International relations of China

Since the time of Deng Xiaoping, the diplomacy of the Popular republic of China is founded on the principle of the “peaceful development”. This orientation was confirmed after the accession with the capacity of Hu Jintao in 2002.

While privileging harmonious and stable relations with its Asian neighbors, China, permanent member of the Safety advice of UNO, today first demographic power and third world economic power, wishes to place itself on an equal footing with the other world great powers (the United States, Europe, Russia) while developing its presence, in particular economic, in other Third World countries.

A regional diplomacy marked by a will of flattening of the bilateral tensions

The defense of Chinese sovereignty

The Popular republic of China forever recognized independence de facto of Taiwan and in the long term wishes to recover full sovereignty on this territory. If the RPC always regards it “a territory inseparable from China” or as a “province in front of one day to be allocated to the motherland”, a certain pragmatism prevails today, in spite of the born tensions, in 2000, of the election in Taiwan of the independence candidate Chen Shui-bian.

The current priority for the RPC rather appears to avoid any formal declaration of independence of Taiwan, become one of the principal economic partners of the RPC. The law of March 2005 against the secession of the nation thus envisages the recourse to average “the nonpeaceful ones” only in the event of secession by the independence leaders of Formosa.

Without giving up its territorial claims on the Paracels islands and Spratly at sea of China of the south, the RPC takes part, since 2002, with a multilateral dialog on the sovereignty of the islands.

The participation of Beijing in the regional dialog

China is member:

of the economic cooperation in Asia and in the Pacific (APEC);
of the Asian regional forum (more known under its Acronym English: ARF) of the Association of the nations of the South-East Asia (ANSEA), space of discussion on the questions of security in the Asia-Pacific zone, while the bilateral exchanges between China and the countries of the ANSEA (that is to say 150 billion dollars per annum) are destined for still developing from the point of view of a future agreement of Libre-échange.

In addition, China contributed to the constitution of the Cooperation organization of Shanghai, qualified as regards international safety, which gathers, in addition to China and the Russia, four Republics of Central Asia, the Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyzstan, the Ouzbékistan and the Tadjikistan, like, like observers, the Mongolia, the Pakistan, the Iran and the India.

The new responsibilities for China in Eastern Asia resulted in its implication in the recent crises:

at the time of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, it granted a billion euros of gifts the Thailand;
the Chinese humanitarian aid reached 60 million dollars after the tsunami of December 2004.

Concerned also to consolidate its role of regional great power, conscious of its international obligations to preserve the peace and stability in Asia of the North-East, China is at the origin of the multilateral negotiations with six, which are held in Beijing, for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Reduction in the tensions with India

Whereas in the conflict indo-Pakistani India was an ally of the USSR and Pakistan of China and the United States, the news gives diplomatic post-war period cold facilitated the development of relations of good neighborhood between China and India.

Following the visit in India of the Chinese president Jiang Zemin in 1996, the two countries signed an agreement on the maintenance of peace and peace along the line of control. Then the visit in China of Indian the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee led to the adoption, in June 2003, of a Joint Declaration, under the terms of which:

India reaffirmed the membership in China of the Tibet,
the two countries were committed regulating their frontier dispute, which gave place to the signature in April 2005, at the time of the visit in India of Chinese the Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, of an agreement on the “political parameters and the guiding principles of the payment of the question of the borders”;
the transborder trade must be developed, in particular via the collar of Nathu which connects Tibet and the Sikkim.

The frontier dispute remains, China asserting most of the territory of what constitutes, according to India, the State of Arunachal Pradesh (either 90.000 km). In addition, China occupies Aksai Chin, a territory of 40.000 km asserted by India. Lastly, following the sino-Pakistani agreement of 1963, China obtained from Pakistan the valley of Shaksgan (5.180 km) in the Cashmere, territory which belongs to the Indian Union according to New Delhi.

Improvement of the relations with Japan

The Sino-Japanese relations remain tended by the attitude of the Japanese government with respect to the Japanese military past during the Second world war, in particular the visits of Japanese the Prime Minister to the sanctuary of Yasukuni, the forced prostitution to which were subjected the “Femmes of comfort” Chinese and Korean, as well as the Révisionnisme of the handbooks of Japanese history. The RPC is thus not favorable so that Japan becomes permanent member of the Safety advice of the United Nations. In the context of nippo-American alliance military, the joint statement américano-Japanese woman of February 2005, in which the two governments expressed their “strategic interest for a peaceful resolution of the question of Taiwan”, involved big demonstrations of protest in China. However, the replacement at the post of Prime Minister of Japan of Junichiro Koizumi by Shinzo Abe allowed the organization with Hu Jintao of a bilateral top, in September 2006, making it possible to level the disagreements between the two States.

A world diplomacy in phase with the economic and military emergence of the Chinese power

The role of China with UNO and OMC

The multilateralism of the Chinese diplomacy was expressed by its active role within the international organizations with world vocation:

within the Organization of the United Nations, the Popular republic of China east left to the principal treaties nuclear disarmament, the Treaty of non-proliferation (since 1992) and the Treaty of complete prohibition of the nuclear tests (since 1996), like with international conventions of protection of the Human rights: Beijing signed the Pacts of UNO on the social economic rights and the civil laws and policies, respectively in 1997 and 1998;
with the economic plan, China joined in 2001 the World Trade organization;
finally, China provides military quotas to the Opérations of maintenance of peace, in particular in the Middle East, the Liberia and in Democratic republic of Congo.

Vectors of the power

The economic advancement

With a gross domestic product (PIB) rising to 2.200 billion dollars in 2005, China was the fourth world market power and China would have reached the third world rank at the summer 2007, thanks to an average annual growth rate of 9,4% over the period 1979-2005. China became the third world exporter in 2005.

This rapid economic advancement encourages the insertion of China in the international community, all in the incentive to be invested in other raw material and developing countries to make safe its energy supplies.

Military modernization

Among four modernizations of the reform program launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 the modernization of the army like vector of a reinforcement of the Chinese power appeared, after the semi-failure of the launched punitive intervention on February 19th, 1979 with the Vietnam.

In fact, the RPC reinforced its capacities of defense which, according to the international experts, place it at the second world rank after the United States:

the military budget of the RPC rises, officially, to 45 billion dollars (double according to the Western experts);
in January 2007, China carried out a shooting of missile successful to destroy one of its meteorological satellites, become out of use.

China tends thus to being a serious competitor for the United States in the Pacifique.

The support for the diffusion of the culture and the language Chinese

At the cultural plan, China sets up, since 2004, a network of Instituts Confucius to develop the knowledge of the Chinese language and culture, on the model of the Alliance fran1caises and the Instituts Goethe.

The search for partnerships balanced with the extra-Asian great powers

China - the United States: between criticisms of the American hegemonism and economic interdependence

The sino-American bilateral relations are marked at the same time by a denunciation of the “American hegemonism” and an increasing economic interdependence.

So of big demonstrations thus protested against the bombardment, by NATO, of the Chinese embassy with Belgrade in 1999, the denunciation of the “American hegemonism” was goes away, for the first time at the time of a congress of the Chinese Communist party, at the time of XVIe Congrès of November 2002.

American side, according to the professor Michael T. Klare, the damming up of the rise to power of China would constitute the true motivation of the increase continues of the American military expenditure.

The bilateral economic relations however encourage the co-operation between the two States, while nourishing the feelings anti-Chinese in the United States, insofar as these exchanges translate an American dependence:

because of the American trade deficit with respect to China;
because of the important detention on the one hand of the American national debt, is 350 billion dollars in Treasury bills, by the Chinese investors.

China - Russia: an in particular military partnership

Since the signature of a strategic partnership in 1996, the relations sino-Russian are marked by the importance of the military cooperation:

the Russia became the first supplier of armaments of China (with height of 2 billion dollars per annum);
the two countries organized military exercises united in 2006 and 2007 (for this last year, jointly with the Kyrgyz troops).

China - Europe: an economic cooperation of first importance

China takes part since 1996 in the meetings Asia-Europe (Asia Europe Meeting, ASEM).

In 1997, China signed a total partnership with France then, in 1998, a strategic partnership with the European Union.

Since 2004, the European Union is the first economic partner of China, in front of the United States.

Chinese multilateralism apart from Eastern Asia

The economic development of China implies to him to redeploy its diplomacy in order to make sure of the availabilities out of raw materials, which pushes the country today to be turned to the Africa and the Latin America.

The Chinese presence in particularly emblematic Africa east in that: contrary to Europe and the United States, China does not condition its assistance and its investments with the respect of political criteria.

At the time of the third top sino-African, which took place in November 2006, and which brought together representatives of 48 African States, China announced a triennial help (over the period 200è-2009) in the form of loans and of appropriations of preferential purchases, with height respectively of 3 and 2 billion euros.

The principal partnerships tied by China, apart from Eastern Asia, are based on economic cooperations or soldiers targeted:

in the Middle East, with two of its oil leading vendors: the Saudi Arabia and the Iran;
with Israel, in the field of the military cooperation;
in Africa sub-Saharan, with South Africa and Zimbabwe, country richly equipped out of raw materials and whose RPC supported the current leaders when they fought against apartheid and British colonization, like with three hydrocarbon producers: the Nigeria, the Sudan and the Angola; being Sudan, China strongly invested in the exploitation, the refining and the transport of hydrocarbons, in spite of the crisis of the Darfur which she regarded as an internal business in Sudan before accepting sending at the time of a multinational force of interposition.
in Latin America, with the Brazil (with which China tied economic partnerships in the agricultural sectors, but also of the aircraft industries and nuclear power), the Argentine, the Chile and the Venezuela, respectively oil and copper, cereal exporters.

See too

Relations Iran-China

References and notes

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