Through and beyond Xi’s Policy Statement

Theories of International Relations in Practice

This is an opinion piece written by Xi Jia. Graphic design by Rosie Phillips.

In 2001, China, Russia, and four Central Asian countries announced the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was the first regional cooperation organization that China directly participated in building. The SCO’s founding serves at least two important purposes: first, to deal with the relationship with the newly emerged neighbors after the collapse of the Soviet Union; and second, to build a cooperation paradigm that reflects China’s philosophy. During the past few decades, with rapid economic, technological, and military growth, China gradually plays a vital role in the international system. Thus, it is crucial to comprehend the realignment of the world order by predicting China’s potential movements.

Pushed out of the limelight and given the U.S.-China trade war and the Russia-Ukraine war, Xi conveyed meaningful messages at the 22nd Meeting of the SCO, foreshadowing SCO’s future pathway. Although extensive research on China has been carried out, the characteristics of China’s diplomacy have not been dealt through comprehensive perspectives. Seeking to carefully approach this topic, Xi’s policy statement at the 22nd meeting of the SCO is discussed from neorealist and liberal institutionalism perspective in the following.

1. Articulated from a neorealistic perspective

Studies in the field of realism emerged after World War II and were proposed by Morgenthau (1960), who argued that the entire international community was in a state of anarchy and that the eternal position in state relations was the national interest defined on the basis of power. Later Waltz (1979) revised Morgenthau’s classical realist theory and developed neorealism, claiming that although the operation of international politics is based on national interests, the cause of international conflicts is not the “human selfishness” of states but the anarchy of the international society; the fundamental national interest is both security and power and security is enhanced through the means of power capabilities.

There are two possible prisms with which sovereign government may maintain national security: Mearsheimer (2001) stated that in offensive realism security is scarce in an anarchic international society. In contrast, defensive realism argues that, despite the anarchy of the international community, the rationality of the state allows for security to remain abundant and the external environment to be largely friendly (Waltz, 1979). It is not a zero-sum game and the government maintains a minimum level of national security through counter-hegemony.

It follows from there that China perceives itself forced to participate in SCO for “self-help” (Waltz, 2003; Mearsheimer, 1994). The diplomatic history of China presents the principles of defensive realism, which modernizes its economy and enters international relations such as the WTO (Snyder, 2004). 13 times Xi (2022) emphasized the necessity of “expanding security” in the basic area of “peace, energy, food” and the rising area of “data, bio, outer space.” On multiple occasions, China had flagged its opposition to zero-sum games and hegemonism.

The U.S. viewed China’s economic development as a potential threat, which is a manifestation of a hegemonic power in pursuit of the highest level of national security (The China threat, 2020). In response to the U.S.’ launch of the trade war, China has proposed to build a “unified national market,” a strong economical capital transmission system. It aims at replacing its dependence on the U.S. and possible U.S. decoupling strategy. China’s actions epitomized that it would rather prefer the high insecurity of the outside world than the relative friendliness of the diplomatic environment discussed by neorealism.

Yet, neorealists fail to interpret why China shifts to increasing its international cooperation level instead of strengthening its hegemony to solidify national security. In Xi’s speech, 23 references to “cooperation” were made in full, stressing “win-win,” based on “equality between nations”, “openness and inclusiveness” and “equity and justice.” This alludes to the most fundamental principle of the SCO: cooperation and equality, which aligns with liberalism’s core value of democratic institutions and values help states cooperate with each other (Snyder, 2004). As evidence, Xi (2022) declared to offer “1.5 billion RMB yuan in emergency humanitarian aid in the form of grain and other commodities to developing nations in need.

However, as claimed by Waltz (2003) and Mearsheimer (1994), realists are doubtful of international organizations’ capacity to freely function in the system and promote collaboration between states. Nevertheless, in the first eight months of 2022, the data demonstrated that China’s trade volume with SCO member states has reached $246.4 billion (CGTN,2022). Comparably, 2010 was already a record high, achieving a trade volume of $343.1 billion, up 40% year-on-year (MOFCOM, 2022). With China’s vast infrastructure capacity and high-speed rail technology, the SCO can use the railroad network as a channel to promote Asian-European integration, further expanding the space for land-based economies. The access to cheap labor and resources is convenient for China to implement its relatively advanced technology and industrial chain, processing them into commodities and then selling them back to SCO countries. In that way, every link in this chain becomes a beneficiary, and China arises as the core based on its industrial advantages. Undoubtedly, having such a large internal circulation system is significant for all nations within SCO in the context of reverse globalization.

2. Through the lens of liberal institutionalism

In the past 20 years, the SCO has played a crucial role in maintaining regional security and stability as promoting intro-regional cooperation. Kant (1795) is one of the pioneer scholars who defined liberalism. Drawing on insights from Kant, Oneal and Russett (1999), they developed The Kantian Triangle in which international organizations, economic interdependence, and democracy work cooperatively as a pathway to peace.

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As a modern version of liberalism, liberal institutionalism contended that international cooperation is probable and sustainably by reducing transaction costs, enhancing the credibility of commitments, establishing coordination focal points, promoting the principle of reciprocity, and extending the shadow of the future (Keohane and Martin, 1994).

Xi (2022) called for the “sharing of local currency settlement,” aiming to “speed up regional economic interpretation” by “developing the system for cross-border payment and settlement in local currencies.” This hints at closer economic ties among SCO members for the foreseeable future, consistent with the characteristics of liberal institutionalism as aforementioned. Notably, Xi (2022) brought forward the “recovery of the world economy,” insinuating that global issues can be addressed in a cooperative and multilateral manner with China’s participation.

Liberal institutionalism’s detractors claimed that institutions do not defect power politics; rather, they reflect it (Mearsheimer, 1994; Greco, 1988). As discussed previously, with China’s becomes the economic engine of the SCO, the organization is no longer without a backbone. The increase in Chinese centrality implies that decisions may heavily lay on the ground of self-interest instead of institutional common interest, focusing on relative gains instead of absolute gains. It is confirmed by Greco (1988), who argued that it may lead to failure in international cooperation.

Dominated by China and Russia, the SCO is similar to the structure of the EU led by France and Germany, though the priority of military cooperation is in line with NATO. Despite its “resemblance” to the EU and NATO, the SCO’s inner environment is different. While working together to deal with external problems, the member states also undertake the mission of solving each other’s relations.

In addition to the pre-existing historical relationship problems, the rise of China may also bring more imbalances of power issues. If China increases its national security, the trust level of other SCO members, especially Russia, may reduce. Furthermore, the international cooperation level declines, and in turn threatens China’s security. This supports Lebow’s (1994) implication of states may not adapt and respond similarly to constraints and opportunities. Von Stein (2005) also doubted whether the members are already willing to cooperate and comply.

Considering these concerns, Xi tended to strengthen internal unity and raise the trust level among members by alluding to world turmoil and the West as SCO’s “common enemy”. He foregrounded “our world today is undergoing accelerating changes … and it has entered a new phase of uncertainty”, informing the future of “a century of great change.” There is a sense of immediacy that China is claiming from top to bottom, which in line with the case of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points (1918), implies the nations feel like putting U.S. in the superpower place as they were ordered the region policy making. [KV1] Therefore, as China is inclined to maximize relative power in the SCO, an internal imbalance of power will appear, leading to conflicts with Russia and India. While the rise of China has led to centrality issue, they [KV2] have also provided an opportunity to resolve ethnic and territorial conflicts within the organization.

Implications on the issue of pursuing national interest might be amplified after more countries, each with their aspirations, join the cooperation mechanisms. Consequently, a decline in the efficiency of choices and a potential increase in conflicts may occur. This conflicts with the democratic value of “win-win” and “equality”, as well as China’s perspective on this point is to reshape the international order.

3. Adding on Constructivism

Twenty years ago, SCO was positioned as a regional inter-state political cooperation organization to combat terrorism, separatism, and extremism with a degree of military and security background (Xinhua, 2001). Today, China uses the SCO mechanism to carry out cooperation in the fields of “education, science, technology, culture, health, and media (Xi, 2022),” as a way of fostering the diffusion of Chinese norms and ideas (Weiss and Jeremy, 2021). This conflicts not only with neorealists who argued social norms are mostly irrelevant (Sandholtz and Stiles, 2009; Mearsheimer, 1994) but also with liberal institutionalism which advocated the misguiding nature of the market approach to the cultural area because of differences in profit motivation between nations. Constructivism successfully interprets it with its emphasis on the social components within the state, i.e., the norms, social institutions, values, roles, and rule that guide its international behavior (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998, p.913).

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Constructivists also identify that sharing knowledge in the international arena is not an egalitarian process, and with more powerful the states in the system, the more they can shape international norms according to their values (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998, p.904). Xi proposed “China hopes to strengthen solidarity and cooperation in SCO … to make the SCO a central force in defending international justice … maintaining regional and world peace … promoting global post-epidemic recovery,” which metaphorized the backdrop of intensifying competition among major powers and implied the need to establish a new order in international politics.

4. Pulling all strings together

When considering Xi’s speech at the 22nd meeting of the SCO from a comprehensive perspective, the following becomes quite evident: In the neorealist sense, China highly focuses on national security, whereas in the liberal institutionalism view, China highlights the pathway of closer economic ties. However, neorealist fail to interpret China's reaction in response to the insecure nature of the external environment, the deeper cooperation level instead of consolidating hegemony, and the huge benefits gained form the SCO, whereas liberal institutionalism cannot explain the power politics relayed to self-interest and relative gains issues. Also, neither can interpret the diffusing of Chinese cultural norms, with Constructivism mending new angles to briefly expound China's ambition to establish a new word order.

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