A Preliminary Study of Xi Jinping Diplomatic Strategic Thinking

By Professor Gong Li, Strategic Studies of Party School, CCCPC

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A Preliminary Study of Xi Jinping Diplomatic Strategic Thinking

By Professor Gong Li, Strategic Studies of Party School, CCCPC

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core makes in-depth analysis of the characteristics and trends of the current changing international situation and national situation, puts forward many important ideas for China’s diplomatic strategy, convenes the largest China’s Peripheral Diplomatic Work Conference and the Central Diplomatic Work Conference since the establishment of a new China, proposes to enrich and develop diplomatic philosophy based on the summary of practical experience, and ensures that China’s diplomatic work has Chinese distinctive characteristics, Chinese style, and Chinese spirit. This is a pragmatic attitude to understand the new situations and new problems, to command the development direction for interconnection between the international situation and domestic situation, an important measure to deepen the reform and opening up, but also the premise and guarantee to grasp and make good use of the strategic opportunity period.

Enhancing the strategic coherence, adhering to peaceful development, promoting national rejuvenation

The world today is undergoing profound changes, peace and development have become the trend of the times, the human society can see bright prospects, the international environment is conducive to the people of the world to share development opportunities, and promote mutual benefit and win-win outcome. Therefore, General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Politburo collective study stressed that to take the peaceful development road is a strategic choice made by the CPC in accordance with the development trend of the times and the fundamental interests of the country. We should strengthen strategic thinking, enhance strategic concentration, do a better overall co-ordination of domestic situation and international situation, adhere to the open development, cooperative development and win-win development, develop itself by securing a peaceful international environment, and safeguard and promote world peace with its own development, and continuously enhance China's comprehensive national strength, continuously assure the people to enjoy the benefits of peaceful development, and continuously reinforce the material foundation and social foundation for taking the path of peaceful development. Under the new historical conditions, to strive for the new victory of socialism with Chinese characteristics is one of the fundamentals to be firmly grasped, which bears far-reaching significance.

At present, people all over the world are faced with common development opportunities and various challenges as well. Today's world is a world of continuous changes, a world of in-depth adjustments of the international system and the international order, but also a world of changing international balance of power. Under this circumstances, Xi Jinping stressed: to achieve our goal, we must have a peaceful international environment. Without peace, China and the world will not be able to develop smoothly. Without development, there will be no lasting peace for China and the rest of the world. We must seize the opportunity to manage our own business well, so as to make the country more prosperous, the people become more affluent, and take the peaceful development road more consciously relying on the continuous growth.

To take the peaceful development road and safeguard national core interests complement each other, at the Political Bureau Collective Study, Xi Jinping stressed the principle and the bottom line of China’s peaceful development: we must adhere to the peaceful development road, but never give up our legitimate rights, must never sacrifice the national core interests. No country should expect us to make a deal with the national core interests, to swallow bitter fruits harming China's sovereignty, security and development interests. China follows the peaceful development road, and other countries should do the same. Only all countries are on the path of peaceful development, can they develop together, and can they coexist in peace with each other.

To this end, China should earnestly safeguard the national core interests, including maintenance of China's overseas interests, and should constantly improve its ability and level of assurance, and strengthen the protection. The new road of peaceful development is featured by its “New”, i.e. a new rise of major countries for the first time in human history beyond the traditional major powers has resulted in development not by military expansion, plunder of resources, maintenance of hegemony or rivalry for hegemony, but through peaceful means, gradual manner and main reliance on its own strength, reform and innovation, meanwhile, adhering to the reform and opening up, learning strong points from other countries, and seeking mutual benefit and common development with other countries in the historical process related to economic globalization.

In the concept of "unswervingly following the road of peaceful development", objectives of the Chinese foreign policy are to maintain world peace and promote common development. Therefore, China always upholds the democratization of international relations, upholds the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, holds countries regardless of size, strength and wealth are equal members of the international community, holds the destiny of the world must be jointly commanded by peoples of all countries, and safeguards international fairness and justice. The objective of China's diplomacy is to work for a peaceful environment for a long time to come, to promote the "Two Centennial" goals, and to realize the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Promoting establishment of new-type international relations with win-win cooperation as the core

The forthcoming decade is a key phase of China's deepening reform and opening up. The international environment China faces is undergoing profound and complex changes. Peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcome has become the trend of the times, the Cold War blocs confrontation is no longer in existence, any country or group of countries can no longer dominate the world affairs alone. A large number of emerging market economies and developing countries have embarked on the fast track of development, and the international balance of power continues to tilt to the direction for world peace and development. Interconnection and interdependence between countries become unprecedentedly deepened, the human kind live in the same village on Mother Earth, and is becoming a community of shared destiny, a mixture of human life. Meanwhile, this world is still facing many problems and challenges, the uncertainty of world economic development continuously comes to surface, various protectionism clearly warms up, regional hot spot problems crop up continuously, hegemonism, power politics and Neo- interventionism have spiraled, traditional security threats and non-traditional security threats such as arms race, terrorism, cyber security and others are intertwined, to maintain world peace and promote common development has a long way to go. In the face of profound changes in the international situation and the objective requirements of pulling through together in the world, Xi Jinping in his speech at Moscow State Institute of International Relations states, various countries should jointly promote establishment of new-type international relations with win-win cooperation as the core, and peoples of all countries should work together to safeguard world peace and promote common development.

Therefore, China holds that countries and peoples of all countries should jointly enjoy dignity, countries be they big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all on equal footing, the rights of peoples of all countries to independently choose their model of development should be respected, and interference in other countries' internal affairs be opposed. Whether a pair of shoes fits or not, one knows only after wearing it. Whether a development model of a country is appropriate or not, only people of this country have the right to decide. China maintains that all countries and peoples should enjoy the fruits of development. As each country is in the pursuit of its own development, it should actively promote the common development of other countries. The long-term development of the world cannot be based on the fact that a number of countries are getting richer while others are in long-term poverty and backwardness. Only all countries get developed commonly can the world develop better. China holds the view that all countries and peoples are entitled to security assurance, all countries should work together to properly respond to various problems and challenges, the more the global challenges are faced, the more the joint responses are required, and jointly turn the pressure for the power, and the crisis into vitality. Xi Jinping points out that in the face of perplexing international security threats, actions by any country alone won’t work, neither worship of forces, but cooperative security, collective security and common security is the right choice for solving problems. With deepening world multi-polarization and economic globalization, and continuous advance of cultural diversity and social informationization, people today have the conditions more favorable than ever before to move toward the goal of peace and development, while win-win cooperation is the realistic way to achieve this goal. Therefore, Xi Jinping stresses, adhere to the open strategy of mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, embody the concept of win-win cooperation in all aspects of foreign cooperation such as in political, economic, security, cultural and other areas; adhere to the correct concept of righteousness and interests, and take both into consideration, uphold credibility, focus on friendship, develop justice, and shape morality. Uphold the principle of non-interference in internal affairs of other countries, the respect for development path and social system independently chosen by their people, a peaceful solution of differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, oppose the wanton use of force or threat of force.

In June 2013, President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama held a manor meeting in California, further proposed building Sino-U.S. new-type major-countries relations, and expounded connotation of the new-type major-countries relations. i.e. no conflict no confrontation, mutual respect, cooperation and win-win outcome. This is the future direction of development of the new-type major -countries relations.

Expanding and deepening the layout of China's diplomatic strategy

From the perspective of overall thinking of Chinese diplomatic strategy layout, Xi Jinping emphasizes, managing well the diplomatic work and the maintenance of national security under the new situation, we need to analyze and handle problems from the strategic height, build capacity for commanding the overall situation, making overall coordinate planning, and operation and implementation, vigorously maintain the general situation of peace and stability. In order to maintain the peaceful external environment, China upholds an overall strategic thinking of all-dimensional full- range peaceful diplomacy, i.e. adhering to comprehensive development of friendship and cooperation with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence; making friends extensively should be based on principles of non-alignment, forming a partnership network all over the world.

The relations with surrounding countries occupy the priority position in China’s diplomatic strategic layout, so Xi Jinping stresses: manage well the peripheral diplomatic work, build the peripheral community of shared destiny, uphold the peripheral diplomatic philosophy of amity, sincerity, benefits and inclusiveness, maintain friendship and partnership with neighbors, adhere to keeping amity with, securing and enriching neighbors, and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and interconnection and interoperability with neighboring countries; be dedicated to deepening mutually beneficial and win-win momentum. Make overall coordination of economic, trade, science and technology, finance and other resources, identify the strategic convergences of deepening mutually beneficial cooperation with neighboring countries, and actively participate in regional economic cooperation. To this end, China will strive to make its own development better benefit neighboring countries. China, with peaceful development as the premise, with economic cooperation as the theme, taking into account the pragmatic cooperation in the political, military, cultural, environmental areas, etc., strives to create a peaceful surrounding environment with reliable security, economic prosperity, and long-term stability. China will actively participate in regional economic cooperation and shape a mutually beneficial and effective strategic platform for regional cooperation. Therefore, China should strengthen pragmatic cooperation, actively push the Belt and Road construction, make efforts to find common interests with other parties, and promote win-win outcome through pragmatic cooperation. This is an effective way to strengthen neighborliness.

From the perspective of major-countries relations, Xi Jinping proposes to effectively develop the major- countries relationships, build a healthy and stable framework for major- countries relations, and expand cooperation with major developing countries. In addition, China needs to improve and develop relations with developed countries, broaden areas of cooperation, properly handle differences, and promote building of new-type major countries relations for long-term, stable and healthy development. Currently, many new features emerge in the international situation, the global problems are on the increase, which further enhances the willingness of major countries to cooperate among them. China's peaceful development should first of all strengthen itself, but also need to strengthen strategic dialogue with major powers. Based on "strengthening strategic dialogue", China should focus on the world overall situation, start from the long-term strategic perspective, does not overstress the differences in social systems and ideologies, strive to expand common interests among major powers and properly resolve their differences and further promote the benign interaction between major-countries relations on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

The developing countries is always the strength China’s diplomacy relies on, hence, Xi Jinping emphasizes the necessity to strengthen solidarity and cooperation with other developing countries, closely combine China's development with that of developing countries, adhere to the correct concept of righteousness and interests, uphold principle, keep friendship, stress morality, provide more affordable assistance to developing countries, and manage well the foreign aid work, and truly integrate righteousness and interests. To this end, China will further consolidate friendly relations with developing countries, jointly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, and support the developing countries' representation and voice in international affairs.

Peoples of developing countries share a common destiny with Chinese people, developing countries are trusted friends of Chinese people in the practice of China's 60-year diplomacy. In the new historical period, China is to attain peaceful development and promote the building of a harmonious world, so strengthening solidarity and cooperation with developing countries is still the basic standpoint of China's diplomacy. We should give full play to the political advantages of the support to each other on major international issues between China and other developing countries, strive to win over the majority in the international struggles, and expand China's leeway. In the future, China will pay further attention to consultation and coordination with developing countries in international affairs and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. China should speak for developing countries on major international occasions, so as to enable developing countries to benefit from China's peaceful development, cooperation and mutual support with China.

Multilateral diplomacy is an important stage of China's diplomacy. To this end, Xi Jinping stresses the need to effectively promote multilateral diplomacy, push the reform of the international system and global governance, increase the representation and discourse of China and vast number of developing countries. Meanwhile, we should deepen participation in and provide leadership in the process of multilateral diplomacy, and support the United Nations, the Group 20, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS, etc. to play their active roles. In recent years, multilateral diplomacy has become increasingly active, which is an important phenomenon in the international community, and is a sign of human progress.

In the future, China will take the United Nations as the main stage, the Asia-Pacific region especially the Asian region as the focus, and actively participate in multilateral diplomatic activities, strive for some progress in international affairs, and gradually expand the Chinese impact, play a constructive major-country role, and make due contributions to solving the major problems faced by human kind.

(Excerpts of an article from http://www.bjqx.org.cn/qxweb)