Global China and Symbolic Power: The Case of 16 + 1 Cooperation

Vangeli, Anastas

doi:10.1080/10670564.2018.1458056

Cited by 58 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…Overall, 16+1 is a multilateral framework, but also an important umbrella for China's bilateral deals with the European participants . Initially economically oriented, its policy objectives and mechanisms gradually expanded due to successful cooperation (Vangeli 2018). (This pragmatic pattern can also be observed in Southeast Asia.)…”

Section: Ceec and Chinamentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In accordance with the Chinese narrative, after the election of Donald Trump as US President, Xi Jinping portrayed China as a beacon of multilateralism and free trade (EURACTIV 2018). Often China also highlights the more or less comparable economic developments of the participants, labelling 16+1 as a blueprint for international South-South cooperation (Turcsányi 2017;Vangeli 2018). Overall, the experiences with 16+1 demonstrate that China adjusts to positive and negative new developments and criticisms from outside.…”

Section: Ceec and Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

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China’s New Silk Roads. Categorising and Grouping the World: Beijing’s 16+1+X European Formula

Gerstl¹

2018

Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

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In autumn 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe play an important role in this ambitious infrastructure and connectivity project. The analysis of the 16+1 cooperation format, established by Beijing in 2012, shows that Beijing is able to establish new regional groupings that have the potential to undermine the unity of a larger regional bloc. Yet, it also demonstrates that China lacks a coherent BRI master plan. Rather, it pragmatically adapts its strategies to challenges and external criticism. The European Union (EU), notably the European Parliament (EP), became since 2015 more critical of the strategic impacts of BRI on Europe. Austria, which recognised the economic opportunities offered by BRI only recently, supports a common EU position. While Austria plays a strong-if not a leading-role in two Central and Eastern European cooperation mechanisms that may in the future also address BRI, that is, the Salzburg Forum and the Central European Defense Cooperation (CEDC), 16+1 remains the key institution for multi- and bilateral agreements on the New Silk Roads in this region. Austria, however, will remain only an observer and thus an ‘X’ in the 16+1+X format, reducing Vienna’s influence.

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Section: Ceec and Chinamentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Ceec and Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s New Silk Roads. Categorising and Grouping the World: Beijing’s 16+1+X European Formula

Gerstl¹

2018

Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

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“…This emphasising of China's difference is a way to exert 'soft power', a strategy which Callahan calls 'negative soft power' (Callahan 2015). Such 'negative soft power' is employed in China's promotion of the BRI, which combines the claims of China's benevolence (compared with the West) and its non-interference in domestic affairs (compared with the Washington consensus conditionality) (Breslin 2011;Vangeli 2018). 'Negative soft power' is therefore built through the language of desecuritisation.…”

Section: Desecuritisation As a Soft Power Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, 'Hungarian people' believe that 'each house has its own customs, (…) each nation its own character, and that this is embodied in specific and unique political systems' and this is the spirit with which 'we look upon the Chinese political system' (Orban 2016). Similarly, in 2016 during the Parliamentary-established Day of Asia-Pacific, Polish foreign affairs vice-minister Jan Parys rejected the right of the Western states to criticise human rights issues in China: a declaration that was praised by the Chinese diplomats present at the meeting as an example of 'non-interference in the internal Chinese affairs' (Parys quoted in Tok FM 2016). The changing attitudes towards the Dalai Lama visits to the region, with countries withdrawing from meeting the Dalai Lama since the establishment of 16+1 platform 6 are also an extension of this new attitude towards human rights.…”

Section: Central-eastern Europe: Co-producing China's Desecuritisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Desecuritisation as a soft power strategy: the Belt and Road Initiative, European fragmentation and China’s normative influence in Central-Eastern Europe

Jakimów

2019

Asia Eur J

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While much discussion centres on economic properties and political challenges of implementing the China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), few studies investigate the subtle connections between the narratives of the BRI and the political transformations in the regions en route of the project. Through a critique of the Copenhagen School's theory of securitisation, this paper brings together the analysis of Chinese, Central-Eastern European (CEE) and the core EU governments' ideas and perceptions of the BRI and assesses what they mean for the future of the European Union's political and normative cohesion. This paper argues that the China-deployed desecuritised narratives of the BRI constitute an important soft power strategy of China in its engagement in Europe. The article illustrates how these desecuritised narratives are utilised and coproduced actively by countries of CEE with a political aim of negotiating their domestic interests with the EU's institutions, making the process of desecuritisation neither apolitical nor benign. As China-promoted desecuritisation is used instrumentally by the regional actors to present China as an economic, political and normative alternative to the EU, the article contributes to the understanding of China's desecuritisation as a soft power strategy, which is both forged through 'negative' language (Callahan, Politics 35(3-4):216-229, 2015) and is 'contingent' upon recipient audiences (Kavalski, Coop Confl 48(2):247-267, 2013). As a result, new regional dynamics emerge in the EU, which are driven by the populist turn and growing demand for Chinese investments in the European periphery, which China skilfully utilises through narratives of desecuritisation in order to boost its soft power strategy in the region.

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Transition from Communism

Holmes

2021

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology

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Until the end of the 1980s, approximately one third of the world's population lived in communist systems. But most of these systems collapsed like dominoes between 1989 and 1991. Many social scientists assumed that the old systems would be replaced by liberal democracies. In fact, whereas most of the states in Central and South East Europe have become democracies – some more successfully than others – most of those further east have mutated into autocracies of one kind or another. Furthermore, most postcommunist states experienced serious problems of various kinds in the 1990s, while some still are. This entry identifies the various trajectories taken by countries transitioning from communism, before noting that the world's most powerful remaining communist state, China, appears to have designs on bringing postcommunist states at least partly back into the fold, causing concern in many western capitals.

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Global China and Symbolic Power: The Case of 16 + 1 Cooperation

Cited by 58 publications

References 0 publications

China’s New Silk Roads. Categorising and Grouping the World: Beijing’s 16+1+X European Formula

China’s New Silk Roads. Categorising and Grouping the World: Beijing’s 16+1+X European Formula

Desecuritisation as a soft power strategy: the Belt and Road Initiative, European fragmentation and China’s normative influence in Central-Eastern Europe

Transition from Communism

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