From Tao Guang Yang Hui to Xin Xing: China’s Complex Foreign Policy Transformation and Southeast Asia

Summary

As Singapore clocked its first handful of coronavirus cases in late January 2020, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, while on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, issued an appeal for the public to remain calm. This appeal bore some similarities with China's former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦) foreign policy doctrine—to calmly observe, hold one's ground, react firmly, act but keep a low profile (冷静观察、稳住阵脚、沉着应付、韬光养晦、有所作为: leng jing guan cha, wen zhu zhen jiao, chen zhuo ying fu, tao guang yang hui, you suo zuo wei).

Drawing inspiration from PM Lee's call for “calm” and its similarities with Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui, this article discusses the evolution of China's foreign policy since Deng Xiaoping, as well as the implications of this foreign policy transformation for Southeast Asia. Methodologically, this paper compares Deng Xiaoping's and Xi Jinping's foreign policy doctrines through an analysis of state narratives—namely the evolution from Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui to Xi's Xin Xing (新型). This shift has largely been interpreted as the most important shift in China's foreign policy.

This paper will address three questions: Was Deng's Tao Guang Yang Hui, characterized by the “No’s” (不: bu), really replaced? What is new about Xi's Xin Xing? And whither China's foreign policy?

UNPACKING TAO GUANG YANG HUI

Tao Guang Yang Hui, coined and formulated by Deng between 1989 and 1991, functioned as the core doctrine of China's foreign policy against the backdrop of the Tiananmen incident, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. With Tao Guang Yang Hui, Deng relaunched China's “reform and opening up” with his well-known Southern Tour of 1992, and successfully froze China's internal debate on the “-isms”—i.e., socialism or capitalism—and re-embraced US-led globalization.

Today, “Deng Xiaoping Theory”, which encompasses elements of Tao Guang Yang Hui, is enshrined in the People's Republic of China's Constitution, and accorded the same ideological standing as “Mao Zedong Thought” and “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” as China's “guiding principles”.