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Facilitative Leadership and China’s New Role in the World

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Abstract

China is becoming a more influential actor in the world, being a key factor in global climate governance and international development. While the Chinese government is still avoiding the term “international leadership” in its official discourse, China is in practice exercising international leadership and is bound to assume more leadership in the world in coming years. This article explains the reasons behind Chinese reluctance to embrace a leadership discourse, and attempts to develop the concept of facilitative leadership, based on existing Chinese leadership practices, to solve the conceptual problem and to ensure a sustainable and constructive leadership role in world affairs. The key features of a facilitative leadership are collective rather than hegemonic leadership, attractive rather than coercive leadership, win–win rather than solipsistic leadership, and empowering rather than patronal leadership.

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Notes

  1. Xi Jinping’s opening speech at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou 2016. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2016-09/04/c_129268987.htm, accessed 1 June 2017.

  2. Acharya, Amitav. “Emerging powers can be saviours of the global liberal order,” Financial Times. 2017. Available online at https://www.ft.com/content/f175b378-dd79-11e6-86ac-f253db7791c6, accessed 1 June 2017.

  3. A scholar from Rand Corporation points out that the liberal international order proposed by the US is not that liberal. From the perspective of other countries, the US uses norms selectively. The US only uses these norms when the norms are in favour of the US and set according to the US interest. See Mazarr (2017).

  4. Some other scholars have raised similar conceptions: patronal leadership which refers to leading country to make sure one or several followers can have net interest. See Knorr (1973).

  5. At the end of 2011, New Yorker magazine used the comment by an anonymous consultant for president Obama saying “leading from behind” to describe his Libya strategy, which is to encourage European allies to intervene. From our perspective, this is a kind of subcontracting or outsourcing leadership. See Schake (2017).

  6. “United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” European Council: letter by President Donald Tusk to the 27 EU heads of state or government on the future of the EU before the Malta summit, January 31, 2017. Available online at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/01/31-tusk-letter-future-europe/, accessed 1 June 2017.

  7. Chen Zhimin has proposed the idea of “facilitative power” in a previous article. See Chen (2012).

  8. President Xi welcomes Mongolia to ‘board China’s fast train of development,’ China Daily. Available online at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014xivisitmongolia/2014-08/22/content_18470079.htm, accessed 22 August 2017.

  9. “Backgrounder: Keywords on Belt and Road Initiative,” Xinhua. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/06/c_136261504.htm, accessed 31 May 2017.

  10. “Backgrounder: Keywords on Belt and Road Initiative,” Xinhua, Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/06/c_136261504.htm, accessed 31 May 2017.

  11. “Full text: Joint communique of leaders roundtable of Belt and Road forum.” Xinhua. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/15/c_136286378.htm, accessed 31 May 2017.

  12. “China agrees railway deals with Hungary, Serbia,” Xinhua,. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-11/24/c_134850726.htm, accessed 1 June 2017.

  13. “EU sets collision course with China over “Silk Road” rail project,” Financial Times. Available online at, https://www.ft.com/content/003bad14-f52f-11e6-95ee-f14e55513608, accessed 1 June 2017.

  14. “EU backs away from trade statement in blow to China’s “modern Silk Road” plan,” The Guardian. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/eu-china-summit-bejing-xi-jinping-belt-and-road, accessed 1 June 2017.

  15. National Development and Reform Commission, Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road (First Edition), March 2015. Available online at http://xbkfs.ndrc.gov.cn/qyzc/201503/t20150330_669366.html, accessed 7 June 2017.

  16. “Ministry of Commerce: One Belt and One Road is a chorus of China and other countries,” China News, Available online at http://www.chinanews.com/cj/2015/07-29/7434735.shtml, accessed 7 June 2017.

  17. “Xi Jinping conducting One Belt One Road chorus,” CCTV. Available online at http://news.cctv.com/2017/05/07/ARTIRiCeqTx042BaCX3I1iQx170507.shtml, accessed 7 June 2017.

  18. Munich Security Conference, Munich Security Report 2017: Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order? February 2017. Available online at https://www.securityconference.de/en/discussion/munich-security-report/munich-security-report-2017/, accessed 1 June 2017.

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Acknowledgements

This article is an updated and revised English version of an article in Chinese published by the authors: Zhimin Chen & Guorong Zhou, “Guoji lingdao yu zhongguo xiejinxing lingdao jiaose de goujian [International Leadership and the Construction of a Facilitative Leadership Role for China], World Economy and Politics, No. 3, 2017, pp.15–34. Authors would like to thank the financial support from Chinese Ministry of Education Designated Research Program 2015 (Project Number 15JZD035).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of China

    Zhimin Chen & Guorong Zhou

  2. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Shichen Wang

  3. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Shichen Wang

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  1. Zhimin Chen
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  2. Guorong Zhou
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Correspondence to Zhimin Chen.

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Chen, Z., Zhou, G. & Wang, S. Facilitative Leadership and China’s New Role in the World. Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev. 3, 10–27 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-017-0077-8

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