BEIJING: As war raged in the Middle East and Washington moved to curb China’s influence in Latin America, observers were watching for clues on how Beijing intends to protect its interests abroad – and manage its most consequential external relationship, that with the United States.
It was against this backdrop that China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi took the stage on March 8 for his press conference on the sidelines of the Two Sessions, the country’s annual meetings of lawmakers and political advisers.
The silver-haired 72-year-old, presiding over the annual ritual for the 12th time, has long been the public voice of China’s diplomacy, at times not above delivering sharp rebukes in defence of Beijing’s positions.
This year, however, Wang’s tone was notably more measured. On some of the world’s hottest flashpoints, he stuck largely to reiterations of broad principles rather than spelling out what Beijing might actually do.
The restraint suggested Beijing is keen to preserve maximum diplomatic room for manoeuvre as it prepares to host United States President Donald Trump later in March.
That caution was visible in Wang’s comments on Iran, where a joint US-Israeli strike killed the country’s Supreme Leader and triggered Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Gulf region.
Wang called it a war that “should not have happened” and one that “benefits no one”.
He repeated China’s call for an immediate ceasefire and outlined five principles for handling the crisis: respect for sovereignty, no abuse of force, non-interference in internal affairs, political settlement through dialogue and a constructive role by major powers.
“A strong fist does not equate to moral strength,” he said.
Yet even as the remark hinted at criticism of the power behind the strike, Mr Wang never mentioned the United States by name. Nor did he suggest what China might do beyond urging restraint and talks.
The caution was striking given China’s stakes.
The conflict has disrupted shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes. With nearly half of its crude oil imports passing through, China has a direct interest in a stable Gulf region.
Even so, Beijing appears reluctant to be drawn into an active war, mindful of how such conflicts have ensnared other powers.
America’s military presence after the first Gulf War in 1991 helped radicalise militants such as Osama bin Laden, while the 2003 invasion of Iraq left Washington mired in a protracted insurgency there.
China’s reluctance to insert itself more prominently in the Middle East situation contrasts with the diplomatic activism it displayed three years ago.
In 2023, Wang stood alongside officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia in Beijing as the two regional rivals announced a surprise agreement to restore diplomatic relations after years of hostility.
The moment was hailed as a diplomatic success for China and a sign that Beijing had the diplomatic heft to broker dialogue in the Middle East.
But that it is now hesitant to step in the fray to break up the fighting shows the limits of the depth to which China is willing to get involved.
That 2023 breakthrough now looks less like the start of a new Chinese-led order than a reminder of how fragile regional diplomacy can be once missiles start flying.
A similar caution surfaced in Mr Wang’s response on Latin America.
On March 7, the day before his press conference, Trump hosted Latin American leaders under the banner of a new “Shield of the Americas” initiative.
While the public focus was on a military-led crackdown on drug cartels, the meeting was widely interpreted as an attempt to counter China’s growing economic footprint in the region.
The initiative is part of what some commentators have dubbed the “Donroe doctrine” – a revival of the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century that treats the Western Hemisphere as a US sphere of influence except this time, instead of European powers, Washington is seeking to limit China’s strategic presence.
For Beijing, the stakes are significant.
Over the past two decades, China has become one of Latin America’s largest trading partners and a major investor in infrastructure, energy and mining, with its companies operating ports, power projects and logistics hubs across the region, including in the Panama Canal.
Yet recent events have exposed the limits of China’s influence there.
Washington’s operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro – one of Beijing’s closest partners in the region – underscored how little China can do when the US asserts power in its traditional backyard.
Asked how China would respond if the US pressed countries in the region to cut economic ties with Beijing, Wang did not take the bait.
Instead, he said 21st-century international politics should not replay “the old dramas of the 19th century”. Latin American countries, he added, should decide for themselves what road to take and whom to cooperate with.
Taken together, the replies suggested a temporary and tactical return to an older diplomatic instinct of taoguang yanghui.
The phrase, commonly translated as “hide your strength and bide your time”, has its origins in former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s advice that China should keep a low international profile while focusing on domestic development.
China’s diplomacy in recent years has looked more assertive, buoyed by a narrative that “the East is rising while the West is declining”.
But Wang’s measured responses hinted at the return of a more restrained posture.
Beijing is unlikely to return fully to the days when it simply turned the other cheek when its interests were challenged.
But it may see value in occasionally holding its tongue, especially when it wants to keep Trump engaged ahead of his planned visit to Beijing.
Wang has described leaders’ diplomacy as the “guiding star” of bilateral ties. If Mr Trump were to promise a reprieve on tariffs, ease technology restriction or signal opposition to Taiwan independence, Beijing would likely see it as a win.
Restraint, in this sense, is not only defensive, but also strategic.
Some Chinese analysts have quietly noted that a US distracted by crises in Iran, Venezuela and even Greenland could give China something valuable: time.
Time to shore up growth, strengthen technology capabilities and continue military modernisation before Washington can put its full weight on countering Beijing.
Such a “strategic opportunity period” has happened before. At the end of the 1990s, the US had begun paying closer strategic attention to China. Then the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 redirected American focus to the Middle East for nearly two decades, giving China space to join the World Trade Organization and accelerate its economic growth.
Whether today’s turbulence produces a similar diversion remains to be seen.
But if Wang’s press conference offered one subtle signal, it was that Beijing is in no hurry to be drawn into every contest now confronting it.
That also reinforces the image China increasingly likes to project: that of a different kind of major power.
Where Washington often speaks the language of alliances and blocs, Beijing prefers to frame global politics in terms of multipolarity, sovereign equality and the right of states to choose their own partners.
Asked whether China would accept a “G-2” arrangement with the US – in which the two most powerful countries in the world jointly manage global issues – Wang said that China does not “subscribe to the logic of major power co-governance”.
In what appeared to be a veiled jab at a recent US move to set up a Board of Peace – a new advisory body chaired by Trump to mediate global conflicts – he warned against circumventing the United Nations with alternative mechanisms.
At this moment when China opts for caution over confrontation, presenting itself as a defender of the existing international order and a champion of multipolarity works to its advantage – for now.
In a world of multiplying crises, strategic patience can itself be a strategy. - The Straits Times/ANN
