Cooperating with China on Their Terms

In late October 2013, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee kept a conference of Diplomatic Work with Neighbouring Countries in Beijing, where it unveiled new priorities under its New Area Diplomacy guidelines. The new approach tends to make China’s neighbourhood, covering both continental and maritime Asian countries, the top strategic priority the very first time. The key message of the meeting was to reassure to the area that China will step-up its proactive engagement with its neighbours. This is achievable by converting its rising financial and political clout in to more regional public goods and paving the way for a community inspired by a typical destiny.

Multiple strategic initiatives underpin China’s new emphasis on regional diplomacy. On the economic side, the prospect of downwards pressure on regional development and the fragmentation of regional trade and investment negotiation procedures are two major challenges for China. The Silk Street Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road—now synthesised as the Belt and Road Initiatives—are arguably Beijing’s boldest flagship plans under the New Neighbourhood Diplomacy approach. The Belt and Street Initiatives aim to visualise a brand new mode of regional economic cooperation by tapping the large potential for regional investment as well as trade, and taking advantage of economic complementarities in between China and other regional nations. It also expects to further common interests by upgrading regional production, transportation and value chains.

For China, the initiative is already beginning to bear fruit. The Asia Infrastructure Investment Financial institution (AIIB), a new regional development bank initiated and led through China, has proved popular—attracting 57 founding members, including the UK, Germany, France, Sydney, South Korea and many other advanced economies. More than 60 countries have expressed their interest in partnerships with the Belt and Road Initiatives. And many countries along the proposed Silk Road Economic Belt and the Twenty-first century Maritime Silk Road have already began talks with China on coordinating policy, connecting facilities and better integrating trade and finance, as well as establishing people-to-people ties.

Ambitious as it is, the Belt and Road Initiatives are also the most complex projects Beijing has ever undertaken. Without efficient collaboration between the several stakeholders—including governments, NGOs, enterprises and also the public, both at home and abroad—it is unlikely to succeed.

In parallel with the Buckle and Road Initiatives, China is also promoting another milestone initiative the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). The FTAAP has set the tone for the 2014 APEC financial leaders’ meeting in Beijing. China’utes endorsement of the FTAAP demonstrates it’s commitment to more open, liberalised and high-quality trade and investment, as well as a more integrated regional economic climate.

Beijing believes that the FTAAP can provide an overarching framework that transcends the actual narratives of competition between your Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—the two leading regional trade negotiation groups in the Asia Pacific—and assist develop a roadmap for shared accommodation and co-evolution of various regional trade & investment arrangements. Such as the Belt and Road Initiatives, FTAAP is a long-term process and can simply be realised through cooperation along with other key economies, particularly the All of us, Japan and India.

Even more challenging is the issue of regional security. Today China encounters multiple regional security problems that range from diverging security perceptions, a rising security dilemma and deficiency of security public goods to managing maritime disputes and a plethora of additional regional traditional and non-traditional risks. Under the guidelines of the brand new neighbourhood diplomacy policy, China is now engaging with regional protection issues in more a more active way.

It is participating in and sometimes leading  regional security capacity and confidence building measures (CBMs), for example collective natural disaster alleviation, joint rescue and patrol, and anti-terrorism exercises, as well as rebuilding security in Afghanistan and mitigating tensions on the Japanese Peninsula. China has also been building up regional security institutions by upgrading the security cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), resetting the Conference of Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures within Asia (CICA) and initiating many bilateral and multilateral CBMs meetings with neighbouring countries, including those between China and the ASEAN defence ministers.

China completely recognises that there is not yet the consensus on what kind of security order is appropriate for the Asian countries Pacific region at a time if you find a major rebalancing between rising and established powers. For instance, there’s disagreement over whether the US-led alliance system is still legitimate as well as sustainable given the relative decline of US influence in the Asian countries Pacific. The lack of agreement over the regional security order will hamper security cooperation over time.

In May 2014, at the CICA summit meeting, President Xi Jinping talked about developing a resolve for a new security order in line with the ideals of common, comprehensive, supportive and sustainable security. Also, he encouraged Asian countries to play a leadership role in creating this new order, with the engagement of key players outside the region. The Chinese knowledge of a new security order within the Asia Pacific implicitly problems the exclusiveness of the US-led alliance program.

It has therefore caused suspicion and scepticism on the part of the united states and some of its key partners in the region. How to reconcile these differences and develop a shared definition of regional security order among all major stakeholders? How to work out inclusive regional security architectures where China, the US and many additional regional key players can not only peacefully co-exist but also cooperate in providing more protection public goods for the whole area? These questions remain crucial challenges for China if it is to play a bigger role within regional leadership in the future.

China is designed to set the regional cooperation agenda is republished with authorization from East Asia Forum