Trying to predict any country’s international behaviour is fraught with challenges. That is even more the case when that country’s political system is opaque, as is China’s. We depend on clues, turns of phrases drawn from leaders’ speeches, shards of evidence gleaned from people on the ground, and various theories (or biases in disguise).
We have spent much time analysing China’s geostrategic ambitions. Much ink has been spilled on the Thucydides Trap, the notion of “peak power” or the radical Project 2025 that says the China challenge “is rooted in China’s strategic culture and not just the Marxism-Leninism of the [Chinese Communist Party], meaning that internal culture and civil society will never deliver a more normative nation”.
But we have spent more time on China’s capabilities than sought out what China actually desires.
China wants many things. Most are to some degree debatable, and reasonable people can disagree. But the one thing China has wanted for the better part of the past two centuries is quite simple – to stand up. That is, China desires to re-establish its seat at the table governing the world order, a desire that arose out of an era of colonialism that began China’s slide into anarchy and autarky.
The country eventually re-emerged from this, but for a long time, China’s global re-emergence had an asterisk attached to it; it was conditional. To resist the Soviet threat, China had to establish
rapprochement with the United States. To grow out of the planned economy, China desperately needed to draw on the managerial and financial expertise of the West and the
East Asian “tiger” economies.
Even the oft-used prefix, zhongguo tese de (“with Chinese characteristics”), was premised on improving upon something invented elsewhere. This was in line with Deng Xiaoping’s caution, tao guang yang hui: keep a low profile and bide one’s time.
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Why Deng Xiaoping is one of China’s most consequential leaders
Why Deng Xiaoping is one of China’s most consequential leaders
