The Economic Dimensions of China’s Foreign Policy By Dr. Jin Linbo, China Institute of International Studies.pdf

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Points for workshop discussion but not for citation
The Economic Dimensions of China’s Foreign Policy
By Dr. Jin Linbo
Director, Department of Asia-Pacific Studies
China Institute of International Studies (CIIS)
Center on China’s Transnational Relations
Research Workshop
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Focuses: What are the main factors that affect the PRC’s foreign policy?
How and to what extent?
What are its implications?
The overview of the PRC’s foreign policy
•
Ideology, politics, security and economics are the most important factors that
have affected the theories and practices of Chinese foreign policy since the
establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
•
From 1949 to 1978, ideological, political and security concerns were
predominant.
•
Since China began its strategy of reforming and opening-up in 1978, economic
concerns, in a broad sense, have become more and more important, if not
decisive, factors in the formulation and the implementation of China’s foreign
policy.
•
In other words, how to better serve the national goal of economic development
in a comprehensive and effective way has become a main focus of China’s
foreign policy.
•
Because of this, the Chinese diplomacy has been characterized as pragmatic
“economic diplomacy”.
•
Among economic factors, energy and resource needs stand out in recent years
as China’s economy continues its high rate growth and China’s imports of oil
and natural gas reached a record high several years ago.
•
Under such circumstances, it is quite natural to say that as China’s imports of
oil and gas continue to increase, China’s foreign policy is likely to be affected
by the increasing reliance of external sources of energy.
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•
As a matter of fact, the linkages and interactions between energy needs and
foreign policy are evident and likely to be strengthened further in the future.
•
In other word, many cases show that China’s foreign policy has already been,
and will continue to be affected by energy issues in the decades to come.
•
For the time being, however, it is hard for us to say that energy and resource
issues alone have already affected China’s foreign policy in a more profound
and decisive way, or that it will be the case in the foreseeable future.
The establishment of a new national goal and its implications for Chinese foreign
policy
•
At the conclusion of 16
th
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convention and 11
th
National People’s Congress (NPC), China presented a blueprint for its
long-term national goal to be fulfilled by 2020.
•
Its goal is to build a welfare society in an all-round way, known as
Xiaokang
shehui,
where the general populace would enjoy a much more abundant and
comfortable life.
•
China plans to achieve this new national goal by quadrupling the size of its
2000 gross domestic product by 2020.
•
This suggests that the “economic development” will continue to be the top
priority on China’s national agenda and China’s foreign policy has to better
serve this priority in all possible ways.
•
The establishment of new national goal has added the following implications
for China’s foreign policy:
•
economic development in an unstable international setting is unthinkable;
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•
therefore, China’s foreign policy has to concentrate on maintaining, if not
creating, a stable and peaceful international environment amicable to its
economic development.
•
In most cases, maintaining peace and stability is tantamount to preserving the
status quo.
•
It is in such a context that China should not be viewed as a challenger to the
existing world order, though China actively facilitates the establishment of a
new international political and economic order.
•
Second, serving economic development requires China to practice a pragmatic
and all-round diplomacy, which will enable it to expand economic exchanges
and contacts with countries all over the globe.
•
In most cases, pragmatic and all-round diplomacy means a departure from
ideology-based foreign policy, but it is not necessarily amoral.
•
Third, as Chinese economy continues to grow, China’s economic interests in
overseas markets will expand further.
•
This requires China’s foreign policy to come up with new ideas and effective
measures to deal with possible problems, even dangerous situations abroad “in
order to avoid behaving like a new imperialist.”
•
China’s foreign policy has already responded to this sort of challenges
properly.
•
In his 2005 New Year speech, Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing made it
clear that China “will continue to coexist peacefully and conduct friendly
exchanges with other countries in the world in the spirit of equality, mutual
trust and win-win cooperation.”
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•
In other word, China is well prepared make compromises if necessary in the
process of pushing forward its economic development.
China’s Resource needs and its foreign policy
•
It is obvious that whatever the pace of economic development may be, China
must address its rapidly growing demand for natural energy and resources and
that oil and gas will be at the top of this list.
•
•
In 1993, China became a net importer of oil.
In 2004, it became the second largest oil importer and consumer in the world
only behind the United States.
•
Increasing dependency on energy imports has prompted the discussion on
China’s energy security and strategy among Chinese scholars, oil companies
and governmental agencies and thus became an issue of foreign policy
consideration.
•
In recent years, China has explored economic diplomacy with great
enthusiasm and also attached importance to establishing energy cooperation
with many countries in the world.
•
From China’s standpoint, energy cooperation with Iran, Sudan, Venezuela and
other countries should not be perceived only in terms of Chinese acquisition to
foreign resources.
•
energy cooperation is a kind of economic cooperation between relevant parties,
but nothing more.
•
As energy cooperation between China and foreign countries increase, the
relevant companies will have more chances to participate in the foreign policy
making process, but their role is still limited to the specific issues.
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