[Xi Jinping’s lack of face time
with world leaders signals a turn inward on domestic issues and a reluctance to
compromise on the global stage.]
By Steven Lee Myers and Chris Buckley
Mr. Xi has not left China in 21
months — and counting.
The ostensible reason for Mr. Xi’s
lack of foreign travel is Covid-19, though officials have not said so
explicitly. It is also a calculation that has reinforced a deeper shift in
China’s foreign and domestic policy.
China, under Mr. Xi, no longer
feels compelled to cooperate — or at least be seen as cooperating — with the
United States and its allies on anything other than its
own terms.
Still, Mr. Xi’s recent absence from
the global stage has complicated China’s ambition to position itself as an
alternative to American leadership. And it has coincided with, some say
contributed to, a sharp deterioration in the country’s relations with much of
the rest of the world.
Instead, China has turned inward,
with officials preoccupied with protecting Mr. Xi’s health and internal
political machinations, including a Communist Party congress next year where he
is expected to claim another five years as the country’s leader. As a result,
face-to-face diplomacy is a lower priority than it was in Mr. Xi’s first years
in office.
“There is a bunker mentality in
China right now,” said Noah Barkin, who follows China for the research firm
Rhodium Group.
Mr. Xi’s retreat has deprived him
of the chance to personally counter a steady decline in the country’s
reputation, even as it faces rising tensions on trade, Taiwan and
other issues.
Less than a year ago, Mr. Xi made
concessions to seal an investment agreement with the European Union, partly to
blunt the United States, only to have the deal scuttled by
frictions over political sanctions. Since then, Beijing has not taken up an
invitation for Mr. Xi to meet E.U. leaders in Europe this year.
“It eliminates or reduces
opportunities for engagements at the top leadership level,” Helena Legarda, a
senior analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, said of
Mr. Xi’s lack of travels. “Diplomatically speaking,” she added, in-person
meetings are “very often fundamental to try and overcome leftover obstacles in
any sort of agreement or to try to reduce tensions.”
Mr. Xi’s absence has also dampened
hopes that the gatherings in Rome and Glasgow can make meaningful progress on
two of the most pressing issues facing the world today: the post-pandemic
recovery and the fight against global warming.
President Biden, who is attending
both, had sought to meet Mr. Xi on the sidelines, in keeping with his
strategy to
work with China on issues like climate change, even as the two
countries clash on others. Instead, the two leaders have agreed to hold a “virtual
summit” before the end of the year, though no date has been announced yet.
“The inability of President Biden
and President Xi to meet in person does carry costs,” said Ryan Hass,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was the director for China at
the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.
Only five years ago, in a speech at
the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Xi cast himself as a
guardian of a multinational order, while President Donald J. Trump pulled the
United States into an “America first” retreat. It is difficult to play that
role while hunkered down within China’s borders, which remain largely closed as
protection against the pandemic.
“If Xi were to leave China, he
would either need to adhere to Covid protocols upon return to Beijing or risk
criticism for placing himself above the rules that apply to everyone else,” Mr.
Hass said.
Mr. Xi’s government has not
abandoned diplomacy. China, along with Russia, has taken a leading role in
negotiating with the Taliban after its return to power in Afghanistan. Mr. Xi
has also held several conference calls with European leaders, including
Germany’s departing chancellor, Angela Merkel; and, this week, President
Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain. China’s
foreign minister, Wang Yi, will attend the meetings in Rome, and Mr. Xi will
dial in and deliver what a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua
Chunying, said on Friday would be an “important speech.”
While President Biden has spoke of
forging an “alliance of democracies” to counter China’s challenge, Mr. Xi has
sought to build his
own partnerships, including with Russia and developing countries, to
oppose what he views as Western sanctimony.
“In terms of diplomacy with the
developing world — most countries in the world — I think Xi Jinping’s lack of
travel has not been a great disadvantage,” said Neil Thomas, an analyst with the
Eurasia Group. He noted Mr. Xi’s phone diplomacy this week with the prime
minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape.
“That’s a whole lot more face time
than the prime minister of Papua New Guinea is getting with Joe Biden,” Mr.
Thomas said.
Still, Mr. Xi’s halt in
international travel has been conspicuous, especially compared with the
frenetic pace he once maintained. The last time he left China was January 2020,
on a visit to Myanmar only days before he ordered the
lockdown of Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus emerged.
Nor has Mr. Xi played host to many
foreign officials. In the weeks after the lockdown, he met with the director of
the World Health Organization and the leaders of Cambodia and Mongolia, but his
last known meeting with a foreign official took place in Beijing in March 2020,
with President Arif Alvi of Pakistan.
Chinese leaders have long made a
selling point of their busy schedule of trips abroad, especially their
willingness to visit poorer countries. Before Covid, Mr. Xi became the first to
outpace his American counterpart in the annual average number of visits to
foreign countries, according to research by Mr. Thomas.
In the years before Covid, Mr. Xi
visited an average of 14 countries annually, spending around 34 days
abroad, Mr. Thomas estimated. That notably surpassed Mr.
Obama’s average (25 days of foreign travel), and Mr. Trump’s (23).
“President Xi’s diplomatic
footsteps cover every part of the world,” said
an article shared by Communist Party media outlets in late 2019.
Mr. Xi has made his mark on the
world by jettisoning the idea that China should be a modest player on the
international stage — “hiding our strength and biding our time,” in the dictum of
his predecessor Deng Xiaoping. Now, though, he finds himself trying to project
China’s new image of confident ambition over video meetings.
He is doing so while facing
international scrutiny over many of China’s policies, the origins of the
coronavirus, mounting rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, and its
increasingly ominous
warnings to Taiwan.
Surveys have shown that views of
China have deteriorated sharply in many major countries over the last two years.
Victor Shih, professor of political
science at the University of California, San Diego, said that Mr. Xi’s limited
travel coincided with an increasingly nationalist tone at home that seems to
preclude significant cooperation or compromise.
“He no longer feels that he needs
international support because he has so much domestic support, or domestic
control,” Mr. Shih said. “This general effort to court America and also the European
countries is less today than it was during his first term.”
The timing of the meetings in Rome
and Glasgow also conflicted with preparations for a meeting at home that has
clearly taken precedence. From Nov. 8 to 11, the country’s Communist elite will
gather in Beijing for a behind-closed-doors session that will be a major step
toward Mr. Xi’s next phase in power.
Mr. Xi’s absence in Rome and
Glasgow could be a missed opportunity for countries to unite around a
stronger, unified global effort on climate or economic recovery. It seems
unlikely that the Chinese delegations will have the authority on their own to
negotiate significant compromises.
“These are issue areas where there
was some hope for cooperation and some hope for positive outcomes,” Ms.
Legarda, the China analyst at the Mercator Institute, said of the climate
summit in Glasgow. “With Xi Jinping not attending, it is, first of all, unclear
if they will manage to get there. Second, I guess the question is, is this not
a priority for Beijing, in many leaders’ minds?”
Claire Fu contributed
research.
