Old Friends Aren’t What China Needs Right Now
Wooing corporate titans and respected China hands made sense once but it isn’t likely to produce the same returns anymore.
Kissinger’s visit was big news in China.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
China remains a society where guanxi, or personal connections, play an outsize role in getting things done. What works in business and even internal Communist Party maneuverings, however, no longer functions so well in geopolitics.
Chinese leaders have traditionally excelled at using “old friends of China” — influential Westerners deemed knowledgeable and sympathetic to Beijing — to send messages and sway minds in foreign capitals. Last week, officials including President Xi Jinping feted perhaps the most prominent such figure, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, for several days of talks in Beijing.