China’s New Diplomacy and Its

Impact on the World

Joshua Kurlantzick
Visiting Scholar
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

In October 2003, President George W. Bush seemed excited to arrive on his first
trip to Australia, a close friend and ally of the United States. But when he landed, his
enthusiasm must have quickly melted. Thousands of demonstrators greeted him in
several Australian cities. Some protestors crossed over from anger at the U.S. president
to broader anti-Americanism, condemning U.S. culture and values.1 Protected by an
enormous security cocoon, Bush planned to address the Australian parliament.2 But
he could barely get rolling on his speech before Australian senators began heckling
him.3
Only days later, Australia offered Chinese president Hu Jintao a vastly different 221
welcome. Hu toured Australia like a hero. Fewer Australians than expected protested
against Chinese human rights abuses.4 Even Australian Tibet campaigners went out
of their way to be polite to Hu.5 In parliament, few members disturbed him. The trip
concluded with the two nations signing a framework for a future free trade deal.
Australia’s responses to the Bush and Hu visits reflected shifts in Australian public
opinion. Only twenty years ago, Australia regarded China as coldly as it greeted the
United States warmly. Many Australians still viewed cold war–era Beijing as a com-
munist threat. Australia traded little with China, still an extremely poor country. Given
this, the outcome of the visit was shocking, as was as a 2005 poll by the respected Lowy
Institute showing that 70 percent of Australians viewed China positively while only
half had positive feelings about the United States.6
The transformation of China’s image in Australia seems remarkable. Yet the
transformation is hardly unique. Since the middle of the 1990s, China has grown in
strength and global popularity; it has altered its image in many nations from danger-
ous to benign. A 2005 study of 22 nations by the Program on International Policy

Joshua Kurlantzick is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This essay
is excerpted from his new book Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the Globe and
portions of the book also have been excerpted in Current History and Commentary.
Copyright © 2007 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
Attitudes found 48 percent of people thought China’s role in the world was mainly
positive, while 30 percent saw China’s role as negative.7
This transformation is due to a range of factors. But it is partly due to China’s
new, more sophisticated diplomatic strategy. Indeed, as China has emerged a globally
active power, exerting influence in regions far from its borders, it has developed a style
of diplomacy and soft power that is a sharp break from its own past and from the U.S.
model of influence.
China is now using this popularity to push for closer relationships with key
nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Beijing’s appeal has also allowed China
to build close relationships with regional organizations in these continents—in some
cases, to use these organizations to exclude the United States from important regional
gatherings. China’s skillful diplomacy also bolsters its economic and trade relations,
including its global hunt for resources: the more positive Beijing’s public image, the
easier it is for China to mitigate countries’ fears about the negative implications of
Chinese investment and trade with China.
But this new diplomacy has not completely erased other nations’ fears that Beijing’s
influence does not signal a true change in Chinese foreign policy. Some countries, like
Vietnam and Singapore, believe that China is only using its charm offensive as a smoke-
screen. To them, China uses soft power and focuses on the benefits of its own rise for
222 other countries, but subtly marshalls instruments of economic, political, and security
leverage to use against other nations in the future. In some respects China’s diplomatic
successes have a built-in downside for Beijing. Because China’s diplomatic model is
centered on the idea that Beijing does not try to change other nations’ behavior, once
it starts to do so, it may generate significant resentment.

Domestic and International Reasons for China’s New Diplomacy

Between the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 and the late 1990s, China played a defensive
role in international diplomacy. Beijing made few statements at international organiza-
tions like the United Nation’s, shunned regional security and economic groups, and
avoided signing treaties. China’s tools of influence remained weak; it gave little aid and
invested little overseas.
In the past decade, the domestic factors that limited China’s global diplomacy
have vanished. After the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Beijing tightened its con-
trols over society and developed a new nationalism designed to inculcate pride in the
state—nationalism that helped push China to become more engaged internationally.8
And in the 1990s and early 2000s, both the Chinese public and the Chinese leadership
gained vital confidence—confidence that China had a right to become a global power.

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
Economic success further fostered confidence in China. Decades of breakneck economic
growth allowed China to build trade surpluses with the world of over $100 billion
annually.9 Beginning in the late 1970s, China amassed the largest currency reserves
on earth and lifted 200 million people out of poverty, one of the greatest economic
accomplishments in history.10
Young Chinese intellectuals increasingly decided that China had to become
more active in foreign affairs as its rising power swept away images of China as a weak
state.11 At the same time, China’s leaders also became more sophisticated and began
to see the need for a new style of diplomacy. The Communist Party replaced much
of its leadership with younger members who had completed undergraduate and even
graduate studies.12 These new leaders saw that after the Tiananmen crackdown, Western
nations had shunned China. Chinese officials state that these younger leaders recognized
that Beijing cannot rely on the United States, but must develop its relations with its
neighbors and with African and Latin American countries.13
China also increasingly faced needs that could only be satisfied by developing a
new, more effective diplomatic strategy. In 2003, China became the world’s second-larg-
est importer of oil, and the International Energy Agency estimates that China will import
as many as 6.9 million barrels of oil per day by 2020, roughly half of all oil consumption
in the world.14 Since Chinese leaders do not trust world oil and gas markets and fear
that supply lanes and markets could be controlled by the United States in the event of a 223
Sino–U.S. conflict, Beijing has decided that it needs
to control stakes in other nations’ oil and gas fields China also needs to prepare
and infrastructure.15 China also increasingly needs for a future in which the United
new markets for Chinese companies to expand
abroad. Under a strategy created in the late 1990s,
States might try to contain it.
Beijing decided to build 20 to 30 Chinese “national champion” companies that could
potentially compete in the international arena.16 The national government assists these
companies with soft loans designed to encourage them to invest abroad.17
China also needs to prepare for a future in which the United States might try to
contain it, without destabilizing the two countries’ current relationship. China’s fears
of U.S. containment were exacerbated by the post-9/11 expansion of the United States’
military presence into Central Asia, by closer U.S. ties to India, and by the series of
“color revolutions” that some Chinese officials perceived as backed by Washington.
Accordingly, Beijing has amassed allies to strengthen its position at international orga-
nizations. It also might have to develop closer defense relationships around the globe.
Recent Chinese journals on international relations have focused on how the United
States had wooed friends and now was “capable of establishing regional defense head-
quarters in various corners of the world.”18 To break through this U.S. containment,

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
authors argued, Beijing would have to rely on developing nations.
At the same time, Chinese leaders also increasingly understood that as China
grows and opens its borders, it cannot avoid the world’s problems, such as HIV and
drugs. Fighting HIV, said Hu Jintao, would be “a major issue that has a bearing on the
nation’s quality and destiny,” and would require multinational cooperation.19
In recent years, Chinese officials could not help noticing another important
change in the globe. Foreign leaders were beginning to marvel at China’s economic
miracle—as one Afghan vice president put it, “China has made significant [economic]
achievements . . . so we Afghans are looking forward to learn[ing from them]”—and
Beijing began to realize that China has an image it can sell to the world.20 At the same
time, Chinese scholars started to believe that, even as the United States’ hard power
remained unparalleled, the United States’ diplomacy and soft power were suffering.21

China’s New Style of Diplomacy

Over the past five years, China’s new style of diplomacy has become clearer as Beijing
has rapidly increased its interactions with other nations. These advances have focused
on developing nations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where China appears to have
a set of consistent strategies.
224 First, Beijing ties its efforts into a “win-win” set of values—the idea that China
is growing into a preeminent power but supports a world in which nations do not
interfere in other nations’ affairs and all countries can benefit from China’s rise. China
contrasts this philosophy with that of the United States, which Beijing portrays as
constantly asking other nations for concessions in the economic and security realms.
China’s noninterventionist language also mirrors ideas enunciated by developing na-
tions’ own regional organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).22
Second, in supposedly trying to be nearly everyone’s friend, Beijing’s new diplo-
macy displays pragmatism unthinkable to a previous, more ideological generation of
Chinese leaders. Today, China deals with any state or political actor it thinks necessary
to achieving its aims. In Nepal, the Chinese government offered support to the mon-
archy despite the fact that the king was fighting a Maoist rebel group using the tactics
Chairman Mao himself pioneered. 23
Third, China has backstopped this “win-win” rhetoric with real initiatives. The
once treaty-averse Beijing has proven willing to sign up to agreements, frameworks,
and partnerships en masse. Just as China’s rhetoric of noninterference contrasts with
U.S. diplomacy, so too China’s new signing frenzy contrasts with U.S. treatment of
trade, economic, and security treaties. In the past decade, Beijing has inked the Treaty

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
of Amity and Cooperation, a document that commits the signers to mutual respect
for the sovereignty and equality of the ten countries in the ASEAN. Beijing also has
committed to creating a code of conduct on the South China Sea, signed the Southeast
Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty, and signed bilateral cooperative agreements
and strategic partnerships with several Asian, African, and Latin American states.24
Part of this engagement includes more frequent state visits by top Chinese leaders.
Over the past five years, senior Chinese politicians like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao have
become far more active internationally. 25 Hu and other leaders visit Africa at least once
a year, while U.S. presidents may not visit during an entire term. Senior cabinet-level
Chinese officials also made twice as many visits to Thailand and Cambodia in 2004
and 2005 than their U.S. counterparts.26
The Chinese leadership has embraced this win-win diplomacy and these new part-
nerships as it has realized that China’s hard power remains relatively weak. Rhetorically
accepting limits on its hard power allows China to contrast itself with the United States.
Today, Beijing still flexes its hard power, but it
Today, Beijing still flexes its hard
does so subtly. China has quietly built closer
military relationships with Pakistan, Burma, and power, but it does so subtly.
Central Asia, and it has begun greater submarine exploration of the seas near Japan
and Korea. Public awareness of China’s hard power gains remains relatively limited.
In part, this is because China has expanded its basing in some of the least transparent 225
nations in Asia, like Burma, making it harder to track its initiatives. In part, it may be
because Japan, though clearly worried about China’s military power, has been reluctant
to openly criticize Chinese incursions into Japanese waters.
What’s more, by focusing on soft power, Beijing can reduce fears of its military
power.27 In 2005 China agreed to work with Vietnam and the Philippines on a joint
exploration of the disputed South China Sea.28 China also started publishing defense
white papers designed to make its armed forces appear more transparent, and it began
conducting joint military exercises with Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and other
countries to reduce other nations’ mistrust of the People’s Liberation Army.
China also has begun portraying itself as the natural guardian of developing
countries.29 “In 2002, the Chinese government looked at its foreign policy and ranked
relations with the [United States] first, and then relations with neighboring countries
second,” says Ruan Zongze, vice president of the China Institute for International
Studies. “By two years later, China changed the rankings and ranked relations with
neighboring countries first,” suggesting it has placed a higher priority on cultivating the
developing world.30 Indeed, Chinese officials repeatedly emphasize the idea of developing
world solidarity and use occasions where developing nations line up against developed
countries, such as trade talks, to highlight China’s support for developing countries.

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China enjoys an advantage in disseminating this message: Beijing is not linked
to the neoliberal economic model, favored by Western countries, that alienates some
developing nations. Indeed, part of the appeal to developing nations includes Beijing
selling its model of development, which it touts as a path to social and economic suc-
cess in its dealings with developing nations and training programs for officials from
developing nations.31 Former Time foreign editor Joshua Cooper Ramo calls this model
the “Beijing Consensus.” In the Beijing Consensus, Ramo says, growth should come
from the state directing development while slowly removing its interference from the
economy, avoiding the kind of chaos that comes from too-rapid economic opening.
The Chinese press and Chinese government-linked think tanks have embraced Ramo’s
phrase and contrasted it with the Washington Consensus.32

China’s New Diplomatic Tools

As China has developed more sophisticated diplomatic strategies and styles, so too it
has begun to develop more effective tools of influence. These tools can be broken down
into two categories: tools of informal diplomacy and tools of more formal diplomacy.
China’s cultural promotion is part of a broader effort at informal public diplomacy, which
has a broad appeal to foreign publics. To foreign publics, Beijing wants to advertise the
226 idea that China will not be a threat to other nations. China’s public diplomacy efforts
reinforce the concept of China’s peaceful development, such as efforts like organizing
museum exhibits in Malaysia and Singapore to celebrate the six hundredth anniversary
of the voyages of Zheng He, a Chinese admiral who encountered but never conquered
several nations while sailing across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.33
Part of this new public diplomacy has been increasing cultural exchanges with the
developing world. China has begun hosting overseas scholars and politicians. “China
shows its understanding of Thailand by inviting people from every circle of Thai society
to China,” says one professor at Bangkok’s Kasetsart University.34 Beijing also has created
a Chinese version of the Peace Corps to send idealistic young Chinese on long term
volunteer service projects to developing nations like Laos, Ethiopia, and Burma.
The new Chinese public diplomacy also includes setting up networks of infor-
mal summits designed to bring together opinion leaders. These summits allow China
to subtly emphasize its role as a potential partner for investment and trade and its
position as a leader of the developing world. The larger informal summits include
the China—Arab States Cooperation Forum; the China—Caribbean Economic and
Trade Cooperation Forum; and the Boao Forum for Asia, which brings together Asian
businesspeople into a World Economic Forum–like event.35
Beijing also has tried to lure more foreign students to China by advertising Chinese

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
universities abroad, creating new scholarship programs for students from the develop-
ing world, and loosening visa policies for foreign students.36 In places like Cambodia,
a kind of feeder system is created. Students who do well in China-backed primary
schools in Cambodia often can obtain assistance from China to continue studies in
the People’s Republic.37
Some of this cultural and language outreach has been directed at ethnic Chinese
in other countries. In the past ten years, the Chinese government has begun to view
ethnic Chinese abroad as more than merely sources of investment. Diaspora Chinese
have become vital to Beijing’s global diplomacy to a far greater extent than nearly any
other country’s diaspora save perhaps Israel. In recent years, Beijing has rebuilt rela-
tions with ethnic Chinese organizations and directly called on these diaspora Chinese
to help boost relations between China and the world.38
As China has upgraded its public diplomacy, it also has invested in improving
its formal diplomacy. Over the past 15 years, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has
begun to retire older diplomats, replacing them with a young generation of envoys who
speak better English and local languages.39 One 2005 study suggested that one-half of
the country’s 4,000 diplomats are less than 35 years old.40 According to another study
of China’s relations with Latin America, Beijing actively tried in the 1980s to upgrade
the quality of its diplomats in the Western Hemisphere. For example, it has sent 110
young Chinese officials to a university in Mexico to learn Spanish and deepen their 227
understanding of Latin America.41
China’s formal diplomacy also includes more nuanced tools of business. Beijing
apparently has realized that China can utilize its economic might to boost its appeal
in foreign nations if it portrays its growth in a certain light and if other countries can
benefit from China’s economic power. Thus, China has tried to demonstrate that, as
it grows, it also will become a much larger consumer of other nations’ goods, creating
the win-win economics that are central to the theme of Chinese diplomacy.
Chinese officials also support win-win economics by providing trade, investment,
and tourism targets. These targets, planned for five or ten years in the future, tend to
be enormous and obscure the fact that, at present, Chinese outward foreign direct in-
vestment still lags far behind investment from the United States and Japan. So, when
Hu Jintao met Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2005, he promised
over $1.6 billion in new Chinese investment and aid to Manila; in 2005, when China
hosted Indonesian Minister of Finance Jusuf Anwar, the Chinese announced that their
investment in Indonesia could triple within five years to as much as $20 billion.42
On trips abroad, Chinese leaders often bring along large business delegations to
meet with local businesspeople.43 Developing-world businesspeople can execute deals
directly with Chinese political leaders and heads of Chinese companies without worrying

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
about legislators back in China holding up completion of the deals, as might happen in
the United States. “I went to Beijing with Thai officials and met [vice premier] Wu Yi,”
says Vikrom Kromadit, CEO of the Amata Corporation, one of the largest companies
in Thailand. “She asked me what kind of companies I’d like in my industrial park, and
I told her, and she sent over twenty companies on my list of [Chinese] companies I
wanted to get.”44
Even if China’s technology lags behind that of Western or Japanese competitors,
China also can advertise its willingness to transfer technology, part of what suppos-
edly makes it, as a developing nation itself, a different kind of actor. Poorer nations
in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia have been receptive to this and think
Chinese companies are well-suited for investing in them. In Nigeria, where the gov-
ernment chose Chinese aerospace giant Great Wall Industry Corporation to launch
a new Nigerian satellite, one foreign affairs official told the Financial Times: “Being a
developing country, they understand us better. They are also prepared to put more on
the table. For instance, the western world is never prepared to transfer technology—but
the Chinese do.”45
While China cannot yet challenge the United States, Europe, or Japan as a source
of outward investment, it already can match them as a trading partner. China’s consump-
tion is focused on the developing world; it does
228 not import much from the United States outside
of high-technology products, while its imports
from the developing world are worth more than
seven times as much.46 As a result, countries in
Asia, Latin America, Africa, and other regions are
scrambling to take advantage of China’s enormous
appetites for resources, industrial components,
and other products. In 2005, for the first time
in decades, the economies of Asia outside Japan
were collectively larger than the economy of Japan,
showing how China is becoming more important
to the region.47 Eventually, China will become the
center of trade and economic integration in Asia,
providing Beijing with the goodwill that accrues
from being the economic locomotive.48
Photo courtesy of Amy Chang
A Mao statue in Kashgar, Xinjiang­—a Sensitive to fears of China’s economic power,
symbol of China’s past Chinese officials have tried to assuage other na-
tions by inking free trade deals and making trade concessions. In fall 2001, to the
surprise of many Southeast Asian diplomats who’d been unsuccessfully pressuring other

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
countries to consider a trade deal, Chinese officials suggested creating a free trade zone
between China and Southeast Asia.49 Since then, China has started work on at least 16
other new trade agreements around the world.50
Backing up investment promises and trade, China has developed a substantial
aid program. From almost nothing in the mid-1990s, Chinese aid now can compete
with U.S. and Japanese aid programs in parts of Southeast Asia, Latin America, and
Africa. In Asia, China’s aid has risen from roughly $260 million in 1993 to more than
$1.5 billion in 2004. By 2004, China’s aid to the Philippines was four times larger
than that of the United States, its aid to Laos was three times greater, and its aid to
Indonesia was nearly double.51

Policy Implications

China’s new diplomatic style has begun to pay off. By adopting a more pragmatic,
softer approach to diplomacy, Beijing has begun to mitigate fears of China. As a result,
China will increasingly offer a serious alternative to relations with the United States for
countries unhappy with U.S. diplomacy. In Central Asia, for instance, China’s growing
diplomatic power has given nations that resented growing U.S. influence another power
to rely upon. After the Uzbek government cracked down on political opposition in
2005 and U.S. officials criticized the Uzbek regime, China quickly backed the Uzbek 229
regime’s policies, hosting Uzbek leader Islam Karimov for a state visit to Beijing.52
China also may utilize its charm offensively to change the behavior of target na-
tions. Dennis Blair, then commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, proposed in 2001
that Asia create what he called “security communities” in which the United States would
increase its defense cooperation with Asian nations.53 But many Asian nations vetoed
the idea, in part because China quietly applied pressure on them to reject it.54
China also has begun to use its influence to get nations to make promises not to
intervene if the United States and China went to war in the future over Taiwan. With
Australia, China sent one of its finest diplomats, Fu Ying, to offer a strategic partnership
and aggressively promoted the importance of China’s demand for natural resources to
the Australian economy. China has become Australia’s second-largest trading partner
behind Japan, and Australian mining companies like BHP Billiton have posted record
profits.55 Australian politicians started to back away from the Australia, New Zealand,
and United States (ANZUS) security treaty. At a press conference held in Beijing in
August 2004, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters, “The
ANZUS obligations could be invoked only in the event of a direct attack on the United
States or Australia.”56 Downer’s continued comments clearly suggested that Australia
would not help the United States fight a war with China over Taiwan.

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
China’s new diplomatic style also has helped it win resource deals around the
globe. Beijing’s growing popularity makes it easier for leaders of oil-producing nations
to make deals with Chinese companies; by contrast, if they ink agreements with the
United States, they risk domestic popular backlash for selling assets. In Venezuela,
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has established a joint venture with
Petroleos de Venezuela. Overall, China has invested roughly $2 billion in Venezuela.57
In Nigeria, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) purchased a
$2.3 billion stake in a major oil and gas field in the Niger Delta.58 In 2005, CNPC
purchased PetroKazakhstan, one of the biggest oil companies in Central Asia.59 The
list could go on for several pages.
If China continues to succeed in obtaining access to resources, it could have
significant economic implications for the United States. China’s growing diplomatic
skill and its desire to not only buy oil but also control oil infrastructure could eventu-
ally allow it to gain exclusive access to oil and gas fields, particularly in nations like
Venezuela already seeking to downgrade links to the United States. Though China has
been cautious about directly threatening U.S. access to oil, as Beijing’s energy needs
skyrocket it could find itself with little choice other than to compete with the United
States. China also has begun to consider whether it needs to protect these resources
with its own armed forces. As China builds a more sophisticated navy, by 2015 it may
230 need limited basing rights at key ports around the world. Beijing is also considering a
new naval strategy in which it would try to control sealanes and help build chains of
military bases around Asia.60

Choices for China

Beijing now is making critical decisions about its future as a global actor. In the fu-
ture, China could build a responsible diplomatic strategy that supports its popularity
among average people around the world.
To build its image as a responsible In some respects, building this popularity
power, China even has begun to use its means working with established initiatives
diplomatic skills to mediate conflicts. designed to promote stability and develop-
ment—initiatives China sometimes has em-
braced. It may surprise some U.S. policy makers that China now has more peacekeepers
operating under the UN flag than any other permanent member of the Security Council;
Chinese forces have served effectively in Liberia, Haiti, and other countries.61
To build its image as a responsible power, China even has begun to use its diplo-
matic skills to mediate conflicts. After tensions between Cambodia and Thailand nearly
escalated into war in 2003, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi called in the Thai

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
and Cambodian representatives in Beijing and helped them lay out their grievances.
Chastened, the two sides began to patch up their relationship. By March of 2003,
Thailand and Cambodia reopened their customs posts and their bilateral relationship
normalized.62
But China may make a different choice. Part of China’s new diplomacy rests upon
portraying Beijing as qualitatively different from major Western powers—unwilling to
interfere in other nations’ affairs, willing to sign bilateral and multilateral agreements.
But as China becomes more globally active, it may have to make more demands, become
involved in local politics, and think harder before signing agreements, thereby alienat-
ing other nations. Some Chinese officials recently have begun to act more assertively,
and Chinese scholars have begun debating whether China is already a great power. In
2003, one former Chinese ambassador to Singapore warned that Beijing would no
longer bow to other nations; as she told a business forum, Singaporeans had to lose
their “air of superiority” if they wanted to continue dealing with China.63 This greatly
angered many Singaporean elites.
If it becomes more assertive, China may scuttle perceptions of it as a different,
noninterventionist diplomatic power. As it has become more comfortable flexing its
diplomatic muscles, China has in the past year begun to reveal some of the sticks it
could use against other countries. In Zambia, populist opposition politicians recently
tried to make Chinese investment in Zambia a campaign issue—they claim that Chinese 231
investment in Zambian mines has led to deteriorating safety standards, and they warn
that Zambians are not benefited from Chinese investment. In response, the Chinese
embassy in Zambia warned Zambians to vote against the opposition or face potential
sanctions from Beijing.64
What’s more, in some developing nations important members of civil society fear
that China’s growing influence over domestic politics will act as a brake on any political
liberalization, and actually could help reverse democratic trends in some nations. In
Cambodia, journalists at the most independent Chinese-language newspaper say that
pressure from the Chinese embassy in Beijing has made it more difficult for them to
fairly present issues related to Taiwan–China relations, as well as Cambodia–Taiwan
relations.65
More broadly, China’s growing success could forestall multilateral efforts at pro-
moting human rights and good governance in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Nations
like Zimbabwe can use a more powerful, active, and sophisticated China, dedicated to
the principles of nonintervention, as a weapon against Western nations.66 Sudan has
demonstrated the most tragic consequences of China’s diplomacy. Despite some signs
that China will drop its rhetoric of noninterference in the face of genocide, such as by
appointing a special envoy to Sudan, Beijing did not stop its state-linked oil companies

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
from allegedly removing populations of average Sudanese to replace them with oil in-
stallations. It also quietly worked at the United Nations to water down condemnations
of and action against the Sudanese government.
Furthermore, if China continues to offer aid without any conditions, it will al-
low itself to serve as a wedge between developing countries and Western aid programs
designed to promote reform and good governance. In Cambodia, Chinese aid has
helped the government avoid donor criticism of Phnom Penh’s failure to implement
a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy.67 “Western governments would like to use
their assistance to [Cambodian prime minister] Hun Sen to put pressure on Hun Sen,
so he turns to the Chinese,” said Sokhem Pech, a leading Cambodian academic.68
In the long run, China can consolidate diplomatic ties to the leadership of a few
undemocratic regimes, like Sudan, potentially alienating large segments of the public
in these countries and leading to blowback against Beijing and instability that threatens
Chinese interests. In the longer run, if nations like Sudan ever transitioned to freer
governments, new governments in these countries might take revenge on the country
that propped up their former regimes. Already, militants have targeted Chinese interests
in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zambia, and other African nations. If Beijing makes the wrong
choice about its future relationship in the world, these incidents sadly could become
more common. W A
232
Notes

1. “Bush Hecklers Ordered Out,” CNN, 23 October 2003.

2. Adam Harvey, “Mister Untouchable,” Sunday Sydney Telegraph, 26 October 2003.
3. “Bush Hecklers Ordered Out.”
4. Louise Perry, “Hu a Lesser Evil Among Activists,” The Australian, 25 October 2003.
5. Nick Squires, “The Chorus of Dissent is Muted as Protestors Change Their Tactics,” South China
Morning Post, 25 October 2003.
6. Ivan Cook, Australians Speak 2005: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (Sydney: Lowy Institute,
2005).
7. “22 Nation Poll Shows China Viewed Positively by Most Countries,” World Public Opinion, http://
www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/views_on_countriesregions_bt/116.php?nid=&id=&pnt=116
&lb=btvoc, accessed 15 June 2006.
8. See, for example, Jasper Becker, “Mussolini Redux,” The New Republic, 23 June 2003 and Ben Elgin
and Bruce Einhorn, “The Great Firewall of China,” BusinessWeek, 12 January 2006 and Minxin Pei,
China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2006), 89–103.
9. “China Sees Trade Surplus Triple,” BBC News, 11 January 2006.
10. “China Currency Reserves Top Japan’s, China Business News Says,” Bloomberg News, 28 March
2006. On China’s reduction of poverty, see the United Nations’ annual reports on Human Development
in China, which areavailable at http://www.undp.org.cn/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file
=article&topic=40&sid=228.
11. Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005).
12. H. Lyman Miller and Liu Xiaohong, “The Foreign Policy Outlook of China’s ‘Third Generation’

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
Elite” in David Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Palo
Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).
13. Interviews with Chinese diplomats, Washington and Beijing, August–December 2005.
14. Jeffrey Logan, “China Scrambles for Energy Security,” International Energy Agency, 23 March
2005.
15. Erica Downs, “The Chinese Energy Security Debate,” China Quarterly 177 (March 2004).
16. Philip Saunders, China’s Global Activism: Strategy, Drivers, and Tools (Washington: National Defense
University Press, 2006).
17. Interviews with Chinese diplomats, Bangkok, Vientiane, Washington, August 2005–April 2006.
See also Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China, “Program for China-Africa Cooperation in
Economic and Social Development,” Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and Dai Yan, “China Eyeing
Regional Investment,” China Daily, 9 February 2004, and Stephen Frost, “Chinese Outward Direct Invest-
ment in Southeast Asia: How Much and What are the Regional Implications?” (working paper, Southeast
Asia Research Center, City University of Hong Kong, July 2004).
18. Biwu Zhang, “Chinese Perceptions of American Power, 1991−2004,” Asian Survey 45, no. 5
(2005).
19. “China Popularizes HIV/AIDS Knowledge Among Officials,” Xinhua, 1 December 2004.
20. “Afghans to learn China’s development experience: says Afghan Vice President,” Xinhua, 18 April
2005.
21. Zhang, “Chinese Perceptions of American Power, 1991−2004.”
22. Robin Ramcharan, “Asean and Noninterference: A Principle Maintained,” Contemporary Southeast
Asia 22, no. 1 (April 2000).
23. Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Sustaining Conflict and Human Rights
Abuses,” 11 June 2006.
24. See, for example, Carlyle Thayer, “China Consolidates its Long Term Bilateral Relations with
Southeast Asia,” Comparative Connections 2, no. 2 (July 2000).
25. Philip Saunders, China’s Global Activism: Strategy, Drivers, and Tools (Washington: National Defense 233
University Press, 2006). A complete listing of Chinese leaders’ travel is available at http://chinavitae.
com/vip/.
26. The comparison was made by compiling English and Chinese-language newswire reports of visits
by American and Chinese Cabinet-level officials.
27. Robert G. Sutter, China’s Rise in Asia: Promises and Perils (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2005), 12−16.
28. Author interview with Vietnamese policymakers, Nha Trang, October 2005
29. On how American strategy changed after 9/11, see, for example “The National Security Strategy
of the United States of America,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf.
30. Presentation by Ruan Zongze, Asia Foundation trilateral dialogue on US-China-Vietnam relations,
Nha Trang, October 2005.
31. Drew Thompson, “China’s Soft Power in Africa: From the ‘Beijing Consensus’ to Health Diplomacy,”
China Brief 5, no. 21 (13 October 2005).
32. Zhang Xiaojing, “Tanshuo jinrong quanqiu shidai de fazhan daolu: qianxicong ‘Huasheng gongshi
dao ‘Beijing gongshi,’” Xueshi Shibao, 16 August 2004.
33. Author interview with Geoff Wade, expert on Zheng He’s voyages, National University of Singa-
pore, August 2005.
34. Author interview with Kasetsart professor, Bangkok, August 2005.
35. ASEAN Secretariat, “Report of the Asean-China Eminent Persons Group,” http://www.aseansec.
org/ASEAN-China-EPG.pdf#search=%22asean%20china%20eminent%20persons%20group%22 and
Boao Forum for Asia, http://www.boaoforum.org/Html/ and “China, Arab States Set up Cooperation
Forum,” People’s Daily, 30 January 2004.
36. Hong Liu, “New Migrants and the Revival of Overseas Chinese Nationalism,” Journal of Contempo-
rary China 14, no. 43 (2005). See also Cao Cong, “China’s Efforts at Turning a ‘Brain Drain’ into a ‘Brain
Gain,’” Background Brief, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, 1 November 2004; Sam

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 Joshua Kurlantzick
Dillon, “US Slips in Attracting the World’s Best Students,” New York Times, 21 December 2004; “Foreign
Students in China on the Rise,” People’s Daily, 15 April 2003; and Howard French, “China Luring Foreign
Scholars to Make its Universities Great,” New York Times, 28 October 2005. Also, interviews with Chinese
education specialists, Shanghai, 2004.
37. “International Students Find Beijing ‘Home,’” China Daily, 24 May 2005.
38. Interviews with Chinese diplomats, Washington and Beijing, Aug/Oct 2005.
39. Interviews with Chinese diplomats in Bangkok, Washington, Manila, Aug/Dec 2005.
40. “Li Zhaoxing Praises Young Diplomats,” Xinhua, 27 June 2005.
41. Interview with Chinese scholars, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, August 2005.
42. “China Agrees to $200 Million in Loans: Jusuf,” Jakarta Post, 29 June 2005 and Genalyn D. Ka-
baling, “RP, China Sign $1.6 Billion Accords; Hu Cites ‘Golden Age’ of Ties at Congress Joint Session,”
Manila Bulletin, 28 April 2005.
43. Interview with Singaporean diplomats, Singapore, January 2006. On business delegations, see also
Kerry Dumbaugh and Mark P. Sullivan, “China’s Growing Interest in Latin America,” Congressional
Research Service, 20 April 2005.
44. Interview with Vikrom Kromadit, Bangkok, September 2005.
45. “Friend or Forager?” Financial Times, 23 February 2006.
46. Enzio Von Pfeil, “China: The Third World Superpower,” China Brief 4, no. 6 (19 March 2004).
47. “Asia Outgrows Japanese Economy,” Reuters, 29 December 2005, 6
48. Eric Teo Chu Cheow, “China as the Center of Asian Economic Integration,” China Brief 4, no.
15 (22 July 2004).
49. Interview with Singaporean diplomats, Singapore, January 2006.
50. Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Yee Wong, “Prospects for Regional Free Trade in Asia,” (working paper,
Institute for International Economics, October 2005).
51. Henry Yep, “China’s Foreign Aid to Asia: Promoting a “Win-Win” Environment” (Master’s thesis,
National Defense University, Spring 2006).
234 52. Stephen Blank, “Islam Karimov and the Heirs of Tiananmen,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 2, no. 15
(14 June 2005).
53. Dennis Blair, “Address to Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference,” 16 March
2000.
54. Interviews with Singaporean and Thai diplomats, Singapore and Bangkok, January 2006
55. “BHP Billiton Posts Record Interim Profit,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Online, 15
February 2006.
56. Mohan Malik, “The China Factor in Australia-US Relations,” China Brief 5, no. 8 (12 April
2005).
57. Andrew Yeh, “China Backs Chavez’s Bid for UN Seat After Oil Deal,” Financial Times, 25 August
2006. See also William Ratliff, “China and Venezeula: Pragmatism and Ideology,” (statement to the US-
China Economic and Security Review Commission, 3 August 2006).
58. David Barboza, “Chinese Oil Firm to Invest Billions in Nigerian Field,” New York Times, 9 Janu-
ary 2006.
59. “CNPC Set to Buy PetroKazakhstan After Concessions,” Energy Compass, 21 October 2005.
60. David Zweig and Bi Jianhai, “China’s Global Hunt for Energy,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (Septem-
ber/October 2005).
61. Michael Fullilove, “Angel or Dragon?” The National Interest, 1 September 2006.
62. “Cambodian Border: Checkpoints Reopen,” The Nation (Thailand), 22 March 2003.
63. Zheng Yongnian and Tok Sow Keat, How China Views Singapore (Singapore: East Asian Institute,
National University of Singapore, 2004).
64. Joseph J. Schatz, “Zambian Hopeful Takes a Swing at China,” Washington Post, 25 September 2006.
See also John Reed, “China Intervenes in Zambian Election,” Financial Times, 5 September 2006 and
Victor Mallet, “Ugly Face of China in Africa,’ Financial Times, 13 September 2006.
65. Interview with Loh Swee Ping, Sin Chew newspaper, Phnom Penh, March 2006.
66. Abraham McLaughlin, “A Rising China Counters US Clout in Africa,” Christian Science Monitor,

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 China’s New Diplomacy and Its Impact on the World
30 March 2005.
67. John Reed, “A Patchy Performance,” Financial Times, 1 March 2006. See also “Election Budget:
Angola,” Africa Confidential, 31 March 2006; John Reed, “A Peace Dividend,” Financial Times, 14 No-
vember 2005; and Ben Schiller, “The China model,” openDemocracy, 20 December 2005, http://www.
opendemocracy.net/democracy-china/china_development_3136.jsp.
68. Interview with Sokhem Pech, Phnom Penh, January 2006.

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