As I see it | With economic growth and shift in power balance, China brings a new confidence to the table in Alaska
- Beijing views recent US crises and the pandemic as accelerating a shift in global power, giving a China a more equal footing on the world stage
- Meetings such as the US-China talks in Anchorage this week are important to the Chinese for more than just a means to a diplomatic end
Yang Jiemian, a respected strategic affairs scholar in Shanghai and younger brother of Yang Jiechi, President Xi Jinping’s top foreign policy aide, argued that the pandemic had sped up an inevitable shift in the global balance of power in China’s favour. With the fight against the pandemic, we are probably witnessing “the eve of a substantial, qualitative change in terms of international power balance”, he said in a paper published almost a year ago.
That confident assessment is widely shared within China’s foreign policy establishment, according to Chinese diplomats and academics.
While the country’s nationalist, authoritarian shift in recent years may not be heart-warming for many inside China, a number have nonetheless joined the chorus celebrating Beijing’s largely uninterrupted rise to power and mocking Washington’s inevitable decline.
“We don’t need hide and bide any more,” said a former diplomat privately, referring to late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s mantra of low-profile diplomacy which played a dominating role in securing China’s external relations with the West.
“In the face of the US-led encirclement efforts and aggressive attacks, we don’t have many options, do we? After all, it’s about time for China to take the centre stage in the world,” he said, citing an assertion Xi made four years ago.
