China's Asian Dream

Book Review: China’s Asian Dream. By Tom Miller. Zed Books, 2017. 256 pages. $21.16 (kindle, amazon.com)

Four years ago, at a talk at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that China would fund a New Silk Road Economic Belt (usually referred to as OBOR) across Eurasia to connect China with Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Media estimates investment in OBOR anywhere in between $800 billion and $1 trillion, covering 890 projects in over 60 partner countries — a truly monumental initiative. Several commentators have made parallels between OBOR and the U.S – sponsored Marshall Plan that aided in the reconstruction of postwar Europe. Indeed, as Tom Miller points out in his book China’s Asian Dream, it is the President’s signature issue, for which he would like to be remembered.

Xi’s OBOR initiative serves a dual purpose. Domestically, he hopes that better transport links will promote growth in underdeveloped central and western regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu Province, Ningxia, Guangxi and Yunnan Province. That would not only boost overall GDP, but also reduce regional economic inequality, and thus migration into the coastal areas, a trend that may contribute to social tension. An economic boom in Xinjiang is also seen as the best way to combat the rise of Islamic extremism in the region.

From a foreign policy perspective, the most immediate goal of the OBOR initiative is to boost China’s influence in Central Asia, a resource-rich region that no longer falls into Moscow’s orbit. As a growing number of countries become dependent on Chinese transport and energy infrastructure, stronger economic ties will make it increasingly costly for Central Asian governments to oppose China. Miller’s book analyzes not only initiatives in Central Asia, but in China’s entire neighborhood, asking whether China will succeed in becoming a regional hegemon. The author is skeptical when it comes to Beijing’s ambitions, pointing to resistance in many countries, including Myanmar and Vietnam. “Nobody wants to become a Chinese vassal”, he argues.

Yet Miller also recognizes that China’s financial firepower will allow it to make new friends, using a multitude of new institutions — such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS-led New Development and the China Exim Bank, which disburses around U$150 billion per year, the equivalent of Bangladesh’s entire GDP. Perhaps most impressive, this amounts to more than the world’s seven major multilateral development banks combined. This raises an interesting point: China’s initiatives such as the AIIB may be a multilateral façade, while most of Beijing’s money is spent and negotiated bilaterally. That is particularly relevant given that most International Relations scholars focus on multilateral institutions, while development banks are less frequently studied, even though their importance — as seen in the case of China — is far greater. For example, it is through the Exim Bank that China lends more money to Latin America today than all other development banks combined, providing it with tremendous political influence.

Miller’s analysis is balanced — no easy task when it comes to such a polarizing phenomenon — and he succeeds in steering clear of the anti-China bias so prevalent among many Western analysts. Granted, some parts of the analysis have a somewhat sensationalistic feel to it and suggest China’s plans are dangerous. The author speaks of an “infrastructure arms race”, a term may be misunderstood, given that roads and dams, in principle, benefit local populations — in the same way that the United States poured millions of dollars into Western Europe after World War II to integrate Germany and others into the Western alliance system. In that sense, a more detailed comparison between China’s plans and those of other hegemons in the past would have helped contextualize Beijing’s regional spending frenzy.

The author goes out of his way to show the inconsistencies between Chinese rhetoric — such as the famous concept of “win-win”, which Miller rightly questions. Yet government rhetoric is by definition an attempt to create a benign narrative that seeks to iron out contradictions, rather than an adequate and objective description of its strategy. Not only Chinese, but also US-American, German, Mexican or South African official rhetoric is full of inconsistencies, yet that does not necessarily mean they do not help achieve policy makers’ goals. He says to succeed, “China must convince its neighbors that its grand initiative does not amount to a strategic push for regional hegemony” — yet what does success actually mean, if not regional hegemony? Indeed, the most likely outcome is that China’s influence will increase thanks to the projects, while neighboring countries will remain profoundly suspicious of Beijing’s intentions — just like Latin American countries remain suspicious of Washington’s plans, even decades after the United States’ more heavy-handed interventionism has ended.

Miller’s accounts of his trips to Central Asia are interesting, yet his impression that China’s influence in countries like Kazakhstan is “skin deep”. Yet a visit to Caracas or Managua would leave visitors with the impression that China has no influence at all, while in fact it was long turned into the most influential outside actor in both countries. Given its peculiar characteristics, the United States was able to utilize its cultural attractiveness for geopolitical purposes, but that was never the decisive element in convincing its allies to support Washington. In the same way, Chinese policy makers may come to call the shots in Phnom Penh, Astana and Naypyidaw, while its inhabitants remain either suspicious our outright hostile to Chinese influence. As long as opposition politicians criticize China but then turn pro-Beijing once they are in power (as seen in several countries in Africa), Chinese policy makers are unlikely to care much.

The example of Myanmar, analyzed by Miller in a separate chapter, shows that in some cases, anti-China sentiment can end up hurting Beijing’s strategic interests. Yet even though the author speaks of the “loss of Myanmar”, he rightly points out that despite the resistance, Beijing remains Myanmar’s key partner, and this is unlikely to change in the coming years. Simply put, China has become far too important economically, and no government can afford to be permanently on bad terms with Beijing.

Miller’s policy recommendations are sensible. He says China’s attempt to carve out a regional sphere of influence is inevitable, and anything but accommodation would lead to conflict.

All in all, China’s Asian Dream offers an engaging and up-to-date analysis of China’s regional strategy, with insightful country-specific chapters. The book is useful not only to Asia watchers, but also to scholars and policy makers in Africa and Latin America who think about articulating strategies of how to manage their growing dependence on China.

China’s Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa

Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know