China and Global Governance

A New Leader?

Peng Bo

Preface

Since the “Opening-up and Reform Project” launched in 1978, China's rise has been most clearly manifested in its dramatic economic growth and its continued integration into the global economy. During the last decades, China has gained a number of economic and development achievements: China has lifted 500 million people out of poverty, which is seen as a “great story in human story” by World Bank; China overtook the United States to become the world's biggest energy user in 2009, China's increasing appetite for energy has significantly influenced the global commodity price; China surpassed the United States as the world's largest manufacturing power in 2010 that makes “Made in China” a key link in global value chain. In the meanwhile, China became the world's largest trading nation in 2013 and it became the biggest overseas investor in 2016. More important, in the issue area of international finance, Chinese Yuan was officially added to the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket in 2016.

On the basis of its economic rise, China has increasingly been participating in the process of global governance. Against the background of the great transformation of global power structure and the major crises of existing global governance, China aspires to play a greater role in global governance as evidenced by its proactive participation in and reform of the existing Western-based global institutions. More important, China's embrace of global governance can also be detected in its diplomatic focus on ultilateralism and its active promotion of newly founded China-led regional and global multilateral institutions.

Since then, China has actively participated in the building of a number of regional multilateral groups and organizations, covering the global governance of security, economy, finance, and development. In the security area, China, Russia, and four other Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) co-founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001, aimed at fighting terrorism and separatism and reinforcing the regional/global security governance mechanism; In 2009, in order to jointly cope with the global financial crisis on the basis of a unified voice from emerging countries, China, Russia, India, and Brazil transformed the BRIC from a loose economic concept into a political consortium and a leader-level cooperation mechanism. Since then, the BRICS (with the inclusion of South Africa in 2011) has become an integral part of global financial governance in which China has largely contributed to the establishment of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA); in the same year, with the upgrade from G7 to G20 as the most important mechanism of global economic governance, China, as the representative of the developing countries, has become an indispensable player in the G20 and has gradually participated in the process of agenda setting and framing of this mechanism; in 2013, China proactively proposed the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) as a grand framework under which China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Silk Road Fund (SRF) as the major financing mechanism for infrastructure construction. As one of the major driving forces of global development governance, during the last six years, the China-led BRI has been focusing on the issue areas of improving connectivity among the concerned countries, promoting economic cooperation, and reducing poverty, etc.

Under the circumstance of China's enormous economic growth and its increasing engagement in multilateral cooperation and global governance, this book attempts to answer the following questions: how to understand China as an emerging power? How to interpret China's leadership role and its leadership style in global governance? Would China exhibit a unique type of leadership compared to the traditional Western-based ones? What are the Chinese cultural and historical thoughts that shape China's leadership style? What are the implications of China-based leadership on the process and architecture of global governance? What are the constraints and challenges in the relationships between China-based leadership vis-à-vis the existing world order?

The major objective of the book is to provide some analytical tools to answer the above questions. One of the key tools—the core contribution of this book—is the concept of “International Leadership with Chinese Characteristics” (ILCC). This book draws inspiration from a number of sinicized terms, such as “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “market economy with Chinese characteristics”, to demonstrate that ILCC is affecting and even shaping the process and architecture of global governance.

The book argues that the ILCC is generated on the basis of a variety of components, such as Chinese political culture, China's involvement in and contribution to the process and architecture of global governance, and China's understanding and perception of international relations as well as other countries' role expectations.

Empirically, the book employs four concrete examples (G20, BRICS, SCO, and BRI) to verify this newly established concept of ILCC. Specifically, the ILCC is applied by analyzing the interplay between a number of variables, such as Chinese leaders' and decision-makers' speeches and statements, China's policymaking and external behavior, and Chinese think tanks' understanding and perception of China's role in global governance, etc.

Overall, one of the core values of the book is that it derives the key notion of relationality from ancient Chinese cultural and political thoughts. The notion of relationality is seen as the central tenant of Chinese entire civilization, and it has been studied by many scholars from different perspectives. The book argues that Chinese culture and history play an indispensable role in building the abovementioned analytical tool of the ILCC. Thus, the major contribution of the book is to bring the notion of relationality into the understanding of China's leadership role and leadership style, manifested in the concept of ILCC, in global governance.

Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 The Multifaceted Rise of China and Global Governance

1.2 The Deficiencies of the Major Western IR Theories

1.3 A Culture-Oriented Approach to China’s Role in Contemporary IR

References

2 The Concept of ‘International Leadership with Chinese Characteristics’

2.1 Chinese Political Culture and the Major Features of Chinese Worldview of IR

2.2 Relational Theory in Interpreting the Core Elements of International Leadership

2.3 Three Components of the “International Leadership with Chinese Characteristics”

References

3 Empirical Studies of “International Leadership with Chinese Characteristics” in Global Governance

3.1 Role Theory as a Guideline for Empirical Studies

3.2 The Selection of Empirical Cases

3.3 The Operationalization of Cases: Case Study Materials and Empirical Methods

3.4 A Four-Step Interpretive Process

3.5 Summary

References

4 Case I: Empirical Analysis of the ILCC in the G20

4.1 Historical Analysis and Stage Division

4.2 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Conception of the ILCC in the G20

4.3 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Performance of the ILCC in the G20

4.4 Summary

References

5 Case II: Empirical Analysis of the ILCC in the BRICS

5.1 Historical Analysis and Stage Division

5.2 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Conception of the ILCC in the BRICS

5.3 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Performance of the ILCC in the BRICS

5.4 Summary

References

6 Case III: Empirical Analysis of the ILCC in the SCO

6.1 Historical Analysis and Stage Division

6.2 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Conception of the ILCC in the SCO

6.3 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Performance of the ILCC in the SCO

6.4 Summary

References

7 Case IV: Empirical Analysis of the ILCC in the BRI

7.1 Historical Analysis and Stage Divisions

7.2 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Conception of the ILCC in the BRI

7.3 The Interpretation of China’s National Role Performance of the ILCC in the BRI

7.4 Summary

References

8 Conclusion

8.1 The Applicability of the ILCC in Interpreting China's Role in Global Governance

8.2 Reflection of the Major Features of Chinese Worldview of IR

8.3 The Explanatory Limitations of the ILCC

References

References

Index