Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario: Enter the Dragon, Softly

Chinese tractors, equipment and workers cutting across the vast expanse of Central Asia’s Tienshan mountain range are opening a path to connect the Uzbek capital of Tashkent and Tajikistan’s Khujand by road and rail to China’s Xinjiang province.

Deep into the night, Chinese laborers work in nearly total darkness to construct the road and railway along what was the route of Marco Polo’s journey into Asia from Europe and will be the new Silk Road project connecting China to Europe.

On the other side of Asia, plans are underway to construct a railway between Yunnan and Singapore that would integrate Southeast Asia by linking Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam with a high-speed rail network that would rival that of Europe. Known as the China-ASEAN Railway, it would, once completed, grant China direct access to the Indian Ocean.

To further control Indian Ocean sea-lanes for the import of oil from Africa and the Middle East, China recently completed the Hambantoto Port in Sri Lanka. The port is a key link in China’s “string of pearls” designed to secure supply routes and open regional markets for Chinese goods, services and labor.

Taken together, the projects highlight China’s changing relations with the world driven less by military and ideological concerns and more by business

Nowhere is that shift more evident than in Southeast Asia going back to the 1970s when Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “reform and opening” reversed Beijing’s ideological support for Third World unity and national liberation in favor of pragmatic relationships that favored trade, aid and investment. By the 1990s, China normalized relationships with Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, and deepened its economic relationships with just about every country in Southeast Asia.

The results are palpable: a new stadium-cum-tennis court stands at the center of Vientiane, the capital of Laos; Cambodia enjoys a rehabilitated building for its members of Parliament; and Philippine agriculture benefits from technical know-how developed in Chinese model farms.

China’s 2008 financial crisis sparked doubts about the reliability of the United States as a major buyer of Chinese goods and prompted it to see the emerging markets as more reliable investment targets, markets and partners. It was a shift that signaled a realignment of the tectonic plates in global trading and aid relationships.

Capital is however only one of an array of tools in the Chinese arsenal of what Harvard scholar Joseph Nye calls “soft power.”

Soft power, Mr. Nye says, requires more than just “persuasion or the ability to move people by argument.” It involves “getting others to want the outcomes that you want” and makes the use of force or inducements superfluous. China watcher Joshua Kurlantzick calls this China’s “charm offensive.”

It is a global courtship that extends beyond economics.

Examples abound. Chinese medical personnel are deployed in Yemen racked by months of anti-government protests that have brought the country to the brink of anarchy. Egyptian and Saudi students who once headed exclusively to the West now also pursue their studies at Chinese universities. Funding of a China program at Cairo University attracts increasing numbers of Egyptian students curious about links between their ancient civilizations.

Ultimately, however, China’s charm offensive will be unable to mask the cold economic and political calculations that underlie it. Increasingly, China’s partners will seek reassurances that its economic practices stand up to the scrutiny of an international order that looks at transparency and accountability rather than material gain only.

With mass protests in the Middle East and North Africa demanding an end to corruption, Chinese investments will have to prove that they do not reinforce the very practice demonstrators want to see eradicated.

Chinese bids for infrastructure projects will have to prove further that their emphasis of Chinese labor and technology does not preempt the development of local capacity and create isolated Chinese enclaves.

China can head off problems by working with the international community to rewrite and enforce rules for a global framework that is premised on the pursuit of prosperity and social equity -- the very values China says it propagates.

(Teresita Cruz-del Rosario is Visiting Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She was formerly Assistant Minister during the transition government of President Corazon Aquino. She has a background in sociology and social anthropology and specializes in development and development assistance, migration, governance, and social movements. She can be reached at [email protected])