FOREIGN POLICY
Key Takeaways
- The PRC’s foreign policy seeks to build a “community of common destiny” that supports its strategy to realize “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The PRC’s ambition to reshape the international order derives from the objectives of its national strategy and the Party’s political and governing systems.
- In 2022, the PRC employed multiple diplomatic tools in an attempt to erode U.S. and partner influence and sought to cultivate international support against intensifying U.S.-backed security partnerships such as the Quad and AUKUS.
- Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022 represented a major, unexpected challenge for the PRC as it sought to react to the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. Beijing has increasingly sought to balance its strategic partnership with Russia while avoiding the reputational or economic costs that would result from providing non-deniable material offensive or “lethal” assistance to Russia.
- Beijing probably has taken a discreet, flexible, and cautious approach to providing material support to Russia to enable the PRC to maintain plausible deniability, control material transfers, create off-ramps to renege on agreements, and maximize the PRC’s options to aid Russia.
The PRC has increasingly sought to use its growing diplomatic clout to promote a more prominent, global leadership role for Beijing in international affairs. China continued to advance a new diplomatic framework that it terms “Major Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics,” based on the foreign policy direction determined by the CCP Central Committee and reaffirmed at the 20th Party Congress. This framework seeks to advance the PRC’s strategy of national rejuvenation by achieving the CCP’s two centenary goals, improving the coordination of China’s major domestic and international policies, reforming aspects of the international order, adhering to the CCP Central Committee’s direction, and defending the PRC’s major interests. At the same time, PRC leaders are increasingly aware that the PRC foreign security environment is becoming more unstable and dangerous, especially in the wake of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, which could disrupt the PRC’s foreign policy objectives.
The CCP’s theory of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” underpins the conduct of the PRC’s foreign affairs. Since Xi assumed power at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, the CCP Central Committee has placed greater emphasis on the PRC’s foreign policy advancing “the cause of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” Yang Jiechi, a former top Party official for the PRC’s foreign policy, has claimed that adherence to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is “showing extremely bright prospects” and “reached a new historical starting point.”
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
