Why So Many Layers? China’s “State-Speak” and Its Classification of Partnerships1

Despite the axiom that actions speak louder than words, we care just as much about the latter as we do the former. Apparently, it matters whether we opt for “Burma” or “Myanmar,” “Republic of Macedonia” or “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM), and even whether a consultative mechanism is called a Strategic Economic Dialogue or a Strategic and Economic Dialogue.2 Similarly, it matters what labels or nomenclature states adopt for each other: rivals, allies, or friends. One specific debate that has attracted a fair amount of attention is the language of strategic partners—what they mean (if anything) and with whom the relations have been forged. Yet, there is no definitive answer about how we should interpret the lexicography of strategic partnerships; a statement that epitomizes this conceptual fog was made by a European Union (EU) official, who after the September 2010 European Council Meeting went on to frame strategic partnerships in the following way: “It’s like love—no one can define it. You only know what it is when you experience it” (Rettman 2010). The fog, of course, has not deterred the practice. In 2016, officials in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced the inking of a strategic partnership with Morocco (Xinhua 2016b), which followed an “upgrade” to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Iran earlier that year (Xinhua 2016a).