Chapter
1
Periphery Diplomacy: Moving to the Center of China’s Foreign Policy
Jianwei Wang and Hoo Tiang Boon
When dealing with neighboring countries and related issues, we need a multidimensional perspective that extends beyond the immediate confines of time and space.
Xi Jinping1 An important event which largely evaded world attention took place in Beijing on October 24–25, 2013. In what was an unprecedented first, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened a foreign policy work conference specifically on the theme of China’s periphery diplomacy (周边外交). Participated by, among others, the Politburo standing committee, members of key Central Committee organs, members of the Leading Small Group on Foreign affairs, and senior diplomats, it was the second high-level CCP meeting on foreign policy since 2006 and the first specific forum on periphery diplomacy since the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) establishment in 1949.2 At this meeting, Xi Jinping underscored the priority and salience of periphery diplomacy in Chinese foreign policy, noting that it is crucial that China strove for “an excellent peripheral environment for [its] development” so as to achieve the two Centennials’ objectives and realize the “Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Periphery regions, Xi stated, “are strategically significant to our country in terms of geography, the environment, and relationships.” This strategic salience required China’s foreign policy actors to “enhance political good will; deepen regional economic integration; increase [its] cultural influence; and improve regional security cooperation” in its periphery regions.3 These statements affirmed the importance of a stable external milieu, in particular its neighboring regions, for China’s domestic development, and recognized the centrality of periphery diplomacy to achieve this goal. Yet, this emphasis on periphery or neighborhood diplomacy encompassed more than just holding it up as a priority aspect of the Chinese foreign policy. The neighborhood diplomacy that Xi outlined is also envisioned to be comprehensive and all-rounded. In other words, Chinese periphery diplomacy should be omnidirectional: the entire periphery region — and not just specific peripheries — will be the focus of China’s “new” peripheral diplomacy. This called for Chinese foreign policy to extend its focus beyond its traditional focus on the East Asia region and pay equal, if not more, attention to its “non-traditional” periphery and western geographies such as Central and South Asia. This “look East and look West too” policy message was clearly reflected in Xi’s speech when he pointedly evoked the idea of reviving the Silk Road Economic Belt.4 In addition, the extension of “periphery” has also been enlarged. Traditionally, the concept only means those countries that share border with China. Now it goes beyond that to cover the so-called “greater periphery”.5 It is with this context in mind that we carried out a research project focusing on China’s “new”, more holistic periphery diplomacy. This book is the outcome of this research attention, and it features a global cast of specialists examining the various dimensions of China’s evolving relations with its neighborhood. It asks a number of central questions about China’s evolving periphery diplomacy. How has China’s understanding and cognition of its peripheral environment evolved? What has driven China’s more periphery-centered foreign policy? To what extent has China developed a coherent periphery strategy? What are the shifts and continuities in its periphery policy? In what ways have its periphery diplomacy had an impact on the relationships with key regional players and regional integration in Asia? And what is the emerging trajectory of this periphery policy under Xi Jinping? These are some of the important questions that deserve deeper and more complete examination and this book attempts to find the answers.
Addressing Scholarship
Beyond shedding more light on the aforementioned questions, this volume also addresses a number of puzzles in the study of China’s international relations. First, while there has been considerable literature that discusses China’s relations with its “traditional” periphery of East Asia — it is traditional to the extent that this geography has conventionally been understood as dominating Beijing’s regional focus — the scholarship on China’s interactions with its non-traditional periphery such as Central and South Asia is relatively sparser. How can we understand China’s growing interactions with these non-traditional regions? What has China done to manage its border areas and how do these efforts relate to Chinese diplomacy vis-à-vis its non-traditional periphery? What are the consequences of China’s intensifying engagement with this non-traditional periphery? There is clearly a need for a systematic effort to better understand the complexities of China’s burgeoning linkages with its non-traditional periphery. Second, the findings of the book can serve a reference point to compare China’s policies toward its traditional periphery and non-traditional periphery. How are the policies different or similar? What accounts for these divergences/convergences, to the extent they exist? Is there an increasing strategic and diplomatic shift toward the western periphery of China, relative to the eastern periphery? The answers to these questions may help one better appreciate the full substance of China’s evolving periphery diplomacy. Third, insights drawn from this volume connect to the larger picture of China’s rise. China’s global re-emergence is one of the key leitmotifs of the 21st century. This subject has been interrogated and analyzed from various angles and multiple theoretical perspectives. But we argue that looking at China’s ascendancy from the lens of its periphery strategy — including its engagement with both of its traditional and non-traditional periphery — is an important and potentially more fruitful way of approaching the issue. Indeed, the experience in recent years demonstrates that the challenges and difficulties China has been facing in its process of rising largely come from its periphery. We are therefore arguing that a more comprehensive understanding of China’s neighborhood diplomacy will lead to a fuller and deeper interpretation of China’s rise and its implications.
Periphery Diplomacy in Action
In striving for a more holistic perspective, the book argues that China’s periphery diplomacy has evolved to become more ambitious, more extensive and more proactive. The latter characteristic is the key. No longer content to be a passive recipient of the strategic currents in Asia, Beijing is now taking more initiative to actively shape its regional context. The increased sophistication of Chinese periphery diplomacy is reflected in the calibrated ways in which Beijing has sought to balance its seemingly “contradictory” twin goals of pursuing deeper and stronger regional relations while safeguarding or advancing its regional territorial interests. The chapters in this book undertake an in-depth inquiry in these regards.
Broad regional context
The first part of the book is aimed at providing a regional setting to contextualize China’s periphery policy. China’s policy toward its neighboring nations in large measures is determined by its perception of the peripheral environment. In Chapter 2, Jianwei Wang traces the evolution of Chinese leaders and foreign policy elites’ perception of China’s changing peripheral environment, including the nature, causes, implications of the changes as well as the possible ways to deal with them. While different assessment and opinions do exist, three consensuses have emerged. First, the weight of periphery diplomacy in China’s overall diplomacy has significantly increased. Second, China’s peripheral environment has become, if not necessarily worse, more complex and challenging in recent years. Third, while the main source of changes in China’s new periphery comes from the exogenous powers such as the United States and its regional allies, the rise of China per se is also a critical contributing factor. Finally, China needs new ideas, approaches and strategies to deal with a new and more dynamic peripheral environment. The most consequential variable in this environment
