Are Chinese Diplomats Eating America's Lunch?

A few thoughts on Nahal Toosi's longform Politico story

Photo by Yan Ke on Unsplash

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has made no secret of its admiration for Politico’s Nahal Toosi. Her coverage of the ins and outs of U.S. diplomacy and the State Department bureaucracy has been exceptional. So when she writes a longform weekend story entitled “‘Frustrated and powerless’: In fight with China for global influence, diplomacy is America’s biggest weakness,” I’m gonna sit up and take notice.

In brief, Toosi’s argument is that on the global state, U.S. diplomacy seems like it is either standing still or so mired in domestic dysfunction that it can no longer compete. Meanwhile, China is throwing an ever-increasing amount of resources at diplomacy.

From the introductory section:

Over the past decade, China has increased its spending on diplomacy and even surpassed the United States in the number of diplomatic posts it has worldwide. It appears to have grown its number of diplomats, and they are far better trained and more assertive than their predecessors, including at multilateral organizations like the United Nations. U.S. spending on diplomacy, meanwhile, has stayed effectively flat, as has the size of the U.S. Foreign Service, while funding, security and other factors have limited America’s diplomatic footprint abroad….

China’s intense focus on “commercial diplomacy,” which includes promoting trade deals and infrastructure projects, gives its envoys an edge, especially in Latin American and African countries that feel neglected by Washington. U.S. government initiatives to counter China’s infrastructure programs are not easily accessed or as well-funded. The U.S. diplomatic tradition, meanwhile, has de-emphasized the commercial element. The relatively few U.S. diplomats who specialize in it rely heavily on a private sector that, unlike Chinese state-run firms, often won’t come through, especially in certain parts of the world….

The Chinese communist system may be repressive and rigid, but it is more steady than the trajectory of the United States, with long-term plans that can run decades. U.S. diplomacy, on the other hand, has become too capricious, unreliable and exposed to partisan deadlock, officials and analysts say.

On ambassadorships and more, “domestic politics in the U.S. is undermining U.S. national interests throughout the world,” warned Samuel Lewis Navarro, a former first vice president and foreign minister of Panama.

As a fully paid-up member of the Elite League of Foreign Policy Elites, I am fully on board with a lot of what Toosi is saying. In particular:

1. The state of the foreign policy bureaucracy is poor. Some of this is due to Donald Trump but not all of it. As Toosi writes, “over the past 10 years, U.S. annual funding for the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and related functions has, for all intents and purposes, stayed the same — floating around $55 billion.” I have heard far too many Foreign Service Officers talk about needing to cadge resources from their Department of Defense colleagues — because that’s where the money is.

2. The United States has lost the ability to do commercial diplomacy. The strongest part of Toosi’s story covers the parlous state of the undermanned U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service. The deeper problem is that the U.S. willingness to sign new trade and investment treaties has nosedived over the last decade. At best, Trump only cared about renegotiating existing trade deals. The Biden administration keeps proposing economic framework agreements that do not cover trade, do not cover migration, and barely cover investment. In contrast, China is continuing its efforts to use the Belt and Road Initiative to win friends and influence people.

3. U.S. foreign policy overlooks the small countries. China has correctly noted that a lot of international organizations operate on a one-country, one-vote system. Currying favor with small countries through trade and investment deals can pay dividends in steering the course of United Nations agencies and other bodies. As Toosi writes, “China skeptics say Beijing wants to rewrite international rules on everything from trade to human rights in its favor, and that’s one reason it is showering diplomatic attention on even the smallest countries. Those countries, after all, get votes in international bodies.”

That said, after reading the entire story I’m a little less worked up about China’s rise than before I read it. That is for a few other reasons:

1. U.S. stock still exceeds Chinese flow. China’s capacities might be growing but they still lag behind the United States. For all the complaints about the stagnant U.S. budget for diplomacy, it’s “floating around $55 billion.” China has boosted its diplomatic budget by 50 percent over the past decade and, according to Toosi, equals ‘roughly $7 billion in the 2022 budget.” Toosi spends a lot of time examining the diplomatic situation in Panama. In that country, however, Toosi notes “the American embassy has hundreds of staffers; the Chinese embassy, for now, usually has fewer than 20.” Even if one posits that China is getting more bang for the buck, the U.S. has a lot more bucks.

2. “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy remains a problem for China. The Politico story contains a long section on the phenomenon of aggressive Chinese diplomacy entitled “from ‘wolf warriors’ to ‘lovable.’” Toosi acknowledges that this kind of diplomacy harmed Chinese national interests far more than it helped. Reading that section, I found nothing to persuade me Chinese diplomats were tamping down on the practice. The Chinese diplomats who are viewed as more moderate in their views refused to criticize their more outspoken colleagues. Indeed, Xi Jinping’s recent consolidation of power seems likely to increase this tendency rather than slow it down.

3. Chinese investment ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Just as the rate of return on Chinese domestic investment seems to be waning, overseas Chinese investment and development aid has lost some luster. No doubt, there are upsides for many donor recipients, particularly if they are corrupt. There are plenty of examples of Chinese development assistance going sideways, however.

One last point: it is a universal constant that if other countries are asked by U.S. reporters whether the U.S. foreign policy establishment is neglecting them, the answer will almost always be yes. There’s no downside to such a complaint. Global South officials will lament that the United States is leaving them to the tender mercies of [INSERT U.S. RIVAL HERE] because it leads to one of two outcomes: either it falls on deaf ears or the U.S. decides to up its game. If the worst-case scenario is the status quo, complaining is always a dominant strategy.

The United States can do a better job with its diplomatic assets. Perhaps concern about China’s diplomatic rise will prompt some improvements. The notion that U.S. diplomacy is outmatched by China’s right now, however, seems wrong.