Respect, Not Pressure: Why Some Countries Work With China

尊重而非施压：为什么一些国家愿意与中国合作

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 1, 2026 — 17:35

China’s relationships are not uniformly bad.

That is an important fact, because it means the problem is not China’s existence. The problem is how China behaves in different settings.

Some countries work with China productively. Some do not. The difference is worth examining.

Where China Succeeds

China tends to do well where the relationship is built around visible benefit, practical cooperation, and predictable terms.

That usually means trade, infrastructure, financing, manufacturing, and access to markets. In those areas, China can be efficient, serious, and results-oriented.

Many governments find that attractive. They do not need ideological agreement to work with China. They need delivery, scale, and continuity.

When China acts like a dependable long-term partner, countries notice.

The Role of Respect

Respect is not a slogan. It is a pattern of behavior.

In practice, respect means understanding that other countries have their own interests, their own domestic politics, and their own limits. It means not treating every disagreement as defiance or every boundary as negotiable under pressure.

Countries are more willing to work with major powers when they believe those powers can tolerate independent decision-making.

That matters especially for smaller states.

A smaller state does not expect equality in raw power. It does expect to retain dignity, room to maneuver, and some confidence that cooperation will not become dependency by another name.

Benefit Without Constant Pressure

China’s best relationships are often the ones where economic cooperation is allowed to stand on its own without being overshadowed by security pressure.

When governments can take Chinese financing, investment, or trade and present it to their own populations as practical and beneficial, the relationship tends to hold.

When that same economic engagement is paired with visible coercion elsewhere, the political cost rises.

The issue is not whether China offers value. It often does.

The issue is whether that value comes attached to uncertainty that makes governments defensive.

Why Some Countries Say Yes

Countries work with China for obvious reasons.

China is large. It is central to regional and global trade. It can build quickly, buy at scale, and finance projects that others hesitate to touch. For many governments, especially those with infrastructure gaps or development pressure, that matters more than rhetoric.

But willingness to work with China does not automatically mean trust in all areas.

It often means compartmentalization.

Governments separate the useful parts of the relationship from the risky ones and try to manage both at once.

That is not strategic confusion. It is strategic adaptation.

The Problem With Pressure

Pressure changes the character of cooperation.

Once a country feels that trade or investment is being overshadowed by political demands, maritime intimidation, or strategic ambiguity, the relationship becomes harder to defend domestically.

Leaders may still engage China, but they do so more cautiously. They diversify partners. They look for backup. They reduce exposure where they can.

This weakens the long-term effect China is trying to achieve.

Pressure can produce compliance in isolated situations. It is much less effective at producing durable goodwill.

The Southeast Asian Lesson

Southeast Asia offers a clear lesson here.

Many states in the region are willing to work with China economically. Few are willing to place their security future entirely in China’s hands. That distinction is not accidental.

It reflects the difference between benefit and confidence.

China has proven that it can be valuable. It has not consistently proven that it can be reassuring.

That is the gap.

Taiwan and the Broader Signal

Taiwan sits in the background of every regional calculation.

Any move to settle Taiwan by force would reshape how other countries interpret all of China’s other relationships. Cooperation that now seems manageable would be viewed through a more dangerous lens.

Projects, agreements, and partnerships would not disappear overnight. But they would be politically reinterpreted.

A country that looks willing to use force in one unresolved dispute will be trusted less in every other sensitive relationship.

That is how regional systems think.

What This Means Going Forward

If China wants more countries to work with it comfortably, then the lesson is not complicated.

Respect works better than pressure.

Predictability works better than ambiguity.

Practical cooperation works better than constant signaling.

This does not require China to give up its interests. It requires China to understand that other countries have interests too, and that stable influence is built by making room for them.

The Bottom Line

Some countries work well with China because China is capable of being disciplined, useful, and respectful when it chooses to be.

That should not be ignored.

It should be studied.

Because the strongest argument for a better Chinese regional strategy is not theory. It is the simple fact that China already knows how to build productive relationships when it decides not to lean on pressure.

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This essay is written by Cliff Potts, Editor-in-Chief of WPS News. WPS News has been active in one form or another on the internet since 2009; for more information, visit https://cliffpotts.org.

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