When Non-Interference Is No Longer Enough: A Qualified Case for Chinese “Interventionism 2.0”

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Zheng Yongnian (郑永年), one of China’s best-known public intellectuals, was among the very few voices in our Iran briefing to suggest that the US–Israeli strikes should prompt a more assertive Chinese foreign policy. In this interview with Greater Bay Area Review, he develops that line with greater theoretical precision.He is not the only scholar calling for a recalibration of China’s foreign policy. Last month, we published Jin Canrong’s (金灿荣) argument that China will struggle to win true friends if it cannot offer support beyond economic engagement. We also observed similar calls in both our January and February digests.These arguments remain heavily qualified, light on substance and notable precisely because they are unusual, but they do appear to be part of a nascent trend.In the interview below, Zheng defends China’s non-alignment strategy, crediting it with helping to prevent both a new world war and a new Cold War. But he argues that the related doctrine of non-interference has not kept pace with the scale of China’s overseas interests.He puts forward one of the more developed cases for recalibration that we have seen, providing both a name—“Interventionism 2.0”—and a set of conditions for more active intervention: namely, when host countries infringe on China’s overseas interests, when third countries threaten them, or when overseas factors profoundly affect China’s domestic interests.— Jacob MardellKey PointsThe Strait of Hormuz crisis is no longer a regional conflict. It is reshaping global energy markets, supply chains and geopolitical alignments in ways that no ma…