Will China's non-alignment diplomacy stand regrouping test?

By Li Hongmei, People’s Daily Online

For the time being, the tendency towards regrouping those heavyweight global players looms large and turns out a dazzling but bewildering layout. In any case, it is evident that the leading role starring the international regrouping farce is invariably the West, in particular, the United States. Blurred as it may looks, the prospect for the regrouping of world powers will generally point to the twin likelihood----the existing international bloc would be expanded without limit, nor restraint, or the powers which cease to be influential would be exited from the power elites’ club without any mercy.

For some international observers, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is defined as the pursuit of self-determination and development for the Third World states, had already lost its relevance, when the Cold War stepped down from the stage of history. In the Cold War structure, or the structure of bipolar world, states had to be “aligned” to the East or West by ideologies and with superpowers constituting the core of these blocs. But with the end of the Cold War, the bipolarity led respectively by the U.S. and former Soviet Union dissolved, and so too the likelihood to coerce alignment or play off the East and the West. To those experts who tend to attribute NAM’s relevance to bipolarity, NAM would perish sooner or later with the end of bipolarity and the Cold War.

However, what is more vexing to the sensitive observers might be that the rise of a replacement for the former Soviet Union to contend with or balance the remaining super power, the U.S. could mean a possibility to return the world configuration to a new bipolarity. In this case, the rise of China can so readily be perceived in these terms.

Previously, and on various occasions, some Americans overzealously preached the so-called G-2, a power bloc existing only in idle theorizing. China has since been placed onto the altar as the counterweight to the super power lying on the other side of the Ocean. It is admitted that many Chinese people indeed went into raptures on hearing the newly-coined and encouraging term. “Finally, we can sit as equals at the same table with the U.S,” reads a Chinese commentary.

It will be a waste of pen and ink to further expose the childish side of this self-glorification, perhaps an emotional gush of pent-up inferiority complex. The reason is simple like that the two sitting at the same table are not necessarily at the equal footing. Besides, By no means would China be spearheading any international bloc, never then or now. Paramount on China’s agenda at the time is still nothing more than its ongoing sustainable and peaceful rise as an increasingly visible and assertive power. And in the process, China will have to draw a good lesson from the failed attempts made by other powers.

Just take NATO, a nearly-bankrupt military bloc with its members seemingly in harmony but actually at variance. This Cold War legacy appears hard to live up to its initial expectations. Any other international group with no regard of the global common good would be precariously established and would sooner or later give way to the general trend of multi-polarization. Therefore, China will persist in its independent foreign policy and non-alignment diplomacy.

On account of this, the regrouping storm sweeping the globe might deliver a blow to China’s consistent non-alignment policy, but will not smash its iron-clad diplomatic structure in favor of maintaining independence and seeking regeneration through its own efforts. Moreover, China has no history of “banding together.” Even in the imperial days, the much-scorned system of “presenting tribute to an emperor” was actually a quite open system, which was in essence conducive to the free trade then. Even by today’s standard, the basic guarantee for free trade alone seems healthier and more appropriate than any monopolizing power bloc.

With globalization, China is preparing itself for a new and broader vision of openness. Meanwhile, its non-alignment policy will not be easily altered. If the time and situation do call for an about-face in its diplomatic strategies, and if the restructuring of world order has proved an international political de facto, and if China one day has to pause at the cross road when facing the globe-sized squall for regrouping, China would prefer to make an active decision on which path to take, rather than being coerced to join a group.

As a matter of fact, a responsible power is not necessarily allied to other powers to be so. Likewise, China’s pursuing non-alignment does not indicate trying to shrug off the due international obligations as fall within its spheres.