Amelia Crowley
Staff Writer
A crowd of College of Wooster students, faculty and community members gathered in Gault Recital Hall in Scheide Music Center on Tuesday, March 31 to attend the fourth and final Great Decisions series lecture of the semester. Organized this year by Professor of History and East Asia Studies James Bonk, the series concluded with a talk by Eric Olander, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of news publication China Global South Project.
Olander opened his talk, titled “China, the U.S. and the Global South,” by promising to keep the lecture part of the event short, and acknowledged that “this isn’t the sexiest of topics.” He also told the audience that while it may not be the most popular subject, it’s one of the questions Americans ask him most frequently.
Throughout the talk, Olander emphasized that China is complicated, and that many narratives from U.S.-based media are reductive and lack nuance. He added that China is going to be a transformational force in the world that touches every part of our lives. For example, China’s advances in the automotive industry could put Ohio’s automotive industry out of business. This is part of how China wants to “dominate everything,” according to Olander.
However, this wording can potentially be misleading. Olander went on to explain that while China wants to “rule the world,” it isn’t how many Americans may be imagining it, e.g., through the European and American strategy of colonialism. He said that instead of an internationalist agenda, China is nationalist-forward, taking on what he referred to as a “China first” approach.
The next part of Olander’s talk focused on China’s relations with the Global South, and why countries in the Global South are so important to China. He started by saying that China needs resources to support its manufacturing, which requires huge imports. It also needs markets to sell the goods that it manufactures, making its trade connections with the Global South especially important. The next part of China’s interest, Olander said, lies in its ability to set standards and rules for the rest of the world that are adapted from Chinese norms. In other words, Olander said, “whoever sets the rules wins the prize.”
This also factors into China’s goals for geopolitics and ideology. Olander talked about “4THKXJSCSC,” an acronym for “Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen, The Party, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, South China Sea, COVID” or the “red lines” China has put down. These “red lines” refer to topics that the Chinese government would like control over narrativization, per Olander. He explained that when these topics get brought up it causes China to “get very angry very quickly.” Olander argued that the Chinese government is able to more effectively control the framing of these topics in the Global South than in countries like the United States or in Europe. China also uses its shared history of colonialism to appeal to countries in the Global South as an alternative to former colonial powers.
Olander then moved to talking about China’s new strategy for foreign policy. He noted that until 2012, China dealt in “great power authority” foreign policy, but with Xi Jinping’s rise to power in the party, the focus has shifted to a national priority on the Community for Common Destiny, or a “reorientation of foreign policy” with “immediate security” as the new priority. This consists mostly of shoring up China’s “core security interests” such as the South China Sea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and states that border China, as well as engaging in great power competition, primarily with the United States.
Olander summed up his lecture by saying that what China wants can be summarized in five points: having a sinocentric order (but not through hegemonic power), bolstering national power, making the world safe for China, promoting China’s core interests and standardizing Chinese norms and institutes. He also emphasized that China’s goal is not to replace the U.S., but to offer Chinese alternatives to U.S.-dominated organizations.
The talk ended with Olander taking audience questions for about 45 minutes, from both students and faculty, as well as attendees from the broader Wooster community. In his responses, he reiterated some of his main points from the talk. Additionally, he stated that China is driven by pragmatism rather than ideology, and that they are masters at utilizing both soft power and narrative power to their advantage, especially through social media and throughout the Global South.