"A new era appears for US-Cuba relations"
A new era is emerging in China's foreign policy as the economic growth of the country to switch from past shyness by declaring a global leader and a relative inability to defend its interests, to one in which Beijing can request adjustments in the security environment, it has faced for sixty years in the Chinese-language media, politicians speak more and more of China as a great power, however, the invasion of Russia in Ukraine has the new foreign policy to the test and Beijing have raised questions about the extent of global role China.
China is close to meeting all the measures of what defines a world power output greater political, economic and military with global reach, but it does not act like a great power in terms of its contribution to the international management in situations conflict such as in Ukraine instead, we see many times that Beijing assertiveness when it comes to defending its own narrow interests.
While dictum of Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy in China to hide its strength and bide their time Taoguang Yanghui, in January 2014 the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping said China should be proactive fenfa you wei This is equivalent China go from first gear into second; and as a second speed, the pace of this new foreign policy can sometimes be shredded.
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As the Russian intervention in citizen unrest in Ukraine played, Beijing has chosen to criticize Moscow, citing longstanding policy of China's non-interference in the internal affairs of other states While China denounces the interference of hostile foreign forces in popular protests in Xinjiang and Tibet, it seems that won t take a public stand on the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty of Russia in telephone calls to US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel March 10, Xi called on the two leaders to use political and diplomatic means to resolve the standoff.
On March 15, China's UN representative presented a three-point proposal on a political solution to the crisis; demanding the formation of an international force to help the mediation; recommending that all parties refrain from any new provocation; and suggesting international financial actors should help stabilize the economic situation in Ukraine, however, China abstained from the UN resolution on the same day that condemned today's referendum to legitimize the transfer of Crimea from Ukraine to Russia as the leading power and permanent member of the United Nations security Council, China has exercised its right to speak huayu quan on the situation in Ukraine, but avoiding the involvement in the international response the other 13 members of the security Council have voted for the resolution, while Russia opposed it.
Regarding China's foreign policy Xi and his UN representative was quite outspoken But outside China, many would agree that China's response is too little, too late is behavior like this in time of international crisis that led commentators to question whether China is party reluctant to world order and if China is still just a regional power.
Since becoming Secretary General of the CPC in 2012, Xi Jinping has overseen the expansion of China's economic reform and opening to the outside world, along with the head of a new wave of repression of freedom expression and association, and strengthening security against Uighurs and Tibetan populations.
Under the leadership of Xi China went head to head with Japan over the disputed territory in the East China Sea, said a new ADIZ on the Senkaku Diaoyu islands disputed and increasingly assertive in the sea South China.
The economic model of China requires new markets and privileged access to resources and it will be a moderating factor in their approach to Beijing's foreign policy can afford to offend its neighbor Russia for a series of complex reasons, ranging the internal and external security and access to new energy supply sources.
The competitive external environment and litigation China faces in its immediate vicinity requires Beijing to adopt an approach to national security relatively cautious and tactful in the short to medium term the same time, it strengthens its external environment, especially in the periphery whenever he can.
We can therefore expect to see the point of China's foreign policy to be proactive and sometimes asserted; in other situations is ambiguous and non-confrontational when China can not affect change, it is the best of the current world order and quietly pursues own interests; but where the ability to create new standards exists, Beijing's assertive.
In the 1990s, Chinese officials have conducted extensive studies on the lessons of the fall of the Soviet Union in the 2000s they studied the rise and fall of other major powers such as Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain and the USA and lessons for China each held.
That's why as a great power, despite Feb. 12 percent budget increase this year passing the PLA, China is unlikely to follow the United States or the Soviet Union to make costly investments in spending PLA military budget is only 2 percent of China's GDP; compared to the figure of 4 4 percent current U S and the figure of 13-14 percent of the Soviet Union just before the Gorbachev era began in the mid 1980s.
Instead, China is investing in asymmetric warfare, focusing on electromagnetic pulse weapons, cyberwarfare and space, and a small force of sufficient nuclear deterrent; meanwhile create a complex network of China-centered bilateral and multilateral agreements such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, free trade agreements with countries such as Iceland, and less formalized partnerships on issues with specific country of strategic importance to China like Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Russia.
China is a large new relatively weak power, both in domestic policy and in terms of the external environment, it faces so it should be both more proactive in defending its interests and ambiguous on what interests real are delaying an open conflict with other potential competitors for as long as possible.
China is reluctant stakeholder; rather a reluctant leader we should not expect China to behave like previous and present great powers have done; he forges his own path in international relations and will solve its own sense of insecurity before it responds like a true world power leading to a geopolitical crisis like the one taking place in Ukraine.
Professor Anne-Marie Brady is a specialist in Chinese and polar policy based at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and currently a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.
Chinese foreign policy A New Era Dawns The diplomat, Chinese foreign policy.