Graham Allison

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Monday, October 2, 2023

But often western reactions to a Chinese decision can come from a lack of understanding of Beijing’s motivations.

Key Points:

But often western reactions to a Chinese decision can come from a lack of understanding of Beijing’s motivations.
With this in mind, here are five things that the west often gets wrong about Chinese foreign policy.

In the western media, Chinese foreign policy has often been seen as a grand scheme to secure world leadership.
However, Chinese policy is not quite the labyrinthine plot that it has often been presented as.
Chinese foreign policy has largely been devised in response to recent developments rather than being a long-term scheme for domination.

The Chinese model of economic development has racheted up fears of China attempting to spread its political system beyond its national borders.
But, some of the biggest advocates of the China model have been the political elites in developing nations, many of whom have a colonial history, and who appreciate that China offers an alternative to the west in attracting investment.

One of the most common depictions of China in recent years has been of it as a revisionist power that seeks to overthrow the liberal rules-based world order and international bodies.
Such an image was popularised by Graham Allison’s 2017 book Destined for War, which warned of a China seeking to overthrow US domination.

But China draws on a different history, one that includes its own dominant position internationally, but also its defeat and occupation.
Beijing references this past when talking of the “Century of Humiliation” (1839-1949), a period when China was dominated and occupied by colonial powers.
The Silk Road refers to an historical network of highly lucrative trade routes linking a powerful China to the rest of the world, and used to sell its products for centuries.

China’s financial aid and investment projects in developing countries are sometimes portrayed as simply bribing corrupt states or ensnaring them with “debt trap diplomacy”.
While these images have been popular in western media coverage of Chinese foreign policy, they overlook the role of the country receiving aid to choose to accept Chinese finance and how this also appeals as an alternative to western aid packages which traditionally come with many conditions relating to governance.