Valdai Club

There’s no question that the US, rather than China, is a leading revisionist power today, because the Washington establishment of both political parties is trapped in another wave of panic: the morbid fear of a US decline. Americans are always obsessed with declinism. Declinism is a business that never declines, writes Valdai Club expert Xiang Lanxin.

Beijing must be prepared for the demise of the original framework of engaging Washington, and the volatility of the relationship that follows. It should consider a return to Deng Xiaoping’s original admonition to curb its global ambitions, and re-evaluate the entire Belt and Road Initiative, writes Valdai Club expert Xiang Lanxin.

For a long time, Western commentators did not take the close relationship between Russia and China seriously, because conventional wisdom held that the foundation of this link is fragile. Russia has its “Eurasian complex,” which is considered ephemeral and opportunistic.

If Germany and France decide to take part in the BRI, the picture will become entirely different. These two countries could deliver things that the BRI badly needs. On the one hand, China’s official argument for the BRI is to promote global economic and social connectivity. A project like this would help maintain the importance of multilateral institutions in the world

The emergence of China and India as key international players will make a shift in the international system towards multipolarity, believes Xiang Lanxin, Professor of the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. In an interview with valdaiclub.com on the margins of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok he outlined his vision of the world to come.

Chinese leaders seem to have been wondering whether the Trump Administration is a first-order threat to Beijing, the answer is now becoming quite clear. Once convinced of living in a zero-sum world, one’s strategic choices are becoming simpler, and they are now hardly disposed to make concessions on substantial issues to Washington, such as the Korea nuclear issue.

Beijing cannot continue dealing with the “inside-beltway” foreign policy establishment, whose utter failure in engaging China in the past eight years has pushed the bilateral US-China ties to the dangerous brink of naval confrontation. Now the Washington foreign policy establishment has been dealt a big blow by Trump’s election, we may wait and see that the new administration may actually turn out to be an effective team for engaging China.