International aid can combat Chinese imperialism
China's modern empire is growing at an ever more alarming pace. To impede Chinese predation, the West must invest in international development and economic cooperation with developing nations.
In the last few weeks, China has brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that has effectively ended eight years of hostility between the two states and restored diplomatic relations.
While undeniably a win for peace in the region, it underlines a concerning shift in the international arena — the West was a non-player. This is no coincidence. It’s a direct result of the West’s rapidly declining interest in the developing world which has created a power vacuum that is all too gleefully filled by China.
Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat until 2022, stated in 2018 that “building a community of common destiny for mankind is the overall goal of China’s foreign affairs work in the new era.”
This idea of a common destiny is consistent with the longstanding Chinese idea that China is the world's Zhongguo - roughly translated as Middle Kingdom. According to this idea, Beijing lies at the centre of the world, culturally, politically, and socially, and China’s international strategy demonstrates a commitment to this idea by forging a common destiny.
This Zhongguo mindset has precipitated China’s methodical expansion into the developing world. However, this “common destiny” is not forged out of altruism but out of a desire to expand their power and control. And these moves come at the expense of the US dollar and with it, the ability of the developing world to say no to Chinese demands.
China uses projects like the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, and the debt financing contracts that come with it, to exert political pressure on developing nations. In recent years this initiative has been used to deploy “debt traps” in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, and Kenya fostering dependence on Chinese favours, currency, and goods. Beijing then uses this dependence to exert pressure on the indebted governments to help achieve their policy objectives.
In January 2022, Nicaragua joined the Belt and Road on the condition they sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Similarly, in 2019 Turkey was forced to roll back its condemnation of the Chinese genocide of the Uyghur Muslims after China's ambassador warned that such criticism would jeopardize economic relations between the two countries.
In President Xi's own words, the ultimate goal of Chinese foreign policy is to "facilitate a favourable external environment for realising the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation", and they are willing to leverage their development funding in the developing world to achieve that. In response, the West needs to step in to protect those vulnerable to the CCP's predations and provide serious alternative options for investment and development.
To achieve this, it is essential that the UK serve as a model for its allies. The UK must immediately reinstate its 0.7% of Gross National Income Overseas Development Aid commitment and work toward raising that threshold in the future.
In President Xi's own words, the ultimate goal of Chinese foreign policy is to "facilitate a favourable external environment for realising the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation", and they are willing to leverage their development funding in the developing world to achieve that. In response, the West needs to step in to protect those vulnerable to the CCP's predations and provide serious alternative options for investment and development.
To achieve this, it is essential that the UK serve as a model for its allies. The UK must immediately reinstate its 0.7% of Gross National Income Overseas Development Aid commitment and work toward raising that threshold in the future.
There must also be an assurance that Overseas Development Aid spending will happen abroad on projects that stimulate inclusive economic growth, like the Africa Technology and Innovation Partnerships, or that strengthen governments in order to withstand the temptation of Chinese debt traps, rather than in the UK on housing refugees, as has come to light in recent days.
Stable, affluent states are best positioned to resist Chinese imperialism. Funding international development with the long-term ambition to eradicate global poverty is entirely justifiable in its own right, but when China is using international development as a tool to exert geopolitical pressure, it becomes even more prudent.
The 'Cold War' with China has already begun, and the West is losing. China has positioned itself as the developing world’s angel investor when the reality is more akin to a hostile takeover.
The only way to combat China's expansionism is to properly resource the UK's capacity for international development spending, encouraging the rest of the West to do the same and ensuring that China does not have a free pass to trap the developing world in its sphere of control.
British foreign policy should prioritise the stability and inclusive growth of developing states, and use Overseas Development Aid as the tool through which to achieve that.
The West will, over the next century, come to regret its lack of enthusiasm for international development, as its global influence is rapidly eaten up by a maleficent Chinese state that has trapped the developing world in lockstep, in pursuit of a Sino-centric common destiny that facilitates the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.
Noah Khogali is a Conservative Councillor in Perth and Kinross; and writes with Young Voices UK.
