China’s copycat strategy for hegemony

Prime Minister Mark Carney framed his recent trip to China as a chance for Ottawa and Beijing to mend ties. But the intent was clearly to hedge against an increasingly erratic America. Frustrated critics, meanwhile, pointed to evidence that China is Canada’s biggest security threat.

Yet Carney ultimately got China to agree to reduce import levies on Canadian agricultural goods in exchange for Canada easing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The federal government also announced a target to up Canada’s exports to China by 50 per cent by 2030, while pledging deeper co-operation with Beijing on energy, finance and public safety.

“We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” said Canada’s leader before departing China.

A week later, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Carney warned: “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.” The audience gave him a standing ovation.

The reality is a belligerent America-first administration in Washington has changed the strategic calculus for countries everywhere. Many are thus pivoting back toward China. The leaders of Britain and Germany are both due to visit Beijing in the coming weeks too.

The benefits are obvious. The nation of 1.4 billion possesses a vast consumer market and unrivalled industrial base. But the risks are clear as well — a greater likelihood of foreign interference, economic bullying and pushback against liberal values. It might also invite the wrath of the White House.

Still, the alternatives are non-existent.

“In an era of strategic rivalry and economic uncertainty, middle powers such as Canada cannot afford ideological rigidity or economic detachment,” wrote Alex He, a China expert for the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a think tank in Waterloo, Ont., ahead of Carney’s visit to Beijing.

“Disciplined engagement with China — without diluting values or compromising security — is not a contradiction. It is a mark of strategic maturity.”

Indeed, China is patiently and methodically trying to become the centre of gravity in a multipolar world. And it’s a strategy torn straight from the pages of America’s Cold War playbook — combining technological dominance with soft power, foreign assistance and alliance-building.

China is the top trading partner for more than half the planet. It is also a manufacturing behemoth that dominates emerging technologies, critical mineral supply chains and renewable energy. After touring Chinese battery manufacturing and solar production sites last fall, several venture capital groups told Bloomberg that Western counterparts were “uninvestible” by comparison.

Beijing has also worked tirelessly to export its political model abroad by building Chinese cultural centres throughout the Global South. It has altered regional information landscapes using its army of state-backed media outlets.

Dozens of developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia have also been assisted in acquiring Chinese digital infrastructure. Hardware comes complete with installation, wraparound services, financing and expert training.

All of this in addition to China establishing its Global AI Governance Initiative in 2023. The multilateral forum says it will develop governance standards and frameworks to promote safety in the development and adoption of artificial intelligence. Similar “global” initiatives have been launched in recent years around international development and security.

China is the driving force behind the Shanghai Co-operation Organization — a bloc of 10 Eurasian nations that co-ordinate political, economic and security policy. And it’s central to the BRICS+ grouping of countries, which sees itself as an upstart alternative to the G7 and is pushing to de-dollarize global trade.

None of this is to say China isn’t struggling with its own internal challenges.

Fresh data suggest the country’s high-tech sectors aren’t growing fast enough to offset a real estate market implosion. Alongside plummeting consumer confidence, this threatens persistent deflation.

And the population is rapidly aging. Within ten years, the country will have at least 300 million seniors — equal to the world’s fourth largest country by then.

Still, China doesn’t have to eclipse the U.S. economically to achieve its geopolitical ambitions.

Beijing is replicating America’s 20th century statecraft and turning it against the U.S., wrote journalist Simon Schuster after the U.S. military’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. By contrast, Trump’s America First administration increasingly “relies on coercion and force” to get countries to tolerate its ultranationalist agenda

“Some governments will feel compelled to play along,” says Schuster. “Others will weigh their options and find China to be a more reliable partner.”

Carney just took Canada a step in the latter direction. He won’t be the last.

Kyle Volpi Hiebert is a Montreal-based political risk analyst focused on globalization, conflict and emerging technologies.