China’s Relations with Neighbors

China has a large number of neighboring countries, and its relations with them together with the situation of the neighborhood mean special and important interests for China. Given that, China has put its relations with neighboring countries in the first place in its foreign relations, and has put forward the basic concepts of developing relations with the neighboring countries, such as good neighborliness; good neighbors, good partners and good friends; forging friendship and partnership with neighbors; fostering an amicable, secure and prosperous neighborhood; harmonious neighborhood; amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness; and building a neighborhood community with a shared future, among others. All these concepts are rooted in China’s traditional philosophy and culture, and at the same time based on the new cognition and positioning of the development of today’s world.

Amid complex regional situation, it is not easy for China to facilitate the building of relations and order in the neighborhood featuring peace, cooperation and development. Having experienced difficult readjustment and restructuring since the end of WWII, the neighborhood order is gradually moving towards stability, peace and development. In general, China’s peripheral environment is improving. China’s relations with its neighboring countries are normalized, most of the problems left by history have been solved, and bilateral and multilateral relations aimed at cooperation have been developed. In particular, an economic network has been built for the interdependency among countries in the neighborhood. China has become the most important economic and trade partner for most neighboring countries and has built different forms of partnership with them. Consultation and cooperation have become the mainstream way to promote the development of bilateral and regional relations.

Nevertheless, under the restructuring of the international pattern and the pandemic, China’s surrounding areas have also undergone changes with new contradictions and challenges. Generally speaking, we need to observe and analyze the factors affecting the situation of the surrounding areas from a comprehensive perspective. These factors mainly fall into three categories, namely bilateral relations, sub-regional relations and extraterritorial forces, with different natures and impacts yet inter-related with one another.

Bilateral Relations: the Foundation

Although China enjoys an overall stable situation in terms of bilateral relations with its neighboring countries, some new changes have taken place in recent years. Some countries, while developing relations with China, have taken countermeasures against China and tried to build multiple check-and-balance mechanisms. Some even put more emphasis on preventing and restricting China.

As one of China’s neighbors, India puts its competition with China in a prominent position. As a result, India has increased its restrictions on China in its foreign policy. And it directly participates in the building of the U.S. strategic competition circle against China by actively supporting the latter’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and participating in the Quad mechanism of the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Under such circumstances, some bilateral contradictions between China and India rise from time to time. For example, the tension and even conflict between the two sides have emerged around the territorial dispute over the border, which has exerted an adverse impact on the development of bilateral relationship as well as regional stability.

Japan obviously tend to formulate its foreign policy to cope with China’s rise. On the one hand, Japan works more closely with the United States to build a multiple restraint mechanism based on comprehensive strategic competition with China and participates more actively and deeply in both security and economic mechanisms. On the other hand, Japan earnestly facilitates security cooperation with some countries and helps them enhance their so-called confronting ability, with a clear target at China. In particular, Japan’s provocation and involvement in the Taiwan question will inevitably affect the overall situation of the bilateral relationship.

On March 10th, 2022, the candidate of the People Power Party Yoon Suk-yeol was elected the new president of ROK. Different from the policy orientation of the Moon Jae-in administration, the new president not only expressed that he would strengthen ROK’s relationship with the United States, support the Indo-Pacific Strategy and take a tough policy toward DPRK but also claimed that he would not yield to the pressure when dealing with China. This may result in new variables in the China-ROK relations, which will affect the bilateral relations and may even trigger instability on the Korean Peninsula if handled improperly.

The relations of the new ROK administration with China still need further observation. There are three crucial factors. The first one is the interaction of interests with China. For ROK, China is not only a big neighboring country but also an indispensable and important market. The second one is to maintain the stability of the Peninsula. In the Korean Peninsula affairs, any radical confrontational measure that excludes China may have disastrous consequences. The third one is the relationship with the United States. Relying on the United States against China will damage China-ROK relations, which is not in the interest of the ROK.