With Power Secure at Home, China’s Xi Jinping Looks to Project Strength Abroad
By Austin Ramzy, Nov. 8, 2022, WSJ
HONG KONG—Xi Jinping emerged from a Communist Party congress with more power than any Chinese leader in a generation. Now, he’s turning his focus to shoring up foreign ties as he steels the country for heightened competition with the U.S.
Leaders from Vietnam, Pakistan, Tanzania and Germany all traveled to Beijing last week to see Mr. Xi—resulting in more face-to-face meetings with foreign dignitaries than the Chinese leader has had in the nearly two years between the early days of the
pandemic and the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.
The whirlwind summitry comes immediately after Mr. Xi broke with recent precedent and secured a third term in power last month—and ahead of meetings with leaders of the Group of 20 major economies and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation later this
month. Mr. Xi is also planning a trip to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
China faces an increasingly contentious relationship with the U.S., which last month restricted the export of semiconductors and chip-making equipment to China in an effort to prevent the technology from advancing China’s military power.
For Mr. Xi, the diplomacy gives him an opportunity to counter Washington’s efforts to enlist allies to isolate Beijing and prepare China for the “dangerous storms” he warned of during a key speech at the party congress.
“China wants to show the U.S. that isolation of China will not work; efforts to move value chains and supply chains from China will not work,” said Cheng Li, director of the Brookings Institution’s China Center. “This is a political message to
people both in China and outside China.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveled to Beijing last week with a delegation of business executives, making him the first leader from the Group of 7 nations to visit the country since the start of the pandemic.
Mr. Scholz’s trip came a week after he pushed through a deal to allow Cosco Shipping Holdings Co., a Chinese state-owned company, to buy a stake in a terminal at the country’s largest port in the northern city of Hamburg. The deal was widely
unpopular in Germany and drew concerns from European Commission officials, President Emmanuel Macron of France and some German ministries.
During the visit to Beijing, the German chancellor said China agreed to approve BioNTech SE’s Covid vaccines for foreign residents and discussed a path to wider approval of the German-developed shots in China.
Mr. Macron will also likely go to China in the coming weeks or months, France’s foreign minister said last week.
Mr. Scholz was preceded by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, and President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania on Wednesday. Both Pakistan and Tanzania are longstanding friends of Beijing that have seen significant
Chinese investment in infrastructure.
Ms. Hassan has expressed interest in reviving a project that was shelved by her predecessor to build East Africa’s largest port and lease it to a Chinese company. The country’s former president, John Magufuli, had complained that the deal, signed
during Mr. Xi’s visit to Tanzania in 2013, was exploitative.
“Modernization does not mean Westernization,” Mr. Xi told Ms. Hassan during their talks last week.
In his meeting with Mr. Sharif, Mr. Xi called for speeding up work on Chinese-backed infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including railway lines and a large port in the coastal city of Gwadar, which is operated by state-run China Overseas Port Holding
Co. The port has been the subject of protests from residents over strict security arrangements and extensive Chinese fishing.
For Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong, Mr. Xi and members of China’s top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, hosted a state dinner. Mr. Xi said that the two countries’ ruling Communist parties should “never allow anyone to
interfere with their progress,” state media reported.
While China’s Covid restrictions kept Mr. Xi stuck at home for nearly three years, the parade of foreign leaders this past week shows that the importance of hosting top-level diplomatic pilgrimages hasn’t diminished for China.
“These leaders traveling to see Xi are reminders of China’s geopolitical heft, centering Beijing in international politics and enabling China to advance agendas legitimizing Xi’s diplomatic initiatives,” said Courtney J. Fung, an associate
professor at Macquarie University in Australia and a nonresident fellow of the Lowy Institute, a public-policy think tank.
The latest official visits are also a prelude to a return to more active in-person diplomacy from Mr. Xi, who frequently traveled overseas before the pandemic, said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at S. Rajaratnam School
of International Studies in Singapore.
“In the coming years, we will see quite intensive Chinese diplomacy,” he said. “All this is related to China’s assessment of the external international environment and specific challenges China will have with the United States and Western
countries.”
China’s foreign policy makers may already be implementing a strategy to prepare for the “strong winds, choppy waters and even dangerous waves” that the Communist Party’s political report warned were ahead, said Prof. Li.
The strategy would involve winning and maintaining support from as many countries as possible through an array of appeals, including trade and investment and a vision of a world order not dominated by the U.S., scholars say.
Mr. Xi is expected to visit Riyadh before the end of the year. Ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have frayed in recent months over a decision by the Saudi-led grouping collectively known as OPEC+ to cut oil production, as well as animosity between
President Biden and Prince Mohammed.
Mr. Xi is expected to attend the meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in Bali later this month. He will also attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok on Nov. 18 and 19, Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai has said.
American and Chinese officials are making plans for a first, in-person meeting between Messrs. Biden and Xi in Bali, but haven’t yet confirmed that it will take place. Mr. Biden will also attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
and the East Asia Summit in Cambodia on Nov. 12 and 13.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which doesn’t typically release details of Mr. Xi’s trips until shortly before they begin, hasn’t confirmed his travel plans.
During the pandemic he didn’t travel abroad for more than two years, until a visit to Central Asia in September. He traveled to Kazakhstan and attended a summit in Uzbekistan, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of several Asian
states.
The surge of diplomacy suggests a recognition that Mr. Xi’s lack of in-person contact with foreign leaders likely hurt China’s global clout, Prof. Li said.
“They may want to walk an extra mile for China’s foreign relations to try to make up for the losses they encountered over the past three years,” he said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-power-secure-at-home-chinas-xi-jinping-looks-to-project-strength-abroad-11667911410
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