Currently in her 24th year at Northwestern, Dr. Karen Alter is Northwestern’s Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations. Having written the award-winning book “The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights,” her work mainly focuses on multilateralism and global law.

One of Alter’s areas of expertise is Chinese global policy, which she believes will see drastic changes in the next four years. Read about her thoughts on the topic here. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily: In a video interview, you mentioned that your takeaway from your 2018 China trip was that China was not “super interested” in multilateralism or international justice. Do you think it’s changed at all since then? 

Prof. Karen Alter: I’m a bit of two minds about this. I think that I would put Chinese ideologists and Donald Trump in a similar camp: If you say things enough times, you can make people believe black is white and up is down.

They have quite a nice package about this, and it’s widely disseminated. In the world as China sees it, countries are abandoning the US dollar and the reputation of the US is in tatters.

The Daily: Could you describe what kind of actor China is?

Prof. Karen Alter: My lens is limited because I focus on international cooperation, multilateralism and international law. I lay out that because there could be whole other realms that I’m not saying. 

(China was) really not engaged until Deng Xiaoping, and they really didn’t have the manpower capacity or knowledge until 15 years ago to be as internationally engaged. All the systems and all the rules were set up when they were not participating and did not have the means to make their way stand.

If you take the South China Sea, when the Law of the Seas negotiations were happening in the 1970s, that was when China was just starting to engage in international politics, but not tremendously skillful at it. It did try to get its ideas about its claims in the South China Sea into the agreement, but it didn’t succeed. Instead, it signed on to an agreement where its claims in the South China Seas just absolutely don’t hold water and the nature of the law of the seas. It’s an unusual treaty that you agree to.

The Philippines actually got up the courage to arbitrate the land dispute in the South China Seas, and China’s position was, “it’s illegitimate. It’s illegitimate.” 

I think there’s so much that the U.S. and China can get along with. I hope more (Chinese) people will come and study (in the U.S.) and that more people will have cultural exchanges. 

The Daily: Do you think any progress with Chinese multilateralism will be made in the next four years?

Prof. Karen Alter: Depends on what you call progress, right? The U.S. is retreating, and multilateral institutions are poor institutions, so whoever pays gets more say. China wants judges on these international courts, like the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea. When I meet a judge on the Law of the Sea tribunal, I’m like, ‘so tell me about the Chinese judge. Is he active?’ They’re like, he never says a word. He’s there for China’s interests, comes up to defend it, but he doesn’t actually participate. 

Now, China has so many brilliant, skilled people who have Western education and speak perfect English. I have no doubt that there’s some very competent Chinese leaders running some U.N. agencies and doing a very, very good job. But you can’t get promoted or succeed unless you’re loyal. If you want to call that progress, their presence is going to be there. 

They’re going to have more influence and sway, especially because the U.S. is rolling out the red carpet for them. Donald Trump will roll it right out. He doesn’t consider multilateralism important enough to really try to contest it. 

He’s a brilliant politician where all politics are local — and he’s a bluffer, and he knows how to play the television and things like that, and he doesn’t actually think anything is real. It’s all a performance. Reminds me of the movie “Chicago” where you just “razzle dazzle them.” We’ve rolled out the red carpet (for them), so yes, China is going to make tremendous progress in the next four years.

China has excess capacity in construction. Around the world, they’re building construction now, like an international airport in Nepal. They’re also throwing up a lot of apartment buildings in Kenya. (I have) a former student who described how these apartment buildings are actually increasing the housing stock in ways that middle class people can afford. For him, he feels that China is actually helping with development.

The Daily: It’s kind of like a double edged sword, though, in a way, right?

Prof. Karen Alter: China’s (strategy is) in a colonial way, but actually much better than the way that the Europeans did, because (they’re) not taking over. They’re just gonna get their business.

I always want to keep an open mind about our relationships with people and never equate a person with a government. We want China to succeed. We should want China to succeed because success for China is helping millions of people live a better life.

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