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Interpreting China's Grand
Strategy.
By John Garver
The Jamestown Foundation
Deng Xiaoping encapsulated China’s new international strategy in the
early 1980s with the slogan “peace and development.” This phrase
embodied a decisive break with Mao Zedong’s “international line” of “war
and revolution,” and shifted Chinese efforts towards developing a
peaceful, stable international environment. While Mao presided over a
high-risk and high-cost confrontational approach to international
affairs that sought to revolutionize both China and the international
order, Deng’s approach was to avoid ideological conflicts, and not to
involve China in matters unrelated to its own immediate interests.
Moreover, Deng sought to maintain good relations with all countries,
especially those capable of assisting China’s development – like the
wealthy and technologically advanced capitalist countries of the West.
Whereas Mao had been ready to throw China into conflict on behalf of
revolutionary causes around the world, Deng systematically
de-revolutionized China’s foreign relations and reoriented them towards
modernizing China’s economy and military.
Despite the fact that Deng’s approach has been continued by his two
successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, there have been two notable
attempts within the Chinese Communist Party elite to move China’s
international policy in a more militant, ideological direction. The
first was a reaction to Gorbachev’s “betrayal” of the East European
communist regimes in 1989, and the near-revolution in China which
followed. The second was during the Sino-U.S. confrontation over Taiwan
in the mid-1990s. But on both occasions, advocates of the less
ideological, less confrontational, more Dengist approach prevailed.
The broad purpose of China’s Deng-inspired drive for modernization is to
make China rich and powerful, thereby restoring it to the position of
high international influence and status that it enjoyed throughout most
of the several millennia of its existence. According to China’s modern
nationalist narrative, the country’s cultural achievements and great
state power rightfully made it the leading power in East Asia and one of
the leading (perhaps the leading) power of the world. This natural and
just arrangement was over-turned by aggressive Western imperialism in
the 19th century, which reduced China to a position of “semi-colony” and
“national slavery.” The CCP’s modern history is about ending and
blotting out this “century of national humiliation.”
Deng and his successors share with Mao the core nationalist mission of
ending China’s “national humiliation” and restoring China to its
historic position of international eminence. They differ, however, in
how to achieve this goal. Mao’s program centered on military power and
confrontation, with the goal of establishing China as the driving
revolutionary force in the world; he saw comprehensive state control and
planning as ways to achieve this in the shortest possible period. Deng
and his followers concluded that Mao’s militarization of China’s economy
and society, plus his ideological, confrontational approach to
international affairs, had not, in fact, made China rich and powerful,
but poor and weak. They also concluded that unless China was
de-militarized, control over lives of the people relaxed, and more
resources devoted to improving standards of living, “the Chinese
Communist Party would have no future.”
As the USSR slid into extinction and Chinese analysts probed the reasons
of its failure, Deng and his followers found further confirmation of the
wisdom of avoiding the militarization of an economy – this flaw being
identified by Chinese analysts as a key cause of Soviet demise. China’s
leaders responded to the Soviet collapse by transforming a Maoist
totalitarian state into an East Asian, authoritarian, developmental
state. The shift from “war and revolution” to “peace and development”
was part of this transformation.
China’s leaders have not rejected Mao’s quest for great military power.
Frank appreciation of the close link between political and military
power continues. Nor is there much difference in terms of recognizing
the key role of technology in forging advanced military capabilities.
Military power is, however, placed in a broader context. Whereas Mao
concentrated all possible resources on strengthening China’s military
capabilities, Deng and his followers recognized the key contributions of
economic productivity and efficiency, revenue generation, higher
educational levels, organizational flexibility and effectiveness, the
importance of individual initiative and entrepreneurial drive, and the
wealth-generating potential of participation in the global economy.
China’s Dengist leaders also saw that confrontational relations with the
advanced capitalist countries contradicted efforts to acquire from those
countries a range of sophisticated technology and scientific knowledge.
The term “comprehensive national power” is used in China to refer to
this broader context of military power.
Another key element of China’s international strategy is avoidance of
confrontation with the United States. Deng, unlike Mao, recognized the
stability of U.S. world-dominance post-World War II. He concluded that
if China were to draw on the resources of the advanced capitalist
countries to modernize China, Beijing would have to maintain good
relations with the leading capitalist countries – especially the U.S. To
this end, Deng manipulated U.S.-Soviet rivalry to China’s advantage. By
aligning China with the United States in the global conflict against the
Soviet Union, Deng secured higher levels of U.S. support for China’s
modernization drive: access to U.S. consumer goods markets, technology,
higher education and advanced scientific knowledge, investment, as well
as sympathetic support in multi-national development institutions like
the World Bank.
The end of the Cold War (combined with the 1989 near-revolution in
China) demolished this core strategy and, for a while threw China’s
diplomacy into crisis. After considerable debate within the CCP, China
eventually decided to continue the strategy of embracing cooperation
with the United States. Chinese analysts advanced what might be called
the “law of avoidance” to explain and justify this approach. Based on
historical analyses of the rise and fall of states over the last five
centuries, this law postulates that rising nations that come into direct
confrontation with reigning hegemonic powers fail in their drive for
national eminence: for example, France in the early 19th century, or
Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the 20th century. Rising nations
that avoid confrontation with, or even band-wagon onto, the reigning
hegemon have enjoyed greater ultimate success (e.g., Britain in the 17th
century and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries). China’s
leadership concluded it would be better to cooperate with the United
States in order to accomplish its drive for national greatness. 9/11
greatly broadened the opportunities for such strategic cooperation.
But the determination to avoid confrontation with the United States
makes China vulnerable to U.S. moves inimical to Chinese interests. Such
U.S. actions are countered by a number of tactics. China’s ultimate
threat is proclaimed that it will abandon cooperation with the United
States and return to a policy of confrontation. This threat is mainly
used to ward off U.S. intervention in two main areas: the stability of
CCP control over Chinese society, and “Taiwan independence.” U.S. moves
in these two areas that ignore Chinese warnings will prompt a
confrontation, even to the point of war, regardless of the costs to
China – or so Beijing informs Washington. From Beijing’s point of view,
the United States would simply be unable to defeat China, and the costs
of attempting to do so would be extremely high, and ultimately
unbearable. Beijing believes that should the United States decide on a
trial of strength with China, the asymmetry of military and economic
power favoring the United States would be more than offset by the
asymmetry of political systems, and will consequently favor China. This,
in any case, is the line China uses to deter the U.S. from attempting to
use China’s dependency as a means to undermining the CCP.
Incorporating Taiwan into the PRC is a major objective of the CCP’s new
leadership. From Beijing’s perspective, since the restoration of Hong
Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, Taiwan is the last major piece of Chinese
territory stolen from China during its “century of national humiliation”
– Taiwan alone remains to be reunited with the Motherland. Taken by
Japanese imperialism in 1895 and returned to China through the Cairo
Declaration of 1943, the PRC wishes to see Taiwan reunited with China
under the same "one country, two systems" framework applied to Hong
Kong. This comports with the millennia old tradition that all Chinese
should be united under a single ruler. Achievement of this goal ended
inter-dynastic periods of fragmentation, and was deemed a prime duty of
each newly-established dynasty. This deeply imbued political culture was
one of the reasons why China held together over the millennia, and
continues to influence Chinese thinking about Taiwan.
From the standpoint of modern Chinese nationalism, the "return" of
Taiwan is essential for China to become strong. Left unstated in Chinese
publicity about Taiwan, but clearly understood by Chinese analysts, is
the fact that adding Taiwan's impressive technological and economic
prowess to the Mainland will substantially enhance China's comprehensive
national power. Chinese analysts also understand the geopolitical
implications of control over Taiwan. Under PLA control, the island
shields the central China coast, coastal sea lanes, and projects Chinese
power into the western Pacific. Left beyond PLA control, Taiwan offers a
platform for a hostile power to threaten China's southeast coast and its
vital overseas trade.
Beijing's strategy for incorporation of Taiwan is to grow Chinese power
until it over-awes both Taiwan and the United States. As China's power
approximates that of the United States, and as China demonstrates its
willingness to use that power to incorporate Taiwan, Washington will be
forced to disengage from Taiwan. The American people will not be willing
to trade Los Angeles for Shanghai, while the Chinese people would bear
such sacrifices for China’s reunification and restoration to greatness.
In the meantime, China will use its influence to prevent injury to its
de jure claim to Taiwan. In the fullness of time, if Taipei and
Washington dispute Beijing’s "one country, two systems" terms, then a
trial of strength with the United States may be necessary.
Source:
La Nueva Cuba
Infosearch: José Cadenas
Research Dept.
August 4, 2005
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