China’s New Globalism

Abstract

The traditions of communist revolution and socialist internationalism, which once defined the People’s Republic of China, have today faded into the distant past. The programme of ‘reform and opening’ market integration that began in 1978, intensified especially since 1992, has now evolved into an all-round globalism that guides China’s domestic and foreign policies. Free trade is promulgated in a peculiar rhetoric of socialism that embraces a ‘common destiny for the human community’ along with a cooperative relationship between the ‘G2’. At the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th National Congress in October 2017, President Xi Jinping declared that ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era’.

This essay, after a brief background account of China’s departure from socialist internationalism and global repositioning, will critically assess the dominant official ideological justifications for globalism in China. Along the way, three propositions are advanced. First, China’s partially dependent development since undertaking market reforms is unsustainable and cannot be emulated by others. Second, China must address its own serious problems before it can offer the world anything morally appealing or practically feasible: the success of China’s overland and overseas adventures will depend on the creation of a humanly and environmentally sound domestic social model. Third, China’s outward quest for energy and other resources comes with serious perils amidst the realpolitik of American hegemony and militarism. It is in this context that the essay concludes by asking whether China can reasonably be expected to regain the ability to positively reshape the global political economy.