China Resurrected: The country's long-playing geopolitical conception

China Resurrected: A Modern Geopolitical History

by Frans-Paul van der Putten

Published by Bloomsbury

240  pages ₹3,088

 

Xi Jinping’s call for the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” is the central pillar of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. It is generally understood that this tenet departs from Deng Xiaoping’s dictum of “hide your strength, and bide your time”. However, Frans-Paul van der Putten’s book, China Resurrected: A Modern Geopolitical History, argues that similar sentiments prevailed as far back as Sun Yat-sen’s time. The “… resurrection of China as a powerful state was a matter of necessity: it was all or nothing for the Chinese civilization,” Mr van der Putten writes. He also makes the point that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s foreign policy was no different to the one followed by the Qing rulers and the Kuomintang. 

Thus, as the author sums it up, the focus of the book is that “the emergence of China as a major global power today is the continuation of a process that began in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with attempts to reduce the influence over China of other great powers”. The book provides a “historical context to current events” and shows how China is reacting in the same or similar fashion as it has done in the past 200 years. 

The book builds on the narrative of how events such as the Opium Wars, Boxer Uprising, the World Wars, and the creation of the League of Nations and United Nations have all proved fundamental to Chinese opinion towards the international system and China’s relations with the United States, Russia, Britain, Japan and others. China has learnt from these challenges to make itself stronger. “Deng strove for stable and good relations with the United States, the Soviet Union and other major countries such as Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan and India — not because he believed that good relations with these countries would last, since the world order was unstable and ever-changing, but to buy time for China to become stronger,” Mr van der Putten writes. 

He highlights this linearity in Chinese foreign and domestic policy with several examples. He shows how Deng Xiaoping’s long-term views “on China’s resurgence were similar, in key respects, to those of Sun Yat-sen” and he firmly believed that “China was not destined to adopt the liberal values of the West”. Even when it comes to domestic politics and economic policies, Deng Xiaoping and Sun Yat-sen held quite similar views. The use of foreign capital to boost Chinese growth and the centrality of one political party form the crux of both the leaders’ visions. 

The book engages with the idea that economic clout drives China’s position in the world today. The same attraction of Chinese markets that drove the Great Powers to force open the Qing Empire’s ports and led to the Opium Wars is what makes China central to global geopolitics today as well. “For more and more large companies, going to China was not a strategic option, but a strategic necessity,” the author points out. 

This economic strength is also closely intertwined with the rise of domestic nationalism. This very nationalism has been a major tool in the hands of the Chinese leaders. The weaponisation of economic interdependence and regular boycotts of foreign products by the Chinese people has become an important aspect of foreign policy. These trends, according to the author, started during 1915 and 1919 and were initially focussed against Japan. These temporary expressions were “the beginning of nationalism as a mass movement in China”. 

The book also analyses the issues that can prove a hurdle to China’s relentless growth. China is still the world’s second-largest economy and has already started witnessing lower growth rates, since it is now growing from a larger base. It is also embroiled in major trade and technology wars with the United States. Donald Trump’s presidency has exacerbated China’s challenges.

Despite the detailed research and the long timeframe it covers, the book is an easy and interesting read. It has also shown how the CCP’s domestic politics and policies have had a direct impact on China’s foreign policy. It also strongly argues that the Chinese foreign policy is rooted in the idea of China’s ultimate rise, or resurrection. “The two opium wars marked the beginning of China’s geopolitical transformation. The country has evolved from a regional power unable to defend itself against Britain in 1840, to an emerging global power regarded as the greatest rival of America today,” Mr van der Putten writes.

 

If the book has a shortcoming it is that it sometimes sacrifices nuance in China’s domestic and foreign policies for the simplicity of approach. This can be perceived as both a strength and weakness. But the simplicity makes it helpful for a novice attempting to understand China as a geopolitical actor.

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The reviewer is associate professor, OP Jindal Global University