In recent years, although China has vigorously promoted the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind and global governance, it has become increasingly unforgiving toward countries it believes have offended it. The latest example is Beijing’s announcement last month that it would prohibit exports of dual-use items to 10 U.S. companies, in retaliation for Washington’s inclusion of several leading Chinese companies on its newly expanded list of military-linked enterprises.
In the past, the core task of Chinese diplomacy was to secure external space for domestic development. Today, Chinese diplomacy seeks to use the strength accumulated at home to transform the country’s external environment.
In recent years, although China has vigorously promoted the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind and global governance, it has become increasingly unforgiving toward countries it believes have offended it. The latest example is Beijing’s announcement last month that it would prohibit exports of dual-use items to 10 U.S. companies, in retaliation for Washington’s inclusion of several leading Chinese companies on its newly expanded list of military-linked enterprises.
In the past, the core task of Chinese diplomacy was to secure external space for domestic development. Today, Chinese diplomacy seeks to use the strength accumulated at home to transform the country’s external environment.
A key part of this is the sanctions and countersanctions cycle between China and the United States that increasingly defines the relationship. Until the last couple of years, when Beijing believed that countries—mostly Western powers—infringed on its interests, its usual response was to issue strong protests, lodge solemn representations, and reserve the right to take further measures.
But actual countermeasures were rare, thanks largely to its lack of options. Out of fear of damaging bilateral relations, Beijing was generally reluctant to use force or pressure. It preferred to weather the blows and wait out problems.
Of late, though, China has been more willing to bare its fangs. It no longer limits itself to verbal protests without taking action. This has been especially true toward the United States: If you sanction my companies, I sanction yours; if you restrict my access to technology, I restrict your access to rare earths.
Beijing can easily reconcile this with what it sees as its moral high ground in international relations. In its own rhetorical phrasing, China does not proactively stir up trouble, but it will never passively take a beating; it seeks to stop war through struggle.
In recent years, China’s responses to the United States have included diplomatic countermeasures and export controls; the Unreliable Entity List and controls on critical minerals; and sanctions on defense contractors as well as on U.S. members of Congress, think tanks, and related institutions. The scope of sanctions and restrictions the United States has faced from China is unprecedented.
Beijing has also acted with increasing decisiveness toward smaller powers. Take Japan. Since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested last November that Japan might come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an invasion, Beijing has viewed Japan as having offended China’s core interests. It first lodged diplomatic protests and then imposed travel restrictions. After Takaichi refused to retract her remarks or apologize, Beijing continued to escalate its countermeasures. It has imposed nearly comprehensive sanctions, frozen official exchanges with Japan, and shown no regard for diplomatic niceties.
This change in Chinese diplomacy is, first of all, rooted in the growth of China’s strength. China used to say, “We will not attack unless we are attacked; if we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack.” But when it really came to “counterattacking,” China lacked sufficient tools and therefore could not do much.
Today is different. China has the world’s second-largest economy; the supply chain position of a global manufacturing center; control over key resources and materials such as rare earths; industrial advantages in electric vehicles, photovoltaics, batteries, drones, ports, and telecommunications equipment; and legal tools such as the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, the Export Control Law, and the Unreliable Entity List.
In Beijing’s view, the global balance of power is shifting. The international order led by the United States is not as stable as before. The West can no longer unilaterally determine the rules of international politics, and China is no longer merely a passive recipient of those rules. China’s rise itself is part of this transformation. Since the times and the balance of power have changed, there is no longer any need to deal with external pressure through low-profile, endurance-based diplomacy.
Beijing sees containment by the outside world, especially by the United States and its allies, as often not a one-off act. If China does not respond to one round of sanctions, the other side will conclude that sanctioning China carries no cost and that Beijing remains afraid of conflict and of paying a price. The next test will then go one step further. Making sure the other side feels pain is thus vital to prevent others from taking advantage.
Yet China retains some strength of perspective. Toward opponents in the global south that are clearly weaker than China but still want to challenge it, Beijing’s retaliation also contains a certain degree of restraint rather than seeking to crush them.
Look at Panama. Over the issue of operating rights at the ports on both ends of the Panama Canal, where Panama’s government has taken measures to expel Chinese companies, Beijing has not adopted military measures or a diplomatic rupture. Instead, it has expressed dissatisfaction through port inspections, ship detentions, and economic and trade pressure. Pressure is kept within limits.
This diplomacy has changed the outside world’s expectations of China. But it also carries risks. The more frequently China uses tools of retaliation, the more the other side will seek alternatives. The more effective controls on rare earths become, the more the United States, Japan, and Europe will accelerate efforts to build supply chains independent of China. The more often market access is closed off, the more multinational corporations will consider diversifying risk. The greater the gray-zone pressure at sea, the more willing Southeast Asian countries may be to accept an expanded U.S. security presence. Realism can create deterrence, but it can also create counterdeterrence. China must find the right balance in making the other side feel pain without causing it to become more resolute in its opposition to China.
If China simply grows tougher in its attitudes, that’s normal for a newly minted great power. If it can maintain restraint within toughness, leave room for maneuver in retaliation, and avoid losing control amid struggle, then it will have achieved genuinely mature great-power realism. Force is not difficult. What is difficult is a strategic and restrained realism: Making retaliation serve strategy, rather than allowing strategy to serve retaliation.