Beijing's New Internationalism

As an increasingly powerful China involves itself with the world, its devotion to absolute sovereignty is starting to evolve.

By Orville Schell
Newsweek International
Feb. 19, 2007 issue - In many respects Hu Jintao's recent dash through africa—he traveled to eight countries in over a week, signing trade deals, forgiving debt, extending loans and securing rights to natural resources—looked like business as usual for Beijing. For years, China has courted new business partners and tried to gain access to oil and other raw materials around the world while scrupulously avoiding controversial issues such as human rights and good governance. Beijing has long stuck to a strict, 19th-century view of sovereignty, which holds that whatever a government does at home is no one else's business. Its mantra has been reciprocal "noninterference." "We never impose on other countries our values ... and we do not accept other countries imposing their values on us," declared Deputy Foreign Minister Zhai Jun last November.

This model has seemed good for business—Chinese trade with Africa skyrocketed from $10.6 billion in 2000 to $40 billion last year (for perspective, U.S.-Africa trade is now about $60.6 billion). The don't-ask, don't-tell approach held special appeal for regimes of dubious character. Sudan's strongman, Omar al-Bashir, must have been cheered by Hu's stop in Khartoum on February 2, when he gave the dictator a $13 million interest-free loan for a new palace and forgave a $70 million debt. Hu also called on other nations "to respect the sovereignty of Sudan"—the genocide in Darfur notwithstanding.

But China's unsavory partners should take note: Beijing may soon start phasing out such rhetoric. As an increasingly powerful China involves itself more and more with the complex global marketplace and political scene, the ground is shifting under its feet, and China's dedication to absolute sovereignty may be starting to evolve.

The key to this change is respect: the one commodity Beijing seems to crave more than any other. Respect in the modern world does not come simply from international aid or trade. It also stems from an assessment of a nation's willingness to yield certain sovereign prerogatives in the interests of becoming a better global citizen.

During the heyday of Mao Zedong's fevered collectivization of Chinese agriculture in the 1950s, the Great Leader once said that he thought he could see the first tender "green shoots" of communism emerging. Today the "green shoots" of a very different evolution are starting to sprout. China is slowly shedding its strict interpretation of sovereignty for a new, more involved brand of internationalism.

Consider, for example, China's behavior after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon last October. Beijing quickly condemned the test and called for "punitive efforts" against Pyongyang: a sign China may have recognized that protecting its national interests sometimes requires what appear to be infringements on its own, or someone else's, sovereignty.

In the Middle East, too, China has started to play an increasingly active role in helping ameliorate the Arab-Israeli conflict through negotiation, suggesting that it is willing to redefine, albeit very cautiously, the way it thinks of diplomacy.

And then there's Africa. Despite Hu's unhelpful comments in Khartoum about the need to respect Sudan's sovereignty, events there are slowly nudging it toward a new approach. Some African leaders, including South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, have begun warning China against becoming a new "colonizer." These statements, and the fact that some African governments have finally joined the West in calling for action on Darfur, have sent a clear signal to Beijing that its old tactics may no longer work there. China has already taken note, and not only obligingly abstained in August on a vote at the U.N. on a measure that called for a new joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force to replace the weak and ineffective AU force in Darfur, but through its U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, helped negotiate Sudanese acquiescence. And on Hu's trip to Khartoum, after warning other countries to stay out, he hastened to remind al-Bashir that, "Darfur is a part of Sudan, and you have to resolve this problem."

Taken together, these measures do not yet suggest a radical new Chinese policy. But they do represent encouraging signs of increasing confidence, maturity and a sense of responsibility in China's deportment on the international stage. The world would benefit from having a few "great" nations (besides the one superpower) capable of and interested in not simply defending their own narrow self-interests, but constructively leading groups of nations in solving some of the world's many daunting challenges. Beijing may not be there yet. But as it grows in power and wealth, China could and should come to play such a role—becoming a true leader for the first time in many years.

Schell is the incoming director of the Asia Society's new Center on U.S.-China Relations.

2007 Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17081612/site/newsweek/