The strengthening of China in recent decades has run parallel to a strengthening of relations with the countries of the global south. This increase in Chinese presence has been favored, in addition to its new status, by the crisis of the neoliberal model. Despite its internal imbalances, the alternative represented by China has aroused interest where previous formulas have not been capable of either boosting growth or making it more equitable.
Consequently, China has managed to make a place for itself by multiplying its trade relations, investments, etc., but also the visits of its highest leaders, shaping policies and proposing various instruments that convey to its interlocutors a more pragmatic, empathetic and flexible attitude.
By challenging liberal logic as the only development model, although its own is not easily imitable, it provides another experience that contrasts with the usual demands made on southern countries by institutions such as the IMF, World Bank or the United States Treasury that demand certain structural reforms that, in the end, reinforce dependency. China does not impose conditions or models in exchange for aid or investments and stands as a reference both for overcoming crises and for sponsoring structural changes by building ports, roads, dams, railways or nuclear power plants, contributing to reducing gaps in infrastructure, logistics or connectivity, and urging the creation of regional value chains. Even during the recent pandemic, China stood out in developing countries for the level of its domestic response but also for its ability to provide help when rich countries hoarded vaccines without taking into account equal distribution and accessible conditions.
All this has allowed him to increase his influence. And that also explains why so many countries in the global south have placed expanding trade ties with China and opening up to their investments at the center of their agenda. The deepening of relations with China is presented as an irrevocable destiny. How much can Beijing transform that relationship, from an essentially economic matrix, into political capital for a hypothetical pro-Chinese front in its current struggle with the United States and the West? Maybe not much because what has been achieved has been built on logic precisely contrary to bloc politics and on the basis of the preservation of heterogeneity and diversity in every sense.
In its contemporary history, China was for a century a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country oppressed by imperialist powers. Unlike the USSR, which never positioned itself as an integral part of the Third World, China’s identification with this bloc is a constant in the definition of its foreign policy and in its relationship with many Afro-Asian and Latin American countries.
The global south is today also part of its balance of power policy with the United States, gaining sympathy through strengthening cooperation and showing its support on issues of mutual interest. Economic development, social well-being and non-interference are the pillars of its strategy.
For all this, China – the official narrative assures – will always belong to the third world and will share the destiny of the countries that make up that group, to which it will continue to belong, even emotionally, even when it becomes the most powerful and prosperous power.
Maoist China defined itself as an integral part of the bloc of countries oppressed by imperialism. However, after the death of Mao and the adoption of the policy of reform and opening up (1978), Beijing stopped supporting revolutionary and national liberation movements to prioritize international insertion in line with its ambition to achieve full economic modernization.
The China that participated in the conference of Afro-Asian countries in Bandung (1955) embraced internationalism. Zhou Enlai then presented the five principles of peaceful coexistence with the common denominator of preserving national sovereignty at all costs in the face of political and military interventionism from other powers. This independence was based, among other things, on the refusal to allow foreign investments or accept loans from abroad, something that differentiated China from other developing countries. The contrast with later dengueism was absolute.
In the sixties and seventies, Mao’s China struggled to establish a broad united front against the hegemonism of the two superpowers of the time, the United States and the USSR. That China conceived its foreign policy as an expression of solidarity with oppressed colonial countries and peoples. A deep crack would open in that rhetoric with the brief war of 1962 with India, putting the movement started in Bandung in check. The USSR’s support for India would influence the public break with Moscow in 1963.
In his Eight Principles for Economic and Technical Assistance (1964) he established the guidelines for his aid to recently decolonized countries based on equality and mutual benefit. This framework would serve as an impetus for legendary works such as the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia railway complex, which involved the participation of hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians.
In the Theory of the Three Worlds, he identified two imperialist superpowers (the United States and the USSR) as the first world, converted into the enemy of the people, with Moscow being the most dangerous. The second world would be made up of intermediate powers that both oppressed others and were at the same time victims of subordination to the great hegemonic powers. The third world would bring together the other countries that emerged as a consequence of the decolonization process and that were mostly ascribed to the Non-Aligned Movement. The formulation was proposed by Deng Xiaoping before the United Nations General Assembly in a famous speech delivered on April 10, 1974. The notable novelty was that the backbone of the proposed division was mainly economic and not ideological.
The policy of reform and opening in the 1980s had important consequences in this approach by materializing a clear change in priorities: what was essential now would be the search for insertion into the international economy. It did not completely mean the abandonment of the relationship with developing countries but it optimized it based on the needs of its own growth. The anti-imperialist positions of Maoism were subject to a progressive subalternization, subordinated to the objective of that modernization that would give it a relevant position in the current economic and world order.
Deng’s China stopped supporting movements committed to the defeat of imperialism. A stable and peaceful international context had to be facilitated. Developing countries became partners in his strategy, with special attention to their role as suppliers of inputs and destination of their industrial goods and investments, especially starting in the late 1990s.
Joining the WTO was parallel to the demand for a new role in international society with a less modest profile. The harmonious world and the evocation of multipolarity required a multiplication of its external ties, especially with the main powers and its own neighborhood. In relation to developing countries, this meant, economically, the promotion of commercial contacts – sometimes through free trade agreements – and, politically, active participation in already established international mechanisms (ASEAN) or conceived by itself (Shanghai Cooperation Organization –SCO–, BRICS, regional forums with Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East…).
Xi Jinping turns his gaze to developing countries. The China of the 21st century continues to declare its belonging to these countries, although some see more political rhetoric than empirical reality.
The deterioration of relations with the United States, whose normalization accompanied the opening of the 1980s, and the worsening of general tensions with the West that threaten to unleash a new cold war, would advise a reactive turn. Its exponent is the Belt and Road Initiative, based on a triple ram: a new reading of global changes, the realization that its interests are global and needs to arbitrate protection formulas, and the determination of a network of relationships that They reflect both multifunctional alliances (such as the BRICS or the SCO and their annexed structures) and strategic associations with countries and regions that contribute to establishing areas of influence on all continents under the common denominator of fostering a “shared destiny.”
Xi wants to turn China into a global power with recognized influence at both an economic, political and strategic level. To do this, it needs to have a stable vital economic space and strategic areas of influence capable of ensuring the satisfaction of these needs. Faced with the West’s intention to isolate and contain Beijing, the option of the global south has gained relevance as a vital necessity.
The Chinese discourse of active engagement with developing countries faces, however, the important challenge of praxis.
Thus, in economic, commercial and investment terms, the insistence on complementarity, mutual benefit, win-win or similar precepts does not hide the difficulty of establishing a relationship that allows adding value to the productive capacities of these economies so as not to consolidate the primary-export specialization that, to a large extent, has characterized the rise of exchanges in recent decades.
The priority objective for Beijing is to ensure the supply of raw materials and food, which leads to talk of economic reprimarization dependent on the needs of China’s industrial development.
The nature of these links is the subject of controversy as it affects the nature of the relations and the implications in terms of development and the model of international insertion in response to the reproduction or not of old dynamics, traditionally repudiated by China. Perhaps for this reason, transcending the usual, Xi Jinping’s proposal incorporates objectives not only of commercial scope but also the coordination of development strategies based on improving connectivity or technological exchange.
Politically, China boasts of having devoid of ideology in its relations, establishing strong associations that do not take into account the political regimes or the status of the ruling classes and other elites with which it can pragmatically understand.
This dynamic gives it growing geopolitical relevance to a large number of countries, positioning it at the center of a hypothetical new world order. The catalyst for this link between China and the global south may be the Brics group, which Beijing wants to transform into a symbol of a strategic, financial and economic alternative to the G-7, compensating for the loss of global influence of the United States with a governance proposal. which can only be based on a multipolarity in the process of gestation.
Its potential is certainly great, although in nominal value not adjusted by purchasing power parity (PPP) the GDP of the Brics in global wealth is still much lower than that of the G-7 (43.7% versus 26%, according to sources from the IMF), its weight in the world has not stopped growing. In terms of PPP, the Brics already surpass the G-7 (31.5% compared to 30.7%). Between 2021 and 2022, its contribution to global growth was 31.2% compared to 25.6% for the G-7.
China defends the expansion of the BRICS. Up to nineteen countries have expressed interest in being part of this group. Its purpose is to continue building diplomatic influence to counteract the global dominance of the G-7, promoting greater weight for southern countries. The handicap is the repetition of the European error of confusing enlargement with power, even more so when internal homogeneity is extremely fragile.
Xi Jinping’s dream of China’s revitalization faces the growing difficulty of resistance from a United States increasingly willing to cut him off. The “dual circulation” proposal (promotion of internal trade and international trade and investment) takes note of the difficulties that await with a developed world dragged into the dynamics of tension and decoupling. In this context, interest in southern countries, objects of seduction by some and others, has increased in value.
Xi’s China wants to assert itself in the world as a great power of a multipolar order. This is difficult to reconcile with that other identity associated with a third world or developing country. But the link would persist through the defense of a more equitable international society, appealing to take greater account of the legitimate needs and aspirations of backward countries, encouraging inclusive globalization.
That China is part of the group of central powers raises the debate about the model of cooperation and relations with developing countries, which can hardly be considered south-south given the disparity of the actors involved and the capacity at their disposal to prioritize their interests. interests in any negotiation.
Economically, China can continue to strengthen its presence and influence in these countries, but its challenge is to achieve an exchange that avoids contributing to the reprimarization of productive structures, with a praxis that promotes overcoming the peripheral condition of developing countries. . The commitment of local elites also counts.
For China, strategic relations with developing countries have commercial complementarity and south-south cooperation as their preferred content. The current relationship contributes to modernizing China, but does it develop developing countries? This is what you must demonstrate so that your model is different. The China Global Development Initiative presented by Xi in March 2023 can reflect greater efforts in promoting other current dynamics by cushioning the asymmetry of power.
China reiterates itself as the largest developing country in the world, a condition that the developed countries of the West already deny it. This rhetoric, with historical reminiscences, has allowed it to establish strong economic and political ties with governments of very varied profiles in the global south and sponsor with them a potentially sovereign path of development outside the West represented by the US and related powers. Interest in exploring this alternative path should not be confused with an ideological or political affinity. It is essentially about taking advantage of new opportunities that they want to manage without having to choose against third parties.
The proposals and instruments and the network of bilateral and multilateral strategic partnerships built by China provide a path to enhance its ties with developing countries. Its complement is the demand for “a new model of relationship between great powers” ??to manage the rivalry with the United States.
It is an emerging country but also already a great economic and political power. It is desired, but some of its practices are also questioned for not differing much from those applied during decades of colonialism or neocolonialism by Western powers. For critics, the subsistence of terminology from a previous historical stage that is distant today is not enough, even though it provides symbolic capital beyond the reach of other powers. His days could be numbered if hypocrisy determines his praxis.
In a world in an inflection phase, China can find important allies in the countries of the South to escape tensions with the developed West. The keys cannot be those of Maoism, and any possibility of a common front must be ruled out. The commitment to development gives it an opportunity in many capitals that also see in it a desirable counterweight to the economic, political and military influence of the United States and an impulse protected by a balancing logic.
Xulio Ríos is an emeritus advisor to the Chinese Policy Observatory.
