How China merges funding and diplomacy in push to lead the Global South
- Beijing will be the backdrop this year for gatherings of Latin American and African leaders, part of a long-standing relationship with developing countries
- China is promoting itself as an alternative to the West-led international order, analyst says
In addition to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the Chinese capital will be the backdrop for the China-Latin American and Caribbean Forum (China-CELAC).
During the 2021 China-CELAC forum, Beijing pledged to cooperate in areas including infrastructure, education, and green energy. Between 2000 and 2022, China had pledged more than US$170 billion in Chinese loans while CELAC countries had received US$130 billion.
Paul Nantulya, a China specialist at the National Defence University’s Africa Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington, said the summits were part of China’s efforts to counter the US-dominated international system.
“The two multilateral forums are part of a system of multilateral institutions that China built over the past two decades in an effort to construct an alternative international architecture alongside the current global order,” Nantulya said.
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FOCAC was established in 2000, when China was venturing overseas in search of markets for its products and raw materials for its industries. Plans for the China-CELAC forum were unveiled four years later.
Chinese lending in the Global South between 2008 and 2021 was the equivalent of 83 per cent of all World Bank lending to that region over the same period.
But the forums are about more than financing.
China has a special relationship with the developing world, having backed numerous anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and national liberation movements, and has always relied on Global South countries whenever it has faced international isolation or mounting rivalries with Western powers.
“Global South countries tend to vote alongside China and support Chinese initiatives at the multilateral level,” Nantulya said.
At the same time, many Global South organisations that had lost steam have come back to life in recent years as demands – echoed by China – for the reform of the Western-dominated international system become sharper.
“China is keen to leverage and align these demands, and the growing mood of Global South solidarity, with its own longer-range foreign policy goals,” Nantulya said.
“The US-led ‘liberal international order’ has clearly come under strain. The re-emergence of the NAM and the G77 seems to reflect efforts to find ways to build a new global order,” Calabrese said.
“Beijing’s diplomatic response to the Israel-Hamas war, especially in UN Security Council proceedings, is a vivid illustration of a broader effort to align with and position itself as the champion of the so-called Global South,” Calabrese said, in reference to China’s push for an immediate “humanitarian ceasefire” and a “two-state solution”.
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China’s efforts to present itself as a champion for the Global South are paying off in many ways, according to David Shullman, senior director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council.
“China is now Africa’s largest trading partner and second-largest for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he told an Atlantic Council event last week.
According to Shullman, targeted belt and road investments in Central America have helped entice the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Eswatini is the only African country that still recognises Taiwan.
“Six Pacific island countries recognised Taiwan but the number has been cut to half. China has deepened its economic and in some cases political and economic relationships with those nations with significant geopolitical implications,” Shullman said.
Why neither China nor India will be leader of the Global South
China’s growing diplomatic and economic influence in the Global South is causing disquiet in Washington.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the keynote speaker at the Atlantic Council event, said Beijing had benefited from the stability and opportunity that the international order had provided but was now advancing an alternative vision for global governance.
The US had noticed and was responding by deepening its relations with developing countries. For example, Kritenbrink said, the US hosted leaders of Pacific island nations for a summit last year. Embassies in the Solomon Islands and Tonga have also been opened while others in Vanuatu and Kiribati are planned.
“But it’s not enough to just show up. It is not enough to just hold conferences and summits, it’s about delivering. We are competing with [China] to offer a better value proposition to developing countries,” Kritenbrink said.
