Reading about the Chinese vote on Syria has led me to the conclusion that many people don’t really understand China’s motivations for a lot of its foreign policy actions. Matt Steinglass’s post at Democracy in America particularly made me feel that I needed to put something out there about why China does what it does and why it is slightly more complicated than defending authoritarianism.
China has three main goals when conducting its foreign policy:
1. Acquire resources
2. Secure its very insecure borders
3. Regain territory lost during the 19th and 20th centuries
And it has two fairly specific ideological arguments that you see it trotting out again and again.
1. Authoritarian governments are legitimate if they encourage development.
2. Comparative advantage is a sustainable means of growth.
Note that “hegemony” isn’t on either list, nor is promoting authoritarianism.
With those things in mind a lot of Chinese foreign policy makes a lot of sense.
North Korea & Myanmar: China has been openly fed up with North Korea for a long time, with some foreign policy watchers reporting that China even has considered invading the country. China faces an ongoing refugee problem, as well as high levels of crime along the border. Not to mention the occasional act of violence. The consideration has always been though that invasion would make the problem worse. Instead China has encouraged trade along its border with N. Korea, as well as pushing the Kims to open the country to more observation. They have largely failed.
In Myanmar they have been much more successful. Myanmar is the largest source of heroin into China (China has a large and underreported heroin problem), as well as a base for the Chinese mafia, and a stability threat due to the regular rebellions along the borders. That Myanmar’s decision to open up the country to elections happened to come at around the same time China announced that it would invest in railroad infrastructure in the country is not a coincidence. China’s plans for Myanmar to act as a shipping port requires the lifting of sanctions.
China also has an underreported opium substitution program in Laos and Myanmar… it’s not particularly touted because it also is the cause of massive deforestation.
Zimbabwe, Sudan and DRC: Zimbabwe, the DRC and Sudan have two advantages that many other African countries do not – they are resource rich, and those resources are not already tapped by international companies. There has been plentiful reporting though on how China has actively tried to encourage reform in Zimbabwe and Sudan, and people I’ve spoken to have expressed frustration about doing business in Zimbabwe and the DRC (I’ve yet to meet someone who had worked in Sudan). Which is why, when a new oil find appears untapped by other countries, such as has recently happened in Brazil and Ghana, China eagerly jumps on it.
Syria and Iran: China does not have a significant amount of skin in the game in the Middle East, but it is telling to see that in Iran, where China is a major purchaser of oil, it abstained from voting for or against sanctions, whereas in Syria where there is less of a Chinese presence, it actively voted against the resolution condemning the country (though they’ve backed away from the stance). The difference of course was that the Iran vote was on nuclear proliferation, whereas the Syria vote was in reference to the legitimacy of an authoritarian government. For China the latter question is fraught with legal difficulties, and they have to vote to reflect those difficulties.
I don’t mean by this to defend Chinese foreign policy – I find its attempts to regain 19th century territory to be particularly indefensible – merely to clarify what the stakes are for China and why they make the decisions that they do.
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