The patterns of Chinese authoritarian patronage and implications for foreign policy: Lessons from Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia

Abstract

This study compares Chinese autocracy promotion in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia from the perspective of mass atrocities. Theory posits that foreign powers influence the thinking and behaviour of domestic elites through external incentives. It is the purpose of the article to identify the incentives that link Chinese foreign policy to repressive outcomes as they unintentionally and indirectly reinforce domestic ethno-nationalist narratives and therefore the likelihood and risk of mass atrocities. What are the implications? The so-called “black knight” is not as powerful as some scholars wish to portray: China has become hostage to its own incentives and this will ultimately threaten to undermine its foreign policy goals as the reorientation of foreign policy in Sri Lanka, opposition against Chinese projects in Myanmar and public discontent of the Cambodian opposition with China have demonstrated.