China’s hands-off style is winning friends in Iran, Israel, Egypt and beyond

President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “One Belt, One Road” vision is, according to Chinese media, an attempt to revive the pre-modern Silk Route, with the ancient city of Xian as its entry point. That vision was preceded in 2014 by Premier Li Keqiang’s ( 李克強 ) statement at the Boao Forum where he signalled China’s intent on “collectively forging Asia’s future development”. Chinese policymakers have since gone to great lengths to explain that “One Belt, One Road” is not a challenge to Western-led institutions like the World Bank but a means to bring regional stakeholders closer together, and diversify and augment credit sources, thereby averting political conflicts.

Funding for belt and road fast-track rail links between China, West Asia and onwards to Europe is to be provided by the newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Apart from China, the new bank’s founding members include arch-enemies Israel and Iran, with both of which Beijing currently enjoys warm relations. Following the British lead last March, several Western or pro-Western countries decided to defy Washington and join the bank, including Australia, France and Germany. Even Vietnam and the Philippines, which share concerns over Chinese claims to large segments of the South China Sea, have joined.

READ MORE: China to help Iran build high-speed rail as part of ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy

When coupled with what is perceived as growing US energy independence on the back of new drilling in Alaska and the fracking revolution, speculation inevitably arises about possible US divestment from Saudi Arabia, and about the Chinese filling part of the vacuum politically if not militarily in years to come. On the other hand, Islamic State popularity among Sunni Iraqis and Russian air force deployment in Syria complicate America’s choice between divestment and further immersion in the Middle East, and make the Chinese more resolute to avoid getting embroiled.

But, in the long run, neither IS nor Russia will be able to challenge Western norms worldwide, if only because both narrowly rely on oil revenue. Foregrounding China as, at once, a much softer and more sophisticated challenge to Western power is, however, not self-explanatory. In fact, until Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) tenure (2002-2012), China’s rise had been perceived by most Western scholars as a fillip to Francis Fukuyama’s notion of triumphant liberal democracy. Indeed, much of Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) decade in power (1989-2002) had been portrayed as a period when China, having long broken with its one-time patrons in Moscow, would increasingly converge with Western market and international citizenship norms.

In essence, the Chinese alternative narrative to Western norms boils down to non-judgmental foreign policy and rural poverty eradication. Rather than focusing on individual freedoms, it conjures up a harmonious world in which diverse religions, cultures and lifestyles can coexist peacefully, and where big countries do not meddle in their smaller neighbours’ affairs. Imperial China is somewhat wishfully cast as such a sophisticated tolerant polity that was administered by war-averse, selfless sage-bureaucrats; where community bonds overrode whimsical individual self-fulfilment, and where ethnic minorities could reach high office on merit.

INFOGRAPHIC: How ‘One Belt, One Road’ will give China’s developing neighbours easier access to Chinese-made products

In Chinese eyes, the American-led world order is rhetorically framed around the sanctity of national sovereignty and universal rights but is, in fact, underpinned by Western exploitative extraction of mineral resources in the developing world, and by dehumanising global military omnipresence. Though the Communist Party elite often send their children to study at Ivy League universities, and might acknowledge in private that the US has proven a more benign power on the world stage than the old-world European colonial powers of the 20th century, suspicion of American motives is as rife as ever in China at the grass roots.