China under Mao had a global ideological agenda, spewed hostility at the US for being arch-capitalist and hostility at the USSR for corrupting communism into capitalism, and supported armed revolutionary movements in neighboring countries, other parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, and even had a "satellite" regime in Europe, Enver Hoxha's Albania.
Although China's ability to make a truly significant impact was weak outside of Indochina and Korea and its Indian frontier, it tried, at considerable risk to itself.
Despite its poverty that meant it could not match the superpowers, it was meddlesome.
But Dang Xiaoping largely transformed China from a ideologically and proxy meddlesome country into a more limited "mind it's own business", "focus on it's own material self-interest" type of country, between 1978 and 1989.
In 1978-1979, Deng very rapidly, but quietly and without any public disavowals or reconsiderations, cut or reduced support to communist groups fighting for power in pro-US states like Thailand and the Philippines.
Deng held on to support for groups that opposed the Soviet Union (the Afghan Mujhadeen) and Vietnam (the Khmer Rouge) for longer, until after their respective withdrawal from Afghanistan and Cambodia. But even there, they did not stick with one-sided support of any particular faction for long. They didn't really do much side-picking in Afghanistan at all after Soviet withdrawal, and in Cambodia, after Hun Sen, originally a Vietnamese puppet, ended an experiment in multiparty elected government, Beijing woo'ed him rather than sponsoring a Khmer Rouge overthrow of him.
What this all adds up to is that despite the lip service China still pays to being against hegemony, against superpower arrogance and for a multipolar world, China hardly invest its national ego in allies or proxies abroad.
China retains irredentist claims against Taiwan, the Senkakus and Spratlys, but scarely undertakes lethal action to support its claims. It is vocally sensitive about diplomatic slights related to those areas, but is not placing deadlines or making ultimatums to fully resolve all the claims in its own favor and crush all defiance of its claims in any hurry whatsoever.
----This is in contrast to Russia, which has sent an expeditionary force to Syria, seized Crimea in a thinly disguised invasion, occupied eastern Ukraine with a proxy army, invaded Georgia. This was preceded earlier on by supporting breakaway statelets in Abkhazia and Ossetia and Transnistria. Russia complains about western international initiatives with much greater shrillness than China.
What would need to happen for Russian interventionism and rhetorical profile to shrink down to Chinese size? Where it perhaps has some irredentist goals or aims to revise the world order but is much more patient and risk averse about doing so, like China.
----China is also a contrast to Iran, which is involved in proxy struggles all over the Middle East.
What would need to happen for the Islamic Republic of Iran, without formally abandoning any of its ideology or ever questioning the propriety of its past actions, to basically disengage itself from proxy struggles? Iran's activities involve a degree of risk and cost, what could make them decide, as the Chinese did, that it's not worth it.
---Same question for the Pakistanis. What could make them stop playing poke the elephant with terrorism/insurgency against India, their larger nuclear-armed neighbor, and meddling against Afghanistan, even if they never drop their political stance that Kashmir is their business?
Although China's ability to make a truly significant impact was weak outside of Indochina and Korea and its Indian frontier, it tried, at considerable risk to itself.
Despite its poverty that meant it could not match the superpowers, it was meddlesome.
But Dang Xiaoping largely transformed China from a ideologically and proxy meddlesome country into a more limited "mind it's own business", "focus on it's own material self-interest" type of country, between 1978 and 1989.
In 1978-1979, Deng very rapidly, but quietly and without any public disavowals or reconsiderations, cut or reduced support to communist groups fighting for power in pro-US states like Thailand and the Philippines.
Deng held on to support for groups that opposed the Soviet Union (the Afghan Mujhadeen) and Vietnam (the Khmer Rouge) for longer, until after their respective withdrawal from Afghanistan and Cambodia. But even there, they did not stick with one-sided support of any particular faction for long. They didn't really do much side-picking in Afghanistan at all after Soviet withdrawal, and in Cambodia, after Hun Sen, originally a Vietnamese puppet, ended an experiment in multiparty elected government, Beijing woo'ed him rather than sponsoring a Khmer Rouge overthrow of him.
What this all adds up to is that despite the lip service China still pays to being against hegemony, against superpower arrogance and for a multipolar world, China hardly invest its national ego in allies or proxies abroad.
China retains irredentist claims against Taiwan, the Senkakus and Spratlys, but scarely undertakes lethal action to support its claims. It is vocally sensitive about diplomatic slights related to those areas, but is not placing deadlines or making ultimatums to fully resolve all the claims in its own favor and crush all defiance of its claims in any hurry whatsoever.
----This is in contrast to Russia, which has sent an expeditionary force to Syria, seized Crimea in a thinly disguised invasion, occupied eastern Ukraine with a proxy army, invaded Georgia. This was preceded earlier on by supporting breakaway statelets in Abkhazia and Ossetia and Transnistria. Russia complains about western international initiatives with much greater shrillness than China.
What would need to happen for Russian interventionism and rhetorical profile to shrink down to Chinese size? Where it perhaps has some irredentist goals or aims to revise the world order but is much more patient and risk averse about doing so, like China.
----China is also a contrast to Iran, which is involved in proxy struggles all over the Middle East.
What would need to happen for the Islamic Republic of Iran, without formally abandoning any of its ideology or ever questioning the propriety of its past actions, to basically disengage itself from proxy struggles? Iran's activities involve a degree of risk and cost, what could make them decide, as the Chinese did, that it's not worth it.
---Same question for the Pakistanis. What could make them stop playing poke the elephant with terrorism/insurgency against India, their larger nuclear-armed neighbor, and meddling against Afghanistan, even if they never drop their political stance that Kashmir is their business?