Scandal and speculation surrounding the demise of Politburo member Bo Xilai raised questions about the stability and cohesiveness of China's political elite. However as his trial comes to an end the main political challenge is not at the elite level, but in the Communist party's ability to gain legitimacy among the wider public. 

The trial of Bo Xilai for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power has generated a number of surprises. To start with, there has been more transparency than most observers had expected, with the court issuing transcripts at regular intervals. Plus, the court used Chinese social media to post images of the proceedings.

This level of transparency is unusual in Chinese trials. However, we should be cautious about seeing this as a precedent for the future development of judicial practice. Bo's case is rather special, both because of the senior positions he held and because of the level of speculation around the case – and Bo's fate – ever since the drama began last February when Wang Lijun, Bo's former police chief in Chongqing, fled to the US Consulate-General in Chengdu. 

Wang, who is already serving a prison sentence after being convicted of abuse of power and other offences, gave testimony at Bo's trial. The exchanges between Bo and Wang will be picked over further, with their salacious details of the arguments that apparently ensued in January 2012 when Wang told Bo that Bo's wife was suspected of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood, in Chongqing the previous November. 

It is highly likely that Bo will be found guilty. Nonetheless, the trial gave Bo the opportunity to put across his views in court. He surprised observers on the first day by retracting confessions he made during the pre-trial investigation process. It is not clear whether this was expected by the prosecutors in advance of the trial, but it contributed to the trial lasting for five days – much longer than expected. 

Result already decided

Most media coverage and comment has focused on the details of the various events, which came out in court. However the political implications lie elsewhere. 

The trial should not be seen in isolation but as the culmination of a process which began in the days after Wang's attempted defection was brought to light. The party's subsequent handling of Bo Xilai proceeded in cautious stages: first the removal from his post as Party Secretary in Chongqing in March last year, then his 'suspension' from the Politburo and Party Central Committee a month later while an investigation was carried out by the party. Only in September 2012 was Bo expelled from the Communist Party and the file handed over to state authorities for prosecution.

This train of events serves as a reminder of the context in which China's judicial system operates. Whatever the transparency of proceedings in court, or the professionalism of judges and lawyers, the party's 'leadership' of judicial work means that politically important cases are often subject to direction from the party apparatus. 

Popular, not elite, politics is at stake

The Bo case has often been presented as a story of turbulence and factional infighting at the top of the party. But in November 2012 the party delivered a clear leadership transition at the top of both party and military from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, with the government handover in March this year. With the new team firmly in place, the transparency accorded to Bo's trial demonstrates confidence among the leadership, not division. 

Political challenges lie not at the top of the party, but in the ability of the party leadership to achieve legitimacy among the wider public. The revelations in the Bo case, from last spring and up to and including the trial, have increased levels of public cynicism about the behaviour of senior officials. Posts on China's social media will provide glimpses of the wider response to the trial; popular opinion is likely to be divided – as it was when Bo was still a serving official, and has remained since his removal from office. 

Given that the party seeks to present itself as being 'responsive' to public concerns, the main political implications of the trial will be seen in the impact it has on the leadership's credibility, not in elite politics. It is that imperative, not judicial reform, which explains what we have been allowed to see of the trial. 

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One year after a transition at the top of China's Communist Party, a major party gathering − the third plenum − was held on 9-12 November, with Chinese officials preparing a 'comprehensive plan for reform' in the context of apparently slowing growth in China as well as social and environmental challenges.

The speaker will comment on the outcomes of the plenum and the debates which led up to it, and examine likely policy changes and their impact on developments in China.

Professor John Ikenberry will examine the challenges to global order that are posed by the rise of China and current shifts in global power. He will argue that a liberal-oriented international order, as championed by the United States and Europe over the last century, remains the best hope for stability and growth in the 21st century.

Professor Ikenberry will contend that, while non-Western rising states seek greater voice and authority in the global system, they – perhaps surprisingly – still embrace the basic principles and institutions of liberal world order. Thus, the United States and Europe have powerful incentives to work together to reform the world’s governance institutions to accommodate new stakeholders and tackle problems of rising economic and security interdependence.

ASK A QUESTION: Send questions for the speaker by email to questions@chathamhouse.org or using #askCH on Twitter. A selection will be put to him during the event.

This event will be followed by a reception.

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This report serves as a record of the inaugural London Conference on Globalization and World Order, convened by Chatham House on 2–3 June 2014 at Lancaster House in London.

The London Conference has three aims: to be comprehensive in debating how best to manage the profound economic and political rebalancing taking place across the world; to go behind the headlines and debate the trends underlying and connecting current events; and to build an international community of experts with a shared understanding of the major challenges accompanying globalization.

This inaugural conference was fortunate to draw together high-quality speakers for each session, who offered perspectives reflecting their geographic and sectoral diversity. It benefited enormously from the ideas for themes, speakers and participants suggested by its steering committee. The conference would not have been possible without the generous support of its two founding partners – Accenture and Chevron – and its supporting sponsors – Bloomberg and Rio Tinto – as well as the generous cooperation that we received from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in hosting the event at the historic Lancaster House in St James’s. And the quality of the debate, insights and ideas generated over the course of the conference was driven largely by the input from its 200 participants. Steering committee members, sponsors and participants are all listed in the next section, along with speakers’ details and the conference programme.

The report itself opens with a short essay which explores one of the main conclusions of the conference: the loss of trust that appears to be permeating relationships between governments, and between governments and their citizens, as a result of the pressures they are all under from the process of globalization. This is followed by the key insights from each of the five main sessions of the conference on 3 June.

The final section brings together the five papers written by members of Chatham House’s in-house research teams in advance of the conference in order to stimulate participants’ thinking. Even following an eventful six months since these were written, their insights and proposals retain an important salience for the future.

We look forward to hosting the second London Conference on 1–2 June 2015.

 

Robin Niblett
Director 

China’s rise was highlighted again recently by reports that World Bank calculations of purchasing power parity could put the Chinese economy ahead of the US this year. China’s global influence has clearly spread substantially over recent decades, though the extent and impact of the country’s rise remain debated, and its economic size is not yet matched by influence in other areas.

Within China itself, the idea that the country has become a major power has become stronger. Put alongside Chinese analysis of global flux, this has resulted in changes in China’s approaches to foreign and security policy.

The impact of these changes remain uncertain. As set out in a new report on China’s Global Personality , there are several debates in China about the country’s approach to international affairs: around the implications of its rise for its continued identity as a developing country, whether it should become more ‘revisionist’ towards international affairs, and how assertive Chinese foreign and security policy should be.

So far, China’s post-2012 leadership has taken forward a number of areas of policy change. Institutionally, the creation of a new National Security Commission, chaired by Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, is likely to strengthen policy coordination and integration across a broad range of domestic and external issues.

The Chinese leadership has also promoted a much-discussed ‘new type of major power relationship’ in its approach to the US. The aim here is to avoid conflict between the US and a rising China, and to work towards a relationship characterized by equality, including in Asia – this therefore does not imply a desire to be a regional hegemon. The outcome, however, remains to be seen, and US responses so far have been cautious.

In dealing with disputes in East Asia, Chinese policy has become more assertive since around 2010, though the leadership has also set out its desire to deepen relations with its neighbours, and Beijing has been among the first to reach out to new Indian Prime Minister Modi. However, there are clear limits to this: relations with Japan in particular are likely to remain poor, and those with Vietnam have deteriorated substantially over recent weeks.

These issues are not simply bilateral, but should be seen as part of a wider renegotiation of regional order, involving not just China, but Japan, the US, and others. The last few years have seen changes in US approaches to the ongoing evolution of the international order and in particular to East Asia – the so-called ‘rebalance’ strategy, including ongoing – but slowing – negotiations for a trade and investment Trans-Pacific Partnership. And Japan’s security policy has been changing under Prime Minister Abe.

The idea of renegotiation can also be seen in the debates around institutions of global economic governance, such as the International Monetary Fund. Our research finds that China’s engagement with the existing international order remains strong, but there is also a growing element of gradual revisionism from China (and maybe others) within that order. China’s approach is consistent with the open and rules-based way that international institutions have developed, but it looks for its voice to be considered more in the setting of those rules.

The view from Europe

The implications of this analysis are that the questions policy-makers need to address should not be framed simply in terms of dealing with the rise of China and the changes in Chinese approaches this brings. Instead, the framework should be one which takes account of global flux and policy changes by other actors.

This means that there is space for European governments, for example, to engage in shaping the future global and regional order. In doing so, there could be particular challenges if strategic difficulties in the US-China relationship continue − the perceptions of opportunities and threats in Asia as seen from Europe may increasingly diverge from Washington’s. As China’s rise continues, it will not just affect relationships with China – Europe’s relationships with the US, and their stances on questions of regional order and governance in Asia, will also be called into question.

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As Nigeria celebrates one hundred years of unity, significant differences – real and perceived – remain between different parts of the country. This event marks the Nigeria launch of the Chatham House Briefing Who Speaks for the North? Politics and Influence in Northern Nigeria. Its author, Dr Leena Hoffmann, will discuss the effects of democratization and pacted politics on northern Nigeria, broader governance challenges, and how relations among decision-makers nationally have evolved.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

Nigeria’s prospects, with its rise to international prominence as Africa’s largest economy, are tempered by the many development and security challenges the country faces. While essential reforms in the power and agriculture sectors are underway, such efforts are balanced against the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, significant concerns around youth unemployment, and an increasingly contentious political environment in the run-up to the February 2015 elections. 

Dr Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, will discuss what steps the presidency is taking to address the country’s most urgent challenges, and how the political environment can be managed to overcome tensions that may impede progress.

This past Sunday, incumbent Dilma Rousseff defeated Aécio Neves in Brazil’s presidential runoff election, thus guaranteeing a fourth consecutive term in office for the Workers’ Party (PT). Her slim margin of victory (just over three percentage points) made this the closest presidential election in the country’s modern history, but it was also the sixth consecutive election fought between the PT and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), which led Brazil in the 1990s.

The PT-PSDB duopoly, firmly in place since the Plano Real stabilization programme in 1994, has provided Brazil with unprecedented political stability. At the same time, it has made it difficult for new actors to gain a foothold in national politics: Marina Silva of the Socialist Party (PSB) failed spectacularly in her bid to establish a third force this year.

Another problem generated by the duopoly is that it oversimplifies Brazilian politics to a competition between two recent legacies. The legacy of the PSDB’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) was macroeconomic stability, and the legacy of the PT’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-10) was social inclusion. Pointing to resurgent inflation, Neves ran on the Cardoso legacy of sound economic management; pointing to recent social change, Rousseff ran on the Lula legacy of pro-poor policies.

Although this style of campaigning provided useful informational shortcuts to voters, at times it seemed as if Cardoso and Lula were on the ballot themselves. Televised debates verged on shouting matches and were woefully devoid of programmatic details. At a time when Brazil faces a host of policy challenges — anaemic growth, rising prices, creaking infrastructure, corruption scandals, and an alarming credit bubble — this was the most backward-looking presidential campaign in recent memory.

Although both Rousseff and Neves called for national unity in the wake of the close result, there is no doubt that Brazil is a house divided. Since 2006, presidential elections have been characterized by strong regional and class cleavages. The more modern south and southeast regions voted solidly for Neves, while the poor northeast supported Rousseff by a margin of three to one.

Support for Rousseff in any given state or city was closely linked to the percentage of the local population receiving Bolsa Família, the popular conditional cash transfer policy introduced by the Lula government. Meanwhile, firms and investors showed their clear preference for Neves: every increase by Rousseff in pre-election polls led to drops in share prices and increased demand for dollars. Although Neves carried only 12 of Brazil’s 27 states, these 12 states are responsible for 62 per cent of Brazil’s GDP. In her second term, Rousseff will be making course corrections to her economic policy in the clear knowledge that the private sector, especially in the influential state of São Paulo, largely opposed her re-election.

…but the Opposition Advances in Congress

Rousseff will also have to contend with the most complex Congress of modern times. Of Brazil’s 32 registered parties, some 28 will be represented in the 2015-18 legislature, the highest number ever recorded. The largest party, the PT, will control only 14 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Both the PT and its principal coalition partner, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), lost ground in comparison to their performance in 2010. This means that the ruling coalition in 2015 will likely be reduced from two-third to three-fifths of the lower house, making it more difficult for Rousseff to approve constitutional amendments.

With a larger opposition bloc in Congress and a slim majority in the popular vote, Rousseff’s authority is clearly reduced. Unlike her predecessor Lula, she has only modest prestige and authority within the ruling PT, making it very unlikely that she will be able to promote an unchallenged successor from within the party ranks. Given that she cannot seek a third term, she runs the risk of facing early lame duck status. PT luminaries are already floating the name of Lula, now 69 years old, as the party’s possible candidate for 2018. To avoid sliding into irrelevance, Rousseff will need to name her new economic team (she is expected to make changes at the finance ministry and the central bank) as soon as possible, and to seize the legislative agenda in 2015.

The Path to Political Reform

A major item on Rousseff’s agenda will be political reform. Since the current constitution was introduced in 1988, every successive president has announced major proposals for changing the electoral system and the rules for campaign finance, with a few to reducing corruption and increasing accountability. Almost all of these proposals have died a slow death in Congress, so Rousseff is already advocating a plebiscite in order to preempt the expected foot-dragging by the political class.

One item that will certainly merit attention is the issue of re-election. Consecutive re-election of executives (presidents, governors and mayors) was introduced in 1997 and has revolutionized Brazilian politics. Some 65 per cent of mayors and 70 per cent of governors who attempt re-election are successful, and this has also been true of 100 per cent of presidents (Cardoso, Lula, and now Rousseff). In the past century, there has been only one other instance of three consecutive re-elected presidents in a democracy (Clinton, Bush and Obama in the US).

An end to immediate re-election was a key demand of both Aécio Neves and Marina Silva during the campaign. If Rousseff is sincere about political reform, she may set into motion the repeal of a rule that has greatly benefited her party.

The speaker will argue that Chinese foreign policy should be viewed as an extension of domestic policy to a degree not seen in other countries. China's foreign policy aims to support domestic growth and employment, must be aligned with nationalist and narratives of ‘rejuvenation’ and the ‘China Dream’, and must help dilute hostile foreign values. The ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, also known as the ‘New Silk Road’, exemplifies this. The speaker will illustrate its origins and development, discuss how it promotes the Communist Party’s domestic agenda, as well as look at (secondary) geostrategic aims and difficulties. Finally, he will look at the lessons for Europe, and why and how this Chinese initiative should be welcomed.

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Parag Khanna will draw on the themes of his new book, Connectography, to explain how the future of geopolitics lies less in determining national borders and territory but more in controlling infrastructure, supply chains and market access.

Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and regions such as Africa and the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors and power grids. He will contend that beneath the chaos of a world that often appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.

This event will be followed by a reception open to all attendees.
 

Much of the focus on China’s 13th Five Year Plan – its centralized and integrated economic guidelines for the next five years – has been on the estimated growth rate of 6.5 per cent, its lowest in recent history. This reflects the so-called ‘new normal’ of China’s development, as President Xi Jinping’s administration describes its aspiration for higher-quality growth in the context of a slowing economy.

But this growth target is an estimate, rather than a pledge. The emphasis on ‘ecological civilization’ – another of Xi’s signature buzzwords, referring to a broad set of approaches environmental protection – is striking. Further, by putting innovation and ‘green development’ at the heart of its ambition to create a ‘moderately prosperous society’, China has sent an important signal: that the country’s strategy for future prosperity in many respects converges with a shift away from its environmentally costly development model.

Environmental goals

The plan endorses a ‘vertical management system’ that will help overcome structural impediments to the local enforcement of environmental laws,  and of its 13 binding targets, 10 relate to the environment and natural resources. In the plan, China commits to an 18 per cent reduction in carbon emissions per unit of GDP from 2015 levels by 2020 and a 15 per cent reduction in energy consumed per unit of GDP from 2015 levels by 2020. It also re-commits to generate 15 per cent of primary energy from non-fossil sources and introduces an important new target of keeping energy consumption below 5 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent by 2020. Underlining how air quality has become a major driver of energy and climate policymaking, it also promises a 25 per cent reduction in harmful PM2.5 particulates.

In short, the plan suggests that decision makers in China not only take seriously its UN pledge to see a peak in the country’s emissions before 2030, but also that they hope the country will be the leading supplier of low-carbon technologies. Among its non-binding targets are some significant innovation-related measures: to raise gross expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP to 2.5 per cent, from 2.1 per cent today; and over the same period to almost double the number of patents owned per 10,000 people, from 6.3 to 12.

Innovation

The document makes clear the principal driver of China’s economy should be innovation, rather than investment. Innovation, says the plan, ‘must be placed at the heart of overall national development’ and ‘integrated into all the works of the Party and the country’. There is emphasis on strategic areas at the ‘frontiers’ of science, ‘mass entrepreneurship’ through new models such as crowd-funding, and digital economy projects – what the leadership likes to call ‘Internet+’ – including around the Internet of Things, quantum computing and big data.  

Under China’s 12th Five Year Plan (from 2011 to 2015), the state focused on a defined number of specific technology goals in its ‘strategic emerging industries’. Renewable energies and electric vehicles, for example, were afforded specific preferential policies. By contrast, the new plan has a greater focus on ‘clean coal’ and hydropower in the energy sector; and while it doesn’t abandon solar and wind, it also suggests greater diversity in its overall approach, with more of an emphasis on reform of the energy sector, developing smart power grids and investing in energy storage technologies such as batteries and fuel cells.

Moreover, innovation in the plan is not framed as simply being about hardware – the commercialization of science and technology. Rather, the text reiterates that innovation should come in many different varieties: ‘theoretical, institutional, scientific and technological, and cultural innovation’. This raises the intriguing and hopeful possibility that the country’s planners recognize some of the challenges and opportunities the public, particularly in the form of newly vocal, engaged and connected urban constituencies, pose in the governance of innovation.

Policymakers – taking ‘social innovation’ seriously – could begin look at the public as technology users, incubators of demand-driven successes, and innovators in their own right. In a context of low public trust around food and agriculture in China, for example, organic cooperatives and ecological entrepreneurs have pioneered supply-chain innovations, typically facilitated by digital networks, to connect farmers with urban consumers looking for safer food. Lower-tech approaches to energy too – such as inexpensive solar water heaters, which garner a mention in the latest plan – have been driven by rural users and supported by local initiatives, rather than central government coordination or subsidies.

These approaches to innovation would present a quite different model than previous central government plans have encouraged. Whether in the plan’s implementation they are harnessed and given support might be critical to meeting China’s environmental goals, as well as its drive to create a more innovative economy and society.

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It is tempting to read China's refusal in this case to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in The Hague as the defiance of an arrogant superpower that views itself as above international law. No doubt many in Manila, Washington and elsewhere are purveying this view. But there is more here than meets the eye.

For decades, Beijing has complained that the global order was forged in an era when China was weak and the rules of the game are rigged against it.

But this lament is more difficult to sustain in relation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped negotiate in the 1970s and early 1980s. Beijing signed the treaty as soon as it was opened for signature in 1982 and ratified it in 1996.

The Philippines initiated this arbitration against China in 2013 as part of a long-running dispute over rights in the South China Sea, including over the Spratly Islands (known as the 'Nansha Islands' in China) and surrounding maritime areas. 

Under the treaty, China is not obliged to defend the case but this is no bar to proceedings and it remains legally bound by the award. From a legal perspective, its refusal to participate is thus a risky move, all the more so since the ruling is likely to have legal ramifications for China's highly charged maritime disputes with other neighbours such as Vietnam and Malaysia.

It is well known that the legal proceedings launched by the Philippines sparked a contest of ideas in Beijing. Behind closed doors, some Chinese international lawyers argued that China should prove its commitment to the international rule of law by vigorously fighting its corner in the arbitration. The defeat of these liberal voices is usually interpreted as an inevitable effect of the nationalists' grip on power under President Xi Jinping.

In a significant concession to those on the losing side of the argument, however, China published a position paper setting out its objections to the jurisdiction of the tribunal and formally conveyed this to the tribunal which treated it as ‘effectively constituting a plea on jurisdiction’.

This novel form of ‘non-participating participation’ must be seen against the backcloth of a strategic ambition by China to develop a greater mastery of international law. At an important meeting just two months earlier, the Communist Party called for China to strengthen its ‘discourse power and influence in international legal affairs’ and use legal methods to safeguard its ‘sovereignty, security and development interests’.

Our research team at Chatham House has been tracking impressive steps by China to realize this goal, including new government decision-making machinery designed to promote compliance with international law, a hiring spree of international lawyers and new advisory committee for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, promotion of scholarship and efforts to show norm leadership especially in ‘new domains’ of international law such as cyber law, and a training programme to share growing Chinese international law expertise with the global South.

We know from Chinese colleagues that maritime disputes are a major impetus for this drive. For years, the Chinese government has fretted about its low capabilities in the international legal field, compared with other permanent members of the UN Security Council and regional rivals such as Japan. Now, impelled by the need to protect its strategic interests in the South China Sea and elsewhere, it is doing something about it.

It may seem paradoxical in light of its bullish attacks on the Philippines and even the tribunal itself, but China's boycott of the arbitration should also be seen as a manifestation of its low confidence in its own capacities in the realm of international law. Speculation is rife that the leadership lacks faith in its ability to convince the tribunal of the legal validity of its controversial ‘nine dash line’ demarcation of China's rights in the South China Sea.  

In the arbitration and otherwise, China has avoided clarifying the precise legal basis and implications of its ‘nine dash line’ claims while sponsoring a vast industry of academic studies to support its position.

In the meantime, China is playing to its strengths, including its deep pockets, in pursuing an extrajudicial approach. An audacious programme of land reclamation and militarization of atolls and escalating patrols and exercises in disputed territories is a clear effort to alter ‘the facts on the water’. And in recent months it has choreographed statements of political support for its South China Sea claims from a motley crew of states with economic ties to China.

While China's rejection of the South China Sea arbitration is true to form for a powerful state that, like its great rival the United States, is generally ill-disposed towards binding international dispute resolution processes, it is not inconceivable that this approach will give way when China becomes more confident in its ability to play and win at ‘law fare’, as we are already seeing in the context of World Trade Organization disputes. Until then, in time-honoured fashion, Beijing is biding its time, plugging its skills gap and hoping it can shake off mounting reputational damage from its petulant spurning of these proceedings.

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The field of Indian foreign policy is rich and wide ranging, offering new empirical material across a broad array of topics and relationships. This article reviews three recent books on the subject, with an eye towards evaluating change amid continuity in the pursuit of Indian foreign policy. This scholarship calls out for a new paradigm to understand India’s changing position and actions at global, regional and domestic levels. I argue that Indian foreign policy can and should be seen through the prism of an open border, interdependence framework, wherein both the domestic and global levels are analysed in a linked manner. While the literature surveyed here does not yet offer a new paradigm, some common findings suggest the need for new approaches. We also need to find and use new sources of data and seek ways to measure institutional effects in foreign policy. The task of measurement and theoretical modelling is made more challenging by the need to theorize the linkages across levels and to measure foreign policy variables in different countries simultaneously.