Unanswered questions about China’s rise — peaceful or otherwise — continued to grab headlines throughout 2016. After decades of cooperation, it was clear that the relations between the world’s largest and second largest economies, the U.S., and China were souring.
The question was how far had they gone downhill or were likely to do so once President-elect Donald Trump entered the Oval Office? In 2016, the China-India relationship, in some way, became a subset of the shifting ties between China and the U.S.—with both countries seeking a definite, but elusive, Indian ‘pivot’ in their direction. The optimism generated by the two famous visits—President Xi Jinping’s journey to India in 2014 and its quick reciprocal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi less than a year later, had significantly abated in 2016.
China’s refusal to isolate Pakistan — in fact its insistence, on the contrary, to deepen its engagement with Islamabad — has collided head on with India’s approach to counter Pakistan as a global sponsor of terrorism. In fact, the divergent approach towards Pakistan by the two neighbouring countries has emerged as a standout contradiction in Sino-Indian ties in 2016.
“There is a complete communication meltdown here. China wants to engage both India and Pakistan, not one versus the other. This is necessary for the success of our Belt and Road Initiative,” says a Chinese diplomat, who did not wish to be named.
It is China’s bid to impart stability to Pakistan through economic largesse and political support that is the common thread explaining its position on three controversial issues — sponsorship of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, preventing the imposition of a UN ban on Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, and refusal to admit India alone in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Domestic focus
Despite the media focus on big-picture geopolitics, or the impact of an economic slowdown in China on the global economy, the real story in Beijing in 2016 was clearly domestic, not international.
Specifically it was about the elevation of President Xi Jinping as the “core leader” and a thorough and systematic revamp of the Communist Party of China (CPC), woven around him.
“The core leader was a term coined by Deng Xiaoping to ensure that the Party was fully behind Jiang Zemin, when he became CPC General Secretary in 1989. It was also a period of great transition when China’s ageing leadership was giving way to the new,” says Roger Wu, a Beijing-based analyst.
It is tempting to read President Xi’s “core leader” anointment in the image of Mao Zedong or Deng, as China’s return to authoritarianism. But many analysts see the elevation of President Xi as a unifying figure to consolidate the CPC, which has been shell-shocked by a relentless anti-corruption campaign carried out throughout 2016. Even the powerful military has not been spared in this exercise.
The reaffirmation of an overhauled Chinese political system, ideologically rooted in its “red genes”, to guide Beijing’s ongoing transition under the CPC was the essential message that resonated strongly from Beijing in 2016.
