On October 11, 2022, the Centre on Asia and Globalisation hosted Associate Professor Jessica Chen Weiss, Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies at the Department of Government of Cornell University, who presented on, “A World Safe for Autocracy: The Domestic Politics of China’s Foreign Policy”. The event was part of the Hong Siew Ching Speaker Series and took place during the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy’s Festival of Ideas 2022.
Prof. Weiss discussed the variation in China’s international behavior. At different times, and across different issue areas, China’s behavior has been labelled as “revisionist”, “stakeholder”, or “free-rider”. Addressing this puzzling variation, Weiss argued that Beijing’s foreign policy preferences and behavior across issue areas was both influenced by, and had an impact on, domestic politics.
According to Weiss, two characteristics—centrality and contestation—shapes China’s domestic politics on any given issue.
Sovereignty-linked issues like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and maritime disputes were of ‘high centrality’, while others like UN peacekeeping were of ‘low centrality’. International pressure on China over ‘high centrality’ issues, Weiss suggested, were more likely to backfire, resulting in bargaining failures and leading Beijing to breach international norms.
Contestation referred to the degree of domestic division and contestation over government policy in a given international issue. Even authoritarian regimes are not monolithic, and they can face implementation and enforcement problems over highly contested issues.
This approach of analysing how domestic interests shapes foreign policy was based on Kenneth Waltz’s ‘second image’ approach. Yet, Weiss also observed how the international environment exerted influence on domestic political choices, referring to this as ‘second image reversed’. For example, by framing resistance in Hong Kong and the US–China trade war as part of a national struggle, the Chinese government has sought to build public support for the costs of conflict, raise the domestic cost of international concessions, and signal its intent to stand firm against foreign pressure.
Beijing has been strategic in determining when to allow or repress nationalist mobilization. For instance, it has tolerated the online harassment of Chinese netizens who criticise government policies on social media and online forums. Yet, the Chinese government also faces occasional challenges to control public sentiment. Its response to the restart of US patrols in the South China Sea in 2015 was seen as unsatisfactory by some Chinese nationalists and resulted in a drop in public approval for the Chinese government.
Such dynamics between China’s domestic and foreign policy could have important implications for the trajectory of US-China relations. In the short term, Beijing’s policies thread the needle between projecting resolve and mitigating near-term risks of unwanted escalation. In the long term, repression of dovish voices in China will heightened US perceptions of threat. This reduces credibility of China’s assurances and ambiguity/flexibility in foreign perceptions of Beijing’s intent.
It is important to understand that Chinese rhetoric plays to multiple audiences may be targeted towards reducing domestic contestation on central issues.
Weiss concluded that China has behaved strategically as a “disgruntled stakeholder” and the Chinese Communist Party's ambitions are more nationalist than universalist. The best response to a rising China is an asymmetric approach that focuses on an affirmative, inclusive vision that creates space for cooperation on shared challenges and avoids conflict.
When asked about how can the US not see China as a threat, Weiss said that China has not tried to promote autocracy nor overthrow democracy, but the CCP persist in safeguarding its own interests. As China becomes more interested in setting itself as an alternative to the US, the future of this ideological competition will depend on the actions that both sides will take.
“A world safe for autocracy isn’t my ideal future. I want a world safe for diversity,” Weiss said at the end.
This event summary is prepared by Zero Lin, Master's candidate in International Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and currently working with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation under the Research Attachment Programme.