One of the first things that impressed Richard Nixon on his historic trip to Beijing in 1972 was the honour guard of tall soldiers. “Each man turned his head slowly as I passed, creating an almost hypnotic sense of movement in the massed ranks,” he later recalled. It was a projection of power and co-ordination—one that remains identical for visiting foreign leaders today, though the soldiers are now even taller and include women in their ranks. The past few months have been especially busy for China’s honour guard.
Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AFP)
Since the start of December, Emmanuel Macron, Mark Carney, Sir Keir Starmer and at least five other foreign leaders have trooped to Beijing. Later this month, Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, will follow. Most remarkable about this parade of visiting leaders is not their quantity but their identity. China, a diplomatic omnivore, rolls out the red carpet for the head of any country, no matter how big or small, rich or poor. But six of the recent visitors—from France, Canada, Britain, Finland, South Korea and Germany—share one crucial trait: they all lead formal allies of America.
The significance scarcely needs spelling out. In a world roiled by Donald Trump, America’s partners are tending to other relationships, including with China, America’s chief rival. To them this looks like eminently sensible diversification. From Beijing’s vantage it is a bigger breakthrough. For most of the past decade discussions from Seoul to Ottawa were about decoupling or, at least, de-risking from China. Now, this drive is losing momentum. Chinese officials are “jubilant”, says a Western executive who recently met several of them.
Inevitably, this re-engagement has caused a backlash. Leaders have returned home from Beijing to critics who say their visits yielded precious few gains, while only deepening reliance on China. Nevertheless, for all the accusations of capitulation to China, the actual substance of the various bilateral meetings has been thin.
Consider the trade deal between Canada and China—one that Mr Trump warns will destroy Canada. The main Canadian concession was a sharp reduction in tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. But a quota will strictly limit the number of Chinese cars at the lower rate. Britain’s big “kowtow”, as opponents there call it, was to allow China to build a giant new embassy. But British security services are sanguine about the threat. As for European countries, they are standing firm, more or less. China had floated the idea of resuming negotiations on a trade deal. Instead, as one Chinese adviser puts it, China is getting nowhere with the European Commission and not much further with national governments.
It is also striking how the bonhomie in Beijing can swiftly revert to sniping. A few days after returning from China, Mr Macron warned that, if China fails to rein in its huge trade surplus, the European Union might hit it with fresh tariffs. There has also been some discord between Britain and China. Barely a week after Sir Keir’s visit, China sentenced Jimmy Lai, a British-Hong Kong business tycoon, to 20 years in jail for his pro-democracy activities. Britain, in turn, created an easier pathway to visas for thousands in Hong Kong, which Chinese officials called “despicable”.
Meanwhile, diplomats who attended leaders’ meetings in Beijing say that China has emphasised what it brands as Japan’s return to the “evil path of militarism”. But that message is falling flat—not only in Western capitals but also in Asian countries that suffered under Japan during the second world war. Days after visiting Beijing, South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung was jamming on the drums with the woman who is currently China’s public enemy number one: Takaichi Sanae, Japan’s prime minister.
The coming turn
If China has a strong geopolitical hand to play now, why is it not demanding more concessions from visiting leaders? In part it is because symbolism is enough. The bilateral visits send a powerful message, at home and abroad, about China’s great-power status and America’s diminished reliability. Just stabilising relations with countries that previously hoped to cut out Chinese products from supply chains is also a material improvement. It affords China space and time to develop its technological capabilities, which will give it more leverage in the future. At the same time China’s world-class green-tech companies, among others, hope to build assembly sites in the West as a hedge against tariff wars. Many Chinese thinkers are also almost touching in their faith that China, if patient, will eventually persuade the rest of the world that, unlike America, it offers them stability and prosperity.
Yet consider how long China’s relative restraint will last. Chinese leaders are now well aware of their tremendous economic clout; they forced Mr Trump to back down from his most extreme trade-war tactics. They know, too, how to make life difficult for smaller countries that misbehave.
Some Chinese voices, especially at the hawkish end of the spectrum, suggest China should be pushing harder for what it wants. A recent editorial by China’s ambassador to Australia has caught the attention of diplomats in Beijing. He warned that it was “unacceptable” to seek benefits from China while disregarding its core interests. Read literally, this sounds like a new kind of threat, telling foreign leaders to support China’s position on unification with Taiwan or face economic consequences.
It is, in other words, possible to imagine a more assertive turn in how China uses its trading leverage. So far the government in Beijing has mainly punished countries that have stepped out of line and offended it. In the future it may set out to change their policies. That would be a risky move by China, since overt coercion could backfire by pushing targeted countries together. For now, thankfully, China is satisfied with the “hypnotic sense of movement” created by the stream of visitors to Beijing.
