global South.

The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of Bauhinia Magazine.

Source: China Daily