How China Sees Itself and Its Role in Asia

 

 

An Asia Without the West

Another recurring feature of the speeches contained in this book is the apparent absence of references to the Western world, save for the ‘century of humiliation’ that China was made to suffer as a result of the Opium War. Xi Jinping repeats his call for the resurrection of China after a ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of the West, though curiously the speeches hardly mention China’s experience at the hands of the Japanese before and during the Second World War.

 

Also absent is the sort of bellicose rhetoric that was once associated with China in the 1950s-1970s, when the country was seen as a revolutionary Communist state engaged in an ideological struggle against its Western-Capitalist adversary. Reading these speeches today, the reader sees that that era of revolutionary activism has come to an end, along with the rhetoric that once positioned China in oppositional terms with the rest of the world.

 

Rather than framing China in dialectical terms against an Occidental Other, China is located in a complex relationship with the rest of Asia: At times China is presented as part of Asia, and at other times China is framed in a relationship with the rest of Asia. This gives rise to a different kind of dialectics altogether that is more nuanced and complex, and tells us more about how China sees itself as the country that will define both its own identity and Asia’s in the decades to come.

 

The Asian Century from China’s Perspective

China’s core concerns and interests become clear when reading the speeches in the book, and they are: the preservation of China’s identity; the primary role of the CPC as the custodian and determinant of that identity; the need for the CPC to manage and direct the process of economic reform and development to make China a prosperous nation (by 2021) and a modern developed nation (by 2049); and the need for China to engage in soft diplomacy with the rest of Asia for it to succeed.

 

The last point explains in part the constant references to the ‘Silk routes’ of the past, when China was connected to the rest of the Asian continent via terrestrial and maritime logistical networks, and why China seeks strategic partnerships with all its Asian neighbours not only to securitise the land and sea-lanes, but also to foster economic co-dependency to help it boost its own local economy. Again, pragmatism and realism seem to be the guiding features of this policy, which also entails an approach of non-intervention in foreign political affairs on the part of China vis-à-vis its potential allies.

 

This vision of an Asian century to come is certainly Asian-centric, and almost without any references to the West or Western models, whether as dialectical opposites or counter-factual possibilities. It envisages an Asia that is in dialogue with itself, with China playing the pivotal role as logistical network-builder and the funder-creator of the new communicative infrastructure that will connect all of Asia.

 

Whether such a project can succeed, and whether Asia can truly afford to be self-referential in its identity-creation are questions of a more theoretical nature that can only be answered later. But for now ‘The Governance of China’ gives us a rare glimpse into the mindset and worldview of China’s elite and their long-term plans for the future, and is a work that cannot be overlooked by analysts and policy-makers alike.

 

 

Farish A. Noor is an Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.