Xi Jinping has arrived in Moscow, having chosen Russia as the first country to visit since his inauguration last week as president of China. After meeting with President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, Xi will then leave to attend his first BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, where he will hold talks with the leaders of the "rising and resurgent" bloc of nations comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In particular, he will have an opportunity to engage one-on-one with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting. From South Africa, Xi will make visits to two other African states, Tanzania and the Republic of Congo, before returning to China.
Xi's choice of countries for his first foreign peregrination is no accident. This trip is a first test of his ability to course-correct China's growing problems in foreign relations. Afflicted by hubris in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis, the leadership in Beijing decided to be more assertive on both the regional and global stages. Whereas the United States had been steadily losing influence in East Asia during the years of the George W. Bush administration, Beijing's more heavy-handed approach since 2010, especially on maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, created incentives for many states in the region to move back toward Washington. The new India-U.S. relationship and the U.S.-Russia "reset" during the halcyon early days of Dmitry Medvedev's tenure as Russian president further heightened Chinese perceptions of a U.S. strategy to "contain" China, a fear reinforced by the formal announcement in 2011 that the United States would seek to "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific region.
With this trip, Xi has the opportunity to "execute China's own 'pivot,'" as one observer put it. China’s new president has some maneuvering room. While tensions remain high with Japan, and some of the other East Asian states are eager to have the U.S. play a balancing function in the region, other aspects of the picture have changed. When Medvedev was Russia’s president, some of his advisers were receptive to the idea of a closer U.S.-Russia partnership that would offset the rise of China. Now Beijing has an opportunity to court Moscow, made possible by Putin's return to the presidency, new tensions in the U.S.-Russia relationship and the resurgence of the political factions linked with the so-called siloviki, the former security service veterans close to Putin, who are more supportive of closer Russia-China ties.
With China facing ongoing tensions along its eastern and southern maritime frontiers, it makes sense that "China's diplomacy is to safeguard a peaceful neighboring environment" to the north and west, as Shen Jiru of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences put it. As new deals are signed that will see a bigger percentage of Russia's oil and natural gas go to China, a cooperative relationship with Moscow gives Beijing greater security and secures the resources needed to maintain China's growth. Shen concluded, tellingly, "A good relationship with Russia fits all the needs of China's overall diplomacy." Both sides are proclaiming that, as a result of Xi’s visit to Moscow, the "comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination" between Russia and China will be accelerated.
When Xi travels to South Africa, he will have an opportunity to engage with India's top leadership, including the prime minister as well as other senior officials. How this first meeting unfolds will be very important. It gives the Indians the opportunity to assess the new Chinese leadership team, especially whether it might be possible to do business with Xi. There is no geopolitical destiny that forces India and China to be rivals; their troubled trajectory could change if their political leaders were willing to negotiate the outlines of an “entente cordiale” between Beijing and New Delhi.
While the overall U.S. pivot to Asia has been worrying to China, India's own efforts to increase defense cooperation with some of the countries on China's periphery, like Vietnam and Japan, have also been of concern to Beijing. If China can be more accommodating of Indian concerns, it may diminish India’s willingness to participate in a loose coalition of Asian states to hedge against China’s rise. Xi may want to reach out to Singh to steer the Sino-Indian relationship away from points of friction in favor of greater cooperation, holding out the possibility that when Beijing and New Delhi work together, they can exercise more weight vis-a-vis the West -- as the China- and India-led bloc at climate change talks in Copenhagen in 2009 demonstrated.
The perception that China is "against everyone else" is strengthening in the wake of the recent fractious ASEAN summit. Making sure the BRICS summit produces a joint stance on a variety of global issues -- from how power is distributed in key international institutions like the World Bank to holding the line against further Western-led "humanitarian interventions," such as in Syria -- would shift that perception in favor of a narrative that shows China has partners and options.
Xi's meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma as well as his subsequent meetings with other African officials will also be important, given Zuma's recent qualified endorsement of China's economic practices on the continent. "China is doing business in a particular way, and we think we can see the benefits,” Zuma said. “But we are very, very careful."
The concern that China is just another great power exploiter of Africa was more directly raised by Nigerian Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi, who argued that China's approach leads to a loss of resources and the effective de-industrialization of the continent. In the past year, there has been a growing backlash against the Chinese presence in the region. Reaching a new understanding with Zuma that again makes the case why China's presence in Africa is superior to Western investment will be important in re-establishing China's momentum throughout the continent.
All of this is a tall order for China. The groundwork for a closer relationship with Russia has been laid for many months, including the February visit of the head of Russian state oil company Rosneft to China, as well as through the prime ministerial conduit that brings together Medvedev and the newly appointed Li Keqiang. Li himself may play a more visible role in any strategy to reassure jittery neighbors as well, stressing as he did at his inaugural press conference as prime minister that, no matter how strong China becomes, "we will not pursue hegemony." If Xi makes a good first impression at the BRICS summit with the leaders of the other rising powers, it may be Li who handles the follow-up, working to defuse any tensions and to search for pragmatic compromises.
The Chinese leadership is well aware that its standing in the world has diminished since the heady days of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Now that the fifth generation of leadership has been installed, they are counting on this first foreign trip to help dispel those concerns.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the Navy or the U.S. government. His weekly WPR column, the Realist Prism, appears every Friday.
