By CHRIS BUCKLEY
Published: January 29, 2013
HONG KONG — China will never bargain over what it deems to be “core” territorial and security interests, the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, said in his first published speech setting out his foreign policy views since taking over as head of the Communist Party.
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At a time of volatile tensions withJapan and other Asian neighbors over rival maritime claims, Mr. Xi laid out to the Communist Party’s elite Politburo some of the principles likely to shape Chinese diplomacy, seeking to balance vows of commitment to peace with a warning that certain demands are sacrosanct to Beijing.
At the heart of that message was Mr. Xi’s invocation of “core national interests,” a sweeping and ill-defined termthat he and other senior Chinese officials use to refer to security and sovereignty interests that they say are not negotiable. These include quelling independence movements in Tibet and the far western region of Xinjiang and eventually bringing the island of Taiwan under Chinese sovereignty.
“No foreign country should ever nurse hopes that we will bargain over our core national interests,” Mr. Xi said at the meeting on Monday, according to an account published on Tuesday by the state-run Xinhua news agency. “Nor should they nurse hopes that we will swallow the bitter fruit of harm to our country’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”
His published comments did not mention China’s quarrel with Japan over an outcrop of rocky islands in the East China Sea, or any other specific foreign policy issues. But his words could reinforce nationalist expectations in China and anxieties abroad that he will press territorial claims more determinedly than did his predecessor, Hu Jintao. Mr. Hu remains state president until March, when the national Parliament will install Mr. Xi.
“Yes, it’s a tougher policy, saying that we’re not trading our core interests,” said Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Mr. Xi’s comments were in the bounds of established Chinese policy, but he appears more willing than his predecessors to show an assertive position on territorial issues, said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
“These are the basic principles, just stated more clearly,” Mr. Jin said. “Now China’s strength is greater and domestic audiences are more focused on foreign policy, hence the talk of resolute protection.”
During a visit to the United States a year ago, Mr. Xi also demanded respect for China’s “core national interests.” There has been controversy in Chinese policy circles in recent years over how to define core interests beyond the territorial issues involving Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. Starting in 2009, some senior officials began pressing a definition of those interests that covered broader territorial claims, while some policy advisers argued that expanding the concept could entangle Beijing in needless and costly disputes.
The months before and since Mr. Xi was appointed Communist Party leader in November have been overshadowed by the feud between China and Japan over the East China Sea islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. Starting in August and continuing for several weeks, torrid and sometimes violent protests spread across dozens of Chinese cities after activists from both sides tried to land on the islands and the Japanese government responded to the dispute by buying islands that were in private Japanese hands.
Speaking on a talk show late Tuesday, Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, offered to meet with Chinese leaders to cool tensions over the island dispute, an overture that followed a flurry of Japanese diplomatic visits to China to try to defuse the standoff. But Mr. Abe reiterated that there is “no room for negotiations” over Japan’s current control of the islands.
Japan has held the islands for more than a century. But China says it has legitimate title to them, and recently has sent government ships and planes to skirt the islands and assert its claim. This month, tensions spiked when both countries sent fighter jets over the East China Sea at the same time.
China is also locked in disputes with Southeast Asian countries, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, over Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
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