Claremont McKenna College’s Minxin Pei points out that while China has come a long way since the Cultural Revolution in developing economic friendships from South America to Africa and elsewhere, it has a “shocking lack of real allies.” From Foreign Policy:
Real strategic alliance or friendship is not a commodity that can be bought and bartered casually. It is based on shared security interests, fortified with similar ideological values and enduring trust. China excels in “transactional diplomacy” — romping around the world with its fat checkbook, supporting (usually poor, isolated, and decrepit) regimes like Angola and Sudan in return for favorable terms on natural resources or voting against Western-sponsored resolutions criticizing China’s human rights record. And the world’s second-largest economy will remain bereft of dependable strategic allies because of three interrelated factors: geography, ideology, and policy.
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The growth of Chinese power has created the dreaded “security dilemma”: Instead of making Chinese more secure, its growing power is striking fear among its neighbors and, worse, has elicited a strategic response from the United States, which has pivoted its security focus toward Asia. The emerging strategic rivalry will severely test Beijing’s diplomatic skills. The strategic choices available in terms of strengthening its alliance structure are few. Most Asian states want the United States to maintain its critical balancing role in the region; friends China can make in other parts of the world bring nothing to bear on this rivalry. There are, however, two difficult but promising paths China can take. One is to resolve the remaining territorial disputes with its neighbors and then throw its weight behind a regional collective security system which, once in place, could alleviate its neighbors’ fears, moderate the U.S.-China rivalry, and obviate the need for China to recruit allies. The other is to democratize its political system, a move that will once and for all eliminate the risks of a full-fledged U.S.-China strategic conflict and bring China “friends all over the world.” The first may be a reach, too little, too late — and don’t hold your breath for the latter.
