4/10/2015

How China Seeks to Shape Its Neighborhood | The Diplomat

How China Seeks to Shape Its

Neighborhood
China trades U.S. relations for peripheral diplomacy in its
foreign policy priority list.
By Shannon Tiezzi
April 10, 2015

China has moved from a focus on great power diplomacy

emphasizing its relationship with global powers, especially the U.S. to
prioritizing neighborhood diplomacy Chinas relationships with its
neighbors and near neighbors. That shift, which has been slowly
transforming Chinas foreign policy since Xi Jinping came to power, has
major ramifications for the Asia-Pacific, as well as U.S.-China relations.

Image Credit: Flickr/ APEC 2013

Historically, scholars have seen China as placing a premium on the U.S.-China relationship. Getting that relationship right was
the key of keys () for Chinese foreign policy as a whole. Its no coincidence that Xi took a trip to the U.S. in
February 2012 to prove his bona fides before assuming Chinas top leadership position. And during that trip, Xi coined his first
major catchphrase. Before the Belt and Road, before even the China Dream, Xi put his stamp on Chinese policy by
proposing new type of major country relations. The phrase has dominated Chinese rhetoric on the relationship ever since. In
December 2013, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that Chinas diplomatic priority for 2014 would be advancing
new type of major country relationships.
How much has changed in one year. For 2015, China has instead announced that its top foreign policy priority is advancing the
Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road (the Belt and Road), Chinas vision for regional integration. Rather than
emphasizing great power relations, China is focusing its energy on advancing economic, cultural, and security ties with its
Asian neighbors.
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4/10/2015

How China Seeks to Shape Its Neighborhood | The Diplomat

The shift didnt happen overnight. China held a major conference on peripheral diplomacy in October 2013, where Xi said
strong diplomatic relations with Chinas neighbors would be crucial to realizing Chinas development goals. Just over a year
later, at the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in November 2014, Xi again said that China must
promote friendship and partnership with our neighbors as part of creating a community of common destiny.
The Belt and Road policy grew alongside this focus on neighborhood diplomacy the concepts were introduced in fall 2013
and heavily emphasized throughout 2014. The Belt and Road, as well as the numerous smaller proposals for economic
corridors (such as ones linking China-Pakistan and Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar), provide the economic underpinnings
of Chinas neighborhood diplomacy.
At the same time, China used regional multilateral organizations to advance its regional strategic diplomatic goals. The
Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
are the two most notable examples. At CICA in particular, Xi raised the idea of a new regional security cooperation
architecture, which in Chinas definition involves a new Beijing-led security mechanism to replace the current U.S.-centered
alliance structure. Chinas Asia for Asians concept would inevitably mean that China as the largest, wealthiest, and
arguably the most powerful Asian nation would play the dominant role in handling regional affairs.
From the Belt and Road to the community of common destiny, China is investing serious diplomatic energy in remaking its
neighborhood diplomacy. The wealth of new initiatives led Chinese scholar Yan Xuetong to argue that peripheral diplomacy
has replaced relations with the U.S. as the single-most important priority for Chinese foreign policy.
A recent op-ed in Xinhua cited the Chinese proverb a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin to explain Chinas
diplomatic priorities. With proactive diplomacy reaping fruitful results, China is more actively setting the agenda for regional
development, the piece said. For Chinas neighbors, this means an increased emphasis on cooperative economic projects, but
also pressure to join Chinas vision for regional security (and those countries with territorial disputes with China are certainly
not keen on that latter point).
Meanwhile, Chinas push for regional leadership puts it in conflict with the U.S., as Washington rebalances to Asia to shore up
its own influence. At the same time, Beijing is placing relatively less of a premium on keeping the U.S.-China relationship
steady at all costs (although this is undoubtedly still important). That means less of a steadying influence on U.S.-China
relations at precisely the time Beijing and Washington are butting heads over regional order setting.

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