Explainer | All-weather strategic partnership or friendly relationship? What to look for when China names ties with other nations
- All-weather, all-round, strategic and future-oriented are among descriptors that show up the subtle differences in China’s relationships
- Beijing often elevates ties but seldom downgrades, even amid strained bilateral conditions, as shown in the cases of the Philippines and India
The significant move elevates Hungary to the same rank as Belarus, Pakistan and Venezuela, which also enjoy “all-weather” relations with Beijing.
Serbia, another European destination on Xi’s latest overseas trip, saw its “comprehensive strategic partnership” deepened and formed a “community with a shared future” with China.
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They are all designations with Beijing’s elaborate network of diplomacy relationships that describe various types of partnership.
The concept of “partnership without alignment” has been solidified and practised by Beijing since the end of the Cold War. China is building a stratified network of partners, not only with sovereign countries but also with regional institutions.
Experts note that the sheer number of different names indicates that subtle naming differences could reveal the status of bilateral ties between China and each of its partners.
Starting with “strategic partnership” with Brazil in 1993 and then a “partnership of strategic coordination” with Russia in 1996, Beijing has maintained different forms of partnership relations with more than 100 countries and 10 multilateral institutions.
“Although the usage of words like comprehensive, all-weather or strategic have more symbolic value than practical application, it helps to understand how China perceives different countries in its foreign policy calculus,” said Omkar Bhole, the senior research associate at the India-based Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA).
This approach to partnerships, each with subtle yet significant differences, allows Beijing to distinguish its bilateral ties with countries according to the degree of cooperation, strategic interests and the depth of connection between top government officials, according to Bhole.
Insights from former premier
Wen noted that “comprehensive” covered a multifaceted cooperation spanning economic, technological, cultural and political fields, while those countries also worked together on multilateral levels. The comprehensive partnership also included government-to-government and people-to-people cooperation.
The term “strategic” implies that bilateral cooperation is stable, long term and holistic, transcending differences in ideology and political systems, according to Wen. Finally, “partnership” is built on the pillars of mutual benefit and mutual trust, while both sides strive for win-win cooperation.
For Bhole, “comprehensive” indicates that the strategic significance goes beyond one particular domain, as in the case of several African countries that are of broad strategic value to China and encompass resource acquisition, expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative and enhanced support at multilateral institutions.
At the same time, Bhole pointed out that the term “cooperative” suggested that cooperation was a vital part of those bilateral ties and that differences in one domain would not upset cooperation in other areas.
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Different levels of China’s bilateral ties
China has adopted a notably flexible approach to establishing global partnerships, not bound by strict or explicit conditions and standards.
Instead, the definition of a bilateral relationship lay in consultations between leaders and their mutual willingness, emphasising the flexibility and autonomy of China’s partnership approach, and it also took into account how other countries wanted the partnerships to be seen in China’s foreign policy calculus, Bhole said.
Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow in the department of Asia-Pacific studies at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) wrote last year that China had refined its labelling of partnerships, introducing a multilevel hierarchy with added descriptors.
He noted that partnership terms could have first-level attributes, such as strategic, cooperative and friendly, while second-level attributes – such as comprehensive, all-round, all-weather, new type, and innovative – could also be added.
“This positions bilateral relations in a more detailed and precise manner, and reflects the uniqueness of partnerships ‘tailor-made’ for different partners by China,” he said.
Five categories of partnerships and their significance
The inventory of China’s partnerships can be roughly divided into five categories, although the categories are not rigid, according to Xiang.
The first tier is for general partnerships, the lowest level in China’s diplomacy periphery. It includes the “friendly partnership for common development” formerly enjoyed by Jamaica and the “new-type cooperative partnership” with Finland. China-Jamaica bilateral relations were elevated to a “strategic partnership” in 2019.
The next level up includes partnerships that feature “comprehensive” or “all-round”. The two nations involved will strengthen cooperation on bilateral issues, such as economic cooperation and trade.
Beijing maintains an “all-round high-quality forward-looking partnership” with Singapore and an “open and pragmatic partnership for comprehensive cooperation” with the Netherlands.
At the third level are general strategic partnerships. When bilateral relations are upgraded to the strategic level, it means the country’s strategic value to China lies in economic and geopolitical perspectives, Bhole said.
These partnerships include the “strategic cooperative partnerships” established with India in 2005 and South Korea in 2008, and the “strategic partnerships” with Canada, Qatar and other countries.
A closer strategic partnership is indicated with the words comprehensive, global or all-round. “Comprehensive” signifies a relationship that spans a wider array of areas, covering political, economic, security, cultural and regional international affairs, Xiang said.
China maintains “comprehensive strategic cooperative relationships” with countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia. Beijing and Hanoi agreed on building a community with a shared future during Xi’s state visits to Vietnam in December.
Strategic partnerships that start with “all-weather” or “permanent” imply that the involved nations have profound political trust and extensive cooperation across various sectors, with mutual support and collaborative stances in regional and international affairs.
Bhole said “all-weather” implied the permanency of bilateral relations as China aimed to prioritise cooperation with these countries amid changing geopolitical scenarios. Bilateral ties between China and Pakistan were labelled an “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership” in 2015. China has an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” with Belarus.
According to Bhole, China followed the strategy of adding descriptors to its partnership relations before Xi took office in 2013, but it had become more important under Xi as countries were more frequently upgraded from one category to another.
“China has begun to use phrases like ‘new era’ and ‘community with shared future’ while defining China’s relations with different countries, which highlights Xi’s personal mark on China’s foreign policy,” he said.
“China’s partnership diplomacy is more of a symbolic representation of China’s perception of the significance of other countries in its global diplomacy and demonstrates potential prospects of development of bilateral relations,” Bhole said.
According to Xiang, in China’s bilateral relations with individual great powers, such as the United States and Japan, the word “partner” is missing from the designation but it does not affect the significance Beijing attaches to Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations.
What determines partnership level?
Bhole pointed out determining factors include how close – geographically and ideologically – a partner country is to China, its strategic value to Beijing, their economic interests and trade relations and, lastly, personal connections between leaders.
Specifically, China and Russia developed a unique “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination” in 2019, which experts said was the highest level of partnership that China held with any other country.
Bhole noted that Xi’s close relations with Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had resulted in China’s special partnerships with these countries.
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Occasions such as anniversaries of diplomatic relations and reaching important agreements may spark an upgrade in bilateral partnerships.
For instance, the recently elevated ties between Beijing and Budapest to the all-weather level allowed Beijing to distinguish Hungary from other European countries that had previously challenged Chinese practices and its dominance, Bhole added.
According to Chong Ja Ian, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, China’s approach to framing its bilateral relationships through partnerships and their descriptive labels is more than mere diplomatic nomenclature – it is a strategic packaging of various deliverables that is often timed with high-level visits either to or from Beijing.
He noted that Beijing seldom downgrades, even amid strained bilateral conditions, as shown in the cases of the Philippines and India.
Those nations have forged a “comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship” and a “strategic cooperative partnership” with China respectively, but in recent years have engaged in territorial disputes with Beijing that sometimes escalate to skirmishes.
Forging strategic relationships does not always guarantee smooth interactions.
Xiang from CIIS argued that Beijing’s designation of partnership only reflected the general level of development in bilateral relationships, but it was not the only criterion for distinguishing good or bad relations.
“Countries that have established partnerships also have conflicts and differences, and countries that have not established partnerships can still carry out extensive exchanges and cooperation,” he added.
