By Zachary Keck
All around the world China’s support for authoritarian states is backfiring.
A few years back it was fashionable in some circles to talk about China’s dictatorship diplomacy. This term referred to Beijing’s close economic and sometimes political cooperation with international pariah states, particularly resource rich ones. Core members of this group included Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and to a lesser extent, North Korea and Burma.
Often times, China’s dictatorship diplomacy was portrayed as an important advantage Beijing had over Western governments. That is, China was willing to overlook these governments’ human rights abuses, while Western governments largely shunned them. Beijing was able to reap the benefits of a lack of competition.
I always felt this notion was problematic on a number of counts, starting with its suggestion that Western governments prioritize moral considerations above all else in formulating foreign policy. The Western world, of course, maintains strong economic and political ties with many an unsavory regime, some of which are every bit as repressive as some of China’s partners. Indeed, the reason why the West usually shuns these latter states has less to do with their track records at home and more to do with their foreign policy orientations.
That being said, the West’s willingness to blacklist China’s partners is also facilitated by the fact that most of them are erratic and unstable, making them unattractive places to conduct business in the first place. This may not be the main reason for the West’s disdain, but it lowers the opportunity costs the West pays for its attempts to isolate them.
Read the full story at The Diplomat