While the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy has garnered a lot of attention, much less analysis has been devoted to China’s coalition-building efforts. However, since the ascent of Xi Jinping to the presidency, the enlargement of China’s ‘circle of friends’ has become a top priority for Beijing. For Chinese diplomacy, the goal is to convince a maximum number of countries to support China’s positions, both individually and collectively at the multilateral level, on various issues of core interest – including Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other human rights-related matters. While China is actively seeking to build coalitions, it has set about doing so pursuing an approach that is quite different from that of the United States.
This Chaillot Paper identifies the tactics and strategy used by China to expand its circle of friends. It also assesses the prospects for Beijing’s coalition-building endeavour, based on an analysis of its achievements to date, as well as the setbacks it has encountered along the way. The paper also explores the potential impact of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine – and related sanctions – on coalition-building dynamics in the years ahead.
Executive Summary ->
Since the advent of Xi Jinping as the President of the People’s Republic of China in March 2013, China has focused on enlarging its ‘cir- cle of friends’ (中国的“朋友圈” – zhongguo de pengyou quan) (1), and on finally putting an end to the partial diplomatic isolation the coun- try inherited from the Mao and Deng eras. Opposed to the concept of ‘alliances’, Chi- nese diplomacy has been particularly active in developing a network of partnerships since 2016, taking advantage of the Trump admin- istration’s withdrawal from several multi- lateral organisations. In recent years, Beijing has often counted on a group of more than 50 countries to support its position at the United Nations (UN) on various sensitive issues – in- cluding Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States has not lessened China’s diplo- matic activism, although Beijing is aware that its coalition-building task is becoming hard- er at a time when Washington is rebuilding bridges with international allies and jointly consolidating the Indo-Pacific strategy.
China’s coalition-building efforts are current- ly supported by Russia and a growing number of countries, and fuelled by strong resentment against the United States and its allies, as well as official rejection of NATO and, more re- cently, the US Indo-Pacific strategy. But the ‘battle of coalitions’ is more than a pragmatic quest for global military, diplomatic, econom- ic or technological influence. It is also fram- ing a competition between political systems, in a context of a growing ideological divide between the first and second-largest econo- mies in the world. Through its diplomatic en- deavours China is not only seeking to promote a specific type of domestic governance beyond its borders, but also to restructure the global governance system. In particular, it wishes to craft a new approach to security and conflict intervention at the United Nations and other multilateral organisations.
At this point in time, the emerging polarisa- tion of the international order is shaped by two distinct groups of countries with signifi- cant weight and the political drive to promote their own governance systems and norms. For this reason, the outcome of the ‘battle of co- alitions’ that has started remains unpredicta- ble. It is unclear whether China will be able to continue to enlarge its network of partners in the coming years.
The war in Ukraine is likely to accelerate the polarisation of the world into two camps – with a clear distinction between countries who are imposing sanctions on Russia, such as the United States, and those who are not, such as China. The breadth and scope of the sanctions, and their extraterritorial implementation, will restructure global trade and it is possible that several countries who are facing West- ern sanctions will decide to jointly and more actively promote alternative standards and norms in the fields of finance, logistics, mili- tary or space technology.
In any case, the process of polarisation will continue to be characterised by the global con- frontation of two opposing political systems, with on one side authoritarian governments being more inclined to import surveillance tools and technologies from China, as well as to support China’s and Russia’s general op- position to regime change at the UN, and on the other side democracies being more active in joining forces to defend their values and positions. Both poles will likely continue to enlarge their network of partners in paral- lel, tapping into the large group of countries who have so far avoided taking sides at the UN and at home, whether on human rights, territorial disputes or matters of technological competition.
All in all, Beijing’s ambitious coalition-building strategy should not be underestimated, as China is managing to expand its network of partners despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic or the ongoing trade and technology tensions with the United States. The Chinese authorities’ determination to shape a post-Western order remains strong and focused on a long-term agenda, with 2050 as the time horizon.
This Chaillot Paper suggests that, in this context, the EU and other members of the Indo-Pacific grouping need to reach out to a larger group of countries, beyond ‘like-minded’ partners. Through the swift and effective implemen- tation of the Global Gateway strategy, the EU could renew and enhance cooperation on technology to provide global telecommunica- tion networks and norms to third countries in a more interoperable and competitive way. But this alone would not be enough to mod- ify the rapport de force at a time when coali- tion battle lines are hardening. The EU and its partner states could consider forging a larger and stronger coalition dynamic, by engaging in renewed and creative diplomatic activism to gather a diverse of range of countries around positions and norms that the EU and its Mem- ber States considers important to defend. Such a strategy would need to be supported by a pragmatic methodology of implementation at both bilateral and multilateral levels.
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(1) Expression frequently used by Xi Jinping, including in his 2019 New Year’s Speech: ‘Full text: 2019 New Year Speech by President Xi Jinping’, CCTV/CGTN, 31 December 2018 (https://america.cgtn.com/2018/12/31/full-text-2019-new-year- speech-by-president-xi-jinping).
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