Thread by @grzestec

#China struggles to pursue #foreignpolicy and great power #diplomacy

Jia Qingguo (CPPCC's Foreign Affairs Committee) sees 3 causes:

📍Contradiction China’s identity vs interests
📍Inability to process own rapid growth
📍Own unique features

Let's unpack his piece🧵

📌Who is he?

One of 🇨🇳 top foreign policy advisers

📍Member of Standing Committee of National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
📍Member of CPPC's Foreign Affairs Council
📍Former dean of Peking University's School of International Studies [2/15]

📌TAKEAWAYS
📍China's confusing foreign policy choices often stem from conflicted identities, which are subject of domestic debate
📍China still lacks understanding of outside world
📍Consensus on need for assertiveness & preventing containment but debate on how to do it [3/15]

📍Despite constraints of Xi's system, there is still push for more open (but controlled!) exchanges with foreigners (potentially in two-tier system - restricting access to decision makers)
📍Healthy dose of skepticism on whether this finds receptive audience in top circles [4/15]

📌Challenge #1
Contradiction identity vs interests (身份和利益在多方面的双重性和矛盾性) #矛盾

📍Identity conflict - depending on area, China is simultaneously:
* Developed and developing country
* Powerful and weak/dependent
* Rich and poor
* Ordinary power and superpower [5/15]

📍The debate on China's rise has not been settled domestically

📍 "In a nutshell, China is neither a pre-rise China nor a post-rise China, but a China that is both and neither"
概括而言，它既不是崛起前的中国，也不是崛起后的中国，而是一个两者兼有之又两者都不完全是的中国 [6/15]

📍"Identity determines interest. The duality of China's identity in many aspects determines the duality and contradiction of its interests"

身份决定利益。强起来的中国在多方面身份的双重性决定了它在多方面利益的双重性和矛盾性

[kind of #Marxist #constructivism] [7/15]

📍Example: #climate policies in which China negotiates between its developing/developed country identities: right to #development vs. energy conservation and reduction of #emissions

📍Similarly: The diplomatic goal of a stronger should be... [8/15]

to make the world (if not the #US, then everyone else) more at ease with an idea of a powerful China.

📍Especially, that as a "future #superpower" China needs to ensure that the international order makes maintaining power cost-efficient. He cites US story as inspiration. [9/15]

📍But as #China still in many regards has an identity of a weak actor, it can respond overly forcefully to pressure from a word that it doesn't understand well enough (see point 2).

📍Consequently China creates even more strategic distrust (counter to key objective). [10/15]

📌Challenge #2: Overly rapid #growth

📍China has rapid growth in strength, has not been accompanied by equally rapid development of human capital necessary for dealing with external world

📍Launch of #BRI has been in many regards a learning exercise [11/15]

📌Challenge #3: Unique system

📍China's uniqueness stems from its: population, economic might, long and distinct culture, political system

📍 The #West is unable to accept China's rise (accommodate it in the international system) and is trying to contain China [12/15]

📍But Jia sees a considerable problem with the system - how closed the academic and expert exchanges have become. This hinders China's ability to understand the world and also to impact it.

📍For this point he leverages Xi's own slogan asking... [13/15]

...how can you tell China's story well, if you don't talk with your counterpart?

📍Still, he doesn't call for full openness, but rather a two-tier system where only those not privy to Party-State secrets should be free to engage with foreigners and then report back. [14/15]

In full [15/15]

Jia Qingguo: A Stronger China and Great Power Diplomacy in the New Era

贾庆国：强起来的中国与新时代大国外交

aisixiang.com/data/137623-2.…