How to Understand China's Foreign Policy

China can become a beacon for the world -- if it trades in its conservative foreign policy for one that emphasizes universal values.
BY DENG YUWEN | APRIL 23, 2013

With Xi Jinping's elevation to the presidency in March, China's leadership transition is now complete. Yet Beijing still has not elevated foreign affairs to the top level of decision making -- it still prioritizes its domestic situation, even though China is the world's second-largest economy, with interests that stretch across the globe.
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Indeed, China remains constrained by its own internal problems, including the rise of nationalism; defects in democracy and human rights; lagging political reform; an unbalanced economy; and the dangers posed by a society in transformation. These problems mold Beijing's current conservative foreign policy, which focuses on avoiding

problems. When a problem happens, China's Foreign Ministry mobilizes all of its resources to extinguish it -- the same strategy it deploys with domestic affairs. The two areas are closely intertwined. Effective diplomacy can create an external environment that would help China solve its domestic problems -- but a lot needs to be done. China's leadership should closely reexamine its principles, methods, and policies, and create a Chinese foreign policy that actually works. To do so, Beijing needs to reevaluate its view of international development and toss out former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's axiom of "keeping a low profile and hiding one's brightness." Since economic reforms began in 1978, China has claimed "peaceful development" -- a term that means seeking domestic development and harmony -- with international cooperation and peace as a foreign policy goal. But this is a doctrine better suited for the Cold War era. Back then, the U.S.-Soviet struggle for hegemony pushed the world to the brink of war, while poor countries in the global south like China only wanted a peaceful environment in which to develop. But the Soviet Union is gone, the United States has declined, and China has become a sophisticated world power: "peace" and "development" in foreign policy sounds as anachronistic as it is obvious. People everywhere always hope for peace and development -- China saying it adds nothing new. Deng's policy had a special history. After 1989, China urgently needed to join the international system, so developed countries could provide it with the resources, technology, and market it needed to build its economy. As a country the West viewed with distrust, it had to hide its brightness. But now, China is one of the world's most important powers. Relations between China and its neighbors, and with the United States, are growing increasingly tense because they are having difficulty adjusting to China's rise. China can't "hide its brightness," just like an elephant can't hide behind a tree. The more Beijing says that it can, the more it breeds mistrust.