Once again China has started a charm offensive, or so it seemed to me during a recent 10-day trip through the country. In many personal encounters and discussions at all levels, people repeatedly expressed their strong interest in building constructive relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the countries of the European Union. Another part of China’s charm offensive is a simplified entry into the country, a policy that allows many individuals (EU citizens in particular) to stay in China for up to 15 days without a visa.
Even though Xi Jinping’s foreign policy continues to have many rough and aggressive edges, new and somewhat more conciliatory tones are also present in Beijing. Whether or not they are genuine is difficult to know; among Western analysts opinions widely diverge.
China’s departure from its aggressive “wolf warrior” foreign policy between 2020 and 2023 can be explained in part by the country’s economic difficulties, including high youth unemployment rates. But this shift is also due to the strict export and investment controls imposed by the U.S. and somewhat more slowly by the EU on advanced technological goods, such as high-quality semiconductors, computer chips, and all products related to robotics and artificial intelligence.
There also continues to be a great deal of geopolitical tension between the world’s major powers, not least over Beijing’s massive claims in the South China Sea and its assertive policy toward Taiwan. The United States and China are becoming increasingly bitter and hostile toward each other. In some right-wing circles in the U.S., there is increasing talk of the possibility – if not the necessity – of war with China to put the upstart country in its place. In some patriotic circles on the Chinese side, opinions are probably not much different.
But this is by no means the policy of the Biden administration in Washington or that of Xi Jinping in Beijing. Despite the strong mistrust, rivalry, and bitterness shared between the two countries, both sides are thinking about how to keep the conflict in check to prevent their tensions from dangerously escalating. “Managed competition” is the key mantra on the U.S. side, and the expansion of “people-to-people” contacts between students, business people, and tourists is how the Chinese side wishes to deal with the situation.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was recently in Beijing for talks and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Shanghai and Beijing in April. Military communication channels also seem to work again, as evidenced by the latest round of Defense Policy Coordination Talks between the U.S. and China in mid-September. After their talks in San Francisco at the end of last year, Biden and Xi are expected to meet again in person in November.
Still, any visitor notices that a lot has changed in China during the last five years, and not for the better. Numerous surveillance cameras on almost every street corner of large and small cities alike keep the population under control, not only for the purpose of observing traffic offenses but above all to put down even the mildest protests. Xi is certainly taking a very tough line regarding criticism of the regime and its domestic and also its foreign policies. My planned lecture in Shanghai on the strategies of the U.S. and EU toward China was moved to the consulate of a foreign country as a precaution. The diplomatic protection of the consulate was perhaps not entirely necessary, but it couldn’t hurt either.
Nevertheless, during my participation in the many events covered by numerous Chinese journalists as part of a “Strategic Dialogue” in Shanghai, Wenzhou, and Beijing, the many conversations, lectures, and discussions were surprisingly open. Not only was Chinese hospitality impressive, but many politicians, professors, students, and journalists remained open to listening to and engaging with Western perspectives during the discussions. Criticism of China’s frequently over-subsidized and often unfair economic and trade policies as well as criticism of Beijing’s harsh foreign policy was taken seriously, or so it seemed, and discussed intensively.
Interest in the U.S. and the EU and its 27 member states remains extremely high. It is still the great dream of many Chinese people to travel to the Western world or even to study and work in the West. The desire to intensify “people-to-people” contacts is not just rhetoric but meant seriously.
But it also became clear that China’s current charm offensive has its limits. When I openly criticized China’s Indo-Pacific and Taiwan policy, a minister sent by the powerful Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party lost his temper. He fully rejected all of my arguments, explained why my view was completely wrong, and recommended that I take his advice back to Washington and pass it on to the relevant people there. While a little worked up at that moment, he shook my hand again in a conciliatory gesture during a short conversation soon afterwards. In China, too, politicians behave like politicians – at least in public.
Generally speaking, a certain level of readiness to discuss things in a more open way is only present in the most cosmopolitan cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. In the regions and far away from the metropolises, things are quite different. At a lecture at a regional university, I was told shortly before the event began that the university leadership had decided that my planned lecture on the election campaign in the United States was wholly unacceptable. Discussing this would appear to those in power in Beijing as if the university was indirectly getting involved in the U.S. election campaign through my lecture or even taking sides. After all, it was completely open whether Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris would win. China would remain strictly neutral.
Even though it seemed pretty certain to me that no one in Beijing would pay much attention to my lecture, instead I talked about the economic situation in Europe and the recent election results in eastern Germany, which also attracted a great deal of interest.
Amid these conflicting signals, what will happen to relations with China?
It is highly uncertain whether the current partial thaw will continue after the U.S. elections on November 5. Still, it seems to me that the desire, indeed the deep longing, of the large majority of the young generation in China to be connected to the world and to the West is so great that China cannot pursue a completely nationalistic and inward-looking policy in the long term. Those in China who were born around the turn of the century will have advanced to leadership positions in Beijing in 10 to 20 years. One therefore wonders whether Xi’s current unyielding course can continue in the long term.
A generational change, which may possibly also lead to broader changes in China, is certainly coming. China will want to play a leading role on the world stage in the future, but not necessarily in the harsh, aggressive, inflexible and strong-headed way that Xi Jinping has embarked on.
The big question remains, however, whether we will be able to maintain peace among the great powers and avoid a military conflict in the meantime. We should certainly keep in mind that the difficult and aggressive China we have to deal with at present may not be the China of the future. With a bit of luck, China under the next generation’s leadership may well be more open-minded and a much more cooperative global partner than it is at present. But perhaps this is too optimistic.