A few days ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the opening of this year’s Davos World Economic Forum. His comments suggest that China is positioning itself as a voice for a new multilateral world order.
The full text deserves careful reading. It suggests that Beijing believes it has achieved global equivalence to the US and as its economy and influence grows stronger, it intends to play a much broader, higher profile leadership role in all aspects on international relations.
Not adequately reported in the West, President Xi’s words, more or less presented, have significant implications.
Noting that the world will not return to the past, the President of China set out four major tasks that his government and his party believe should shape the world of the future. These, he said, were to promote inclusive economic growth worldwide by coordinating macroeconomic policy; abandon ideological bias by recognizing that each country’s system of governance is unique; close the prosperity divide between developed and developing countries, enhancing the latter’s voice in global economic governance; and a renewed focus on multilateralism.
Not to mention the United States by name, it criticized nations that seek to “build small circles or start a new Cold War, repel, threaten or intimidate others, deliberately force decoupling, harassment or sanctions, and create isolation or alienation”. He warned this, it will only push the world into division and conflict.
In his remarks, President Xi proposed a more open world economy and promoted measures that increase multilateral trade, investment and technological exchange. He also said China will encourage a much stronger and better coordinated response from the G20. He noted selective unilateralism ”,“ should not be an option for us ”.
Then, without mentioning direct western criticism of Beijing’s turbulent attitude to human rights, disagreement and democracy, the President of China said such issues should not be an excuse for opposition or conflict. “We should respect and accommodate differences, avoid interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, and resolve disagreements through consultation and dialogue”, he told the annual high-level meeting.
China has found itself, “on track to finish building a relatively prosperous society” and has begun to build a “new pattern of development” with its domestic market as its mainstay with “mutually reinforcing domestic and international circulation”. His country, he said, would continue to promote a new kind of international relations, seeking to bridge differences and deepen South-South cooperation through a more open, balanced and inclusive form of economic globalization.
The broad and integrated nature of President XI’s remarks reinforces comments made by the new US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at his Parliamentary hearing when asked about China’s ambitions.
“They are much more assertive in making it clear that they are effectively trying to become a world leader, the country that sets the norms, sets the standards, and introduces a good model they hope there will be other countries, and people will attribute it to him, ”said Mr Blinken.
This, he said to Senators, requires the Biden Administration to “demonstrate that the vision we have, the policies we follow, and the way we do it, are far more effective in delivering for our people, as well as for people around the world. , to make our model the one that carries the day. “
Achieving this will be challenging. President Xi’s remarks reflect a policy approach that China’s consensus-based central government system can achieve over decades without many domestic challenges. In contrast, leaders and political parties in western democracies rise and fall with regularity, making policy consistency and sustainability complex and uncertain.
Washington is now short of time to develop, articulate and use a new cohesive fison of how it intends to respond to China’s ambition, which to quote Press Secretary Mr Biden, “threatens our alliances and influence in international organizations” .
Despite the pandemic, China’s economy is recovering rapidly. In 2020 it grew 2.3 percent and analysts predict it will experience average year-on-year GDP growth of 5.7 percent until 2025, with its economy overtaking the U.S. economy between 2026 and 2028.
This suggests that if a far-united west wants to counter China’s global influence, Washington will need to develop a viable economic and political coalition with its allies. This will require much more than ‘smart sanctions’ and common expressions of human rights concerns, the treatment of the Uighur people, the future of democracy in Hong Kong, and China’s military presence in the South China Seas.
To respond, Washington will need to grow its economic influence worldwide by pursuing an outward-looking policy that creates connections, incentivizes U.S. private investment, actively encourages supply chains, and goes on pursues and delivers tomorrow’s technologies, while demonstrating domestic stability and the relevance of its values.
It will also require the restoration of trust after four years when the president of the United States and his cabinet saw relationships as transactions and pushed aside and even insulted allies and friends.
President Xi’s remarks indicate that China will now seek to redefine the western-dominated global norms that have been in place since the end of World War II, and to reshape, replenish global institutions in ways that will enhance Beijing’s influence. They also point out that China would have the world accept that very different forms of democracy can coexist, and that there are alternative interpretations of human rights.
For the Caribbean, it will be difficult to coexist in a world where two dominant, philosophically different powers compete for supremacy.
What President Xi says about multilateralism, climate change, respect for sovereignty and fairness, all resonate strongly with regional thinking. Despite this, the region is within the geographical, economic, security and political scope of the US, and as Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness recently told Bloomberg Television, it has an “inherent and integral connection”.
If the Caribbean is to benefit from the emerging new world order, Washington and his allies should reflect on President Xi’s observation that “no two leaves in the world are exactly the same”. To succeed, West must create and deliver programs that meet differently and are well funded and reach colleges that meet the region’s and others’ recovery needs.
David Jessop is a consultant to the Caribbean Council
and can be contacted at
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