Mohamed Zeeshan

Opinion | Despite challenges, China’s quest for global leadership must end in peace

Tensions with the US and in the region, whether with India or in the South China Sea, will limit China’s ability to exert influence far and wide. These tensions must be managed well or Beijing may opt for a more muscular projection of its power

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Mohamed Zeeshan

Published: 1:00am, 19 Nov 2022Updated: 2:08am, 19 Nov 2022

When US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for the first time as top leaders on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit this week, they were both coming from positions of strength.

Biden flew in, freshly vindicated by an unexpectedly robust showing by the Democrats in the US midterm polls. Meanwhile, Xi had successfully secured an unprecedented third term at last month’s Communist Party congress – underscoring his dominance in Chinese politics.

Xi now enjoys as much free rein over policy as any Chinese leader in decades and his third term will undeniably prove pivotal for China’s future.

For years, Xi has shown he wants to be the leader who finally inaugurates an era of Chinese power around the world. Early in office, Xi rolled out a plan for a global infrastructure network, established multilateral financial institutions, and positioned Beijing as a development partner across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Now that he has consolidated power in Beijing comprehensively, Xi will have an opportunity to take those measures further in his quest for global leadership.

To be sure, even as Beijing and Washington see each other as competitors on that front, tensions with the US are increasingly becoming a problem for China. For decades, China’s rise has been underpinned by its unprecedented economic growth, which itself had been facilitated by trade ties with the West – and the United States in particular. That run was derailed by the tariff war that began under US president Donald Trump.

Far from reversing that trend, Biden has not only maintained many of those Trump-era tariffs but gone even further. Late last year, he banned goods made in Xinjiang, alleging the use of forced labour in their production. Last month, his administration rolled out crippling restrictions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors and chipmaking tools.