Courting China Again

The procession of Western leaders flocking to Beijing in recent weeks has been impressive. Last month, Mark Carney went, the first Canadian leader to visit in almost a decade. He signed a strategic partnership with a country that has imprisoned Canadian nationals and was accused of meddling in Canada’s elections.

Next up was Keir Starmer, reversing years of frosty relations in the first visit by a British leader since 2018. This week, it’s the German chancellor’s turn. More than a million German jobs depend on exports to China.

Not so long ago, Western countries talked about diversifying away from China. Now the opposite is happening. I called my colleague David Pierson, who covers China, to understand why.

No longer distancing from China

David, Western leaders have always flocked to China with their C.E.O.s. What’s different about the current stream of visitors?

It’s the context, right? You’ve seen tensions grow between the United States and Europe. Not long ago, Western leaders were looking for ways to “de-risk,” or distance themselves from China to reduce their countries’ reliance on its supply chains and market. Now, they are moving back toward China again — because they’re de-risking from a more unreliable United States.

But how reliable a partner is China? There’s a reason people wanted to diversify away from China, right?

That’s the thing. As I wrote recently, China hasn’t changed. It still threatens to close its markets to imports or restrict the sale of valuable exports like critical minerals when it’s unhappy with another country. And China has done nothing to pull back its economic and diplomatic support for Russia and its war in Ukraine despite all the protestations from Europe.

The bottom line is, China doesn’t actually need to offer incentives to these Western leaders. It’s just an alternative to the U.S. at a time when countries are scrambling to rebalance.

What leverage do Western countries have left on things they care about? Like China dumping huge amounts of products on global markets?

Honestly, not a lot. Britain and Canada do not export many valuable things to China. They just don’t have the same leverage that they used to over China. Germany is in a very, very tough spot. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is going over there to preserve the business that still exists for German companies, but the reality is, there is very little he can do to slow Chinese firms from replacing German ones in the global market

Meanwhile, China has shown that it can go toe to toe with the most powerful country in the world. President Trump took the fight to China, and President Xi Jinping stood up to him and turned it around by using its trump card (no pun intended!): its monopoly over the supply and processing of rare earth minerals that are used in everything from computer chips and batteries to wind turbines and missiles. So China is emboldened on the world stage. Say what you will about Xi Jinping, he never underestimates his leverage. Many analysts think that he’s played this quite well.

So China looks strong. But China also has a lot of problems at home. How do these two things interact?

It’s a split screen. On foreign policy, China is in a pretty solid position. But domestically, they’re on very shaky ground. They’ve been dealing with a very sluggish economy, because of a collapsing property market. And there’s just no easy way out of it. And it’s having repercussions for the rest of the world, because the only thing that’s working for China right now economically is exports. They’re making all this stuff, but they don’t have enough money at home to buy it, and so they’re just dumping it on the rest the world.

The other thing is that they’ve had this far-reaching purge in the military hierarchy. All these generals have just been kicked out, and it’s unclear what this means for China’s ability to go to war. Is its ability to take Taiwan delayed by years — or somehow accelerated by getting rid of corrupt generals? It’s just so difficult to look into elite Chinese politics, and so we’re just kind of left guessing what that means.

Where does all this lead? Are these deals with China the beginning of a longer-term shift away from U.S. dominance?

Short-term, it’s more symbolic than real because, if you actually look at the meetings, there’s not that much substance. Britain allowing China to open an embassy in London? Not exactly a big deal. I mean, you could argue that there’s a security risk, but Britain’s own security service said it can be managed. On Canada, yes, they lowered the tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, but there’s still a quota, and it’s a tiny quota.

The symbolism alone is of course a huge win for China. They can turn around to their people and say: “Look, we’re doing great. You get all these countries coming and paying their respects to us.” This helps to paper over domestic problems.

Long-term, it’s harder to say. One thing is clear: We’ve seen an erosion of American legitimacy in the last year. Everyone now has doubts about America as a reliable partner. You’ve seen how things just turn on a dime, depending on who enters the White House now.

Whether China can fill that vacuum in bigger ways is impossible to know. They’re trying very hard, but it’s unclear if they’re doing it for anything other than their own interests.

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