Xi Jinping has dramatically reshaped China since coming to power in 2012. He is now effectively a leader for life, and throughout his time in power, he has molded Chinese politics and society to his own ideological predilections. Understanding this ideology, known as "Xi Thought," is crucial for comprehending how China perceives its role in the world today.
Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London and co-author with Olivia Cheung of the new book The Political Thought of Xi Jinping provides a thorough analysis of the development and application of Xi's political ideology and its impact on China domestically and in its international relations.
We begin by discussing why understanding Xi Thought matters for comprehending China today. We then explore some of the key tenets of this ideology before engaging in a detailed conversation about an ancient Chinese imperialist ideology that Xi is reviving for the modern world.
The episode is freely available across all podcast listening platforms.
The full transcript is available immediately behind the paywall for paying subscribers. Excerpt below.
Mark Leon Goldberg: In foreign policy, you identify “Tianxia,” an ancient Chinese concept, as the ideology underpinning Xi’s approach to international relations. What is that?
Steve Tsang: It consists of two Chinese characters — sky and below. So, it is essentially all under the sky or all under heaven, literally the whole world. Now, the idea of Tianxia that Xi Jinping preaches is not completely in line with what historians studying China’s relations with its neighbors in its imperial heydays would understand. In the real history, China behaved like a real empire, similar as to what, for example, the Roman Empire at its heydays would behave. But in Xi Jinping’s reconstruction, when China was at its heyday, China would have been the most magnificent, technologically advanced, logistically capable, militarily strong state in the world — and it would be the most magnanimous state as well.
So, all its neighbors would be inspired by the model of China and excellence of China and want to imitate China — and certainly defer to China. And because they will all do so, then a kind of Pax Sinica, Chinese peace, would prevail and China would therefore not need to use force but be the global leader in the most magnanimous way.
Now, this is the theory and this is what he would like the world to be like. And he will see himself, the communist party and his ideology as forces for good, and he would certainly make sure that people in China will all benefit from that, and he’s happy to share that with the rest of the world.
Mark Leon Goldberg: It’s like an ideology of benevolent imperialism.
Steve Tsang: Yes. But let’s not forget in the heydays of the British Empire under Queen Victoria, the British thought the same.
Mark Leon Goldberg: Right.
Steve Tsang: So did the Romans and the Persians, and many other great empires in human history.
Mark Leon Goldberg: How does the ideology of Tianxia interact or seek to explain existence of the so-called rules-based international order? How might they interact? Because at least today, we’re not seeing explicit efforts by a rising China to object to the Western system, to object to the United Nations. Rather they’re working within that system. So, what do we need to know about the relationship between Tianxia and the kind of world order as it exists today?
Steve Tsang: The rule-based international order that we talk about in the West is what effectively the liberal international order put in place at the end of the Second World War. Now, again, history would say that China was a key player in the founding of the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference of 1945. And indeed, even the Communist Party of China was represented in the Chinese delegation. But the Chinese government under Xi Jinping these days will forget about that history and simply say that the liberal international order was imposed by the West for the West, and is there to serve the West, taking benefits of the post-war situation.
And it is fundamentally undemocratic because it looks after the interests of the minority of the so-called Democratic West, whereas the numerically much greater global South are underrepresented at the international order, including the United Nations. But China upholds the international order and it merely wants to work with its natural friends and partners in the global south because Xi Jinping says China is and will be forever a part of the global South, therefore its natural leader.
And with the support of the global south, China will then transform the way the United Nations and its agencies, and other international organizations, operate to make sure that the interests of the global south are properly recognized and represented. And he will say he caused a “democratization” of the international system. So, it is transformation from within, turning the liberal international order eventually into a Sino-centric Tianxia order.
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