The last minute confirmation of Hu Jintao’s attendance at the Global Nuclear Security Summit in D.C. later this month has put to rest fears that China would send a lower-ranking official to the summit in retaliation for arm sales to Taiwan and other bilateral quarrels. The Western media, recently fixated on the ebb and flow of good will in U.S.-China relations, has zeroed in on the announcement of Hu’s attendance as the surest sign yet of more cooperative ties between the two countries.
While that dimension is certainly newsworthy, China’s apparent motivation to contribute to the work of the summit may yet prove to be the real story. Dispatching Hu to the Nuclear Security Summit signals the PRC’s desire to play a more important role in international nuclear security, one perhaps befitting a “great power.” Indeed, Chinese foreign affairs commentators have vigorously argued that the decision on Hu’s visit had nothing to do with the state of U.S.-China relationship. It was rather an expression of China’s sincere concern for global nuclear security as a “responsible world power,” an English-language China Daily editorial claimed. This may sound like spin, but it isn’t really.
Most likely, China has realized it needs to exercise leadership and influence over the international nuclear security architecture if it wants to be a real global power. With the approaching summit, the Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference slated for May, and now Obama’s landmark arms-control pact with Russia, 2010 is not a year to sit on the sidelines.
The success of the recent arms pact has especially influenced the Chinese, who are in the midst of upgrading their nuclear weapons and have heretofore had only one military-to-military discussion of nuclear weapons with the U.S. According to American analysts and Chinese officials cited in the WaPo, Beijing senses that with the momentum created by the recent pact,
the longer it waits to engage the United States on the nuclear issue, the more difficult it will be to affect the rules being hammered out between Moscow and Washington.
In addition to strategic considerations about the effect of new arms control regimes on their modernizing nuclear arsenal, it seems possible Beijing was influenced by Obama’s personal involvement in pushing the arms reduction agenda. China’s leadership, eager to maintain the moral authority they accord themselves for their relatively small number of nukes and ‘no first use’ posture, may have decided that it was in their best interest for their top leadership to share the spotlight.
In deciding to send Hu to attend the summit, China’s leadership was reportedly constrained by the fact Hu happened to be the only Standing Committee member also sitting on the Central Military Commission. Commentary in the Party’s flagship foreign affairs newspaper however suggests the logic of establishing China’s bona fides as a “diplomatic great power” may have been another important factor in the deliberations.
An April 1 Global Times op-ed by Tsinghua international relations professor Zhao Kejin argued that China cannot afford to withhold its “constructive participation” from such a historically significant cause. Whether as a matter of China’s “national interest” or its “responsibility for world peace,” being a key player at “a summit where the future course and fate of the world will be determined…is much more important than who talked to who.” In other words, China mustn’t forgo the opportunity to make a case for its global leadership simply to stick it to Obama for meeting with the Dalai Lama.
Perhaps even more importantly, China has no interest in being seen as a country that would unilaterally frustrate the work of nuclear security out of spite. To be a diplomatic great power, he writes, China must “persist in its principles…[and] be a country of strategic credibility (战略信誉) in world affairs.” Snubbing the summit by sending a lesser official would not only set back a cause China takes very seriously, it would send a worrisome message about the priorities of the Chinese leadership and their ” strategic credibility” on such an important (and non-controversial) issue.
To Zhao and ideologically like-minded foreign policy scholars, engagement with the U.S. on nuclear issues highlights more broadly the confident, “great power” diplomatic posture China needs. PRC policymakers should be shaping the world, rather than vice versa. To do so, they need to shift their focus from foreign countries’ policies towards China – read Taiwan, Tibet, currency issues, etc. – to China’s policies towards the world.
To China, the important issue is no longer foreign regard for our country, but rather what kind of position [it should] take as it plays a role world affairs.
Rather than constantly reacting to other countries’ policies, as a great power the PRC needs to “reorient its diplomatic outlook” outwards and concern itself primarily with furthering its interests in global affairs. In the face of provocative foreign behavior or other challenging circumstances, China should be “tough when necessary” but can be flexible too. The key is for the foreign policy agenda to not be always captive to a decision of some foreign administration.
The new “great power” diplomatic posture Zhao advocates stems from the premise that China is too big, its participation in multilateral initiatives too essential, to let parlor games over Tibet and Taiwan block out the rest of the foreign policy agenda. It is quite significant not only as an implicit rejection of Deng Xiaoping’s guiding foreign policy dictum tao guang yang hui, to “hide one’s capacities and bide one’s time,” but perhaps too as a rebuke of excessively “core interest”-driven diplomacy. Only time will tell how much Chinese policymakers share Zhao’s vision of a new diplomatic style and, if they do, whether the U.S. will truly be more comfortable with the outcome.
UPDATE: the NYT is now reporting on the outlines of Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review, which signals significant new constraints to the U.S. use of nuclear weapons. Would be curious to know if assurances on these matters were leaked to the Chinese to seal their RSVP to the summit – the WaPo reported that this had been a factor for the Chinese, along with the currency report.
