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Asian Angle | How China uses party diplomacy to win influence in Southeast Asia
- The Communist Party’s outreach to regional political parties, regardless of their ideology, underscores the pragmatism – and power – in its approach
- Party diplomacy helps China promote both its model of governance and economic agenda – and rally support against criticism from the West
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Ideology’s return to China’s domestic politics – and the Communist Party’s increasing confidence in its own political model – has drawn into sharper focus how Beijing conducts its outreach abroad.
Party-to-party exchanges have featured prominently, especially in Beijing’s approach to Southeast Asia given the critical role that the region plays in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy.
Since President Xi Jinping assumed power, the Communist Party has engaged in high-level conferences, summits, seminars, forums, and training sessions with political parties across the region.
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Party diplomacy is considered indispensable to the Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics plan that Xi introduced.
The growing prominence of China’s party diplomacy in Southeast Asia begs the question of whether it is driven by ideological zeal – harking back to the country’s export of communist revolutionary ideology in the 1950s-1970s – or pragmatism.
China’s external affairs are managed by its foreign ministry, but the party’s International Liaison Department also has a part to play due to the blurred lines between party and state under the country’s one-party system.
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