Exploring China’s Alternative World Order
By: Arthur Quayle
Tags: International Relations, World, Politics, China, Foreign Policy

Regional Organisations

What is evident within the international infrastructure of AII’s is that they seem to target developing nations. This is likely based around the affinity China shares with them, but also because these regions are promising economic projects for China. This focus on the developing world extends into China’s regional AII’s.

Image from: Author’s creation

Asia

China’s influential regional organisations are split into Asia’s three primary cultural regions; ASEAN+3 (Association of South-East Asian Nations) for south-east Asia, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) for central and south Asia, and the CASCF (China Arab States Cooperation Forum) for the Middle East.

China only joined ASEAN in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, joining with Japan and South Korea to extend a financial lifeline to the faltering economies of south-east Asia. This initiative still exists today as the Chiang Mai Initiative. Whilst the organisation was in fact started, in part, in opposition to China, to stop the growth of Communism in the region, today, China is able to wield significant influence in the region through economic soft-power, such as that, that is the Chiang Mai Initiative. Despite this, ASEAN is far from a subdued force. ASEAN acts as a focal point in regional opposition to Chinese expansion in the South China Sea.

Image from: Republika

The SCO is an incredibly important organisation, not just because it draws China closer with the nations of central Asia, but also because it brings together the regions three primary revisionist powers; China, Russia and India. The SCO is not merely an economic body, as is the case with many organisations in this article. In fact, one of the SCO’s main goals is ‘making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region’ (6). The expressed shared role in security is something that is very important and quite rare for China to engage in. As David Shambaugh argues in his 2013 book China Goes Global: The Partial Power China has many “international partners” but very few real allies. The expression of a joint security role in the SCO could be a suggestion that things may be changing in this regard, a dangerous prospect.

Image from: Stratfor Worldview

The CASCF serves as China’s connection to the Arab states of the Middle East and beyond. The CASCF was formed in 2004 on the basis of four key principles: a basis of mutual respect to enhance political relations; the target of common development goals to have more frequent economic and trade exchanges; to learn from each other and expand cultural exchanges; to maintain world peace and promote common development for the purpose of strengthening cooperation in international affairs (7). In these goals, the CASCF has been incredibly successful. From 2009–2013 Sino-Arab trade more than doubled (7); cultural exchanges between the two have increased exponentially, such as through the bi-annual Arabian arts festival in China and the Chinese Art Festival in the Arab countries (7); geopolitically the two ‘firmly support pragmatic cooperation of mutual benefit and advocate changes in the global economic governance system’ (7), with the Arab world supporting China in all its key national interests such as the One-China principle.

Despite China’s persecution of its Uighur minority in Xinjiang province, the PRC has remarkably been able to maintain strong relationships with its Islamic international partners, almost completely free from criticism.

‘Currently, Sino-Arab relations are in an unprecedented booming stage’ Yao, K (2014) China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in the Last Decade. Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (in Asia) p3

Africa

As I have detailed in a previous article, in the past decade or so China has been making a concerted effort to involve its self in African affairs. At the core of this effort is FOCAC, the Forum On China–Africa Cooperation. Founded in 2000, the forum’s expressed objectives are: Equal consultation, enhancing understanding, expanding consensus, strengthening friendship and promoting cooperation (8).

FOCAC has been a great success for both parties involved, by 2016, China had become Africa’s largest trading partner, foreign job creator, and source of foreign direct investment, displacing the US (9). Greater interaction through FOCAC has drawn Africa closer to China, and closer to revisionist principles. China’s use of this AII has also helped it by both giving it greater influence in a key emerging region, but also by expanding revisionist principles to potentially useful international partners.

‘Chinese diplomacy provided space for manoeuvre for Africans by laying the basis for an alternative international system in the 21st century.’ Campbell, Horace (2008) ‘China in Africa: challenging US global hegemony’ Volume 29, Issue 1, Third World Quarterly, pp 89–105. P4.

Latin America

Image from: The Economist

Traditionally considered to be well within the US sphere of influence, and thus under US protection, Latin America has seen relatively little Chinese engagement over the last century or so. However, within the past few years, with Chinese engagement across the globe having expanded, Latin America has seen a growth in Chinese engagement.

At the centre of this recent engagement has been the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum, created in 2014. In addition to the forum, in 2018, during the second ministerial meeting of China — CELAC Forum, held in Santiago, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi invited the countries of Latin America to join BRI (10). In reality, this step was merely a formality, interaction and investment between the two parties had been expanding at a rapid rate even prior to this announcement. Bilateral trade grew from $10 billion in 2000 to almost $280 billion in 2015 (11) and China is the 3rd largest investor in the region, investing $15 billion USD in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2010. More than 90% of which has gone to resource extraction (12).

Whilst the economic engagement in Latin America seems similar to that of China in Africa, it is worth noting that influence of the region is regarded as key to US national security and as such, China has a long way to go to make the China-CELAC Forum much more than a means for economic exchange. Despite this fact, it allows China to further pursue closer relations with nations of the developing world and partners in the region such as Brazil.