Until recently, the widely accepted international narrative about China was that it was a country on a roll - characterized by years of remarkable economic growth, increasing global clout, and a leadership with a deft touch in managing both a booming economy and the country’s international rise. Events of the past few weeks, however, have begun to call that narrative into question.
In rapid succession, the world has witnessed a dramatic drop in China’s stock market and contradictory and ineffective efforts by the government to prop it up, the confused handling of a revaluation of the renminbi, and mismanagement, lack of transparency, and suggestions of corruption surrounding a catastrophic chemical explosion in Tianjin. At the same time, there have been contradictory signals about the country’s political stability, with commentaries in the official press warning retired leaders not to meddle in state affairs and declaring that President Xi Jinping, who has accumulated more power than any Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping, was facing “stubborn, fierce, and complex” resistance.
From inside, China has long looked more fragile and tense than outsiders swept up in the “China rising” and “Xi Jinping is strong” narrative have believed. Events over the summer only underscore this more negative assessment. The most significant international fallout of the events of the last few months may well turn out to be a broader fraying of the image of competence in Beijing – and with it an erosion around the world of the longstanding narrative of China’s inevitable rise and success.
A sampling of recent Western media headlines and commentary illustrates how dramatically perceptions have shifted.
“Beijing flounders on what it does best,” declared the Wall St. Journal, whose Beijing bureau chief noted that “China’s leaders appear to have lost some of their touch.”
A commentary in the U.K. Guardian asked, “Is the game up for China’s much emulated growth model?”
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman bluntly asserted that “their mismanagement of the stock market shows China’s leaders have no idea what they are doing.”
The decline of international confidence in the competence and credibility of Xi and the Chinese leadership could reduce the pressure many governments, companies, international organizations and others have felt to defer to Beijing. It may well lead to greater willingness on the part of some to get tough with China on a host of contentious issues. These range from trade tensions to disputes over sovereignty in the South and East China Seas.
“You are beginning to get more and more voices outside China willing to call a spade a spade,” says one former State Department Asia specialist. “The whole dynamic of interaction is going to become much more fraught.”
Some analysts, such as the Asia Society’s widely respected Orville Schell, have expressed hope that this summer’s setbacks to the much-vaunted “China model” might “temper Beijing’s current tendency toward arrogance, rigidity, belligerence and diplomatic hectoring.” But the opposite behavior is equally possible, especially given the increasingly tense internal politics in China.
Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted senior Communist Party and military officials, as well as lower-ranking bureaucrats, has been very popular. But it has also generated widespread fear throughout the system, especially as it has been accompanied by a degree of ideological rigidity and repression unseen in years. The result has been a kind of creeping paralysis, with many officials and business executives afraid to take decisions, while dragging their feet on measures Xi has proposed to revitalize the economy. Moreover, along with his growing power, Xi has acquired a large number of enemies, making himself a target for discontent or outright opposition should things start to go wrong – as has been the case in recent weeks.
This atmosphere could affect international dealings with China in many ways. On one level, foreigners may start to find their Chinese interlocutors even more cautious and rigid, fearful of getting on the wrong side of the shifting political winds in Beijing, and thus less able to engage in a thoughtful way on a host of issues.
On broader policy matters, while the overall thrust of China’s recent international approach is unlikely to change, Beijing could well become less, rather than more, flexible – especially on matters seen to involve sovereignty, pride, and prestige. If Xi Jinping feels under pressure at home, the last thing he can afford is to look weak internationally.
That was certainly one reason behind the massive show of force in China’s September 3rd parade marking the Japanese defeat in World War II – to project strength to the rest of the world, and to signal to the Chinese people that he remains very much in control. As the tumultuous development of recent weeks made clear, however, the real power dynamics in Beijing are much less clear-cut.
It remains uncertain how forceful President Obama intends to be in his upcoming summit with Xi. The administration is juggling pressure to respond strongly to Chinese assertiveness on a host of sensitive issues with a desire to prevent a further deterioration in Sino-American relations.
But the perception that, as one observer put it, the recent troubles have shown “the emperor has, if not no clothes, at least a lot fewer clothes,” may well change the way many in the West think about China’s current and future prospects. The prospect of fewer members of the international community being willing to “kowtow” to an increasingly beleaguered regime in Beijing could prove to be an unsettling combination.
