History of foreign relations of the People's Republic of China
Since the early 1980s China has pursued a highly independent foreign policy, formally disavowing too close a relationship with any country or region. The stated goals of this policy were safeguarding world peace, opposing all forms of hegemony, and achieving economic modernization at home. Chinese statements repeatedly emphasized the interrelation among these goals. In other words, China needed a peaceful international environment so that adequate resources could be devoted to its ambitious development plans. The goal of economic modernization was a driving force behind China's increasingly active participation in world affairs, exemplified by its policy of opening up to the outside world, which greatly expanded Chinese economic relations with foreign countries. As part of what it called an "independent foreign policy of peace", Beijing has joined numerous international organizations, and it has maintained diplomatic relations with more nations than at any time since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By 2007, China has diplomatic relations with 157 nations, and—in contrast with earlier periods—has been willing to interact with governments of different social systems or ideologies on a basis of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and development.
Overview
Another characteristic Chinese foreign policy has had in common with that of many other countries is that the actual conduct of foreign relations sometimes has been at odds with official policy. Beijing's stress on principles in its official statements at times makes the contrast between statements and actions particularly noticeable. In addition, a nation's leaders must often make right decisions in reaction to events and circumstances, rather than simply formulating a rational foreign policy based on their goals. The need to react to what has happened or what may happen adds an element of unpredictability to foreign policy decision making, as has been the case at several crucial junctures in Chinese foreign relation since 1949.In addition to the aspects of foreign policy formulation and implementation that China has in common with other countries, China's foreign policy from 1949 has had these characteristics: contrast between practicality and adherence to principles; fluctuation between militancy and peacefulness; tension between self-reliance and dependence on others; and contrast between China's actual and potential capabilities. These contradictory characteristics have at times created a confusing picture of Chinese foreign policy: is Chinese foreign policy basically pragmatic or primarily based on principles? Is China peace-loving or intent on fomenting unrest? Is China's ultimate goal to be self-sufficient or economically interdependent with the rest of the world? And is China basically a poor, developing country that is at most a regional power or actually a nascent economic and military giant deserving of superpower status?
The response to these questions is that since 1949 Chinese foreign policy has reflected all of these contrasting features. Beijing had emphasized principles and ideology above everything else in foreign relations, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, but Chinese leaders at times have also shown a practical side that gave them the flexibility to change policies, sometimes drastically, when they deemed it in China's best interest. One of the most dramatic changes was the shift from an alliance with the Soviet Union against the United States and Japan in the 1950s to an explicitly anti-Soviet policy and rapprochement with Japan and the United States in the 1970s. Since 1949 Chinese foreign policy has fluctuated between periods of militancy, for example during the Cultural Revolution, when China called for worldwide revolution, and periods when Beijing has been a chief proponent of peaceful coexistence among nations, such as during the mid-1950s and again during the 1980s. How self-reliant or dependent on others China should become in order to modernize has been a constant dilemma in Chinese policy since the nineteenth century. As this policy fluctuated, Chinese foreign relations have alternated between a tendency toward isolation and periods of openness to foreign assistance and influence. Finally, the contradiction between China's actual capabilities since 1949 and its perceived potential has been another salient and distinctive feature of its foreign relations. China's tremendous size, population, natural resources, military strength, and sense of history have placed it in the unusual position of being a developing country that has often been treated as a major global power having a special relationship with the United States and, Russia, previously, the Soviet Union.
Since 2010s, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping's foreign policy writ large, perceived anti-China hostility from the West amongst Chinese government officials, and shifts within the Chinese diplomatic bureaucracy have been cited as factors leading to its emergence. It is commonly known as "Wolf warrior diplomacy". In March 2020, Reuters reported that two Chinese diplomats confirmed that Xi Jinping, then CCP general secretary, had written a note last year asking diplomats to take a tough stance and show a "spirit of struggle" in the face of deteriorating US-China relations and other international challenges.
Evolution of foreign policy
Understanding the origins and forces that have shaped China's foreign policy provides a framework in which to view both the changes and the continuities in Chinese foreign policy from 1949. The origins of China's foreign policy can be found in its size and population, historical legacy, worldview, nationalism, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. These factors have combined with China's economic and military capabilities, governmental structure, and decision-making processes to make certain foreign policy goals prominent: security, sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity and Chinese unification, and economic development.Historical legacy and worldview
China's long and rich history as the world's oldest continuous civilization has affected Chinese foreign relations in various ways. For centuries the Chinese empires enjoyed basically unchallenged greatness and self-sufficiency. China saw itself as the cultural center of the universe, a view reflected in the concept of the "central state". For the most part, it viewed non-Chinese peoples as uncivilized barbarians. Although China was occasionally overrun and ruled by these "barbarians", as during the Yuan and Qing dynasties, the non-Chinese usually retained enough Chinese institutions to maintain a continuity of tradition. Because the Chinese emperor was considered the ruler of all mankind by virtue of his innate superiority, relations with other states or entities were tributary, rather than state-to-state relations between equals. Traditionally, there was no equivalent of a foreign ministry; foreign relations included such activities as tributary missions to the emperor made by countries seeking trade with China and Chinese military expeditions against neighboring barbarians to keep them outside China's borders. The first Europeans who sought trade with China, beginning in the sixteenth century, were received as tributary missions and had to conform to the formalities and rituals of the tribute system at the Chinese court. China's view of itself as the undisputed center of civilization—a phenomenon called sinocentrism—remained basically unchanged until the nineteenth century, when the Qing dynasty began to deteriorate under Western pressure.A traditional concept related to China's view of itself as the "central state" that continues to have relevance is the idea of "using barbarians to control barbarians." In modern times, this practice has taken the form of using relations with one foreign power as a counterweight to relations with another. Two examples are China's policy of "leaning to one side" in the Sino-Soviet alliance of the 1950s for support against the United States and Beijing's rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s to counteract the Soviet threat China perceived at the time. China's strong desire for sovereignty and independence of action, however, seems to have made Chinese alliances or quasi-alliances short-lived.
Another effect of China's historical legacy is its tendency toward isolationism and an ambivalence about opening up to the outside world. In imperial times, China's foreign relations varied from dynasty to dynasty—from cosmopolitan periods like the Tang dynasty to isolationist periods such as the Ming dynasty, when few foreigners were allowed in the country. Overall, the sinocentric worldview and China's history of centuries of self-sufficiency favored isolation, which contributed to China's difficulty when confronted by expansionist Western powers in the nineteenth century. The debate over self-reliance and possible corruption by foreign influences or opening up to the outside world in order to modernize more quickly has continued for over a century and is still an issue today.
Nationalism
The importance of sovereignty and independence of action in Chinese foreign policy since 1949 has been closely related to Chinese nationalism. Just as Chinese national pride has been a natural outgrowth of China's long and rich historical tradition, the nationalism of Chinese leaders also has derived from the injustices China suffered in more recent history, in particular, China's domination by foreign powers from the nineteenth century until the end of World War II. During this time, which China refers to as "the century of shame and humiliation", the formerly powerful imperial government devolved to what China calls "semicolonial" status, as it was forced to sign unequal treaties and grant foreigners special privileges of extraterritoriality. Foreign powers divided China into spheres of influence. Most debilitating and humiliating was the foreign military threat that overpowered China, culminating in Japan's invasion and occupation of parts of China in the late 1930s. The bitter recollection of China's suffering at the hands of foreign powers has continued to be a source of Chinese nationalistic sentiment since 1949. The suspicion of foreign powers, opposition to any implication of inferior status, and desire to reassert sovereignty and independence have strongly influenced Chinese foreign policy. Examples of this attitude are Mao Zedong's statement in 1949 that "the Chinese people have stood up" and Deng Xiaoping's 1982 pronouncement that "no foreign country can expect China to be its vassal or expect it to swallow any bitter fruit detrimental to its interests."A foreign policy goal closely related to nationalism has been the desire to achieve territorial integrity and to restore to Chinese sovereignty areas previously considered a part of China. Although China has not resolved many border disputes with several of its neighbors, including India, the Russia, and Vietnam, Beijing has concluded boundary settlements with other nations, including Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Mongolia. Negotiations on border issues, held intermittently with Russia since 1949 and with India since the early 1980s, continue to be held. The difficulty of resolving these issues seem to reflect their relation to sensitive questions of national pride both in China and in neighboring countries and sometimes to questions of China's perceived national security interests. For example, Qing control over Outer Mongolia had lapsed long before 1949 and had been supplanted by Soviet influence. Although it was most likely with reluctance and regret, China recognized Mongolia as a separate nation in 1949. By contrast, asserting sovereignty over another outlying area, Xizang, was considered such an important strategic goal that military force was used to gain control there in 1950 and to reassert it in 1959.
Two other Chinese areas that had been under the control of foreign powers were Hong Kong and Macau. According to Chinese statements, these "problems left over from history" were the result of imperialist aggression and the incompetence of Chinese rulers. Macau, the first European enclave on the Chinese coast, was occupied by Portugal in 1557 and ceded to Portugal under an 1887 treaty. Britain gained control of Hong Kong island and adjacent territory through three treaties with China in the nineteenth century. In the mid-1980s China concluded formal arrangements with Britain and Portugal for the return of these areas to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and 1999. Both agreements were made under a policy of "one country, two systems", giving the areas a high degree of autonomy as "special administrative regions" of China. From the perspective of Chinese nationalism, negotiating the return of both Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty before the end of the twentieth century was undoubtedly one of the major foreign policy accomplishments of Chinese leaders in the late twentieth century.
The most crucial of the issues of national unification, however, remain unresolved: the issue of Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek and his forces fled to Taiwan after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The government they established there, the "Republic of China", continued to claim authority as the government of the Chinese nation almost four decades after the founding of the People's Republic. Although China's goal of unifying Taiwan with the mainland remained unchanged, the previous, more militant Chinese policy of "liberating Taiwan" was replaced in the 1980s by the concept of unification under the "one country, two systems" policy. The agreements on Hong Kong and Macau were considered by many observers as possible precedents for unifying Taiwan with the mainland. Because of the legacy of mistrust between the leaders of the two sides and other complex factors, however, this difficult and longstanding problem does not appear close to resolution today.