{"id":80031,"date":"2019-02-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/blog-post\/xi-jinpings-new-year-speeches-and-what-they-mean-for-international-diplomacy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:21:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:21:32","slug":"xi-jinpings-new-year-speeches-and-what-they-mean-for-international-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"blog-post","link":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/blog-post\/xi-jinpings-new-year-speeches-and-what-they-mean-for-international-diplomacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi Jinping\u2019s New Year Speeches \u2013 And What They Mean for International Diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\nTo analyze speeches of Chinese leaders can prove an almost forlorn task, given that these speeches usually abound with Communist parlance and pleasant-sounding phrases. However, these speeches are an important indicator of the party\u2019s official rhetoric and international actors would be well-advised to take those statements seriously. Furthermore, comparing these statements with China\u2019s deeds should not be seen as antagonistic act by Chinese leaders, but as an encouragement to develop China into an increasingly respected global stakeholder.<\/b><\/strong>\n\n\u00a0<\/strong>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe start of this New Year witnessed two of Xi Jinping\u2019s speeches: the 2019 New Year address<\/a> and his message to Taiwan just two days later.<\/a> The new year address was just as expected, although it differed to former New Year speeches in the sense that it contained much more \u201cpersonal\u201d accounts from the Chinese president; the magnificent impressions he had during inspection tours around the country and how impressed he was by the steadfastness of fellow countrymen he met along the way. It was also the first New Year address where individual citizens were chosen to be mentioned by name and praised for their contributions to the Chinese dream. This rhetoric is perfectly in line with a more recent ideology and propaganda strategy to paint Xi Jinping\u2019s personality as an approachable leader who is very interested in the sorrows of the common man. Overall, this New Year speech was more inward looking and conciliatory in tone compared to the New Year message 2017, when Xi resolutely pledged to safeguard territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and cautioned that no foreign efforts to undermine them would be tolerated.\n\nCompared to Xi\u2019s New Year address, his January 2nd<\/sup> message to Taiwan elicited much more press coverage in Western media. This was due to fact that he explicitly reserved the right to use force to oppose Taiwanese separatism from the mainland. In the past few years, many Western observers appeared to be charmed by and got used to China\u2019s \u201cwin-win\u201d and \u201cpeaceful development\u201d rhetoric, which contrasts particularly to Trump\u2019s stance on international relations. In this light, Xi\u2019s Taiwan message might have sounded unexpectedly hawkish to some. This surprise however might be based on misperception and perhaps even wishful thinking, considering the ramping up of China\u2019s military ambitions and capabilities in recent times. It is worth to note that Xi never mentioned the \u201cone country two systems\u201d principle in any of his New Year messages. This is in contrast to former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao who, almost mantra-like, included this pledge in every single one of their New Year addresses since the turn of the millennium.\n\nXi\u2019s 2019 New Year address ended with the assurance that \u201cChina’s sincerity and goodwill to safeguard world peace and promote common development will remain unchanged\u201d. Such a statement is certainly welcomed, but one should keep in mind that rhetorics do not necessarily reflect actions. Ask Filipino fishermen about the recent deprivation of their fishing grounds in the South China Sea, the Sri Lankans about the loss of control over one of their ports to the Chinese, or the Kenyans and Zambians about their current fear to face a similar fate. Such developments are hardly compatible with a Chinese foreign policy that emphasizes mutual trust and noninterference.\n\nNotwithstanding the risk of being perceived as na\u00efve, Switzerland should join voices with other European countries to encourage the Chinese government to live up to its noble pledges and to call out discrepancies between rhetoric and actions. It would remind Chinese leaders to govern in a way that is worthy of a nation that is increasingly keen to be perceived as a responsible and mutually benefitting world power.\n\n \n
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\n\nImage: Flickr<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"archive-status":[],"region":[1851],"custom-themes":[],"class_list":["post-80031","blog-post","type-blog-post","status-publish","hentry","region-asien-pazifik"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-post\/80031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog-post"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"archive-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive-status?post=80031"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=80031"},{"taxonomy":"custom-themes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom-themes?post=80031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}