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China Advances as the United States Retreats
By Bonnie Bley
As Chinaโs rise has become a central force in global politics, analysts and policymakers have tracked its path to potential preeminence on a number of fronts: the size of its economy, the scale and reach of its investment and commercial relationships, the budget and capabilities of its military forces. But as of 2019, China has surpassed the United States in an underappreciated but crucial measure of global influence: the size of its diplomatic network.
For decades, Washington had the largest diplomatic network in the world. Now China does, boasting 276 diplomatic postsโincluding embassies, consulates, and permanent missions to international organizations. The United Statesโ network, meanwhile, stands at 273, down one post since 2017.
This shift could mark a turning point in great-power competition. As Beijing becomes more and more willing to deploy its global power, seemingly no longer interested in former leader Deng Xiaopingโs instruction to โhide your strength, bide your time,โ it has invested in active and far-reaching diplomacy. Washington, meanwhile, has seen both a turn inward and a privileging of other tools. Where once the United States enjoyed global diplomatic primacy, the playing field is now leveling.
HOW CHINA WIN-WINS
Chinaโs ascent to the top spot has been rapid. The Lowy Instituteโs Global Diplomacy Index tracks diplomatic networks around the world. In 2011, Beijing lagged 23 posts behind Washington. By 2016, it was only eight posts behind, in third place behind the United States and France. In 2017, it climbed to second place, overtaking France, before moving into first place this year. This yearโs index puts China in first place ahead of 60 other major diplomatic networks.
Beijing has opened five new embassies in the last two years: in Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gambia, and Sรฃo Tomรฉ and Prรญncipe. This list of countries is not random. Following a persistent campaign of whatโs commonly referred to as โcheckbook diplomacy,โ Beijing has succeeded in picking off a handful of Taiwanโs last remaining diplomatic partners.China is unmatched in its number of consulates.Most recently, two countries in the hotly contested Pacific Islands regionโKiribati and the Solomon Islandsโbroke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and made the switch to China, reducing the number of countries recognizing Taiwan from 22 in 2016 to just 15 today (which include Guatemala, Honduras, and Vatican City). For Beijing, this strategy has both furthered Taiwanโs growing political isolation and increased Chinaโs ability to advance its own economic and strategic interests. In short, itโs been win-win, except with both wins going to China.
China doesnโt have only breadth in its network; it has depth, too. While Beijing and Washington are neck and neck in terms of the number of embassies they have, China is unmatched in its number of consulates, with 96 compared to the United Statesโ 88. Whereas embassies reflect political power, consulates reflect economic power. Chinaโs focus on boosting its consulates accords with its ongoing focus on advancing its interests through economic diplomacy over traditional diplomacy. Of Chinaโs 96 consulates, 41 are located in Asia and 28 in Europe. This goes hand in hand with Chinaโs Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure push valued in the trillions that seeks to better connect China with these regions.
RUDDERLESS DIPLOMACY
The United Statesโ diplomatic presence has been sclerotic since 2017. After closing the doors of its consulate general in St. Petersburg in 2018, amid rancorous relations with the Kremlin, and without any new openings in recent years, Washington reduced its total posts to 273. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department remains hollowed out: even as President Donald Trump approaches the end of a four-year term, only 73 percent of key positions are filled, according to a Washington Post tracker. Add to this the Trump administrationโs desire to cut the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets by up to 23 percent, and it is no surprise that U.S. diplomacy looks increasingly rudderless to other governments. Trumpโs 11,000 tweets, over half of which attack someone or something, are no substitute for a properly functioning diplomatic network.
U.S. diplomacy isnโt lagging on every front. Diplomatic influence comes not only from establishing a large presence abroad but also from being an important host to foreign missions. The United States remains by a wide margin the most popular place for countries to maintain embassies and consulates. It is home to some 342 embassies and consulates belonging to the 61 countries included in the index. China, with 256, is a distant second. When permanent missions to international organizations such as the United Nations are added into the equation, the United Statesโ lead is strengthened further.
Other governments are increasingly setting up posts in second- and third-tier Chinese citiesโsomething to watch closely in coming years. Still, it would take a serious reshuffling of the global diplomatic order for the status quo on this particular metric to change in Chinaโs favor in the near future.
A BAROMETER OF NATIONAL AMBITION
Alongside the realignment of U.S. and Chinese diplomatic reach, other global disruptions have spurred shifts in other governmentsโ diplomatic activities. Brexit in particular has driven a number of European governments to make changes. With successive Brexit deadlines looming, passing, and then looming once again, Ireland boosted its network by eight posts, causing it to rise three places in the index since 2017, the largest increase of any country. With Ireland facing a divorce from its largest import partner and second-largest export partner, its foreign minister has publicly tied this move to the countryโs Brexit strategy. The Netherlands, too, has linked its recent diplomatic push to Brexit considerations, with seven new posts in two years and more openings expected by 2021.
The United Kingdom, by contrast, has closed or downgraded 11 consulates and diplomatic offices since 2016, dropping from ninth place three years ago to 11th today. This runs counter to commitments to open three new posts in the Pacific and an additional 12 posts globally by the end of 2020. So much for promises of a โglobal Britain.โ
A countryโs choice of where to expand its network is never uncalculated.
Japan moved into fourth place in 2019, overtaking Russia for the first time. Faced with a shifting power balance in its neighborhood, including an increasingly assertive China, Tokyo has been quietly investing in its diplomatic footprint for nearly a decade now. The addition of seven new posts in strategically pivotal countries such as Cambodia, the Philippines, Seychelles, and Vanuatu brings Tokyoโs total posts to 247.
Turkey, too, has boosted its network, keeping pace with its increasingly ambitious foreign policy and taking steps to diversify beyond its NATO allies. It has added six posts since 2017, ranking sixth for its diplomatic network despite having less than half the GDP of fifth-place Russia. Despite Turkeyโs โAsia Anewโ policy released in August, these posts havenโt been concentrated in Asia. With the exception of a new embassy in Laos, Turkey has geared its diplomatic expansion toward Latin America and Africa.
A countryโs choice of where to expand its network is never uncalculated. China, Ireland, Japan, and Turkey are signaling priorities about where they want to position themselves in the future. Chinaโs newfound diplomatic heft is of particular significance. Under Presidentย Xi Jinping, Beijing continues to chip away at U.S. primacy, taking the lead across a growing number of metrics, diplomatic footprint being just one. (Others include global exports, rare earth metals production, and GDP measured by purchasing power parity.) Its newly preeminent diplomatic network is at the very least a symbolic victory for China. And while diplomatic networks canโt tell the full story about a countryโs influence overseas, they do serve as a telling barometer of national ambitions.
Courtesy of the Foreign policy Magazine
