Scanning the Horizon

By Bertram Lang on November 1, 2019

China’s growing influence in the world has been identified as one of the top global trends influencing the trajectory and development of other major trends relating to sustainable development. China’s relevance for civil society organisations (CSOs) is therefore also growing rapidly on a global scale. This means even organizations without a dedicated country program or a physical presence in China need to study and develop future skills and strategies to navigate the impact of Chinese foreign and development policies on their activities in other parts of the world. This includes leveraging the positive potential of Chinese financial contributions and technological innovations for developing countries, as well as countering rising threats to civic participation and human rights due to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s promotion of an authoritarian development model. This guide therefore takes as a starting assumption that both constructive engagement and principled advocacy efforts are required from CSOs in order to engage with China’s global impact.

Based on insights from internationally-operating CSOs (ICSOs) with very different histories of engagement with China, this guide is intended to provide strategic pointers and identify practical entry points for senior ICSO leaders to summarize the key themes and implications for our sector. This can help them think through the current strategies and capacities of their individual organizations and further develop future engagement and adaptation approaches, as well as strengthen the sector’s collaborative capacity to be better prepared in face of this major trend.

This guide identifies three types of recommendations for internationally-operating CSOs which are applicable to organizations of a range of sizes, structures, and operating models (i.e. not necessarily with a presence, office, team, or representation in mainland China itself):

  1. Overall cross-cutting strategy recommendations for individual ICSOs to strengthen their organizational capacity
  2. Overall cross-cutting strategy recommendations for strengthening sectoral collaborative capacity allowing better preparation and adaptation to the rise of global China
  3. Strategic pointers (trends and future perspectives) under four key sub-themes:
    1. Changes in Chinese investment and development finance under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
    2. China’s aspiration to become a global technology leader
    3. The internationalization of Chinese non-governmental actors
    4. China’s growing influence on global governance and the UN system
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Bertram Lang
Topics: 
Politics
Society
Keywords: 
Civil Society
Non-Profit Sector
International Development
International Relations
Organization: 
International Civil Society Centre

Sovereignty in China

By Maria Adele Carrai on October 31, 2019

Cambridge University Press: This book provides a comprehensive history of the emergence and formation of the concept of sovereignty in China from 1840 to the present. It contributes to broadening the history of modern China by looking at the way the notion of sovereignty was gradually articulated by key Chinese intellectuals, diplomats, and political figures in the unfolding of the history of international law in China, rehabilitates Chinese agency, and shows how China challenged Western Eurocentric assumptions about the progress of international law. It puts the history of international law in a global perspective, interrogating the widely-held belief of international law as universal order, and exploring the ways in which its history is closely anchored to a European experience that fails to take into account how the encounter with other non-European realities has influenced its formation.

Bilahari Kausikan

on October 30, 2019

Bilahari Kausikan is Chairman of the Middle East Institute, an autonomous institute of the National University of Singapore. He spent his entire career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before retiring as Ambassador-at-Large in 2018. During his 37 years in the Ministry, he served in a variety of appointments at home and abroad, including as the Second Permanent Secretary and Permanent Secretary. Raffles Institution, the University of Singapore, and Columbia University in New York all attempted to educate him.

Anna Hayes

on October 30, 2019

Anna Hayes is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the College of Arts, Society and Education at James Cook University, Australia. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the East Asia Security Centre, a collaborative enterprise between Bond University, China Foreign Affairs University, and the University of New Haven. Hayes specializes in non-traditional threats to security, with a particular focus on the People’s Republic of China. Her research examines the ongoing human insecurity of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, including Xinjiang’s position within China’s Eurasian pivot as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In 2016, Hayes co-edited: Inside Xinjiang: Space, Place and Power in China’s Muslim Far Northwest (Routledge, 2016) with Associate Professor Michael Clarke from the Australian National University.

Larry Diamond

on October 30, 2019

Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest book, China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), focuses on promoting constructive vigilance toward China’s ambitions as a global economic and military superpower. He is now writing a textbook and preparing a massive open online course (MOOC) on democratic development. Diamond’s other books include Ill Winds:  Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (Penguin Press, 2019), In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world. He directed the Stanford Program on Democracy in Taiwan for more than ten years and has been a regular visitor to Taiwan since 1995.

Vicky Xiuzhong Xu

on October 30, 2019

Vicky Xiuzhong Xu is a researcher for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Cyber Policy Centre.

Previously, she was a journalist for The New York Times Sydney Bureau, covering general news with a focus on China-Australia relations. She also covered China and Chinese diaspora communities for Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Asia Pacific Newsroom in Melbourne.

Xu holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Melbourne. During an exchange semester in Jerusalem, she researched One Belt One Road, China-Iran, and China-Turkey relations at The Harry S. Truman Research Institute.

A standup comedian, she is also writing a novel in her spare time.

How the Foreign NGO Law Is Affecting European NGOs

17 Case Studies Show the Range of Effects and Responses

on October 29, 2019

The Asia Research Institute at the University of Nottingham recently published 17 case studies that help document the “intended and unintended consequences” of the Foreign NGO Law. These anonymized case studies are based on interviews conducted with leaders and employees of 24 organizations in Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Rebranding China

By Xiaoyu Pu on October 24, 2019

Stanford University Press: China is intensely conscious of its status, both at home and abroad. This concern is often interpreted as an undivided desire for higher standing as a global leader. Yet, Chinese political elites heatedly debate the nation’s role as it becomes an increasingly important player in international affairs. At times, China positions itself not as a nascent global power but as a fragile developing country. Contradictory posturing makes decoding China’s foreign policy a challenge, generating anxiety and uncertainty in many parts of the world. Using the metaphor of “rebranding” to understand China’s varying displays of status, Xiaoyu Pu analyzes a rising China’s challenges and dilemmas on the global stage.

As competing pressures mount across domestic, regional, and international audiences, China must pivot between different representational tactics. Rebranding China demystifies how the state represents its global position by analyzing recent military transformations, regional diplomacy, and international financial negotiations. Drawing on a sweeping body of research, including original Chinese sources and interdisciplinary ideas from sociology, psychology, and international relations, this book puts forward a framework for interpreting China’s foreign policy.