After a difficult year, China faces more foreign policy challenges ahead
- Coronavirus pandemic accelerated a hardening of attitudes towards Beijing across the world on a growing number of fronts
- Regional disputes and rising tensions with Europe and the US show little sign of easing in the new year
It has been a challenging year for China on the international stage, as its “Wolf Warrior” diplomats have faced off against an increasingly hostile world.
In the midst of a devastating global pandemic, China has been locked in disputes with regional powers such as India, Australia and Taiwan – along with rising tensions in its relations with Europe and the US.
Attitudes towards Beijing, particularly in the West, further hardened in 2020. Analysts have said the Covid-19 pandemic – which was first reported in China – accelerated wariness of Chinese geopolitical intentions, prompting many countries to reassess their economic reliance on China, and Beijing’s role in the US-led liberal international order.
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Jacques deLisle, an expert in Chinese law and politics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that as China had become more powerful, the US and its allies were more focused the threat of its capabilities, while Beijing was increasingly willing to push its own interests.
“This, too, makes a higher degree of friction and tension almost inescapable,” he said. “Increasingly, the concern is that the China-US and broader China-West conflict is becoming ideational and ideological on both sides. We are not yet in a new Cold War, but it is no longer as remote a possibility as it was not so long ago.”
The new year is not expected to bring China much relief, with a growing consensus in the US and across Europe in favour of more hardline policies against Beijing over long-standing complaints about a lack of reciprocity and China’s growing assertiveness in the world.
“If China continues to push to advance its interests the way it has over the last couple of years in that tone-deaf manner, and continues to encourage its diplomats and officials to engage in this ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomacy, I think we are going to see a growing negative perception towards China,” said Pradeep Taneja, an expert in Chinese politics and international relations at the University of Melbourne.