Is China closing its doors? Its leaders say no, but actions speak louder than words – and more clarity is needed

An otherwise run-of-the-mill academic article on imperial isolationist policy commissioned by a state-affiliated institution has sparked fierce debate
It shows the unease being felt at home and abroad over the once-unthinkable: that China’s open-door policy of more than 40 years is now in question

Wang Xiangwei

Published: 9:00am, 10 Sep 2022

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Will China open up more to the wider world, as its leaders have repeated tirelessly in public, or is it about to close its doors, as many have privately feared, because of uncertainties at home and abroad?

These two seemingly contradicting questions have been simmering for nearly three years now, as China has largely isolated itself from the outside world through its tough zero-Covid policies and as tensions with the United States have escalated dramatically.

They matter even more now as China’s Communist Party enters the final stretch of preparations for its 20th congress next month, where Xi Jinping is widely expected to cement his status as the country’s most powerful leader in recent decades by securing a norm-busting third term as party chief.

People walk past a screen showing Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing. Xi is expected to cement his status as paramount leader at next month’s party congress. Photo: AFP

All this helps explain why a recent academic article on the country’s past closed-door policies has caused such a stir in China and overseas, as it brings into the open concerns about Beijing’s broad policy direction.

The article, whose title can be roughly translated as “A Fresh Look at the Isolationist Policy in the Ming and Qing Dynasties”, argues that China’s feudal rulers from the 16th to the 19th centuries did not pursue a policy of complete isolation, as is widely believed, but one of “self-restriction” designed to protect the country’s national interests and sovereignty, and ward off Western invasion and colonisation.

It concluded that voluntary restrictions on border openings made historical sense, even though those policies contributed to China’s decline because its rulers refused to accept advanced Western technology and weaponry.

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The 15,000-word article was first published in an obscure journal called “Historical Research” in June and would have likely remained only of interest to a small circle of academics, had it not been shared on social media by the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of History, which commissioned the article.

Since then, it has gone viral, sparking an intense online debate over not only what the article really means to say, but also China’s commitment to reform and opening up.

For many critics, the article is a brazen revisionist attempt to upend the prevailing official narrative that the feudal rulers of the Ming and Qing dynasties had deliberately pursued closed-door policies, which were responsible for China’s waning status and resulted in it being forced to open up by way of the opium wars and their aftermath.

Some went even further by suggesting that the publication of the article was a sign that the Chinese authorities planned to use historical revisionism to signal that they may have had second thoughts about China’s open-door policy at a time when the party has strengthened authoritarian controls at all levels of society and is faced with a hostile international environment that’s unprecedented in recent times.

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Proponents of this theory point to the Chinese Academy of History’s status as a high-level institute formed in 2019 with the top leadership’s blessing.

They argue that China’s extreme zero-Covid policy, which has largely closed the country off from the rest of the world for approaching three years now, could be viewed as an experiment to test the resilience of the Chinese economy.

But other commentators have dismissed those criticisms and worries as people making mountains out of molehills and argued that the article was merely an academic exercise in studying the country’s past.

This author tends to agree with the latter view. In fact, the article in question is well researched and well balanced, succinctly and convincingly articulating the reasons behind and highlighting the failures of those feudal policies. But the worrying sentiment emanating from the debate should not be dismissed out of hand.

Deng Xiaoping adopted China’s policy of reform and opening up more than 40 years ago. Photo: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

As tensions rise, China pivots inwards

The fact that this academic article could elicit such strong reactions at home and abroad is truly remarkable, providing serious food for thought.

Until recently, it was almost unthinkable that China’s open-door policy, adopted by Deng Xiaoping more than 40 years ago, could be called into question. After all, the policy of reform and opening up paved the way for China’s economic lift-off. Now the country has the world’s second-largest economy and is the largest goods-trading nation.

China’s top leaders including Xi and Premier Li Keqiang have repeatedly offered reassurances that the country will not close its doors. They have in fact said it will open up wider to the outside world.

But in recent years, their vows have been met with increasing scepticism. Xi has constantly stressed self-reliance and self-sufficiency when it comes to economic and technological development, while pushing for a dual circulation economy which would rely less on foreign technology and consumption.

China’s inward economic shift has come amid rising geopolitical and trade tensions with the US, which has started to impose restrictions on exports of critical components including semiconductors.

The inward pivot is also accompanied by an array of domestic policies, including the common prosperity campaign and regulatory crackdowns on sectors from technology to private education, mainly targeted at non-state enterprises.

Moreover, China’s tight zero-Covid policies have reduced interactions with the international community to a bare minimum.

All these developments have helped conjure up a frightening perception that China is retreating into isolation.

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China’s top leaders are under growing pressure to counter this perception. On Wednesday, Li Zhanshu, China’s third-ranked leader, visited Russia, becoming the country’s most senior official to travel abroad since the earliest days of the pandemic. Xi is reportedly set to attend the G20 leaders summit in Bali in November.

Meanwhile, the party congress, which is scheduled to begin on October 16, is expected to hear a policy address from Xi that will outline China’s priorities for the next five years or even longer.

Unless China’s leaders provide much-needed clarity and match their promises with concrete actions, unease and worry emanating from the debate on past isolationist policies will continue unabated.