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Director and Professor, School of International Relations,
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
DOI: 10.19422/j.cnki.cn10-1398/d.2019.04.003
China-US relations are now in an unprecedented predicament since the two countries established diplomatic ties. Though China has no intention to push nor escalate the strategic competition with the US and attempts to look for space for compromise that may accommodate the strategic interests of both countries, the China-US relations are neither defined nor steered by the unilateral efforts made by China. As the US has been bringing China under mounting strategic pressure, it will become inevitable that China-US strategic competition will only intensify for the moment and continue in the future. Strategic competition among major countries, if intensified, will transmit the pressure to their neighboring regions. In this case, the US will be an unprecedentedly critical factor in China’s relations with its neighboring countries and generally, a significantly negative factor against the backdrop of strategic competition. It remains an immediate and future challenge for China to handle its diplomatic relations with neighboring countries when the US interruption is mainly present.
China’s Neighborhood Diplomacy upon the Backdrop of Intensified China-US Strategic Competition
The United States, after Trump Administration took office, has redefined its strategic position towards China. For the first time ever, it has labeled China as a major “strategic competitor” and called China a “revisionist country” that attempts to shape a world antithetical to the US values and interests and intends to replace the US to assert global primacy in the future. The adjustment of the US strategies towards China is not a short-term act, but indicates a long-term evolution of policies and a result of such mixed factors as the shifting balance of power between China and the US, such as China’s rising international influence, American disappointment over Chinese development trajectory as seen from its own perspective, and American systematic misreading and misinterpretation of China’s strategic intentions. The fact that China and the US are undergoing fierce economic and trade frictions and that the US is gradually implementing competitive policies towards China in the areas of security, science and technology, education and people-to-people exchanges have shown the shifting paradigm in American policy towards China and its full-scale strategic competition against China. As shown by Trump’s tough actions in the “trade war” with China, the US has approached national interests in a new way. The US emphasizes that “economic security is national security” and views its own interest vis a vis that of China from the perspective of relative benefits. With such mindset, the US designs its China strategies to gain benefits, and moreover, to do more harm to China, even if it may cause self-inflicted harm to itself. The fundamental issue for the US is whether it can prevent China from outperforming it in terms of economic strength and comprehensive strength. In view of the status quo and development trend, the China-US relations will undoubtedly exert considerable impact on China’s relations with neighboring countries. As the US has laid emphasis on competing with China and prioritized containing China’s economic rise, its policies towards China will go beyond bilateral level and proactively mobilizes international players to serve its strategic goals. Among the various players, the countries surrounding China are surely of outstanding importance.
In the process of strategic competition, the US aspires to find opportunities to lure and force some of China’s neighboring countries to pick a side that is unfavorable to China. If the US continues to take concrete measures to push forward the “decoupling” with China, China’s economic and technological ties with its neighboring countries will definitely be negatively impacted and their economic cooperation will be directly and fundamentally disrupted. In the meantime, the US-pursued “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and its attempts to engage Southeast Asian countries will lead in new instabilities in China’s security relations with its neighboring countries and diminish the role of the regional security mechanisms in easing and managing the regional hotspot issues. It is a widespread concern that in order to strategically isolate China and worsen neighboring environment for China’s development, the Trump Administration will leverage on certain third-party factors to stir up conflicts with China.
Upon such background, for China to enhance and improve relations with neighboring countries, it has to beat off even more challenges. However, despite of such unfavorable environment, China has substantially developed relations with neighboring countries. Since 2018, a multiple of regional flashpoints have been effectively controlled in general and some hotspot issues have cooled down. Especially as the North Korean nuclear issue has seen a favorable turn, the situation on the Korean peninsula has been improved to a large extent. On the South China Sea issue, although tension and confrontation still exist between China and the US, the antagonism between China and Southeast Asian countries has been relatively eased and thus China’s relations with relevant countries have been developed to a certain extent. Moreover, China-Japan relations and China-India relations have been fairly improved.
In the meantime, China continues to enhance economic cooperation with neighboring countries. The Belt and Road Initiative has been steadily advanced in China’s neighborhood, tying China and neighboring countries even closer. In 2018, China’s trade volume with Southeast Asian countries totaled US$ 587.9 billion, up by 14.2% from US$ 514.8 billion in 2017, boasting the fastest growth rate of China’s trade with major economies in the world. In the first half of 2019, the trade volume between China and Southeast Asian countries, with sustained momentum of growth, reached US$ 291.85 billion, up by 4.2% from the same period in 2018. The ASEAN has overtaken the US to become China’s second largest trading partner. So far, although the regional hotspot issues still rest on weak diplomatic foundation, the relations between China and neighboring countries are gradually improving. Globally, East Asia remains a relatively peaceful and stable region amid the turmoil of the world. Why does China’s Neighboring Environment Get Better upon the Background of Intensified China-US Strategic Competition?
Although China and the US have gone into more intense strategic competition, China’s relations with neighboring countries have been generally strengthened and improved. Such situation cannot be attributed to the narrowing gap of power between the two countries. Since 2014, while the US economy has sustained a relatively high growth rate, the Chinese economy has entered the “new normal”. The economic gap between the two powers is narrowing at a somewhat slower pace than the period between 2007 and 2013. In 2014, the GDP of the US totaled US$ 17.5 trillion and that of China amounted to US$ 10.4 trillion. By 2018, the GDP of the US rose to US$ 20.5 trillion and that of China reached US$ 13.6 trillion. The gap remained at about US$ 7 trillion.
Neither can the amelioration of China’s neighboring environment be attributed to the US policies. The US has conspicuously beefed up its strategic competition with China since the end of 2017. Since 2018, the US has exerted stronger strategic pressure on China in the field of security, by proactively advocating and implementing the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, more frequently and intensively carrying out the so-called “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea, and sending more warships into the Taiwan Strait. Generally, the US is still attempting to use the hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood to make trouble. Though the US considers carefully avoiding provoking military conflicts with China on the hotspot issues, it obviously lacks genuine intentions to manage the issues.
It is mainly the China’s policy efforts and the perception and response of its neighboring countries that result in the fairly effective management of the regional hotspot issues in the context of unfavorable international environment over the past year or so. Such hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood as the South China Sea has been heated up since 2012. During the same period, China and its neighboring countries have witnessed even wider gap of national strength. In 2012, the China’s GDP totaled US$ 8.5 trillion and that of the 10 ASEAN member states was US$ 2.4 trillion, with a gap of US$ 6 trillion. In 2018, the gap was further widened to US$ 10.6 trillion, with China’s GDP reaching US$ 13.6 trillion and that of ASEAN reaching US$ 2.97 trillion. China and Japan have also witnessed a similarly widening gap in their strength. While China keeps growing, it constantly expresses goodwill towards neighboring countries, shows strategic restraint on the regional hotspot issues, and actively seeks cooperation with neighboring countries in political, economic, security and other fields. Therefore, many neighboring countries don’t take China’s rising power as a growing threat, which can be seen in the improvement of the China-India relations after the Doklam standoff, in the warming up of the China-Korean relations to a certain extent after the “THAAD system” deployment, and the recovery of China-Japan relations after Donald Trump took office. The particular example is the improvement of China-Philippine relations. In a joint statement issued in October 2016, China and the Philippines “agreed to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability” and suggested the intention to establish a bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue. When the Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the Philippines in November 2018, the two countries upgraded their ties to comprehensive strategic cooperation and signed the “Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Advancing the Belt and Road Initiative”. The two countries also inked the “Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development”, suggesting the willingness to engage in dialogue on maritime cooperation including offshore oil and gas exploration and development. During the Philippine President Duterte’s visit to China in August 2019, the two countries announced the establishment of an intergovernmental joint steering committee and an inter-enterprise working group to achieve substantive progress in joint development.
Since 2017, China and America’s way of doing things have affected the perception of China’s neighboring countries. Trump sees the United States as a country being held hostage by the existing international order, allies as a burden and multilateral agreements as restraints bounding the country’s hand and foot. He believes that the US thus has to shake off the heavy burden of global affairs. “America First” represents a change of principle in Trump’s approach towards international affairs, which stops pursuing the long-term stability of the international order as the core objective of foreign policy and turns to pursue America’s interests, especially economic interests, regarding as the prioritized goal of the government. By leveraging on its power and dominance in the international system and taking advantage of other countries’ asymmetric dependence on the US in the fields of security and economy, the Trump Administration has adopted unilateralism policies to pressure other countries in an attempt to maximize American interests at the expense of those of other countries. To a large extent, the US actions have shaken the important foundation of existing international order and also disrupted the stability of the East Asian order. Facing the US actions of more uncertainties, many of China’s neighboring countries feel at a loss as to what to do. When the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir was in New York in September 2018, he said that “I don’t know how to evaluate Mr. Trump, because he even changed his opinion within a few hours…Dealing with people who are not consistent is a very big problem”. He also suggested “I would prefer to take sides with the rich China over the unpredictable US if I’m forced to take sides”. Mahathir’s views represent the mentality shared by some of China’s neighboring countries, showing the profound changes in their perception of China and the US. The basic logic behind this change is that it serves the interests of most countries neighboring China to maintain generally stable international order. China’s neighboring countries used to see the US as the most important player in maintaining a stable international order and sees China’s rise as the biggest variable that might add to uncertainties of the existing order. However, what happened in recent years have proven that the actions taken by the US government have given obvious rise to uncertainties of the existing system and dealt the heaviest blow to the stability of the existing international order. China stands in contrast to the US. Whether in the context of hotspot issues heating up in neighborhood or economic and trade frictions with the US intensifying, China has adhered to the foreign policy of peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes, actively provided public goods in economic and security sectors to its neighboring regions, fulfilled the strategic needs of neighboring countries, and accommodated their concerns and considerations. In enhancing economic cooperation, China is committed to mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, actively communicate, exchange and negotiate with neighboring countries on the issues of common concern, and push forward pragmatic cooperation. Even in times of challenges and setbacks in the process of cooperation, China still remains consistent in its way of doing things, presenting itself as a power that is stable, consistent and reliable in foreign exchanges upon the backdrop of changing international environment. China’s neighbors have thus built up confidence in China’s foreign policies. A majority of them believe China’s foreign policy is on an overall clear trajectory towards future development and admit the great benefits they gained from developing economic ties with China.
When the US unjustifiably waged a large-scale “trade war” against China, China’s countermeasures have been on just grounds and with restraint. As the US attempts to undermine international trade rules and norms, China is still making efforts to cope within the framework of existing international system and international rules, showing its willingness to accept the constraints of the international system and international rules. China’s firm attitude and strong coping ability in withstanding the extreme pressure exerted by the US have renewed some countries’ perception of China and thus increased their confidence in Chinese policies. Prospect of the Neighboring Environment and China’s Policy Options
In the upcoming period, the development trend of the China-US relations will have a significant impact on China’s neighboring environment. First, China’s increasing comprehensive national strength and on this basis, its foreign policies pursuing closer cooperation with neighboring countries and safeguarding regional order and stability serve as a reliable guarantee for the peace and stability in its neighboring regions. America’s actions to undermine the international order and the stable order in East Asia will make the country less attractive to the region and also less influential in the long run. From this perspective, regional countries will place tight constraint on the US if it is to take any action in this region.
Second, China’s neighboring environment is complex and will remain so for a long period. The US will continue to stir up hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood, but when doing so, it will mind its behaviors to achieve specific policy goals, instead of recklessly triggering flashpoints. China and its neighboring countries, on the whole, share the strong political will to manage hotspot issues and have made substantial policy efforts towards this end. Such policy efforts will not stop because of the US provocation, but rather become more resilient. However, since the basis for managing hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood is still relatively weak, China and its neighboring countries still need to keep strong political patience.
Third, it is necessary to take into full consideration some neighboring countries’ concerns over the transformation of order and their anxiety at uncertainties created by the actions of major powers. A series of unilateral actions taken by the Trump Administration in the past two years have clearly revealed to the small and medium-sized countries the impacts major powers exert on the international order and the limitation of the international systems and rules in restricting the major powers’ actions. Small and medium-sized countries are generally anxious at the prospect of the transformation of international order as well as their overdependence on China. To this end, China needs to keep maintaining policy patience, to sustain stable and reliable cooperation, and to address the concerns of neighboring countries little by little with time and credible diplomatic act, so as to gradually restore their confidence in China as well as in the international system and international norms, thus extending growing influence in regional affairs. Finally, the transformation of the order in China’s neighborhood will go through a long-term process. The international order is of important value, because it is future-oriented and can affect how and what the states are to exchange in future. A stable international order depends on stable and consistent expectations jointly formed by main players in important fields, including one country’s expectation of how another country may act in specific circumstances is highly likely to be fulfilled. The international order thus keeps expectations stable and forms interaction between expectations and actual acts. China’s ongoing efforts may not be immediately effective, but in the long run will help other countries set up stable expectations of China’s future act, which is to serve as a solid foundation for future regional order.
As the diplomatic situation develops in China’s neighborhood, it brings both certain challenges and important opportunities for the country. In particular, when the world and its neighborhood see more uncertainties, China has, through its own sustained efforts, presented a positive image in the region as a trustworthy partner to its neighboring countries. In the meantime, China and neighboring countries should join hands to explore new concepts and new models for closer bilateral and multilateral cooperation and in the process, contribute to the transformation and development of the order in the neighborhood.
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
DOI: 10.19422/j.cnki.cn10-1398/d.2019.04.003
China-US relations are now in an unprecedented predicament since the two countries established diplomatic ties. Though China has no intention to push nor escalate the strategic competition with the US and attempts to look for space for compromise that may accommodate the strategic interests of both countries, the China-US relations are neither defined nor steered by the unilateral efforts made by China. As the US has been bringing China under mounting strategic pressure, it will become inevitable that China-US strategic competition will only intensify for the moment and continue in the future. Strategic competition among major countries, if intensified, will transmit the pressure to their neighboring regions. In this case, the US will be an unprecedentedly critical factor in China’s relations with its neighboring countries and generally, a significantly negative factor against the backdrop of strategic competition. It remains an immediate and future challenge for China to handle its diplomatic relations with neighboring countries when the US interruption is mainly present.
China’s Neighborhood Diplomacy upon the Backdrop of Intensified China-US Strategic Competition
The United States, after Trump Administration took office, has redefined its strategic position towards China. For the first time ever, it has labeled China as a major “strategic competitor” and called China a “revisionist country” that attempts to shape a world antithetical to the US values and interests and intends to replace the US to assert global primacy in the future. The adjustment of the US strategies towards China is not a short-term act, but indicates a long-term evolution of policies and a result of such mixed factors as the shifting balance of power between China and the US, such as China’s rising international influence, American disappointment over Chinese development trajectory as seen from its own perspective, and American systematic misreading and misinterpretation of China’s strategic intentions. The fact that China and the US are undergoing fierce economic and trade frictions and that the US is gradually implementing competitive policies towards China in the areas of security, science and technology, education and people-to-people exchanges have shown the shifting paradigm in American policy towards China and its full-scale strategic competition against China. As shown by Trump’s tough actions in the “trade war” with China, the US has approached national interests in a new way. The US emphasizes that “economic security is national security” and views its own interest vis a vis that of China from the perspective of relative benefits. With such mindset, the US designs its China strategies to gain benefits, and moreover, to do more harm to China, even if it may cause self-inflicted harm to itself. The fundamental issue for the US is whether it can prevent China from outperforming it in terms of economic strength and comprehensive strength. In view of the status quo and development trend, the China-US relations will undoubtedly exert considerable impact on China’s relations with neighboring countries. As the US has laid emphasis on competing with China and prioritized containing China’s economic rise, its policies towards China will go beyond bilateral level and proactively mobilizes international players to serve its strategic goals. Among the various players, the countries surrounding China are surely of outstanding importance.
In the process of strategic competition, the US aspires to find opportunities to lure and force some of China’s neighboring countries to pick a side that is unfavorable to China. If the US continues to take concrete measures to push forward the “decoupling” with China, China’s economic and technological ties with its neighboring countries will definitely be negatively impacted and their economic cooperation will be directly and fundamentally disrupted. In the meantime, the US-pursued “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and its attempts to engage Southeast Asian countries will lead in new instabilities in China’s security relations with its neighboring countries and diminish the role of the regional security mechanisms in easing and managing the regional hotspot issues. It is a widespread concern that in order to strategically isolate China and worsen neighboring environment for China’s development, the Trump Administration will leverage on certain third-party factors to stir up conflicts with China.
Upon such background, for China to enhance and improve relations with neighboring countries, it has to beat off even more challenges. However, despite of such unfavorable environment, China has substantially developed relations with neighboring countries. Since 2018, a multiple of regional flashpoints have been effectively controlled in general and some hotspot issues have cooled down. Especially as the North Korean nuclear issue has seen a favorable turn, the situation on the Korean peninsula has been improved to a large extent. On the South China Sea issue, although tension and confrontation still exist between China and the US, the antagonism between China and Southeast Asian countries has been relatively eased and thus China’s relations with relevant countries have been developed to a certain extent. Moreover, China-Japan relations and China-India relations have been fairly improved.
In the meantime, China continues to enhance economic cooperation with neighboring countries. The Belt and Road Initiative has been steadily advanced in China’s neighborhood, tying China and neighboring countries even closer. In 2018, China’s trade volume with Southeast Asian countries totaled US$ 587.9 billion, up by 14.2% from US$ 514.8 billion in 2017, boasting the fastest growth rate of China’s trade with major economies in the world. In the first half of 2019, the trade volume between China and Southeast Asian countries, with sustained momentum of growth, reached US$ 291.85 billion, up by 4.2% from the same period in 2018. The ASEAN has overtaken the US to become China’s second largest trading partner. So far, although the regional hotspot issues still rest on weak diplomatic foundation, the relations between China and neighboring countries are gradually improving. Globally, East Asia remains a relatively peaceful and stable region amid the turmoil of the world. Why does China’s Neighboring Environment Get Better upon the Background of Intensified China-US Strategic Competition?
Although China and the US have gone into more intense strategic competition, China’s relations with neighboring countries have been generally strengthened and improved. Such situation cannot be attributed to the narrowing gap of power between the two countries. Since 2014, while the US economy has sustained a relatively high growth rate, the Chinese economy has entered the “new normal”. The economic gap between the two powers is narrowing at a somewhat slower pace than the period between 2007 and 2013. In 2014, the GDP of the US totaled US$ 17.5 trillion and that of China amounted to US$ 10.4 trillion. By 2018, the GDP of the US rose to US$ 20.5 trillion and that of China reached US$ 13.6 trillion. The gap remained at about US$ 7 trillion.
Neither can the amelioration of China’s neighboring environment be attributed to the US policies. The US has conspicuously beefed up its strategic competition with China since the end of 2017. Since 2018, the US has exerted stronger strategic pressure on China in the field of security, by proactively advocating and implementing the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, more frequently and intensively carrying out the so-called “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea, and sending more warships into the Taiwan Strait. Generally, the US is still attempting to use the hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood to make trouble. Though the US considers carefully avoiding provoking military conflicts with China on the hotspot issues, it obviously lacks genuine intentions to manage the issues.
It is mainly the China’s policy efforts and the perception and response of its neighboring countries that result in the fairly effective management of the regional hotspot issues in the context of unfavorable international environment over the past year or so. Such hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood as the South China Sea has been heated up since 2012. During the same period, China and its neighboring countries have witnessed even wider gap of national strength. In 2012, the China’s GDP totaled US$ 8.5 trillion and that of the 10 ASEAN member states was US$ 2.4 trillion, with a gap of US$ 6 trillion. In 2018, the gap was further widened to US$ 10.6 trillion, with China’s GDP reaching US$ 13.6 trillion and that of ASEAN reaching US$ 2.97 trillion. China and Japan have also witnessed a similarly widening gap in their strength. While China keeps growing, it constantly expresses goodwill towards neighboring countries, shows strategic restraint on the regional hotspot issues, and actively seeks cooperation with neighboring countries in political, economic, security and other fields. Therefore, many neighboring countries don’t take China’s rising power as a growing threat, which can be seen in the improvement of the China-India relations after the Doklam standoff, in the warming up of the China-Korean relations to a certain extent after the “THAAD system” deployment, and the recovery of China-Japan relations after Donald Trump took office. The particular example is the improvement of China-Philippine relations. In a joint statement issued in October 2016, China and the Philippines “agreed to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability” and suggested the intention to establish a bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue. When the Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the Philippines in November 2018, the two countries upgraded their ties to comprehensive strategic cooperation and signed the “Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Advancing the Belt and Road Initiative”. The two countries also inked the “Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development”, suggesting the willingness to engage in dialogue on maritime cooperation including offshore oil and gas exploration and development. During the Philippine President Duterte’s visit to China in August 2019, the two countries announced the establishment of an intergovernmental joint steering committee and an inter-enterprise working group to achieve substantive progress in joint development.
Since 2017, China and America’s way of doing things have affected the perception of China’s neighboring countries. Trump sees the United States as a country being held hostage by the existing international order, allies as a burden and multilateral agreements as restraints bounding the country’s hand and foot. He believes that the US thus has to shake off the heavy burden of global affairs. “America First” represents a change of principle in Trump’s approach towards international affairs, which stops pursuing the long-term stability of the international order as the core objective of foreign policy and turns to pursue America’s interests, especially economic interests, regarding as the prioritized goal of the government. By leveraging on its power and dominance in the international system and taking advantage of other countries’ asymmetric dependence on the US in the fields of security and economy, the Trump Administration has adopted unilateralism policies to pressure other countries in an attempt to maximize American interests at the expense of those of other countries. To a large extent, the US actions have shaken the important foundation of existing international order and also disrupted the stability of the East Asian order. Facing the US actions of more uncertainties, many of China’s neighboring countries feel at a loss as to what to do. When the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir was in New York in September 2018, he said that “I don’t know how to evaluate Mr. Trump, because he even changed his opinion within a few hours…Dealing with people who are not consistent is a very big problem”. He also suggested “I would prefer to take sides with the rich China over the unpredictable US if I’m forced to take sides”. Mahathir’s views represent the mentality shared by some of China’s neighboring countries, showing the profound changes in their perception of China and the US. The basic logic behind this change is that it serves the interests of most countries neighboring China to maintain generally stable international order. China’s neighboring countries used to see the US as the most important player in maintaining a stable international order and sees China’s rise as the biggest variable that might add to uncertainties of the existing order. However, what happened in recent years have proven that the actions taken by the US government have given obvious rise to uncertainties of the existing system and dealt the heaviest blow to the stability of the existing international order. China stands in contrast to the US. Whether in the context of hotspot issues heating up in neighborhood or economic and trade frictions with the US intensifying, China has adhered to the foreign policy of peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes, actively provided public goods in economic and security sectors to its neighboring regions, fulfilled the strategic needs of neighboring countries, and accommodated their concerns and considerations. In enhancing economic cooperation, China is committed to mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, actively communicate, exchange and negotiate with neighboring countries on the issues of common concern, and push forward pragmatic cooperation. Even in times of challenges and setbacks in the process of cooperation, China still remains consistent in its way of doing things, presenting itself as a power that is stable, consistent and reliable in foreign exchanges upon the backdrop of changing international environment. China’s neighbors have thus built up confidence in China’s foreign policies. A majority of them believe China’s foreign policy is on an overall clear trajectory towards future development and admit the great benefits they gained from developing economic ties with China.
When the US unjustifiably waged a large-scale “trade war” against China, China’s countermeasures have been on just grounds and with restraint. As the US attempts to undermine international trade rules and norms, China is still making efforts to cope within the framework of existing international system and international rules, showing its willingness to accept the constraints of the international system and international rules. China’s firm attitude and strong coping ability in withstanding the extreme pressure exerted by the US have renewed some countries’ perception of China and thus increased their confidence in Chinese policies. Prospect of the Neighboring Environment and China’s Policy Options
In the upcoming period, the development trend of the China-US relations will have a significant impact on China’s neighboring environment. First, China’s increasing comprehensive national strength and on this basis, its foreign policies pursuing closer cooperation with neighboring countries and safeguarding regional order and stability serve as a reliable guarantee for the peace and stability in its neighboring regions. America’s actions to undermine the international order and the stable order in East Asia will make the country less attractive to the region and also less influential in the long run. From this perspective, regional countries will place tight constraint on the US if it is to take any action in this region.
Second, China’s neighboring environment is complex and will remain so for a long period. The US will continue to stir up hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood, but when doing so, it will mind its behaviors to achieve specific policy goals, instead of recklessly triggering flashpoints. China and its neighboring countries, on the whole, share the strong political will to manage hotspot issues and have made substantial policy efforts towards this end. Such policy efforts will not stop because of the US provocation, but rather become more resilient. However, since the basis for managing hotspot issues in China’s neighborhood is still relatively weak, China and its neighboring countries still need to keep strong political patience.
Third, it is necessary to take into full consideration some neighboring countries’ concerns over the transformation of order and their anxiety at uncertainties created by the actions of major powers. A series of unilateral actions taken by the Trump Administration in the past two years have clearly revealed to the small and medium-sized countries the impacts major powers exert on the international order and the limitation of the international systems and rules in restricting the major powers’ actions. Small and medium-sized countries are generally anxious at the prospect of the transformation of international order as well as their overdependence on China. To this end, China needs to keep maintaining policy patience, to sustain stable and reliable cooperation, and to address the concerns of neighboring countries little by little with time and credible diplomatic act, so as to gradually restore their confidence in China as well as in the international system and international norms, thus extending growing influence in regional affairs. Finally, the transformation of the order in China’s neighborhood will go through a long-term process. The international order is of important value, because it is future-oriented and can affect how and what the states are to exchange in future. A stable international order depends on stable and consistent expectations jointly formed by main players in important fields, including one country’s expectation of how another country may act in specific circumstances is highly likely to be fulfilled. The international order thus keeps expectations stable and forms interaction between expectations and actual acts. China’s ongoing efforts may not be immediately effective, but in the long run will help other countries set up stable expectations of China’s future act, which is to serve as a solid foundation for future regional order.
As the diplomatic situation develops in China’s neighborhood, it brings both certain challenges and important opportunities for the country. In particular, when the world and its neighborhood see more uncertainties, China has, through its own sustained efforts, presented a positive image in the region as a trustworthy partner to its neighboring countries. In the meantime, China and neighboring countries should join hands to explore new concepts and new models for closer bilateral and multilateral cooperation and in the process, contribute to the transformation and development of the order in the neighborhood.