DOMESTIC DRIVERS OF CHINESE FOREIGN POLICY

The landscape of foreign policy-making in China has changed significantly since Xi Jinping in 2012 succeeded Hu Jintao as leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During the reign of Hu Jintao between 2002 and 2012, input to the process of foreign policy-making increased as new foreign policy actors appeared. This period also witnessed a proliferation of foreign policy debate in different web forums and on Chinese social media platforms such as Sina Weibo. Among old and new domestic drivers of foreign policy-making the scholarly literature noted the importance of state-owned enterprises and private companies with significant overseas operations in their portfolios. Subnational state actors such as provinces also expanded their international agendas. In addition to the more clandestine lobbying of state actors and private enterprises, the aggregated force of visible and nationalistic social media commentary by individuals and civil society actors also entered the fray. During Hu’s time in office, various actors and interests competed both formally and informally to influence elite foreign policy-making in China’s polity. His successor Xi Jinping has significantly transformed Party-state governance and processes of policy-making overall. Most important is the centralization of policy-formulation and implementation around the General Secretary himself through “top-level design”, a key term employed by Xi’s aides.

Essentially, foreign policy-making has moved from previous factional balancing of interests in the politburo, i.e. a process where many different views came into play, to a dominance of Xi Jinping as the fundamental policy-maker. The variegated interests of different actors are certainly still present in the process of foreign policy-making, but at the top of the Party’s hierarchy there is now no negotiations between different factions. However, if one zoomed out from the top echelon of the CCP for a moment, what kinds of domestic drivers and actors of foreign policy loom large or significant, at least from the surface of things?

First, there is the state administration at different levels, which does not formulate policy, but merely executes Party policy. At the national level there is the State Council (i.e. China’s cabinet and the Prime Minister) and various ministries (such as MFA and Taiwan Affairs Office, state commissions, SOEs, Foreign aid agencies; the department for educational exchange) and the National People’s Congress. There is also the State at other administrative levels, such as provinces, regions, major cities, counties that may have international partners.

Second, there is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Parts of the PLA have had some autonomy regarding operational activities in the past, and some officers are known to be ultra-nationalists on territorial issues. There have been a few incidents in the recent past that showcases this autonomy. In 2008, the army demonstrated its anti-satellite weapon capabilities when it shot down a Chinese satellite, without prior consultation with the CCP leadership around Hu Jintao. In February 2023, a supersized Chinese balloon flew over the United States. As the US suspected the balloon collected sensitive intelligence, it was shot down by the US military. This incident too seemed to come as surprise to China’s civilian leadership. Thus, there might have remained some pockets of relative autonomy in the PLA, which balloon-gate indicated – but since this incident the defense minister Li Shangfu and leaders of China’s important nuclear strategic command have been sacked by Xi Jinping.

Third and most importantly in the landscape of foreign policy-making is the Chinese Communist Party and its general secretary. According to organization charts: the Central Committee, the politburo and its standing committee, and the General Secretary are the key formulators of Foreign Policy. Other important units in the Party organization are the Party’s international department (oversees CCP relations with parties in other countries), the Party’s propaganda department which employs Tiktok/Youtube videos to spread Beijing’s worldview. The United Front Department’s activities are sometimes called the Party’s “magic weapon” (recent activities include reports on overseas Chinese police stations and co-optation of Chinese citizens and foreign nationals abroad).

The most important organizational change under Xi Jinping concerns the centralization around him personally. At the core of this transformation is the creation of new “leading small groups” (LSGs), which are coordinating units that specialize on certain issue-areas in the party bureaucracy. In the past, these groups coordinated issues that cut across different units of the bureaucracy, to enable and ensure implementation of policy. However, since 2018, these important groups are no longer merely a coordinating mechanism; as they have become pure decision-making institutions. The LSGs testify to organizational changes in line with what Xi’s advisors have called top-level design, which in essence means that they are hierarchical, centralized, and personalized. These decision-making leading groups are personalized, since the most important LSGs on deepening reforms, on cybersecurity, on national security, and financial and economic affairs are led by Xi Jinping personally. To other cross-sectoral LSGs, Xi has appointed his most staunch loyalists. These changes are part of Xi’s whole-of-society organizational and ideological project of “organized loyalty”.

These remarks were presented by Dr. Johan Lagerkvist at Global Conference on New Sinology (GCNS), 2023