Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.
The highlights this week: The United States rejoins UNESCO in a bid to counter China, the number of foreign residents in China declines sharply, and Beijing gets into a diplomatic spat with Seoul.
After much delay, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to China this weekend, hoping to prevent U.S.-China tensions from spiraling further. The bilateral relationship remains the focus of intense attention, but multilateral organizations have long been sites of U.S.-China conflict. The latest arena is UNESCO, which the United States just announced plans to rejoin, largely to counterbalance China’s influence on it.
The United States pulled out of the organization in 1984, citing Soviet influence, and returned in 2004 only to leave again during the Trump administration. It wasn’t just Cold War politics that drove the United States (and the United Kingdom) out of UNESCO in the 1980s. The organization’s internal corruption and bureaucratic incompetence gave it a poor reputation within the nongovernmental organization sector that lasted well into the 2000s.
Things at UNESCO have changed in the decades since, especially after the election of Audrey Azoulay—who has a reputation as a competent manager and diplomat—as director-general in 2017. But disagreements that caused the Obama administration to withdraw funding under an existing law in 2011 and the Trump administration to withdraw altogether were about UNESCO’s recognition of Palestine rather than core U.S. interests. Like China’s pettiness over recognition of Taiwan, the U.S. moves seemed self-sabotaging.
Although UNESCO isn’t a major geopolitical player, the U.S. absence has—to name one example—aided China’s politicization of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, claiming minority customs and art as part of Chinese heritage or appropriating neighbors’ traditions. (FP’s Liam Scott reported on China’s strategic use of UNESCO’s cultural heritage designation earlier this year.)
The United States returning again should give UNESCO a big financial boost; it owes $600 million in membership back fees. Ultimately, the U.S. relationship with UNESCO highlights a fundamental advantage that China has within the United Nations: Beijing keeps showing up. China has successfully promoted the election of its own staff to key roles in the U.N. and other international organizations, whereas in the United States, domestic politics sometimes get in the way.
Washington gets in its own way on other issues, too; it might set up an international trade deal only to have both presidential candidates promise to abandon it during the next election cycle, for example. Meanwhile, the very nature of the United Nations plays to Chinese officials’ strengths. It is a highly bureaucratic organization where suspicion between members abounds; in other words, it resembles the Chinese Communist Party.
China’s own internal politics can sometimes frustrate it on the international stage. Yet Beijing recognizes power depends on showing face at every meeting and sitting through every speech. And compared to China’s bilateral relationships—where it often abruptly breaks off relations or ends talks—its role in multilaterals is much more consistent, because it sees “discourse power” as crucial.
For now, Washington remains the most powerful actor inside the United Nations—but it can’t coast forever.
Expats in decline. A prominent Chinese commentator, Wang Wen, recently gave an interesting speech (partially translated here) discussing the sharp drop in the number of foreigners from the developed world living in China over the last decade. For example, Wang noted that the number of French citizens residing in China dropped by 40 percent between 2010 and 2020, and the number of U.S. citizens by 23 percent in the same period. Those numbers seem to have fallen further since the start of the pandemic.
According to Wang, fewer than 0.05 percent of residents in China are foreign citizens, compared to 2 percent in South Korea and Japan. (For comparison, about 7.1 percent of U.S. residents are non-citizens, and another 6 percent are naturalized citizens.) Wang points to red tape and xenophobia as causes for the decline. But what he can’t say is that the security state has contributed, too. It’s increasingly difficult for foreigners to access basic services (such as ride-hailing apps or WeChat) with just their passports. That’s especially true for foreign tourists.
The authorities now enforce systems of control that were once largely ignored, such as registering with the police for an overnight stay at a friend’s. Online censorship is more pervasive than in previous decades, and the foreign internet is now nearly inaccessible. Ironically, the decline in foreigners has occurred even as some aspects of quality of life in Chinese cities, such as air pollution, have improved.
But as a foreign resident in China from 2003 to 2018, I’d say one of the biggest factors is the lack of hope about the future. Before the rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping, basic human rights were slowly improving, and now they are regressing.
Fentanyl furor. A recent Chinese state television documentary that tackles U.S. drug policy appears intended as a propaganda move. In the program’s own words, it goes after the “Western practice of ‘blaming China,’” and it comes as accusations that China is fueling the U.S. fentanyl crisis have returned to the stage in Washington. U.S. politicians blame Beijing for failing to crack down on the production of precursor chemicals supplied to drug cartels.
To me, China’s actions seem to be largely the result of indifference, not malice. Although Chinese authorities can crack down when directed by top leadership, regulatory enforcement in China is generally poor. But the CGTN film, which simply turns the blame on Washington, will be a useful piece of evidence for Capitol Hill staffers who need ammunition against Beijing.
South Korea spat. Another week, another diplomatic mess caused by a Chinese ambassador. Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming recently threatened South Koreans for siding with the United States—at a time when Beijing’s reputation in Seoul has reached a low point. South Korea summoned Xing, but rather than recognizing its mistake, China responded by doing the same to the South Korean ambassador to Beijing.
Meanwhile, a former Samsung executive faces charges in South Korea for attempting to set up a copycat chip factory in China—which could have more serious consequences for the relationship in the long term. South Korea has a thriving semiconductor industry, which the United States just partially exempted from restrictions so that it can produce memory chips in Chinese factories. (Export control expert Martin Chorzempa explains here why that’s probably a good thing.)
Investment losses. It’s not just foreign citizens who are avoiding China—increasingly, foreign investors are, too. The Information reports that significant U.S. endowments, especially public pension funds, are pulling out of China en masse out of fears about reputational damage and an increasingly risky political environment. Between 2021 and 2022, $46.1 billion in China-focused funds dwindled to $16.5 billion last year; so far this year, the figure sits at $1.14 billion.
Part of the problem for investors is that it’s becoming harder to get remotely reliable information about business in China, with databases closed to foreigners and due diligence firms targeted by police. The absence of venture capital has already had tough consequences for China’s technology sector. Meanwhile, China’s own economic elite seem determined to take the money and run, with a growing number of millionaires leaving the country.
