Zhu Liqun

In the wake of the end of the Cold War, the West made all kinds of projections about China’s relations with the outside world. Realist scholars forecasted a war between China and the United States on the basis of their theories of the balance and transfer of power, believing that China was bound to adopt policies to counterbalance the United States. Western scholars professing liberalism either envisioned an eventually Westernized China that copied the Western political system as a result of economic marketization, or ruled out the possibility of China’s integration into a West-dominated international community due to its own ideology and cultural traditions. However, China’s diplomatic practice in the past three decades since the beginning of the reform and opening up defies predictions by any of the mainstream Western theories mentioned above. China not only repudiated the Cold War paradigm between the US and the Soviet Union, but also did not change its identity as the liberalists had expected. On the contrary, China’s diplomacy, in terms of its objectives, identity and behaviors, has displayed an overall feature of the “Golden Mean”, fully embodying balance, practicality and correlativeness with focus on the changes and links of issues.

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    The Feature of “Golden Mean” in China’s Diplomacy

    by ZHU Liqun

    China Foreign Affairs University

    http://www.cpifa.org/en/q/listQuarterlyArticle.do;jsessionid=6DCBAE4174639F3315DEDDD6048910BA?pageNum=4&articleId=50&quarterlyPageNum=4

    Since China’s reform and opening up, most notably since the 1990s, there have been many amazing innovations in China’s diplomacy on the basis of its fine traditions. The innovation and development of China’s diplomacy have been widely recognized both within and outside the country. Though various versions of “China threat” still exist, China’s diplomatic practice has not only allayed, to a great extent, the negative international comments against China, but also brought positive influence to Asia and the global system.

    In the wake of the end of the Cold War, the West made all kinds of projections about China’s relations with the outside world. Realist scholars forecasted a war between China and the United States on the basis of their theories of the balance and transfer of power, believing that China was bound to adopt policies to counterbalance the United States. Western scholars professing liberalism either envisioned an eventually Westernized China that copied the Western political system as a result of economic marketization, or ruled out the possibility of China’s integration into a West-dominated international community due to its own ideology and cultural traditions. However, China’s diplomatic practice in the past three decades since the beginning of the reform and opening up defies predictions by any of the mainstream Western theories mentioned above. China not only repudiated the Cold War paradigm between the US and the Soviet Union, but also did not change its identity as the liberalists had expected. On the contrary, China’s diplomacy, in terms of its objectives, identity and behaviors, has displayed an overall feature of the “Golden Mean”, fully embodying balance, practicality and correlativeness with focus on the changes and links of issues.

    The new century marks a new phase in the building of the world order, with competition among big powers increasingly focusing on the competition of soft power. As a major country in the process of rapid development, China needs to outline its own vision for the world order, a vision with Chinese characteristics that passes on China’s experience and carries China’s aspiration. A serious review of China’s diplomatic practice and summary of the pattern of diplomatic behaviors may contribute to the development of diplomatic theories with Chinese characteristics.

    I. THREE OBSERVABLE FEATURES OF CHINA’S DIPLOMACY

    China’s rich and colorful diplomatic practices since the reform and opening up have interwoven traditions with innovations. In the course of development, China’s diplomacy displays three distinct and observable features: first, the objective of a harmonious world; second, multiple identities in the effort to integrate into the international community, and; third, the principle of promoting mutual benefit and win-win progress. These three features define the distinctiveness of China’s diplomacy.

    1. The Objective of a Harmonious World

    The objective of a harmonious world has been set to win over all forces possible diplomatically to make concerted efforts for peace, prosperity and stability of the international community. Stating from 1980s, the Chinese Government set up the basic diplomatic principles of non-alignment in international affairs, no strategic relations targeting any third party and no coalition with one against another. The 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the idea of downplaying ideology in party-to-party relations and emphasized that China and Western countries, despite differences in social systems, shared common aspirations and responsibilities for maintaining world peace and enjoyed common interests and huge potentials in carrying out economic and cultural cooperation. That is why China established its basic diplomatic principle of non-alignment and not drawing lines on the grounds of political systems and ideologies.

    After the end of the Cold War, especially from the mid-1990s onward, China started to forge strategic and cooperative partnerships with major countries. “Strategic” here does not imply strategic alliances targeted at any third party, but highlights the vision for long-term and steady cooperative relations that transcend immediate interests and ideological divide and are not subject to the impact of individual incidents. The idea of strategic partnership developed and deepened the principle of non-alignment and no line-drawing on the grounds of ideologies raised in the 1980s. It has since been put into diplomatic practice in an active manner. In more than a decade’s time, China established and developed strategic partnerships with major countries around the world.

    From non-alignment to the development of strategic partnerships, there has been a vacuum of the concept of enemy, not even the concept of adversary in China’s diplomacy. Developing strategic partnerships is, in fact, a process to solve problems, improve relations and enhance cooperation, and a process to define and develop China’s relations with the outside world from a more positive perspective. In China’s foreign relations, there is neither vicious competition with hostility, nor alliance or quasi-alliance in the Cold War fashion. China endeavors to develop long-term and steady friendly relations and cooperation with all countries and is committed to building a harmonious world of diversity. Such a strategic objective helps China reduce the number of enemies and increase friends, expanding the room for its effort to build a harmonious world.

    2. Multiple Identities in the Effort to Integrate into the International Community

    Since the reform and opening up, China has been gradually integrating into the West-dominated international system by actively seeking international cooperation, and placing more importance on multilateralism. Internationally, China has joined the international economic system represented by the WTO, gradually conducted harmonization with international human rights standards, and acceded to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and other international security mechanisms. An the regional level, China signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and is actively exploring the possibility of setting up an East Asia Community. China is also an active supporter of the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the Asian Cooperation Dialogue, and has played an active and constructive part in the Six-Party Talks. To sum up, China is accelerating its pace to integrate into the international community and has become a country with neo-internationalist features.

    Concurrently China has been all along upheld its identity as a developing country and a socialist country. This is due, in part, to China’s relatively weak national strength, but is more importantly related to China’s own history, political culture and strategic considerations. Though the identity of a responsible country does not inherently contradict with that of a developing country, the policy orientations of the two identities do diverge to a certain extent. In real practice, China has never categorized countries according to their political systems or ideologies, which alleviates problems with countries of different identities.

    In fact, China determines its identity in light of specific relations. Multi-structured relations entail different identity features. Different processes result in the constant re-forge of relations and corresponding changes in identities. It is a complex multiple-identity situation.

    3. The Principle of Promoting Mutual Benefit and Win-win Progress

    It could be easily observed that rational mutual benefit is a basic logic governing the decision-making in China’s diplomacy. To uphold and expand China’s national interests on a mutually beneficial and win-win basis is a basic policy China publicly promotes and the driving force behind its diplomatic efforts. On the basis of rational mutual benefit, China has reached sound settlement of all land boundary issues except for those with India and Bhutan, successfully secured the return of Hong Kong and Macao on the basis of “one country, two systems”, and largely stabilized the situation of the Nansha Islands with the “code of conduct in the South China Sea”. China has realized mutual benefit and win-win result in trade through its accession to the World Trade Organization. In the security arena, China seeks common security of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation under the guidance of the new security concept. In the field of culture, China stresses the importance of dialogue and exchanges among civilizations on the basis of mutual respect.

    China has exercised a certain degree of self-restraint in various fields of international affairs in its pursuit of mutual benefit and win-win result. China has long been committed to a defensive national defense policy and downsized its military personnel by around 2 million within two decades. China observes international norms and rules and exercises self-restraint through its participation in various global and regional mechanisms and arrangements.

    The objective, identities and conduct of China’s diplomacy fully reflect the feature of the “Golden Mean”, which embraces moderation and rejects extremes. It embodies the simple world view of “the unity of heaven and man” held by the Chinese, the practical ontology that adjusts social relations to reach harmony and maintain order, and the basic principle of respecting each other and treating each other as equals and starting from oneself in handling state-to-state relations. If measured by these three yardsticks, China’s diplomacy displays strong and distinguishing features as mentioned above.

    Ⅱ. THE ORIGINS OF THE FEATURE OF “GOLDEN MEAN” IN CHINA’S DIPLOMACY

    It should be said that China’s diplomacy featuring the “Golden Mean” originates from the following three aspects:

    1. The combination of tradition and innovation, especially a return to Chinese cultural traditions.

    It goes beyond denial that China’s diplomacy since the reform and opening up has been based on deep reflections on and repudiation of the dogmatic and ultra-left diplomatic line pursued during the Cultural Revolution. After the introduction of the reform and opening up program, China chose neither to follow the outdated revolutionary diplomacy aimed at overthrowing the existing international order, nor to embrace Western diplomatic theories. China’s diplomacy started to turn to the profound Chinese traditional culture and philosophy for nourishment and wisdom. It explored its own principles and theories for the conduct of diplomacy and gradually developed the paradigm we see today. Such a return to traditions is not a retreat, but an innovative effort to develop traditions creatively under the new circumstances.

    2. Fruit of the reform and opening up, continuation of development of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the field of foreign affairs and the external features of China’s path of development.

    Diplomacy is the extension of domestic affairs. In the three decades since China’s reform and opening up, China did not follow the traditional beaten track, nor ape the existing diplomatic theories of the West at every step. Rather, it has explored its way forward in the course of its modernization drive and transition. We in China refer to this process as building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Successive national congresses of the Communist Party of China stressed that the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a path of peaceful development. China’s new diplomacy is an embodiment of socialism with Chinese characteristics in foreign affairs and its distinctiveness is defined by China’s path of development.

    3. The result of the Party’s endeavor to seek truth from facts.

    With a huge population and disparity in development, China is at the primary stage of socialism with social, political and economic problems keeping emerging in its modernization process. At the same time, the international environment in which China conducts diplomacy is shifting at a rapid pace and international affairs are getting increasingly complicated, interlinked and volatile due to globalization and the new technological revolution. Gone is the era of a unitary structure dominated by a hegemon, but asymmetry still exists in the framework of issues of multiplicity. Though close interactions among players have expanded common interests and perceptions, the system of sovereign countries and the norms of sovereignty still play a dominant role. All this requires China to respond in an independent, solid, prudent, balanced and smart way.

    Ⅲ. THE MODERN SIGNIFICANCE OF “GOLDEN MEAN” DIPLOMACY

    Combining China’s traditions and reality, the distinctive “Golden Mean” of China’s diplomacy is highly compatible with the trend of the development of the world today, and is of important modern significance and universality. It is mainly because:

    1. In terms of players, globalization and the information revolution have enormously increased the number of players on the international arena.

    These players are increasingly independent, interactive, well organized and decentralized. States’ ability to control has diminished by a large margin and the orderliness of the system diluted with authority spreading to the top and the bottom, leading to much more uncertainty and dynamism. Such a scenario is very prominent in world economy and security, calling for national behaviors more flexible and adaptable. Therefore, a middle way in diplomacy is better tailored to the new situations than other options.

    2. In terms of structure, the clear demarcation between friends and foes during the era of the Cold War will hardly reappear in the international system.

    There exists, within the system, multiple structures and multiple inter-dependent relationships as a result of globalization. Problems arise from different fields, but still inter-linked. The interactions among players manifest themselves as processes each distinctive from others, developing in a network with interwoven relationships of multiplicity. Under the new circumstances, no force could single-handedly take on all the fields and processes, hence broad space is provided for different power patterns and models of diplomacy. It also calls on countries to put on more hats and perform more functions, or in other words, to assume more identities and play more roles. The multiplicity of China’s identities simply echoes the call of the times.

    3. The dichotomy in the thinking of the West is facing unprecedented challenges, while “Golden Mean” as a philosophical idea is of important universal value and modern significance.

    At the beginning of the new century, Bush Doctrine and forceful imposition of the American model of democracy have been mired in plight, proving, in part, that the dichotomic tradition of thinking of the West does not cope well with the age of globalization. The international community is reflecting on whether there are pluralistic relations in addition to dichotomic ones, whether the spatial locations within pluralistic relations are more relative, and whether networks of the factors within such relations are of equal significance. In the new era, state-to-state relationship needs to be redefined in the network of relations woven with many issues and processes. It is far more complicated than any dichotomy. Besides, the shifts and changes of pluralistic relations and the balance and subtlety of all sorts of relations all have influence on the change of spatial locations. Under such circumstances, matters differ not in nature, but in the different relations they have with others. In this sense, in the age of globalization, the theory of absolute structure should retire. It is necessary to define one’s identity, resolve problems and understand the role of diplomacy in a network of relations. This is the contemporary relevance of the “Golden Mean”.

    Ⅳ. FEATURES OF THE “GOLDEN MEAN” DIPLOMACY AND ITS POLICY CONNOTATIONS

    According to the theory of ontology, the “Golden Mean” emphasizes processes and relations, without denying the importance of structures. “Golden Mean” diplomacy in dealing with all sorts of relations and processes bears three important features: balance, practicality and correlativeness with focus on the change of matters.
    The “Golden Mean” diplomacy, first and foremost, emphasizes balance. Commitment to the middle way means refusal to extremes and confrontations. Balance is at the core of the theory of “Golden Mean” diplomacy. The various processes in the international relations are connected with, rather than isolated from or opposed to each other. As a result, it calls for a balanced approach. Balance here does not refer to the balance of power in the Western context, but mutual adaptability and relative balance of various relations. Since objectives and identities are defined in the processes of relations which exist in multitude at the same time, this identity can not be dichotomic. Though multiple identities can not be void of tensions among themselves, rational mutual benefit, especially the exercise of restraint, facilitate to ease tensions and resolve conflicts.

    The “Golden Mean” diplomacy also is highly practical, as it is the inherent demand. The maintenance of balance depends on continued diplomatic practice in the spirit of seeking truth from the facts and incessant innovation based on the evolution of matters in the process of practice. Nothing stays the same for ever. Therefore, it is imperative to discard dogmatism, keep up with exploring and innovating through practice, and strike a subtle balance in the process of change. Practicality requires advanced flexibility and skill in diplomacy and continued innovation in line with the principle of active pragmatism.

    The “Golden Mean” diplomacy also reflects the relationship between the changes and links of matters. International relations in a globalizing world are in fact a network of relationships of multiple factors interacting with each other. A multitude of issues are linked with each other while matters develop and change rapidly, exerting influence upon one another. Power, position, identity and interests all need to find their places in this network. Greater power and more favorable positions go to those capable of handling diverse relations and occupying the heartland of the links within the network. The “Golden Mean” is, in fact, aimed at winning a more favorable position in the shifts and changes of pluralistic relations to better serve one’s interests. Of course, the maintenance of relations needs to be constantly standardized. One should win over people’s hearts with sincere feelings and enlighten them by means of reason. Interactions need to follow certain rules and procedures which reflect the features and demands of the times.

    The three features of the “Golden Mean” diplomacy make high requirements on the formulation and implementation of foreign policies. China’s diplomatic decision should be made by taking a broad and long-term view, sizing up the situation, grasping the overall picture, and being sensitive to any change. In diplomatic practice, they must be aware of the overall situation to keep balance by way of coordination within the overall situation; properly handle all sorts of relations domestically and externally, with flexibility and awareness of correlativeness so as to command a favorable position in the complex and changing network of relations. It also requires to constantly foster the ideas and spirits keeping up with the times so as to enable China to win more international recognition and greater room of development at the diplomatic front.

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