The Idea of China

10/31/2024

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The title of a new book – The Idea of China: Chinese Thinkers on Power, Progress, and People (European Council on Foreign Relations) – carries a sense of what drives Beijing when its leaders look at the world and consider how it works.

It may be a bit of a stretch but there is something of opening the Western doors of perception on China, as the West and emerging nations in the global south draw up their policy in international relations.

The authors, Alicia Bachulska, Mark Leonard, and Janka Oertel, contacted some 100 Chinese sources over the last couple of years, seeking to examine and explain what drives China in the aftermath of the Cold War conflict.

There is a thoughtful account of key concepts underpinning a drive by President Xi Jinping, allied with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, to seize a leading position in the world order, seen by the Chinese leader as caught in a state of chaos.

The ECFR book considers key Chinese analysts and officials looking to deliver an interpretation of what happens at home and abroad, guided by policy statements by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and public remarks by closely watched Xi.

The authors set out Beijing’s approach to issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence with a Marxist approach, importance of the Chinese yuan in global finance, women’s role in social change, and determination to spread Chinese views and values around the world.

The Chinese thinkers cited argued that in Cold War days, China was seen in the West as a revisionist power seeking to upset a status quo led by the U.S., a Western power emerging newly invigorated after the second world war.

“China under Xi is not the country many Western leaders grew up with,” the authors say in the executive summary.

“It is determinedly carving out its own place in the world. The ideas generated by China could be its next major export – serious consequences for Europe, prospects for prosperity, and universally agreed upon norms.”

The highly accessible book seeks to bring the reader up to speed on the Chinese way of thinking, leaning on three concepts, namely Beijing’s pursuit of power in response to a perceived breakdown of international order; search for social and economic progress; and winning support of the Chinese People.

Bachulska and Leonard presented the book Oct. 9 at the ECFR office, here. Copies of the book were made freely available.

The vast majority of the Chinese contacts contacted by the authors were “desperate to talk,” Leonard said, and were “surprisingly open.” That was in the aftermath of an extended and tight Covid lockdown.

The government’s pursuit of identity of the Chinese nation, to resolve a falling population, was a “big issue” for governance, Bachulska said. The role of women is a big issue, with a new generation of women resisting the authorities’ pursuit of traditional values, namely the proper place for women is in the home.

The government has “clear ideas about the role Chinese people should play in the strengthening and promotion of China,” she said in the People chapter. “Whether or not the people agree with these wishes is another question…China is not an ideas desert; Chinese people are not bereft of ideas of their own.”

The authors set out how key Chinese nationals in think tanks, universities, and institutions interpret and discuss policy lines set by the CCP and the head of state, Xi. A notable feature are brief summaries, with thumbnail sketches, of the Chinese academics and officials. Many of them have studied abroad, including Cambridge, Chicago, Columbia, Delft, George Washington, Harvard, London School of Economics, Oxford, Rutgers, Sheffield, and University College, London.

China sees a shake up of the international order, with a decline of the leading role of the U.S.

That could be seen in Xi’s remarks to Putin, Leonard said. The start of the book refers to an NBC News clip broadcast March 23, 2023:

“We are now witnessing changes the like of which we have not seen for 100 years,” Xi said. “And we are the ones driving these changes together.”

“I agree,” said Putin, as he wished the Chinese leader a good trip home after their six-hour meeting in the Kremlin.

Stiftung Mercator, a German non-profit organization, and the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland supported the book, published in Poland.

China as Military and Trade Power

There is close interest in what happens in China, the second-largest economy, whose health has repercussions around the world. That extends to its military capability.

A new Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine sank in a harbour around May or June, a senior U.S. defense official said, Reuters reported Sept. 27, following a news report in the financial daily Wall Street Journal.

The reason for the sinking was unclear and it was not known whether the boat, first of class, carried nuclear fuel at the time, the news agency reported, with a satellite picture from Planet Labs of Wuchang shipyard, where the submarine would have been docked.

Still on the military front, China’s People’s Liberation Army staged Oct. 14 an extensive military exercise, dubbed Joint Sword-2024B, around Taiwan. Those military drills included a naval operation on the Taiwan Strait, a strategic approach to the breakaway state.

Taiwan reported 34 PLA ships and 125 aircraft deployed around the island in that exercise, seen by the Chinese regime as Beijing’s show of force in response to the Taiwan president, William Lai, who had said he would “resist annexation,” the BBC reported.

Concerns over China’s perceived security threat led the then Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to strike a deal with the U.K. and U.S. to build a nuclear-powered attack submarine  in the AUKUS pact in 2021. That opting for an atomic boat scuppered a project for a French conventional submarine, Shortfin Barracuda, pitched by Naval Group.

China’s long reach includes severe impact on an ailing German car industry.

A drop in demand in China for Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars is forcing the upmarket German manufacturers to cut costs, with the latter looking to slash billions of euros by 2030.

The competition from Chinese builders of electric vehicles could be seen at the high-profile Paris car show in mid-October, with nine Chinese EV brands on display.

Chinese car companies such as BYD and Leapmotor are looking to expand in Europe, prompting the European Union to impose import tariffs of up to 45 pct on Chinese EVs, seen as benefiting from state subsidies.

Beijing has responded to the EU by slapping temporary security deposits on imports of European brandy, hitting the French brands Hennessy and Remy Martin.

The Chinese economy is expected to grow 4.8 pct this year, a Reuters poll showed Oct. 15, which would be weaker than the government’s growth target of around 5 pct. The forecast rise in 2025 gross domestic product is expected to weaken further to 4.5 pct.

There seems to be a variation to the old adage, when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, with global concern over China reaching for a handkerchief.