China's Foreign Relations and the Survival of Autocracies

Julia Bader

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138693029
• eBook ISBN: 9781135105297
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economía
• Subtopic: Economía del desarrollo

The Chinese government has frequently been criticized for propping up anti-democratic governments. This book investigates the rise of China as an emerging authoritarian power. By comparing China's bilateral relations to three Asian developing countries – Burma, Cambodia and Mongolia – it examines how China targets specific groups of actors in autocracies versus non-autocracies. It illustrates how the Chinese non-interference policy translates into support for incumbent leaders in autocratic countries and how the Chinese government has thereby profited from exploiting secretive decision making in autocracies to realize its own external interests such as achieving access to natural resources. In a statistical analysis of the patterns of Chinese external cooperation and their impact on the survival of autocratic leaders, the book finds some evidence that China is more likely to target autocracies with economic cooperation. However, only some forms of bilateral interaction are found to increase the prospect of survival for autocratic leaders.

This important contribution to the understanding of both external factors of authoritarian endurance and China's foreign relations, a field of study still lacking systematic investigation, will be of great interest to students and researchers in Development Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations, and International Political Economy.

Part I

Supporting dictators

If so, why and how?

1 What we know and why we know so little

As the third wave of worldwide democratization ebbed away in the 2000s, a growing interest in the causes for autocratic survival emerged. After a decade dominated by a focus on democratization and transitology, the ‘turning tides’ in freedom (Puddington 2007) and the ‘rollback of democracy’ (Diamond 2008) was declared. Even those who view the current situation more optimistically, as one in which liberal democracy is not in retreat and competition between political regime type as merely frozen, come to the conclusion that the number of autocracies is unlikely to decrease soon (Merkel 2010). Indeed, the global financial crisis has been another backlash for democracy. In many developing countries, the breakdown of the global financial system was interpreted as more than just a failure of the liberal economic order. As several Western democratic governments under political and economic pressure appeared unable to prevent social disruption, democracy as a political model was critically questioned too.

Against this background, one parallel trend, the emergence of China as an autocratic major power, is undeniable (Gat 2007). Since the beginning of the new millennium, China has become increasingly active in other parts of the world. Specifically, since the global financial crisis set in, China has bolstered its profile as a foreign investor, alternative donor, and trade partner (Kobayashi 2008; Lum et al. 2008; Brautigam 2009; Wolf Jr et al. 2013). Moreover, in the context of retreating liberal values, China’s experience is increasingly viewed as an alternative to the Western development path and value system (Kurlantzick 2008; Halper 2010; Kopinski et al. 2011).

This rise of China has created much suspicion and criticism among Western countries. For example, observers have called China a ‘rogue donor’ (Naim 2007), because of its policy of providing development assistance without strings attached; that is, without political conditionality. By doing so, it has been argued that China is undermining the efforts of traditional Western donors to promote good governance and democracy. In countries like Sudan or Angola, China’s ‘oil diplomacy’ was accused of feeding a civil war or, at least, of disregarding transparency and human rights (Taylor 2006; Halper 2010). At the same time, observers have identified the potential to stifle free expression abroad in China’s attempts to expand its international media cooperation (Farah and Mosher 2010).

Whether or not democracy is really on the retreat, given their simultaneity, some have tried to establish a link between the trends of stagnation of democratization and China’s rise as a powerful non-democratic player (Puddington 2007; Kagan 2008). While the Chinese government itself has only reluctantly acknowledged China’s weight as an economic, military and normative power, it remains keen to portray itself as a developing country with no ambition to interfere in the domestic politics of others (State Council 2011a, 2011b). This has by no means resolved the debate about the intentions, the empirical nature and the implications of China’s rise. In particular, it remains controversial whether the Chinese government patronizes autocratic regimes, and whether such alleged support has helped autocratic leaders to bolster their power and makes the world more authoritarian.

Empirically, it is not evident that China is indeed a cause of authoritarian persistence. Firstly, while China has reportedly supported autocracies (Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Small 2008), China might not be the only source of external assistance: other authoritarian powers such as Russia or Iran, but also many Western countries have questionable relations to autocratic regimes. For example, recent research revealed that the US is no less inclined to sell arms to authoritarian states than China (De Soysa and Midford 2012). Others have criticized the activities of Western corporations and banks in autocracies for being just as condemnable and questionable as the Chinese (Brautigam 2009). Moreover, there is evidence that natural resource exports from Africa correlate with human rights violations no matter whether they are sold to China or the US (Meyersson et al. 2008).

Secondly, the effect of China does not necessarily need to be negative for democratization (Hackenesch 2014). As modernization theory claims, the social and cultural changes associated with economic development enhance democratization in the long run (Lipset 1960; Inglehart and Welzel 2009). Hence, assuming that China has a developmental effect on some developing economies – through the provision of aid and infrastructure investments, or by driving up prices of natural resource exports – one would expect China’s rise to have a positive effect on democratization in these countries ultimately. Empirically, China’s doing-business approach in Central Asia, for example, appears to have positive effects on governance aspects that are usually associated with democratization (Melnykovska et al. 2012). Thus, the theoretical and empirical effects of China’s rise on other autocracies are unclear and we do not know whether they differ from that of other actors.

This book attempts to improve our understanding of China’s role as an external factor in authoritarianism. Does China profit from the persistence of other autocratic regimes? Do China’s leaders strategically cooperate with other autocrats? And, to what extent is linkage to China a cause of longevity of other autocrats?

The answer to these questions is of relevance not only for those who are interested in the theoretical causes – and lack thereof – of democratization, but also to practitioners in the field of development assistance, and particularly to policymakers in international relations. As will be elaborated in more detail, the effects of external influences on democratization and authoritarianism are underre-searched. The impact of non-democratic external influences, and especially of China, remain particularly opaque. At the same time, policymakers in the field of development cooperation and foreign relations disagree about the role of China and the debate about this becomes increasingly heated. While there is little to no systematic analysis of the impact of China’s rise, this phenomenon shapes our contemporary world to a great extent and will continue to do so in the future.

This book connects the growing scholarly interest in the survival of autocracies with the debate on the external factors of political stability and with the discussion of the particular role of China in international relations. It provides a theoretical perspective on the potential causes of the persistence of modern autocratic regimes that explicates the role of external autocratic powers. This forms the base of the subsequent empirical investigation of China’s external relations. Given the still weak understanding of China’s foreign relations, and given the early stages of the debate on external autocratic support, the book’s contribution consists as much in providing insights into the recent Chinese engagement in the developing world as in systematically assessing the particular role of China as an external factor in the survival of other autocracies.

As will be discussed in more detail below, there is a recent, lively debate about the role of autocratic major powers, such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China, in sustaining authoritarianism abroad. However, in extant literature, there is no consensus on how to conceptually capture the phenomenon of such external ‘autocracy support’, ‘autocracy promotion’ or ‘black knight’ support (Tolstrup 2009; Burnell 2010; Vanderhill 2013). For one, a variety of mechanisms and instruments of external autocracy promotion has been proposed. Another important line of contention relates to the degree to which external support or promotion involve a deliberate intention of the external actor and whether or not the concepts also comprise unintentional actions that have the consequence of strengthening autocratic features. Autocracy promotion, according to some experts, contains the deliberate intention to induce or strengthen autocratic structures elsewhere (Vanderhill 2013). Some also make the distinction between situations where autocratic features are already present, and hence can be supported by the outside actor, versus contexts in which they are absent or weak, where authoritarianism only can be promoted.

This book does not seek to solve this conceptual debate, but takes on a rather flexible position which is defined by and varies with the diverse subquestions raised. More specifically, the theoretical argument provided in this book covers both the motivations and mechanisms of autocracy support, while the empirical focus of this book lies on the mechanisms and the impact of external factors, and pays less attention to intentions. Empirically, the main interest lies on the interactions between existing authoritarian regimes, i.e. what some would call autocracy support. However, the investigation seeks both to shed light on China’s external behaviour and to assess its impact on other countries. Therefore, it looks not only at China’s interaction with, and effect on autocracies, but strives for a comparison with China’s external relations to and effects on non-autocratic countries.

The book thus contributes to the autocracy promotion debate by proposing and testing a theoretical framework that takes the motivation of authoritarian powers as the starting point, by providing empirical insights into the interaction between elites in and outside of China, and by assessing the empirical relevance of linkages to China for autocratic survival elsewhere. At the same time, while the book delivers insights into the patterns of China’s foreign relations it neither provides an anatomy of China’s approaches to, or instruments of, autocracy promotion in the narrow sense of the debate, nor any proof that such intention exists. So, the reader should neither expect a book on the ‘Chinese way’ of autocracy promotion (as opposed to the Russian or Iranian), nor an analysis of Chinese rhetoric, motivations or intentions. Whereas the book suggests that a preference for authoritarianism abroad is theoretically plausible, it does not claim to explain how such preferences relate to other plausible foreign policy interests or that they necessarily obtain priority over other objectives; it also does not claim to prove that such preferences empirically exist. Finally, as mentioned above, the empirical focus of the book lies on China’s role in autocratic survival. Therefore, the questions of whether or how China effects democratic institutions, whether it makes countries less democratic, or even induces transition from democratic to autocratic rule are not investigated here.

Why should we expect China to patronize other autocratic fellows? The starting point of the investigation is a theoretical reasoning, broadly based on selectorate theory (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). This actor-centred political economy argument identifies the different distributional patterns that can be observed in autocratic and democratic regimes as an incentive for major powers to cultivate autocracies elsewhere (Bader et al. 2010). The main argument is that the highly discretionary redistribution of resources in autocratic systems makes these systems prone to exploitation from outside. Accordingly, it should be easier for external players – be they autocratic or democratic major powers – to realize their external interests in autocratic than in democratic countries. However, for autocratic major powers such as Russia or China, the interest in autocratic persistence is topped up by the fear of democratic diffusion and the spillover of rebellions to overcome autocratic rule, as could be observed most recently in North Africa and the Middle East. The possibility to exploit autocratic regimes and the fear of democratic dominos – which in a globalized world extends beyond the country’s immediate neighbourhood – both deliver a motivation for why the Chinese leadership is expected to prefer cooperation with autocracies over democracies.

But the actor-centred political economy approach also provides insights into how such external preferences and interaction affect autocratic longevity elsewhere. For actors in such countries, interaction with external players can form a crucially important source of power. Accordingly, international cooperation affects the distribution of power in a country and so impacts on the survival of specific leaders (Smith 2009). As external actors can decide to interact only selectively with a specific partner, they have some influence on the distribution of power in a given country. Such influence is, however, conditioned on the pre-existing institutional constraints in a country that define the degree to which external interaction priviliges specific political actors over others.

The book investigates the empirical validity of this argument by combining in-depth case study research with a quantitative regression analysis. First, it investigates a core assumption of the theoretical argument; namely, that Chinese decision-makers find it easier to realize their interests in autocratic than in democratic countries. Because it is also of interest to investigate whether this is achieved by exploiting the distributional logic in authoritarian regimes, this investigation is pursued by the means of three comparative in-depth case studies. The three compared countries – Burma, Cambodia and Mongolia – capture the spectrum between outright autocracy and democracy. (For practical reasons, I refer to Burma rather than Myanmar throughout the book. During most of the period of investigation, Burma was considered to be authoritarian.) With respect to their compliance with Chinese interests, the comparison finds that the Chinese government is very successful in realizing its interests in the more autocratic small-coalition countries Burma and Cambodia, whereas it faces greater difficulties pursuing its objectives in the more democratic or large-coalition country Mongolia. Moreover, the investigation also finds empirical evidence that the Chinese government adapts to the distribution patterns in small- and large-coalition systems in order to increase the responsiveness to its interests. Specifically, there are indications that the Chinese government is more inclined to target members of the political and economic elite in Burma’s and Cambodia’s autocratic small-coalition regimes, whereas it seems to be more concerned with considering the interests of the broader population in the Mongolian large-coalition democracy. Interestingly, it appears that the Chinese approach has also adapted to the recent changes in Burma’s domestic political situation.

Second, the book quantitatively examines what determines China’s recent international economic cooperation projects and whether these are specifically targeted at autocrats. Finally, I assess whether different forms of interaction and cooperation between China and other autocrats increase the autocratic survival of the latter. Analysing the allocation of Chinese economic cooperation projects, the book finds that autocratic small-coalition countries are, indeed, targeted by China’s foreign engagement. When investigating the impact of interaction and cooperation with China on the survival of leaders elsewhere, the effect is, however, found to be much more limited than expected: for several interaction channels, such as high-level diplomatic relations, economic cooperation and arms sales from China, no effect on autocratic leadership elsewhere can be shown. However, export dependence on China seems to increase a leader’s survival in power in autocracies, but not so in democracies, suggesting that autocratic leaders are better able to capitalize from external interactions. Thus, while China’s rise is found to have a stabilizing effect on autocratic rule elsewhere, the channels through which such external support enforces authoritarianism are very specific.

The book’s findings have several implications. First, the fact that the degree of compliance seems to vary with coalition size supports the suspicion that powerful incentives exist for external actors to prop-up other autocrats. Without arguing that this translates into a preference for political stagnation, we can expect that for China, these incentives will only increase in the future. This is because with China’s increasing outward orientation and spiralling investments in other autocratian regimes, the country’s material stakes in the stability of existing authoriarian regimes are dramatically changing. Second, the findings underline the ambiguity of China’s rise and its impact on leader survival, and on international relations more generally. On the one hand, China’s rise becomes increasingly sensible elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, the fact that most forms of linkages were not found to have any observable impact implies that the impact and influence that China supposedly has on others tends to be overestimated, and is sometimes even misreported. Most importantly, economic power seems to be more influential than other forms of political linkages.

The external factors of political regimes

In general, it is fair to say that we know relatively little about the external determinants of regime type. The majority of democratization literature attributes the question of whether, or to what degree, a country is ruled in a democratic or an autocratic manner to internal factors, such as the level of economic development (Lipset 1960; Moore 1960; Inglehart and Welzel 2009) cultural factors and the heterogeneity of a country’s population (Lerner 1958; Almond and Verba 1963; Pye 1985; Fukuyama 1995; Putnam et al. 1993; Huntington 1996), or domestic agents and institutions (Rustow 1970; Dahl 1971; Sartori 1976; Lijphart 1984). Regarding authoritarian rule more specifically, there is some consensus on the idea that authoritarian rule is established and maintained by a combination of two complementary strategies, repression and co-optation (Tullock 1987; Wintrobe 1990). In addition, authoritarian rule is sometimes legitimized, ideologically or religiously. Taking this as the starting point, there are a number of different scholarly traditions with varying foci on aspects of authoritarian rule. Aspects such as specific types of authoritarianism (Geddes 1999), the role of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Explorations in Development Studies
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of acronyms
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Supporting dictators: If so, why and how?
• Part II External exploitation: Who, how and when?
• Part III Autocratic cooperation? Patterns and consequences
• Part IV So what? Findings, reflections and conclusions
• Appendix: Sample
• References
• Index