Five Upsurges in the Build-up of Sinocentrism: Connecting Shifts in Chinese Foreign Policy under Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi

This article focuses on five upsurges in Sinocentrism, the essence of Chinese strategic thinking toward Asia,¹ since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The first in 1956-58 sowed the seeds of departing from Soviet-led socialism and Soviet leadership of regionalism in Asia.² The second in 1987-94 rejected a leading Japanese role in East Asian regionalism.³ Of course, denial of US regional leadership in East Asia, the sina qua non for forging a region dominated by China, mattered greatly, reaching unprecedented prominence in 2008-10. The fourth shift in 2016-18 railed against South Korea’s aspirations rather than letting it drive management of North Korea and a region-shaping role. The fifth and most recent shift took place in 2023-24, distancing China from rising Russian aspirations for shared leadership in forging a non-Western world order as well as co-led Eurasian regionalism.⁴ Each of these five perceived challenges to Sinocentrism by a state intent on its own ascendency aroused a strong response from China’s leadership, reflected in ongoing Chinese publications and for the 1950s in the extant archives. Some call it “tianxia” (all under heaven), but the legacy they recognize is really Sinocentrism.⁵

All of these shifts in Chinese foreign policy have drawn attention, apart from the latest moves toward Russia (which neither side fully acknowledges),⁶ but without being linked in a single explanation paying adequate attention to the Sinocentric rationale at work. They have been treated in the context of bilateral relations, not often as part of a persistent worldview. Yet, there is growing recognition of an enduring mindset shaping Chinese foreign policy in Asia.⁷

The essence of Sinocentrism is refusal to share leadership in the build-up of regionalism across much of Asia. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union considered itself the leader of the communist bloc and was struggling to accommodate China’s aspirations, but Mao Zedong saw no pathway to sharing leadership in Asia. In the 1980s, Japan sought a leadership role in transforming East Asia and was eager to incorporate China into a joint endeavor, but Deng Xiaoping dismissed its right to leadership, and Jiang Zemin went further in tying it to past Japanese militarism. The tone toward the US hardened perceptively around 2010, as if the US “pivot to Asia” gravely threatened the regional order. Under Xi Jinping in the mid-2010s China considered South Korea to be standing in the way of Sinocentrism despite Seoul’s eagerness to work together for the resolution of the standoff on the Korean Peninsula and a regional framework. In the latest manifestation of rejecting overtures to jointly boosting regionalism, China has grown bolder since 2023 in ignoring Russia’s promotion of an agenda for Eurasian regionalism, despite claims of enduring harmonious agendas. These five supplicants were each determined to win China’s cooperation, only to find a dearth of common ground on Asian regionalism.

This article first introduces Sinocentrism as the essence of the Chinese world order to the end of the nineteenth century. It then turns to the landmarks of Sinocentric affirmation breaking with the Soviet Union, Japan, the US, South Korea, and Russia as aspiring leaders in Asia. In the conclusion, some generalizations are offered about the enduring aspirations for Sinocentrism.

Sinocentrism: The World Order of Imperial China

What is Sinocentrism? It has economic, infrastructural, political, diplomatic, and civilizational dimensions. For China, the economy is a focal point, insistent on the dependency of others on China without China growing unduly dependent on others. The tribute system assumed that the states offering tribute were seeking Chinese largesse with little to entice China. Lately, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) along with globalization with strings attached creates an environment of one-sided dependency on China’s economy. Through the BRI China also builds an infrastructure network through bilateral arrangements centered on China’s own network. In this web of connections China gains economic advantages as it also boosts political influence. In the late imperial era, when China saw European states dominate global infrastructure, it did not have a response other than to close its maritime borders and keep narrow land linkages. To keep its political system aloof from foreign interference and extend its political influence, China in late imperial times rejected dealings with “barbarians” except when necessary and widened its own reach in Central Asia while keeping its hold over Korea. Of late, it has established new organizations exclusive of powers that could be viewed as equal, steadily converting these ties or bypassing them with Sinocentric bodies, although neighboring states have often resisted this diplomatic sleight-of-hand. Finally, the civilizational thrust of Chinese initiatives starts with the demand for deference to Chinese thinking on matters such as human rights. Historically, there was an assumption of sacrosanct culture, so superior it defied outside influence. Penetration of external cultural forces has increasingly been prevented after limited openness from the 1980s.

Imperial China viewed the world through at least five fundamental prisms: middle kingdom (Zhongguo), all under heaven (tianxia), mandate of heaven (tianming), civilizational superiority (wenming versus barbarians), and tributary system (chaogong tizhi). Middle kingdom presupposes centrality, while demanding that others follow China in proportion to their distance from the heartland. All under heaven was likewise a vision of the world order, radiating out in concentric circles. The mandate of heaven bestowed absolute power on China’s leader, regardless of any national borders. Civilizational superiority was a cornerstone of perceptions and relationships, demanding ritualized deference with no deference to other civilizations, assuming a single dominant civilization insistent on subservience from other states, not just those within some designated sphere. Finally, the tributary system demanded other states send emissaries to China to pay tribute to the emperor and kowtow. In turn, the emperor granted the foreign ruler the status of vassal, offering economic benefits and, in some circumstances, China’s protection.

This combination of prisms defining foreign relations reflected China’s preeminence and situated others within a hierarchical order, promising stability on the basis of respecting China’s superior status—a negation of the equality of states and respect for cultural diversity. In the PRC, the Sinocentric legacy is obscured by casting blame on all other aspirants to regional leadership (shared or otherwise) for nefarious motives that made cooperation inconceivable.

John K. Fairbank describes Sinocentrism as hierarchic, nonegalitarian, tributary, concentric in the sense of differential demands depending especially on degree of proximity and imbued with a sense of Chinese superiority.⁸ China’s demands differed, notably for areas deemed part of the Chinese cultural sphere and others, but constant respect for Sinocentric terminology was demanded. Respect for sovereignty, equality of states, and ideological diversity were at odds with cultural demands. The result was a world order (tianxia) shaped by China. Fairbank summarizes Wang Gungwu’s chapter that found “material and moral superiority” to be the principal assumption in China’s relations with Southeast Asia, and Hae-jung Chun’s account of Korea as the model of “tributary relations,” treating economic relationships as secondary.⁹

Sinocentrism collapsed with European pressure in the south, Russian pressure in the north and west, followed by Japanese pressure from the east, and overall US pressure centered on an “open door.” Resistance focused on all of these, lingering as the “century of humiliation.” Most resented for defying the “natural order” was Korea, acting before Japan’s annexation moves. This did not mean that Chinese gave much scrutiny to what was problematic about their own record of unequal treatment of neighboring nations. Rather, talk of the injustice of Japanese colonialism and of “unequal treaties” put the focus on what China had lost. The communist movement centered on how China could extend its reach again beyond its borders, despite the shift in vocabulary to states rising up against unequal treatment from imperialist countries.

In 2008, against the recent upsurge in talk of rising Chinese soft power in a harmonious world, the Beijing Olympics saw a surge of Sinocentric assertiveness. The authoritarian, xenophobic elements of Confucianism, earlier boosted in the Ming and Qing dynasties, became pronounced as China’s leaders took a more hierarchical approach to regional relations.¹⁰ Japan’s multilateral and inclusive approach, respecting universal values, brought it in the crosshairs as a long-term dissenter from Sinocentrism and threat to Chinese national identity, only months after the Hu Yaobang visit there had raised hopes of mutual respect for cultural traditions. South Korea was the target of “culture wars.” Evident was the sharpening dividing line between ascendant Eastern civilization equated with China and disparaged US (Western) civilization. In conflating cultural and political identity, it was assumed that the Chinese state has the moral authority to define and transmit the civilization, while regional stability rested on building hierarchical relations requiring respect for China’s “natural” and “core” interests.

Soon thereafter, Jin Linbo took note of the praise for tianxia as Sinocentrism was equated with the natural order of regionalism. Jin explained that “the Sinocentric international order placed China in the center as the dominant power, while treating its neighbors, whether they were formally part of it or not, as peripheral…They were tributary…through ritual deference and acknowledgment of the Confucian order that confirmed China’s superior status in a hierarchical system radiating out.” Jin continued, “Chinese perceptions of the outside world have been fundamentally affected by the strong sense of unparalleled Chinese cultural superiority, which had its origins in Sinocentrism and Confucianism. The multicentury persistence of the tributary system not only endorsed China’s culturalism but also made the principles of the system virtually fixed in the Chinese worldview.” Jin proceeded to warn that “the aggressive promotion of the Confucian tradition may be regarded as ‘cultural imperialism’ in international society.”¹¹

Suisheng Zhao focused on soft power in the 21st century reconstruction of the traditional world order by Chinese leaders. He emphasized Chinese centrality as proof of claims of civilizational superiority, tributes as ritual acknowledgment of the superiority of Chinese culture, harmony of relations as a product of the ruler’s virtue, and benevolence as bestowed by China in return for compliance. Xi takes this legacy as uniquely virtuous and worthy of reconstruction. However unpersuasive to others or distorted of history, idealized narration of this order is widespread.¹²

In blaming the geopolitical and geo-cultural aggressiveness of other states for setbacks to the bilateral relationship, Chinese invariably diverted attention from Sinocentrism. This was easy to do in the late 1950s, when Moscow crushed rebellious East European nations, even as it sought to reassure Beijing that more preferential treatment was in store. It found some resonance at the end of the 1980s in claims that visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and signs of not accepting full responsibility for wartime outrages were harbingers of the revival of militarism, despite Japan record of postwar pacifism and admissions of guilt in order to win trust. In the atmosphere of US unipolar overconfidence early in the 2000s, Chinese gained narrative gained traction that Washington sought to spread a single, civilizational model, twisting the response to the Tiananmen brutality, when Washington was eager to encourage China’s rise as a “responsible state,” as it expressed forthrightly as late as 2005, and not to denigrate its traditional culture. No country tried harder to accept China as it was than South Korea, only to discover that China aspired to what it had lost from the past. Finally, Russia had thought Putin and Xi had agreed on a division of labor in Eurasia only to learn that China in 2023-24 was insisting on altering the terms. Even if other states were not blameless, we should recognize the persistent pattern at play.

Sinocentrism: Mao’s Response to the Soviet Quest for Communist Internationalism

There is no doubt that the Soviet Union gave ample evidence to China of its thinking that the communist bloc has only one center, that there is no Chinese sphere of influence in Asia while Moscow has a fully controlled sphere not only in Europe but extending along China’s borders, and that China’s recovery of full sovereignty in its northeast and west was not to be automatic. Indeed, Soviet policy toward the United States would dictate China’s policy toward Taiwan, and Soviet “third world” diplomacy, as to India, would set limits on China’s behavior. Yet, by 1957 Moscow had recognized that Beijing was the indisputable second center of the socialist bloc, as it was accepting China’s ever larger profile. In October 1957, the peak of such recognition came with a defense agreement, offering China advanced military technology and prototypes of nuclear weapons. In 1958, the relationship had fallen into an irreversible downward spiral.¹³

Communist states naturally frame disagreements in ideological language, often obscuring their actual causes. Real differences existed, as did resentment over leadership rivalry and disregard for Mao’s opinion when the momentous 1956 de-Stalinization speech was given. On foreign policy, the split over how to deal with the United States, as Khrushchev opted for “peaceful coexistence” when Mao sought to pressure the US on Taiwan took center stage. What may be overlooked was Mao’s impatience to get going on a Sinocentric agenda, which would not be possible if a G2 Moscow-Washington understanding was reached on managing the world in order to maintain peace.¹⁴ This could be seen as blocking revolutionary movements, the best hope of Mao, and as leading to a competition for countries such as India, whose land Mao would soon make clear he wanted for China. Such a deal would solidify Russia’s control over China’s foreign policy, when China had only regained the strength to set its own course. Having sacrificed heavily to save North Korea and resentful of Moscow’s limited support and assumption of a leading role afterwards, Mao was in no mood to accept enduring passivity. Mongolia’s presence as a Soviet vassal-state was a stinging reminder.

The Soviet Union by the late 1940s considered itself the undisputed leader of a movement to draw one country after another under its tight embrace with no tolerance for resistance or ideological deviations. China posed a unique challenge because of the nature of a revolution emerging from a resistance movement only loosely under Soviet influence. Yet, Mao’s need for support in constructing a socialist society and for assistance in the Korean War, which Stalin and he had approved, papered over strains tied to the inequality of the relationship. Trouble accelerated with the emergence of Nikita Khrushchev as the Soviet leader, lacking the pedigree of Stalin and pressed by internal problems to adjust the socialist model and to seek peaceful coexistence with the United States and the West. In 1956-57, Sino-Soviet relations wobbled. In many ways Khrushchev strove to keep Beijing under Moscow’s embrace, resolving remnants of Russian imperialism, offering substantial economic support, and even promising nuclear weapons. Yet, his unilateral moves to reassess the Stalinist legacy, manage hierarchical control in Eastern Europe and relations to communist parties in the West, and pursue some degree of stability in relations with the United States tested Mao’s willingness to follow his leadership.¹⁵

By the end of 1957, Khrushchev had solidified his absolute authority at home and reasserted the traditional Soviet influence and control over Eastern Europe. The Soviet economy was booming. Sputnik and nuclear subs fueled added confidence, to the point of talk of surpassing the United States in fifteen years. Yet, his call for peaceful coexistence in support of this objective clashed with Mao’s view that since the “East wind prevails over the West wind” action to bury the other side are in order in the “final struggle” with imperialism, and if the Soviets did not lead, China would lead the world revolution. Only lacking economic power, China needed a “great leap forward” to take the lead. This raised the question is China learning from the Soviet Union or is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union now following the Chinese Communist Party.

China and Russia agreed on strengthening the unity of the communist movement. Against the wishes of communist parties in capitalist countries, Mao had supported recognizing the Soviet Union as the head, despite reservations about its leadership, flexing its clout and worrying the Soviets about its own aspirations to be the head, if holding back for now due to its far weaker economy. Already talk of replacing the Soviet Union as head—a head is needed—were manifest in the Chinese Communist Party, and Mao’s tolerance for the Yugoslav party and Western European parties put him at odds with Khrushchev. There was talk afterwards of Mao’s decisive influence at the conference, suggesting no need to avoid tenser international relations. Weakened, Khrushchev had no choice but to rely on Mao, and Mao used the situation to put China in a leadership position, actually intending to replace the Soviet Union.¹⁶ The conference was both the high-water mark of Sino-Soviet relations and their crossroads, raising the issue of which side would lead the international communist movement, soon to burst into the open.

Throwing a spotlight on the tensions that set Beijing and Moscow on a path of discord and the Sino-Soviet split, Shen Zhihua uses Soviet archives to uncover the “ground-floor logic” of Chinese history in a book only publishable abroad. Internally, he depicts a time lunging from hope to despair, passing through a time of reflection under the stimulus of Khrushchev’s 20th Party Congress Speech pointing out mistakes in the socialist model. Setting aside Shen’s inquiry into the Chinese Communist Party’s consciousness about socialism leading to the “anti-rightist campaign” and intensified class struggle, we focus on Shen’s account of the Sino-Soviet split in its initial stage. Shen explains that Mao had no choice but to “lean to one side” in the Cold War struggle, “taking Russia as its teacher,” but Mao rushed impatiently. When Khrushchev in 1956 exposed problems in the socialist model, Mao began to consider how China could proceed differently. This happened at the peak of “honeymoon relations.” Moscow offered massive economic assistance. China gave Khrushchev strong political support at a vital juncture. Prior to the “Moscow conference” of November 1957, misgivings on both sides were ostensibly cast aside, although Mao was thinking increasingly about pursuing China’s distinct leadership role.

Looking back from today, Shen sees China at a crossroads and making the wrong choice in its internal path, but making the right choice (anticipating the 1980s) in deciding that countries choose their own autonomous path of socialism, selecting a model suitable to their needs.¹⁷ Shen has previously written about the significance of the conference, saying that the “Moscow Declaration revealed the Sino-Soviet disagreement, especially Beijing’s challenge to the Soviet leadership of the socialist bloc. Thus, the Moscow Conference was an historical turning point in the Sino-Soviet relationship.”¹⁸ In the conclusions of his new book he explains that despite three divisive issues the participants at the conference sought a common front. They were the Sino-Soviet split on peaceful coexistence, Poland’s objection to declaring the Soviet Union is the leader, and Yugoslavia’s rejection and refusal to sign. The fact that China and the Soviet Union from November 3 to 10 had resolved their differences on the document paved the way to its final adoption. Mao started by agreeing to more than 90% of the draft.¹⁹ Yet, peaceful coexistence and leadership were a lingering test of Sinocentrism.

Impatience for Sinocentrism already visible in late 1957 became focused on the economy in the Great Leap Forward from 1958, on culture in the Cultural Revolution from 1966, and on foreign relations, directly in intensified sponsorship of revolutionary movements and then indirectly in the rapprochement with the United States as the only option left to reassert China’s influence. Clinging to North Korean ties and attacking Vietnam in 1979 were signs of regional aspirations. A breakthrough with the United States did not end this thinking.

When “academic freedom” reached its zenith in 1985-86, a few intrepid scholars looked back to the Sino-Soviet split as one topic in how socialism had gone astray, identifying cultural tradition in China as well as Russia as a factor. While the mainstream persisted in demonizing Khrushchev and his influence, a September 1984 conference in Beijing and 1986 article were more upbeat. In 1986, charges against Stalin “contradicting Marxism” held out hope of serious rethinking, while also recognizing crises in the history of socialism that impact relations between countries. Openness fell short of examining the Sino-Soviet split, and its suppression soon ended the inquiry.²⁰ Historical research had advanced but talk of Sinocentrism proved to be taboo.

The internal literature on Gorbachev strongly faulted his “new thinking” on foreign policy as if it damaged China’s interests, when observers overwhelmingly saw China winning from his moves as a vacuum arose from Soviet retrenchment in Asia.²¹ As in the 1950s, Chinese saw a danger in a G2, boosting the US and restraining China’s agenda in Asia. There was no clarity on the cost to Beijing of its decision to break away from Moscow at a time Khrushchev was striving to accommodate China. The compulsion rested on a Sinocentric mindset.

Sinocentrism: Deng’s Response to Japan’s Quest for East Asian Regionalism

“In the 1980s Japan ranked third behind the United States and the Soviet Union as a priority for study…and on some important themes, e.g., management methods and regional economic ties, it was clearly the most important. Much of the coverage was positive, aimed at finding lessons for China…A Shanghai journal reported that in a 1987 survey of 2500 Chinese in forty cities, the highest number of respondents (31.4%) chose Japan as the country with the best image.”²² Allen Whiting found that between 1984 and 1986 images of Japan were favorable, but in 1987 after Party Secretary Hu Yaobang was ousted, criticisms had mounted.²³ Hu’s invitation to thousands of young Japanese to visit China had marked the zenith of warmth, along with the bonhomie he showed to Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, but much was changing after criticism of Hu for his Japan policy appeared at the time of his ouster by Deng Xiaoping.

Chinese excessive fear of rising Japanese regional influence and the impact of its identity as a successful model of modernization led to a backlash. One line of criticism was that Japan was plotting to forge a vertical division of labor aimed at keeping China backward or in its shadow. Another was the warning that Japan has no right to become a political great power, implying it also had no right to seek regional leadership. Japan had drawn interest as a model not only of modernization, but also of bridging Western individualist capitalism and East Asian community-oriented development with a larger state role. Yet, that image threatened Sinocentrism. Translated writings treated Japan as a hybrid of capitalism and socialism or as an example of the rise of Eastern civilization, and in a brief revival of positivity about Japan around 1992, this theme was resuscitated.²⁴ Yet, the internal (neibu) journals had turned negative by the late 1980s on Japan’s dangerous ambitions.²⁵

If in 1986-88 a lack of self-confidence drove Chinese to warn against Japan’s impact on China and regional leadership potential, in 1993-95 rising Chinese self-confidence led to renewed criticisms centered on the danger of historical continuity and revival of Japan’s militarism. In response to rising Japanese aspirations for regionalism and a shared East Asian community, Chinese doubled down on demonizing Japan’s intentions and its right to any leadership role.²⁶ Eagerness for economic ties did not stop warnings about Japan’s ambitions.

Japan served as an inspiration that modernization could be realized without succumbing to US type capitalism, and as interest in modernization rebounded in 1992 its image revived. Yet, the notion that relations could draw closer or that it could be trusted as a regional partner beyond a source of assistance and investment quickly was scuttled. “The Chinese spoke of Japan’s sense of being a superior nation with an expansionist taste, or of its intent to manage the world alongside the United States.” The relatively positive tone reflected the poor state of Sino-US relations and revealed that “Japan was indispensable for China to ride the wave of East Asia’s global ascent.” Yet, warning of Japan’s ambitions, “Chinese felt that they had to redouble their efforts to expose the lessons of history in order to use them against Japanese ambitions.”²⁷ The idea spread that Japan had a strategy of vertical regional integration, fueled by the legacy of militarism and rising nationalism. By 1995, the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, writings were explicit in targeting attitudes about regionalism.²⁸ Chinese were also starting to voice their own aspirations by the end of the century.

What prompted rising Chinese distrust of Japan first in 1987-89 and again in 1993-95? Alarm that Japan was gaining a toehold as regional leader, wariness that it was a stalking horse for the West to lead regionalism, and fear that Japan would use its “economic superpower” clout to gain political and civilizational leverage. Chinese began to assert a rival model for regionalism,²⁹ despite Deng’s warning to hide such ambitions.

Sinocentrism: Hu Jintao’s Response to the US Quest for Inclusive Regionalism

Chinese have consistently shown wariness to US alliances and regional leadership behavior in East Asia. This resistance remained largely in the background until the struggle over the East Asian Summit (EAS) in the mid-2000s, when China was outmaneuvered by the establishment of an inclusive organization, failing to build up ASEAN + 3 into an exclusive group, where it expected to dominate Japan. The real test, however, came later in the decade, when the United States was keen on the Six-Party Talks turning into a 5-versus-1 pact after North Korea broke away from the 2007 Joint Agreement, and it sought to enhance ASEAN centrality with the reinforcement of the EAS. At the end of the 2000s, emboldened by the global financial crisis, China asserted Sinocentrism emphatically in opposition to the US, no longer biding its time, as advised by Deng Xiaoping.

As I have written previously, “in the first half of the 1990s China’s approach was largely defensive. Deciding that Japan was intent on taking the lead in regionalism, it issued many warnings about the danger of Japan’s ambitions to become a political and military great power…In the second half of the 1990s China began to pursue regionalism by making deals with other great powers [whether in managing North Korea, Central Asia, or Southeast Asia].” “When other great powers …were distracted or not very serious about working closely with China, China used the rubric of these entities to pursue an energetic agenda that might have been frustrated otherwise…(by late in the decade] increasingly assertive moves…would place China at the center of separate regions and eventually of an Asia that combines these into some sort of wider regionalism.”³⁰

“In the period 2001-7, the Chinese national identity narrative was transformed into claims of Chinese superiority on many dimensions, with China representing the rise of Asia and Asian regionalism… The period 2009-10 witnessed a quantum leap in Chinese national identity differentiation… Treating East Asia as historically and culturally coherent and judging U.S. policy as an outsider’s intervention, writers insist that the U.S. desire for a democratic Asia-Pacific community is aimed at imposing an alien approach while containing China’s rise… They suggest that the United States under Obama is disrupting [a natural course of regionalism]. The Unites States is bent on preventing regionalism… [its presence] is hegemonic and illegitimate… in a unit historically and culturally coherent.”³¹

Sinocentrism: Xi Jinping’s Response to South Korea’s Quest for Peninsula-centric Regionalism

After the collapse of the Six-Party Talks, Seoul and Beijing diverged in their thinking about the regional framework for both resolving the challenge of de-nuclearization (or at least alienation in North Korea) and stabilizing security where great power interests collided. At first, Xi Jinping appeared to encourage Park Geun-hye’s diplomacy in a “honeymoon” atmosphere, but when she proposed the Northeast Asia Peace and Security Initiative (NAPSI) Xi was at best lukewarm. After Xi’s refusal to cooperate in response to North Korea’s early 2016 nuclear test, Park opted to solidify missile defense with the United States, challenging Xi’s agenda for regional security. Just two years later, Moon Jae-in pursued what he thought would be trilateral summitry with North Korea and the United States. Xi’s response clarified the sort of regionalism China sought.

Chinese “assume a zero-sum relationship between the Sino–ROK and US–ROK dyads, leaving no room for the ROK–US alliance. Never far out of sight is the regional economic architecture, with Chinese authors demanding that Seoul enter into the BRI instead of entering into US-led reorganized supply chains. Finally, there is no letup in historical and cultural arguments imbued with Sinocentric assumptions about the past and their enduring validity for the future of Asia. The only way out is to end the ROK–US alliance and forge a permanent mechanism of peaceful coexistence on the peninsula.” A representative Chinese source “insists that the US opposes a multilateral security framework in place of the US alliance relations in Northeast Asia, while South Korea favors a North–South arrangement first and then the US, while China comes later. In contrast, China refuses to be excluded by a three-way approach and has resumed calls for a Northeast Asian security system based on six parties.” Another asserts, “real sovereign diplomacy means abandonment of THAAD, insistence on Seoul’s own right to set North Korean policy, the end of the remnants of the Cold War on the peninsula, the establishment of a new peace and cooperation order, and diplomacy prioritizing Northeast Asian multilateral cooperation.” And a third source, cited in the same analysis, argues, “if Seoul wants better ties, it should use the BRI as a platform to build trust, fuse economies together, and forge a community of shared culture and destiny.”³² The Sinocentric essence of such appeals, often mixed with warnings, is unmistakable. Soon after the heyday of “honeymoon” diplomacy, the Sinocentric nature of writings about South Korea intensified,³³ bolstered by Xi’s decision to assail Seoul for the decision to deploy THAAD and then by the wariness over exclusion of China in 2018 diplomacy with the DPRK.

Sinocentrism: Xi’s Response to Russia’s Quest for Eurasian Regionalism

China and Russia have played a cat-and-mouse game over regionalism since 2013, as the SCO framework that had for more than a decade served to manage rival ambitions in Central Asia proved inadequate. They each advanced new frameworks and then struggled to reconcile them not only in Central Asia but in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia too. Differences were mostly managed quietly, as China took care not to press its advantage openly and Russia prioritized its territorial ambitions in Europe. Having committed itself to full-scale war across Ukraine in 2022, Russia became more vulnerable to China’s Sinocentric designs across Asia.

Moscow rested its case for regionalism on four frameworks: the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) for Central Asia; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) expanded to include India as well as Pakistan but still heavily centered on Central Asia; the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) designed to cover as far as ASEAN and India; and Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS), an expanding group with global reach but primacy for Asia through the RIC troika. Where China was included, Russia had made sure to add India, reducing the asymmetry increasingly evident.

As Russian political and economic ties to Europe mostly disintegrated in 2022-2024, it decided that BRICS held greatest promise for boosting its presence in Asia. Three infrastructure projects were prioritized: (1) a north-south corridor through Iran with India a prime target: (2) routes through Siberia, Central Asia, and Western China; and (3) the Northern Sea Route, opening the Arctic between Asia and Europe. While expanded BRICS membership in the Middle East raised hopes for funding on the north-south corridor, Iran’s tensions in the region left those in doubt. Without acknowledging it and insisting that Russia and China or Russia, India, and China are the equal leaders of Eurasian organizations, Moscow was depending overwhelmingly on Beijing.

China saw an opportunity to advance Sinocentrism, while paying lip-service to Russian interests. Chinese hopes center on economic integration, an enhanced Chinese role in security, a shift in Russian attitudes toward China’s access to and control over seaports and sea routes, and more bilateral and multilateral relations exclusive of Russia. The old division of labor of limited access to economic ties in return for deference to Russian security, cultural, and even some economic preferences no longer gained China’s approval. Differences over the BRICS came more into the open. Even as Xi and Putin insisted that relations are better than ever, tensions were palpable over China’s efforts to seize the opportunity in Asia of war in Europe.

Differences over economic integration had shadowed bilateral relations for decades, but they acquired greater significance as Russia’s exports and imports grew increasingly dependent on China and Russia’s economic hopes rested much more heavily on joint planning with China, as in infrastructure development. Chinese made it clear that the two sides disagreed over the issue of economic globalization.³⁴ Moreover, in a reversal of their positions in the late 1950s, Beijing opts for “peaceful coexistence” of civilizations with gradual transformation of the world order, while Moscow chooses “a revolutionary way to move into the future by breaking with the past.”³⁵

Guan Guihai in July 2024 candidly pointed to problems of the SCO rooted in Russian views, warning of “various factors of instability in the model of the two countries sharing leadership, while the participation of India, which thinks highly of itself, has also had an impact on the dominant positions of China and Russia.” Contrasting the SCO before expansion to India and Pakistan with it now, he finds that balance has been lost and the SCO is even polarized.³⁶ “Doubting India and wary of Russia’s intentions, Guan is uncertain that the joint Sino-Russian leadership will prevail and complains of foot-dragging on China’s economic proposals.”³⁷ He further faults Russia for blocking an SCO development bank, for lagging economic cooperation, and for a mindset that obstructs the SCO for China will gain leadership. Thus, he calls the BRI a response to Russian obstruction of the SCO,³⁸ that is, Sinocentrism has to be pursued more openly.

Moscow’s grandiose notion of its own international clout also diverges from Beijing’s lesser image of its role. For example, one reads, “Russia and China are the drivers of BRICS, without which the association would simply not take place. It is from our two countries that most of the substantive initiatives in BRICS come. In addition, Russia plays a leading role as a political balancer between major powers that have serious contradictions between themselves: China and India, Iran and Saudi Arabia…”³⁹ Chinese rarely mention the GEP, downplay the SCO of late, and put less weight on BRICS, while weighing the BRI more heavily, seeking further expansion.

As for BRICS, while Russia asserted at the October Kazan summit its mediating leadership between India and China and claimed a transformative outcome for the international order, China’s tone was different. Russians tried to use BRICS as a cover to minimize extraordinary dependence on China, as if it were just part of rising multilateralism. In one article,⁴⁰ India’s role in the Arctic, one of the priorities for Russia, was essentially equated with China’s. In contrast, China feigns close coordination with Russia, while altering the terms of cooperation in its own favor: on the Northern Sea Route and use of Vladivostok as a port, on security in Central Asia as states fear that Moscow’s claims toward Ukraine could be replicated there, and in the talks on a new gas pipeline (Power of Siberia-2) through Mongolia. If a shift toward open Sinocentrism is less pronounced than toward the Korean Peninsula, it is seen as under way.

Whereas Japan and both Koreas were keenly alert to Sinocentrism in the 2010s, Russia was less wary until heightened concern was aired in 2024. That is manifest in three types of alerts: (1) alarm at how Chinese historiography raises Sinocentric themes in bilateral history while insisting that China’s achievements were its own, dismissing any Russian role; (2) awareness that multilateral arrangements with China are being bypassed by bilateralism conducive to Sinocentrism; and (3) sensitivity to pressure in Sino-Russian bilateral ties serving Chinese aims. Chinese are asking more from this relationship, and Russians are growing nervous about it. Yet, in the context of the Ukraine war, such divisions are handled quietly and denied in official pronouncements.

In late 2024 articles by Ivan Zuenko on history issues and by Andrei Sudorov on BRI we can find signs of concern about Sinocentrism, although the term is not used. Zuenko warned of gaps between Beijing and Moscow in interpreting their shared history, acknowledging the absence of a shared understanding of their past ties and its threat to future relations. Eschewing the existence of a Chinese strategy, apart from fostering patriotism in order to boost legitimacy, Zuenko repeatedly mentions Sinophobic emotions, treating Russia as Tsarist Russia—a power accused of colonial expansionism—and including in the 2010s upsurge in ideological work and patriotic propaganda views of recent achievements as inadequate for the “China Dream” in the absence of new historical orthodoxy. There are omissions, leaving out the Soviet role in defeating Japan in the 1940s and assisting China in the 1950s. Despite closure on the territorial dispute, Chinese sources still refer to the loss of vast territory to Russia. Zuenko goes so far as to mention possible revanchist attitudes toward contemporary Russia. In this environment of negativity over humiliations trumping positivity public opinion could well turn against Russia. Differences over history remain a sore spot that China inflames, not soothing.

On China’s regionalist agenda concern also appears to be growing. Although at the Kazan 2024 BRICS summit, Russia stressed the joint, complementary pursuit with China of regionalism, the message from Sudorov is that BRI, pursued through bilateral relations, is a serious challenge to Russia, turning Greater Eurasia into a single economic microregion through “globalization Chinese-style” where China’s influence prevails. As the outcome of the “special military operation” in Ukraine is awaited, China is leaving the door open for Ukraine as a “friendly state and strategic partner. Explaining that Russia participates in BRI as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and considers it part of the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP), Sudorov sees as problematic China’s bilateral approach to countries (ignoring the EEU?) in pursuit of an economic and civilizational project of the 21st century for its own superpower status. Without mentioning Russia’s claims of “multipolarity” among great powers, this refutes that prospect. Avoiding the term “Sinocentrism,” the article fears its extension, even to Russia’s own Ukraine.

In a futurological analysis on China in 2049, A. Lukin, I. Denisov, V. Kashin, and S. Tsyplakov offered recommendations for Russia in case of two scenarios. If China surpassed the US and its allies, this would create both opportunities and problems for Russia. Claims of no hegemonic intentions are belied by strong Chinese pride with possible negative effects on neighbors, including Russia. Current tendencies to rely in a one-sided manner on China in foreign policy could lead to one-sided dependence. Russia must strengthen ties with other centers of power and development, seeking a power balance. Alternatively, in the more likely case of the continuation of the current balance of forces between China and the West, Russia must boost all-out cooperation with China to cope with the threat from the West, while actively developing cooperation with other non-western power centers and try, if possible, to forge constructive ties with traditional partners in Europe, avoiding isolation and strengthening sovereignty in conditions of continuing competition. Either prospect reflects concern about China without clarifying how “pride” may be harmful for Russia.

Conclusion

Over six decades the repetition of a single pattern is clear. Countries raise their expectations to forge a regional bond with China only to find that China rejects the desired path of regionalism and responds by denigrating the intentions of its suitor. In each case, China could have pursued a compromise arrangement, seeking some accommodation to its different regional objectives. Instead, it demonized the other country. Over time, its Sinocentric intentions were revealed with greater clarity. The narrative for South Korea is clearest, that for the Soviet Union and eventually Russia less so. Xi Jinping’s quest for Sinocentrism has deep roots and does not cease.

Despite diverse excuses for castigating what others have sought, a single common thread can be found. Chinese base their ambitions on an historical worldview still embraced in our time. Historical memory trumps international law, economic integration creates conditions for the political nexus of regionalism, civilizational assumptions prevail over cultural cooperation, and, at the root of Chinese thinking, we need to add a presumed natural course of geographical determinism to result in Sinocentrism advancing across Asia.