China has a radically different world view that the US, critically, fails to recognise. Its prioritisation of trade and its economy belies any offensive military intent – and its non-interference policy is painfully informed by its history of being invaded
While the United States and Europe are transfixed by war games along Russia’s wintry border with Ukraine, Beijing has different priorities.
I’m not thinking about the Winter Olympics due to start on Friday, though I’m sure it has Chinese leaders on tenterhooks. Rather, I’m thinking of China’s pledge of support last week for its five Central Asian neighbours, its fence-building with Saudi Arabia and the resurgent Chinese trade and investment across Africa.
Nothing provides clearer evidence of how the US and China see the world through entirely different prisms with entirely different priorities, and how Washington’s failure to recognise this, is critically linked to poor and dangerously deteriorating relations.
To get to the heart of the differences, think of the world maps on the classroom walls in China and the US – or even in Britain when I was a schoolboy.
My classroom map had London at the centre, a large but distant US west across a yawning Atlantic Ocean, and Asia an indistinct muddle far to the east. Africa loomed huge to the south, a foundation for Europe and the Mediterranean to sit upon.
US schoolchildren grew up with a different map, with North and South America elegantly at the centre, and sprawling oceans providing insulation to the east and west. Distant Europe sat to the east, unconnected to most of Asia, placed to America’s west, fingers touching across Alaska to Russia’s far east.
Now think of China’s classroom map: China is slightly to the right of centre, part of a gigantic land mass embracing Russia to the north, Europe to the west beyond the sprawling “stans” of central Asia, Indochina blending into the Indian subcontinent, and Africa absorbing the rest of the western horizon. The US sits out east on its own, beyond the Pacific.
Meld these contrasting geographies with two very different histories: the US, self-consciously colonised and colonising, part of a small group of privileged Western (Caucasian) nations but with a sense of secure insularity buffered by vast oceans.
Military and economic success over the past century underpins a deep but often-unconscious sense of superiority and entitlement. It is the architect and guardian of most rules and institutions that manage international relations.
Then contrast China: leeched of dignity and self-respect over two centuries of imperial or colonial predation; torn by warlordism within and marauders without across distant and indefensible borders; cowed by grinding poverty; and taunted by the disrespected memory of a deep and proud culture that once drew admiration.
I puzzle over why so many American friends and policymakers fail to see these deep-rooted foundations underpinning the psychology of so many modern Chinese – and their practical implications for engagement. Then I am reminded of how such a self-confident culture as the US makes for poor listeners. It is a recipe for profound misunderstandings.
Take US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s complaint last week that China had become “more assertive and aggressive”. Where Blinken sees aggressive, offensive intentions, I see a Chinese leadership with obsessively defensive reflexes.
Faced with the more aggressive and offensive US posturing that began in Barack Obama’s presidency and was maintained robustly by Donald Trump, Beijing and its military have responded in kind.
Where Blinken sees China’s wolf warrior bellicosity as “cause”, it is in reality “effect” – a response to what an insecure Chinese administration feels is undue provocation, and part of a general paranoid anxiety and distrust. Confusing cause and effect can result in huge and potentially dangerous errors in diplomatic judgment.
As China has built its trade and investment links across the world (becoming the main trading partner of 128 of the world’s 190 countries) its prioritisation of domestic economic development and international economic integration could not be more obvious. It belies any offensive military intent.
US suggestions that China has expansionary military intentions probably says more about US psychology than China’s. While the US has waged seven wars since the Cold War, China has waged none.
When China says it will not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs – and gets angry when it believes others are interfering in its own – it believes that with a burning conviction, forged by its excruciating memories from the 1840s British imperial incursion to the 1930s Japanese imperial onslaught.
While the US has given priority to “great power” diplomacy (such as with Russia over Ukraine), China has maintained a single-minded empathy for, and a sense of alignment with, the poor developed world, preferring to trust multilateral rather than bilateral engagement.
That is why its Belt and Road Initiative has, for almost a decade, been investing around US$100 billion a year on infrastructure-building in all those developing economies that sit close to China and at the heart of its world map.
It is why China has become the world’s largest bilateral investor in Africa with 1,141 projects worth US$153 billion as at the end of 2019.
It is why President Xi Jinping last week committed US$500 million in aid and 50 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to the five poor and sparsely populated “stans” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) that provide a bridge from China’s eastern borders to Europe and the Middle East.
Dozens of other examples abound. Through China’s prism, based on its distinctive world map, it defensively craves respect and acceptance. It is placing its priorities on the dozens of developing economies that cluster around its 22,000km land borders, and aims for their progress to help drive its own growth.
The US prism is quite different, but this need not necessarily lead to conflict. It would help to recognise that different prisms exist in the first place.
