Fan Hongda: Thinking on China's Diplomacy from the Perspective of Great Power Competition

With the Rise to Power of the Biden administration, the United States and Europe renew their admiration for transatlantic cooperation, and the signs of increased cooperation between China and European powers that were briefly seen during the Trump administration are gradually fading. The situation in which the United States and The European Union jointly deal with China on many issues has once again taken shape. Under the situation that China's relations with the United States and Europe are difficult to break through, China must pay attention to diplomacy with key regional countries.

On February 16 this year, the Tsai Chung-Tsang China Center at Yale Law School released a research report entitled "U.S.-EU Roadmap for Cooperation with China." The report aims to explore how the United States and European powers can most effectively work together to address the many challenges posed by China's rise. It lists six priority areas where the United States and Europe may have the most in common in their China policy: trade and investment, technical standards and regulations, human rights, climate change, coronavirus and global health, and the international system. Each area is also subdivided into several key areas, such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong in the field of human rights.

The report shows that the United States and Europe have a lot of consensus on how to treat China. Although the basic demands of the United States and Europe towards China are different at this stage, the biggest demand of European powers for China is to cooperate for profit, and the basic starting point of the Us policy toward China is to suppress and curb its rise, and at the end of 2020, Europe completed the "China-EU Investment Agreement" (CAI) negotiations with China in spite of the opposition of the United States, which shows the differences between the United States and Europe in China policy.

But China must not exaggerate the differences between the United States and Europe. After the poor US-EU relations during the Trump era, in the face of a China with rising strength and international influence, whether it is the United States, the only superpower that is wary of the "second in the world", or a European power with declining relative influence, the desire to cooperate against an aggressive China will be even stronger. The COVID-19 pandemic and the arrival of the Biden administration will strengthen their cooperation in this regard.

After the 2020 US election, Britain, France and Germany quickly congratulated Biden on his victory, which clearly reflected the dislike of The Trump administration and the expectations of the Biden administration by European powers. As early as November 16, 2020, the foreign ministers of Germany and France jointly published a column in the Washington Post, arguing that President-elect Biden could make transatlantic cooperation possible; on December 2, the European Union issued the "New EU-US Agenda for Responding to Global Change", which planned the future of European-AMERICAN cooperation from the perspective of the Eu.

On November 11, 2020, local time, when British Prime Minister Johnson was asked when questioned about "what advice Trump has for rejecting the election results", he blurted out a sentence "I have a good relationship with the previous president (Trump)" (Observer Network video screenshot)

The Biden administration has also repeatedly stressed that the United States will once again value cooperation among its transatlantic allies. For example, at the International Security Conference in Munich on February 19 this year, Biden bluntly told European allies that "the United States is back, the transatlantic alliance is back" and "we must jointly prepare for long-term strategic competition with China." At the G7 summit on the same day, leaders also said they would seek to forge a collective stance on China in order to counter "non-market-oriented" policies and practices and ensure fair multilateral global trade.

Against the backdrop of such a demand for cooperation between the United States and Europe, it is quite difficult for China to establish close and friendly relations with the major powers of Europe and the United States today. China's diplomacy should strive to find a new way out. The author adheres to the view of recent years, that is, on the basis of generally maintaining friendly or normal relations with other countries, China should further attach importance to the development of relations with key countries in the region, especially to key countries in key regions. Because I am mainly engaged in regional country research in the Middle East, I will take the Middle East as an example to illustrate my own proposition.

China maintains normal inter-state relations with all Middle Eastern countries. In the middle of the middle of the complicated contradictions, China can communicate with any party to the conflict, and it is an "old good man" who cannot be offended by anyone, which is an advantage of China's Middle East diplomacy. However, China, whose strength has been greatly enhanced, has not yet won the trust of Middle Eastern countries, and it is difficult for any party to the conflict in the Middle East to pin its fate on China.

To some extent, at least in the Middle East, China has not yet translated its national power into effective international influence. So far, China's diplomatic capacity with key countries in the Middle East needs to be improved. This is not too obvious in the absence of great power competition; once there is great power competition, China's diplomatic shortcomings in the Middle East are easily discovered.

In the past year, the world's major powers have paid significantly more attention to China's Middle East diplomacy, especially China-Iran relations. In addition to the relevant reports in the media, the author also has personal experience. For some time in the second half of 2020, officials of the British, German, and American embassies and consulates in China sent note requests to the author's unit one after another, hoping to exchange views with the author on the Middle East issue and Sino-Iranian relations. Obviously, the Iranian government's announcement in June 2020 of the adoption of the draft Iran-China Comprehensive Cooperation Plan for 25 Years and the shaping of China-Iran relations by such frameworks have deeply disturbed many countries.

But now, we are well aware of what happened next. Chinese officials have not publicly responded to the 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan between Iran and China, and at least the Chinese scholar community has produced some other views on the Iranian government's announcement. On the other hand, there is a strong reaction to this cooperation program and the rumors that followed in Iran. As a result, Iran's Foreign Ministry soon announced that it was postponing negotiations with China on a 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan.

It is precisely because of the episode "Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Plan" that unfortunately, the negative perception of China in Iran has risen. In fact, blocking full cooperation between China and Iran is one of the current middle-east diplomacy options of the United States and European powers.

The change in the Biden administration's attitude toward Iran is clear. As soon as the U.S. administration took office, it immediately put into practice its campaign to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. On February 18, the United States announced that it would accept the proposal of Britain, France and Germany and was willing to return to the Iran nuclear agreement and negotiate directly with Iran. In fact, the long-term U.S.-Iran confrontation has long been contrary to the national interests of the United States, and the smart people in Washington will never see this. Competition with China in almost the global sphere makes Washington even more intolerant of key countries in key regions like Iran sliding to China's side.

In the more than 30 years that Iran has been subjected to international sanctions advocated by the United States, China has maintained relatively good bilateral relations with Iran, which is why some Chinese believe that Iran should be grateful to China. But international relations are a process of continuous development, and bilateral relations are inherently a presence of mutual needs. Sometimes, a fleeting opportunity can make relations between the two countries soar; insufficient sensitivity to developments can also cool bilateral relations.

At present, is it necessary to continue to "taoguang and cultivate obscurity" or to "make a difference"? The debate over these two diplomatic claims may still haunt some practitioners of Chinese diplomacy. Under the situation that relations with Major Powers in Europe and the United States are difficult to break through, China, which has been regarded by many countries as the "second in the world", must pay attention to the diplomatic development of key regional countries. Moreover, "Chinese diplomacy" is obviously not just the work of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and relevant departments must establish a more effective coordination mechanism.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

Author: Fan Hongda

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