According to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, “a new arc of authoritarianism is instinctively aligned to challenge and restore world order with their own image.” Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, described the joint statement issued by the Putin-Xi meeting as aimed at establishing “the sovereignty of the strongest [over] rule of law, intimidation instead of coercion, coercion instead of cooperation “. Such statements ignore the profound differences between the interests of Russia and China, the motives and visions of the world order. By equating Putin and Xi, Western leaders risk setting aside opportunities for international cooperation by introducing the deep-seated Sino-Russian alignment they fear already exists and putting the world on a path to a much broader geopolitical conflict. It is true that the leaders of Russia and China share a common set of security grievances against the US-led bloc, fearing both internal undermining and external constraints on their regional ambitions. However, while Putin’s goal is simply to eliminate these threats, Xi has articulated an ambitious positive vision for the world that overcomes the hunger for power of supremacy through regional sovereignty and instead aligns the interests of the Chinese people with the pursuit of of the world public good. At the heart of this vision is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a relaxed framework for an extensive set of investments, loans and building projects that have brought hundreds of billions of dollars to the developing world in the form of public health infrastructure. and digital connectivity. These basic investments have been neglected by Western investors and development organizations for decades, which is why they have been enthusiastically received in the global south. According to the Chinese government, the BRI is motivated by Xi’s universal right to development and its motto for building a “Human Community with a Common Future”, in which developing countries will have a greater say in world governance and the international community guarantees the supply of global public goods such as the Covid-19 vaccine. Unsurprisingly, the impetus behind the BRI is not humanity but the narrower interests: Chinese surpluses looking for productive outlets, Chinese companies looking for new markets and Chinese manufacturers looking for secure raw material supplies. Corruption and labor rights violations are common in these projects and the environmental consequences have sometimes been negative. But Chinese lenders are adapting to higher standards, and “greening the BRI” is now a top priority. While much work is needed to improve the BRI, it is important to recognize the coincidence of Chinese interests with those of the developing world – and something that sets it apart from Russia. China’s global vision somehow challenges the power of rich countries and the principles of the free market of the liberal international order, but it also promises to solve some of the most intractable and destabilizing problems facing humanity. Far from imposing a new world order, China calls on the West to work together to reform the status quo. On February 28, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for greater US-China cooperation to increase global access to vaccines, coordinate economic policy and tackle the climate crisis. In particular, he called for US involvement in the BRI and offered to coordinate with the US-led Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative. France has paved the way, recently signing a deal with China for cooperation on seven infrastructure and green energy projects, most of them in Africa, worth more than $ 1.7 billion. However, in the context of Manichaean democracy against totalitarianism, the United States has rejected such initiatives and is highlighting initiatives in the developing world as a choice between either country or the other. The Biden government places B3W as a “high quality” alternative to the BRI, although its much lower funding levels are unlikely to involve such projects. Members of the administration continue to denounce Chinese projects abroad as part of a sinister “debt trap” aimed at seizing control over strategic assets – a claim that has been repeatedly refuted. The US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which was easily passed by the Senate last year, portrays the BRI as part of a widespread attack on both the US and “the future of peace, prosperity and freedom of the international community.” It includes a provision requiring the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a multilateral development bank focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean, to prevent borrowers from borrowing from Chinese institutions. Developing countries will be the first to pay the cost of such a choice either – or or resist it. Barbados’s high-profile Prime Minister Mia Motley has resisted criticism of her economic ties with China, saying her country hopes to be “friends of all and satellites of no one” and welcomes any foreign investment that serves the needs of its people. . Similarly, Pacific island nations have sought to “avoid engaging in strategic competition” between the United States and China, and Southeast Asian nations have been wary of new alliances, such as the Aukus vs. China (Australia-UK-US). But there are also far more frightening and systemic dangers in approaching the US. The US vision of zero-sum competition between the BRI and B3W initiatives is only one aspect of an overall strategy aimed at curbing China’s rise. Biden’s primary foreign policy goal was to organize US allies – most of the world’s richest nations – into an economic and military bloc united around this strategy of containment. This encourages China to similarly seek its own economic and military bloc to ensure continued economic growth and military security. It also reinforces angry and angry impulses in Chinese politics, fueling the destructive zero-sum nationalism of China itself. This is the dynamic that led to the infamous Putin-Xi meeting. Chinese leaders worry that they have no choice but to strengthen the Sino-Russian relationship because they believe a US-led bloc is already seeking to undermine China’s rise, leaving them with two choices: tackle great powers of the US and Europe alone. , or on the side of Russia as an ally of a great power, which in turn escalates China’s tensions with the US and its allies in Europe. If the escalating spiral of confrontation, insecurity, nationalism and bloc formation continues unchecked, it threatens to unleash a global conflict that will undermine liberal values on both sides even more surely than current fears of its supposedly archetypal arc. But it is not too late to choose a different path. Cooperation between China and the West, combined with acceptance of China’s peaceful rise, would increase China ‘s sense of choice and its willingness to take risks in line with other Western priorities. This could include pushing to curb Russian aggression. Wider US-China cooperation in infrastructure and other global public goods will benefit developing countries and lead to a fair, sustainable and peaceful alternative to escalating competition from the major powers. We must take seriously China’s openness to this.
Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a project of the People’s Action and the People’s Action Institute Jake Werner is a postdoctoral fellow in Global China at the Center for Global Development Policy at Boston University.
