Foreign desk: Anna Fifield on China’s soft-power flex
It seems as if Xi Jinping has spent most of this year gripping and grinning on the red carpets of the ostentatious Great Hall of the People in Beijing. One after the other, world leaders have been beating a path to see the Chinese strongman: an incomplete list includes leaders from South Korea, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Germany, the UK, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
In a seven-day stretch in mid-April alone, Xi hosted six high-profile bilateral meetings. They’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese leader to espouse the importance of balanced trade, economic co-operation and, in Xi’s words, avoiding “the law of the jungle”.
The torrent of visitors this year – far greater than the usual steady stream of diplomacy – reflects world leaders’ increasing desire to cover their bases as US President Donald Trump grows increasingly erratic. He’s not named in the readouts of these conversations, but the American president is the 800-pound gorilla bringing the jungle vibes.
“Whether you’re a democracy, an autocracy or something in between, you need to engage with Beijing to hedge against Washington,” Neil Thomas of Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis told me.
“It just makes a lot of sense to have a bob each way.”
This turn of events fits neatly into Xi’s grand plan to make China a fully fledged world power, not just an economic giant. Xi wants to be seen as a reliable global statesman. Trump is helping him with that.
“The current international landscape is marked by transformation and turbulence,” read a recent commentary in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece. China “has consistently been the most stabilising, reliable and proactive force in the world,” it continued.
Ironically – or perhaps completely predictably, given his irrationality – Trump himself will be making the trek this month. When he visits Beijing on May 14 and 15 to stabilise trade relations, he expects to get – in his words – a “big, fat hug” from Xi.
There’s little prospect of a major announcement: the purpose of the trip is to cement agreements made last year to stabilise trade that Trump destabilised. Beijing might buy a few Boeings, but the world shouldn’t expect a significant breakthrough.
As Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said recently: Chinese leaders were “not going to put their hand on Mao’s Little Red Book and swear that we’re not going to be communists”.
The optics of Trump travelling across the world to see Xi will reinforce the growing perception that it is China, not the US, that is upholding international stability and the global economy.
That’s the reason many world leaders have been urging Beijing to get involved in ending the Iran war and particularly the impasse over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Beijing nudged Tehran to attend the first set of talks with the US but has otherwise stayed on the sidelines, happy to let Trump create chaos and alienate allies, including leaders of Nato countries, and pick a fight with the Pope.
It’s not like Spain is going to quit Nato or the EU is going to put all their eggs in China’s basket. But there’s no doubt Beijing has more leverage than it did even at the start of this year. It has economic leverage over Western-allied countries, having shown it is happy to weaponise supply chains. It also has sway over the major players in the Middle East: China buys 90% of Iran’s oil, but its trade with Saudi Arabia and the UAE is worth exponentially more. And it has growing diplomatic clout, having brokered an agreement between arch rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
It just remains to be seen how China will use it. I don’t know about that hug, but Xi has every reason to have a big, fat smile on his face when Trump lands in Beijing.
Wellington journalist Anna Fifield spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent. Foreign Desk will appear fortnightly on listener.co.nz
