Chinese Strategic Thought Toward Asia

Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia

Strategic Thought in Northeast Asia Gilbert Rozman, Series Editor Russian Strategic Thought toward Asia Edited by Gilbert Rozman, Kazuhiko Togo, and Joseph P. Ferguson Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia Edited by Gilbert Rozman, Kazuhiko Togo, and Joseph P. Ferguson Strategic Thinking about the Korean Nuclear Crisis: Four Parties Caught between North Korea and the United States By Gilbert Rozman South Korean Strategic Thought toward Asia Edited by Gilbert Rozman, In-Taek Hyun, and Shin-wha Lee Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia By Gilbert Rozman

Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia Gilbert Rozman

CHINESE STRATEGIC THOUGHT TOWARD ASIA

Copyright © Gilbert Rozman, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–4039–7551–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rozman, Gilbert. Chinese strategic thought toward Asia / Gilbert Rozman. p. cm. — (Strategic thought in Northeast Asia) ISBN 978–1–4039–7551–5 (alk. paper) 1. China—Foreign relations—Asia. 2. Asia—Foreign relations—China. 3. Strategic planning—China—History. I. Title. JZ1734.A55R69 2010 327.5105—dc22

2009024119

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: March 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

Acknowledgments

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1 Overview

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Part I Chronology 2 Chinese Strategic Thought in the 1980s

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3 Chinese Strategic Thought 1990–95

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4 Chinese Strategic Thought 1996–2000

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5 Chinese Strategic Thought 2001–09

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Part II Geography 6 Strategic Thought on Russia and Central Asia

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7 Strategic Thought on Japan

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8 Strategic Thought on the Korean Peninsula

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9 Strategic Thought on Southeast and South Asia

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10 Strategic Thought on Regionalism

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Notes

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Index

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Acknowledgments

This final volume in the series on Strategic Thought in Northeast Asia draws on a quarter century of research, beginning with studies of Chinese debates about the Soviet Union. In that time I benefited enormously from the scholarly cooperation of Chinese specialists. If in comparing their statements with their writings and searching for meaning behind their evaluations I sometimes reach beyond their conclusions, they are not responsible. I am grateful to Thomas Christensen and Ming Wan for providing me with candid comments on a draft of this book. In response I have tried to sharpen my arguments and, at times, make a clearer defense of conclusions that may be controversial. Given space limitations, I only cite a small fraction of the Chinese sources that inform my views, referring to my previous publications to provide a fuller listing of sources. The same format was followed in this volume as in the other books in this series.Completion of this five-volume series in a three-year period was possible due to the timely submissions of all of the authors in the edited volumes and the encouragement of the editors and staff at Palgrave. As a set, the volumes are intended to offer a comprehensive overview of strategic thinking across Northeast Asia in transition from the last stage of the cold war through the period when China’s rise left no doubt of its centrality in the region. It is fitting that the China volume be last in the series, showing how that country has responded to other actors in the region and set a course for the region’s future.

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CHAPTER 1

Overview China’s strategic thought over three decades draws superlative evaluations. Not only is the contrast with the 1960s startling, but the achievements themselves dazzle observers. In 1969 China was isolated with nary a friend in the world and scant support through trade or investment for its developmental needs. In 1979 it was still groping for a fresh start, finally normalizing diplomatic relations with the United States, cautiously dropping the ideological label for the Soviet Union of “revisionism,” and searching for meaning in the new ideal of an “open door.” Afterward, strategic planning improved, but not without some glitches. The 1980s produced far-reaching transformation, but in 1989 China again faced a crossroads as its market opening was put on hold and its warnings against “bourgeois peaceful evolution” in the midst of international sanctions left doubt about how it would cope with the collapse of the world socialist bloc. New success in the 1990s also came with a hitch in 1999 when China was caught off balance in its response to the NATO war over Kosovo and fretted about U.S. moves toward global dominance as well as Japan’s growing worries over a “China threat,” while doubts reemerged over how adept strategic thinkers were at fixing a course for their state’s rise in Asia. Yet, looking back from the vantage point of 2009, periodic moments of hesitation have been forgotten in the midst of rave reviews of how far and fast China’s standing in Asia has risen. While from the standpoint of maximization of national power in multiple neighboring regions as well as in the world as a whole China’s record is testimony to strategic calculations on an elevated level, a final verdict would be premature until we consider where this is leading. Compared to other major actors in Asia, China’s strategic thinking demonstrates unusual consistency from the 1980s through the 2000s. Its objectives are relatively clear, and its deliberative processes (although far from transparent) are unusually regularized. Leaders are understood

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to regret Maoist ideological excesses in foreign policy, insisting on the importance of sticking to Deng Xiaoping’s realist legacy, while looking down on states that allow ideology to cast a shadow on their own decision-making. Clearly, China takes great pride in achieving superiority in strategic thinking and looks back across the leadership of Deng, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao as times of outthinking other states while gaining advantage from its external environment for peace, development, and a surge of comprehensive national power. The story in this volume further testifies to a systematic process of setting goals and focusing on realizing them. At the same time, assessments of where those goals have led cast doubt on whether China has truly dismissed ideology or whether mistaken assumptions in each period are marginal in comparison to sound logic. Without denying the merits of many of the accolades to China’s success, we add a supplementary perspective in the chapters that follow. Cognizant of apparent successes of Japan in the 1890s–1930s and of the Soviet Union in the 1930s–70s in extending national power and inf luence, we now ask ourselves how sustainable were their approaches. For China, too, it would be remiss if we did not consider how moves that meet short-term objectives appear in the light of the long-term reorganization occurring in Asia and also analyze how the various parts in its multidirectional strategy fit together. The chapters that follow trace four periods in strategic thinking aimed at Asia (omitting the Southwest) with an eye to their lasting impact, and then review thinking focused in all four directions radiating from Beijing with attention also to Asian regionalism. Our coverage puts these findings in perspective from the point of view of China’s implicit and explicit goals as well as the general pattern of transformation, including the changing role of the United States, evolving competition among great powers, and recent regional integration in Asia. Annual reviews of Chinese strategic calculations capture many recent tendencies. In 2001 Thomas Christensen ranked China’s priorities as: “regime survival, maintenance of territorial integrity, and the increase of China’s power and prestige on the international stage.”1 Even if he did not detect a grand strategy, he found elites thinking strategically about international relations. Ref lecting a year later on the impact of 9/11, Christensen saw no change in these rankings, but found increased cooperation with the United States. Focusing on the possibility of conf lict over Taiwan, he suggested that if this combustible issue could be better handled, broader agreement was within reach. 2 In the next volume Christensen and Michael Glosny detected a “warm spell” in

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Sino-U.S. relations marked by near-term optimism on Taiwan and better than expected responses to challenging situations in Iraq and North Korea.3 On further ref lection, a year later Michael Swaine found that China was exploiting a strategic opening by both assisting the United States and burnishing its great power mentality through growing inf luence around its borders with at least the potential to reduce U.S. inf luence.4 By 2005 David Shambaugh saw China’s military modernization as altering the balance of power in Asia, while taking care not to suggest malign intentions.5 Michael Chambers next focused on China’s goal of becoming a great power, using economic interdependence for political and security aims. He warned that after a period of continuity, China may use its newfound power in ways that would be at odds with the current international system.6 As China’s rise continued in 2007, Kenneth Lieberthal argued that China’s grand strategy counts on minimizing the chance of conflict with the United States while developing centers of power that reduce U.S. dominance and enhancing ties with states that are being tempted to constrain China. He found that Chinese elites attribute to the United States a zero-sum lens of trying to block China’s rise, and this distrust inf luences China’s foreign policy.7 Finally, in 2008, Swaine reiterated that China remains highly suspicious of U.S. intentions, adopting a strategy largely compatible with U.S. interests while hedging against policies that could frustrate expanded Chinese inf luence. 8 This series admirably covers China, but it does not reveal how the various elements of recent strategic thinking toward Asia enduringly fit together. Various writings that review China’s relations with the neighboring states covered in this book point to trends but usually do not situate them within debates that are at the core of strategic thinking.9 For regular updates on bilateral relations, one can turn to the CSIS/ Pacific Forum online Comparative Connections. Yet, there is a need to dig deeper into the way these relations are perceived over time, taking into account discrepancies in Chinese interpretations aimed at different audiences and presented with different degrees of openness. Chinese are accustomed to restraint in reporting on foreign countries. After 1982, the delicate job of normalization with Moscow induced this. Due to ideological concern with parallels to China’s development and, at times, to fear of the fragility of improving relations, the pattern has continued to today. Coverage of North Korea is more beset with the danger of harsh complaints from the North, to which China reacted in 2004 by closing a prominent journal. Japan arouses heated critical coverage, but through the 1980s China took care not to arouse either Japan in ways

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that damage “friendship” or the Chinese public, and such concerns have persisted. Strategic writings are often couched in ways not to violate these norms or to criticize past state policies openly. Thus, isolated sources can be misleading. While one cannot be certain that one’s own research has overcome such barriers, this book is based on a different research strategy than is usually followed. It draws on a quarter century of sustained examination of Chinese debates on the countries of Northeast Asia. Drawing on repeated interviews with specialists, attentive use of internal circulation (neibu) sources that cover sensitive issues more fully, and the increasingly informative open sources interpreted from this background, it forms a picture of strategic thinking in an inductive manner, examining separate cases as the basis for presenting an overview. While China’s leaders often conveyed a sanitized version of their thinking that could lull foreign observers into complacency, this range of sources provides information to fill in some of the gaps and point us toward a wellrounded image of how the separate strands of strategic thinking have fit together and have been transformed over this time period. Although I have tried to minimize the number of endnotes in this book, I rely primarily on Chinese journals, many of which I have cited in my prior publications since the 1980s. Two levels of analysis of Chinese strategy are particularly prone to misreading. If we were to rely on Chinese writings dealing with the international level, we would likely exaggerate the degree of pragmatic internationalism. Such writings disproportionately ref lect the views of academics involved with the world community. Similarly, focusing on writings at the bilateral level is often misleading, since diplomatic considerations lead to narrow and normally positive viewpoints. They project an image of China as striving to improve ties with all countries, seeking to set aside as divisive values and past disputes. Such publications are prone to disguise Chinese strategic thinking, including the duality that frequently exists between the upbeat assessments of China’s continuous gains in the global system and the harsh warnings about the negative designs of other states. These windows on strategic thinking can be better observed in writings on the two intermediate levels: 1) on great power relations that cast bilateral ties in a different light and 2) on regional relations and challenges that begin to expose the tension between multilateralism and sinocentrism. Attention to these levels allows us to delve beyond the spin that results from top-down guidance and censorship, which apply to many sensitive strategic themes.

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There is no need to speculate here on China’s long-term strategic objectives as the principal power in Asia and the possible equal (or superior) to the United States in power. Such speculation leads to deductive reasoning. With the foundation we can build through examination of debates on the most significant countries in Chinese deliberations, we can assess motives in a succession of periods and help to clarify the ongoing debate as China quickly gains the power necessary to shape its environment anew. In 2010 it stands at a crossroads, able to proceed with caution or to flex its muscles more assertively. This book does not predict the outcome, but it identifies some of the past patterns that can shape it. China’s goals are relatively explicit, steadfast, and overarching. They include boosting comprehensive national power, limiting the inf luence of rival contenders, and establishing itself, in stages, as the “central state” of Asia. The prime targets are the U.S. role in Asia, Russia’s role in Asia and as a factor in restraining U.S. options, Japan’s reorientation and U.S. alliance cooperation, India’s ascent and reach in and beyond South Asia, and the impact of the other great powers on the Korean peninsula and in Southeast Asia. These objectives are intertwined: Russia restrains the United States as China checks Russia; China appeals to Japan as a regional partner pulling Japan away from the U.S. alliance and restricting its role in Southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula; China uses Pakistan to keep India’s focus on South Asia even as it proposes more cooperation with India; and it builds ties to Burma, North Korea, and other marginalized states for bilateral goals and as leverage in shaping regional development. Strategically, leaders recognize that while bandwagoning behind China is not realistic for most states, they can reap dividends from capitalizing on divisions within each region of Asia and from recent U.S. overcommitments around the globe. A rising power, China maneuvers among the other powers to emerge at the nexus of reorganization in Asia. While there is no clear blueprint for a new regional order, moves to deter others suggest the nature and scope of China’s ambitions. China faces five kinds of states in setting objectives in Asia. First is the United States, the towering presence in the region throughout this period. Second are the former socialist states, primarily Russia but also those in Central Asia and Mongolia, which are spread along China’s long-sensitive inland frontier. Third are the forerunners in the East Asian economic miracle, led by Japan with South Korea firmly in second place. Fourth are the “dangerous” states that could induce instability, with North Korea, Pakistan, and Burma each raising concerns in its

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region of Asia. Fifth are the emerging states, led by India with Indonesia second and other ASEAN states of note too, whose aspirations for future status have drawn attention. In the geographical chapters of Part II, these states are treated differently, but here some comments according to this typology are in order. The U.S. Presence in Asia Apart from economic development, the abiding objective of foreign policy from the beginning of the 1970s for four decades has been antihegemonism and maximization of international space for China’s rise as a great power. This led to rapprochement with the United States in 1971–79, a quest for equidistance in triangular ties with the Soviet Union in 1982–89, and a search for multipolarity with Russia as the key partner and then modified multilateralism close to home with separate regional strategies from 1992–2009. China faulted U.S. optimism on great power relations: Ronald Reagan’s confidence that China had drawn close and would not be tempted to seek balance in Soviet ties; George H.W. Bush’s interest in a new world order where Russia would become dependent on the United States and not turn to China for balance; Bill Clinton’s efforts to make economic ties conditional on human rights; and George W. Bush’s hubris that U.S. unilateralism could reshape the world with no reason to be concerned about a tightening Sino-Russian strategic partnership, as Vladimir Putin drew closer to China. China was determined to prove otherwise. Acknowledging that at the start of each presidency from 1981 to 2001 it was in an inferior position of relative dependency, it concluded that U.S. overconfidence exaggerated the degree that this might handicap it. In each case, China could find ways to remind U.S. leaders of its options and oblige them to change course. Success in doing so whetted the appetite of China’s leaders to accomplish even more when the time came in which U.S. dependency was pronounced. In 2009 Obama took office in circumstances that were interpreted as a change in the past pattern or even a reversal. Given the dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. hard power appeared less potent in East Asia just as China’s rapid military build-up reached a point when it could exert a credible impact along its maritime borders. In the global crisis caused primarily by U.S. financial mismanagement, China’s vast capital reserves and less serious vulnerability made it the foremost object of U.S. efforts to attract more purchasers of government bonds. Even for the newly prioritized goal of combating climate change, China was

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the first object of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy, as she left no doubt that, unlike her husband, Obama would downplay human rights as a bilateral issue. Given the intensification of concern over North Korean nuclear and missile development, a factor that had shifted the balance under George W. Bush away from one-sided Chinese dependency, leaders had reason to savor their growing clout and to prepare to f lex it. The strategic response from 2010 could take two contrasting forms. Given a less unilateralist U.S. orientation and building on the momentum of improved cooperation in the late Bush years, China could offer new assurances, reaching for common ground. After all, the thorniest problem of Taiwan appeared to be under control after Ma Ying-jeou’s election as president, and China also was nervous about North Korea’s growing swagger and the uncertain ramifications of the financial meltdown. Yet, China also could seize a rare opportunity. Treating this as a long-awaited chance to press its advantage, it could become assertive about its top priority Taiwan, challenging the U.S. navy in new ways and intensifying its demands on Taiwan as that island’s economic dependency on China made it newly vulnerable. On North Korea too, China could position itself as broker, rejecting serious sanctions while providing the most viable alternative to war for the United States and others to shape a compromise solution. An aggressive strategy could follow the precedent of confident great powers in the late twentieth century. Thirty years earlier despite its deepening stagnation, Soviet leaders at the pinnacle of their selfconfidence responded to Jimmy Carter’s congeniality with offensive moves, including the invasion of Afghanistan. A decade later Japanese leaders shrugged off signs of a vulnerable bubble economy by responding to Soviet-American reconciliation with new assertiveness aimed at forging a “normal Japan” in international relations, preparing finally to redress some humiliations associated with their defeat in 1945. Of course, Japan did not contemplate a brusque showdown in the manner of the Soviet Union but a gradual transfer of leadership in Asia as its voice grew louder. Similar to these great powers, China is eyeing a new regional and world order that challenges the U.S. values agenda. Instead of contemplating compromise to narrow the values gap, leaders appear intent on rejecting much-feared U.S. universal values: in 1979 they tore down the “democracy wall,” halting “de-Maoization”; in 1989 they suppressed Tiananmen demonstrators, denouncing “bourgeois peaceful evolution”; and in 1999 they reacted to the U.S.-led humanitarian intervention in the former Yugoslavia as a sign of hegemonism, even accusing

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Clinton of deliberately bombing China’s Belgrade embassy. Obama’s values allure may be viewed as no less a challenge in need of a countervailing strategy than George W. Bush’s military preemption. China may press for U.S. consent to recognize new signals of its rise and its values at a time when its help is urgently sought. Repeatedly, assumptions that China and the United States shared common goals that were driving them closer together have been refuted by unexpected outcomes. In the first period the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan became the rallying point for joint Sino-U.S. action, including support for Pakistan, the gateway to the landlocked state occupied by Soviet forces. The Reagan strategy of not only forcing the Soviets to retreat but also countering its entire imperialist venture and pursuing regime change in the home country and all its allies contradicted, however, China’s strategy of assisting socialist reform and strengthening Pakistan as a bulwark against India. The two sides succeeded in their joint objective, retaining a sense of common purpose, but results were mixed on their separate strategies. The U.S. triumphant transformation of the Soviet Union left China chagrined, while Pakistan’s assertive role in Taliban-led Afghanistan and its march toward nuclear weapons with missile launchers were of less concern to it. These differences in strategy emerged as more serious than the similarities. A marriage of convenience against Soviet assertiveness had obscured a sharp divergence in worldview. China regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union; it left a vacuum that the United States was poised to fill. Ending in 1989, the first period was far from successful because it left U.S. power little challenged. The Deng-Reagan nexus had left China marginalized, as it prepared for different times. The overwhelming priority of economic development in the 1980s accompanied by cautious diplomacy to ensure a peaceful environment set a clear-cut strategic course. Its overall success is hard to deny; yet there is room to second-guess the slow pace of normalization with the Soviet Union, the hesitant acceptance of economic ties with South Korea, and the failure to press for diplomatic breakthroughs in Southeast and South Asia. Reconciliation with the United States and Japan proceeded through much of the decade, even if it could have been accelerated had there been more strategic will in Beijing. This caution did not signify passivity, since China’s leaders were deeply concerned about the way great power and regional relations were evolving. Rather, it represented a conscious strategy rooted in assumptions that sometimes proved erroneous, although the economic results were highly favorable to a degree that China’s strategic options kept broadening.

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The defining issue of the second period was the fate of the remnants of Soviet communist rule, most importantly Russia, after the cold war ended and the Soviet Union collapsed. From the outset the differences between China and the United States were in the forefront. If the latter had the upper hand, as Yeltsin warily treated China as another communist state and adopted a foreign policy of Atlanticism, the tide was turning to the point that in the mid-1990s China drew Russia into joint support of multipolarity and won acceptance for the Shanghai-5, which became the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). If Washington and Beijing each sought a less militarized Russia opening to the outside world economically, they differed sharply over what kind of Russian national identity or integration into the world order they preferred. After seeming to fail, Beijing’s strategy proved increasingly successful as, first, Evgeny Primakov took charge of a balance-of-power strategy and, then, Vladimir Putin put Russian interests on a collision course with those of the United States. While Beijing’s strategy had worked, to a large degree, would it come to regret the assertive state on its border as had happened in the 1960s? Also, was its position in Central Asia stronger or weaker as a result of Putin’s determination to rebuild Moscow’s influence in areas formerly within the Soviet Union? Assessing the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chinese calculated that ideological and military confrontation would moderate, as economic competition became the main element in international relations. Since the United States tallied huge financial deficits, it could not dictate world economic policies. With its allies no longer in need of military protection, contradictions would intensify. With Japan’s Asian leadership aims and further narrowing of the high-end technology gap, it would make a formidable rival. When Clinton took office, focusing on economic issues, China became more convinced of the divisive trend in U.S.-Japan relations and the opportunity that this presented.10 By assuming that even with economics in the forefront each state would strive to boost its power in opposition to other states, especially the United States, they drew optimistic conclusions about a divisive region amenable to rising Chinese inf luence. As U.S. power was expanding under Clinton, however, China’s assumptions proved to be unsustainable. Already the Persian Gulf War provided a wake-up call on the need to prioritize military modernization, refocusing attention on the balance of hard power as well as soft power. In the third period China grew confident about the prospects of multipolarity. It erred in underestimating U.S. ties with Japan and Russia and the reemergence of security concerns. Attempting first to

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calibrate triangular and other balances of power, it found that none of them had much salience in limiting U.S. power. A shift toward multilateral mechanisms followed as another way to reshape great power relations and take advantage of unresolved problems along China’s border. Assumptions were being reconsidered. In 1999 Chinese alarm centered not so much on the public’s sense that the United States had deliberately bombed China’s embassy in Belgrade, but that the United States with support from NATO and Japan had switched to a new strategy of interventionism, risking the sovereignty of states bypassing the United Nations. The war in Serbia over the separation of Kosovo, the support for East Timor’s “secession” from Indonesia, and new definitions of alliance objectives spurred a debate on what this may mean for the world order and for China’s rise. Yet, Clinton and Obuchi Keizo showed no inclination to apply this new approach assertively, and Yeltsin pulled back from seriously challenging the United States in the end game of the Serbian war. Making its own strategic assessment, China decided that increased cooperation with the United States and “smile diplomacy” toward Japan would prevail, responses parallel to the decisions at the start of the decade pressed by Deng Xiaoping. When China was joining the WTO and capitalizing to great effect on globalization, the time was clearly not ripe to challenge the existing world order. The Jiang-Clinton relationship had weathered many storms to move from a relatively weak but combative China to a moderately strong, mostly cooperative China swallowing its frustrations as it waited for a time when its regional clout would be greatly enhanced. In the fourth period the focus shifted to reorganization in Southeast Asia after China had joined in establishing ASEAN ⫹ 3 and responding to the Asian financial crisis. Again, a shared goal existed: China cooperated with the United States in seeking regional stability and economic recovery. Yet, its interest in an exclusive Asian organization and in bringing Burma into an association that respects noninterference in internal affairs contrasted with U.S. goals for globalization inclusive of universal human rights. Rising Chinese inf luence may not have aroused great concern in the late 1990s, but it created a base for substantial leverage, as competition to reshape Southeast Asia was intensifying. The shock to China after 9/11 could have been intense: 1) the apparent collapse of the global and regional partnership with Russia even if the bilateral partnership endured; 2) the apparent emasculation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) drawing together four states in Central Asia with China and Russia, while U.S. bases in

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Central Asia left China’s western f lank exposed; 3) damage to China’s strategy in South Asia as Pakistan agreed to a closer partnership with the United States, which also was tightening ties with India as its troops established control over Afghanistan; 4) the rebuilding of U.S. military ties in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines; 5) further strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance, encouraging Japan to broaden the scope of its military support; and 6) undermining South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy” and tightening pressure on North Korea, while diminishing China’s burgeoning role on the peninsula. In the face of new U.S. determination to boost its military assertiveness, China could have lost confidence that it had adequate options. It was not long before Chinese analysts recognized a new opportunity in Bush’s policies without agreeing with them. New U.S. assertiveness and the Iraq War confirmed Chinese images of the country as the heir to imperialism. Sympathy toward Russia in the 1990s charged that the United States was purposefully weakening it, just as it planned to do with China. Reactions to the U.S. hard line on North Korea accentuated its image as a bully in 2002, and the Iraq War coupled with the nuclear crisis resulted in a turning point in 2003 when China’s way of thinking about the United States fully solidified. The strategic response, however, was to avoid overreacting by taking advantage of U.S. overcommitments and unpopularity. The fact that in the first decade of the century China and the United States shared an interest in stabilization of the Korean peninsula with North Korea’s nuclear programs foremost on the agenda made it increasingly urgent to work together, but that did not mean a common overall strategy. The Six-Party Talks put China in the chair, although North Korea’s priority for U.S. bilateral arrangements as well as South Korea’s alliance ties gave the United States a more decisive role. After the North’s nuclear test in October 2006, Sino-U.S. coordination tightened; yet strategies differed for how the crisis should end and how the Six-Party Talks as well as projected fourparty peace regime talks should evolve. Again a common need obscured clashing objectives. As China’s position strengthened relative to the United States, it became more assertive, but the momentum of constructive dialogue remained intact as Obama intensified U.S. efforts to realize a common agenda on both international and regional issues. Over four periods the United States found itself working alongside China on one critical issue of Asian reorganization after another. Each loomed for the United States as a matter of globalization with democratization and human rights present along with peace and nonproliferation as compelling goals. Each tested China’s calculus on regionalism

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and its outlook on the future U.S. role in one or another sub-region along its border. With Pakistan a strong counterweight to India, the SCO expanding its range through military exercises, ASEAN ⫹ 3 pursuing creation of an East Asian community, and the Six-Party Talks seeking a compromise agreement, there was uncertainty about how far China was prepared to challenge the United States. Yet, Pakistan’s instability with forces inclined to radical Muslim causes, Russia’s aggressive tone putting new pressure on Central Asian leaders to check the spread of China’s inf luence, Myanmar’s oppressive rule that serves as one check on ASEAN embracing universal ideals or even becoming cohesive, and North Korea’s undisguised antipathy toward China all called into question the advisability of the strategic thinking that had brought China some fruits it had sought. The upbeat aura of Hu-Bush cooperation quieted Chinese restlessness. Obama’s attempt to capitalize on that momentum added to China’s incentives to cooperate more. In 2005–06 a debate proceeded in China on the great powers, as Bush began his second term intent on further pressing unilateralism, ties with Japan under Koizumi were beyond redemption, and Putin changed his foreign policy orientation, turning hostile to Washington and beckoning to Beijing to upgrade resistance to hegemonism. With ties to Taibei troubled in the face of Chen Shui-bian’s impatience with the status quo, Hu Jintao could have thrown his full support to Putin. Yet, he did not. U.S. officials were working intently on better managing relations, especially toward Taiwan and North Korea, while Putin’s steadfastness was suspect since he preferred a rhetorical boost to relations to deals on arms and energy as well as on Central Asia in line with China’s thinking. Appreciation of new possibilities in working with the United States and even with Koizumi’s successor made China’s choices easier. Fear of polarizing the world, with dire consequences in both Southeast and South Asia was a concern. Recognition that the United States is in decline, trapped in Iraq, and losing ground to China in many regions, made an assertive tone unnecessary. Increased understanding with the United States after four to five years of overcoming the neoconservative inclinations at the start of the Bush administration brought dividends in the second half of 2006 and 2007. China’s decision to vote for two UN Security Council resolutions condemning North Korea was followed by pressure that helped the United States reach a deal in bilateral talks with the North followed by the Joint Agreement of February 2007 in the Six-Party Talks. After ASEAN drew together to find fault with Burma’s oppression of demonstrators, China pushed for the Secretary General’s envoy to visit the

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country and publicly called on the regime to reconcile with democratic elements, even if other actions indicated reluctance to pressure the regime. Earlier it had ceased aid to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Even on Taiwan it showed more restraint, outsourcing checks on Chen Shui-bian’s independence initiatives to the United States with some success, even if it was slow to reassure the Taiwan public by allowing their government more international space and reducing any sense of threat. Sharing opposition to Islamic fundamentalist militancy with the United States and India and to North Korean nuclear weapons with the United States and Japan, China made progress in working with other great powers on the most serious challenges to regional stability. In these circumstances, leaders accepted the U.S. presence as a force for stability. Within the political elite, however, consensus on working with the United States on regional hot spots or other key issues remained fragile. Accepting limited multilateralism while demanding narrowly defined sovereignty as it relates to domestic control and legitimacy of borders, leaders faced the prospect of managing the country’s rise as the world’s second power. Their important dialogue with the United States on questions of Asian security as well as on global economics and geopolitics helped to chart a new direction. Differences persisted within the leadership over how much to cooperate with the U.S. appeals, stressing common interests, and how far to resist U.S. efforts, seizing possible opportunities to gain in a new competition. The initiative largely remained in U.S. hands, and the global superpower’s continued strong presence in Asia made it more difficult for China to resort to pressure against other states. The strategic economic dialogue and security dialogue with the United States as well as more than fifty other ongoing dialogues, many reaching beyond bilateral issues to deal with third countries, formed the background for shifting Chinese strategic thinking. In the process, resistance to interference in the internal affairs of third countries declined when it was clear that to refrain would add to regional instability and subject China to criticism from the international community. Yet, China’s hesitancy to act on many issues, lack of transparency, and obsession with Taiwan and other perceived challenges to sovereignty still subject to hypersensitive interpretations left doubts about its strategic intentions. China faces two enduring dilemmas in strategic thinking toward Asia. First, how much priority should it give to regaining Taiwan as opposed to ensuring its peaceful rise? Many in policy-deliberating circles have been impatient, even if a late Hu-Bush compact lent support

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to those who argue that China can proceed cautiously since time is on its side. Second, how much weight should China give to improved ties with the United States as opposed to early moves to achieve multipolarity in opposition to U.S. world leadership? Restraint has usually prevailed, and it was reinforced in 2006–08 despite signs that a more confident China could be tempted to pose new challenges. Under Hu, strengthening the environment for “peaceful development” became a priority. Countering the notion of a “China threat,” forging a “harmonious world,” and satisfying doubters that China is a “responsible” state all supported calls for cooperative behavior.11 Citing leaders’ appeals for a stable, peaceful world, analysts could point to improved global public opinion toward China and its successes in development. Given past warnings that China should cautiously proceed with modernization for a long time since it is not so developed and that cooperation with the United States is necessary, there was a strong foundation for staying on course. Yet, a Sino-U.S. reversal in fortunes raised the prospects for a more assertive stance. In early 2009 Hu pressed ahead: f loating hints that China would like to see a new global currency replace the dollar as the international standard, sending vessels to harass a U.S. intelligence ship within territory the U.S. Navy regards as international waters, and threatening retaliation if foreign leaders hosted the Dalai Lama. A critical question that remained unanswered was whether China and the United States could, as the two leading powers, reach overall consensus on security matters (nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran, with the possibility that some day Pakistan could be on this list), nontraditional security questions (such as climate change and energy), and even human rights crises with destabilizing consequences in one region or another. Bush’s enriched diplomatic dialogue positively steered Beijing toward greater cooperation, but many of the most difficult tests loomed as Obama started in office. Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia Historically, Chinese perceived Inner Asia differently from other areas. It posed the most serious threats. In the twentieth century it became identified as the home to both socialism and a superpower, acquiring dual significance. Debating this area touched on government legitimacy, territorial integrity, and the balance of power.12 Dominating all discussions was Russia, as Chinese assessed its personnel, policies, and intentions. Along with the United States, Russia stands at the center of China’s strategic understanding

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Thinking about Russia proceeds in the shadow of “strategic triangle” logic, by which is meant that situating Beijing carefully in relation to Washington and Moscow will maximize its leverage and opportunity to gain power rapidly. In the 1980s, concern about the struggle between socialism and capitalism (interpreted less through economics than through political values) clouded this logic. Later, it was subsumed in reasoning about multipolarity. Yet, given continued emphasis on balancing against one pole and recognition of Russia as the most useful and available partner, the old logic did not die. Beijing repeatedly lagged behind developments in Moscow. When Mikhail Gorbachev launched his reforms, it was anticipating a leader such as Iury Andropov, who had raised hopes in 1983 for combining reform with strategic balancing, while insisting on discipline. When China’s leaders cultivated ties with hard-line opponents of Gorbachev in hopes of a coup, they were left unprepared for Yeltsin’s victory in August 1991. When China bet on the Yeltsin-Primakov team to fulfill promises of resistance to U.S. assertiveness, it was dismayed in mid-1999 by Yeltsin’s capitulation. As Putin finally fulfilled expectations for a strong partner in resisting U.S. hegemonism, his assertive moves that could challenge Chinese interests too left unclear how strong a strategic partnership would be advisable. Yet, Chinese f lexibility allowed for eventual adjustments. Finding new ways to accommodate Russian interests eased the way to drawing closer to neighboring states, even as China kept U.S. ties well in mind in showing caution toward subscribing to some of Putin’s later initiatives. Managing Russia is a source of pride in Chinese strategic thinking, despite signs of undesired results in the 1980s and recent tendencies that had been encouraged but could eventually backfire. Outside inf luence to destabilize China has been of great concern. In the 1960s–1970s this was seen to originate largely in the Soviet Union. In the 1980s there was a shift in thinking about the source of information and ideas that called into question the legitimacy of communist party rule over all of China or focused on peripheral locations in support of dismemberment of the Chinese state. No longer was Moscow viewed as the culprit. Yet in the early 1990s there was concern that it would reemerge as an ideological adversary as well as a state with no interest in drawing closer to Beijing for purposes of balance of power. Even if its impact on China’s economic rise might be minuscule, the effect could undermine legitimacy and have devastating consequences for Beijing’s leverage. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the danger spread to Central Asia, where a contagion of Islamic peoples insisting on their

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independence and forming a hotbed for fundamentalism and nationalist fervor could infect Xinjiang province. In addition, the possibility existed that the United States would agitate in Central Asia in support of democracy and human rights in a manner that could arouse independent forces in Xinjiang, possibly with Moscow’s connivance. In preventing destabilization from the north and west, China achieved its most essential objective with substantial help from closer ties to Russia by the mid-1990s. After decades of struggling with Moscow for supremacy in the socialist bloc, Beijing had to respond to the collapse of the bloc and the Soviet Union. Along its borders in all directions were states scrambling to adjust to a new order. Looking around at these states, Chinese expressed optimism that a bilateral, border-oriented open-door strategy would work very well. Using historical, cultural, and geographical linkages, outward-looking economic initiatives to serve the developmental needs of many Chinese provinces left behind in the 1980s and also broader national goals were taken.13 Yet, through the mid-1990s, troubled cross-border economic ties exacerbated bilateral relations with many states, including Russia, which was particularly targeted in late 1992 when Yeltsin’s first visit stimulated thinking on how to improve ties. Early cross-border distrust over criminalized and deceptive trade practices gradually gave way to stable ties, leading to dependence as China’s means of inf luencing these states kept growing. Yet, historical memory, cultural disparities, and weak leverage against great power inf luences left these states in need of frequent reassurances of China’s benign intentions. Managing ties with Moscow set the tone for how Beijing would be perceived along its borders. By forging increasingly close Sino-Russian ties, it alleviated any Islamic danger and shaped a favorable, but limited, environment for exerting more inf luence. China’s gains in Central Asia increased over time, even as it faced sensitivities about falling into its orbit. As it succeeded in securing ever more energy supplies, its presence had become indispensable for these states. Yet, Russia did not trust China’s intentions, strove to rebuild its own dominance in a manner that would marginalize China, and, along with its growing clout, competed vigorously to gain control over energy resources coveted by China. Partnering with Russia had its price. Seeming strategic successes brought with them the seeds of future strategic limitations. Mongolia poses a different challenge. Fearful that China will seek to annex it after a century of independence, it seeks support from the United States and even Russia. In these circumstances, Beijing treads

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carefully, opposing pipelines from Russia crossing Mongolia while also investing in the country to maximize access to natural resources. It has done little, however, to allay suspicions of its eventual intentions. Treatment of ethnic rights in its Inner Mongolian province serves as a warning of the danger of annexation. It has not found a way to persuade Mongolia that extensive cross-border integration would not mean an overwhelming demographic and entrepreneurial invasion. As in the Russian Far East and Central Asia, China is an essential, but feared, economic partner, whose economic ties are presumed to be accompanied by unwelcome geostrategic ambitions. While smaller states and border ties matter, the principal strategic theme has been Russia’s role in great power relations. From this perspective, China has outmaneuvered Russia from stage to stage. In the 1980s Deng insisted on Moscow relenting on each of the three fundamental obstacles, and finally it yielded on all three. In the first half of the 1990s Beijing beckoned Moscow while warning that it was being deceived by the West, eventually getting it to concur and join in a strategic partnership. Beijing was the first to stress multipolarity, as Moscow gradually warmed to the concept and joint endeavors to make it a reality. Under Putin, the initiative shifted to the Russians, beseeching China’s leaders to take a stronger position against the United States, but the Chinese found more benefit in keeping their coordination with the United States in the forefront even as they set limits to ref lect sharp policy disagreements. Utilizing improved ties with Moscow in various periods for leverage on others or bilateral benefit, Beijing gained an increasing role in what it perceived as a great power triangle. Yet, this proved to be quite illusive. China’s effort to place itself in the swing spot in the Sino-U.S.-Russian triangle has had limited effect. Neither Moscow nor Washington welcomes this, and Beijing finds that it has great need for both, while it must be sensitive to strains in bilateral relations. This means that China’s leaders must stress a reactive strategy, showing willingness for more cooperation while recognizing that their own aims must be pursued gradually or, often, indirectly. In the SCO while China is ostensibly at the center, Russia controls the pace of regional cooperation. In the Six-Party Talks China again stands in the forefront at meetings and in diplomatic activities, but, as seen in 2003–09, the United States makes the critical decisions to which North Korea responds. Even in the most prominent cases showcasing Chinese activism, the reality is cautious consultations in full awareness that only in rare moments when all factors are favorably aligned can China show its own hand.

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It lacks leverage sufficient to become the pivot in any triangle, including with Japan and South Korea in the core East Asian triangle and with ASEAN in maneuvering involving the United States or Japan. Debates in China about shifting to more active policies keep confronting the absence of any arena where this is likely to work. These conditions also stand in the way of China developing a wide-ranging strategy to gain regional leadership. Putin tried to convert Russia’s growing energy clout in 2002–08 into independent leverage, keeping China guessing about where an oil pipeline from Taishet in Eastern Siberia would terminate, but he found little advantage in the region from his maneuvers. Yet, as effectively as China had made use of Russia—arms purchases, region-building, support in the Six-Party Talks, and so on—Putin was increasingly beyond control by the end of his second term. Insistent on Russian nationalism at the expense of market competition across open borders and on renewal of inf luence over Central Asia and even North Korea, Putin could be reviving an outlook on Russian power in Asia that in successive periods from the nineteenth century had troubled China’s leaders. Even so, concern about real, immediate U.S. power affecting the status of Taiwan and the sea lanes along which energy supplies f low remained much greater than about possible, future Russian power. The addition of Dmitry Medvedev as president while Putin took the post of prime minister and the upbeat talks in 2009 between Medvedev and Obama may also have given China reason to pause, when potential agreement on reductions of nuclear arsenals or even on Iran’s nuclear program could leave China feeling isolated. As Putin grew more hostile to the United States, China calculated that it could ride the tiger of Russian nationalism despite its potential to turn against their country. If in 2005–08 China at times hesitated to embrace Putin’s confrontational approach, they had no cause for concern that Russo-U.S. relations might improve. Yet, talk that Obama would “reset” relations could have prompted some recalculations. This did not happen in this start-up period for Obama because China did not foresee a breakthrough in the thorny European issues, such as the orientation of Ukraine and Georgia, which troubled Russo-U.S. relations and because Russia’s greater exposure to the global financial crisis made it more dependent on China. Early in 2009 China promised more than $20 billion in loans in order to secure the oil pipeline route that Russia had alternately promised China and Japan. China also sought new inroads in securing energy resources from Central Asia, where the competition between the two countries had grown intense after Western

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companies had lost their initial edge. Yet, China knows well that it must continue to show deference to Russia’s claims to inf luence there. Arms sales had slowed due to Russian concern about China’s increasing power and its failure to abide by restrictions on unlicensed production using Russian technology, and China sought ways to change this. Despite some signs of trouble, Russia remains the focus of strategic balancing and hopes for increased leverage. It is the key to China’s inner Asian aspirations, which are important to its energy security. Japan and Other Examples of East Asia’s “Economic Miracle” East Asia represents a region of traditional sinocentrism that had fallen into the vise of maritime containment of Chinese communism and protection of Taiwan. China was keen on changing that by partaking of the area’s “economic miracle,” while changing the direction of strategic ties away from dependency on the United States and potential leadership by Japan. This required cooperating with these two powers, while at the same time trying to drive them apart and eventually seek openings, particularly in South Korea and ASEAN, to broaden China’s own base of inf luence. After considerable success, it found that divisive tactics may cause a backlash. Indeed, as increased levels of economic integration give China more leverage, the danger is overconfidence that could backfire. If strategic thinking about Sino-U.S. and Sino-Russian relations concentrated on security with a balance-of-power orientation, thinking on Sino-Japanese relations focused on China’s regional rise with leadership in the forefront. In the 1980s Japan aimed to add China to the back of its flying geese formation’s economic division of labor. When in the 1990s Japan found China out of formation moving apart from the vee, it counted instead on China’s insatiable appetite for foreign trade to lift its own economy out of stagnation. In response to the Asian financial crisis and doubts about sustaining the momentum of the complex regional division of labor, fueling rising levels of trade within the entire global economy, Japan relied on China’s economic boom. After its own potential for leadership in forging regionalism in Asia had weakened, Japan continued to pursue, albeit cautiously, regionalism together with China. Financial coordination took center stage in 2000, but the scope of “functional regionalism” broadened to encompass nontraditional security as it faced new challenges in contemplating cultural themes consistent with the goal of forging an East Asian community. China seized upon Japan’s changing strategies for economic cooperation and

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regionalism to boost its own standing, while striving to limit Japan’s role in Asia and, most importantly, to drive a wedge between Japan and the United States. In the 1980s China was content to fit into the existing framework, with Japan keeping close to the United States and the economic miracles of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore providing added momentum for China to join the formation. Yet, it was alert to Japan’s desire to turn its economic leadership into political clout and strategized about how to prevent this. Warning Japan over signs of historical revisionism and refraining from treating it as a political great power seemed to suffice in the cold war context, but as the cold war was ending and China was being ostracized following June 4, 1989, another strategy was required. Countering Japan’s plans to assert political inf luence in Asia became a priority in the first half of the 1990s. It overoptimistically assumed that U.S.-Japanese trade tensions and differences regarding Asian leadership were weakening the alliance, offering Beijing a wide opening to raise its profile. After giving Japan reason for hope about becoming a bridge to the United States, China squandered the reservoir of goodwill in the Japanese public, ceding leverage that it would be hard-pressed to regain. China’s assertiveness intensified with warnings against what Japan intended to do as a political and military great power. Denying Japan’s hopes of securing the critical pivotal position in this second most important triangle, China renewed pressure against it, aided by the collapse of its economic bubble and its political confusion after the LDP monopoly on power was interrupted in 1993. If China’s bilateral diplomacy in Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Russia exposed how short-sighted Japan’s own diplomacy had become, it also heightened distrust with the power most essential for what would become from the end of the 1990s China’s increasingly multilateral focus in neighboring areas. In the third period China wavered between recognition that pressure against Japan was proving counterproductive and intensification of the same tactics out of frustration that its strategy was not working. Still anticipating leverage in U.S. triangular ties, it drove Japan to strengthen the alliance. Working toward modest regional cooperation, it gave Japan some desired results but in a distrustful atmosphere that dimmed the prospects. Only slowly adjusting its Japan policy, Beijing erred in letting a downward slide continue. The worst nightmares for China had been avoided. Japan’s rise as regional leader or as a close U.S. partner in an intensified grip across Asia had not transpired. There was no emboldened Tokyo, perhaps

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buttressed by a breakthrough with Moscow, ready to use its tremendous economic clout and revived pride in promoting Asia’s modernization for political or even military leadership. Its once booming production networks in Southeast Asia were losing their vitality, as China’s presence was increasingly felt. Yet, Japan’s problems were largely of its own making, and China’s strategic calculations were slow to appreciate the advantages of a more positive approach, offering reassurance to Japan. Under Hu Jintao overtures to Japan were poised to intensify, but China had dug a hole for itself by treating visits by the prime minister to the Yasukuni Shrine as crossing a red line. Only in 2006 after Koizumi had left office did Hu’s strategy of improving ties with Japan take effect. Yet, it remained rather superficial, playing out against a backdrop of intense competition and continued Japanese nervousness about value differences and their country being marginalized in the SixParty Talks, China’s initiatives to ASEAN, and China’s military build-up. Strategic gains with Japan in this period were secondary to the political confusion in that country practically immobilizing its policies in Asia. In 2009 China was more receptive to triangularity with the United States and Japan as long as it was narrowly focused without security or values on the agenda. Yet, aware of South Korean sensitivity, the United States hesitated. Given uncertainty about its election outcome and its spreading loss of confidence in U.S. power as the answer to deepening security concerns, Japan appeared ripe for new Chinese initiatives. In doubt, however, was whether growing self-confidence would lead China to downplay Japan’s many concerns and even add new fuel to the still widespread fear of a “China threat.” Victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) brought Hatoyama Yukio to power in September 2009 as a critic of unequal relations with the United States and an advocate of the East Asian community. This presented China with a golden opportunity, but in the first Hu-Hatoyama meeting, maritime cooperation proved to be a sticking point. Given the more forthcoming DPJ attitude on history issues and the Six-Party Talks amidst skeptical Japanese public opinion, Hu would be tested to see if he really was ready to reassure Japan on matters that for the past two decades had kept relations from growing warmer. For two decades South Korea has stood as an easy target for rapid economic integration and the weak link in the U.S. alliance system in any moves to contain China or pressure North Korea. Beijing had to be careful, however, not to overplay its hand, given divisions inside South Korea on how to proceed and the still vital role of the United States in

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case of danger from North Korea. It generally succeeded, as the South turned to it to make the Sunshine Policy possible in 1999–2000 and restrain U.S. unilateralism in 2003–04. Sharp divisions between Seoul and Tokyo worked to Beijing’s benefit, and anti-Americanism in the South offered similar hope in George W. Bush’s first term. Yet, cracks in its strategy were apparent to Beijing, especially from Bush’s second term, as the balancing act on the peninsula floundered with increasing distrust from both Koreas. The Korean peninsula stood at the center of Northeast Asia’s transformation. Of all possible fears, China was especially concerned that South Korea would engineer its reunification, applying democratic values and even extending the U.S. alliance system to China’s border. Given Pyongyang’s importance in preventing this outcome, Beijing could not tilt toward Seoul. Yet, reluctance to pressure the North at times of mounting tension and willingness to play the Koguryo “history card,” challenging Korean national identity indicate Beijing’s insensitivity, indicative of sinocentrism and preference for hard power over soft power. Presumably, it did not take South Korea seriously as a major player. In 2008 China saw Lee Myung-bak tilting back toward closer U.S. and Japanese ties, and it responded harshly. While the “journey of harmony” (the name given to the sacred torch parade preceding the Olympics) had the counterproductive effect of arousing concern in many states about Chinese nationalism, its impact on China’s image in South Korea was particularly negative after torch defenders turned on demonstrators. Twisting the meaning of foreign criticism of its handling of issues such as Darfur and Tibet as if the aim had been to spoil the Beijing Olympics celebration and oppose its rise, China lost considerable goodwill. Also, in the face of new South Korean attention to human rights in North Korea and the plight of refugees who had reached Northeast China, Beijing’s heavy-handed response demonstrated that the apparent coordination in 2003–07 in the context of the Six-Party Talks obscured a serious clash between their national interests. With China feeling ascendant by 2009, the view spread in South Korea as in Japan that, however much it had to be accepted as a partner in the search for stability, its ambitions contributed to a divided region. China was not hesitating to throw its weight around. Enjoying widespread goodwill in South Korea in 2004 and a per capita level of economic integration well in excess of that with Japan, China had an opportunity to make South Korea the poster child for its “peaceful rise” in surrounding areas. Instead, it squandered its position in the South on

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the basis of strategic calculations that it could ride the North’s belligerence to advantage as U.S. power slipped and Chinese leverage rose over the peninsula. Yet, as the nuclear crisis was still deepening, fear of instability in the region was growing, and China’s options for rebuilding trust in South Korea and reassuring others remained open. North Korea and the Other Destabilizing States of Asia If two legs of China’s strategic thinking were balance of power great power ties and regional integration to forestall containment while forging an arena for China to gain leverage, the third leg was utilization of dissatisfied states to keep other states in check. Under Mao if that approach meant assisting revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia, under Deng it narrowed to further support for North Korea and Pakistan along with interest in Burma when opportunities arose. This third leg was never dropped even as it changed to allow priority to Deng’s legacy of stability and cooperation with states on all sides. On the surface, China adhered to the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states. It would not allow value judgments to cloud its preference for not imposing its values or approve the West doing so by pressuring states to change direction or undergo regime change. Also, China had a reputation of sticking by “old friends,” not abandoning them for reasons of ideology. Yet, the image of a principled, reliable partner needs to be qualified by that of a determined power balancer, resistant to any moves that could give rival powers a new advantage. Nowhere was this clearer than in policy toward North Korea. Insisting that it was abiding by its principles, China purposefully responded to the repeated crises in North Korean relations with other states in the region to position itself as the only state indispensable to all sides but still positioned to act independently. At times the situation appeared urgent. In October 2002 when Jiang Zemin met George Bush as Bush prepared to attack Iraq and gave the impression that North Korea could be next, China feared instability. When U.S. appeals intensified, it took a more active role in 2003 until the war scare on its border had receded. Later, in 2006 when the North defied China’s entreaties, first launching a cascade of rockets then testing a nuclear weapon, Hu Jintao voted for UN sanctions and seemed to coordinate with U.S. moves to test the North’s cooperation through the September 2005 Joint Statement and the February 2007 Joint Agreement at the Six-Party Talks while holding in abeyance intensified joint sanctions. If the goal for China was secondarily denuclearization and

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primarily desired regional transformation, as the danger of instability grew, China was pressed to reconcile its priorities. In the case of Pakistan, Beijing had second thoughts in the 1990s as the Taliban in Afghanistan supported Uyghur insurgents from Xinjiang. A thaw in Sino-Indian relations led to a reassessment of Pakistani militancy in Kashmir, notably in 1999 when its troops crossed into Indian territory. Closer U.S.-Pakistani ties after 9/11 posed a new challenge. Yet, similar to deteriorating ties to North Korea, Beijing persevered and kept its overall regional leverage in mind, revitalizing ties. After all, it continued its quest to limit the rise of India while strengthening its own energy security through ties in the Indian Ocean. China’s material support for a nuclearizing North Korea, WMD cooperation with a Pakistan prone to destabilize South Asia and confirmed as a nuclear state in 1998, and whole-hearted embrace of a Burma harshly oppressive to its people offer indications of sustained strategic calculations over three decades on how to shape surrounding regions. Having assisted Pakistan to become a nuclear state and remained reserved in showing its purported anger at North Korea becoming a nuclear state, China also did not appear to be sufficiently concerned about Iran joining the nuclear club to do more than demonstrate that it is not directly abetting proliferation, failing, at least until the issue reached new urgency in the fall of 2009, to offer the United States the sort of support that would prove it is not acquiescing. If it took a relatively strong stand, as in the first half of 2003 to push the North into talks and in the second half of 2006 to pass a compromise UN Security Council sanctions resolutions, one reason seems to have been to fend off U.S. pressure that could finger China as a threat for abetting proliferation. A lack of follow-up outrage or pressure on North Korea after the U.S. position changed to accommodate China’s approach was revealing. In the 2009 crisis over North Korean belligerence, China strove to find a balance with new doubts that it would be decisive. If we consider China’s regional hotspots together, we cannot avoid concluding that more assertive behavior could bring them all into play. As is well known, China regards Taiwan’s pursuit of independence as the most dangerous challenge, depicting an intensification of this challenge from the early 1990s and only significant amelioration after the Guomindang regained power there in 2008. While China treats the Korean peninsula as a less serious threat, it has recognized that this situation could lead to armed conf lict. The South China Sea became the third challenge due to the territorial dispute with various Southeast Asian states with energy resources at stake. Although a 2002

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understanding was reached, there were signs it was heating up again in 2009. While these issues appeared to be under control for a time in 2008, trouble was not far off. The fragile consensus reached on each of them could be tested if China showed new assertiveness. The military balance was changing, but few doubted that U.S. supremacy would remain unmatched for the foreseeable future. Any direct military challenge would leave China vulnerable to U.S. retaliation and dismissal of its claim of “peaceful development.” Yet, indirect military pressure on the United States could also serve national strategy as could the discrediting of values that worked against Chinese notions of sovereignty. The human rights argument against North Korea could be extended to China. A values-based alliance system in which Japan could change the topic from history to universal values would put pressure on China. Values arguments focused on the Dalai Lama were of no less concern. Another danger, most visible in the 1990s, was that Taiwan after decades of international isolation would regain the initiative as democratic momentum transformed into “Taiwanization.” All of these prospects raised the specter of besieged China blocked in its most fundamental ambitions. Viewing the export of Western values aimed at regime change through the lens of values arguments to justify regime continuity in Taiwan and separate sovereignty, Chinese officials were loath to accept any values-based arguments. Ascendant and even triumphant about its prospects in a world where the United States was preoccupied with wars and terrorist threats and then defensive about saddling the world from 2008 with a grave financial crisis, China saw itself as indispensable as the honest broker in dealings with North Korea and as worthy of further appreciation even for half-measures in dealing with other urgent matters. Ambivalent about U.S. alliances and the U.S. forward presence in Asia, it increasingly embraced regionalism but drew the line at steps that could limit its own sovereignty or inf luence. Finding opportunity in the crises and potential dangers around its border, Beijing adopted strategies to capitalize on these to gain leverage with other great powers and to shape regional development. All of this proceeded under cautionary guidelines before 2008, but tougher tests were looming. India and Other Rising States of Asia Gradually Chinese strategic thinking has confronted the prospect of other rising powers in Asia. India is the most obvious example, although Indonesia could potentially be added to the list. Opposing their rise

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may be appealing, but this could backfire as they gain more clout. Onesided reliance on Pakistan and close strategic ties with India’s other neighbors smacks of containment. Focusing on a weak ASEAN rather than accepting the rise of a core group of states with Indonesia in the lead may alienate natural leaders in a diverse Southeast Asia. If it has accommodated some to the rising powers, China has not shown a willingness to accept their ascent and their growing balance-of-power thinking. Isolated and fearful of renewed international condemnation after June 4, 1989, China concentrated its efforts on bypassing the United States without directly challenging it. In search of nearby targets of opportunity for political and economic gains, it avoided multilateralism that could subject it to joint pressure. The fall of world communism and collapse of the Soviet Union reinforced lessons about how sovereignty might be undercut. This left a legacy of defensiveness about the use of values in international relations, whether targeted at rights for ethnic and religious minorities or at the build-up of a civil society. When it seemed that Japan and the United States were in league in imposing sanctions and criticizing China for human rights, China looked for gaps in their regional cooperation. It found them in Southeast Asia and made great progress in normalizing and building relations. This worked well when the states of the area were groping to boost ASEAN as their collective voice and after the Asian financial crisis when Indonesia was hobbled. Yet, the limits of centering on ASEAN were evident in 2005 when China’s aims for ASEAN ⫹ 3 were frustrated with the formation of the East Asian Summit (EAS). Reliance on Pakistan with only feint efforts to regularize ties with India from 1988 also began to appear shortsighted when India’s rise drew keen attention after 1998 and the environment in South Asia changed abruptly after 9/11. Instead of the relative isolation that characterized India in the 1990s, China now faced an emerging power being wooed in all directions. Its reactive moves, rapidly boosting bilateral trade, did not def lect the deepening rivalry. In South Asia as in Southeast Asia, China’s dual goals of stability, centering on economic integration and balance of power enabling it to gain leverage and leadership were increasingly coming into conf lict. As Obama made the war front in Afghanistan-Pakistan his top foreign policy priority, China could anticipate a region in f lux, where instability could intensify and test its commitment to cooperation. Since in Southeast and South Asia China confronted rising states without strong partnerships or institutionalized security organizations,

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it could proceed more boldly than in Northeast or Central Asia. Yet, its own aspirations for leadership would be challenged both by those of India and eventually Indonesia and by the interest of the United States and Japan in retaining their well-established regional interests. Working with multiple states and with ASEAN, China made substantial progress in raising its profile as a major force, but other small states were suspicious of its rise at the same time as new coalitions were forming to limit that rise. Especially, Indian cooperation with the United States and reinvigorated U.S. and Japanese ties with various states in Southeast Asia left in doubt how China might convince states to bandwagon behind it or to agree to an exclusive type of regionalism favorable to its regional leadership. The strategy that served it well in the 1990s and the first part of the 2000s looked dubious by 2008–09 as a path to leadership. Signs of improved ties with India proved misleading, and Pakistan’s deepening chaos did not give China the luxury of continuing to benefit from division and discord in this area. Sources of China’s Strategic Thinking In studies of a country’s strategic thinking, normally four factors draw the most attention: its leadership and ideology, its relative power and how that is changing, its relationship to the foremost world or regional power, and the degree to which other states bandwagon with it or balance against it. In the case of China, leadership changes after Deng took charge in the post-Mao era appear to be of secondary importance, even when clarification of the theoretical or ideological underpinnings of strategic thinking drew more attention. As China reassessed its comprehensive national power in comparison to that of other states, strategic priorities necessarily changed. There is no doubt about the importance of Sino-U.S. relations, setting the tone for China’s handling of lesser powers and neighbors, but we must take care to treat the overall interpretation of those relations separately from the changing evaluation of their current state. Also, we would be remiss not to recognize that feedback from how countries respond to China informs judgments about strategic thinking. All four of these factors helped to shape the changes we cover. Focusing on ideology more than leadership, we place China along a continuum of integrating into converging globalization at one end and sticking to zero-sum competition among great powers at the other. Although it has changed, in stages, toward integration, the evidence below puts its strategic thinking on noneconomic matters rather toward

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the other end of the spectrum. In 1982 leaders opted for this approach, seeking equidistance between the superpowers. In 1989 resistance to U.S. hegemonism intensified, leading to calls for multipolarity in the 1990s. Although there is debate about how far China shifted in its strategic thinking around 2000, approving more multilateralism and then welcoming more cooperation among great powers, evidence below points more to power balancing. Compared to its major partners, China faced a difficult strategic setting in the second half of the 1980s and start of the 1990s. Some problems were primarily domestic in nature, although outside inf luences flooding into a long-closed country played a large role. First was the possibility that the Chinese people after a sudden about-face in the messages coming from their leaders about national goals would respond apathetically and even turn hostile to the balancing strategy now sought. Similar to the Japanese people in the 1950s, their confusion could leave regime objectives unachievable. Second was the prospect that the leadership would split, as a figure chosen for his pursuit of pragmatic aims, above all economic reform, might turn into the Chinese Gorbachev. Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang each had such potential. It took well into the 1990s under the inf luence of an “economic miracle” and stable international relations for the leadership to gain the confidence that these dangers had truly subsided. Weathering the challenges, they fixated on perceived foreign dangers to China’s rise more than to its existing territorial integrity or stability. This resulted in reaffirmation of the danger of hegemonism, combining concern over hard power capable of pressuring China and soft power able to undermine it. China’s governing coalition combines the peace and development school that puts priority on internal economic transformation and a favorable external environment and the more ideological reunification and antihegemony school that seeks a more activist foreign policy. Whereas the former favors pragmatic responses, prioritizing cooperation, the latter remains under the inf luence of anti-imperialist thinking about Washington, pro-socialist thinking about Moscow as it overcame the doubts raised in the Sino-Soviet split, and antirevisionist thinking about Tokyo. The intensity of the clash between these two schools varies, as Chinese assess their options in a changing environment. Some expect the former school to gain ground as China’s modernization matures and it learns to trust the West more, but others argue instead that China’s increasing clout gives more scope to the latter school as it presses for a more activist foreign policy. The two have coexisted as agreement was reached that the conditions were not ripe for assertive

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moves, but debates on noneconomic strategy sometimes favored the latter group. There is no convincing sign that as China’s status keeps rising the balance will tilt toward the doves, but the outcome depends on many factors, including U.S. and Japanese diplomatic overtures. Gradually the balance of power in China was expected to shift to the prosperous business community, centered in Shanghai, away from the party leadership, the security establishment, and the military—most deeply imbedded in Beijing and the Northeast as well as in inland provinces. A single integrated Chinese state would replace the pattern of an autonomous party apparatus, which regarded the armed forces as directly loyal to it. As a result, suspicions of the United States and Japan would diminish and strategic thinking would increasingly highlight shared interests for stability as well as universal values. In the following chapters we do not find clear evidence for such changes. Beijing is firmly in charge, and despite some evolution in strategic thinking, the earlier logic has not faded, warning of danger from U.S. values and hegemonism and seeking, in steps, to forge an environment in Asia favorable to China’s leadership in transforming the regional order. Academic voices divide into three main groups. The staunch hardliners take every opportunity to press for a nationalist stance, opposed to the United States, Japan, and the like. The determined soft liners are more circumspect, realizing that only indirectly are they likely to present many of their views in print. Varied attitudes toward the United States lead some to turn to Japan in search of an equilateral triangle to balance the superpower even as others accept U.S-Japanese cooperation. In between are opportunists, who blow with the wind, prepared to back up the hardliners but also ready to change their tune if the official line turns soft. Shifting views of the Soviet Union/Russia and Japan often showed opportunists ready to respond. Opportunists tend to twist the facts to confirm the current line. Many hardliners deductively incorporate the facts to serve their rigid viewpoints. In contrast, the soft liners are likely to be more objective and more scholarly, reflecting the realities they observe. Censorship stands in the way of full debates, as on North Korea. Reviewing Chinese history, observers have little difficulty detecting five distinct strands of thinking with staying power that may influence the recent strategic worldview. First, there is sinocentrism, which took root through 2,000 years of imperial history when China had no peer as the “middle kingdom” and whose emperor demanded that all kowtow to his unequaled authority. Second, a century interpreted as humiliation under imperialist pressure still casts a dark shadow on views of

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the world order and “hegemonism.” Third, Maoist bravado about communism in a life-or-death struggle with capitalism and, from the 1960s, “revisionism” left its legacy, albeit one that some dismissed in the 1980s when there was talk of the “twenty lost years.” Fourth, Deng Xiaoping’s outlook on lying low, catching up, and only gradually exposing China’s growing power became the mantra of the entire period we are covering. Finally, beneath the veneer of Deng’s edicts, there is no mistaking a contradictory strain of thought in support of asserting power when possible and seizing opportunities to reestablish China at the top of the regional hierarchy of states and as a global power as well, as befits a rising power challenging the existing order. If no simple formula exists for combining these different strands into one overarching claim about the driving force of Chinese strategic thinking, the significantly overlapping nature of their arguments, taking into account a long-range outlook, should put us on notice. One consequence of this ideological amalgam of five separate historical periods is disbelief in shared ideals and distrust of the aims of other great powers. Sinocentrism left no room for an external vision of international relations, and the obsession with China’s prolonged humiliation oversimplified the world order into which China had been forced to enter as one to be rejected. Mao’s take on the struggle against the U.S.-led capitalist bloc and then the Soviet-led revisionist bloc was not without inconsistencies, but it gave greatest weight to negative forces against which China had to resist. With Deng’s lead in interpreting Chinese state conduct at Tiananmen and the world reaction to it, his legacy became one of sullen resentment laced with patient resolve to revamp the world order when the time was right. As China’s power rose rapidly, more signs appeared of a state expecting to become a superpower and to be recognized as such in Asia and the world. The guiding philosophy in China long assumed a rapacious world of great powers intent on achieving hegemony if not classic imperialist control. Strategy centered on keeping the powers from colluding, siding temporarily with one or another to block the most aggressive threat, and gaining time to solidify the Chinese state as a source of power and build up assets that coalesce to increase comprehensive national power. This logic left little room for idealism, even when others, such as the United States and Japan, were prone to romanticism about closer ties to China. The U.S. link to Taiwan’s quest for de jure independence invariably made it suspect, while Japan’s handling of its history as the brutal invader of China cast doubt on its intentions. No country won China’s true trust, not South Korea when its legislators and president around

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2003–04 leaned closer as they distanced themselves from the United States at a time when China was becoming the foremost economic partner nor Russia when in 2005–07 it favored joint moves to limit the United States amidst talk that it was even considering alliance relations with China. A sober outlook led to calculated choices for strategic balance without close cultural ties. Strategic thinking centered on building national power fast, requiring from the advanced capitalist countries capital, technology, markets, and overall cooperation. It took as a given that China is fundamentally different from other states, opposing any hegemony and seeking power solely for the purpose of stability and development. As for issues that could complicate relations, such as demands by Chinese citizens and groups for reparations from Japan, the decision was reached to keep silent for the time being.14 Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping recognized limitations to their nation’s power and prioritized, one by one, the sectors and national needs that could provide a big payoff. For a time, the consumer sector received priority, since insufficient support for Communist Party leadership and a new development program appeared to be the weakest link. Job promotion also addressed this concern about apathy or civil unrest as market opportunities and export industries ameliorated the situation. Increasingly, the priority shifted to technology transfer and knowledge acquisition, since long-term preparations centered on skipping to the latest stages of global advancement. Military strength did not for a time appear to be a high priority, but the groundwork was laid through renewed ties to the Soviet military-industrial establishment and reorganization of China’s armed forces. A deliberate program of establishing the building blocks of national power wasted little effort as it took advantage of double-digit economic growth and even faster expansion in international economic integration to boost China’s world rank until few doubted that in overall national power it was second only to the United States while narrowing the gap. China’s biggest concern is neither military power directly employed nor economic pressure applied against it, but ideas used to undermine its rule and isolate it. The Soviet Union proved vulnerable as Gorbachev’s glasnost left people confused while “new thinking” steered its foreign policy away from vigilance against a serious ideological threat. The main lesson drawn from the West’s role in China’s unrest of June 1989 was that China is under attack from “westernization” (xihua) and “splittism” (fenhua), and it must respond with a strategy to solidify domestic support and avoid isolation. For a time, it advanced its own strategy of

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“splittism,” exaggerating the potential for dividing the United States from the EU and Japan. Its expectations of multipolarity were not realized when Japan proved to be surprisingly weak as a pole, Russia also proved weak and hesitant in the 1990s, as the U.S. economy rebounded well after a brief recession and defied Chinese expectations. The sanctions that followed June 4, 1989, became a rallying cry for Chinese in their narrative of a century and a half of victimization. They managed to renew it over the next two decades, treating the United States and Japan as the primary villains in their images of China as a threat and their policies to contain China’s rise or impose their own values. The run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 rekindled this anger, blaming others for spoiling the national celebration by criticizing China’s stance on Tibet or torch parades. Chinese see international relations through deduction from what may be called a theory of zero-sum great power relations. For some this means the United States aims to make Taiwan a colony, denying China its rightful sovereignty. It approaches North Korea either to achieve regime change in order to forge a unified peninsula to contain China or, when a deal seemed possible in 2007–08, to enlist it unreformed in a strategy to contain China. American talk of human rights is just a smokescreen for maximizing U.S. power. Strategic thinkers in China who have a clearer grasp of U.S. and Japanese foreign policy may be impatient with the emotional nationalism that has remained a large part of the debate in their country. Sovereignty is not threatened; so it need not be a rallying cry. Security is under control and can be managed without alarm, as development remains the priority. Even as strategic debates veered away from that priority from the 1980s, their policy impact was peripheral to development needs. As nontraditional security issues began to pose a greater threat to long-term development, they were not being adequately ref lected in the Chinese debate. Strategic debates fall short of growing urgency to address them and also of clear realization that terrorism or the spread of WMD is the true danger. With the revival of Confucianism in China still in progress, it is premature to specify elements in that worldview that may play a major role in the emerging identity of a rising China. One concept under discussion is “tianxiaguan,” the notion that China saw itself as the center of the “world under heaven.” While some authors suggest that this is a positive alternative to another outlook on the world order, others criticize it as hostile to non-Chinese as uncivilized “barbarians,” imposing a hierarchical outlook contrary to the current stress on equality between

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states. An example of this is one article that charged Japan with borrowing this from China, then after the Opium War dismissing China and building modern nationalism by perceiving others as “barbarians,” and still operating under this inf luence in its quest for hierarchical relations placing itself as the leader.15 On many occasions China has indicated its reluctance to accept values drawn from the Western experience as the sole basis of international relations. Its foreign policy strategy has maintained a degree of resistance to the diffusion of these values: humanism, bourgeois ideals for peaceful evolution, idealism, and so on. In contrast, they invoke different sets of ideas linked to such claims as “socialist spiritual civilization,” Chinese traditional political thought, and various personal contributions of PRC leaders, such as Hu Jintao’s “harmonious society” and “harmonious world.” At times China seemed to associate itself with the long-popular notion of an “East Asian model,” and later it had to respond to suggestions that it was behind the concept “Beijing consensus.” Even if the term “Asian values” lost favor in the Asian financial crisis, Chinese advocacy of some of its points did not diminish: state leadership is the core of economic development; rampant liberalization, individualism, and Westernization are destructive, seen in 1990s Russia; and modernization relies on nationally distinctive ways as much as on globalization. It is a sustained theme in this book that China’s preoccupation with values differences, even if they are no longer treated as a sign of Chinese ideology, distorts its strategic calculations. China’s soft power in Asia has not grown as fast as its military hard power, which in turn trails its economic power. Its approach to soft power is undercut by priority for intensifying top-down control and nationalism for the Chinese people. With Japan failing to boost its soft power and the United States undercutting its own image, China benefited by default in the 2000s. Yet, its primary emphasis on building up comprehensive hard power leaves others nervous in ways that it does not alleviate. It has not given enough substance to claims for a “peaceful rise,” even after substituting “peaceful development,” underestimating the importance of values for establishing mutual trust. The situation is still in f lux, giving China new opportunities, as was evident in Obama’s earnest pursuit of cooperation along many fronts in 2009. The Process of Chinese Strategic Thinking Authoritarian states suffer from limited and distorted information f lows to the leadership. This is true for China too despite the frequency of

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foreign policy reviews in anticipation of fresh approaches. Even if an approach is not working, gatekeepers are prone to withhold critical assessments from the leaders. This was particularly true in the 1990s in the shadow of the crackdown on liberal thought of 1989. Given the emotional investment of Jiang in the recovery of Taiwan and the refutation of Japanese revisionism, strategic arguments against hard-line approaches did not receive a careful hearing. Thus, in 1995–96 teaching Taiwan a lesson and in 1995–98 not losing face to Japan outweighed other considerations. The primary responsibility of foreign policy specialists has usually been to develop the tenets set forth in instructions from the top. This narrows debate and leads to many writings that parrot the existing line. Complicating the problem is the fact that the Foreign Ministry is weak in its standing in the leadership hierarchy and in its role in strategic thinking. Irregular mechanisms, such as leading groups, operate with little of the professionalism or informed inputs that would serve careful decision-making. Even so, there is respect for a few basic principles and precedents. Caution mostly prevails, especially in relations with the great powers that leaders are conscious of not damaging. There is no apparent, overall Chinese strategic vision. The cautious instructions left by Deng Xiaoping serve as a warning against bold action and rhetoric, restraining even planning for a time when China may be poised to exert leadership. Deng also set the tone for firm topdown control of the foreign policy debate and decision-making process, leaving a record of graduated censorship depending on the sensitivity of the topic and solicited advise based on relatively unrestrained internal discussions. Picking Jiang Zemin to succeed him and then criticizing Jiang in January 1992 for dragging his feet on reform, Deng chose someone who would stick to the course of cooperation with the United States and cautious reform, albeit at times with a streak of showing off or acting arrogantly. Deng also picked Hu Jintao, a skilled operative in boosting Communist Party solidarity and control, although timid about addressing domestic problems as they grew more serious. Hu is more careful than Jiang about arousing public emotions and more strategic in avoiding tensions in great power relations, soberly managing sensitive ties to Japan and steering U.S. relations in a positive direction. Yet, Hu has a strong hierarchical approach to China’s relations to other states, for instance in dealing with South Korea. In the absence of any blueprint for the future regional order, Hu clings to two bulwarks of past thinking: 1) reinforce sovereignty at every chance, even while accepting new forms of multilateralism and 2) impede the diffusion of universal

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values without championing clashing values, such as the putative “Beijing consensus” that could appear threatening. Particularly, under Hu, even as Deng Xiaoping’s dictum to “not seek leadership” and to “sustain a modest demeanor” was giving way to more confident behavior, China took care to deflect concern that its rise would pose a threat. It made clear that it favors a “harmonious world” in which all benefit together, and it repeatedly denied any intention of behaving in a hegemonic manner. Yet, rhetoric about China’s future intentions is less persuasive than China’s ongoing actions and the thrust of its criticisms of other states. We recognize two main schools of Chinese strategic thinking in the 1980s–2000s. The dominant force remained a center-left coalition forged by Deng Xiaoping at the end of the 1970s from the residue of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and solidified in June 1989 in the crackdown on the Tiananmen demonstrators. Much weaker but well represented in the academic debates on foreign policy options after Deng’s insistence on market-driven, pragmatic economic policies from January 1992 was a center-right political reformist orientation without any organized representation. We trace this divide over thirty years on issues of consequence for national identity, emphasizing the views that contrasted with the mainstream and yet were not so deviant that they could not receive a hearing if expressed cautiously. Sensitive to national strategy are Russia, which exported socialism to China; Japan, whose invasion and occupation aroused nationalism on which China’s communists rode to power; North Korea, a partner in socialism and a longstanding ally; South Korea, also heir to imperial China’s most important vassal state; Central Asia, still in the shadow of the Soviet legacy and Russia; and regionalism, as possible replacement for the old tribute system. Stepping away or drawing close to any of these states and setting an agenda for Asian regional ties raised strategic questions that at times became the subject of intense debate capable of penetrating China’s censorship system. The three major transitions in Chinese strategic thinking suggest a pattern of systematic review in the transition to a new decade. Indeed, a regular process was put in place for such reassessments. We would be remiss to omit, however, the leadership factor, both in China and the United States. The first review ref lects the dramatic shift with Deng Xiaoping’s consolidation of power and the evaluation by 1981 of how to move beyond the Mao era, but it only reaches its culmination after Ronald Reagan’s presidency has set in motion a new U.S. global strategy. Proceeding under overly optimistic assumptions of strategic

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triangularity, China was ill prepared for developments in the 1980s. The second review also follows a decisive turn in China’s domestic situation, in which Deng leads the country past the Tiananmen violence and purge by finally in 1992 setting a clear course, which culminates in Jiang Zemin’s strategic response to Bill Clinton’s post–cold war and post-Soviet break-up strategy. Overestimating China’s strategic vulnerability did not lead to measured responses, but instead, as vulnerability subsided, fueled excessive confidence in strategic multipolarity. In the 1980s even as Deng Xiaoping played down the need for theory in cultivating an image of pragmatism, the search intensified for theoretical guidance. With confusion rife in 1989–91, a more serious effort occurred in 1992 to establish some sort of theoretical clarity, and this was sustained at mid-decade in the most serious theoretical overreach. In each period an overarching theme guided much of China’s strategic thinking, but later the theme was found to have set the wrong course. The third review took shape in 1999, but it only produced an overall blueprint in 2002–03 under Hu Jintao after Jiang Zemin had set the tone for responding to George W. Bush’s new U.S. strategic posture. The result was a kind of strategic duality, cautiously accepting the global system and striving to improve ties with each great power, while at the same time further condemning hegemonism, alliances, and serious multilateralism in ways that contradicted cooperative thinking. China’s rise continued as U.S. commitments left it more vulnerable, raising new challenges to sustaining this duality into the 2010s. U.S. global leadership drives China’s responses. The impact of developments in Moscow, under Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin must be considered too. China’s leadership changes occurred against the backdrop of shifts in the means set for boosting comprehensive national power: belated recognition of the realities of both the mature cold war and the allure of Asia’s economic miracles; attentive response to the end of the cold war and sole U.S. superpower status as Asia now had the wherewithal to become the center of global dynamism; and the U.S. push to reorder the world with recognition that China’s rise will increasingly challenge its supremacy. These successive shifts put a premium on strategic alertness and f lexibility as China responded, but often only after delays. In the 1980s there were many examples of belated realism, including the slow normalization of relations with the Soviet Union. Only in 1992 were diplomatic ties established with South Korea. It took to 2003 for China to exert pressure on North Korea to enter into negotiations with the United States. Moreover, it was only in 2006 when a forward-looking strategy toward Japan overcame the

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historical issues interfering with relations. In each instance, internal debates preceded a strategic reassessment and then a policy shift. Occasionally, these debates burst into the open, as in early 2003 when the “new thinking” toward Japan was aired and the fall of 2006 when some writers were able to state openly that China should not allow North Korean interests to interfere with its own foreign policy. The fact that the debates are generally hidden from view and that no interest groups are allowed to press openly for a change in policy no doubt interferes with timely adjustments to strategic thinking. Yet, increasingly, internal debates grew livelier, while public discussion on a generalized level raised many of the most relevant issues. Instead of becoming a regular part of policy making, open debate on key strategic issues occurred only sporadically. It often ref lected a loss of confidence on the part of the Chinese leadership in past policy and a search for adjustment in light of another state’s responses. In early 2003 debate on Japan ref lected a rather hopeful search for a better way to deal with the country, but then “new thinking” only seemed to embolden Japan’s rightists without any sign it would evoke a similar Japanese debate about compromise. Koizumi’s betrayal of trust led to further loss of hope. Uncertainty about relations with the United States also at times, such as the second half of 1999, evoked a strategic debate. Yet, many of the misjudgments and delays in refocusing policies can be attributed to the stif ling effect of top-heavy deliberations and censorship on timely, far-reaching debate. A spectrum of views appears on many issues, generating debate and inf luencing some policy. An image of pragmatic internationalism often is conveyed. Yet, assumptions about values often go unchallenged. They put sovereignty on a glorified pedestal, fail to subject the prospect of sinocentrism to serious debate, and allow for a kind of strategic duality that reveals parallel discourse rather than reconciling the various strands of strategic thinking. By the mid-1980s China’s general strategic orientation was set. The foremost goal was to prevent U.S. consolidation of global and regional leadership, foisting its values on other countries, denying reunification with Taiwan on terms that would reinforce China’s notion of sovereignty, and locking in a balance of power that allows China little room to maneuver. Focusing on short-term issues, leaders pursued these goals, but they lacked viable, long-term strategies. They made assumptions about how to proceed and then, after failing to make timely adjustments, made different assumptions. While strategic reviews added flexibility, they often were focused too narrowly to permit challenges to existing assumptions. When alarmed that failure to change could spark

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the image of a “China threat,” leaders resorted to tactics that alleviated the immediate danger, while continuing to stif le the wide-ranging debates or reassessments able to bring lasting solutions. Turning points in Chinese strategic thinking occur with regularity and in response to changes in the global environment. The groping process for a new strategic approach after Mao’s death accelerated in 1979 with Deng’s firm grip on power and reached clear resolution in 1982 even before the 12th Party Congress confirmed the new direction. The retrenchment in reform analysis after the June 4, 1989, repression dragged along until Deng refocused strategic thinking in 1992, making that year on the eve of the 14th Party Congress the decisive time for consolidation of a new approach to international relations. Later, the confusion in 1999 that accompanied the U.S. bombing of China’s Belgrade embassy and other signs of a more assertive U.S. foreign policy took a few years to settle down as George W. Bush’s unilateralism and the war against terror kept China searching for a response, but in 2002–03 with the 14th Party Congress and the agreement to host the Six-Party Talks a new strategic approach could be discerned. We can add to this picture mid-decade snapshots of a more fully reform- oriented China from the mid-1980s, a more confident China from the mid1990s, and a China responsive to a besieged United States and revitalized Russia in the mid-2000s. Rising confidence kept confronting new barriers. An Assessment of China’s Strategic Thinking A primary objective of strategic thinking has been to forge an environment fully supportive of Chinese economic integration into the world without unsettling instability. China has achieved this goal with stunning success. There have been virtually no barriers to its economic rise, and no conflict has distracted it or its foreign partners from behavior that would further that rise. Compared to the Soviet Union’s myopic economic opening and even Japan’s more protectionist approach, China has regularly opened its door wider and given new momentum to economic ties to the world with Asian neighbors in the lead. A second overarching Chinese objective has been to structure regional security in order to constrain other powers and maximize China’s rise as a political and, eventually, a military power. Strategic thinking centers on limiting perceived hegemonic tendencies of the United States, which is seen as the principal barrier to China’s rise, and Japan and Russia, which are regarded as the imperialist states that caused the most

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harm to China in the past. To the degree that all three states did not realize their aspirations in East Asia since the 1980s, China’s strategic thinking has proven effective. Given the rapid rise in China’s stature, we must conclude that, overall, its international strategic thinking has been relatively successful. It adjusted to shocks more quickly and decisively than the other powers While Japan perceived shocks from international relations and withdrew blaming the United States, China intensified its outreach and focused on long-term strategy that avoided isolation. Although in 1989 when the cold war ended this was unclear due to China’s own problems after June 4, in early 1992 after the end of the cold war, 1997 in the Asian financial crisis, and 2001 when the United States rallied support from Russia and others in the war against terror, China’s shock was mitigated by its vigorous response. It intensified globalization, while keeping its eye on preventing a U.S.-dominated world order. It kept viewing Russia as a vital strategic partner, essential to credible claims of multipolarity. Efforts to exploit differences between Tokyo and Washington continued, even as Beijing aimed to avoid either extreme of a much stronger alliance or a unilateral Japanese military policy. China also kept positioning itself to be neutral power broker on the Korean peninsula. In addition, it sought leverage in Southeast Asia to deny any other state domination and gradually expand its inf luence. After each shock, its overall strategy became clearer, as China searched for new ways to advance all of these objectives. China sought from the end of the cold war to split one country after another from the U.S. orbit. In 1992 the United States enjoyed the height of its power, and it was not clear that any state was inclined to distance itself; yet China insisted that the United States was in decline and multipolarity within reach. In 1996 Russia broke with the U.S. global system, starting a decade-long process of increasingly open resistance. In 2003 South Korea began to separate itself, although in 2008 it drew closer again. As India and the United States appeared to be making common cause by 2005, China made its own overtures to India in the hope of forestalling this outcome. All along it was interested in a widening gap between Japan and the United States. In 2007–09 there were at last signs of Japanese distrust, as China worked to improve ties with Japan. These developments did not mean that multipolarity or even alliance-splitting had advanced far, but they signified that China no longer feared encirclement or U.S. success in forging a world order. Although it has been disguised, China remains the most ideological of the East Asian states apart from North Korea. Leaders prefer to

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obscure this fact, specifying set formulations for characterizing international relations that do not allude to core tenets. They operate with a duality that has existed at least since Mao Zedong agreed to ties with the United States in 1971 despite the contradiction this posed for his leftist ideology. For some time, especially under Hu, the duality has been managed with more subtlety. Many academics are adept at explaining the rationale for policies, often obscuring some guiding principles or the way the leadership really sees the issue. On the big three—SinoU.S., Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Russian ties—the agreed language has generally been upbeat, obscuring the importance of serious problems and long-term strategies for overcoming them. To understand Chinese strategic thinking we must peer behind the set expressions, making sense of the inconsistencies in Chinese writings and statements for different audiences while keeping the focus on patterns of evidence for deep-seated orientations. One line of strategic thinking that was often reported to foreigners is that China is only a regional power and must for many years keep a low profile, as Deng Xiaoping instructed. It needs a stable, peaceful region to address domestic problems and devote itself to the long-term challenge in narrowing the gap with other great powers. Since no direct security threat existed after 1991 and it would be foolhardy to take an aggressive stance toward Taiwan, China has not changed its strategy. Moreover, as relations with each of the great powers and especially with Taiwan improved to 2009, China had more reason to reduce tensions. The financial crisis poses problems of possible social unrest, and China must stress building a “harmonious world” even more. Rejecting this line as contrary to what can be observed and what Chinese analysts write, this book identifies a different, albeit somewhat changing, international strategic logic since the 1980s. Another interpretation of strategic thinking is that it focuses on diffusing concerns about a “China threat.” Leaders are attentive to the psychological gap when China’s rise becomes an issue. Reassuring other states is highlighted as China’s priority. Chinese who favor this explanation downplay Sino-Russian relations as often troubled and not very serious. They insist that China is too weak to inf luence U.S. relations with other great powers or South Korea. It follows that China will keep reassuring others, perhaps parallel to Japan in the 1970s–1980s as it concentrated on becoming an economic great power. This point of view also does not conform to the evidence gathered about Chinese strategic thinking. It is little more than a smokescreen that obscures China’s long-term planning.

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Chinese leaders rely heavily on personal ties with other leaders. Through summits they seek to stabilize these networks and then describe these ties with rhetoric that serves some larger purpose, even if it is not backed by much substance. These leave a facade behind which relations may drift and problems not be seriously addressed. Perhaps, this ref lects a traditional Confucian stress on words ref lecting desired ideals even if reality trails behind. Dispute management then is inf luenced by calls to repeat the chosen words and proceed on the surface as if they guide behavior. Consistent application of principles and attentive actions to match reality to rhetoric can be ignored in this approach. Indeed, leaders may have no desire to back the rhetoric with policies. The “friendship” mode, one such rhetorical pattern, was reinforced by countless delegations swearing to it; after ties with Japan improved in 2006 a similar mode existed. Repeated positive assurances about how good Sino-U.S. relations were from 2003 present another hollow mantra with some truth but also the desired effect of concealing deeper views of Chinese leaders. This is a tried and tested way to manage ideological differences, beginning with Mao-Nixon and Mao-Tanaka Kakuei. Focusing on the facade obscures China’s strategic outlook. One persistent tendency was to view troubling moves by Taiwan or in international relations as provocations and overreact. Whether it was Gorbachev’s “new thinking,” Clinton’s granting a visa to Lee Teng-hui, or Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, responses were not commensurate to the challenge. Under Hu, however, we observe growing appreciation for the utility of prudent responses, leading to a more long-term strategy toward Taiwan, the United States, Japan, and even Russia. The system of strategic thinking became more institutionalized, but hypersensitivity, such as in the midst of the nationalistic buildup leading to the Olympic Games, has remained a danger. Another possible source of distortion is the tendency to depict changes in regional affairs more favorably than is warranted. In the 1980s there long was excessive optimism about reform and transformation of the Soviet Union that would serve China’s balancing objectives. In the 1990s China was quick to predict the decline of U.S. hard power and alliance relations in ways that would hasten multipolarity and China’s freedom of action. This was not merely a normative prescription to counter American hegemony; it also set the direction for foreign policy analysis and some assertive moves. And in the 2000s as U.S. soft power receded, China’s analysts may have exaggerated the long-term nature of this shift as they anticipated gains for their own cultural diplomacy and model. Strategic results ref lect what other powers do,

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and China has often benefited from the ways in which the United States, Russia, and Japan have pursued their own strategies during these years, but we must recognize too that China’s miscalculations on many occasions interfered with efforts to realize its goals. These may have peaked in the periods of Jiang’s leadership, following the tentativeness of the 1980s and prior to the more deliberate approach under Hu in the new century. Yet, by 2008–09 there were signs that Hu too, under the weight of China’s rapid rise, was inclined to overplaying his hand. Chinese insist that their country only seeks peace and stability, while the United States and Japan are blinded by cold war mentality or historical obsession. Alternatively, Chinese claim that they are the true realists, while others driven by ideology undermine trust or threaten stability. This self-righteousness may play well at home with those who are morally aggrieved, but it does not bring clarity to attempts to understand Chinese strategic thinking. Moreover, selectively identifying the ideas that drive other states, as if universal values could not possibly matter, leads to distorted analysis. This means China does not given adequate attention to public opinion, even if China increasingly has shown awareness of it. In this context, China’s own efforts to invoke soft power, employing slogans such as “peaceful development” and “harmonious world,” lack substance. One-sidedness in covering values leads to simplistic deductions from a long-established worldview only partially modified to ref lect the increased understanding of experts on foreign countries. In looking for the principal sources of inadequate strategic thinking, we find signs of rigidity in the leadership and the foreign policy system, remnants of ideological fetters, and oversensitivity to foreign behavior. In the 1980s Deng was receptive to hard-line resistance to subscribing to the existing world order or accepting idealism that might lead to a new order. This resistance was rooted in Communist Party history over more than half a century and in a worldview centered on a struggle against imperialism and support for international socialism. Jiang’s early defiant posture also was influenced by pressure from the oldguard, now aroused by international sanctions and the embattled impact of the collapse of world socialism and the Soviet Union. Later, Jiang’s impatience reflected his own thinking mainly and his growing confidence, as the old guard was losing its clout. An ideologically tinted outlook focused less on boosting socialism than on blocking the impact of Western values, giving rise to the most wishful thinking over the three decades. Some of Hu’s inconsistencies in his first years as party secretary may be attributed to the lingering inf luence of Jiang, but we can

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also trace ideological continuities, particularly in various obsessions that appeared in interpretations of “sovereignty” and “hegemonism.” Strategic thinking has increasingly been inf luenced by emotional arousal from the bottom up, but it is overwhelmingly shaped from the top down. Deng exercised enormous inf luence even when Hu Yaobang supposedly had authority, and Jiang had a major say even after Hu Jintao succeeded him. Yet, Hu Jintao’s clout has grown, closing channels for challenging him. His position is strengthened by China’s new financial muscle with vast purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds, a position as the leading trader with Japan, and a lender to Russia with vital assistance in the world financial crisis. Previous challengers for world leadership did not rely nearly as much on making others financially dependent. While in expanding China’s inf luence strategic thinking realized many goals, the results were less positive for building trust in Asia or forging a long-term environment conducive to peace and stability. Countries were unnecessarily alienated despite Deng’s decision in 1978 to set a course of “peace and development” and an “open door” working with all other states to reduce tensions and increase goodwill. Through much of the 1980s China’s antagonism to India and assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development as well as its inclination to turn a blind eye to North Korea’s state terrorism signaled no such change of course. Embracing Myanmar’s pariah leadership also did not prove helpful in later efforts to strengthen ASEAN as an economic and diplomatic partner. Moreover, the way leaders behaved in the Tiananmen massacre and subsequent defiance of the international community excessively alienated the United States and Japan as the cold war was ending. This was compounded in the mid-1990s by the harsh treatment of Japan, shattering illusions with nationalistic and diplomatic moves that heedlessly raised the specter of a “China threat.” Similarly, when South Korea was most positively inclined, Chinese leaders wasted this opportunity by stoking the Koguryo history issue that came to a head in 2004 and insensitively managing ties in 2008 when the public on both sides grew warier of each other. In the background loomed China’s failure to do its full share to stem North Korea’s provocative belligerence, threatening the stability of the entire region, even as it received credit as host to the Six-Party Talks. Also, developing closer ties to Russia must be weighed against minimizing Russia’s moves to disrupt the global order and the inherent contradiction of welcoming its assertiveness versus the United States when similar assertiveness in Central Asia would doubtlessly turn against China.

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China’s record over a quarter century was a mixture of success in building up its own position in Asia through increased power and patience and unsustainable pathways through moves to limit other great powers. On all sides it has rejected a strong variant of multilateralism consistent with globalization: leaving North Korea or Pakistan positioned to be disruptive and the SCO or ASEAN weak regional bodies that could backfire on China as Russia grows more defensive in Central Asia and countries such as Myanmar slow the institutionalization of inclusive regionalism favorable to Southeast Asian stability. Comparing the various periods, we conclude that strategic thinking in the Hu era was most effective, the Deng era was next although quite variable, and the two periods under Jiang were most problematic. In his first period, there was a defiant tone, which led to overestimation of the prospects for forging a new world order to China’s taste. This turned into impatience in his second term, which was marked by overreaching in an effort to establish this order quickly. In contrast, Hu’s strategizing to 2009 was more controlled, seeking expansive results but accepting the need for a gradual shift of the existing world order. Each period achieved notable successes and suffered from miscalculations. Deng’s orientation was less defiant or impatient than Jiang’s, but it was marked by inconsistency, relying excessively on outdated assumptions that were slow to change. Of course, Deng’s extraordinary success in redirecting domestic policies and external economic relations makes him the more significant Chinese leader. Since this is not a book focusing on the much-discussed economic achievements of China, Deng does not appear in as positive a light here. Yet,under Deng and, notably, Hu corrective adjustments minimized the damage from short-sighted thinking. Under Jiang too China proved able to respond to mistakes more quickly than Japan, Russia, or South Korea. This is indicative of occasional, lively debates in leadership circles, which made necessary if belated adjustments, although top-down controls and censorship meant that the effectiveness of debates fell far short of what was possible. While the Hu period had the huge advantage of the most favorable external environment and the most impact from China’s rising national power, difficult tests loomed by 2010 that could expose some shortcomings in earlier strategies and reveal the costs of excessive assertiveness.

PART I

Chronology

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CHAPTER 2

Chinese Strategic Thought in the 1980s It is widely appreciated that China’s political, economic, and social policies changed abruptly from 1978 through the 1980s, but the transformation of its strategic thinking is much less clear. After all, the Sino-U.S. strategic arrangement of the 1970s endured until June 1989, relations with the Soviet Union were not normalized until May 1989, and SinoJapanese ties in the 1980s built on the momentum reached through two historic agreements in the 1970s. Yet, circumstances were changing after Deng Xiaoping sharply shifted China’s national priorities for international relations as well as domestic priorities. A close study reveals keen interest in both the global balance of power and regional dynamics. China regarded U.S.-Soviet ties as f luctuating greatly, as first Leonid Brezhnev and then Ronald Reagan grew assertive before Mikhail Gorbachev launched glasnost and new thinking. It paid close attention to Japan’s rise amidst a dynamic East Asia. Also, it continued to rely on old partners and be suspicious of potential new ones. Though giving priority to peace and development, China grew more active in assessing regional relations and calculating how best to respond in order to boost national power. Given its far-reaching shift in domestic strategy, Beijing needed a fundamental change in international strategy too in order to align its economic, security, and political objectives. Of course, the United States figured importantly in this rethinking, but so too did the Soviet Union and Japan. Leaders sought maximum support for modernization, a balance of power suitable for accelerated increases in China’s comprehensive national power, and the ideal worldview to bolster the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. The three themes were separated—economics dominated in discussions of modernization, security in analyses of regional and global power rebalancing, and ideology in the search for legitimacy. Yet, all three necessitated evaluations

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of the same small group of foreign countries with an eye to how China’s rise in Asia could best be achieved. The United States loomed not only as the foremost factor globally, but also as the third party casting a shadow on how China dealt with the Soviet Union, Japan, and other states in Asia. Chinese academics and officials debated strategic options in the 1980s as they assessed what other countries were doing and how China should respond. Indeed, there were three separate debates of far-reaching importance on: 1) the Soviet Union, covering its socialism and its international relations;1 2) the United States, dealing with the nature of its capitalist system and its foreign policy; 2 and 3) Japan, evaluating both its economic success and its regional aspirations.3 At the core of strategic thinking was the balance of global power between the Soviet Union and the United States and the impact of reform and transformation in the former. Second in this calculus was the evolution of regional power, focusing above all on Japan’s rise and U.S-Japanese relations. During this decade only scant attention turned to the Korean peninsula and even less to Southeast Asia and remote South Asia. Applying a rather simplistic paradigm and concentrating on the great powers, Chinese frequently reassessed how Asia was changing, as they ref lected their own abrupt domestic policy shifts. Given the urgent need for economic cooperation and the highly sensitive character of all of these relationships—troubled “normalization” with the Soviet Union after decades of invectives in the Sino-Soviet split, a generally upbeat atmosphere with the United States despite new attention to it as China’s primary “threat,” and the continued “friendship” mode with Japan despite explosive historical memories, a penchant for secrecy prevailed, leading to fragmented analysis produced by specialists instructed to focus narrowly. It was easy to overlook the underlying security outlook. In the 1980s there were many misunderstandings of Chinese strategic thinking. We note the following: 1) convergence in domestic policies leads to cooperation and trust in foreign policy; 2) the static from politics and ideology as the old guard adjust to a new era is minor compared to the thrust of economic transformation integrating China with the world; 3) the fact that theory has been set aside in economic development means that it is unimportant in foreign policy, where pragmatism leads to closer ties to the United States, Japan, and other states with the most to offer China’s modernization; 4) China’s international aspirations are modest, centered on a peaceful environment to facilitate its economic rise and welcoming Gorbachev’s reforms with similar goals. To be sure, China prioritized learning from advanced experience,

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giving the edge to capitalist countries. It kept its military budget down and did not press its demands for reunification with Taiwan. Yet, its reasoning about Asian security reveals a distrustful outlook still much inf luenced by socialist ideology with considerable nervousness about each of the great powers and deep aspirations for a different world and regional order. It was not a status quo power. Whereas Mao had deemed world war to be inevitable and regarded both of the superpowers as interested in blocking China’s rise and in achieving global hegemony, Deng saw an opportunity to avoid war, as he downgraded the Soviet threat from 1982 and upgraded the salience of learning from the United States and other capitalist states. The triangular framework remained China’s preoccupation, but now foreign policy rested on a development strategy as well as a security strategy. Given harsh memories of the Sino-Soviet split supplemented by fresh provocations of late Brezhnev expansionism, China was slow to adjust its Soviet policies. Yet, angered by perceived U.S. disregard for its interests, especially concerning Taiwan, it shifted in 1982 to equidistance with the Soviet Union and, even after stabilizing ties to Washington, to a softer line on its three obstacles to normalization in the fall of 1985, focusing primarily on Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia. Even if it seemed that China had through these two adjustments settled on a different security strategy, aiming to be the pivot of the strategic triangle and seeking a middle road image of reform socialism between the two ideological camps, delayed normalization with the Soviet Union to 1989 points to inability to take advantage of this promise. While Deng greatly lowered expectations after Mao was guilty of exaggerating China’s international position, there was still a tendency to overemphasize what China could achieve and then to hesitate in adjusting to rapidly changing circumstances. Threat perceptions shifted over the decade. At first the Soviet threat loomed most ominously, delaying steps toward normalization in ways that later raised second thoughts. Then alarm grew that the United States was becoming the unchecked global power with uncertain implications for how China should respond without becoming isolated. Finally, Japan’s rise drew attention to its potential to become the third dangerous power, causing countermeasures that set back bilateral relations in ways that some saw as excessive. At the same time, fear of regionalism that could confine China through multilateralism and of rising clout in India and South Korea slowed acceptance of regional restructuring. In such a distrustful atmosphere the strategic calculus was skewed, notably after June 1989.

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China’s strategizing in this decade produced a mixed record of success. Whereas the Republicans led by Ronald Reagan leaned to Taiwan and deemed China too weak in the early 1980s to gain leverage in bilateral relations, they shifted in 1982–84 to the point that China found it advantageous to stress the positive state of relations even as many prepared for increasingly negative consequences. To their satisfaction, through 1988 Americans were upbeat about China’s rise and even appeared more eager to boost ties than China was. Similarly, Japanese were optimistic—even apt to romanticize relations. Right-wing officials prone to revisionism were increasingly reconciled to China’s rise and allowed this to temper their nationalism, as Japan’s growing Official Development Assistance (ODA) generosity met infrastructural requirements. Finally, the Soviet concessions on all three obstacles to normalization vindicated Deng’s normalization strategy. Increasingly, Moscow realized a need for better ties with Beijing. Given these achievements as all great powers sought closer ties and opportunities kept growing, China’s potential for success was considerable. Comparing three points in the 1980s leads us to qualify any positive assessment, however, with awareness that better results were within reach. In 1980 China was weak, confused about its objectives, and lacking in leverage. Unlike this early hesitation, it was rather optimistic by 1985, welcoming Gorbachev’s arrival in office, celebrating Reagan’s 1984 visit as a boost to relations, and working closely with Nakasone to build momentum in bilateral ties. Strategic writings were approaching a new peak of confidence in China’s prospects of cooperating with all of these powers.4 Yet, these writings, orchestrated by central guidelines handed down to regional and international specialists, expose a dark side of pro-socialist and narrow balance-of-power reasoning too.5 Even prior to June 1989, changing tendencies in strategic thinking conveyed a more pessimistic tone. From 1986 Gorbachev’s impact on the socialist bloc and the world order drew concern. At the same time, Japan’s alleged aspirations for regional leadership aroused increasing alarm. Finally, long before U.S. efforts after June 1989 to isolate China and then to seize the opportunity of the collapse of international socialism to spread its values across the globe, Chinese analysis determined that the greatest danger came from the appeal of U.S. values. The optimism of mid-decade had turned into fear and defiance by decade’s end.6 With this transformation, which preceded 1989 and was not primarily due to the events on June 4, we see shifting strategic thinking that, arguably, was not in the interest of China’s rise. An image endures of China’s leadership under Deng as pragmatic, flexible, and nonideological in its foreign policy. These are positive

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traits for strategic thinking, but they are at odds with emotional elements associated with thinking on the Soviet Union as the “elder brother” in socialism, Japan as the victimizer in imperialist history, and the United States as the spearhead of anticommunist “bourgeois evolution.” Ronald Reagan brought nervousness about a moralistic stance against communism to a new peak, Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev in contrasting ways rekindled debate about the future of socialism, and Nakasone Yasuhiro had revisionist leanings that reopened historical wounds. While China’s overall course might aim for pragmatism, the challenges posed by such leaders of countries critical to Chinese nationalism were taken seriously. With the Soviet Union viewed as containing China on three sides, the United States as newly on the offense, and Japan as intent on reorganizing Asia under its own leadership, China calibrated balance-of-power responses to limit their influence with emotional reactions against their undesirable ideological tendencies. In both ways, this worked against signs that China would benefit greatly from the end of the cold war and more open economies. Yet, Deng made sure that amidst such strategic balancing, the overall economic course stayed fixed on opening the door to outside influences without provoking a backlash. The Strategic Triangle From 1982 a strategy was taking shape for China’s ascent through a thicket of great power rivalries. It was to play a balancing role at the pivot of the Sino-U.S.-Soviet strategic triangle, encouraging two suspicious rivals to seek stability as they gradually shifted away from their costly arms race. As it became the newest “economic miracle” through integration into the existing world capitalist economic system, it would also lead the international reform and revival of the socialist system. Meanwhile, it could find freedom for action amidst troubles such as the difficulty in normalizing Soviet-Japanese relations. Such divisions would divert pressure against it and allow time for it to catch up economically, while gradually asserting itself more politically and, eventually, militarily. When the cold war heated up, first blamed on Soviet aggression and then on the messianic worldview of Ronald Reagan, China was loath to its destabilizing effects. Yet, a stalemate between a subdued Soviet Union newly attentive to economic reform and an acquiescent United States satisfied that its interests were not under attack could provide just the right degree of balance—militarily and ideologically—for

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China to gain room for maneuver. By the end of 1982 China blamed the two superpowers equally for hegemonic behavior that infringed on Chinese security or sovereignty. Comparing aggressive Soviet actions all around China and U.S. actions toward Taiwan, Chinese analysts calculated that the cold war tendency of the power of the Soviet Union catching up was ending.7 While some foreign observers thought that equidistance was largely a public diplomacy ploy and kept their focus on the contrast between military cooperation with the United States and continued insistence that the Soviets must change course before they could expect normalized cooperation, the thrust of the emerging reasoning inside China left in doubt such Western optimism, especially within the Reagan administration. Chinese claim that their country anticipated the end of the cold war, adjusting its strategic thought in the early 1980s to support world economic integration, reduced military confrontation, and long-term stability to realize domestic goals. Opposition to the arms race was in the interest of narrowing the huge gap with China’s paltry military might. Yet, this does not mean that it lost sight of the strategic importance of increasing comprehensive national power and gaining leverage to limit the inf luence of other states as its own stature grew. Indeed, China sought a relaxation of tensions but not the sort of warming between the United States and the Soviet Union that occurred. According to a Soviet scholar, after 1986 Chinese views changed on the strategic triangle, recognizing at last the significance of equidistance that had only been articulated in 1982. Moreover as Chinese saw East European states and the Soviet Union becoming vulnerable in the late 1980s and the world balance of power shifting, they grew concerned about the fate of the socialist bloc and loss of their own purportedly optimal position in the strategic triangle. 8 Instead of the cold war ending with a balance of power, its end left China endangered. Ironically, the more open to the outside and reform-minded China became, the less it trusted the United States as a strategic partner. Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States at the start of 1979 started the downward slide, when Jimmy Carter disappointed him by refusing to support China’s attack on Vietnam. In 1982 the beginning of normalization talks with the Soviet Union and talk of equidistance between the superpowers revealed a substantial shift, and soon the idea that the Soviet Union was China’s enemy had faded. Worry about an aggressive Soviet Union seeking domination shifted to worry about a U.S. strategy to gain global domination. As the U.S.-led ideological offensive drew increasing attention, Soviet military encirclement receded as a concern.

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Writings on the Soviet buildup to the north were replaced by broader treatment of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. If Soviet support for Vietnam remained a major concern, it was balanced by coverage of U.S. interference in Taiwan.9 By 1985 officials attributed to Reagan plans to gain superiority over the Soviet Union and to change the balance of global power in ways that would be damaging to China, while Nakasone was seen as following the U.S. lead. Given China’s weakness, it followed that the only source of leverage would be to resist U.S. entreaties to join in this cause while seeking improved Soviet ties. Yet, as Gorbachev gave priority to closer ties with the United States, Chinese recalibrated the challenge ahead, deciding that an open economy and less controlled society required a peaceful environment for modernization but also checks on any global concentration of power able to mount pressure on China. Most serious among their concerns was the disappearance of the strategic triangle, the continuation of which had underscored every calculation of great power relations. Even after the term “revisionist” was dropped from the lexicon on the Soviet Union, the label of “social imperialist” survived, given added life by the 1978 Soviet support for Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the harsh Soviet rhetoric still directed at China’s foreign policy. Thus, in the first burst of literature on the Soviet Union and its socialist system, Brezhnev was blamed for continuing the expansionist policies of Khrushchev, limiting East European sovereignty and controlling countries through “economic cooperation.”10 As studies of the Soviet economy intensified, authors often prefaced rather objective or even positive remarks with disclaimers that the past two decades of expansionist foreign policy must still be criticized.11 By the mid-1980s, however, another line of thought was gaining ground. After all, the Solidarity organization in Poland had exposed the reality that the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe was in danger, while the alternative of U.S. inf luence would not be welcome. Analysts contended that the Soviet Union had not, after all, exploited these states, but had given them assistance, while also arguing that Soviet actions in the Third World were not so expansionist after all, since they usually meant support for left-wing groups. The term “social imperialism” soon followed “revisionism” into oblivion. While interest in the Soviet Union as an economic partner intensified in 1984–85 when there was talk of massive machinery imports for factories constructed with Soviet assistance in return for large-scale Chinese exports of consumer goods, the main thrust in the search for state-to-state relations was foreign policy. Deng had made normalization

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conditional on removing obstacles in this arena, as Chinese thinking about security was increasingly working in favor of the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1982 China made clear its opposition to hegemonism by Washington or Moscow, blaming both. If the label “enemy” still appeared after 1982, by 1984 the Soviet Union was no longer being ranked below the United States. Already the United States was becoming the primary target of criticism for allegedly interfering in China’s internal affairs and reviving hegemonism in Northeast Asia, as Chinese officials reassured Moscow that there would be no collusion against it. If in 1984 Chinese balked at intensified Soviet criticisms of their foreign policy, relations improved in the fall, and then Gorbachev’s rise to power raised expectations.12 Momentum was building when Li Peng referred to the Soviet Union as “socialist.” In the background, there were growing signs of negativity to the United States that belied the tone of bilateral meetings and revealed new concern that the balance was shifting toward the United States in ways unfavorable to the maintenance of Chinese “independence.” China was disappointed, however, both by Gorbachev’s failure to stif le officials who attacked its foreign policy during his first year and by his priority for U.S. ties in ways that were seen as damaging the global balance of power and the need to stop the onrush of Western ideology. Prospects for forging a full-f ledged strategic triangle, which appeared to grow in 1985, were fading from 1986. Long before June 1989 opposition to ongoing world trends intensified. If Gorbachev’s “new thinking” in international relations drew initial praise, negative views soon predominated, as U.S.-Soviet reconciliation was arousing increased concern. There was no doubt that this was seen as a failure for China’s foreign policy, suggesting a pattern of inadequate strategic thinking over the decade. Management of Soviet relations in the 1980s remained under the shadow of the ideological dispute between the two states. Chinese writings paid much more attention to Soviet socialism as a sensitive subject that needed to be examined closely but no longer criticized after 1980 than to Soviet foreign policy, which still warranted criticism until 1988 even after it had gradually grown more nuanced. Due to its role in Vietnam’s rule over Cambodia and its own invasion of Afghanistan, it continued to be seen as encircling China, even after tensions dissipated and any notion of a Soviet threat had been rejected. Indeed, China was working closely with the United States in dealing with the Afghan War through the mid-1980s, even as its reasoning was changing about the significance of the quagmire into which Moscow had fallen. The Soviet

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buildup along the border and in Mongolia was not welcome, but it had fallen to a distant third among the three obstacles to normalization. The impact of ideology was shifting; over time boosting the appeal of closer ties but not crossing a threshold toward a breakthrough on normalization and, by 1988, becoming a barrier to closer ties again. Ideology complicated strategic thinking in several ways. It meant that judgments about Soviet leaders depended to a degree on their socialist images, boosting Andropov for a time and damaging Gorbachev by the time of normalization. It also meant that fear of leftist opposition among the Chinese communist leadership becoming emboldened by closer ties to the Soviet Union held Deng back, as after the early 1984 spiritual pollution campaign when he opposed leftist deviations in many fields. Compounding this attitude was concern that the United States would react badly to signs of rapprochement due to ideological as well as realist reasons, setting back efforts to join the world economy. Yet, the overall impact of ideology was to boost the stature of Soviet relations as important for balance, as the U.S. appeal spread over the decade and as Deng struggled to satisfy other senior leaders fearful that communism would lose its monopoly in China. Some emerged from the Cultural Revolution nostalgic for the Soviet model. Some were impressed by the long-term Soviet success in boosting the military-industrial complex and national power while maintaining stability and opposing the dangerous inf lux of Western values and inf luence. Insisting on Mao’s overall positive place in history and on socialism with Chinese characteristics while blocking democracy, China’s leaders turned from opposing revisionism and feudalism to emphasizing opposition to the values of capitalism if not its economic principles. An affinity with Soviet values was reemerging, notably among the important generation educated in the 1950s and rising to the top positions in the party, the central bureaucracy, and the People’s Liberation Army. This generation had gained added clout due to the troubled condition of the generation educated before 1949, decimated in the purges of the 1950s and 1960s, and by the vacuum left in the next generation, whose education and career start had been stymied during the Cultural Revolution decade. A major Chinese concern, which became a predominant theme after June 4, 1989, was that the United States was trying to impose its ideology on China. The problem was not economic ties or security relations but ideological penetration. Gorbachev had failed to recognize it and sealed the fate of his country. Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, ousted leaders, had proven not to be resolute. Only Deng took the necessary actions, recognizing. Reagan’s anticommunism for the danger that it

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posed, and as the cold war ended, taking strong measures to resist George H.W. Bush’s anticipated new world political order. China’s Rise in Asia As an economic partner and diplomatic focus, Japan towered over other states apart from the superpowers. After the Soviet Union, Japan stood second as an object of strategic thinking in Asia. It mattered greatly as the newly popular model of industrial modernization, a rising power with unrealized aspirations in Asia, and China’s historic antagonist linked to the legitimacy the CCP acquired in the battle for national resurgence. Given its readiness to acknowledge some war guilt and to focus on expanding production networks in Asia, Japan’s “friendship” ties to China promised to pay dividends for the critical economic transition just beginning. Along with promoting reform socialism and nervously eying the universal claims of global capitalism, Chinese assessed the Japanese-led East Asian style of capitalism as a model that should provide lessons for its reforms. After Zhou Enlai’s go-ahead in 1964 for developing Japanese studies along with other area studies, a hiatus in scholarship occurred during the Cultural Revolution that was only slightly lifted in 1972 with the normalization of relations. Finally from 1978 Deng’s new agenda caused an invigoration of scholarship. Experts translated materials from Japanese on the system that made possible rapid modernization, causing a spurt in the number of publications in the early 1980s and forming a solid foundation for drawing lessons useful to China’s own modernization. Yet, another side to Japanese studies soon became evident. At the time in 1982–83 a new outlook on the strategic triangle emerged, the prospect of Japan possibly aiming to become a political or even military great power started to draw attention.13 As Nakasone Yasuhiro took office and welcomed Reagan’s overtures to increase support for the U.S.-Japan alliance, Chinese paid close attention. Japan’s image through most of the 1980s was favorable. It was widely covered for its economic and management achievements, and the Chinese public welcomed improved relations.14 This image served various objectives. It gave confidence that Western models of modernization were not universal and strong state guidance could aid rapid economic growth. Study of the role of the Japanese state, its efforts to foster top-down harmony in society, and specific management techniques drew special attention, as Japan became an object of selective social borrowing, in light of similarities in the traditions of East Asian

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societies. Japan’s stable politics, checked by a large contingent of leftists in the Diet, also suited China well. Despite rightist sympathy with Taiwan and talk of establishing Japan as a political great power, the political scene seemed favorable. Nakasone’s nationalist inclinations, troublesome as they were, came with his growing commitment to improve Sino-Japanese relations. The limited interest of the Japanese people in security matters also served China’s priority of “peace and development.” Strategic thinking depicted a positive impact from this cordial atmosphere, but after mid-decade it was changing. While Japan’s overall posture eased China’s strategic considerations, some issues drew close scrutiny, especially from leftist elements. If Japan was overtaking the United States in modernization and was integrating other Asian economies under its leadership, China faced the possibility of lasting marginalization. How could it induce Japan to share technology and facilitate China’s rapid rise without becoming trapped at the back of the flying geese formation? Also, if Japan was becoming more assertive as an ally of the United States in support of its cold war objectives, how could China succeed in splitting the two? Finally, with many Japanese still suspicious of nationalism in their country, how should China respond to arouse domestic pressure against the rightists to become less assertive? The debate on Japan was a significant part of the strategic reassessment in the mid-1980s. It also filtered down to the public, fueling emotions that had been suppressed in the name of “friendship” ties, but were unleashed in the effort by some leaders to oust Hu Yaobang and were shown to be a force able to influence Chinese foreign policy. Study of Japan’s economic rise—its causes and consequences—served to guide planning for China’s rise and to assess the implications for Japan’s additional great power aspirations. This meant carefully reviewing the chronology of Japanese policies as well as of its economic relations with the United States, but it also meant sharp criticism of the cultural pretensions that were becoming more prominent in the 1980s. Japan’s proposals for regional cooperation aroused criticism too, as signs of excessive nationalism in search of Asian leadership. If Chinese analysts accepted Japan’s standing as an economic great power, they found numerous arguments to reject any moves toward becoming an overall great power.15 While reporting quite neutrally on cultural factors supportive of Japan’s rise, they added dire warnings about the cultural forces arousing international suspicion. Increasingly, China’s leaders viewed Japan as a rising power that posed a threat. Although the bulk of the warnings appeared in neibu

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sources and from late 1989 Chinese took extra care to keep criticisms of Japan from derailing their strategy to appeal to it as the weak link in the international sanctions regime, top-down concern over its growing political aspirations was unmistakable. Noting talk in Japan in the second half of the 1980s of the third opening of the country after 1868 and 1945, a 1988 conference at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences gives us a taste of the debate on prospects for Japan in the 1990s, dichotomizing its options as either becoming a military great power or continuing on the path of peaceful development.16 Some argued that it has the economic might and is already a “military spending” great power. Thus, it will consummate this choice, receiving the blessing of the United States, which is seeking support in the cold war as its own resources are expanding more slowly. Others contended that Japan has no need for this shift since it is succeeding as is and the public does not support military power. Both calculated that Japan’s overall level of national power remains well behind that of the United States, but the first group warned that in the 1990s the impact on its Asian neighbors could be frightening. The debate revealed deep concern over Japan’s rise. Interest in Japan shifted from how to resist and fight it in the 1930s– 1940s to how to trade with it in the 1950s–1960s to how to receive its investments and lessons for economic development in the 1980s in order for China’s rise to gain maximum benefit through integration into the global economy. While Chinese leaned to a zero-sum approach to global political power, they accused Japan of nationalistically following a nearly zero-sum approach to economic power. As many debated how long it would take to overtake Japan and how to manage relations in the meantime, offering guidance on steps to strengthen economic ties, they were also discussing how to limit Japan’s political rise. Using the “history card” served as a tactic to pressure Japan to be more generous in ODA and to create an atmosphere where Japanese companies would more freely invest and transfer technology. Seizing on provocations by Japanese politicians that inevitably had a negative impact, leaders found that public arousal made the card credible. One criticism was that Japan suffered from “great power consciousness” and also an ethnic superiority complex, which drove the government’s foreign policy thinking. Under the rubric of “internationalization,” Japan was accused of striving to change the world.17 This point of view ref lected the widespread argument that Japan was far from a status quo power. Next to Japan, the Korean peninsula was of most concern, as the balance tilted to South Korea through its economic dynamism and the North’s growing isolation. Chinese determination to avoid an

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unfavorable power balance along the border made any change in support of the North difficult. In Northeast China suspicion of South Korean intentions toward the Korean autonomous area of Jilin province and also fear of Japanese inroads contributed to delayed reform in China’s industrial rust belt and poor preparation for border openings based on market forces. Continued support for North Korea despite its defiant stance toward China’s own reform policies and inherent destabilizing plans came back to haunt Chinese reformers when the North’s nuclear weapons program was later revealed. As China gradually accepted the utility of economic ties with South Korea, it responded cautiously in order not to rile the extremely sensitive North Koreans. Over time, it disregarded the North’s objections on trade and on sports, although certain moves were designed to “give North Korea some face.”18 After the Seoul Olympics raised hopes of new momentum toward normalization, economic ties stagnated brief ly in 1989 as once more China hesitated on how far to pursue economic reforms while it pondered how the collapse of the socialist bloc and the growing SovietNorth Korean rift should be handled. Still relegating economic gains to a secondary priority, China viewed the peninsula overwhelmingly through the prisms of socialism and of balance-of-power politics. In the northwest, antagonism toward Mongolia and wariness of spillover from Central Asia into Xinjiang held back reassurances that could have inspired trust. Change in Sino-Soviet relations would be required in order to take a fresh look in this direction. In the southwest, strong hostility toward India was one factor in China’s decision to assist the nuclear weapons program in Pakistan with its long-run consequences. In 1985 China took a more assertive position toward India in bilateral talks, upping the territorial stakes. Nuclear arms assistance to Pakistan also was reaffirmed around this time despite U.S. attempts to stop it. When Tibetan resistance f lared from 1987 after relaxation of tight controls proved abortive, this issue became more internationalized, further complicating Indian relations. Then in 1989, China upgraded military ties with a Myanmar government defiant of global standards.19 While there were also moves to relax tensions, including a summit with India in 1988, there was no sign that economic benefits and reduced tension in South Asia were deemed important enough to justify any far-reaching strategic shift. Finally, the 1979 war with Vietnam and renewed support for forces in Cambodia opposed to Vietnam’s occupation slowed any refocusing on normalization of ties across Southeast Asia. Especially indicative of the slow adjustment in Chinese strategic thinking was the failure to

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normalize diplomatic ties with Singapore and Indonesia in the 1980s, despite the fact that rapidly growing investment from overseas Chinese in these and other countries of Southeast Asia showed the importance of this region for China’s economic development. China lacked a regional strategy for Southeast Asia. Yet, a desire to boost “friendship” ties to Japan as the way to secure advantage was slowly yielding to concern that Japan would use these ties for its regional leadership ambitions. Signs of Japan’s rise as its bubble economy peaked contributed to more intense criticism of that country’s aims in Southeast Asia. China’s struggle against these foreign policy ambitions gained traction after international sanctions were imposed in mid-1989 and leaders realized that the best chance of escaping isolation was to expand ties along China’s borders, notably where the overseas Chinese business community had been drawing capital to invest in China. Regionalism was a target of criticism in the 1980s and this continued after 1989. New U.S. interest was attributed to its weakening position; Japan’s stronger interest was explained by its unrepentant ambitions. 20 As approval for more open economic ties to the surrounding region gathered steam, nervousness about Japanese leadership intensified. If some analysts assumed that before long China would overtake Japan in overall power to rank next to the two superpowers, stress was placed not on drawing together neighbors through regionalism but on balancing Japanese power in Southeast Asia. 21 As in balance—of-power logic, reasoning about regionalism assumed a zero-sum struggle for leadership. Reasoning Driving Foreign Relations While the two prevailing explanations for Chinese foreign policy— economics drives policy in accord with a liberal worldview, or realism takes precedence with the military balance in the forefront—have some validity for this period, they are far from complete. They do not account for the alarm over Russia’s value shift as dangerous for China, the warnings that Japan has no moral right to become a political great power as if either its prewar worldview or its acceptance of Western values would do harm to East Asia, and intensifying fears of U.S. hegemonism linked to a monopoly on value diffusion more than a preponderance of power. Values posed the most immediate and, perhaps, the greatest danger. They, arguably, became the most urgent force driving strategic thinking. To explain this we need to look back to the interplay of political nationalism and culture in Chinese civilizational and later national

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identity. The threat from barbarians arose less from their seizing power than from any effort to displace Confucian values. In its century-long struggle with imperialism, China condemned not only military/political infringements on sovereignty, but also the ideological nature of their hegemonism. When Mao turned against the Soviet Union, he did so more for ideological than realist reasons, decrying their impact on revolutionary thought with appeals to nationalism as well as to his own brand of Marxism. The worldview of Chinese leaders in the 1980s continued to contain a high ideational content. This combined a simplistic story of past humiliation with a lingering view of how imperialism had morphed into hegemonism and countries remained at great risk of “spiritual pollution.” If the “anti spiritual pollution campaign” of early 1984 was quickly halted, worry about containing ideas from the capitalist world divided China’s leaders and became an ever greater concern over the decade. Fear of a new world order in which China’s voice would be weak drove much strategic thinking. 22 Ideological debates in the 1980s gradually grew more sophisticated, but mostly they pivoted around simplistic distinctions. As analysts and officials groped for ways to distinguish socialism and capitalism and the remnants of imperialism from the manner in which great powers normally exert inf luence, a sharp divide prevailed between orthodox defenders clinging to stale conceptions and reform advocates struggling to replace them. Three themes had overriding importance: 1) sovereignty linked to legitimacy; 2) strategic triangle logic focused on maneuvering between the superpowers and balancing socialism and capitalism as global forces; and 3) the shape of the East Asian region, retaining all of China’s options and denying any country or alliance hegemonism. All ref lected strong opposition to strategic dependency that could limit China’s rise as Deng’s twin objectives of peace and development prevailed. Although Chinese voices were most vociferous in rejecting cold war logic, they counted overwhelmingly on continuation of the cold war in an attenuated state as the environment most conducive to achieving their national goals. The perceived ideological threat was particularly pronounced. In response to Ronald Reagan’s strong attacks against communism and later to Mikhail Gorbachev’s feeble defense of it, Chinese sources emphatically insisted that convergence between the two systems is intolerable. 23 A strategic reassessment accompanied the emergence of a more independent foreign policy in 1982 and kept gathering momentum, marked by attempts in the mid-1980s to make use of changing U.S.Soviet relations for renewed Chinese power. When the Taiwan issue

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became less urgent from the mid-1980s, the ideological theme grew more worrisome. 24 Strategic thinking opposed idealistic ideas rooted in humanism, international organizations where China lacked the veto power of the United Nations, and universal values. As the logic of socialism lost credibility, China found sovereignty to be a worthy substitute. After all, the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party had always been two-fold: 1) claims to social justice long centered on class struggle; and 2) claims to nationalism that shifted from anti-Japanese colonialism to anti-U.S. imperialism to anti-Tsarist or (its successor) Soviet imperialism. With little meaning left to socialist slogans for social justice, the importance of nationalism rose. Given the history of warnings about the dangerous ambitions of each of the three great powers of concern, rekindling alarm about their intentions did not prove difficult despite advancing economic integration. As lines were crossed in the 1980s, conservative leaders pressed to resist: when positive reports of Solidarity’s rise could have encouraged a democracy movement or worker strikes in China. Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping criticized this Polish movement. When prior to Gorbachev writings on Soviet history suggested a humanistic variant of socialism and then when praise of Gorbachev made him a symbol of glasnost and even democratic reform in China, censorship of writings on the Soviet Union tightened. In this atmosphere, Deng def lected warnings that capitalist economic reforms would endanger communist control but at times sided with those who railed against the threat of ideas and outside pressure accompanying these reforms. 25 Strategic thinking reflected this concern that however serious the long-term danger from hard power, soft power was the urgent threat that demanded vigilance and strong responses in both domestic and foreign policy. Chinese diplomacy warmed most to realist leaders, but bridled at their ideological baggage. Disabusing Reagan and Nakasone of their ideological moves that could damage China’s identity claims, leaders were comfortable working with them. Hoping that Andropov would be a realist able to reform the Soviet system while focusing on China’s value as a great power partner, Chinese anticipated that he would cast aside some Soviet ideological tenets even as he remained committed to socialism. In contrast, leaders ready to upgrade relations with China but in an atmosphere less centered on realism than on the spread of universal values proved more difficult. Gorbachev, George H. W. Bush, and Kaifu Toshiki all were tarnished after taking a stand on values. The Russian reformer was soon viewed as lacking realism in ways that would damage the balance of power and ease the spread of Western values.

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The U.S. leader at the end of the cold war was linked to a mission to spread alien values. Finally, Japan’s leader may have worked hard to boost relations, but his motives were suspect in 1990 when Japan was seen plotting regional leadership and picturing “Japan’s civilization” as representative of “Eastern civilization.” 26 In each case, ideas more than arms frightened leaders afraid of an ideological vacuum into strategic defensiveness. The shock of 1989 caused Chinese to revisit assumptions that had been at the core of their strategic thought over the past decade. They centered on the global and regional balance of power. The most fundamental of these was that the cold war would endure—a ceaseless struggle between the United States atop the capitalist bloc and the Soviet Union championing the socialist cause. China expected its role to grow in the strategic triangle, taking advantage of a continuing, if shifting, balance of power. It welcomed amelioration of the cold war, limiting the arms race and increasing the chances for peace and stability favorable to China’s rise. Yet, a divided world appeared to offer the best hope for this rise. At the same time as it would struggle to gain leverage in the socialist bloc to encourage reform and show the way to economic integration with the capitalist countries, China also expected to play an active role in furthering divisions among capitalist states. Above all, this meant taking advantage of the widening split in East Asia between Japan, no longer satisfied to take a backseat, and the United States, gradually losing its dominance. Seeing tensions mount in the second half of the 1980s, many predicted a rocky decade ahead that would open the door for China to maneuver and widen its inf luence in East Asia. 27 Even as the strategic triangle and socialist ideology faded, Chinese predicted that great power balancing would grow livelier and they could forestall troubling Asian reorganization. Conclusion Despite the groping nature of the first decade of Deng’s reforms in dismantling the traditional socialist economic system and integrating into the global economy, the results were overwhelmingly successful. Economic growth rates were generally high, and the institutional infrastructure for a sustained “economic miracle” over the following two decades was established. Foreign investment grew rapidly, as did trade and ties that could facilitate deeper integration. China’s leaders were also cautious about offending foreign partners. They kept in the

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forefront their eagerness to open China’s economy and play a constructive role in the international community, even as much of their internal debate cast doubt on parts of this picture and at times this burst into the spotlight. Yet, enough reassurances were offered that China won considerable acceptance that served its goals. China’s specific concerns kept changing as the decade unfolded. Above all, uncertainty about how vulnerable it was becoming (due to changes in the international and regional order, economic deficits to Japan and a division of labor that left China at the bottom, U.S. ideological penetration, and loss of balance in the strategic triangle, etc.) sufficed to keep officials in a state of anxiety, ready to reconsider strategic options. This fear of vulnerability was rooted in a worldview anchored in assumptions about: the divide between socialism and capitalism, the balance of power among great powers, and the threat of Asian regional reorganization under the leadership of another state. In search of an optimal environment for China’s economic development without the threat of war, the leaders of China were also alert to the evolution of the strategic environment that would pave the way for China to achieve a rapid political and, eventually, military ascent. China’s continental strategy differed from its maritime one in the 1980s. Having opened its door to the United States and Japan and savored the growing inf low of capital from Hong Kong and overseas Chinese, China appeared open and economically oriented as its special economic zones became the harbinger of coastal barriers falling. Along its borders to the north, west, and south, however, where socialist states abounded, suspicion remained intense. Normalization talks with Moscow did little to pry open borders, except for barter and limited state-to-state dealings that grudgingly appeared near the end of the decade. Indeed, in its ties to North Korea, whose rhetoric remained bellicose and conduct can be characterized as state terrorist desperation, China was slow to do more than show some discomfort. In Southeast Asia, despite growing reliance on overseas Chinese for capital, normalization with the major states occurred slowly, while the legacy of China’s punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979 lingered and the growing ties with the pariah state of Burma became an issue at the end of the 1980s. China’s assistance for Pakistan’s nuclear arms program and tough approach to India in talks that had restarted vividly demonstrates how far continental strategic thinking lagged behind the better noticed maritime thinking. Various explanations can be offered for this geographical dualism. Since most border areas were in the Soviet Union or allied with it, some

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may have dismissed this discrepancy as a function of joining the capitalist world while being unable to reconcile with a Soviet Union still deemed aggressive and lacking in market conditions. Another explanation is that China’s reforms occurred incrementally and in some provinces before others, leaving other areas in the Northeast, West, and Southwest little prepared for cross-border entrepreneurship. Yet, we should also consider a third reason: China’s objectives were different where it saw less economic advantage and more strategic opportunity. By delaying normalization with South Korea and even with capitalist Southeast Asian states, it was revealing a different strategic logic, giving priority to a divisive outlook. Above all, the Soviet Union loomed as a strategic target, distinct from the objectives set elsewhere. Chinese leaders felt provoked by countries taking advantage of China’s weakness. This first occurred under Ronald Reagan, whose advisors in 1981–82 underestimated the U.S. need for China under the influence of pro-Taiwan leanings and overarching anticommunism before Reagan sided with other officials in repairing relations as a means to enlist China in the struggle against the Soviet Union. After supporting Vietnam’s march into Cambodia in 1978, the Soviet Union also did not satisfy China’s quest for respect, leading in 1986 to warnings that the way O.B. Rakhmanin and other high officials were criticizing their country could even become the “fourth obstacle” to normalization until Gorbachev dismissed these offenders, although he never gave China the priority it sought. Japan’s enhanced ODA offer in 1988 went part way to overcoming the sense that on the history issue and technological transfers as well as on political matters Japan was failing to build on the momentum of improved relations, but the submerged anger over the way normalization had occurred in the 1970s without proper apology for wartime atrocities and injustices kept resurfacing. Strategic thinking struggled to overcome the resentments of a proud nation despite apparent preoccupation with economic reform and social order. Assumptions about the strategic triangle and the struggle between socialism and capitalism proved most misleading in this decade. Under a veneer of pragmatism, Deng encouraged an orientation toward the outside world steeped in values linked to balancing powers and keeping the world divided. Having rejected strategic thinking of the 1970s as out of touch with the real world, China’s leaders were shocked to realize that supposedly new assumptions embraced in the 1980s would no longer be applicable in the 1990s. Given the way the decade ended, we cannot conclude that strategic thinking on noneconomic matters was successful. Instead of positioning

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China at the pivot of the strategic triangle and gaining leverage, China became isolated to the point it was sanctioned by the United States and treated aloof ly by the Soviet Union without building on the momentum of normalized relations. After starting the decade with a new empirical orientation to gathering evidence in order to steer international relations pragmatically, it ended the decade fixated on an ideological interpretation of U.S. pressure as a smokescreen of values to undermine the Chinese state and of Soviet reforms as capitulation to U.S. national interests. Enjoying a high level of goodwill from Japanese public opinion, China not only squandered some of it, but exaggerated the danger of Japan’s rise, thus setting a course that would lead to a downturn in relations. The costs of misguided strategic thinking became clear from June 1989, but many of the assumptions that steered it astray intensified in the preceding years. Despite a facade of close ties to the United States, shared socialist reform interests with the Soviet Union, and expanded friendship ties with Japan, Chinese thinking was primed for intensified struggle against the direction each of these states was taking in the late 1980s.

CHAPTER 3

Chinese Strategic Thought 1990–95 In a span from 1989 to 1991 Chinese assumptions about the world were shaken. By early 1992 after an interval of shrilly echoing official verdicts about these momentous events, a new general framework took shape. It set the tone for discussion, while also opening the way to more exploration of alternative scenarios. A bifurcated approach to international affairs was even more pronounced than in the 1980s: economic integration should go forward at breakneck speed, since this is a positive sum process benefiting all sides; yet security and values remain intensely contested matters, in which the danger of other states gaining at China’s expense must be vigorously resisted. In the first half of the 1990s these matters were viewed with the most blatant zero-sum reasoning of any period. China faced some gloomy assessments in 1989–91: the sudden collapse of the world socialist bloc and then the Soviet Union added to its international isolation since June 1989; the rapid rise of Japan meant that its foremost regional rival was poised to exert greater inf luence; and the United States, f lush with victory in the cold war and the Persian Gulf War, was seen as turning its attention to Asia with plans to put pressure on China to change its system. Yet, in 1992 Deng led in putting the best possible face on these developments, insisting that the global and regional environment had become more favorable. Reconciling this upbeat view with troubling concerns, strategic reasoning grew more tortured even as rapid acceleration in economic growth produced positive results. For more than two years newspapers and journals took a very conservative tone, taking particular aim at events in the United States and the Soviet Union. While positive views on bilateral relations with various Asian states helped create a different image, it was not easy to construct an overall narrative to explain regional trends in the customary

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optimistic manner. This dilemma could have worsened with the fall of the Soviet Union, but shortly afterward another trend emerged. After Deng set the tone in January 1992, sources became more reform oriented. With emphasis on market economics, the tone was upbeat. Yet, for a time more variation existed, including mainstream journals embracing full integration into the world economic order and noted conservative journals expressing great caution about the global political order. On the whole, publications took a two-sided approach. Many previously neibu sources switched to open circulation.1 As a result, they became less adventurous in conveying the inside story in their respective fields, but they added greatly to the amount of accessible information. The principal journals in Beijing, notably those representing the authoritative institutes of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the associations dealing with international relations, responded to official directives by welcoming economic trends even as they strove through contorted logic to find a bright side to regional security. While allowed some diversity, they obediently conveyed mainstream strategic thinking, which became all the clearer for their readers. If in the years to 1978 “ideology” took center stage in “Mao Zedong thought,” and through the 1980s an uneasy mix of “pragmatism” and “socialism” coexisted, the 1990s gave pride of place to the label “strategy” (zhanlue). Ideas were seen as means to realize ends. Leaders continued to impose their assumptions and to censor writings that contradicted them. At the core of their worldview was a self-serving combination of deep pessimism about the motives and intentions of rival states and confident optimism about the prospects facing China, if it proceeded strategically, to strengthen its comprehensive national power. The case for strategic thinking rested on simplistic notions of balancing: countries ignore values as they single-mindedly pursue a narrow notion of increasing national power and competing for leadership in a world no longer divided by ideology and superpowers. In this time frame Chinese officials and academics intensified their analysis and debate on key foreign states. Negative assumptions about the U.S. role in Asia reduced the objectivity of writings on that country, and they often served as the principal basis for reasoning about other countries. U.S.-Russian, U.S.-Japanese, and U.S.-Korean peninsula relations along with Sino-U.S. relations established the framework for writings on many themes. In publications on Russia there was repeated reference to U.S. intentions and their impact on Russia’s choices.2 Writings on Japan, of course, devoted considerable space to evaluating the state of U.S.-Japanese relations.3 Similarly, coverage of South Korea

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and the first nuclear crisis drew extensively on analysis of the role of the United States. In each case, suspicions about U.S. designs for global domination colored the interpretations of how other states acted and how they were pursuing relations with China. Arguing that foreign observers misjudged the evolution of bilateral relations involving the United States, analysts supported strategic responses meant to exacerbate any existing contradictions, while highlighting the themes of equality of states, equilibrium among the powers, denial of hegemonism, and eventual establishment of a just regional order. Concluding that ties between Moscow and Tokyo would languish, Washington and Tokyo would compete more than cooperate, and Moscow and Washington would fail to maintain close ties, Chinese forecast the absence of any concert of great powers that could complicate their country’s rise.4 They put a positive spin on a situation that earlier had seemed ominous. At the same time, they took care to stress that China must intensify its economic reforms and openness, while giving foreign states no cause for concern that its policies would cause instability. Recognizing that fundamental changes had been set in motion in the regional order, analysts sought both to grasp their significance and to present a contrasting interpretation to globalization emanating from the United States. The siege mentality that took root in 1989 and remained intense until 1992 did not dissipate even as Chinese confidence grew into the mid-1990s and emphasis on long-term strategic thinking rose. The military and security services had gained a greater voice and the Political Standing Committee sharpened its planning and centralized mechanisms for strategizing about foreign challenges. With Deng’s health rapidly declining, Jiang Zemin consolidated power, taking control over the U.S. and Taiwan portfolios and also having the greatest say over security planning toward Russia and Japan. Although various offices played an active role on normal economic and diplomatic matters, bureaucratic or interest group pressure was very limited when it came to the big challenge of checking any Asian realignment that could interfere with China’s rise. On the whole, this kept alive zero-sum reasoning about the balance of power and narrow thinking about globalization to confine it to economic matters. After a period of crude reassertion of ideological thinking, Deng’s response to the collapse of the Soviet Union served to stif le divisive emotionalism, while organizing specialists to pursue their own assigned challenges under central supervision. Compared to the 1980s, there was more clarity and continuity under a narrow mandate.

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Deng’s Theoretical Legacy on International Relations Among the possible threats to Chinese Communist Party rule, economic trouble loomed largest, requiring accelerated opening to market forces, military danger was seen as remote, and ideological infiltration that could challenge the legitimacy of the party or the sovereignty of the state became an urgent preoccupation. Strategic thinking centered primarily on countering the ideological threat. Concern about more assertive moves for Taiwan’s independence broadened to include def lecting any Russian interest in playing the “Taiwan card,” blocking Japanese political support for Taiwan, and developing a military deterrent to begin to dissuade the United States from supporting Taiwan. With each country, China’s strategy included improving relations to foster mutual interests that would give pause to any overt moves in Taiwan’s direction. Deng had rejected any knee-jerk opposition to unwelcome regional tendencies in favor of a long-term strategy of new forms of cooperation while quickly building up China’s comprehensive national power. Chinese analysis painted the picture of an unjust world, filled with scheming and gullible actors. Among the schemers were U.S. leaders intent on global dominance and Japanese leaders aiming to make their country a political and then a military great power. In contrast, Russian leaders had proven to be gullible, ignoring the harsh realities of the world. China’s challenge was to foil the plots of the states that would marginalize it and alert all who ignored them. These plots could take the form of exerting pressure through military might, reorganizing the world order leaving China in a peripheral role, planning for a vertical division of labor that kept China’s economy weak and dependent, or aiming to impose values such as democracy and freedom that undermine Chinese civilization and facilitate westernization. While the nature of these threats was obviously overblown, the results appeared to vindicate China’s claims. By mid-decade, the United States was more restrained in pressing the human rights cause, Japan had lost hope of regional leadership, and Russia had awakened to joint pursuit of multipolarity with China. Ref lecting on these results, Chinese analysts were confident that China had chosen the right strategy. Deng’s patience was being rewarded as the other great powers were turning inward in the early 1990s. Russia led the way, obsessed with crisis conditions from 1992 as the Soviet Union had been in its final months. Japan was diverted too by a political crisis that deposed LDP kingpins and led to divided, and often incapacitated, government. Even the United States shifted rapidly in 1991 under the impact of recession and a divisive

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election campaign as well as in response to Clinton’s economics priority. Coupled with China’s now successful economic rise, circumstances were unusually favorable for strategic gains in Asia. Time was clearly on China’s side, and Deng left a legacy of caution about flexing rising power. As in the 1980s when observers mistook China’s pragmatic economic policies for convergent modernization, in 1992 China was mistakenly seen as following the Asian model of development with full-scale marketization and economic opening. Yet, it had no attention of following this model beyond its economic characteristics since: it is a great power and cannot accept the dependency features of the model; it is facing threats to its sovereignty and must protect itself from the same essential danger that has existed since the nineteenth century; and in the 1990s the danger of global hegemonism had grown with culture and information f lows part of the battlefront. China had to tighten its hold on public opinion while finding theoretical and strategic responses to blunt any impact. There was a hard edge to strategic thinking in an embattled state hostile to what others were proclaiming as the post–cold war order and insistent that it would soon give way. A clear worldview emerged by the time of the 14th Party Congress in the fall of 1992 as Deng’s final theoretical legacy. It split global currents into two: 1) economic integration required full-scale, pragmatic borrowing from the capitalist economies to advance the forces of production and unfettered integration into the global division of labor, which meant that China had to maintain positive relations with all countries that would further these ends and 2) renewed great power competition demanded strategic guidance on how to maximize chances for gaining power and inf luence without falling prey to ideological, political, and military pressure. In 1992 analysts put the best face on a difficult situation. The United States is falling into steady decline even as it remains the sole superpower, and it cannot avoid a period of intense competition with rivals. Russia is only temporarily confused about its security priorities and value concerns, and it will not be long before Russia turns against the United States and the West while expecting from China support in reestablishing a suitable balance of power. Japan is failing in its goal of becoming a political great power, as it arouses alarm in its neighbors, faces resistance to its rise from the United States, and cannot overcome divisions among its citizens about pursuing such a course. The rise of small centers of economic dynamism around China’s periphery from South Korea to Singapore is well suited to the spread of China’s inf luence and to prevention of any rival concentrating power. In these

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circumstances, China enjoys a favorable environment: the great powers too divided to rally around the United States or exert strong leadership; small and middle powers eager for a new great power balance; and intensified economic globalization conducive to its rapid development. Maintaining unity, stability, and united leadership, China could prove more adept at strategic thinking than other countries. While it had to bide its time and avoid arousing undue suspicion, it could draw other states closer, ushering in an era of multipolarity and its own substantial power. While no timetable was put on this favorable turn of events, the implication was that conditions would soon favor China in its intention to challenge the U.S.-led order. Multipolarity The danger that a single world system would emerge, leaving China marginalized, drew the greatest concern after the U.S. success in the Persian Gulf War and the Soviet collapse later in 1991. Under the burden of international sanctions and opprobrium, China faced the challenge of forging a different type of regional order. It aimed to prevent Japan from filling the vacuum left by the Soviet collapse and North Korea’s isolation, to lure a new Russian government to a realist balance of power, and, above all, to deny the United States the fruits of its selfproclaimed victory in the cold war. Chinese analysts rejected arguments that the United States had, indeed, won, since its economy was weakening and contradictions with other states were intensifying, but they recognized that a new era had dawned in which peace and economic cooperation would be needed in order to buy time for China’s rise in power and for presenting suitable opportunities for it to seize.5 The Persian Gulf War refocused Chinese attention on military power. For it to become an important pole it now realized that it must quickly boost its military as well as economic power, acquiring advanced weapons and improved technology. This drew it to Russia, with which in 1990 a deal for arms purchases was signed; in subsequent years it sought ever more sophisticated arms from a state desperate to keep its military assembly lines working. Inviting large numbers of Soviet experts, now in worse financial straits, to visit and reveal their knowledge, especially their secrets, China had a winning strategy. Yet, it saw a much better outcome if in 1991 hardliners could replace Gorbachev and decide to share weapons production. Compared to the 1980s, it was more worried about an imbalance in hard power even as its concerns over U.S. soft power had also deepened.

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Perhaps, China’s riskiest strategic gamble occurred in the summer of 1991 when it rested its hopes on a reversal of Gorbachev’s “new thinking” by Moscow’s hardliners. If the putsch had succeeded, the Soviet Union would not have collapsed and Sino-Soviet relations would have likely been solidified as the core of a revitalized socialist bloc, short of an alliance, perhaps, but significant in jointly opposing a world order rooted in Western values and U.S. hegemonism. Instead, failure led to half a year of rancorous debate until a new strategic agenda was clearly established. Caught off-guard by Yeltsin’s victory, the Chinese had to regroup. After all, in May 1991 when Jiang Zemin had visited Moscow he had refused Yeltsin’s request for a meeting; and in July Moscow mayor Gennadyi Popov was denied a visa to China because he had visited Taiwan. As late as early December there was no answer to queries on whether China would establish relations with the now emerging Russian state.6 No wonder that the collapse of the Soviet Union was considered a disaster and Gorbachev a traitor or, some continued to suspect long after the fall of the Soviet Union, a U.S. agent in the service of that country rather than the national interest. For a time Beijing contemplated a worst-case scenario centered on Moscow. In economic distress, it would allow consumer outrage to turn into “shock therapy” and then full-f ledged capitalism signifying unlimited integration into the economic system of the West. Moscow would also allow “new thinking” about strategic goals to transform into strategic dependency on the West and, finally, into alliance relations that would lead to the expansion of NATO and containment of China. This means that the normalization achieved in Sino-Soviet relations would not only stagnate it would be reversed, creating the worst regional environment for China since the end of the 1960s. Such dire thinking after the Soviet collapse was only overcome by Deng’s optimistic evaluation of events. In 1992 the debate over the “new world order” was still unfolding. In spite of alarmist sentiment depicting a desperate situation for China, the decision was made to highlight the positive environment for China’s rise. This meant downplaying any chance for a global consensus on values, while stressing an inevitable upsurge in power politics and competition to achieve hegemony.7 By defining the new order as essentially an old order of intense rivalries and concluding that the United States would overplay its hand and stir resistance, China found hope to accompany forecasts of rapid economic gains. Reviewing the year 1992, one Chinese journal concluded that the United States could not seize the opportunity of the Soviet Union’s

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breakup and the Gulf War success to forge one-country hegemony, while its troubled economy mired in fierce economic competition will rely on China, creating the best international environment since 1949. Although the strategic position of China deteriorated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the Soviet-U.S. standoff and the United States was intensifying ideological pressure on China and even selling military aircraft to Taiwan that it would not have done earlier, it was decided that China could expect a rapid rise in multipolarity and a favorable setting for speeding up economic reform. 8 Thus, a long-term orientation toward rapid economic development with close ties to the outside world should not be jeopardized by any destabilizing actions. In 1992 Chinese grasped for the strategic contours of a world without the Soviet Union, rejecting the notion that it would be unified under U.S. leadership. Accepting the conclusion that regions would consolidate, they closely followed U.S. strategy toward the Asia-Pacific and Japan’s post–cold war intentions. Before long, they had concluded that Russia would find the conditions imposed by the United States and Japan for full-scale assistance unacceptable, creating a f luid situation in which China could gain advantage. After all, Japan’s territorial demands and U.S. military and democratic policies would alienate Russians. China could gain leverage through consumer goods Russia desperately needed and the appeal of its model of a stable society and prospering economy under firm state guidance. As leaders of Russia find themselves in political trouble, they will send more delegations to study China and concentrate on the economic benefits they could realize. Warning that China’s strategic thinking was fettered by leftist thought despite the new emphasis on openness in all directions, writers in 1992 called for a more positive attitude toward Russia in order not to miss this opportunity. As Taiwanese rushed into Russia to try to capitalize on its economic distress and uncertainty in relations with China, writers warned that the interests of the Chinese state required a vigorous response.9 Optimistic projections proliferated in 1992 in rejection of the hardliners who since mid-1989 had been warning against integration into the world economy and danger from political trends. They argued that the economic environment and security situation would be advantageous through the decade, while troubles in the U.S. economy would persist, reducing the basis for hegemonism despite its recently exaggerated illusions. Although the decline of world socialism is unfavorable to China and the United States increasingly will try to pressure it and change its system, it will fail due to its own contradictions, the continued

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vigilance of China, and its competition with Japan for regional leadership. This appeal is to strive to take advantage of rifts in U.S.-Japanese relations, while using Japan to balance its ally.10 As in the case of the response to Russia, emphasis was placed on overcoming hard-line resistance in favor of nuanced cooperation in order to gain leverage. It was not easy, however, to stick to a cooperative strategy, especially when the bulk of strategic writings were warning against negative tendencies in the world order. Surprisingly, it proved easier to do so for Russia, where relations remained troubled, than for Japan, which was eagerly boosting ties in 1992–93. Early in 1992 Chinese decided to treat Russia, heir to the bulk of the Soviet Union, as a great power, especially politically and militarily, while by 1993 it was treating Japan as an upstart power whose ambitions to become a political and then military great power must be thwarted. Even if China’s claim to great power status was largely centered in its large population and UN Security Council veto power, this was deemed sufficient to entitle it to a superior status to Japan with its imposing industrial might. This opposition to Japan’s rise, however, was kept in the background, given the high hopes for its economic support and Deng’s instructions than China must lie low and avoid becoming a target as it broadly opens its economy. The strategic appeal to Russia centered on zero-sum reasoning about balancing U.S. power and joining China in shaping the Asia-Pacific region. Since many Russians, including the security establishment, accepted this logic, the Chinese did not have trouble making this case. To persuade the Russians and realize China’s varied bilateral goals, China sought open borders for trade, offered credits for consumer goods and then sought repayment in weapons sales, and emphasized the shared strategic interests of the two states, that is, a strong Russia is good for China, while a strong China is good for Russia. To boost each other China favored cooperation in arms sales and production as well as in dealing with potential inroads of other powers in Taiwan, Central Asia, or the Russian Far East. When Yeltsin visited Beijing at the end of 1992, he already appeared receptive. This visit confirmed that Russian foreign policy had shifted from leaning to the West to all-around diplomacy as the drive was under way to restore its great power influence.11 Notable was Yeltsin’s decision to proceed with military cooperation in spite of U.S. objections. China vigorously promoted trade, including crossborder small-scale, barter transactions, as a way to increase mutual dependency as well as to jump-start economic growth in China’s Northeast. If this led to a backlash as Russians reacted to the chaos and criminality by demanding that visa-free travel be stopped, Yeltsin

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yielded on the more important matter of great power relations. A review of Russian foreign policy in 1994 stressed the importance of Asia, pointing to many common strategic goals with China. Unsettling developments over three years were put aside when China’s leaders in 1992 clarified the strategic thinking that would largely persist to 2010. Operating under wishful thinking that multipolarity was just around the corner, analysis proceeded under the shadow of past logic about the “strategic triangle.” Excluding India and dismissing Japan as lacking the moral requisites to be a true pole, analysts may have included the EU after suggesting that Germany might become a rising factor, but there was little indication that any European entity was taken seriously as a pole. The thrust of their arguments was that the United States was clearly on the decline and Russia was bound to recover soon from its precipitous fall, yielding, along with a rapidly rising China, a revived strategic balance. As early as 1986 Chinese officials had seen multipolarity as the wave of the future, and they reasserted this conclusion even as the United States strengthened its position after the cold war. In the first half of the 1990s it was difficult to challenge this verdict, argue for the enduring strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance, or detail China’s many limitations as a global pole. The debate on multipolarity, the central unassailable tenet of Chinese security analysis, was skewed with unsupportable assumptions.12 Yet, progress achieved with Russia and optimism based on Japan’s stagnation sustained this thinking. China’s Rise in Asia Dramatically new in strategic thinking was the importance of neighboring areas, notably Southeast Asia and South Korea. With great power prospects limited, regional objectives provided an alternative. Chinese analysis of the dynamics of geopolitics along the border expanded rapidly. Japan figured in this coverage, both in regard to the rising strategic significance of bilateral relations and as a major actor in all of the areas coming into China’s intensified focus. South Korea also entered the strategic picture as a result of normalization of relations and the first North Korean nuclear crisis that exposed its doubt about an aggressive U.S. approach. Along with separate states in Southeast Asia, ASEAN emerged as the first regional organization of interest. In comparison with the fixation on a few great powers in the 1980s, strategic thinking grew more complex, guided by themes centered in balance of power logic: multipolarity, hegemonism, and intense competition.

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Given reasoning that the United States was the dominant power and Japan was attempting to displace it in the region, U.S.-Japanese relations served as the starting point for discussions of East Asia. Chinese erred in assessing the seriousness of U.S. economic problems and the spillover of trade disputes with Japan into political relations. Blinded by simplistic efforts to answer questions about the impact of Japan’s aspirations to become an Asian political great power—whether the United States would maintain a controlling inf luence or Japan would impose its own control close to home—they underestimated the binding forces in the alliance. Yet, China’s strategy of drawing closer to Japan alleviated concern. In 1992 a peak in bilateral relations was reached: Jiang visited Japan, the Emperor visited China, economic ties deepened as each country’s plans focused more clearly on the other, and there was optimism about future relations. Closer ties to Japan served U.S. ties too. With economic goals in the forefront and awareness of Japan’s eagerness to be a bridge with the United States, China took a positive approach. Yet, renewed confidence soon saw Jiang departing from this strategy, playing the “history card” and also countenancing more serious warnings against Japan’s thirst for power to which it was not entitled. By 1993 it was clear that opposition to Japan’s rise was spoiling the upbeat mood established the previous year. Arousing anxieties in the public while warning about the dangers of Japan’s aspirations, China was following a dual strategy, overlooking the price this might exact in relations with Japan. On the one hand, it remained keen on improving relations and stressing ever-closer economic ties. On the other, criticisms of Japan were exaggerated. Inability to separate the realists and revisionists in Japan, excessive concern about the U.S. ability to pressure Japan to limit technological transfers and put human rights high on the list of priorities, and ideological assumptions about negative attitudes in Japan toward China’s development all were noticeable signs of misjudgments.13 China also overstated the impact of Japan’s new ODA linkages to restrained military spending, environmentalism, and other goals. While Japan was preferred to the United States since it only “plotted” to change China through soft power rather than hard power, the ground was laid for an excessively negative approach unnecessarily damaging to relations. Despite accusations against Japan seeking to become a military great power and to gain hegemony in Asia, the real focus of Chinese concern was the prospect that Japan would become a more realist country, working both with the United States and on its own to increase its political

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voice in Asian affairs, in a sense leaving Europe and entering Asia. In the early Clinton years, despite chaotic Japanese politics, many analysts foresaw not only a downward spiral in U.S.-Japanese trade tensions but also troubles in the alliance, even to the point of a break-up. This misreading of the dynamics in allied ties persisted at least until the 1995 Nye initiative offered proof of revitalized cooperation. As criticism of Japan’s historical thinking intensified, the shift to harsh warnings about its dangerous departure from the postwar worldview centered mostly on realist ambitions in the aftermath of the end of the cold war.14 Chinese took comfort from the troubled state of U.S-Japanese relations, arguing that it signified a struggle between U.S. insistence on establishing uniform hegemony over the entire world, including a monolithic cultural order, and Japan’s natural refusal to abide by an unequal relationship coupled with an unwarranted search for its own hegemonic inf luence in Asia.15 This harsh attitude toward Japan backfired, contributing to reaffirmation of the alliance after the troubles in 1991–94. One event that crowned China’s emergence from the era of international sanctions and nervous rhetoric struggling to set a new direction was the visit in the summer of 1992 of South Korean President Roh Tae-woo. While marking the establishment of diplomatic relations, it also was seen as a step toward splitting the capitalist East Asian region. This breakthrough drew attention to many strategic benefits for China: isolation of Taiwan, leverage over Japan, and reduced U.S. inf luence. Even if normalization with South Korea had led to deteriorating relations with the North, China patiently awaited reconsideration. During the nuclear crisis it hesitated to give offence, continuing economic assistance as it kept its options open. At the same time, Beijing welcomed Seoul’s hesitation about U.S. policy and then its angry reaction to new signs of Japanese revisionism. Yet, it should have expected assertive bilateral moves to backfire, as in the joint Sino-South Korean criticism of Japan’s stance on history and in the acknowledgment by the South Korean ambassador of discussions showing that some in Seoul were contemplating equidistance between the United States and China. U.S.-South Korean ties clearly took precedence. In the face of arguments that South Korea was rising to become one of the top ten world powers and deserved higher priority, analysts downplayed its importance. This was true in 1990–91 when the debate unfolded over establishing diplomatic relations. In one source we read that its scale was too small and it was too dependent on the outside world. Its technology had limited prospects, not the least of which was a lack of basic research.16 Even if China might benefit from intense

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Japanese-South Korean economic competition, Japan was the preferred target since it was far ahead in technology and capital. During the nuclear crisis of 1993–94 at a time of explosive growth in Sino-South Korean trade, it remained clear to China that the South was little able to exert influence. South Korea was a U.S. ally, but also a state that long pursued normalization with China disinclined to risk its gains. Making sure to dissuade the South from any support for U.S. moves that could interfere with Chinese policies toward Taiwan, China also did not want it to join in any pressure on North Korea that could contribute to regional instability or regime collapse. While Seoul sought Beijing’s help in persuading Pyongyang to reform and relax tensions, the response was to insist that it lacked leverage and would not apply pressure even in the crisis. Despite the heady optimism in South Korea after the crisis about its own prospects as a rising middle power, the conclusion remained the same: China did not need to weigh Seoul’s interests seriously in making strategic calculations, even about the peninsula. Clinging to the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs while offering continued economic assistance to North Korea, China played a minimally constructive role in the first nuclear crisis. Given the limited nuclear and missile capabilities of the North at this time and the U.S. intention to deal with this danger before it grew, China’s passivity contributed to the U.S. decision to accept an interim deal that left this problem to fester and threaten regional stability later. In the long run, this Chinese strategy may backfire. There was also disappointment in South Korea that China did not help during the crisis, allowing a chance to pass to solidify ties and increase regional cooperation. Of course, gratitude that China had normalized relations and awareness that North Korea was angry with it meant that South Koreans kept their reservations to themselves. As economic ties with the South boomed and goodwill stayed strong, China could have won much praise. Instead, it found short-term benefit in the compromise that ended this crisis and left U.S.-North Korean ties in uneasy limbo, heightening China’s relevance. China’s ambivalence in the first nuclear crisis ref lects its strategic resistance to U.S. security advances as well as its hesitation to become targeted as an obstacle to U.S. determination to act. At first, China sought to avoid being dragged into the dispute, treating it as a bilateral problem between the United States and North Korea. When the issue came before the United Nations, it opposed condemnation of the North, but gave ground in stepping aside so that a resolution could be passed. Although the chances of success were low, it showed willingness to try

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to dissuade the North without supporting UN sanctions. Mostly, however, it counseled that only engagement with Pyongyang had a chance of working. Despite the fact that it had alienated Pyongyang in 1992 and again did so in the crisis, it was the only country seen as having leverage due its continued supply of oil and food to North Koreans. Thus, it became the object of intense diplomacy by Washington. When the crisis was finally resolved by the personal diplomacy of Jimmy Carter and a decision by Clinton to accept a compromise that left in great doubt whether the North would abandon its nuclear weapons program, Beijing emerged stronger.17 Hostile to regionalism, China participated in APEC but depicted it as an arena for U.S-Japanese strategic competition for the Asian market. The late 1993 Seattle meeting upgraded APEC into a large summit and gave Jiang Zemin an opportunity to meet with Bill Clinton after estrangement between leaders of the two states since 1989, but instead of viewing this gathering as an opportunity to move forward toward regionalism, Chinese focused on strains as Japan no longer needed the U.S. nuclear umbrella after the collapse of the Soviet Union and distrusted Western values. The two states were seen as vying for the Chinese market, giving China a chance to gain leverage in an emergent triangle.18 Strategic thinking centered on bilateralism. Regional cooperation was possible, but only gradually in a manner that favored an equilibrium of powers, not hegemonism. This minimalist approach assumed that conditions did not exist for a just regional order and warned of U.S. insistence on keeping its regional inf luence, emboldened by the results of the Persian Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Japan’s quest to gain leadership as a political great power in Asia. Steps toward political stability would be welcome as over the next decade China would benefit from favorable conditions for an economic surge.19 While welcoming bilateral economic openings, China was wary of regionalism. It lacked the confidence to expect to be able to exert great influence, while it did not favor any arrangement that would internationalize Russia, including its economy. In the first half of the decade China pursued two strategies toward regional ties, neither trusting of formal regionalism. The first approach relied on “border fever” to seek closer contacts with each of China’s neighbors, bypassing often troubled ties between state capitals. While intensifying contradictions between great powers left an opening for China to gain ground in these grass-roots linkages, their aim was not to build regional institutions on the foundation of expanding globalization

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or to support. Japanese designs for sub-regional networks, such as links to Northeast China across the Sea of Japan. The rush to trade and form joint ventures across newly opened borders came at a heavy price: crossborder duplicity. The open border approach, which intensified in 1992 when the opening of border cities was announced, proved unsuccessful by 1994. Insufficient state control, inadequate financial and regulatory institutions, corrupt local authorities on both sides of the border, and unreliable operators out to make a quick buck raised an outcry in neighboring states. Arguably, China had been blinded by the great success of its “special economic zones” in coastal areas to overlook the much different inland circumstances. 20 Wary of multinational production networks putting their country at a disadvantage, China took satisfaction in the early spurt of trade with neighboring areas of Russia and Central Asia, but then had to calm alarm that the resulting criminality and chaos ref lected hidden plans of Chinese control and migration. 21 Strategy toward Russia and Central Asia in this period relied heavily on opening borders to trade and allowing economic contacts to serve as a wedge until these states awakened to the advantages of more wide-ranging cooperation. Yet, the border provinces did not exercise adequate control over trading companies, and quasi-barter arrangements did not build trust. A new strategy was needed in 1994 as cross-border ties deteriorated, but the damage could not be repaired quickly. The second strategy played up civilizational divides, not only rejecting any compromises on values but also sowing discord by aggressively insisting on a different value orientation. This meant heightening Russian fears of the ulterior motives behind Western values, demonizing Japan by overstating the link between its war-time history and its postwar development, and seeking in all directions to arouse distrust toward U.S.-led moves aimed at narrowing differences over values. 22 Given this outlook, China did not show interest in multilateralism, where it might become the object of joint pressure. Emphasizing regional relations, China looked in all directions to impede supposed U.S. plans to solidify hegemonic control. Hot spots in Asia were identified as challenges for China. Under U.S., Vietnam, and ASEAN joint opposition to China, the Spratly Islands were recognized as posing a problem if China was not cautious. Taiwan’s bolder moves toward sovereignty also made that a hot spot with U.S. power involved. Yet, given intensifying U.S.-Japanese contradictions and China’s ability for the first time to use its market as a weapon in diplomacy, strategic options were growing. All of the hot spots could be managed without

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long-term losses. The main advice was: to control the United States through cautious cooperation and cooperative ties to Japan; to reassure ASEAN in order to prevent Southeast Asian states from siding with the United States and isolating China; to take advantage of the late 1992 shift in Russia toward strengthening relations with China; and somehow to defuse the North Korean crisis.23 China was working hard to limit any possible containment strategy, especially in the first years of Clinton’s tenure. China was most successful in Southeast Asia, where economic ties advanced rapidly after political normalization. Gradually, the fear that the economies of these states would decline as foreign companies chose Chinese sites instead transformed into a sense that there was room for all to advance. While China did not have a regional strategy, one-byone its bilateral approaches produced political benefits and ensured that neither the United States nor Japan would consolidate its position in the region after the cold war. 24 Alarm over a “China threat” had been def lected despite tensions with some states over islands in the South China Sea. Opportunities for further advances were greatest here. Reasoning Driving Foreign Relations The Chinese worldview struggled with a fundamental contradiction. On the one hand, it held that China remained a developing country that required fifty years to reach the ranks of developed states in contrast to exaggerated Western warnings of China’s rising power. On the other, it argued that China already is second to no power apart from the United States and is well positioned to check U.S. hegemonic ambitions in a context where all other powers are narrowly guided by resistance to these same ambitions. Even if China’s relations with these other powers were far inferior to U.S. relations with them, they would somehow recognize a commonality of interests and work toward shared ends. Such self-serving logic to stir optimism when China was at its nadir in foreign support was not likely to be persuasive. Yet, the absence of any threatening behavior by China made it seem rather harmless. Meanwhile, domestic opinion proved quite receptive to the image of their country being repeatedly humiliated. Along with growing nationalism with a focus on foreign relations came increased self-righteousness over China’s rightful place. In the first half of the 1990s leaders succeeded in conveying an intense sense of urgency about China’s strategic situation. This came

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despite repeated optimism that the world had entered an era favorable to stability and economic development. It was not war or poverty that posed a serious threat, but ideology. Looking back on the 1980s in praise of Deng’s economic reforms and foreign policy choices, spokesmen warned that China had not done enough to guard against alien ideas. Many argued that the Soviet Union had fallen due to “peaceful evolution” plotted from the United States, and even though parts of their argument were rejected in 1992 as endangering further reform in a way that could repeat the Soviet history of inward-looking stagnation, strategic thinking in the 1990s kept returning to the core of this worldview. The way Chinese reported on U.S. thinking about human rights, U.S. pressure on Russia, Japanese thinking about regionalism, and so on usually echoed the suspicions of skeptics who rejected the promise of international society. When some academics offered a different strategic vision of winning the trust of both Western and Japanese public opinion, they found at critical times that their view could not prevail. The theme of multipolarity offered a substitute for strategic triangle logic in the 1980s. It gave reassurance that China was on the way to a global and regional balance of power. Yet, the reality was grave doubts about the actual balance of power emerging after the cold war. Neither Russia nor Japan was distancing itself from the United States to the degree that was expected in this period. Although the Sino-U.S.-Japanese triangle began to draw attention, China did not figure out how to gain a pivotal role. Japan’s growing concerns about China, leading in 1995 to closer strategic ties to the United States, were not what had been expected. Rather than finding new reason for caution from misplaced optimism, the Jiang Zemin leadership grew more emboldened about multipolarity. Chinese officials demonized those they perceived as ideological threats abroad. At the top of the list were Gorbachev and also Westernizers who gained early power under Yeltsin. Also drawing vitriolic responses were Japan’s revisionists, whose voices were growing louder in the 1990s. Champions of Taiwanization were targeted as well. Finally, in the foreground were also American human rights advocates, seen as driven by anticommunist thinking. These varied groups were not simply an academic challenge to be countered by patriotic education at home and public relations abroad; they all became identified as threats to the world order sought by China and often as propagators of alarm over the “China threat” too. Memories of the impact of values on foreign policy were kept alive. Some even referred to the way foreign enemies plotted and brought down the Soviet Union as a “war without

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ashes.” 25 In this way, strategic thinking mixed realist and ideological themes with the latter usually taken more seriously, even if dismissed as only a smokescreen for the power-seeking aspirations that supposedly drove other states. In all directions we find signs of sinocentrism that did not reassure neighbors. For Japan, this was manifest in the crude reasoning that it would play a crucial role boosting China’s comprehensive power while China must strive to limit its power. Illusions that “friendship diplomacy” could continue, reinvigorated by the visit of the Emperor, and that Japanese feelings of guilt would remain intense even as Chinese leaders warned of Japan’s new threats, were unrealistic. When Japan imposed criteria for further grants of ODA, ref lecting reasonable global standards, and sought to gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, China’s negative reactions were but a forerunner of ever more assertive charges. Newfound confidence by 1993–94 fueled further signs of sinocentric thinking. As Japan grappled with the challenge of accepting more idealism and more responsibility in line with global aspirations and pressures for the post–cold war era, Chinese distorted its motives. As Sino-Japanese friction mounted in 1994–95, China responded assertively, succumbing to frustration that a strategy of keeping Japan passive and splitting it from the United States was not working. Insensitivity in responding to Japanese criticisms of China’s nuclear tests from 1995 compounded these problems. 26 Arguing that the end of the cold war was a blow to the hegemony of the United States as well of the Soviet Union, Chinese analysts underestimated U.S. clout in the 1990s. Insisting that economic diversification with the rise of Japan and the European states was evidence of multipolarity, they exaggerated the impact of the U.S. recession of the early 1990s. This left them unprepared for the U.S. resurgence over the decade and Japan’s economic and political weakness. They also overestimated Russia’s reemergence. Arguing that U.S. protectionism was serious, Chinese were unprepared for its energetic leadership toward globalization. In these interpretations, there was a tendency to weigh the economic factor more heavily than in other analyses of what contributes to national power and to find it decisive in shaping global competition. 27 Self-serving assumptions in these years of obvious Chinese weakness did not serve strategic thinking well. Even so, a booming economy at a time when global tensions were greatly reduced gave China a lot of leeway. It made the right economic decisions, and rhetoric did not draw much interest.

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Conclusion China’s strategic responses shifted rapidly over the first half of the 1990s. First, it paid attention to regional small and middle powers to escape isolation. Second, it strove to improve ties with Japan, as the weak link in the sanctions system and purported U.S. plans for hegemonism in East Asia. Third, it concentrated on Russia, recognizing that growing frustration toward the West made China an indispensable partner. Fourth, when opportunities arose, leaders continued to seek better ties with the United States and were ready to respond positively. Each of these moves brought desired results. In spite of much misguided strategic thinking, the damage was kept well within manageable limits. As China aroused excitement as the next “economic miracle” in the new era when cold war tensions were left behind, it enjoyed ample goodwill despite its human rights image. The shadow of the massacre at Tiananmen hung over Chinese foreign policy in the first half of the 1990s. The level of trust with the United States remained low, as most relevant writings warned of its hegemonic ambitions in Asia. At first coverage of Japan down-pedaled similar concern, but it was intense in internal sources and then grew harsh even in open sources. Whereas the 1980s had opened with strong criticisms of Soviet foreign policy that were tempered after 1982 but did not cease, the 1990s opened with the United States the target with only modest let-up as Japan was targeted too by mid-decade. Circumventing these two reputed antagonists, officials focused on bilateral ties across all borders to prevent any encirclement and to seek economic advantage, and on nurturing Russian trust in the expectation that, despite early impressions, values would turn that country away from the West and toward China. While blaming others for allowing values to intrude into their foreign policy, China’s strategic thinking kept a struggle over values in the forefront. Standing firm but with timely f lexibility, China succeeded in 1994 in dissuading Bill Clinton from linking human rights to trade at the same time as it reasserted its voice toward Japan and took satisfaction over a partnership with Russia. Several erroneous assumptions marked Chinese strategic thinking: overestimating the decline of the United States and the recovery of Russia in the 1990s; exaggerating the contradictions among capitalist states, especially between Japan and the United States; and neglecting the destabilizing effects of staying aloof from problems of managing civil wars and WMD proliferation to aggressive states. 28 Yet, when it came to assumptions about China’s economic and political rise,

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optimism was fully warranted. By mid-decade a long-term course of double-digit growth was fixed, and China’s clout as a great power was unmistakable, as countries such as South Korea and Malaysia showed new respect. Overreactions in this period included: support for the coup against Gorbachev and extreme hostility to Yeltsin in the second half of 1991; insensitivity to Japanese public opinion in 1993–95 and overemphasis on the danger of Japan becoming a political and military great power; and the angry reaction when Clinton allowed Taiwan’s Lee Teng-hui to visit Cornell University in 1995 that influenced relations into 1996 when China made a show of force to influence the elections in Taiwan only to be trumped by a U.S. show of force. The Taiwan Strait missile crisis early in 1996 marked the end of this period of strategic overreach, ref lected in debates about each of these great powers that lost sight of the possible negative impact. Behind these emotional outbursts, we find a renewed sense of humiliation and an urgent quest for equality with other powers despite China’s weakness. Reactions to the way Beijing was rejected as the host of the 2000 Olympic Games, Congressional posturing over human rights, and Taiwan’s assertive drive for de jure independence compounded into an image of U.S. bullying with the aim of containing China. No longer balanced by the Soviet Union, it allegedly had become power hungry, eager to weaken all other great powers but most of all intent on standing in the way of China’s rise as a great power. There was a disconnect between China’s assumptions about multipolarity and the way the post cold war world was emerging and about its strategic vulnerability and claim to be in a greatly enhanced strategic position. This combination of assumptions left China hostile to multilateralism. As in the prior period, it was slow to grasp how out of touch its thinking was. Without the shocks of 1989 to sober it up, China would proceed in the next period with many of the same assumptions. Yet, the shock of the Soviet collapse in 1991 did produce the ameliorating effect of cautioning China’s leaders on how to proceed. Some observers downplay the significance of China’s rhetoric of multipolarity. After all, Chinese analysis did not take seriously the prospect of Japan or India as poles, denying them the right to become nuclear powers or even inf luential political powers. It was a convenient slogan in opposition to the world order attributed to U.S. designs. Yet, this notion guided strategic discussions, drew on calls for Russia to resume its balancing against the United States and rejection of the West, and assumed that U.S. power could not be consolidated through alliances as

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both the EU and Japan would behave in a way that would ease the way to multipolarity. Chinese did little to resolve contradictions in this concept, adding the qualification that the world was just heading in this direction. Because China’s assumptions were unrealistic, disappointments could not be avoided. Relatively minor matters were blown out of proportion. When Japan was most serious about addressing historical memory issues in 1993–95, China overreacted to signs of revisionism. When Clinton was outgrowing his early human rights preoccupation with China, a single visit by Lee Teng-hui was interpreted as significant backsliding in U.S. policy that was not intended. At the most propitious time for showing North Korea that it could not benefit from resorting to threats and developing a nuclear card that threatened to destabilize Northeast Asia, China chose to stay on the sidelines. When an opportunity existed to forge Asian regionalism that could have brought increased stability, China balked at multilateralism. The costs were not immediately apparent; so Chinese officials were slow to learn from these experiences and from a series of lost opportunities. This was a time of considerable disconnect between the way Chinese strategized about Asia and reality. Yet, given the great success of China’s economic reforms and the confusion in all of the other great powers amidst leadership transitions and post cold war adjustments, China did not suffer serious consequences from its distorted worldview. As its international status rose with its economic development and the increasing interest of other states to secure its cooperation, China gained confidence in its own strategic logic. While there were few short-term costs from inadequate strategic thinking, this period saw probably the most ill-conceived views. The effect of strategic myopia would be more pronounced in the next period, as China was slow to reconsider the assumptions it had carried forward from the end of the cold war. Overcoming strategic vulnerability, it did not welcome a sufficiently wide-ranging debate to set a well-informed strategic course.

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CHAPTER 4

Chinese Strategic Thought 1996–2000 If strategic debates in the 1980s were clouded in secrecy reflecting the fragile transition to wide-ranging international ties after a quarter century of Maoist distortions of global dynamics and in the first half of the 1990s were shadowed by resentment in the wake of the international pressure following the June 4 repression, they finally achieved a degree of normalcy in the mid-1990s. The overall pattern became: guidelines set by the top leadership; writings that transmitted these to specialists and the public at large; publicized discussions that considered different factors that did not contradict established premises; and closed discussions that were allowed to challenge some premises but not all. Open materials did not question the prospects of multipolarity, the possibility that optimistic conclusions about Russia or pessimistic warnings about Japan might not be objective or sound foundations for drawing strategic conclusions, and whether North Korea might become a danger to regional stability. These issues were simmering below the surface as a controlled debate proceeded on how to take maximum advantage of Asian dynamism. Conf licting messages were conveyed by Chinese analysts. Many in the security field projected an image of a country already assertive about its strength and poised to challenge any power intruding on China’s interests. In contrast, some academics fell back on reassuring past rhetoric about how China must concentrate on domestic problems and will not be in a position to take an active global role until the middle of the next century, while it cautiously ventures into nearby areas without challenging spheres of influence. More open discussion of these alternatives appeared even if censorship limited its range. Both decision-making and strategic thinking were top-down in a manner that can prove dysfunctional. In handling three incidents that threatened China’s overall strategy of biding its time—the Taiwan

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Strait crisis of 1995–96, the unintentional bombing of the Chinese Belgrade embassy in 1999, and the EP-3 airplane collision of 2001— erroneous assumptions about U.S. intentions led to serious errors in judgment.1 In this period the way Chinese interpreted international relations was rife with misunderstanding; yet until the summer of 1999 and, to a lesser degree, afterward overconfidence stif led debate. Success bred confidence, as China emerged in the mid-1990s as the most dynamic economy in the world and the rising great power that loomed as the only challenger to U.S. power and leadership. With increased recognition came renewed determination to embrace economic globalization as the path to a prolonged “economic miracle,” leading to a decision to join the new World Trade Organization (WTO) by century’s end. Yet, resistance persisted to other types of global integration that were depicted as threats to independence, sovereignty, and control over China’s own destiny. 2 Maintaining this dualism, China accelerated its catch-up mechanisms to become an all-around power ahead of all but the United States, on which it was gaining fast. With Russia mired in a deep slump and Japan stagnating, China was recalibrating how the balance among the four main powers could be used to its advantage for a rapid ascent to the number two post. In 1995 China was well along in repairing relations with the United States and only beginning to suffer from deepening distrust in Japan despite a prime minister intent on strengthening ties. Its relations with Russia were still fragile after agreeing in 1994 on a “constructive partnership.” Despite concerns about Lee Teng-hui turning Taiwan onto a provocative course, China’s leaders enjoyed favorable conditions as the economy soared and the international isolation of the first half of the decade was fading. Yet, over the next years Jiang Zemin failed to consolidate these opportunities, often showing impatience as if dramatic results were just around the corner. Under the influence of assumptions about multipolarity, the shifting balance of power as the United States declined, and the speedy return of Taiwan, China’s leaders did not accurately comprehend the views of other states. As a result, mistakes arose with enduring consequences. Overplaying the “history card” with Japan and underestimating the value of goodwill among the Japanese public, Jiang set in motion a downward spiral in bilateral relations from which the two states have still not recovered. Failing to appreciate Bill Clinton’s inclinations to stabilize relations and make progress in reducing tensions over Taiwan, Jiang wasted their exchange of summits as the American public grew more skeptical of China’s values. Encouraging Boris Yeltsin and the Russian political elite to become more hostile to

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the United States, Jiang was pleased with the rapid rise of antiAmericanism, but such thinking could backfire given Russian fears of becoming a junior partner to China. Content to play a passive role when North Korea rattled the region with its Taepodong missile firing, China welcomed the Sunshine Policy of Kim Dae-jung without assessing the importance of combining sticks and carrots as the North emerged as a driving force in regional security. Finally, as Beijing inched toward regionalism with the new ASEAN ⫹ 3, it proved reluctant until after 2000 to take a closer look at multilateralism and what it could offer to China’s regional objectives. There was no let up in Chinese reasoning that the U.S. goal was to control the entire world, using Japan to assist it in Asia. To counter this China was more proactive, treating multipolarity as almost within reach and seeking immediate steps to realize a balance of power to limit hegemonism. Whereas the notion of equilibrium in the first half of the decade had seemed rather abstract and distant, it now was an object of direct diplomacy. With plots to encase China into an international order centered in the United States now foiled, the time was considered ripe to develop ties in various directions that would begin to establish a different balance of power. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that past caution had been cast aside for proactive diplomacy, but China was now more assertive. Chinese analysts reassessed the U.S. position in Asia. After assuming U.S. decline for a number of years, analysts were more prone to depict it as revived with new stress on its military as well as assertiveness over values. Supposedly, its strategy had intensified to “divide and Westernize” China. In turn, China grew bolder in pressing for multipolarity focused on Asia. While its response was deemed defensive in the face of interference in China’s internal affairs and the growing “China threat” thesis, we can find evidence that it was hypersensitive and overly assertive in ways damaging to China’s interests. Unlike widespread concern that the United States had underestimated China in the first half of the decade, Chinese now warned its power and disruptive aims were being overestimated. Five threats loomed large: 1) Westernizing China, as was temporarily achieved for Russia; 2) splitting it apart, with Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang all targets; 3) denying China the fruits of its status, such as the Olympics; 4) locking it into an unfair division of labor through trade pressures and controls on technology transfers; and 5) encircling it, as was intended by U.S. policies in Central Asia and elsewhere. Whatever the means— isolation, intervention, integration, or

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internationalization—U.S. nefarious designs forced China to take strong countermeasures, it was argued. This paranoia infected strategic thinking, kept alive partly by leadership struggles, as in the summer of 1999 when Jiang was on the defensive in the midst of strong media invectives against “U.S. imperialism.”3 One line of analysis was to fault the so-called U.S. integration strategy subsuming regional ties under global ones by countering with a Chinese balance of power strategy. Perceiving contradictory U.S. goals fueled by overconfidence, Chinese saw a chance to take advantage of U.S. interest in stability to counter its aspirations for greater hegemony. Regarding integration as synonymous with enlargement or even containment, Chinese calculated that the growing U.S. desire for global economic security raised its priority as a target of cooperation. Also, the U.S. obsession with security in keeping “rogue” states such as North Korea in check put a premium on working with China as both an economic partner of such states and a permanent member of the Security Council. If Washington took a dual approach that could be called “hegemonic stability” toward it, Beijing could counter with its own dualism, which we might call “balance of power stability.”4 This dualism played out in several regions of Asia where China was becoming more active. Relations with the United States and Japan deteriorated in 1995–96, reaching a nadir in the Taiwan Strait crisis when China fired missiles as a warning to Taiwan and the United States responded by sending aircraft carriers nearby. Yet, after the crisis as both United States and Japanese leaders strove to repair bilateral ties with China, the leaders of China calculated that the situation had become more favorable for achieving better bilateral ties with each country and, building on this foundation, to reach a new regional equilibrium. Given this upbeat mood, there was no effort at the 15th Party Congress in 1997 to make a strategic correction, in contrast to the preceding and following congresses. Celebrating the reversion of Hong Kong and setting a course for increased economic globalization, China overestimated its own leverage. Only in 1999 did leaders start to change course, as relations with none of the great powers had advanced nearly as well as had been expected. China overreached in the second half of the 1990s. It anticipated multipolarity before sobering to the dominant U.S. role in 1999 after the Kosovo War. Overestimating Russia’s determination to oppose U.S. global leadership, it grew more cautious only after Russia was battered by the financial crisis of 1998 and then compromised in 1999 with U.S. plans to end the war. Critical of new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines,

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China did not correctly assess its ability to keep Japan on a course of repairing ties each time they were weakened. Agreeing with Bill Clinton to forge a “strategic partnership,” China did little to reassure the U.S. public of its readiness to cooperate, in fact, on strategic aims. Having emerged in a relatively strong position after being isolated in the early 1990s, China’s leadership not only retained much of its defiance but became excessively assertive. On Taiwan it was delusional in thinking that a way existed to build on the heady momentum of the return of Hong Kong to contemplate a timetable for snagging China’s biggest quarry. At the end of the decade, it felt compelled to reevaluate its strategic logic, calling instead for “smile diplomacy” with Japan and postponing expectations of multipolarity. This far-reaching reassessment paralleled earlier ones at the end of the 1970s and 1980s. Only in the second half of 1999 was there a serious review of the basic worldview that had become embedded over the decade. U.S. experts questioned the entire logic of reasoning that had anticipated a rapid decline of American power as the world advanced with dispatch to multipolarity. Similarly, Japan specialists pointed to the fiasco of Jiang’s November 1998 visit to that country as reason to doubt a strategy that had alienated its leaders and a public to the point they were focusing on a “China threat.” At the same time, doubts spread that Yeltsin’s Russia was a weak reed on which to lean, when it depended so heavily on the West and had been willing to cut a deal on ending the war between NATO and Serbia after appearing to coordinate with China. After so many setbacks, Chinese leaders finally recognized that they needed a new dose of strategic thinking. The wide-ranging debate from the summer of 1999 concluded that the balance between conflict and cooperation had tilted toward the former, the U.S. threat was greater than previously estimated, and the military factor had risen in international relations. In these circumstances, China needed to upgrade ties with Russia further, to make overtures to Japan to arrest its drift toward the United States, to avoid confrontation with the United States, and to strive harder to build its own comprehensive national power. Realizing that the world and regional order were less favorable, especially due to U.S. “interventionist” doctrine—heir to the “bourgeois evolution” thinking of great concern a decade earlier—Chinese called for more flexibility and use of multilateralism in nearby regions. The task would be more complicated than what was planned over the previous years when China appeared to be at the crossroads of a new international order and frequent summits with the other great powers were seen as successful in constructing a suitable balance of power.

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In this turn-of-the-decade reasoning we see signs of some of the same simplistic logic that prevailed at the end of the cold war. Although attention had broadened from the strategic triangle to neighboring areas, narrow zero-sum calculations on great power ties persisted as values were excluded as irrelevant to policy making in other states. Refusing to differentiate India from North Korea, Chinese criticized the United States for using a double standard in responding to the Indian nuclear tests and the North Korean nuclear buildup. Similarly, the NATO attack on Serbia was treated as nothing more than a power grab, as if values or humanitarian goals had nothing to do with it. The overarching goal remained to narrow the gap between United States and Chinese power. In China’s calculus, China was a status quo power, focused on the traditional national interest of securing its sovereignty, while the U.S. goal was aggressive pursuit of a different world order using human rights as a lever to undermine sovereignty. At times referring to the U.S. outlook as “cold war mentality,” Chinese criticized alliances and responses to potential threats such as North Korea’s as unwarranted since they were really aimed at containment and regime change. In this thinking, China misjudged Clinton’s interest in cooperation and the possibilities of increased cooperation with Japan’s prime ministers in the late 1990s. Mixing paranoia with an outdated cold war mentality of their own, they lost favorable opportunities. Yet, in accepting the need for greater caution in foreign policy and more cooperation with each of the other great powers, Chinese leaders after their review in late 1999 were preparing the way for more effective strategic thinking in the years ahead. Multipolarity through a Multisided Balance of Power Standing in the way of China’s rise, according to Chinese authors, were, above all, U.S. hegemonic ambitions and Japan’s perceptions of a “China threat.” Blaming these negative forces on deep-seated historical thinking, Chinese sources favored improved ties to each country to counter them. At the same time, many stressed the urgency to advance to a multipolar world in order to limit their impact. Some time around 1995 China shifted from referring to “multipolarization” as a direction in which the world was heading to treating “multipolarity” as a reality in which Russia had emerged as the critical partner. Changes in SinoRussian relations, including the assertive rhetoric from 1996 of Foreign Minister Evgeny Primakov, emboldened China’s leaders. Reacting to the extension of U.S. power, notably the expansion of NATO seen as

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driving Russia to China, analysts perversely interpreted it as weakening U.S. leadership. Resentment toward the United States, as if it were a bully driven by a thirst for power and intent on weakening China as it had been weakening Russia, colored these images of diverse states rising in opposition. Chinese leaders were in a rush to realize a new equilibrium, balancing U.S. power with an array of ties to other major states, links to challengers to the United States, and a new mix of cooperation and competition with the United States itself. Calculating that an “explosion of diplomacy” in 1997–98 would bring these plans to fruition, writers took great interest in the structure and balance of relations among states.5 While these summits signaled that China’s isolation was over, they were misinterpreted as bringing Asia much closer to multipolarity than was actually the case. Strategically counterproductive moves are not hard to identify: an overreaction to Lee Teng-hui’s visit to Cornell despite months of U.S. reassurances that this did not represent any shift in policy; missiles launched near Taiwan that stirred anxieties in the United States and Japan; Jiang Zemin’s visit to Pearl Harbor in October 1997 that was but one signal to Japan that China intended to split U.S.-Japanese relations; maneuvering to get South Korea to put U.S. and Chinese relations on an equal plain to the consternation of Americans and Japanese; and optimism that a new Sino-Russian strategic partnership would have a far-reaching impact on the global order. Self-serving assumptions in strategic thinking had a veneer of realism, but by painting an excessively rosy scenario in accord with assumptions rooted in ideology they delayed vital correctives. In essence, multipolarity did not reflect careful calculation of relative threats, but instead drew on arguments rooted in China’s past cold war ideology about resentments over how the United States threw its power around and trumpeted its values. A feature of this period was China’s intense pursuit of Russia to boost ties first to a strategic partnership with a strong component of arms sales and then to an all-around relationship with more clout in balancing U.S. alliances. NATO expansion conveniently served China’s objectives. With this in mind, China reemphasized the Sino-U.S.-Russian triangle with zero-sum logic that resonated well in Russia. In this logic, China stressed that its national power was about the same as Russia’s, equal relations were developing, and the two were forming the first dyad in a multipolar world. China ceded to Russia the prime place in Central Asia, while claiming for itself the leading role in Northeast and Southeast Asia. It had considerable success with Russia, as relations

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developed rapidly on strategic matters as well as on bilateral concerns such as border demarcation. Reviving this triangle became an ever greater interest as a critical factor in international relations.6 Yeltsin’s victory in 1996 was greeted much more positively than one would have expected a few years earlier. It was attributed to his willingness to rid his administration of “extreme democrats,” to at least give the appearance of reasserting Russian power after an interval where it scarcely seemed to be acting as a great power, and to stabilize the country while preventing Western inf luences from penetrating very far.7 Yet, there was no concealing mixed feelings ref lecting the view that internal contradictions continued to spread inside Russia due to Yeltsin’s policy errors and that he had still done too little to assert Russian interests against the many serious provocations coming from the West. Sustained interest in improved relations with Russia was rewarded in 1996 with the establishment of a strategic partnership, but what more did China seek? Riding anger over Russia’s deepening gap between expectations and realities and rising wave of anti-Americanism, China had avoided the negative scenarios feared after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By 1996 it was focused on more ambitious outcomes. Positive scenarios were discussed for a new kind of relationship between great powers for the twenty-first century. For China this meant limiting the spillover of global economic integration into geopolitics, accelerating the shift to multipolarity, and blocking the spread of Western civilization. Leaders were optimistic that Russia’s political elite shared these objectives. 8 Although Russia hesitated to sell China its most advanced weapons, the arms sales that did take place well served China’s increased appetite for military power after observing the outcome of the Persian Gulf War. Chinese found value in Russia’s growing desire to limit U.S. power and the U.S.-Japanese alliance, such as by assisting North Korea to gain leverage in resisting absorption by South Korea. The fact that officials in the Russian Far East and many media accounts raised alarm about a “China threat” and the “yellow peril” was brushed aside since objective circumstances confirmed this strategic partnership. Writings on Russia validated the official worldview. One aim was to explain the inevitability of a rapid decline of the United States. If Russia was not balancing against it, then assumptions about multipolarity would be left in doubt. If, however, it was resentful and recognized U.S. and NATO expansion as proof of inherent hegemonic ambitions, then it should fiercely oppose this danger and join with China in seeking a different world order. Not only did the United States provoke Russia and China to take countermeasures, it provided an opportunity to these

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states to work with many other states, more or less alert to the threat, to stymie U.S. hegemonic ambitions.9 Yet, as economic tensions lost their severity in the upsurge of the world economy and the growing momentum to form the WTO, there were not many other states warning about hegemonism. Moreover, even Chinese recognized that Russia’s economic failings and loss of diplomatic leverage were a reflection of its own troubled transition, including resistance to economic globalization that China had successfully embraced. Only twisted logic supported the blame assigned to the United States for its treatment of Russia and the insistence placed on U.S. decline. Planning for strategic triangles in 1996–99 as if they could weaken U.S. alliances was misguided. If Russia lacked the clout to serve as a triangular balance to the United States, Japan lacked interest in such balancing. Some pragmatic moves to improve ties with all of the powers held promise, but they did not signify a true strategic shift. New willingness to play a role in encouraging North Korea and Pakistan to seek stability drew praise, but China did not take an active enough role in security multilateralism to do more than delay the confrontational tendencies of these states. Passivity under the pretense that China has no desire to be a leader, let alone a hegemon, proved to be a convenient excuse. Under the rubric of “anti-hegemonism,” China clothed an ideological approach in the mantle of realism. While insisting that Sino-Russian relations now ignore ideological differences rooted in contrasting social systems, Chinese applauded construction of an axis of power between two poles sharing a worldview hostile to the spread of U.S. power, inf luence, and ideas about democracy and the world order. While the word “alliance” was avoided, many favored ties close to this in nature. With Yeltsin’s visit to Beijing in 1996, Chinese took comfort in his assurances that Russia would not play the “Taiwan card,” by avoiding political relations of any sort. Also, Chinese at last decided that the anti-U.S. nationalist forces in Russia were gaining the upper hand versus the proWest forces in what was treated as a zero-sum game where being proWest meant being anti-China. Chinese prodded Russian leaders to sell more advanced arms, oppose the U.S.-Japan alliance, perceive U.S. policy as weakening and encircling Russia while excluding it in Asia, and intensify economic integration and cooperation in Central Asia. Rather than supporting Russian integration into the global system and regionalism, this strategy aimed for a separate sphere centered on Sino-Russian relations. This twist on standard multipolarity envisioned axes between the poles and balancing to constrain the lead pole.

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In 1997–98 new hesitancy seeped into China’s great power relations. Russia had begun to propose rhetoric more openly hostile to the world order than what China favored, given its successful global economic integration and the new opportunities to upgrade ties with the Clinton administration. As the weakest corner of the old “strategic triangle,” Russia now saw benefit in resurrecting its imagery even as China hesitated to fuel rising concerns about a “China threat.” Besides, Yeltsin’s indecisiveness on other aspects of relations and ill health made Chinese leaders cautious about how much to rely on him. With Russians having turned against “Atlanticism” and Chinese urging them to drop their “Eurocentrism,” what was at stake was less a balance of power than a way of thinking. Given differences in views regarding states all along their joint border, Chinese could have anticipated that intensified Russian nationalism would spill over to matters salient to their national interests. They cautiously deferred to Russia on Central Asia, did not allow the 1998 tensions over rival nuclear tests between India and Pakistan to lead to new quarrels over clashing partners, and effectively catered to Russian anxieties toward the West. Yet, in 1999–2001 there was no mistaking Chinese disappointment that Russia was not inclined to boost ties further, even to the point of forging a quasi-alliance that had arisen as a theme in the spring of 1999. The Kosovo War was a turning point, inducing reexamination of past overconfidence while deepening suspicion of U.S. intentions. It left Chinese feeling more isolated. Lack of coordination with Beijing in the end game of the U.S.-led NATO war with Serbia, the initial hesitation of Vladimir Putin to reinforce ties as he took power in 2000, and Putin’s turn to the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, all cast doubt on reliance on Russia as the principal strategic partner. Chinese ties to Central Asia remained rocky through the early 1990s. Uncertain about possible destabilizing influences entering Xinjiang and repulsed in forging strong cross-border ties beneficial to local economies, China concentrated on achieving minimal objectives while emphasizing that great potential existed for expanding ties. From 1994 the focus began to shift to large-scale projects involving natural resources, transportation, and light industries. Yet, the main goal was to maintain stability, both for security inside China and for sustained improvement in Sino-Russian ties. With this in mind, China was careful to defer to Russia on sensitive matters, reassuring suspicious Central Asians too that early troubles in cross-border trade did not reflect any nefarious plans.

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Having made progress in bilateral relations to achieve its basic security goals, China took the initiative in 1996 in establishing the Shanghai-5. This was possible due to improved relations with Russia and awareness of the need to focus the organization on narrow strategic objectives. Yet, Chinese aspirations for the organization exceeded what it could achieve. By 1997 they had expanded to include pursuit of oil for national security. As it also turned to Russia with proposals for cooperation on pipelines, China intensified its diplomacy in Central Asia. One goal was to prevent the United States from gaining control there. In 1997 when Japan announced its own “Eurasian diplomacy” in the region, this had potential to arouse competition, but it was not long before Japan lost interest.10 As Chinese ref lected on the results of their end of the decade strategic review, they wrote of a changed understanding of the new stage in great power relations. At the core of this new assessment was the conclusion that U.S. hegemonism had become more dangerous, reducing the chances for world peace. This was seen both in a new readiness to intervene, using military force in an adventurist manner, and in missile defense plans that could alter the balance of power. With Japan signing onto these plans and Taiwan treated as part of the neighborhood to which new defense guidelines applied, the lines were being drawn in ways damaging to China’s interests. Yet, analysts made clear that the conclusion China drew from this is not that a new cold war is possible. Instead, in this more troubling environment compared to what Chinese had expected in the previous years, peace and development would remain the mainstream approach even as China and Russia would find more strategic commonalities and strive further for multipolarity. China’s Rise in Asia Chinese attention focused anew on the Sino-U.S.-Japanese triangle as decisive in the Asian-Pacific region. While there was no optimism that Japan would follow Russia’s lead in striving to balance triangular relations, the strategy of stressing shared regional goals that diverged from U.S. interests applied in this case too. Hope persisted, as in the first half of the decade, that Japan’s quest for a more independent role in Asia would give China leverage. Chinese spotted room for maneuver in this triangle. Observing that Japan relies on the United States but does not hold its ally in esteem and contains China but does not loathe it (kaomei, bu-chongmei; zhihua, bu-ehua), one specialist interviewed in late 1999 gave a rationale for the new “smile diplomacy.” With the establishment

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of ASEAN ⫹ 3 and the split between the two allies in how to respond to the Asian financial crisis, prospects seemed to improve. Yet, other factors belied this optimistic thinking. Already in 1994–95 Japanese public opinion was turning more negative toward China. The Nye initiative offered reassurance about revitalization of the U.S. alliance, and the Taiwan Strait crisis cast new doubt on China’s behavior. Instead of redoubling efforts to reassure it, China’s leaders intensified their use of the “history card” in patriotic appeals at home and bilateral meetings with Japan’s leaders. Reassessing the balance of power in China’s favor and resorting to this pressure as a seemingly effective mechanism, Chinese spokesmen reacted to legitimate rising Japanese concerns by escalating their accusations. This resulted in a vicious cycle: Chinese behavior raised Japanese alarm, and then Chinese interpreted the response as proof of bad intentions.11 When Japanese in 1995 criticized China’s nuclear testing in the atmosphere, Chinese did not show sensitivity to Japan’s unique status as victim of nuclear weapons but chose to make an implausible case against the revival of Japanese militarism. With the redefinition of the U.S.Japan alliance, Chinese rhetoric grew more heated. While virtually every year joint efforts were taken to reverse the downturn in relations and suggest that an upturn was gathering speed, these stopgap measures did not reflect any serious rethinking inside China. Chinese took note of Japan’s diplomatic initiatives in 1997–98: Hashimoto’s “Eurasian diplomacy,” Obuchi’s breakthrough with Kim Dae-jung, and regional moves in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Yet, they hesitated to draw conclusions that China was driving Japan to intensify its diplomacy in Asia and risked more assertive moves if this policy was not adjusted. Only the fiasco of Jiang’s November 1998 visit finally led leaders to start scrambling to contain the damage and, by late 1999, to seek a new course. In 1999–2001 analysts were prone to acknowledge past excesses while pointing to new moves to rebuild relations. Regretting a sharp deterioration in ties after Jiang’s visit, they showed new appreciation for Japan due to concern for: spreading receptivity to the notion of a “China threat”; growing Japanese support for U.S. assertiveness; and also the negative reverberations of an emotional Chinese public impacting foreign policy. At the end of 1999 China launched its “smile diplomacy.” A year later Premier Zhu Rongji made a “friendship tour” of Japan, stressing that today’s Japanese are not responsible for past militarism and that Chinese greatly appreciate Japan’s generous ODA.12 Academic writings revealed an abrupt shift in the analysis of Japan and of Sino-Japanese relations

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One example of the new tone appeared early in 2000, drawing a f lood of letters from Chinese readers unwilling to accept this softer outlook. The article welcomed the development of friendly relations and true cooperation, warned against emotionalism on the part of China as unproductive, recognized that most Japanese do not deny Japan’s past aggression, and optimistically predicted that Japan’s right-wing nationalists would not prevail. This approach did not stand alone. Not only were critical letters published, but popular magazines continued to castigate Japan for dangerous future ambitions as well as unrepentant historical thinking.13 The debate over Japan ref lected a search for a different approach to strategic thinking that was in full swing in late 1999 and 2000. I have previously written that critics of the old approach to Japan made five main arguments. First, in the 1990s Japanese power and its chances of being used aggressively had been exaggerated. Instead of striving to block Japan’s rise as a political power, it would have been wise to try to channel that rise in order to forestall Japan becoming a military great power. Second, given a growing threat of U.S. hegemony, underestimated under the allure of multipolarity, China needed to focus on Japan as the weak link in the security alliance. This meant giving the Japanese reason to think that they could use China for leverage in greatpower maneuvering or when frustrated by U.S. unilateralism. Rather than refusing to refer to Sino-Japanese relations as a strategic partnership, China needed to show Japan it takes political relations seriously. Third, China must now support regionalism in East Asia, at least with an economic focus, desired by Japan and useful in overcoming limits to bilateral relations. When Japan sought an upgrading of the ASEAN ⫹ 3 summit with separate ⫹ 3 breakfast meetings in 1999, China agreed. Fourth, in the face of uncertainty about economic prospects as China entered the WTO and accelerated the reform of state-owned enterprises, appreciation was needed for Japan’s role, notably its ODA. Last, to sustain a realist foreign policy, critics warned that emotionalism should not interfere. Not only was the worsening tone in relations damaging China’s image in Japan, it was also complicating the leadership’s sober control over international relations. At the core of China’s problem adjusting to Japan was an emotional image of that state as an abnormal country. After concealing the real weight of this reasoning under the facade of “friendship,” it was openly unveiled in the mid-1990s. Public opinion was aroused on the basis of statements and actions by Japanese officials, but in this period ref lecting too Jiang Zemin’s own personal animosity to Japan linked to

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historical memories. Just as Zhu Rongji was eagerly encouraging ever more Japanese investment and new technology transfers, a vengeful atmosphere took hold that failed to express much gratitude for what one Chinese author in a regretful mood in 2003 referred to as $47.4 billion in ODA, more assistance than was received from the Asian Development Bank or the World Bank.14 Examining the fallout from the first North Korean nuclear crisis, China took some satisfaction at U.S. problems in managing ties with other countries. If the troubles arising in alliance relations were not benefit enough, than Russia’s discontent with its peripheral role played especially well into Chinese rhetoric about the costs of its dependency on the United States. Russia’s failure to build on normalization with South Korea after Yeltsin took office and its scramble to revive ties with North Korea from the fall of 1994 drew it closer to China as the state whose handling of the nuclear crisis was closest to its own preferences. By 1997 advancing Sino-Russian ties ref lected shared opposition to the U.S. strategy in the region, especially to the Korean peninsula. Yet, the Agreed Framework was in place to manage the North Korean problem, Sino-North Korean ties were starting to improve, and South Korea was showing new f lexibility toward the North. The situation looked favorable for a cooperative approach consistent with China’s strategic thinking. One goal was to respond to the Sunshine Policy and Perry Process by improving ties with North Korea, making sure that the United States considered China’s interests in dealing with the North. With the visit of Kim Yong-nam to China in June 1999 and joint celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of relations in October, China was poised after seven years of passivity to play an active role in the intensification of diplomacy. Agreeing to take part in four-party talks with the two Koreas and the United States, China gained credit in Seoul. As younger generations saw China not as a past adversary but as the region’s economic magnet and a force for stability with increasing inf luence, the Sunshine Policy also worked in China’s favor. It eclipsed Japan as the state expected to help along with the United States in support of South Korea’s initiatives to the North. Although there was hesitation to criticize China’s refusal to treat escapees from the North as refugees, at least the South was able to play some role in assisting them. The Asian financial crisis presented an opportunity for expanded ties in Southeast Asia. Resentment toward the United States intensified there in 1997–98. Despite Japan’s efforts in the crisis to differentiate its

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approach from that of the United States, its long period of economic stagnation had sharply diminished its leadership potential. Joining Japan in ASEAN ⫹ 3, China now considered that it was on equal footing in the region. Pushing to draw closer with some Southeast Asian states, it could benefit from the U.S. image of pressing too hard for globalization. Even as these states dropped claims for the superiority of Asian values, their doubts about U.S. values gave China an opening. Even as Chinese authors appealed for a calmer approach toward Japan, animosity toward India was slow to abate. One assessment in 1999 pointed to the continuous rise in the 1990s of its comprehensive national power, placing it clearly in the top ten with a complete industrial system (tenth), a broad-based military (nuclear, aircraft carrier, and missiles, fourth), and expanding ties with the great powers. Because the United States has grown soft on India, not even applying much pressure after its nuclear tests since it finds India’s charges of a “China threat” appealing, India’s strategic position is more favorable. Talk of shared democratic values also suggested potential in U.S. ties. Yet, India lacks a long-term strategy, suffers from treating China as an enemy, and is missing the controls and coordination to maximize development and reform.15 Such assessments left doubt about whether it really is ready for a balancing role in multipolarity or just has a “great power dream,” but even more do not suggest that China was ready to treat it as a partner. Reasoning Driving Foreign Relations With the 14th Party Congress, China affirmed its variation of the East Asian model of political stability through authoritarian control coupled with economic growth through export-oriented development. In the mid-1990s this combination gained support from a favorable climate for advocacy of Asian values mixed with acceptance of rapid globalization. At the 15th Party Congress, however, the East Asian model came under new scrutiny in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. This accelerated Chinese interest in globalization as the WTO was forming and it narrowed the focus on East Asia to closer economic ties with the possibility of strategic ties but not with explicit values claims. As China’s rise as a regional power accelerated, it no longer cloaked its status in socialism or in some sort of East Asian model, instead more boldly striking out under its own weight. In the second half of the 1990s China did have some strategic successes. At first glance, this period may even appear to be a high point in strategic achievement. It could take satisfaction as: Yeltsin was pursuing

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it, Clinton sought its help on the most serious global issues, Japan’s leaders were intent on keeping relations from deteriorating, and through new venues of ASEAN ⫹ 3, the Shanghai-5, and four-party talks over the Korean peninsula its presence was strengthened in all directions. Yet, missed opportunities and signs of trouble ahead lead to a more negative assessment of this period as, arguably, the least successful in strategizing over how to respond to the changing Asian environment. Exaggerating the danger of U.S. encirclement, China opted for arrangements on all sides that worked against long-term trust and stability. It worked against Central Asian integration into the global economy and order through deals with local dictators, while achieving its important objective of blocking the spread of Islamic fundamentalism as a force for separatism into Xinjiang. Bilateral arrangements with the most troubled states in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, complemented Chinese efforts to outf lank Japan and the United States, but did not help to forge a strong ASEAN that could serve possible future Chinese interests in regional prosperity and global balance. Instead of an early accommodation with India after the cold war, China pursued policies that further aroused its suspicions. Even as China accepted limited forms of regionalism, it remained hostile in this period to serious multilateralism, reconsidering only at the start of the next decade. The U.S. show of force near Taiwan and the new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines gave ammunition to those who exaggerated the need to take assertive measures to counter the potential U.S. threat. Misinterpreting responses to North Korea as really targeted at containing China and NATO expansion as part of dual containment of China and Russia, Chinese analysts justified China’s distrustful behavior as responses to provocations.16 Even as China gained substantial leverage around its borders and over both an isolated Taiwan and a newly stagnant Japan, it exaggerated the meaning of the rhetoric from both with excessive concern that a U.S. hand was behind moves seen as blocking China’s rise. Impatient to achieve a breakthrough on Taiwan reunification and perturbed by the perceived provocations of Lee Teng-hui, Chinese leaders did not show sufficient patience in dealing with the great powers. Too concerned about U.S. inroads into Central Asia and U.S. penetration into North Korea should that state collapse, Chinese paid little heed to the challenge Russian nationalism might later pose for them. Overestimating the rising strength of their country, Li Peng and like-minded leaders pressed for fast multipolarity with Russia as a key target, while Jiang Zemin led other leaders in pressuring Japan.

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In the states that loomed as potential impediments to U.S. domination, China kept finding reasons for optimism despite developments that were unfavorable. Expansion of EU community-building rather than Germany or another state asserting itself as a great power intent on becoming a pole did not fit China’s predictions. Also, the EU failed to express itself as a challenger to the United States on security matters, as NATO became the vehicle for the war with Serbia that bypassed the United Nations Security Council and most alarmed China. Even as Chinese theorized about the advantages of assertiveness, rising nationalism was treated ambivalently; neighboring states such as Japan, India, and Russia could turn against China as well as the United States. Russia’s economic failure to the end of the decade, Japan’s growing support for a stronger U.S. alliance, and the quick improvement of U.S.Indian relations following India’s nuclear tests defied predictions of how U.S. power would be constrained. In mid-1999 the need for a new strategy was clear.17 Chinese strategic thinking oversimplified nationalism and values in ways that left China unprepared for the environment that had evolved by 2000. Whether it was Japan’s nationalism rooted in historical militarism or Russian nationalism aroused by U.S. hostile moves, Chinese presented caricatures of national identity and how it operates. Negative assessments of Japanese and Indian intentions toward China, rooted in one-sided historical analysis, did not appreciate how they had recently been evolving and how their values operated against aggressive behavior.18 While Chinese writings were generally more accurate in predicting the recovery of Russia from its troubles and the revival of Soviet-type great power claims, they were premature in their expectations in the second half of the 1990s, leading to serious disappointment. Especially, the intensity of Russian media and elite suspicions of China in this period contradicted insistence that Russia should be focused on the serious threats from U.S. or NATO power and welcoming to China’s overtures. When Russian officials did express such sentiment, Chinese often took them at face value only to be disappointed. The three themes at the core of China’s view of values in international relations were: sovereignty, hegemony, and human rights. All are interlinked, as attacks on human rights violations undermine sovereignty and pave the way to increased hegemony. After blaming the United States for its offensive foreign policy on these matters, Chinese began to note growing U.S.-EU consensus on values and by 1999 new invocation of values in U.S-Japan relations.19 Responding to this frustrating outcome contradicting what China had been predicting, leaders at first lashed out

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more before stepping back in the second half of 1999 to reassess the situation. More confident than any time over the past two decades of public support for the regime and patriotism laced with anti-Americanism and historical antipathy toward Japan, China did not have to take the values threat seriously. Yet, it linked the issue to growing concern in the United States and Japan about a “China threat,” exhibiting no tendency to rethink arguments about the seriousness of a backlash. Conclusion From the depths of sinking relations with the United States and Japan to the peak of optimism over great power relations back to a plunge in confidence, the second half of the 1990s witnessed great volatility. On the whole, however, Chinese strategic thinking overestimated the prospects for shaping a multipolar great power order. Despite signs of growing concern over a “China threat,” it was assumed that China had become a magnet that could steer the region in a favorable direction. Russian leaders wooed it; Bill Clinton pursued strategic ties; Japanese leaders offered more ODA and met every setback in ties with renewed engagement; and in Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula, and Central Asia, China was positioning itself for a leadership role making use of some multilateralism. All of these advances offered hope that China’s rise could proceed on its own terms, causing other powers to accept its pathway to regional peace and stability without interference in its internal affairs and value preferences. Yet, this optimism overlooked different views of the power balance and threat potential in the region as well as the fragility of some of China’s assumptions on how regional development was unfolding in its favor. A leadership rooted in the shift in power after the Tiananmen crackdown was not pragmatic or foresighted enough to respond in a timely manner to changing conditions in the second half of the 1990s. While claiming that ideology no longer figured into foreign policy, China, arguably, remained under its sway. If this no longer was easily equated with the cold war struggle between socialism and capitalism, that did not mean that ideas did not spring from the same overall outlook on historical injustice, danger, and rivalry. More than in the prior period, the idea of multipolarity steered China strategically astray. By the middle of 1999 Chinese analysts had turned pessimistically to the finding that a good part of the twenty-first century would be U.S.-dominated. After the Asian financial crisis, the Kosovo War, and the jolting turn in great power relations, Chinese pointed to the

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“unfortunate,” “inescapable” conclusion that Washington would continue to set the rules. As in 1992 when accelerated reform and openness proved to be China’s best option, support for entry into the WTO and acceptance of globalization now became the focus of a forward-looking strategy, but with the caveat that this would not lead to any slackening of China’s effort to resist U.S. pressure for other “internationalization.” 20 At the end of the decade Chinese analysts recognized that new strategic thinking was needed. This meant working harder to improve ties with the United States and Japan. Yet, it was a tactical retreat not a fundamental rethinking of the premises on which past strategic thinking had been based. If multipolarity was not in sight, it did not mean that China should not continue to draw Russia closer in balancing against the United States. While Japan would clearly remain more concerned about China’s rise than equality with the United States, an engaging policy of “smile diplomacy” could relax its guard and prevent any consolidation of the alliance. A two-fold approach of cooperation mixed with competition and resistance to the United States would still be expected to pay dividends. Given widespread recognition that no strong partnership with the United States was possible and that Northeast Asia would continue to be buffeted by instability on the Korean peninsula and great power jockeying, China would keep various options open. After finding its strategic thinking at an impasse, China launched a full-scale debate in the second half of 1999. The primary focus was the United States, as experts considered whether it is for or against China’s rise. While there was no clear answer to this question, as there could not be without unimaginable specificity on the nature of that rise, the clear outcome was to reaffirm the importance of stable, forwardlooking ties. In the process, Chinese set their sights lower. U.S. hegemonism was not formidable, and it would harm China’s prospects to challenge it directly. China lacked partners and alone would only arouse warnings of a China threat if it did not proceed cautiously. When George W. Bush took office and the first months brought increased tension along with the likelihood that pressure would be applied against China if it actively challenged U.S. power, the conclusions of the 1999 review were reaffirmed. Indeed, after 9/11 they were taken even more seriously. In a matter of two years China had backtracked considerably from strategic thinking that had prevailed through most of the second half of the 1990s.

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CHAPTER 5

Chinese Strategic Thought 2001–09 New circumstances shaped China’s strategic options in the first decade of the new century. First, it undeniably rose in the ranks of world powers, firmly securing the second spot and gaining recognition as a serious challenger for advancing to the top spot. Second, it faced a world in which U.S. power was relatively diminished and distracted, shifting the balance from Chinese dependency to mutual dependency. Third, it had emerged as the centerpiece in Asian economic integration, thriving from a new division of labor that made it economically indispensable both for its neighbors and for the linkages leading to global markets. Finally, China acquired the image of a separate center of global politics and values, even if it disavowed the much-ballyhooed concept of the “Beijing consensus” and eschewed a return to cold war polarization centered on the divide between the “free world” and the socialist bloc. The challenge was no longer to manage weakness, but to calibrate the optimal balance between cautious deference that would allay concerns about a “China threat” and bold assertiveness to realize goals that had been postponed or were assumed to be achievable only when China had built up considerable national power. During this period China faced assertive foreign leaders with nationalist goals. Its strategic thinking had to respond to George W. Bush, whose orientation hardened after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, Vladimir Putin, who was f lush with rising oil and gas revenues, and Koizumi Junichiro, followed by Abe Shinzo, who found symbols of resistance to foreign pressure of benefit for achieving his domestic and foreign policy goals. China was concerned about each of these leaders, even as it saw new opportunity from their overreach to shape the external environment in all directions from its borders. As other states pursued regional reorganization, Chinese leaders found ways to win their cooperation in limited multilateralism, while seeking

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competitive advantage anew. After all, Bush, Putin, and Abe all decided that a better relationship with China was desirable in order to realize their priorities, opening new opportunities for it. China’s national prowess was growing rapidly, combining might, money, and mind power.1 The course set by Deng Xiaoping had proven effective in making China a formidable competitor for the United States. It was only natural that China should take a more active role in shaping the regional and international environment. Moreover, the tensions over how its growing assertiveness affected that environment might be traced not only to its strategic misjudgments but also to those of the United States, the global power intent on holding onto its inf luence, and Japan, the rival for regional power slow to accept China’s rise. The challenge in this book, however, is not to detail their strategic shortsightedness, but to concentrate on China’s thinking attentive to the options available given how other countries were responding. Even if we start with the understanding that in 2010 the world is on the brink of a major change in the post–World War II order that began its transition in 1989–91 and that China has reason to press its case against resistance that is likely to linger, there is need to take a critical look at how it has strategized about this. While China cooperated with the United States after 9/11 and relations improved, its analysis of U.S. foreign policy made clear that the goal was to limit U.S. hegemonism, which was being pursued more aggressively and with more military means. Chinese now claimed that their country respected the international order, contrary to U.S. unilateralism. Calculating that there would be no war between great powers, they highlighted the need to block U.S. efforts to forge a new hierarchical framework of great power relations and a world community that would cede moral superiority to it. Optimistically, they forecast that U.S. soft power would recede, the great power balance would shift away from it, moves to contain China in surrounding areas would lose traction, and China would gain vital room for strategic maneuvering even as it took care to convey a message of ever-growing common interests with the United States. As U.S. problems worsened, China would gain breathing space. 2 This was the outlook it took as the Bush era proceeded. The 16th Party Congress in 2002 provided an opportunity to systematize the views that had emerged in the major strategic reassessment of late 1999, the extended response to the Bush administration and the war on terror after 9/11, and the leadership transition from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. While confusion lingered over precisely what changes had

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ensued, some Chinese experts referred to them as the “new diplomatic logic.”3 On the whole, they represented a reaffirmation of the wisdom of lying low without directly challenging the supremacy of U.S. power while showing new realism in accepting more assertive Japanese policies and not counting heavily on close Sino-Russian relations. Yet, by the time of the 17th Party Congress in 2007 efforts to reinvigorate this logic confronted opposing currents: increased evidence of U.S. problems that exposed its vulnerability; the troubled legacy of Koizumi’s ties with China and other Northeast Asian countries that left the recovery of Sino-Japanese relations fragile; the assertive moves of Putin that put pressure on China to do the same; and, above all, China’s own growing self-confidence. On the surface, Hu championed a “harmonious world” and accepted the U.S. appeal for China to become a “responsible stakeholder,” but new insistence on what was necessary to avoid interference in China’s internal affairs or in response to crises revealed some hidden features in Hu’s assumptions about harmony and responsibility. Signs of a more assertive China increased in the Beijing Olympics year of 2008 and, even more so, in the shadow of the global financial meltdown that darkened the horizon from later that year. In the two years from late 2001 to late 2003 China’s cooperation with the United States reached an unprecedented level. It supported the U.S. war in Afghanistan, offering its counsel to Pakistan and its venue at the Shanghai APEC summit, with the benefit of uprooting the Uyghur terrorist bases. Then its opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq was muted in comparison to that of Russia and even some U.S. allies in Europe. In 2003 on several occasions it also acceded to U.S. requests to press North Korea to enter talks. When some observers overestimated the extent of China’s support for U.S. policy in light of some common interests, they often lost sight of its opposition to an integrated global political or security order and, even more, to sharp differences over values, marked by low respect for how the United States conducted its foreign policy and lingering concern about a conspiracy against China (or at least its communist leadership) that was not yet overcome even when Sino-U.S. relations were praised as better than ever. Given the high levels of mistrust toward any U.S. use of values (Clinton over human rights and George W. Bush over democratization), such conspiracy thinking was slow to dissipate. In 2003 optimists emphasized that China was concerned about U.S. encirclement and could be drawn closer in solving regional problems by a strong engagement policy. In contrast, pessimists warned that China is striving for sinocentrism and might agree on steps to allay fears of a

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China threat as a means to speed realization of that goal. Both proved correct. Sino-U.S. relations improved considerably over the next five years, lessening the chances of encirclement but also emboldening China to anticipate more opportunities for leadership, perhaps eventually leading to a China-centered region. As Chinese followed the debates about its rapid rise, they recognized the benefits in giving reassurances to the optimists even as they became more confident in ignoring pessimists. Debate intensified in 2003 over Japan and North Korea, the former drawing closer to the United States and the latter aggressively testing it. Writings showing a softening in China’s posture toward Japan did not elicit the desired response and it took three more years to settle on an engagement strategy toward Koizumi’s successor. Meanwhile, a hardening of China’s approach toward North Korea may have helped bring it to talks, but three years later the North’s bellicose behavior also confirmed that China had not found an approach it could sustain. As U.S.North Korean dialogue intensified from late 2006 and uncertainty arose over leadership succession after Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, China was reluctant to pressure the North in a sustained manner. Unlike its caution in 2003 when U.S. power appeared to be at its peak and relations with Russia were somewhat shaky, China was growing more confident. In light of the warnings from Japan, South Korea, and also the United States about tough responses to a North Korean longrange missile launch in April 2009, China joined Russia in voting for a Security Council presidential statement that infuriated the North and in enforcing certain sanctions, but its reluctance to do more may have given it room to capitalize on the North’s growing isolation to solidify its own indispensable role at the next stage. Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Pyongyang in October 2009 marking the sixtieth anniversary of ties strengthened bilateral economic integration at the very time other states sought renewed pressure in order to persuade Kim Jong-il to commit to denuclearization. Sino-U.S. relations improved substantially from 2001 to 2008, as Chinese leaders accepted U.S. overtures seen as promoting stability in Asia without interfering with the rapid rise of their country. In doing so, they accepted the constructive U.S. presence with awareness that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would keep diverting U.S. energies and lead to dependence on China to maintain stability further east in Asia. China found room to pursue its own notions of regional stability, calculating that multipolarity already existed and that each region had achieved stability through a balance of power that could endure. In

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Northeast Asia a determined North Korea helped to keep that balance; China worked with the United States to prevent war while denying some U.S. plans to pressure the North. In South Asia an increasingly anarchic Pakistan kept India in check; if Washington was intent on working with both states to reduce tensions, Beijing would lean to Pakistan and expect it to continue tying India down and limiting its capacity to project power. While not trusting U.S. intentions, Chinese found the accommodation between the two states a convenience for maintaining balance and even stability amidst multiple challenges. As in the past, China’s priority was fixed on the great powers— namely the United States, Russia, and Japan—and secondarily on surrounding countries—at the top of the list, the Korean peninsula. With the United States refocused on the southwestern corner of Asia and North Korea intent on playing its “nuclear card,” conditions were ripe for China to pursue a different balance of great powers in the region while intensifying its advance into Southeast Asia and South Asia as it waited for new opportunities in the shifting standoff between North Korea and the United States. If in 2007 an upbeat mood prevailed in the Six-Party Talks and in China’s relations with each of the great powers, a rising power dissatisfied with the status quo was weighing various options to flex its new muscle. While not seeking to spoil ties with Washington or Tokyo, Beijing edged toward a more assertive approach in 2008–09, jettisoning some of the caution that long prevailed. Sino-U.S. diplomatic ties expanded rapidly in the second Bush term. Beginning as early as 2002 and intensifying to 2008, Bush administration intolerance for Chen Shui-bian’s provocative moves toward Taiwan independence reduced mistrust. This robust diplomacy drew praise for calming tensions not only between countries expected to be the principal antagonists for global and, even earlier, regional leadership, but between China and Japan and China and India as well. The effect was to steer China away from challenging the existing world order to helping sustain it. By 2008 many glowingly assessed the transformation of China into a “responsible stakeholder” and advocate of a “harmonious world.” Yet, behind China’s cooperative tone was a steely reluctance to do more than to convey an attitude of wanting to be constructive on certain of their priorities. On North Korea and Myanmar, China made some efforts to break logjams that had shown signs of becoming frozen, but it only slightly relaxed its principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states and refused to cooperate to take tough measures many deemed essential. These countries were seen as serving China’s strategic objectives.

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In the second half of 2008 confusion reigned over China’s strategic options. Some argued that the end of U.S. hegemony was in sight, pointing to the global financial crisis and the sense of failure as the Bush administration drew to a close. Others focused on the spreading impact of the crisis on China’s economy, warning that the existing model of development could not be sustained and that the more mature U.S. system along with its revitalization under the newly elected president Barack Obama would be more resilient. After making the August Beijing Olympics a test of Chinese pride and acceptance on its own terms of the country’s climb into the top global ranks, leaders treated the outcome as a glorious success for nationalism and an overall failure for countries that had been tested for the respect shown in their response. In the aftermath, as the economic crisis and new tensions over North Korea tested China anew, divergent responses were being weighed. In 2008 China’s relations were better than they had been a few years earlier with the United States, Japan, Russia, and India. Its power and inf luence had grown rapidly. It had become more effective in using multilateralism, fostering a more benign image and becoming, in the eyes of many, an indispensable power. Yet, as in the case of Japan after decades of a successful “economic miracle” and realization of earlier goals, frustrations appeared to be mounting. We can point to various explanations. First, achieving short-term goals put added emphasis on turning to deeper objectives that raised expectations greatly. Second, success came with relative passivity, deferring to the United States in ways that built up pressure to switch to active diplomacy in pursuit of delayed aspirations. Third, with success demands on China to support U.S. policies were increasing, which exposed more clearly the gap in policy preferences. Fourth, the Chinese public responded to rising nationalism with more confidence and pressure from below for the leadership to be assertive. Beyond these evolving factors, there were also particular circumstances as the United States appeared weaker and more vulnerable. In the transition to the Obama administration amidst a global economic crisis and a newly belligerent North Korean foreign policy, U.S. options appeared to be narrowing as China’s clout was growing. The new strategic debate centered on whether China’s foreign policy should become more assertive. The United States was reeling from its overcommitment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush’s foreign policy as well as his domestic leadership was being repudiated at home, as they remained highly unpopular abroad. The balance of power between China with its booming economy and expanding international presence

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and the United States, widely seen as in decline, was shifting. Instead of reacting cautiously to the international outcry against its crackdown in Tibet, leaders went on the offensive, cushioning this before the Olympics with the semblance of talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives and later intensifying pressure on foreign leaders who dared to defy China. As the global financial crisis intensified in the final months of 2008 the U.S. image suffered a further blow as confidence grew that China was relatively immune to the ravages spreading elsewhere. Many Chinese officials and analysts had been urging the leadership for years, in response to both U.S. assertiveness and then U.S. failures, to put aside Deng’s legacy of passivity and develop an active foreign policy suitable to the world’s second power. It appeared that their message would be taken more seriously. In September 2009 back-to-back summits at the United Nations and the Pittsburgh G-20 meeting reshaped global institutions in a manner favorable to China. The role of the United Nations was reinvigorated, and the G-20 was eclipsing the G-7. In Shanghai in October, Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio breathed new vitality into the three-way summit with South Korea by championing the East Asian community in advance of the fall ASEAN
3 meeting. In November Obama stopped in China after the APEC summit, seeking closer cooperation. While welcoming these many overtures, China’s leaders left doubt over how hard they might press their advantage. China was positioned to secure a leadership position, but impatient aspirations could lead to divisive pursuit of more. From Multipolarity to the G-2? With Japan refocusing on the U.S. alliance and Russia generally following in China’s wake as the EU failed to become a strategic force, China increasingly found itself facing the United States on matters of global significance. At the beginning of the 2000s it was still wrestling with how to achieve multipolarity, but at decade’s end it was being tested on how seriously it took the new image of the G-2. While twenty states met at the G-20 to restructure the world’s financial architecture, it was China and the United States that drew the most attention, leading to the G-2 image. In advance of the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December 2009, most eyes were fixed on these two powers as well. Beijing never lost sight of the importance of great power relations. In the period from mid-2000 to mid-2001 it took satisfaction from the

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deepening of Sino-Russian ties after Putin’s initial hesitation. Opposition to U.S. military plans, especially Bush’s antiballistic missile stance, provided a clear focus in relations. Yet, after the low point in RussoU.S. relations in the spring of 1999, Moscow’s fear of becoming isolated from the West made it cautious. Anxiously, Beijing watched Putin pursue a new opportunity with Bush after 9/11 with prospects of an energy partnership that could extend to Japan and undermine Sino-Russian agreements and cooperation over U.S. bases in Central Asia that threatened the rationale for the SCO. In 2003, however, Chinese were growing confident again that Russian realism was intact. As in the case of China’s priority on its clashing interests with the United States over Taiwan, the Russians had reawakened to the U.S. threat, most immediately to their substantial interest in Iraq. As the U.S. bases in Central Asia aroused more concern in Russia and the North Korean nuclear crisis alerted Chinese and Russians to their common interests, triangular relations were returning to the pattern anticipated by China’s strategic thinkers.4 Yet, China’s approach was more subtle than in the 1990s, setting aside notions of multipolarity for increased leverage with both states. China faced a series of new challenges as first the United States, then Japan, and finally Russia grew more assertive in pressing great power claims. In 2001 to 2003 China responded to worrisome U.S. unilateralism and preemption, finding an arrangement that def lected the danger of containment and made U.S. leaders dependent on China. In 2003 to 2006 it reacted to Japan’s undisguised moves to become a political great power and even play a military role (plans for constitutional change, Yasukuni visits of the prime minister that boosted nationalism, more active Self-Defense Forces, firm independent responses to North Korea, etc.) by finally putting ties on a more solid footing through an unlikely accommodation with Abe Shinzo, which could be consolidated after his departure. In 2005 to 2008 the Russian challenge was different, since it was mainly directed against the United States. Yet, again, China concentrated on advancing bilateral ties, not supporting some Russian moves such as the annexation after a brief war in 2008 of enclaves split from Georgia but also finding common cause in objectives for the transformation of great power relations. In these situations China appeared reactive, striving for good bilateral relations, but that does not mean it did not have its own assertive inclinations, as seen more from 2008. Bush’s initial toughness to China as a “strategic competitor” followed by post–9/11 U.S. unilateralism tested China’s strategy toward great power relations. For a time it appeared as if China’s position was

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not favorable. It would just have to make the most of a situation where the world rallied behind the United States as it flexed its military power. Yet, it was not long before Chinese analysts saw advantages in the fact that U.S. attention had turned elsewhere and the U.S. need for China’s support had become greater both in the United Nations Security Council and in dealing with specific issues. With improved cooperation in response to Chen Shui-bian’s destabilizing moves in Taiwan and a shared understanding on how to manage, if not solve, the North Korean nuclear crisis, China did not have to face the intense pressure it had feared at the outset of Bush’s first term. In 2003 China intensified efforts to reassure Japan, gave unprecedented support to U.S. requests regarding North Korea, stressed the positive direction in Sino-U.S. ties, and offered reassurance about its own peaceful, long-term development. These cautious moves ref lected a level of concern not seen earlier or later. Given the U.S. buildup and attack against Iraq as well as its assertive rhetoric backed by military actions, the pressure on China can be appreciated. Yet, another factor worthy of our attention is China’s perception of U.S.-Japanese relations. A candid look at what the Chinese observed can be found in an early 2004 article, warning that Bush’s global strategy prioritized Japan in new ways and Koizumi was responsive to the U.S. view of China as a competitor and to using Japan to control China. In this upgraded alliance, Japan agreed to stress common values, adding an ideological element, and the United States supported Japan becoming a military great power, including revising its Constitution. Combining these two shifts, both of which had long been worrisome to China, was regarded as a strategy to contain the rise of China. Although the article implied that Japan desires increased independence from its stronger ally and the United States intends to control Japan—two old themes—the conclusion noted that the combined challenge to China would go forward.5 For roughly two years Chinese kept debating what changes were occurring in the Sino-U.S-Russian triangle. Had Moscow forsaken the Sino-Russian strategic partnership of 1996 and the essence of its advancement over the next five years? After 9/11 how far had it shifted to back the United States and NATO, ignoring earlier understandings with China? Did reports in Russia that more advanced weapons were being sold to India than to China as well as more joint production of weapons give further cause for concern? After all, whereas India was clearly not regarded as a possible future opponent, China was not necessarily seen the same way.6 Yet, the Iraq War helped China by awakening Putin to the danger from U.S. ambitions. One positive impact of

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the war from the Chinese perspective is that it refocused Russia on common interests in working to limit what was called U.S. hegemonism. By the end of 2003 Putin felt sure enough of Russia’s economic prospects to challenge oligarchs favored in the West and risk new foreign investment.7 As energy prices were rising rapidly and Sino-Russian economic ties were, at last, advancing well, Chinese could breath a sigh of relief. Having assumed that economic interests were the sole driving force of Russia to the West, they now saw a multitude of negative forces turning Russia away from the United States while revitalizing the old strategic triangle in which the Sino-Russian leg would, for some time, form the strongest security nexus. There were many reasons to doubt the strength of Sino-Russian ties, belittling them as nothing more than an “axis of convenience.”8 Throughout the period to 2009 distrust lingered over Central Asia, energy, unbalanced trade, and long-term intentions, but Putin found China indispensable for his great power ambitions and Hu Jintao kept China’s strategic priority for a strong partnership. Given intense Russian opposition to U.S. policies and Western values and China’s strategic reasoning about threats from both U.S. hard and soft power, this strategic partnership had become so solid by 2005 that it was in no danger from differences over Russia’s restricted arms sales or other problems.9 As long as Bush remained president, China had no problem maintaining better relations with these two powers than they had with each other. Even better, Bush and Putin both had reason to stress the positive state of relations with China, offering the most laudatory testimonies to China’s peaceful ascent even as less powerful states grew more nervous. After Putin visited China in December 2002 and Hu reciprocated in May 2003, ties were clearly stronger into 2004. There was more unity in support of multipolarity and the United Nations Security Council as if it brought “democratization” to international relations. Even if in the two pillars of the Russian economy—oil and arms production—Russia was showing hesitation despite China’s fervent interest in upgraded sales, trade was on an upsurge. Given Putin’s desire to diversify by developing industries aimed at exports to China, China’s reluctance to buy Russian industrial products while sweeping up natural resources could have been seen as a form of pressure in search of strategic tradeoffs.10 Yet, in the next two years Putin’s growing anger with Bush’s policies drove him more to Hu. Instead of concern that Putin was unbalancing the triangle by tilting to the West, the new concern was that he was pressing Hu to destabilize the triangle by opposing the United States aggressively but hesitating to strengthen bilateral ties for

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their own sake. China could distance itself from some of these excesses, while benefiting from the impact of Russia’s one-sided concentration on criticizing U.S. foreign policy. China’s Rise in Asia The balance kept shifting between great power and neighborhood relations in Chinese strategic thinking, although the former always had priority. In 2003 debates intensified on how to expand China’s inf luence in surrounding areas. Of these Northeast Asia took priority. Uncertainty prevailed about both North Korea as another nuclear crisis arose and Japan because of deteriorating bilateral ties and its growing support for U.S. military objectives. Neither gave China the respect it sought, and both focused on ties with the United States that raised concern about regional stability. Koizumi’s appeal to Putin to redirect the oil pipeline promised to Daqing in China instead to the Pacific coast was particularly galling, since it was seen as a blatant attempt to damage Sino-Russian relations.11 Japan’s overtures to India were also linked to U.S. designs to control the sea lanes supplying oil to China. One challenge for Beijing was to strengthen ties in each region not only to improve energy security but also to forestall other types of pressure. At times during this decade China feared that Japan was bent on containing it or, at least, denying it the fruits of its rise to regional leadership. When Koizumi took office shortly after Bush became the U.S. president, he seemed rather receptive to a regional alliance network, focused on the triangle with South Korea. After 9/11 he intensified military cooperation with the United States, and in 2003–04 deteriorating relations with North Korea suggested a more active approach to containing not only this threat but also China’s ascent to take charge of the Six-Party Talks and as the indispensable U.S. partner in the region. Yet, in 2003 in the midst of this readjustment, Chinese authors showed new interest in accommodating Japan. They wrote in support of accepting it as a “normal” country, of not letting history become an obstacle, and of “new thinking” that would boost strategic relations as well as cooperation in building regionalism.12 The main thrust, however, of Chinese analyses was to cast doubt on Japanese motives and intentions. By 2004–05 warnings about Japan had left the brief spurt of new thinking far behind. While most observers were distracted by the struggle over the Yasukuni Shrine and history, the emphasis in writings ref lecting strategic thinking was Japan’s closer ties to the United States. Japan was seen as losing its balance of United Nations, alliance, and

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Asian diplomacy for one-sided support for the alliance and a U.S.centered international order. Embracing U.S. values, it had lost its interest in multilateralism to address the North Korean nuclear crisis and in regionalism to forge an East Asian community.13 Its focus had turned instead to a security community excluding China and directed against China’s rise. Just as improved Sino-U.S. ties followed a more negative assessment of the hegemonic intentions of China’s foremost rival, upgraded ties with Japan were pursued on the basis of a sharply intensified concern about the direction in which it was heading. In the test of wills between Beijing and Tokyo of 2003–06 the stakes centered on what kind of Asia reorganization would be acceptable. Chinese blamed Japanese values, whether rooted in historical attitudes that demanded superiority or in recent stagnation that left people psychologically unprepared for another rising power. Without accepting any blame for China’s conduct, they put the entire burden on Japan to accept China as is, including its historical sensitivity that makes the prime minister’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine unacceptable. Another explanation for Japan’s attraction to the “China threat” theory was U.S. encouragement, as if it somehow welcomed these Yasukuni visits. Even as Japan’s largest companies were investing heavily in China after its entry into the WTO, the idea spread that Japan’s growing caution about regionalism was rooted in all sorts of factors except China’s own failure to offer reassurances about the type of rise it sought.14 Chinese leaders carefully maneuvered Japanese officials, beginning with Abe in 2006, away from the dead-end and “China threat” image of the Koizumi era, but despite four successive summits with everheightening claims to success, no breakthrough came on clashing perspectives over regional security and values.15 Fukuda Yasuo’s “Asianism” gave China a taste in 2007–08 of Japanese thinking less one-sidedly centered on U.S. ties, and in 2009 even as it kept relations moving forward with the more nationalist Aso Taro the prospect of the opposition DPJ gaining control of the Lower House no doubt whetted appetites for more balance in the Sino-U.S.-Japan triangle. With Hatoyama of the DPJ in power, Beijing had a new opportunity, but Tokyo’s sensitivity to any sign of sinocentrism put a premium on reassurances that China’s leaders were loathe to provide. Multilateralism became an important tool of Chinese strategy from the beginning of the decade. By 2003 China held the pivotal position in three organizations: the SCO, ASEAN
3, and the Six-Party Talks. In each case, it saw an opportunity to capitalize on the insecurities of states fearful of being marginalized, while simultaneously managing relations

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with great powers. By favoring a degree of regional coordination and integration, China could also pursue an improved balance of power. Another case of maneuvering for regional advantage appeared in South Asia, where the war in Afghanistan which heavily implicated Pakistan created a loose form of consultations under U.S. leadership that gave new importance to Sino-Pakistan relations. In this situation, as in the others, China gave a misleading account of the nature of the problem, while tempering its readiness to play a constructive role with designs to shape the outcome to favor a rise in its own influence. Increasingly, China awakened to the prospect of using its ever growing economic strength to steer relations with neighboring states in a strategically favorable direction. In Southeast Asia the opportunities appeared most favorable, and China’s energetic moves, such as promoting an ASEAN-China FTA, were widely watched. In Central Asia and South Asia the challenges were greater, but over the decade China made much progress. The SCO appeared at risk only months after its establishment, but Putin finally threw his weight behind it at the 2002 St. Petersburg summit and a year later even agreed to the establishment of a secretariat in Beijing. Efforts to coordinate military policy led to war games, notably in the naval exercise of 2005. After the color revolutions, including the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 China warned against the export of the Western model as a danger to Central Asia.16 The 2005 SCO meeting brought to a head Chinese and Russian anger over U.S. intrusiveness in the region, capitalizing on Uzbek alarm over criticisms of its human rights abuses and calling for an end to U.S. bases. Shortsightedness toward South Korea was ref lected in the notable deterioration in relations and in public opinion on both sides from 2004 to 2008. Insensitivity to values issues linked to history and signs of sinocentrism were troubling relations even before China found Lee Myung-bak’s priority for U.S. and Japanese relations unwelcome. As a middle power eager for China’s cooperation on regionalism and North Korean issues, South Korea provided a good test of the balance between reassurance to gain support for long-term development needs and regional stability and assertiveness to advance an agenda aimed at weakening the United States and its alliances. Allowing ties to South Korea to worsen without urgently seeking a turnabout reveals China’s priorities.17 The Six-Party Talks brought China and the United States closer in frequent and often intense consultations. They also raised suspicions in Japan, mostly focused on the United States, that its interests were not

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being ref lected. As long as the talks continued and no resolution of the nuclear issue occurred, China gained a strategic edge. Rather than pressure the North to abandon its nuclear weapons and missile programs to prove its intentions to other countries, China favored a U.S. security guarantee to the North and acceptance of it without demands for reform as the starting point for an agreement. It was convenient to blame the United States for all of the serous problems facing the world. This was the prevailing narrative for the North Korean nuclear crisis, even at the outset when Beijing cooperated with Washington to prod Pyongyang into talks. After all, Chinese argued that Kim Jong-il’s objective was just to draw the United States into negotiations, where he sought regime security and support for economic development. In this account, the North appears to be the status quo power and the United States the state that persists in trying to remake the world, including regime change in North Korea. With Bush in power, it was easier to argue that his hard-line policies were shaking the balanced Agreed Framework of 1994. Bush’s “axis of evil” charges were depicted as an attack on a social system (something that presumably could be redirected against China), an excuse to invade. In this context, Chinese in the first half of 2003 feared being drawn into what seemed to be a multilateral containment system formed by the United States for regional security, supplementing its alliances. While conveniently insisting that China does not want a nuclear North Korea, this argument misrepresented both North Korean aspirations and U.S. strategy while pretending that modest compromises would lead to a resolution.18 In 2000–04 Chinese hopes for regionalism were rising. After growing enthusiastic about the possibilities of ASEAN
3 at the beginning of the decade, China took comfort not only from the upsurge in ties with Southeast Asian states and ASEAN as a unit, but also from Koizumi’s early support and Kim Dae-jung’s energetic involvement in looking ahead toward an East Asian community. When the Oct. 2003 Bali meeting of ASEAN
3 occurred, Premier Wen Jiabao had a promising three-way summit with Koizumi and Roh Moo-hyun, where the goal of an FTA among the three Northeast Asian states was raised as a follow-up to the earlier Chinese proposal for an FTA with ASEAN.19 Clearly, there was optimism about the momentum for regional cooperation building on the WTO impact in support of economic globalization. Yet, already there was doubt that Koizumi was sincere about regionalism. Calling his interest half-hearted and noting his desire to bring Australia and New Zealand into the East Asian community,

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Chinese saw him as reluctant to alienate ASEAN, particularly its old members with which Japan has closer ties, but also cautious not to exclude the United States. Optimism about the three-way summit agreeing on a joint declaration was tempered by realization that Japan was inclined to thwart China’s strategy for regionalism. In the background there also was talk of India at last becoming a factor in East Asian cooperation long after it had adopted a “Look East” policy. While this meant that half of the world’s population had entered into the calculus of these meetings in Southeast Asia, the effect on regional balance was still uncertain. 20 India had long been excluded from Chinese calculations about the balance of great powers. It was treated as one of the neighboring countries, limited in its inf luence to South Asia, and a developing country, when that concept appeared as a strategic concern. Yet, in the late 1990s Russia’s desire to forge a triangle with India and China and then India’s nuclear tests gave China reason to take a fresh look. From 2000 as U.S. interest in India intensified and China followed by seeking better bilateral ties, the issue arose again. Of special concern was the possibility that India would join some sort of military group or values-oriented coalition organized to restrain China’s rise. While doubting that it soon would shift far from its autonomous outlook, Chinese grappled with the notion of a rising India and its potential to become a great power. Later in the decade China gave the appearance that it did not want to appear to be blocking India’s goal of becoming a permanent member of the Security Council or an active partner with ASEAN; however, it did not offer enough reassurance to India to change the ongoing balancing tendencies that disturbed China. In 2003–05 analysts saw the competition for India heating up. As Japan sharply reduced ODA to China while increasing the amount for India, it was seen as employing its principal diplomatic instrument on behalf of a scarcely disguised strategy to contain China. With India seen joining the United States in control over the maritime route from the Middle East to East Asia and becoming active in Southeast Asia to balance China’s rise, it was now recognized as the fifth great power maneuvering in the reorganization of Asia and one of the important actors in China’s extended neighborhood (da zhoubian). In failing to show respect for India, ignoring its fears and misrepresenting its motives, China exhibits inf lexibility in its strategic reasoning and worrisome signs of sinocentrism. When new tensions arose in the second half of 2009 in border areas, China’s denial of visas to holders of Indian passports from areas it disputed was a new sign of assertiveness.

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In each of the four regions of Asia, China positioned itself to be cooperative with the state responsible for the most difficulties in regional integration. While urging that state to be more forthcoming, it showed understanding for that state’s reticence. The most obvious example was North Korea, which became the focus in the search for a regional framework in Northeast Asia, but there were similarities with Pakistan’s role in South Asia. Also, in Southeast Asia, China’s special ties to Myanmar set limits on regionalism, and in Central Asia, China relied on Russia’s determination to limit U.S. inf luence and universal values as justification for the way regional ties were unfolding. In each case, the Chinese explanation for troubles in regionalism distorted reality. China was complicit in restraining institutionalization of regionalism in which security and values could bring states closer together, even as it championed some moves toward qualified regionalism. Although troubled at times by developments in North Korea, Pakistan, and Myanmar, China refused to abandon “old friends.” It might encourage them to make some reforms or cooperate more with United Nations Security Council resolutions, but they served the interests of China in multiple ways. With the United States newly engaged with Pakistan and North Korea but distracted by Iraq and failing to quell their threatening moves—in the former associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban regrouping and more aggressively undermining stability in Afghanistan, and in the latter tied to the production of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles with the potential to deliver them— China had greater leverage in two regions where the interests of four great powers intersected. In each case, no matter how diligently U.S. diplomats explained their limited aims, Chinese sources insisted that U.S. hegemonism was being tested. In North Korea, the United States really was opposed to reunification and bent on keeping troops in the South in order to maintain supremacy in the region and even to check China’s rise.21 Instead of resolving the crisis by meeting North Korea’s legitimate security concerns, it allegedly would not treat the North with equality and respect. U.S. overtures to India were likewise linked to plans in Afghanistan and Central Asia deemed potentially hostile to Pakistan and even China. With the United States losing trust under George W. Bush’s leadership, China saw itself as enjoying an opportunity to increase trust in it across Asia as well as in international society. With Japan becoming isolated in parts of East Asia and U.S. attention turning elsewhere, great power interference in areas surrounding China was receding. This gave China a chance to champion stability on its own terms, including on

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the Korean peninsula, which was its priority as others concentrated on the Middle East. 22 Yet, gains realized in the first half of the decade were not easy to convert into regional inf luence in the second half. Economically, the prospects for inf luence kept growing., but in boosting military power rapidly and grasping for new soft power pushing back against universal values, China gave pause to some who might have been swayed by it economic gains. Its rapid ascent to power in Asia carried with it the seeds of regional distrust. Reasoning Driving Foreign Relations In the 1990s the Chinese people rallied around an image of the nation denied the fruits of its rising stature. While Japan drew some of the blame for its treatment of history, the lion’s share of the criticism was directed against the United States for the way it was pressuring China, blocking China’s Olympic bid, and playing a negative role as Taiwan rejected steps aimed at reunification. Accusations of hegemonism and containment drew a receptive audience. Yet, as Sino-U.S. relations advanced relatively smoothly in the 2000s and Washington was credited with a constructive approach toward Taiwan, what image of U.S. power sustained Chinese nationalism? In this period we observe a message of growing confidence that Washington has had to recognize China’s rise in light of the gap between its strategic blunders and China’s strategic successes. At the same time, a more negative message appears that Washington is still intent on containment, requiring many strategic countermeasures that keep it at bay. Although the symbols of Chinese humiliation are less obvious, the negative picture of U.S. aggressive behavior around the world became more compelling during the George W. Bush era. Basically, the same type of negative images as earlier lent support to the strategic aims of the Chinese government. China drew praise for its pragmatism. It played a critical role in steering U.S.-North Korean relations toward dialogue. It reached a compromise with Russia on three islands, ending their territorial dispute by agreeing to moves reassuring to those focused on the security of Russia’s regional center of Khabarovsk. New thinking toward Japan was followed in 2006 by sustained engagement to lessen tensions, as Japan reciprocated by keeping its distance from Chen Shui-bian’s maneuvers. Unlike the situation in 2005 when China’s anti-secession law hinted at an early use of force and the U.S.-Japan 2
2 statement drew Japan deeper into the fray, a broader understanding was reached, in which China accepted Japan’s assurances. Improved relations with India, rapidly increased

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trade and cooperation with Vietnam, and agreements to manage disputes in Southeast Asia over the islands claimed by more than one country offered further evidence of Chinese pragmatism. Especially important in this pattern of cautious cooperation was the understanding reached over Taiwan, whereby attempts to press for de jure independence were countered more by the United States than China. If Chinese diplomacy was becoming more active, it was generally not seen as irresponsible or very assertive. In contrast to Russia’s increasingly aggressive moves to challenge U.S. power, China gained the reputation of a state satisfied with its rapid rise within that order. Hu improved and stabilized relations with the United States, planned upgraded ties with Japan and then overcame setbacks to orchestrate a forward-looking course from 2006, and presided over the greatest amelioration of tensions with Taiwan since the early 1990s. Meanwhile, he kept relations with Russia moving forward despite ups and downs owing to Putin’s own wavering embrace of China. Under Hu ideology played a reduced role in strategic thinking, as China generally took a patient, long-term approach. As China’s economic and political weight grew rapidly, he pursued a strategy of global scope, emphasizing resource acquisitions and market expansion. Yet, some tests were postponed and assertive behavior in 2008 in the midst of Olympic fever cast doubt on the Chinese obsession with sovereignty and its reluctance to play an active role even when a dangerous situation could undermine stability they sought. In 2009 North Korea’s hardball tactics created a tense atmosphere in Northeast Asia, while Pakistan’s anarchic environment left room for the Taliban and Al Qaeda to maintain a base for terror and disruption in South Asia. Responding to the new Obama administration’s priorities in these trouble spots as well as in Iran became a critical test of strategic thought at the same time as it was being challenged by the world financial crisis. Welcoming increased U.S. pragmatism, Beijing was still reluctant to join in multilateral pressure that corresponds to Obama’s appeals. China’s focus on competition that might boost its own power would be tested by a U.S. administration that welcomed it as a partner in bringing stability to Asia. From Jiang Zemin’s stress on stability to Hu Jintao’s on harmony, slogans linked domestic and international strategy. Thus, regional policies toward neighboring states bore the imprint of local initiatives to spur greater development while also reinforcing central control. In the first half of the 1990s Xinjiang appeared most vulnerable, leading to priority for efforts to develop the “West” as well as a new regional organization with Central Asia and Russia in the second half of the decade. In the late

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1990s Taiwan drew the most concern, continuing into the first years of the new century until Sino-U.S. relations found an accommodation even before a new Taiwan president stabilized the situation. From 2008 China’s attention shifted to Tibet. This put new strain on relations with India as well as with the United States and other countries concerned about human rights. Insisting that they were upholding sovereignty against “splittist” forces, Chinese officials refused to cede the values edge to supporters of the Dalai’s Lama’s appeal for cultural and religion rights. They argued that they were helping a populace only sixty years earlier freed from serfdom to develop and throw off cultural as well as economic backwardness as part of forging a harmonious society. This amorphous notion soon slid into Hu’s new slogan of a “harmonious world.” Respecting China’s views on each of these “internal” matters with foreign policy implications became part of the litmus test for whether a country was behaving in accord with Hu’s definition of “harmony.” The Beijing Olympics offered a test of China’s rise to world prominence. As in the prior Asian Olympics in Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988, there were undeniable nationalist overtones of an Asian state at last being crowned a member of the fraternity of world leaders after drawing attention for its “economic miracle” and growing influence. In the other two cases, the immediate goal was to win acceptance as a full-fledged member of the international community identified with the West. Japan was shedding its identity as a defeated power, while South Korea was celebrating its democratization. In contrast, China’s coming out party acquired the aura of a rising state ready to challenge the world order. With its audacious “sacred torch” parade encircling the globe, lavish opening ceremony, and facilities dazzling international viewers, and confident count of how many more medals its athletes were winning than those of other states, China sent a message that was far from reassuring. It portrayed Chinese culture as distinctive and superior and the Chinese state as capable of the most prodigious feats. In the background, treatment of ethnic minorities and daring petitioners left no doubt that China flagrantly challenges widely recognized universal rights values. Closer ties to the United States and an upbeat atmosphere with other great powers did not produce concessions on matters not only deemed important to sovereignty but also seen as relevant to building state power. China proved particularly resistant to improving human rights and making its military buildup transparent. Both were perceived as limiting sovereignty and slowing the speed of growth in national power centered on a strong and secretive state. As calls increased to control pollution and join in global efforts to slow climate change, China took some steps

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without showing willingness to sacrifice economic growth. Becoming the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide, it was essential to international agreement. Yet, the logic of great power competition easily outweighed that of global responsibility. One point of view was to acknowledge that no matter how much U.S. soft power may have been shaken under Bush, hard power—military, economic, and science and technology—is not diminished, and the U.S. position as the sole superpower will remain secure for a long time, say until the 2030s. Given China’s relative weakness and the danger that its rapid rise will provoke intensified criticism, it follows that China should keep a low profile. Yet, even those who advise caution advocate taking advantage of the global discontent about U.S. unilateralism, accepting the existing international order through cooperation on many existing problems while struggling against U.S. hegemony to speed the arrival of a different order with both bilateral arrangements and international mechanisms to manage the transition. China’s strategy is not to affirm U.S. leadership, but to set a long-term course that takes into account the greater complexity of the post–cold war era in minimizing the chance U.S. power could be used against its interests. In proceeding in this way, it risks letting problems, such as North Korea’s nuclear pursuit, fester and reversing a situation where cooperation outweighed competition in Asia. Conclusion In no previous decade has a great power risen as fast and far as China has in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Domestic conditions boosting national power are: leadership stability and generational transition, public support for strategic goals along with no more than scattered protests against authoritarian rule, and economic growth at a breakneck pace. International conditions favorable to national power include: a booming global economy until late 2008, U.S. preoccupation with distant military conflicts, other great powers failing to coordinate with the United States on strategic objectives or values, alarm about the proliferation of WMD that diverted attention from great power rivalries, and uncertainty about regional and global organizations as well as national identities. These ideal conditions for a rising power left a lot of room for making strategic mistakes that would not derail the overall trend of winning more support and reducing pressure. In this period China’s main tendency was to improve cooperation with each of the great powers and to strive for a degree of multilateralism

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in neighboring regions that gave encouragement to coordination with one or another power and to joint efforts among many states. This was a positive trend, and it brought considerable benefit to China and its image as a responsible power. Hu Jintao deserves credit for a more patient, consistent approach to relations in Asia. On the whole, strategic thinking was more successful than in any of the previous periods. Yet, thinking about each of the great powers was still not elevated to the level necessary for long-term trust, while multilateralism remained rooted in assumptions about sovereignty, noninterference, and narrow values that cast doubt on its prospects. Success in the decade of the 2000s had left only a shaky basis for the 2010s. Especially, the understanding reached over Taiwan and reinforced after the election of Ma Ying-jeou as president, which proved critical in reducing mistrust, could break down with dire consequences for ties with Japan as well as with the United States. China’s foreign policy has grown more active and more insistent on having its voice heard. This is visible in bilateral and multilateral settings. It is evident too in the Six-Party Talks, which China had embraced fully to the extent that it strongly resisted signs that it might be marginalized. In October 2007 when Roh Moo-hyun agreed with Kim Jong-il to pursue a peace regime through a “three-party or four-party summit,” this hint that China might be excluded drew a strong rebuke. Subsequently, when U.S.-North Korean talks intensified in search of a plan to complete phase 2 of the Joint Agreement, China again appeared nervous about being sidelined. Newfound activism is accompanied by a sense of entitlement. Casting aside earlier overmodesty in pretending to be only a “developing country,” China now expects to be treated as one of the top two great powers, perhaps second to the United States but entitled, at least in its neighborhood, to equality. This is understandable for a rapidly rising power, but the strategic thinking resistant to universal values and prone to exaggerate hegemonism points to an unduly assertive state. Just as Jiang Zemin’s emphasis on stability in the 1990s privileged the state after watching how the Soviet state had collapsed, Hu Jintao’s appeal for harmony centered on top-down orchestration of society with the state retaining dominance irrespective of the continued spread of a market economy and middle class society. Indeed, this notion of statedirected harmony called for further intervention into areas that might arouse discord. This drew both on lessons from reviews of the Soviet failure and on refinements in the theory of comprehensive national power, recognizing the need for local dynamism in economic matters but rejecting local and group identities that could limit state authority.

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No room was allowed for ethnic or religious autonomy or for NGOs responsive more to international organizations than to the Chinese government. Similar to 1995–96 when for the first time since 1978 China’s leaders felt secure enough to challenge the United States and Japan (apart from the emergency actions in 1989), in 2008–09 there was newfound confidence. If the earlier boldness was exposed by 1999–2000 as premature and led from mid-2001 to new overtures to work with the United States, then the boldness mounting in 2009 could also prove to be premature. Yet, the pent-up drive to break free of constraints would not be halted just by tactical retreats. While it may avoid the military aggression of some earlier rising powers, China could still take actions that would arouse concern about sinocentrism and regional insecurity contrary to the stated goal of peaceful development. At the root of uncertainty over how sustainable China’s strategic thinking would be was the strategic duality that prevailed over this decade. Writings on bilateral relations with the great powers grew increasingly positive, presenting pragmatic internationalism as China’s means to peaceful development. Yet, a parallel discourse on hegemonism and the threat from foreign values cast the world in darker colors, implying the need for more assertive moves. With its limited multilateralism toward Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Northeast Asia—each characterized by new regional organizations—China revealed its ambivalence over how much to accept real globalization or to fear a U.S.-led order. While the reality of cautious cooperation was indisputable for most of the decade, the motives for it remain uncertain as do the prospects of its continuation. If they centered on U.S. global aggressiveness and Japanese regional designs, then what would happen when the other leading players in Asia changed course? If the determining force was an assessment that China temporarily remained too weak to pose a strong challenge, what would happen as China’s comprehensive power kept growing and its rivals suddenly appeared weaker than before? If lack of confidence mattered, would the spreading nationalism among the Chinese public and especially the political elite provide the momentum for more assertive diplomacy? Finally, if the gains anticipated through caution did not materialize because of excessive aspirations and the limiting presence of great powers on all sides, would its leaders choose a change in strategy? These questions may have seemed to be matters for well into the future, but at decade’s end, they had new immediacy. Increasingly confident about its rapid rise, China stood at a crossroads where it might set the course for the next decade still clinging to outdated strategic thinking but now emboldened to be assertive.

PART II

Geography

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CHAPTER 6

Strategic Thought on Russia and Central Asia Russia matters more for China than for any other great power. Despite trade ties that have trailed those of a number of other partners of China, it has strategic significance beyond other Asian states, except Japan in the period of its aggression. In China’s view, Russia has stood in the forefront for about three centuries. It first succeeded in making its presence felt in the seventeenth century, signing the unprecedented Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 leading to the establishment of a border post for trade as well as the opening of Beijing’s first foreign mission and then posing a threat that prompted a race for territory in Central Asia. Well before the Opium War brought European infringements on China’s territory, Russia loomed as a security concern not by sea, as in the case of other emerging threats, but by land in the north, from whence Asian invaders from time immemorial had descended. Treaties stripping China of land, incursions into Central Asia, and spheres of inf luence reinforced by railroad construction and a new Russian city of Harbin, caused its presence to be strongly felt through the final decades of the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth. “Tsarist imperialist aggression” was often recalled during the time of the Sino-Soviet split and is still remembered as one of the worst “humiliations.” Yet, Russia also benefits from a positive strategic image as the country that stood with China against the United States in the 1950s and since the mid1990s has become its closest strategic partner in opposing U.S. hegemonism. Russian nuclear power, its geographical presence, and its historical worldview compound to give it an imposing place in Chinese thinking. In the twentieth century three things raised Russia’s profile far above that of other Asian states, apart from Japan in the years to 1945: 1) its

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long border with China in an age of railroads and easy transportation of armed forces along them; 2) its communist system, which was exported to China and left a lasting impact; and 3) its rise as a great power and even a superpower, convincing Chinese of its strategic salience with military might in the forefront. Border problems were rampant in the first half of the century and symbolized troubled relations in the second half. During the 1920s–1940s receptivity to Soviet ideology showed how strong the north wind could blow, culminating in the 1950s as communism bound the two states together and in the 1960s–1970s as it sundered them apart. Yet, power disparities increasingly mattered most, driving China to rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s and inf luencing its bilateral relations both negatively and positively over the following decades. When China in the 1990s and 2000s made positive relations with Russia a priority, it was attentive to stabilizing a long border and rekindling a shared sense of threat linked to the joint communist legacy, but it was driven, most of all, by assessments of Russia as a force of great significance in the emerging balance of power. Strategic thinking about the Soviet Union in the 1980s began with emotions that would take time to heal. Even after Mao’s death, a spurt of hostility toward “revisionism” and “social imperialism” became part of the ideological struggle intended to block reform in China. Instead of Deng’s rise in 1978 serving as the long-awaited opportunity for the two states to put their name-calling aside and seek confidence-building measures, the Soviet-authorized Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia followed a year later by the direct Soviet assault on Afghanistan made it almost immaterial that China ended the ideological struggle. With Leonid Brezhnev responding slowly to Deng’s reforms (in mid-1982 the favorite label of the establishment running Chinese affairs was “Maoism without Mao.”) Beijing continued to view Moscow as on the offensive, posing a greater threat than Washington. Against the background of widespread criticism for severing territory and threatening a preemptive war, these perceptions seemed to leave little room for strategic flexibility; however, Deng’s renewed great power reasoning soon changed this logic.1 Given Deng’s pragmatism that extended well beyond economics, reassessing relations with Moscow was not delayed for long. After all, Chinese leaders who had suffered from Mao’s ideological domestic programs (“twenty loss years” and chaos in the Cultural Revolution with devastating effects on their families and favorite institutions) had also been sidelined as Mao’s foreign policies broke precipitously with the

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Soviet Union and demonized it in ways that distorted the truth and undercut efforts to rebuild ties, at least to the extent of offering stability and balance to a weakened China. Three factors hastened this reassessment in 1981–82. First, China’s foreign strategy came to ref lect leadership decisions on where to draw the line against de-Maoization, foreign-inspired democratization, and global criticism of the historic landmarks of socialism. Whether these decisions were focused on regime stability or on an ideological rationale, they raised the value of cooperation with the Soviet Union instead of one-sided leaning to the United States and the West. Second, there was determination to make Washington pay a price for Ronald Reagan’s initial intention of building on the momentum of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and shifting the balance of U.S. policy away from what Richard Nixon in 1971–72 and Jimmy Carter in 1978–79 had led China to believe. If Deng lost Mao’s ideological mantle, he had no intention of losing his nationalist mantle. Third, Soviet leaders were not so inept as to lose sight in the midst of their deep isolation in Asia of the advantages of making an effort to heal the breach with China. Against the resistance of some leading figures, many in the foreign ministry and academia argued the value of revived negotiations to improve bilateral relations. While Deng intended to exact a price for normalization, he was also keen on reconfiguring the strategic triangle. Russia figured first of all as a force inf luencing the security and legitimacy of the Chinese state and leadership, next in strategic thinking about the global balance of power, and finally as a factor in China’s reemergence as a leader in Asia. The first theme lost some importance over time, but it remained salient as China kept demonizing Gorbachev. The second retained its resilience as China’s preoccupation with antihegemonism did not fade. The third shifted from fear of Soviet containment in surrounding regions to a more limited question of how Beijing and Moscow could coexist in Central Asia. Apart from the United States, no country had such wide-ranging significance, although with respect to China’s rise to regional leadership Japan was also taken seriously from the 1990s. The Deng Xiaoping Era The 12th Party Congress of 1982 set a foreign policy direction toward Moscow that took at least a decade to realize. It came on the heels of a shift in thinking about the Soviet Union associated with the start of normalization talks, which Leonid Brezhnev publicly approved before

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his death, and with China’s use of the term “equidistance” as a strikingly new concept for the triangle involving the two superpowers. A direction was set for the next seven years until Gorbachev’s May 1989 visit accomplished some of the goals that had been established. Yet, even after that visit relations were handicapped by the sharp discrepancy between China’s isolation after its brutal crackdown on June 4, 1989, and Gorbachev and later Boris Yeltsin’s eager pursuit of the United States and the West. Only Yeltsin’s visit to Beijing in December 1992 in the midst of a reassessment of his Atlanticist foreign policy served as a turning point that opened the way to new strategic thinking toward Moscow in the period of Jiang Zemin’s ascendency. The slowness of the process of normalization and unforeseen events over this interval raise questions about the adequacy of China’s strategic thinking. By insisting on resolution of the “three fundamental obstacles” of Soviet military buildup to the north, Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and Soviet support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, Deng Xiaoping may have set the bar too high. He must have realized that he had when by 1985 only the last of these obstacles was deemed essential. Perhaps, the sense that the Chinese were demanding too much had an effect on the decision in 1986–89 to concentrate on improving relations with the United States while Gorbachev treated China as a secondary priority. Clearly, China’s leaders were disturbed by his glasnost, which undermined their legitimacy as well as that of communist leadership in Moscow, and also by his “new thinking,” which ignored their basic tenets of strategic balancing. Their distaste for Gorbachev and their narrow thinking that followed China’s reverse course in June 1989 was responsible for the slow adjustment to the end of the cold war and the waning days of communist power in Moscow. Soviet leadership f lux in 1982–85 (four party secretaries in succession) and the strong hold of those who for twenty years had led the demonization of China and blocked the rise of any advocate of compromise made a Chinese initiative difficult at first, and alarm at Gorbachev’s ways complicated any readjustment. Yet, in 1982–86 before concern mounted of U.S.Soviet reconciliation, 1986–89 when ambivalence centered on Gorbachev, and 1989–92 when both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were blamed, other options were available to China’s leaders than the ones they chose, giving reason to second-guess whether the results could have been different. In the period 1982–86 emphasis on “peace and development” made improved ties to the United States and Japan paramount. Nurturing economic reform put a premium on challenging ever more of the tenets

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of the traditional socialist system; even direct blame against collective farms took time to acknowledge despite the “household responsibility system” replacing it by the early 1980s. Yet, while Ronald Reagan was reasserting the U.S. priority on China and Nakasone Yasuhiro was focusing on personal relations with Hu Yaobang, China did not show much urgency in its Soviet ties. Even when Gorbachev took office with prospects of introducing more vigorous leadership, China seemed to be waiting for him first to address the fundamental obstacles. The visit of Ivan Arkhipov to China reconnected old partners in economic assistance projects, but for good reason at the end of 1984 China was not inclined to hitch its fragile industrial sector to the aging Soviet locomotive. Positive views of Iury Andropov’s interest in “socialist reform” and then Gorbachev’s early inclinations to address problems common to traditional socialism did not translate into any plan for realizing equidistance in the strategic triangle. In these early years of Deng’s reforms the problem of insufficient Soviet support for border stability and economic development outweighed the benefit of renewed impact through the strategic triangle and reform along lines favorable to Chinese cooperation. It was unlikely that Soviet leaders would recognize the importance of a breakthrough since their censors continued to block coverage of the achievements of China’s reforms and the possibilities of cooperating by integrating with the world economy and accepting a much less polarized international order. It is hard to fault Chinese leaders for not anticipating just how far and fast the Soviet Union would fall; so their emphasis on waiting for more tangible signs of change appeared reasonable. Yet, given China’s responsibility for the outbreak of the split in 1958–60 and its anguish over the collapse in 1989 of international communism and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, it is reasonable to ask if leaders intent on bolstering socialism and gaining more leverage in the world order may not have erred in not proceeding more vigorously to shore up relations, even as they took care to reassure their capitalist partners sufficiently with their succession of economic reforms. Strategic shortsightedness was, arguably, more pronounced in 1986–89. If the Soviet leadership retained its ideological blinders in the first half of the decade without recognizing the opportunity presented by China, the same may be said of China’s leaders in responding to the Gorbachev era. On the one hand, the most avid reformers led by Zhao Ziyang kept their eyes fixed on the West as they pressed to accelerate reform. On the other, Zhao’s conservative critics did not take long before they grew suspicious about Gorbachev, especially his glasnost

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tolerance of criticisms of the history of socialism and his “new thinking” openness to reconciliation with the West and acceptance of its values. In the face of this ideological split, there was no prospect of whole-hearted courting of the Soviet leader. Instead of recognizing that Gorbachev would be inclined, before long, to satisfy demands related to the three obstacles and accelerating appeals to him to put normalization with their country first, China’s leaders warily watched his moves with the United States. In 1989 they achieved their immediate aims, including an understanding on demarcation of the border with only three small islands set aside for later, but they did not achieve anything like equidistance. Lingering ideological concern about how a Soviet leader was dealing with sensitive socialist themes was one factor that slowed any sense of urgency about how China might counteract the U.S. advantage in triangular rebalancing. 2 Deng’s final years of active, although intermittent leadership, found him on the defensive after launching a June 4, 1989 crackdown against demonstrators. He became more reliant on conservative party leaders. Given the negative image of China in global society, Gorbachev in the midst of an intense struggle with conservative opponents and eager to win increased support in the West, especially for an economy in free fall, had good reason to keep his distance. China managed to capitalize on Soviet economic needs to arrange arms purchases and to open the border to growing trade, but bilateral ties did not build on the momentum of Gorbachev’s May 1989 visit. Chinese criticisms of the Soviet leader intensified, and Yeltsin fared even worse as his increasingly serious rival for power. Perhaps, Gorbachev had already committed himself too deeply to the West and only it could meet his huge, surging demands for financial assistance, but it was the ideological bent in China that made it an international pariah and kept it from positioning itself for a partnership in reform. Indeed, as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lost its monopoly on power, China increasingly made common cause with Soviet opponents of reform. When they launched a coup in August 1991, it was widely assumed that China was supportive, and then disappointed that the coup had failed.3 This apparent strategic mistake helped to worsen bilateral relations over the next year, as Yeltsin took power. Experts on the Soviet Union emerged from exile or hibernation in the first half of the 1980s to find opportunities for daring reinterpretations of Soviet socialist history but were denied a chance to make the case for accelerated normalization of relations.4 Apart from setting down as prerequisites the three principles that Moscow had to satisfy,

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Deng waited for the Soviet leaders to act without energetic diplomacy well-informed about the latest developments or capable of evaluating them without an ideological lens. As the debate about socialism eclipsed that about great powers, China lost time to change course. Reviewing the entire Deng era, we find evidence for strategic foresightedness as well as for repeated miscalculations. Compared to Japan’s insistence on capitulation on the territorial dispute as the entrance fee to normal relations, China greatly reduced its territorial demands and reached an agreement that removed this sensitive issue from the next stages of bilateral negotiations. Deng’s pragmatism left a more positive foundation for boosting ties with Moscow once the overall setting was favorable. Deng also stripped ideology of any claims on foreign policy calculations; even if it retained a role, the fact that this was denied made it easier in the Yeltsin era to advance ties without regard to the image projected of Russia’s leader and to the prevailing Atlanticism in his early policies. Deng put the bitterness of the Sino-Soviet dispute behind his country, and in 1991–92 he played a critical role in toning down onesided rhetoric about why the Soviet Union had collapsed and facing the newly established Russian Federation with patience; thus paving the way for Yeltsin to expect a positive response from a shift to multisided diplomacy. Beijing perceived Moscow at three levels: domestic (comparative socialism), international (great power politics), and bilateral. It wanted Moscow to adopt a reform type of socialism without undermining the system, to play a less unilateral and assertive version of great power politics than Brezhnev had chosen without providing an opening for Washington to gain global hegemony, and, also important, to solve bilateral problems after a truce began on ideological name-calling. In fact, bilateral cooperation—respectful diplomacy, normalization, mutual border concessions, confidence-building measures, cross-border trade, and even arms sales—was achieved without great effort. It was not only the domestic side that proved catastrophic, threatening the legitimacy of Chinese Communist Party rule, but also the international level. Yet, China’s successful economic reforms diminished concern about spillover from the collapse of communism, while the geopolitical impact of the Soviet Union’s collapse became China’s preoccupation. The First Jiang Zemin Period Just as history always hovers in the background in strategizing about Japan, it is inescapable in strategizing about Russia. For a quarter

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century from 1956 to 1981 realist considerations were superseded by ideological ones, leading to the demonization of the Soviet Union as revisionist and, eventually, to approaching the United States and Japan from weakness to the point that in the first half of the 1980s they took China for granted in changing their stance on Taiwan and historical revisionism respectively. Moscow paid an even greater price for abandoning realism, continuing to do so well into the 1990s. It follows that the two states should together adopt a realist course in opposing U.S. moves toward global or regional hegemony, even as they strive to minimize signs of their own rivalry as secondary matters that they at last have come to appreciate how to manage. Chinese strategic thinking toward Russia faced a crossroads in 1991–92. Having shifted increasingly to opposition to Gorbachev and then support for the coup against him, Chinese were at an impasse as Yeltsin consolidated power. Internal debate revealed a split between those who favored bringing this reaction into the open and others who took the position that China was becoming too ideological to the point of harming relations. In agreement that China should stabilize its northern border and turn its attention further to the south and east, many analysts contrasted this type of sober acceptance of reality with the ideological thinking in Russia that was damaging its national interests. As relations stalled for about one-half year after the failed coup, China concentrated on a few critical objectives. It sought continuity in policies toward Taiwan, military rollbacks in Mongolia, arms sales arranged in 1990, ratification of the border demarcation realized in 1989, and expanded economic ties. By March 1992 when Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev visited Beijing, the goal was to refocus Russian attention on common interests. Before long, it expanded to securing recognition of China’s great power status by Yeltsin. Beijing kept making the case that Moscow needs Beijing since Washington and Tokyo will not assist Moscow to maintain a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Only China’s insistence on equal relations, noninterference in each other’s affairs, and mutual respect would serve Russia’s needs.5 Patience and a consistent message proved to be the antidote to troubled relations. In 1991–93 China had rushed to use newly opening borders and inexperienced local administrations poorly managed by Moscow for maximal economic integration. At the provincial level in Heilongjiang before Beijing awakened to the negative impact across the border feverish plans were set, while in Jilin hopes for a new international portcity at Tumen giving this province access to the sea alarmed Russians.

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As problems arose in 1993–94 over cross-border economic ties and demagogues charged China with many outrages capable of setting back bilateral relations, Chinese responded calmly with specific arrangements to resolve the most serious issues, as they approached the larger question of Russia’s role in the global balance of power strategically.6 Only at the start of 1994 after Russia closed the door to this frenzy did strategic thinkers reassess the situation and take a cautious approach that led to well controlled borders and strong reassurances with an emphasis on trust between leaders.7 The earlier strategy fell short due to insufficient coordination between Beijing and the little reformed Northeast provinces, overestimation of the Russian economy’s potential and underestimation of Russia’s political sensitivities, and a lens on bilateral problems distorted by socialist assumptions at a time when theory was not able to emerge from the shadow of China’s tightened censorship of 1989 and its hostility to alternative thinking about the collapse of the communist bloc and the Soviet Union. Soon Chinese discovered that the Russian economy was too criminalized to be controlled, the people in the Russian Far East lacked entrepreneurial and technical skills that would have been expected from the forerunner in socialism, and multiple interests working at cross purposes in bilateral relations required an entirely new strategy. China’s response to the crisis of 1989–92 was at times alarmist, but eventually grew calmer under Deng’s steady hand. When concerns peaked at the start of 1992 it had four primary concerns in mind: 1) a Central Asian impact on Xinjiang province, arousing separatism and Islamic fervor; 2) a Russo-U.S. alliance, deepening China’s isolation; 3) spillover from Russia’s domestic shakeup to China, undercutting regime legitimacy; and 4) a Russo-Japanese breakthrough both weakening China before Japan and giving Japan a strong role in the Russian Far East. It was not long, however, before Chinese had found reassurance on all of these matters. By 1994 Russia was becoming reliant on China, not Japan, in Asia, 8 while Central Asian states were cooperating to control separatism, U.S.-Russian ties were only superficially close, and Russo-Japanese relations were troubled. China’s pursuit of Yeltsin had brought border demarcation, arms purchases, and, before long, the language of mutual great power respect and opposition to hegemonism. The turnabout emboldened Chinese predictions of multipolarity, leading to excessive optimism about how great power relations would soon be transformed with Sino-Russian ties in the lead. When Yeltsin agreed to strengthen relations, Chinese optimism rose.

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In each phase of relations with Moscow over a quarter century from the time that normalization talks began in 1982 Beijing achieved some of its aims but not others. To 1989 the focus centered on achieving normalization: an end to the Sino-Soviet split, removal of military threats on China’s borders, agreement to resolve the border dispute even if details of demarcation would remain, resumption of cross-border ties led by economic dealings, and realization of balanced great power relations with a return to the strategic triangle involving the United States. In spite of success on most dimensions, failure to shape great power relations favorably left a bitter aftertaste. In the next phase China’s objectives were lowered after a troubled start from June 1989 to December 1991. Preventing Russia’s inclusion in a coalition to contain China or to undermine its unity through policies favorable to Taiwan or Xinjiang independence became the first priorities. In pursuit of good neighborly ties of friendship leaders concentrated on finding common ground for cooperation, China succeeded in realizing some of its goals, but it was necessary to be deferential: retracting visa-free agreements and trade initiatives in response to a backlash in the Russian Far East, reassuring Russian leaders as charges of Chinese plots were leveled by demagogic governors, and restraining ties with the states of Central Asia in order not to alarm Russians who saw this area as their sphere of influence. Given these limitations, bilateral ties were handled with restraint.9 This continued in the mid-1990s as increasingly Russia showed that it was at least as eager as China to forge much closer strategic ties. The Second Jiang Zemin Period Through the 1990s China maintained a zero-sum approach to its favored strategic triangle. The more negative Russian views of the United States, the more positive they are for China. Publications and, doubtlessly, meetings with Russians generally put the most negative spin possible on U.S. motives and policies toward Russia. Given the firm understanding that Russians are deeply suspicious of both the United States and China, it followed that if their concerns were heightened toward the former the latter would be spared. This logic held despite awareness that Russian nationalism and assertiveness can extend to China as well. The mainstream view remained that joint resistance against U.S. assertiveness—militarily, diplomatically, and culturally— would persist indefinitely. The crowning success of the second half of the 1990s was the upgrading in Sino-Russian relations from the time a strategic partnership was

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declared in April 1996. This achievement was taken so seriously that it became the lynchpin of rising optimism about multipolarity and an emerging balance of power. The Chinese were emboldened by the joint plans announced at summits with Boris Yeltsin and the strategic arguments raised by Foreign Minister Evgeny Primakov. While some Russian politicians and officials continued to warn against the danger of becoming dependent on a rising China, Chinese analysts were convinced that Russians would be persuaded by the same geopolitical logic as they accepted. They were persuaded that they had found fellow realists, overlooking the fact that economic interests continued to bind Russia to the West in the 1990s. Aware that political rhetoric was more positive than political accomplishment and that economic and cultural ties trailed far behind, Chinese endeavored to put bilateral ties on a more solid footing. In the late 1990s this mainly contributed to more rhetoric as the many joint commissions were slow to produce results to boost trade and investment and to overcome the demagogic language of some governors in the Russian Far East. Yet, Foreign Minister and later Prime Minister Primakov strongly supported multipolarity, and prospects seemed to be advancing for China to realize its balance-of-power goals. Confidence in Russia in 1999–2000 f luctuated wildly. For much of the year in the midst of Chinese anger at U.S. foreign policy, China’s leaders anticipated much closer ties with a Russia even more upset. Bilateral relations were so close for a time in 1999 that both sides weighed using the label “alliance” to suggest where they were heading.10 At stake was not only the U.S. resort to force outside the rubric of the Security Council, but the idea that this could be done on the basis of values and in support of separatism within what was recognized as a sovereign state. Later in the year Chinese rued Yeltsin’s decision to accept the outcome of the Kosovo War, losing confidence in him. The first period of Putin’s leadership produced further confusion, as he did not give priority to China and made ambiguous statement about his intentions toward the United States and the West. China’s leadership showed patience as it continued to appeal to Russia to draw closer. The Hu Jintao Era For most of a year after 9/11, Chinese sources pondered how close Putin was drawing to the United States. They revealed suspicions about the way he had overlooked China even earlier when he succeeded Yeltsin and frustration that he was not consulting closely, in accord with the

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promises the two countries had made to each other. They tried to explain why Putin had decided to move in this direction and whether he would persist. After some uncertainty, Chinese leaders decided that long-term contradictions between Russia and the United States would work against this rapprochement. Already in the next months Chinese assessed that Bush’s policies had cooled relations and that Putin was not ready to accept the marginalization for Russia that Bush had in mind. Moreover, they had reason to conclude that the foundation for SinoRussian relations remained quite good.11 In short, there would be no major change in these important triangular relations, although prePutin signs of Sino-Russian relations advancing rapidly also did not seem likely. Much Chinese strategic analysis simplistically assumed U.S. bad intentions and the only logical response of other powers, especially China and Russia, to band together in opposition. Values figured into the analysis only insofar as they referred to American hegemonic attitudes, a legacy of the cold war but presumably also of imperialism. When Chinese wondered in 2002 what would become of their vaunted partnership with Russia now that Russo-U.S. relations had drawn closer, the formulaic answer was that Russia will not stand for becoming subordinate to the United States while the latter will ignore Russian interests because it is unwilling to pursue equal relations. China’s strategy then becomes a matter of seizing upon the differences between the two, such as the intrusive U.S. entry into Central Asia after 9/11, to achieve a more normal great power triangle of the two weaker powers collaborate in opposition to the strongest power.12 Many have noted that Russia over the twenty years since normalization has been unreliable, suspicious, and a difficult partner for China. It has not been hard to stress what is missing in this relationship. Yet, China’s greater strategic consistency has born fruit, as political ties kept improving, economic ties rose rapidly over a decade from 1999 to 2008, and public opinion on both sides improved. Predictions that this will not last have long been heard, mostly arguing that a growing imbalance of power will lead China to marginalize Russia, not taking its interests into account.13 Yet, this not only may not give full credit to the clash of Russian interests with the United States and EU that keeps it playing the “China card,” but, even more importantly, underestimates China’s patient courtship of Russia and its continued need for Russia in a more contentious struggle with the United States than China’s recent rhetoric suggests.14 When differences with Russia arose, China kept the big picture in mind and tried to avoid direct confrontation. It handled criticisms of

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Russia gingerly. When in August 2008 Russia seized the occasion of conf lict over Northern Ossetia to launch a punishing incursion into Georgia and then recognized this territory and Abkhazia, Georgia’s other breakaway area, as independent states, China kept a low profile, refusing to endorse this at the SCO meeting that month. After all, it might be seen as a precedent for Taiwan’s independence or for Russian intervention that threatened the sovereignty of one of the Central Asian states. Chinese likely recalled old images of Soviet hegemonism, lacking regard for strict notions of sovereignty that appealed to them. Even as they adamantly defended their own economic and political interests when put on the line and quietly resisted if less was at stake, Chinese showed some deference on behalf of good relations. In reviewing their environment on all sides Chinese report that the north is stable and the west is improved with the SCO serving the goals of peace and security while the rising role of nontraditional security centered on energy is being addressed there. Pursuit of a “harmonious world” has begun with China’s neighbors, as seen at the start of 2007.15 Warning of tension in the east, starting with the North Korean nuclear crisis, and noting that over thirty years security problems had shifted to China’s south, analysts seek to apply the lessons learned in dealings with the states of the former Soviet Union. They no doubt include patience, removal of values from diplomacy, and incentives to buy cooperation. In some studies of international relations, Russia is grouped with China in the competition with the United States. For instance, when the United States is credited with thirty-eight allies China is listed as having on its side only six, Russia and states in Central Asia, while in the UN Security Council permanent five it is three on one side and China and Russia on the other.16 In the battle ahead for soft power between two systems, the lines are apparently drawn. For a long time Chinese insisted that strengthening Sino-Russian relations had nothing to do with ideology. Rather, they serve common interests, economic ones and, notably, strategic ones. Yet, increasingly under Putin, China recognized that ideological ties had revived, in contrast to the ideological divide with the United States and the nationalism preventing common consciousness of Sino-Japanese interests.17 In noticing this, they indicated that the U.S. position was weakened and could be countered more boldly. Also, some Chinese were appealing to Russia to trust their country more, whether in energy coordination, overall economic integration, or arms sales. Since China sees no military threat from Russia, it is unreasonable for Russians to imagine an

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economic threat from China. It should recognize the validity of Chinese claims of tremendous economic complementarity with the possibility of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that would realize the growth potential of Siberia and the Russian Far East while boosting Northeast China. In this appeal, Chinese implicitly contrast globalization in which Russia would open to the West and Japan to market opening to their own country, aware that small and medium enterprises are blocked from penetrating the Russian market and in the main areas for large firms— energy and natural resources—China’s firms are also kept out. Since at least 1994 China had pressed for more economic integration, and in the frenzied international environment of high oil and raw material prices this goal was even more important. Central Asia Although Chinese and Russian interests clash in Central Asia, China restrains its aspirations and defers on matters critical to Russia. Taking this approach, it made strong inroads in gaining energy resources and boosting economic ties, at times when Russia was less nervous about these moves. It is confident that the SCO will continue to prove useful and that no serious trouble will erupt over Central Asia since this is a secondary interest only. Sino-Russian relations are a much higher priority, and boosting bilateral energy cooperation reduces the chance that Central Asian energy will prove divisive. Yet, energy competition did arise and differences over the functions of the SCO, indicative of opposing views about China’s role in this region, are a trouble spot in bilateral relations. The SCO serves different purposes for China and Russia, and these changed over time. China’s first objective was to secure Xinjiang province from the spread of Muslim fundamentalism and potential separatism. Its second was to manage relations with Russia in a potential arena of competition and conf lict. Third, it sought economic benefits for the backward western parts of the country, whose development became a priority by the late 1990s. Increasingly, a fourth goal moved to the top of the list: to secure stable, secure sources of energy for a booming economy. While China shared Russia’s growing interest in preventing Western inf luence from spreading, if not expelling the United States from the region, and organizing joint military drills that suggested the rise of an organization to counter NATO, it hesitated to be used for this divisive purpose when ties with the United States were improving. It preferred to achieve similar objectives in a quieter fashion.

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Chinese analysts treat the period from 1996 to 2001 as a new phase in relations, marked from 1997 by improved Central Asian ties, notably with Kazakhstan, and the founding of the Shanghai-5 after the SinoRussian partnership alleviated suspicions to allow for a new framework. New objectives ref lected improved economic conditions in Central Asia: to assist the development of China’s West and diversify energy imports. Yet, concern about Taliban support for separatism drove leaders to prioritize security. In doing so, they acted in concert with Russia and Central Asia’s autocrats in denying any basis for interference in internal affairs on the basis of human rights. Gingerly, China and Russia looked for common ground in Central Asia to prove that their rhetoric of strategic partnership contributes to new cooperation where the potential for competition was rife. Meanwhile, China played its investment card in the region, gradually gaining leverage.18 In 2001 a new phase of strategic thinking toward Central Asia took shape. It was made possible by increased Russian assertiveness in the face of Western inroads into the states of Central Asia, although its backing for the U.S. attack on Afghanistan using new bases in Central Asia made China nervous for a time. The new SCO, where Uzbekistan solicited China’s involvement to balance Russia and the United States, increased China’s options. If for a time after the war against terror began Central Asian states took pleasure in the U.S. role in crushing their Taliban problem despite China’s concern about limited military and political ties in the region, a big opportunity for China soon arose. Both SCO and bilateral ties expanded. In 2003 China’s unrealized economic aims got a boost, and a $900 million program in loans followed to seize the opportunity. Then a backlash against the U.S. “color revolution” strategy further strengthened Sino-Russian ties and lowered the guard of regional dictators, to China.19 With expanding energy ties and trade as well as shared ideology versus the West, China takes satisfaction in its Central Asian inroads. Chinese note changes in Russian policies toward the SCO, as early wariness gave way to a more positive attitude, but they recognize that Russian reservations continue to be serious. Its words of support have exceeded its deeds, leading it to sign documents as it makes sure that they are little more than empty words. Agreement to deal with security matters is more acceptable than for economic cooperation, but it endorses mainly security focused on terrorism, “splittism,” and extremism while striving to prevent China from using the SCO to assist its own “economic expansion” in Central Asia. A breakthrough in 2003 led to an economic cooperation plan building on a plan to deal with

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terrorism in 2002; yet Russia seems more intent on using the SCO to rein in independent tendencies in Central Asian states and enlist China more actively in containing U.S. influence than to allow China any inroads that might reduce Russia’s predominant inf luence. Welcoming Russia’s nationalist awakening by 2003 to the dangers of U.S. bases and activism in the region, analysts bemoaned its nationalist fears of China’s growing impact. Yet, they saw a shift from mid-2004 and especially July 2005 that reflected intensification of alarm about the United States, relaxation of concern about China, and increased support for the SCO. The driving force was a desire to use China and the SCO for a new international political and economic order accompanied by newfound confidence in Russia’s ability to shape this order. Putin recognized that Russia realizes more benefits from the SCO, is in a position to be more supportive of economic cooperation, has reason to accept the newly positive attitudes of Central Asian states toward China and the SCO, and can be more trusting of China. 20 Chinese welcomed this change, showing understanding of Russia’s growing alarm about the United States. Its shift away from strategic entrenchment found favor in Beijing, as if it were just defending its interests, as the voices of those who saw such assertiveness in Central Asia as more likely to turn against China, since the U.S. role there is secondary and unlikely to deepen, were left in the background. From 2005 Russia’s growing assertiveness against the United States put pressure on China to join in stronger alliance-like relations and to transform the SCO into a group targeting U.S. power. At the summer 2005 meeting China did join in the call to remove U.S. bases in Central Asia, but afterward it indicated that this would not be a turning point for the organization. When the possibility of admitting Iran as a full member of the SCO arose, China did not welcome this Russian initiative. The result would have been to transform the organization from focusing on Central Asia and reconciling differences in Chinese and Russian approaches into an anti-American gathering. China also hesitated to satisfy U.S. desires to refocus the SCO on the joint challenges of the war in Afghanistan. Chinese sources continue to depict Russia and Central Asia as under threat from U.S. hegemonic plans. These included splitting the Soviet Union apart that succeeded in 1991, weakening Russia that proceeded with little hindrance in the 1990s, encircling it as occurred with NATO expansion and the “color revolutions” early in the 2000s, and the efforts to develop missile defense and bases in Central Asia ostensibly as part of the war against terror and nuclear weapons proliferation but actually

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to expand on its victory in the cold war and prevent Russia from rising again. The bases in Central Asia served the dual purpose of limiting China’s rise, we are told. 21 In this viewpoint, great powers seek dominance, take a zero-sum approach to extending their power at the expense of others, and pretend to respond to threats with the real aim of securing maximum preeminence. The deterioration in Russo-U.S. relations that started in December 2001 to March 2003 when the United States pulled out of the ABM Treaty and cooperation over Central Asia faded after a successful partnership in the fall of 2001 intensified through the end of 2005 for reasons that Chinese also blame on the United States as it drove Russia to counter outside inroads with its own energy cooperation in Central Asia. From 2006 a new phase of even more negative relations ensued as Russia, supportive of multipolarity, sought to protect its own security against threats, including the U.S. thirst for absolute military superiority. 22 As the debate on Russia’s renewed assertiveness in Central Asia reached a high pitch in 2007, some Chinese analysts were wary about the impact on Sino-Russian ties as others insisted that the time was ripe to boost cooperation further. It was recognized that Russia’s rejuvenation has a strategic impact, as its military power grows rapidly, its foreign policy becomes more autonomous, and it uses its energy card for political and economic inf luence. Chinese perceived Russia as striving to establish a Eurasian region excluding their country as it also pressed harder to contain the United States and other Western powers in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldavia. Yet, instead of equating the actions of the Russian state on its various frontiers, advocates of closer ties insisted that U.S. pressure was at fault for Russia’s response in one direction while China’s encouragement can produce a new level of strategic cooperation in the other. Differing from other analysis, they argue that Russia’s strong recovery is favorable for strategic cooperation with China. They make four main arguments: 1) the international environment of hegemonism and terrorism drives the two states closer since no post– cold war order has emerged, and of the major states only China mostly shares Russian views on Central Asian security; 2) Russia’s economic ties are changing with exports to Europe of energy saturated and onesided and ties to Asia at the beginning stage of increase and important for its continued development; 3) on both sides there are advocates of a strategically significant joint plan for development to rise together taking advantage of tremendous latent complementarity; and 4) Chinese cooperation with Central Asia does not a problem for Russia, since its

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traditional inf luence remains strong. 23 Many strong critics of the United States and Japan endorse this appeal to Russia, considering it positive for arms imports, energy security, and geopolitical clout. They treat the SCO as a model organization, exaggerating the equal nature of relations among states and obscuring its serious problems. 24 Censorship about the SCO remains intense in Chinese publications, concealing its real problems. Some internal Chinese sources are, however, more candid about the problems faced in Central Asia despite a rapid increase in trade and investment and contributions to China’s “Go West” strategy and the provision of much needed capital to Central Asian states. Frank discussions point to the primitive technical level and difficulty in raising ties to a higher level or to achieve genuine regionalism. They note unstable cooperation, a poor investment environment, low trust in credit and insurance arrangements, and lack of healthy development. Services remain weak, with customs singled out. Complaining about the narrow range of economic ties with big Chinese firms largely confined to the oil sector, Chinese note the dearth of civilian networks. They urge the SCO to develop multilateral institutions, but they warn that in contrast to ASEAN with which China has developed such linkages cultural factors stand in the way. China lacks the deep cultural historical ties that Russia has. Thus, Chinese companies have lost many opportunities. 25 This negative commentary on the SCO’s economic institutionalization stays clear of the political troubles that have long plagued meetings on these issues, and it ignores the fact that leaders keen on boosting ties in the region hesitate openly to discuss the problems. Strategic thinking focuses on cultivating positive images of Sino-Russian ties, the SCO, and Sino-Central Asian cooperation. It also points the way to using economic clout to overcome barriers. Yet, there is no sign of a long-term strategy to remove the barriers. In response to the 2007 SCO summit there was discussion over whether military exercises pointed to an alliance system, energy discussions would extend to the formation of a gas cartel and economic community, and anti-U.S. and anti-NATO rhetoric could lead to new global polarization. 26 Yet, with internal discord evident over the broadening agenda, prospects for the SCO are uncertain. Increasingly, Russia was driving the agenda in contrast to China’s earlier initiative, and now China was the restraining force, agreeing to some measures that appeared threatening to the outside while doubting Russia’s longterm interest in the usual sort of regionalism that would serve both states well.

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Chinese analysis of the successes and remaining challenges in Central Asia leave doubt about the adequacy of their strategic reasoning. Misconstruing U.S. motives leaves China without a partner for pressuring states for economic openness and social tolerance that might serve its interests as pressures build from Islamic movements against current regimes. Chinese write that the United States planned to turn Central Asia into an anti-China front line in “splittist” plotting against Xinjiang, while they carefully censor candid analysis of Russian efforts to regain control of the region’s energy resources and political forces. 27 They take pride in their successes: maintaining border security, advancing the economies in West China, diversifying energy imports by securing resources, and forging a friendly border environment marked by trust. Yet, China’s real problem is Russian determination to monopolize this region for its own interests. Acknowledged problems of still limited economic cooperation and even the limited scope of security cooperation are signs of Russian resistance to China’s influence, as seen in opposition to allowing the SCO to develop into an all-around regional organization. Charging that the United States ignores the cultural traditions of Central Asia in its advocacy of reforms, China is guilty of trying to keep dictators in power who repress those traditions. As Russian confidence and funds grew, its sense of entitlement in this region grew, and China stands in the way. In 2009 the balance between China and Russia shifted. The latter rode high in the financial crisis and lavished credits on Central Asian states and Russia in return for long-term energy supplies. The former was one of the most seriously affected major states and sought help in order to avoid renewed dependency on international institutions such as the IMF. China gained more leverage even as renewed Russo-U.S. talks on arms control and other subjects left in doubt whether Russian dependency on China would increase. Conclusion Chinese seek status enhancement, as recognized by the United States above all. Bilateral arrangements top the list, recognizing China’s position on a par with the world’s number one power. Trilateral combinations also win some favor; after long expecting to be in a minority in three-way meetings, China began to accept the idea as one way to increase trust. Its great power mentality focuses on how it can gain recognition as the rising power it is. Russia has proven indispensable, not only as a power insistent on its own national interests in opposition to

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those of the West, but also as the heir to socialist values resistant to the spread of “universal values.” Preventing Asian reorganization in a manner contrary to China’s objectives was made easier by Russia’s close partnership. Many Chinese analysts consider that Mao made a strategic miscalculation when he turned adamantly against the Soviet Union and, later, that the failure to normalize ties until 1989 damaged both Beijing and Moscow. They are determined not to allow ties to degenerate again. Avoiding the inf lammatory language used at times by Russian officials about the purpose of bilateral relations and also their occasional distrustful moves, China follows a steadier course with an eye to steering this relationship toward a long-run boost in China’s comprehensive power. With its more sober approach and aware of the sharp contradictions between Russia and Western states on matters vital to Russian national identity, China might be confident of this relationship, but surprises result both from the occasional attempts by Russian leaders to find balance in Asia and from the lingering sense among Russians that China’s ambitions ultimately will undercut Russian influence. Rapid f lux in Moscow’s strategy to East Asia forced Beijing to keep adjusting its own strategy. In response to a succession of leaders in the first half of the 1980s and then Gorbachev’s new thinking, Beijing sought normalization as well as equidistance in the strategic triangle including the United States after certain conditions were met. As the Soviet Union collapsed and in Yeltsin’s first term, Beijing showed patience in reacting to policies that leaned to the side of the United States as it favored a “two-headed” Russia facing east as well as west. Then, as Yeltsin relied on Primakov, it urged multipolarity. Finally, as Putin grew more assertive about Russia’s interests, Beijing showed new levels of cooperation, in part to enable it to pressure the United States and Taiwan but also with cross-border relations in mind. The results were generally encouraging from the mid-1990s. If China regretted the slow pace of normalization and the failure to gain leverage in limiting undesirable events in 1989–91 or shaping the start of Russian foreign policy in the next few years, it had ample reason to take satisfaction from the value of the strategic partnership from 1996. Apart from the uncertainty at the start of Putin’s tenure, ties to Russia grew stronger and lent support to China’s strategy at the United Nations and in regional efforts to limit U.S. ambitions. Troubled Russian ties to Japan, resistance to U.S. policies toward North Korea, and Russian acceptance of the fact that China is its main partner in Asia all served Chinese objectives. In spite of disagreements over Central

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Asia and arms sales, strategic thinking toward Russia successfully combined patience with determination to achieve most of China’s objectives over the past fifteen years. Even if Russian ties represent a success for Chinese strategic thinking from the mid-1990s, the long-term record from the 1980s is more mixed. Slow normalization had negative consequences, distrust of Gorbachev and Yeltsin in his early years interfered with bilateral progress, and Putin’s revival of Russian geopolitical ambitions may cost China, especially in Central Asia. Specific errors occurred in 1991 in backing the losing side, in 1999 in misjudging Russia’s readiness for multipolarity, and in 2001 in judging Putin to be ready to rely on China more than the United States. Yet, the most serious miscalculations may have been in 1989 in failing to build quickly on normalization and in 2005–09 in accepting Russian assertiveness as consistent with China’s objectives. It is still early to draw an overall judgment given the uncertainty of Russian foreign policy. As China continues to gain power, it will be further tested by Russia’s choices. While many challenges may arise in the triangular context with the United States, some are likely to appear in Northeast Asia and Central Asia. In the short term, North Korean belligerence may no longer draw the two states together versus others in the Six-Party Talks but instead demonstrate which of the two is more committed to stability and also coordination with the United States. Central Asian energy exports may show Russia’s hand, revealing how genuinely it accepts China as a partner in the region. So far, the approach taken by China has proven largely successful, but tougher challenges loom.

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CHAPTER 7

Strategic Thought on Japan Japan poses a different kind of challenge than the United States or Russia for any Chinese analyst intent on charting a path for China’s rise as a great power. Putting aside strategic triangle logic and the struggle with hegemonism, the analyst must consider the impact of a state with regional leadership pretensions that also is critical to cooperation in neighboring areas. Given its changing economic and diplomatic standing, China in the 1980s faced Japan from an inferior position, in the 1990s it increasingly gained equality, and in the 2000s it rapidly grew more confident of its superior status. Strategic thinking paid attention to this shifting balance in bilateral relations as well as to the alterations in the overall great power balance and in the regional balance relevant to Japan’s prospects. Sino-Japanese relations were channeled onto a positive “friendship” track during the 1950s–1960s despite the absence of normalization between countries on opposite sides of the cold war, served China’s strategic objectives in the 1970s, and increasingly also the highpriority economic objectives of the 1980s. They were successful in conditions where Japan bided its time with a passive foreign policy dependent on the United States and the cold war kept both countries focused on the Soviet threat potential. If emotions had the greatest potential to undermine deliberate calculations in ties to Japan, leaders took care to avoid arousing public opinion against the country that once brutally occupied China Among them were some, driven by feelings of revenge, who had lost family or comrades to Japan’s war machine and war crimes. In the 1970s Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had forsaken reparations and even a clear apology with little effort to persuade the Chinese people of their reasoning. With public opinion becoming a factor and Japanese leaders losing their inhibitions about raising historical issues in a revisionist manner, the potential was

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growing in the 1980s for nationalism to supersede strategic logic in China’s thinking. The realist foundation of Chinese foreign policy was set in 1972 when Mao after approving normalization with the United States for the main purpose of countering the Soviet threat also agreed to ties with Japan without demanding any payment. In this arrangement Tokyo agreed to a formula for dealing with Taiwan more stringent than the one Washington accepted, which Beijing used through the decade to put pressure on Washington. With economic needs in the forefront and Tokyo committing to large-scale ODA, Beijing continued its soft approach to Tokyo, but this began to change in the mid-1980s when leaders, still regarding their approach as realist, calculated that to put the brakes on Japan’s rise as a political power and eventually a military power they would play the “history card.” Releasing an avalanche of emotions that had been suppressed and looking for new ways to shape the diplomatic balance, they could no longer guarantee that realist concerns would prevail. Thus, began a rollercoaster ride of blaming Japan as relations were allowed to slide and then wooing Japan in an effort to strengthen ties. For two decades this pattern suggests confusion about how to proceed. China’s dual nightmares were for Japan to shake off its U.S. dependency and start an independent push for regional leadership or for it to intensify the alliance with the goal of containing the rising power. Although Chinese detected worrisome signs of each shift, they did not advance far. This signified success, as did the tremendous economic gains for China from Japanese ties. Yet, strategic thinking also must be judged in terms of the degree to which China built trust both with the Japanese people and with their leaders. In each period we find examples of misreading the Japanese situation and then scrambling to deal with the consequences. Even in the years 2006–09 after a steadier course had been set, China was prone to misrepresent Japan’s thinking and fail to deepen the relationship. The Deng Xiaoping Era At the end of the 1970s China’s measured tone toward Japan helped to boost ties. It had only recently pressed Japan to incorporate a joint statement against hegemony in the treaty of friendship that brought full normalization, demonstrating more concern with resolve in facing the Soviet Union than with history. The first large ODA package served the interests of China’s changing economic strategy. Prime Minister Ohira

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Masahiro’s visit at the end of 1979 reinforced this duality of friendship and assistance, as he tried to make Japan a cultural model too, seeking to spread Japan’s soft power as a teacher of management and social organization befitting modernization. A rash of translations from Japanese and delegations to Japan suggested that China’s new reform model could follow the examples of the Asian “little tigers” in learning from the new master industrializer or in joining the “f lying geese” formation led by Japan. If in 1972 China was drawn to its neighbor by the logic of resistance to the Soviet threat coupled with strategic cooperation with the United States, a decade later its interest was growing on the basis of economic imperatives as Japan’s manufacturing prowess, capital accumulation, and obligation to provide assistance made it the obvious partner. Thus, it was handled with special care. In 1980–82 as Chinese leaders set a new direction in foreign policy, writings on Japan revealed both increasing interest in learning from that country’s successes and new attentiveness to criticisms of both domestic and foreign policies. This fundamental shift in strategic thinking ref lected a different assessment of the balance of power and also of the importance of nationalism in legitimating a weakened communist leadership. Casting Japan in a more negative light or airing memories that had been hushed could have posed problems in managing relations, but friendship diplomacy continued as the mainstream. China’s interest in Japan intensified in the period after the Tenth Party Congress in 1982. Although Nakasone could have aroused distrust as a nationalist with a record of favoring a more assertive foreign policy or as a champion of a military alliance with the United States where Japan began to pull its own weight, Hu Yaobang embraced him as a partner in building trust among the younger generation as well as an ever-greater support for China’s widening economic reforms. At the time, many in the West became enamored of Japan’s social harmony and management efficiency; Chinese were studying Japan’s secrets too as an alternative to the Soviet model of socialism. With Hu in charge, this upbeat approach generally prevailed at mid-decade. Yet, in 1986–89 just when the most open-ended debate occurred about the direction of Soviet reforms, there was a parallel debate about the direction of Japan’s rise as a great power. It also ref lected a leadership struggle as Hu was purged after student demonstrators faulted his soft line toward Japan. Given growing concern about Chinese public opinion and reassessments of the evolving balance of power as well as actions or statements in Japan regarded as provocative, China was changing course.1 While China’s leaders kept seeking closer economic ties, they took new interest

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in figuring out how to keep political ties from reinforcing rising Japanese aspirations and suggesting how Japan’s rising leadership ambitions could be blocked. 2 Chinese sources treated relations with Japan as unusually sensitive well into the 1980s, fearing public arousal and avoiding negative feedback to Japan. Although these relations were deemed “north-south” and, thus, unequal and temporary, Chinese found ways to highlight common interests in “peace and development.”3 By 1986 Japanese studies had reached a certain maturity. There were close to 1,000 researchers in more than 60 study centers and clearly defined objectives for experts working under guidelines to rely on Marxist principles while assisting modernization with Chinese characteristics, fueling patriotism, contributing to Sino-Japanese relations, and predicting the future of Japan.4 In the next years discussion groups met to assess how Japanese strategic thought was inf luencing various topics: diplomacy, the military, great power aspirations, and so on. Brief internal summaries of the opinions aired reveal diverse thinking. Some saw Japan as posing a threat, striving to lead Asia while working with the United States to contain the Soviet Union and establish a Western-dominated world order. Some saw it as unable to pose a threat, lacking resources and limited in its overall national power to the point that it would not be able to become a political pole as it remained tethered to the U.S. global strategy. Others pointed to its superior industrial economy and technology or its recent exaggerated charges of a Soviet threat as signs of greater assertiveness to come. Yet, the majority concluded that despite frictions with the United States there would be no split; Japan’s strategic aims would not change greatly unless the world order was transformed. While noting negative elements in Japan’s handling of relations, the discussion judged that relations can still improve if Japan takes the right actions.5 China was taking a firm stand on some history and Taiwan-related issues but not anticipating troubled relations. The triangle with the United States shaped China’s views of Japan. On the one hand, China sought to shift it toward an equilateral triangle, separating Japan from its ally. On the other, they feared that Japan’s estrangement from its ally would not mean new balance in the triangle, but an assertive Japan more openly opposed to China. Changing views on this triangle from the late 1980s inf luenced the way China approached Japan. This was the lesser triangle after the strategic one with the Soviet Union, but it too came to shape thinking about how to manage bilateral relations and assess Japan’s intentions.

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In 1988 we can already detect intensified Chinese attention to Japan striving to become a military great power and anticipating the “Japanese century” ahead, as if that country had a new state strategy. Arguing that high technology is changing the world, analysts discussed if Japan was unusually ready for the next century. Debates weighed whether in 2000 China or Japan would rank third in the order of power after the United States and Soviet Union. Either way the bipolar order was breaking up, although the age of multipolarity awaited a new century. In this context, U.S.-Japan relations drew close scrutiny. In one roundtable of experts most argued that despite the ambitions of Japan’s political class, Japan would not make its move before 2000. The United States would not give up its hegemony and would not accept any kind of joint hegemony. The size of its market and its military supremacy would leave Japan no choice but to stick with it. Yet, conf lict between the allies would intensify, and, it followed, Japan would need China more. 6 When Takeshita Noboru met with Li Peng in 1988 and declared that a new era of friendship had opened, Li responded that the quality of relations had been raised. Yet, in fact, this marked the end of the era of friendship relations, where China reminded Japan to do penance for its historical sins and Japan generously increased its ODA to enhance relations. Stressing that Japan owes China more and ought to be contributing in many ways to its development (technology, investment, etc.), leaders were not ready to credit Japanese generosity and put relations on a more solid footing. If Japan can be faulted for not making maximum use of this relatively passive phase in China’s foreign relations to earn the trust of the Chinese people, China can be faulted too. It was now overplaying the history card, while increasingly warning against Japan’s hegemonic ambitions. Instead of recognizing the need for a framework that would reassure a rising Japan of China’s futureoriented cooperation, China pressed its “moral” advantage. After Japan imposed sanctions following June 4, 1989, Chinese insisted that it had no right to do so.7 The First Jiang Zemin Period The first half of the 1990s saw a rise in Chinese assertiveness, initially in defiance of international criticisms and later bolstered by confidence from rapid economic growth. In opposition to Japan-centered views of Asia, Chinese advanced sinocentric ones: on the continent’s geography that marginalizes Japan while China strides multiple triangles or subregions; on cultural traditions with future impact as China is the true

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heir to Eastern civilization that is gaining prominence; and on great power ties, in which Japan’s vastly superior GNP was minimized as a measure of national power. 8 Finding common cause with many in Japan on the rise of Asia and the limits of U.S. global leadership, Chinese favored a different scenario for Asia’s future. In the early 1990s, however, there was enough that the two sides had in common that boosting bilateral ties made strategic sense. Chinese assessed how to manage the trajectories of U.S. decline and Japan’s rise. In one calculation extrapolating the growth rates of the 1980s, the United States still had thirty-five years of superiority in GNP. Complicating China’s approach was the assumption through 1992 that Japan will withhold investment funds in order to consolidate its economic hegemony, slowing China’s economic takeoff and a regional upsurge.9 Eager to jumpstart their economy, Chinese were mainly seeking ways to forge a positive atmosphere in Japan. When Kaifu went to Beijing in August 1991 an exchange of views ensued on the kind of internationalism each country foresaw. Li Peng stressed noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries, UN-centered management of security issues, and a multipolar structure. Kaifu also welcomed an UN-centered structure but with a more active agenda to shape a more integrated world.10 Even so, China had reason to expect that Japan would not share the new U.S. agenda for forging a new world order, and, shortly afterward when the coup against Gorbachev failed and dashed China’s hopes, it turned more energetically to capitalize on U.S.-Japanese differences. Aware that Japanese would think that they had the advantage since China was isolated and feared dual U.S. pressure on human rights and protectionism, Chinese tempered signs of rising reliance on Japan. Chinese analysts made clear that China was the weak link in triangular ties with the United States and Japan. It was too weak to oppose both states and could not unite with the United States without becoming subordinate. Its best bet, therefore, was to play on differences between the two while improving ties with both to avoid isolation. Given Japan’s ardor for Asian regionalism, this approach looked promising. Through the clout of overseas Chinese and the great diversity of the region, it could limit Japan’s rise as it expanded room for its own inf luence to grow.11 On the one hand, Chinese were eager for Japan to refocus on Asia and drop its identity with and economic preference for the West. They sought to turn Japan more fully toward Asia, abandoning its postwar preference for the West. On the other, they objected to its ambitions in Asia, concerned it was turning to Asia in order to exert

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control through vertical economic relations and growing political ambitions. Japan’s strategic ambiguity gave China its prime opportunity, in 1992 still alert to obtaining the capital and technology for Deng’s new economic strategy but by 1994 turning more to other priorities on the basis of increased economic confidence. One reason not to fear Japan’s ability to rise derived from assessments of its very limited soft power due to the poor ability of its leaders. Politicians lack an international outlook, having spent the postwar era guided by a small country’s logic obsessed with their country’s economic development and without much international responsibility. For those who recognized that Japan’s sizable military budget poses no threat since its armed forces still are not at worrisome levels and its alliance with the United States and peace constitution are restraining forces, awareness of the soft power gap reinforced arguments about not overreacting.12 In the first part of the 1990s Chinese restraint largely held. Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan in April 1992 left a mixed message: China cannot forget history, whose lessons are a pillar in relations with Japan, but it also credits Japan with playing a positive role in protecting world peace and advancing prosperity. It looks ahead rather than back in relations. The impact of the visit was sufficiently positive to solidify support in the LDP for the Emperor’s visit to China that fall, as long desired by China’s leaders. International etiquette holds that the loser in a war visits the victor first; Jiang was not yet in the formal role of president of China; so he could visit in advance, but with an eye to the future Beijing expected the correct order to be followed and also wanted the visit and apology to take place in their country before it occurred in Korea, ref lecting its understanding of the proper regional hierarchy of relations.13 With Clinton starting his presidency, Chinese pointed to triangular relations with Japan as a factor preventing serious change in Sino-U.S. relations. One article noted that both U.S. and Japanese public opinion see China as a force for controlling the other. All together could bring stability to the region or do harm to all of their interests.14 Others noted the importance of showing restraint toward Japan, postponing raising sensitive issues such as disputed islands or reparations, which are sought by civic groups and could be very costly to relations. The usual advice was for China to be principled, but f lexible. Without undercutting nationalist spirit, China had to concentrate on economic ties and technological transfers. Although the friendship and honeymoon era was over, Chinese had in mind a new era marked by mutual benefit, mutual trust, and temporary restraint.15

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Chinese sources warned at the end of 1992 that Japan was accelerating its pursuit of becoming a political great power. They detected new “statist” thinking, a new outlook of the people or national strategy, and open expression of ambitions that can be traced far back in Japanese history. In short, postwar pacifism and “defensism” were on the verge of being overturned, Japan’s ambitions had leaped ahead, and China had to respond with its own strategy.16 Indeed, the very fact that Japan had joined the U.S.-led countries to a degree in imposing sanctions and criticizing China for its human rights stance and then, as relations were improving, imposed new standards on ODA linked to environmental policies and other global standards as if Japan were a “civilian power” disturbed China. The June 4 repression evoked angrier responses and more serious sanctions in the United States, but it may have caused a more far-reaching shift in Sino-Japanese relations despite the fact that in 1990–92 they had been drawing superficially closer. In a new era in which the friendship mode was losing relevance, an unsustainable direction had been set. Strategic thinking stumbled in combining three themes vital to bilateral relations: history, security, and values. In the 1990s, China’s leaders promoted nationalism, making historical animosity toward Japan more central to national identity. They boosted military budgets and assertiveness with less restraint, arousing Japanese concern about the shifting balance of power. And they showed little regard for reassuring Japanese public opinion about how shared values could draw the two countries closer as their economies became more intertwined. When efforts were made to assuage concerns on one of these matters the others continued to be troublesome. With Chinese often harshly critical of Japan for its handling of these very themes, there was little chance of finding common ground. The Chinese narrative against Japan’s rise was firmly in place in the beginning of the 1990s, centered on its moral unworthiness even if other reasons undoubtedly played their part. Ignoring the nature of Japan’s development from 1945 through the 1980s, the narrative identified it as deeply steeped in its past and lacking the moral quality of other states that had the right to become a military or even political great power. This logic is buttressed by references to the lack of apology to its victims and acknowledgment of the crimes that were committed. Every fresh example of war amnesia or worse was taken as reinforcement for this conclusion. Yet, perhaps no less bothersome was the fear until at least 1992 that Japan was determined to keep investment in China low and limit the transfer of technology in order to lock China

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into a subordinate role in a vertical division labor. Also, awareness that Japan is a formidable rival for political and cultural influence led to a negative approach at a time when there was not much positive to say about their own country. These latter themes may have been as important as the history theme, although as China’s “patriotic education” intensified from 1993, it was history that drew the most attention.17 Japan was portrayed as building a modernized economy on the backs of Asian colonies and as retaining a militaristic tradition through a postwar period that was little discussed. Chinese depicted a national spiritual consciousness in transition: from solidarity for militarism, to diligence for economic dynamism, to determination to rise as a military great power.18 Such linkages between past and present fueled nationalism, complicating efforts to manage relations. Hardliners drew continuities across Japanese history, tracing through the postwar era extreme nationalist currents that were newly unfettered after the cold war. Admiration for Japan’s economic model, accordingly, is criticized for fueling its arrogance, as is the growing pride in Japanese culture in the 1980s.19 As warnings were spreading against Japan’s current ambitions, ironically, its major companies were starting large-scale investments in manufacturing that China had long coveted. Despite booming economic ties, there was no spillover. Instead, one negative theme fed into another. Concern also rose over JapanTaiwan relations, becoming the foremost problem ahead of the history issue, and the real concern in charges that Japan was concocting a “China threat” in order to build a case for changing its own foreign and domestic policy. In 1994–95 China saw Japan welcoming Lee Teng-hui’s stress on Taiwan identity and edging toward closer relations with Taiwan. Warning against Lee attending the Asian Games in Hiroshima— Taiwan’s vice president came in his place—and then threatening harsh action if Lee should be invited to the 1995 Osaka APEC meeting, Beijing widened its concern over Japan. When pressure mounted over history, it was becoming interlocked with responses to Japan’s Taiwan leanings. As U.S.-Japanese relations appeared troubled in 1993–94, China grew more nervous about a more independent Japan. When the Nye initiative changed this in 1995, the focus of China’s critique shifted. As the alliance was strengthening in 1995–96, concern even turned to an anti-China coalition. Believing that the Japanese public was hesitant to accept the more assertive policies of its leaders—especially after the LDP resumed its dominant leadership role—China sought to weaken Japan’s resolve, even if many doubted it could undermine the alliance.

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In the early 1990s Chinese overstated the emerging battle between the United States and Japan for leadership. This position was taken by many who were optimistic about the timing for China to become more assertive; a shift away from the postwar cooperation between the allies would provide an opening. 20 They depicted an ambitious Japan: in Southeast Asia sending peace-keeping troops to Cambodia as it eyed becoming a political great power as a force for stabilizing peace; toward Russia by rejecting a compromise on the territorial issue; at the United Nations with its first call for becoming a permanent member; and even in an overall strategy for U.S.-EU-Japan triangular management of the world. Yet, they also reported on a strategy that would block Japan; using contradictions within the imperialist camp. After all, it is no more than a crippled power that does not dare to say “no” to the United States, lacks natural resources, and faces pressure from inside and outside the country from those wary about its ambitions. In this hard-line view, China must firmly oppose Japan, alert to its militarist as well as political aspirations. Equating Japan’s “new-Asianism” layered into globalism with its wartime views, critics charged it with plotting to build a new regional order with itself at the center. 21 Chinese insist that outrageous Japanese actions in 1993–95 account for worsening relations, as if their country was an innocent victim. For instance, China’s nuclear tests are treated as only a pretext for Japan’s freeze of some ODA. The United States is called a factor pressing Japan to contain China, but the major problem is the great power mentality that drove Japan to shift away from special relations with China to ordinary ones and to put bilateral ties, once primarily economic, in a far broader context as it aspired to a greater political and security role. Yet, readers are reassured that Japan will have no choice but to turn back to China, not only to escape from its post–bubble economic stagnation but also to use the “China card” to gain more independence of the United States. Repeatedly, it was assumed that brief downturns in relations would be overcome. In the wake of Japan’s frustration with Bill Clinton’s 1998 visit to China bypassing their country, it was assumed that China would have an easy time rebuilding ties with Japan as the low point of 1994–96 was being put behind them. 22 The warmth of 1990–93 would not reappear, but few anticipated a downward spiral that would keep gathering steam from 1994 for more than a decade. It was widely understood that in addition to Jiang Zemin and officials associated closely with him, the Chinese military also held decidedly negative views of Japan. In their interpretation, Japan is reviving

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its militarism as well as moving in stages to become a military great power. The Persian Gulf War gave Japan an opportunity to move one step forward by sending minesweepers and then peacekeeping forces abroad. It follows that China’s military and strategic thinking must prepare for this transformation. This negative viewpoint became deeply embedded from the middle of the 1990s as a new “patriotic education” campaign turned back to the war era in criticism of Japan. The Second Jiang Zemin Period China’s strategic thinking toward Japan went amiss in the mid-1990s after steps to woo Japan in 1990–92 and prior to attempts from late 1999 to regain momentum. Failing to recognize that after the end of the cold war and the Tiananmen brutality as well as the collapse of the bubble economy the friendship mode was not viable, China misjudged bilateral relations from after the Emperor’s successful visit to China until after Jiang’s troubled visit to Japan in the fall of 1998. When a second downturn in public opinion toward China occurred in 1994–96 following the earlier impact of Tiananmen in 1989, Chinese were slow to realize that this was part of a long-term pattern at odds with the mood in 1972–88 when a combination of guilt and momentum kept public opinion about relations on an optimistic track. Only when a third downturn followed Jiang’s visit was there a shift to damage control, but not enough to avoid a fourth downturn in 2004–06. In 1995 conferences and assessments looked back at Japan’s half century since the war. Stressing political history, they deemphasized how different the country had become in favor of warnings about the spread of right-wing thought and worrisome regional ambitions. Even as some analysts conceded that Japan was bound to become a political great power or that China had a vital interest in friendly relations, the tone of publications grew more antagonistic. It was as if a vigorous response, ignoring any impact from China’s own new assertive policies, would cause Japan to change course or convince others to join in resisting Japan. Yet, China showed some restraint fearful of alienating Japanese business and driving Japan further into waiting U.S. arms. While it was likely that China would oppose Japan’s aspirations to become a permanent member of the Security Council, there were signs it would not want to be seen as the first to do so. Acknowledging that national interests made it unadvisable to damage relations, scholars reported that leaders had decided that past criticism of Japan had been insufficient.

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In September 1996 Hashimoto Ryutaro became the first prime minister to visit Shenyang, where memories of Japan’s lengthy occupation were especially deep, and both sides were keen to reverse the downturn of the past two years. It seemed that China was ready to make serious strategic adjustments. Even as troubles intensified, many Chinese kept insisting that good relations are within reach. They assumed that harsh criticism of both Japan’s history and ambitions could somehow accompany constructive political as well as economic relations. China’s strategic thinking toward Japan centered on keeping it from becoming a political or military great power, despite its prospects and aspirations after the cold war. Arguments were couched in moral terms: its war record and lack of proper apology disqualify it. Its military budget—still higher than China’s—was cited as evidence that militarism could reemerge. Indeed, Chinese arguments of the mid-1990s paralleled Japanese ones of fifteen years later of the unworthiness of the other state based on past immorality still ignored and rising military ambitions with suspect consequences. Miscalculations of great power relations contributed to misjudgments about Japan. In the early 1990s there was undue optimism that U.S.Japan relations were in trouble, as if Japan was becoming too assertive about converting its economic power to political and military power and recent trade tensions between the two were a harbinger of more wideranging problems. In 1996 the Taiwan Strait crisis and ClintonHashimoto communiqué on strengthening defense cooperation increased distrust on both sides. A flare-up sparked by extremists on both sides over the territorial dispute on the Senkaku/Diaoyu island added to the tensions. In the late 1990s leaders remained intent on splitting the two allies, holding out hope for Clinton to foster personal ties with Jiang Zemin while making sure that Jiang would stop in Pearl Harbor en route to Washington as a reminder that the joint enemy had been Japan and then that Clinton would bypass Tokyo on an extended visit to China to the deep disappointment of the Japanese. China refused to use “strategic” in labeling bilateral ties, as if Japan did not warrant such acknowledgment. It overreacted to the moves from 1996–99 to adopt new defense guidelines for Japanese-U.S. relations, as analysts perceived signs of containment of China and a mechanism for Japan to become a military power, even as a minority found it rather insignificant in serving more to let the public think Japan was really doing something about new challenges while the U.S. role actually checked Japan’s rise as an independent force. 23 Despite the warnings of scholars that strategic thinking was being replaced with emotionalism, Jiang stayed on course.

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After a brief period of silence on Tokyo-Moscow relations and their territorial dispute, Beijing reversed its support for Tokyo. This curried favor with Russians, as one step in demonstrating overlapping geopolitical concerns in the face of doubts in 1992–93. It contributed to a consistent narrative on Japan’s failure to acknowledge historical guilt. Also, this shift gave more credence to the criticisms of Japan’s unwarranted ambitions to become a political and military great power, and it could serve the goal of widening the U.S.-Japan divide with U.S. policymakers troubled by Japan’s conditions for assisting the troubled Russian nation. Demonizing Japan over a wide range of issues might add to its burden in trying to overcome its past through greater generosity and less assertiveness. Various factors help to explain the short-sightedness of China’s thinking toward Japan. There was overoptimism that ties were advancing, as Jiang cultivated a personal relationship with Hashimoto in 1996–98 before Japan’s leader resigned abruptly. While following closely the rightist drift in the LDP after the political left had lost its clout, Chinese did not appreciate the importance of accommodating this. Also, Jiang put too much importance on loss of face, insisting in 1998 that Obuchi Keizo give him the same concessions over historical language that were given a month earlier to Kim Dae-jung, despite the fact he offered the Japanese less and Kim’s visit had caused a backlash in the LDP that made a repeat offer difficult. Jiang refused the Foreign Ministry attempts to steer the visit toward more realizable goals. Stirring up Chinese public opinion became an objective, at the price of stirring up Japanese opinion too after Japan’s newspapers had shifted from sympathetic views of China in the 1980s to mounting criticism, especially in response to Jiang’s November 1998 visit. Third, Taiwan’s Lee Tenghui outmaneuvered Jiang on values, refocusing Japanese opinion on mutual respect rooted in history and on the identity of an embattled, democratic state. Lee proved to be a disruptive factor. Fluent in Japanese and cultivating personal ties with many Japanese conservatives, he presented himself as an ideal partner to those seeking a positive view of Japan’s colonial conduct and continued cultural appeal. China did not have an answer for this except to try to pressure Japan, which refused to issue any statement on Taiwan during Jiang’s visit parallel to what Clinton had done in his 1998 visit to China. Fourth, China only belatedly acknowledged Japan’s trajectory, dating from the cold war. At last, in 1997–98 it began to report positively on peaceful postwar development. Slow to accept Japan as it was, China was also unprepared to accept where Japan seemed to be heading.

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The Chinese debate on Japan in the late 1990s brought to the fore arguments for improving relations. Experts recognized that the old strategy had not worked: giving the impression that China opposed Japan’s political rise, alienating the Japanese public, and driving the country further into the U.S. embrace. Opposing Japan’s 1997 proposal for an Asian Monetary Fund and not giving enough priority to bilateral relations, China was not able to gain leverage. Noticing widening tensions between Tokyo and Washington over how to deal with the financial crisis and in responding to security problems such as the Taepodong missile test of North Korea, Beijing decided to tone down the criticism and show more interest in Asia-centered regionalism that Japan had been advocating. This change predated Jiang’s visit, but it accelerated in response to new concern afterward. In the fall of 1999 Chinese officials claimed to have learned from the mishandling of the Jiang visit. They would make relations with Japan more strategic, rejecting emotional appeals to stress common interests. The tone of media coverage was to change. China would be supportive of Japan’s reasonable demands. Yet, Japanese who welcomed this turnabout remained doubtful. This was a time of newfound Chinese concern about U.S. assertiveness and the troubled state of Sino-U.S. relations. It was assumed that China wanted to use the “Japan card” to split it from the United States; so it would not side closely with its ally. 24 Concern centered on U.S. hegemonic behavior and signs of U.S. opinion viewing China as an enemy, driving Americans to build up their alliance with Japan. With Tokyo agreeing with Washington but allegedly wary about its subordinate status, Chinese were split over what would weaken its resolve. Supporters of “smile diplomacy” gained a chance to appeal to Japan, but advocates of intensified criticism of Japan, now able to cite Chinese Internet anger as a force to be considered, were still ready to seize any new opportunity to intensify the warnings that had become common. Concerned that the cultural factor was turning against China, from the old affinity for shared traditional cultural to new Japanese-Taiwan affinity for shared democratic culture, China took care after the failed Jiang visit to stress common interests and avoid stirring up emotions. Sustained optimism was driven by reasoning that Japan does not respect the United States even if it depends on this ally, and it does not hate China even if it is edging toward containment. Appealing in a new way, invoking however indirectly Asian values, China narrowed its scope for reshaping the triangle. As in the early 1990s, this assumed that Japan’s problems with China were less serious than those of the United States, its

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interest in Asian economic regionalism offers China an opportunity, and, above all, on the Taiwan issue there was still time to forestall its active involvement. By shifting toward multilateralism, China sought to substantiate its acceptance of a “partnership” in relations. Expecting that the friendship of prior decades had not completely dissipated, China in the fall of 1999 “threw a peach” in the hope of “receiving in return a pear.” The Hu Jintao Era As China’s leaders tried to put history behind them, they found it difficult to put relations with Japan on a steady course. Other issues kept intruding, and the red lines they drew failed to persuade Japan’s leaders to reach an understanding that would facilitate an end to problems over history. Taiwan acquired more importance, as Japan failed to observe China’s warnings on visits by Lee Teng-hui after he left the presidency and ties to Chen Shui-bian as he provoked China with his moves toward de jure independence. Matters of food safety aroused the Japanese public. Security matters, some related to territorial disputes, drew media coverage. China’s rapid economic rise provoked alarm about Japan’s loss of status. Perhaps, most important in the deterioration of relations, however, was the Japanese view that Chinese were becoming increasingly anti-Japanese, such as in rioting crowds at a 2004 soccer match or in massive demonstrations that were allowed to proceed in Chinese cities in April 2005. Convinced that the Chinese people at the instigation of their leaders had become virulently anti-Japanese, many Japanese were no longer receptive to Chinese overtures. The year 2002, when Koizumi redirected Japanese foreign policy, was significant for bilateral ties. The Chinese police intrusion into the Shenyang consulate came to be seen in Japan as a threat to sovereignty, and Japan’s decision to draw closer to the Bush administration in its assertive global and regional policies—on some regional issues such as North Korea, this developed in stages to 2004—lowered China’s priority and raised new concern inside China. At this time, many Japanese also were coming to view China’s economic development as a threat. Chinese lowered their expectations for Japan to serve as a partner that could control the United States. As Sino-U.S. cooperation intensified, Japan was becoming marginalized. This raised misgivings in both China, where hopes for a more positive Japanese role endured, and Japan, where frustrations mounted over their country’s limited influence in Asia. 25 Given China’s insistence that Koizumi not visit the Yasukuni Shrine or at least offer assurances that he would not do so

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again, it proved hard to deal with the many other problems or misunderstandings arising in bilateral relations. Japan’s support for the U.S. military after 9/11, including dispatch of noncombat troops to Iraq, further disturbed critics of rising militarism. In conditions of poor political relations over several years, Chinese observers had little need to hold back on warnings about worrisome military aspirations. At a time of spreading Internet outrage this fueled public anger and complicated efforts to find a constructive path forward. The downturn in Sino-Japanese relations in 2002–06 threatened China’s strategic objectives. While on the surface it centered on Koizumi’s annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, crossing a red line drawn by China’s leaders, it had elements of new “cold war”: demonization of each country in the other: spill over from politics to security, territorial issues, and even economics; opposition to each other’s aspirations in global and regional settings; and the potential of a serious downward spiral or even military conf lict. 26 China feared that this could set the pattern for years ahead, stimulating intense nationalism not only in Japan but among the Chinese public in ways inimical to sober calculations by the leaders. From the time Hu Jintao signaled in March 2006 readiness to work closely with Koizumi’s expected successor, Abe Shinzo, to repair ties, bilateral ties started on an upward track. Crisis management worked, but that did not mean China had a vision for future relations, accepting Japan’s minimum national interest to become a “normal state.” China moved haltingly to engage Japan strategically. In the first half of the 1990s it opposed Japan’s rise as a political or military great power, separating what was morally right for the two East Asian states. In 1998 it still refused to use the label strategic, as it did for Russia and the United States, referring only to a partnership of friendship and cooperation. Only in 2004 did China propose a strategic dialogue with Japan, which it pressed again with some success from 2005 as tensions rose with warships and planes in ever-closer proximity in the East China Sea. The real strategic dialogue, however, was with the United States, which failed to satisfy Japanese as they feared being bypassed. In April 2005 Chinese demonstrations against Japan after millions signed petitions against it being allowed to join the UN Security Council as a permanent member spoiled the mood for addressing security issues, as Chinese continued to be aroused by symbols of history. History issues that cast a dark shadow obscured strategic differences that mattered more to China’s leaders: Japan’s opposition to China’s regional leadership aspirations, clinging to the alliance with the United

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States or other mechanisms in China’s way. In turn, Japan’s desire for a spot as a permanent member of the Security Council symbolized to many Chinese its own excessive leadership ambitions. Vague reference to friendship or a “win-win” situation did not assuage Japanese worries that China sought acquiescence to its rise without assurance that it would not overturn the existing order or forge its own hegemony. China’s leaders kept trying to stabilize relations and finally succeeded in this goal with Abe’s visit of October 2006, but they did not overcome the overall malaise. Chinese strategic thinkers have repeatedly recognized the advantage of improving ties with Japan, struggling to win debates with hardliners and those who cater to the public’s emotionalism. Their goal since the mid-1990s generally has been to find a way to revert to the state of bilateral relations to the early 1990s. Yet, they differ from those with whom they argue in acknowledging that Japanese cannot be expected to ignore the far-reaching changes in China. Instead, China must reassure Japan on the basis of its real anxieties and must show respect for Japan’s realist interests and values. Visits by top leaders Zhu Rongji in 2000, Wen Jiabao in 2007, and Hu Jintao in 2008 all reflected this attitude of reassurance and were well received, but they fell short of confidence-building. China had a stake in Japanese viewing their country positively. After June 1989, March 1995, November 1998, and April 2005, leaders were keen to overcome spreading distrust of their country, even at times anticipating that a shortcut existed for doing so. In the decade following Jiang’s flawed visit of 1998 Chinese waited for a chance to restore relations at least to the level of the mid-1990s. Carefully rebuilding ties with Abe, the strong nationalist, they were ready to seize the opportunity of moderate Fukuda’s appearance as prime minister in 2007. Plans centered on Hu’s visit in the spring of 2008 when a fourth document would be signed— following those of 1972, 1978, and 1998—to revive the concept of friendship, stress peace and development as the guiding principles, and set the course for the 21st century. Yet, the atmosphere for the summit proved difficult for making notable progress: Japanese resented the lack of real cooperation in handling the poison (gyoza) fried dumpling scare, they sympathized with Tibetans (fellow Buddhists) as they were suppressed following demonstrations and a surge of violence in March, and they were frightened along with others by the Olympic torch parades, including one in Nagano, that China used to build momentum and nationalism for the August games. If Hu’s visit proceeded without incident and served a positive role in the recovery from the nadir in 2005, it could not gain traction to overcome mutual suspicions building up from 1998.

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Clear on its priorities, China continually widened the scope of “comprehensive cooperation”—in 2008 with attention to joint efforts on global development—to manage relations for the long term from the top down. With political ties back on track, it boosted exchanges of all sorts, even military ones. Hu kept strategic concerns foremost, drawing on academic guidance on how to avoid emotionalism. Minimal goals were realized, but they did not change the fundamental reality of deepening distrust over strategic objectives. Hu’s initiatives toward Japan, including solicitous treatment of the Emperor during his May 2008 visit in contrast to Jiang’s rude references to history when he met him in 1998, served two strategic objectives. As in the case of China’s deft invitation to the Emperor in 1992, it probed the weak link in U.S.-Japanese relations, not this time with the clear aim of escaping isolation after June 4, 1989, but with awareness that Japan was tempted by Asian regionalism. Also, it undercut the efforts of the Japanese right wing to demonize China and raise the specter of the “China threat.” This group had opposed the Emperor’s visit in 1992, seized on Jiang’s bad image in 1998 as proof of dangerous intent, and become more vociferous during Koizumi’s strained relations over the Yasukuni Shrine visits about standing up for the Japanese nation against China. China’s debate on postwar and twenty-first-century Japan falls short of preparing leaders for the tradeoffs necessary to keep relations improving in ways they desire. If in 2003 the debate grew noticeably more objective and wide-ranging, the public outcry against some views raised, limitations reimposed at the urging of some officials, and the lack of impact on Japan’s policies and debate had an inhibiting effect. Despite the respectful remarks of Wen and Hu during their visits in 2007 and 2008, including the welcome decision to televise them in China as well as Japan, follow-up inside China in developing respectful themes was insufficient. Other themes, such as the positive value and enduring realist interest in Japan in the alliance with the United States were not mentioned. With negative and incomplete coverage of Japan still prevalent, the basis for a strategic reassessment remains seriously limited. Both sides remain in a damage-control mood, for example fearing that Chinese crowds at the Beijing Olympics would show bad sportsmanship toward Japan or that Fukuda’s successor Aso Taro would resume visits to the Yasukuni Shrine with resultant deterioration of the still shaky mutual trust. They succeeded in these objectives without agreeing on a plan to raise relations to a higher, more stable plain. Some analysts make the strategic case that Japan has more to offer China than many have realized and that China should upgrade Japan’s

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image and learn from it. They had an easy time in the 1980s pointing to international acclaim for its merits, but even two decades later they had much to say about Japan’s: energy efficiency, level of science and technology second only to the United States, big companies at the leading edge, high average cultural level of the people, substantial soft power around the world, and even relatively egalitarian, noncorrupt, and transparent system. Warning against the tendency to exaggerate China’s rise and dismiss Japan due to its extended stagnation, one author associated a more competitive spirit with the modesty of not feeling your country is number one while urging China to learn from Japan’s mistakes in the 1980s and its strengths today. 27 Many Chinese sources, such as from the Development Research Center of the State Council, stand squarely behind economic globalization recognizing Japan as an indispensable partner, whether in developing energy resources or in forging a regional FTA. 28 A regional approach of institution building for oil security is supported without any reference to political problems. Yet, these serve technical objectives that may be reflected in strategic debates rather than appearing at the core of such analysis. The main strategic literature breaks with such economically oriented writings by keeping political competition in the forefront and doubting that even energy can avoid this divisive fray. Analysis continues to note the gap between Japan and the United States and to seek to exploit it. Arguing that Japan sacrifices its sovereignty for the alliance and cannot realize its stated goal of becoming a “normal state” without distancing itself from its ally, Chinese debate the impact of renewed momentum in Sino-Japanese ties in refocusing Japanese nationalism away from China’s rise onto restrictions from U.S. dependency. In this view, the alliance has changed from containing the Soviet Union to focusing on China, but this is unjustified since China seeks peaceful development and poses no threat. Such reasoning ignores the impact of China’s military budget and its intense competition with Japan for influence. It unrealistically depicts threat perceptions and raises hopes for China’s strategic options. 29 While this optimism is not shared by all analysts, it is a sign of lingering strategic short-sightedness based on excessive hope. Chinese analysts normally treated Russia and Japan separately, assuming that ties between the two are of little consequence and stressing their actions in different spheres. Yet, one analyst observed in 2007 that Russo-Japanese economic ties are advancing and even military exchanges are proceeding.30 With the United States aware that bad Sino-Japanese or Russo-Japanese ties can threaten regional stability,

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economic objectives, and even U.S. interests, China too has reason to welcome better ties between these neighboring powers, as in a tradeoff of Japanese support for Russia’s entry into the WTO and Russian support for Japan’s entry in the UN Security Council. Triangular energy cooperation has promise for China, it is argued. Even if the notion of a “China threat” is receding, China should take care to prevent it, since the social psychological impact may endure. Yet, this pragmatic thinking remained a minority view in the face of zero-sum reasoning that welcomed poor Russo-Japanese relations and predicted that their distrust would not be overcome. While China criticized Japan’s slowly growing hard power as its own military budget skyrocketed, it also targeted Japan’s soft power. Playing the history card had the effect of darkening Japan’s image in Asia, where its military aggression was not forgotten. Insensitive to the impact of historical memory on its image, Japan has played into China’s hands. When it did attempt to advocate universal values under Koizumi and Abe, the effort was tarnished by the impression that its objective was only to contain China. Under these circumstances, China’s leaders could start to explore shared values with Japan, centering on relatively uncontroversial historical themes, and take a quieter approach to war memories. Yet, this strategy had limitations since it did not address the deeper sources of Japanese anxiety and show that security would not become divisive. Critics of strategic thinking toward Japan argued that China fruitlessly opposes its rise as a political great power, exaggerating the impact on its becoming a military great power and ignoring the impact of China’s approach on Japanese public opinion. They disagree with the domino theory of Japan’s transformation, contending that the result would not resemble Japanese militarism since the country has changed drastically in the postwar era and that acceptance of Japan’s increased status can restrain its aspirations and improve Sino-Japanese relations. As far-reaching debates proceeded, a negative stance toward Japan forged in the conservative backlash since 1989 never could be dislodged. China’s analysts distinguish conservatism centered on common interests, as seen in the views of Fukuda, and conservatism avid for values diplomacy, ref lecting the thinking of Abe but also his predecessors Mori and Koizumi. The former takes a pragmatic approach toward Taiwan rather than supporting independence, does not reject acknowledgment of historical crimes, continues the postwar system, does not press for Japan to become a military great power, and supports the development of an East Asian community without demanding that Japan

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gain leadership.31 Having tempered Abe’s zeal by charting a course for managing bilateral relations, China was keen to reward Fukuda’s moderation. Strategic thinking had advanced in appreciating the impact of China’s moves on Japanese opinion, but narrow reasoning about preserving the postwar system in Japan and old patterns of Sino-Japanese relations on the basis of common interests and vague concepts such as the East Asian Community underestimate what is required to reassure the Japanese in the face of disconcerting changes in their strategic environment.32 The victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) on August 30,2009, presented China with an opportunity. Led by Hatoyama Yukio, the DPJ promised to give greater weight to Asia and the United Nations while insisting on more equality with the United States. If Chinese leaders could reassure the Japanese on critical issues such as North Korea, they would have their best chance yet to solidify relations after two rocky decades. Yet, the growing pattern of Chinese assertiveness on matters related to sovereignty and security did not make it easy for the DPJ to transform bilateral relations. If U.S.-Japanese relations stumbled or the DPJ turned to Asian regionalism to make a distinctive mark, the beneficiary could still be China, but even as it was likely to avoid overconfidence about Japan’s potential shift, it also was unlikely to persuade Japan’s leaders and public of the dawn of new prospects. Conclusion China’s dilemma in facing a deeply distrusted historical rival and a challenger for regional leadership favored with close U.S. ties placed a premium on combining opposite responses: encouraging Japan, learning from Japan, appealing to Japan in ways that lead to Asianism over alliance, yet limiting Japan, keeping pressure on it, and buying time to overtake it. The duality of strategic thinking toward Japan is similar to the duality toward the United States, except that the opportunities to make inroads with Japan have appeared greater while the degree of animosity has also been greater as negative responses unfold. In the period of China’s relative weakness from 1978 to 1992, strategic thinking leaned to the positive side. Much was sought from Japan, and China had little leverage to demand much in return. In the transitional decade of relative equality, strategists lacked consistency, struggling to rebuild ties after recognizing that the negative side had been too little restrained. No decision was made to accept troubled relations. Under Hu Jintao the challenge shifted to managing a weaker Japan

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from a position of strength. In 2005 demonstrations and warnings suggested that China would try to pressure Koizumi to back down on his Yasukuni visits, while in 2006–08 a series of summits pointed instead to new tolerance for Japan as if China had become a benevolent power eager to reassure it. Yet, tolerance failed to be converted into trust. Just as Chinese thought in the 1980s was slow to capitalize on Japanese goodwill and on the bounce from the Hu Yaobang-Nakasone collaboration and in the 1990s wasted opportunities to reinforce Japanese hopes after the Emperor’s visit and the possibility that an equal partnership could serve region-building goals, strategic thinking in the 2000s f luctuated without settling on suitable reassurances. Sino-Japanese discussions of sensitive regional topics are inhibited by various factors. One, the presence of the United States puts pressure on Japan not to bypass it on security matters, while it so preoccupies China that Japan often may be dismissed as a partner without a strong security role. Two, China considers the Taiwan issue an internal matter, removing it from the agenda with Japan even in ways that involve the United States. Three, sensitivity in North and South Korea to being a subject of talks between China and Japan continues, inf luencing China’s thinking. Finally, the habits developed in the 1970s are perpetuated even as both sides gradually show an inclination to refocus relations. Chinese strategic thinking on Japan is marred by these limiting factors. Thinking on Japan is also marred by negative assumptions that exceed those for the United States. It had no right to become a political power let alone a military power. It had no right to protest China’s nuclear tests in 1995–96 despite its status as the sole victim of a nuclear attack. Japan’s historical conduct also gives it no right to complain about Jiang’s repeated references to history during his 1998 visit. Serving as an easy target against which to direct public venom, Japan is most often the object of protest. The sort of restraints that operate in relations with Moscow and Washington are often missing for Tokyo, and once criticisms appear they are easily converted into attacks on the very essence of the nation. Leadership differences and public arousal play a larger role. Even so, China has often adjusted its approach to lessen the damage to relations with Japan and kept benefiting from economic conditions and overall peace in the region. Given the now greater discrepancy in power and increased belligerence of North Korea, the challenge of fine-tuning strategic thinking toward Japan is only growing more difficulty.

CHAPTER 8

Strategic Thought on the Korean Peninsula Outside observers may fall into a trap of depicting China’s challenge in dealing with the Korean peninsula as ridding itself of the albatross of irredeemable North Korea and hitching itself to the rising star of South Korea. After all, the former had little more in its rusting arsenal than terror or bellicosity, while to 1997 the latter boasted an “economic miracle” poised to invest heavily in a labor-intensive country and to distance itself from all-around dependency on the United States or excessive economic dependency on much-distrusted Japan. Even after falling back in the Asian financial crisis, South Korea surged forward through a continued trade boom with China, while in ten years under progressive presidents adopting policies toward North Korea and regionalism amenable to China’s goals. Yet, Chinese strategists perceived the situation differently, continuing to regard the North as an asset, whose loss would result in a negative shift in the strategic balance of Northeast Asia, while calculating that a gradual, measured approach to the South would produce maximum dividends. Overall, they realized many strategic benefits that were envisioned in this transitional approach, yet their relative passivity to the North led to instability with uncertain consequences and their newly assertive inclination toward the South aroused distrust evident in a slippage in relations in 2008–09. The prime tests for this balancing act awaited as tensions on the Korean peninsula mounted in 2009. The Korean peninsula occupies a special place in Chinese strategic thinking. It historically was the principal arena for military competition with Japan, and in the 1950s it became the setting where the cold war was defined for China, as a hot war in which U.S. intentions threatened China’s security and then a standoff in which Chinese blood and

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assistance had not been spent in vain. Still hesitant to expose the real history of the peninsula through the 1980s or the true nature of the North Korean regime, China keeps its options open for alternative outcomes, any of which must be approved by it. China’s strategic aims in Korean relations are quite clear, but its priorities are not. Denuclearization serves multiple purposes—regional stability, prevention of a domino proliferation effect leading to Japan and, possibly, South Korea or Taiwan, management of North Korean adventurism, and cooperation with China at the center of great power relations in the region. Yet, destabilization could be greater if regime instability in the North results in a large outflow of refugees or loss of control over weapons and forces. Also, collapse of the North could embolden South Korea as it extended its boundaries, give Japan a major say as it provided financial assistance, and allow the United States to concentrate more on Taiwan as the strategic buffer to China’s rise. Without the North’s provocations, the great power framework in Northeast Asia might revert to the U.S.-led alliances no longer urgently requiring China’s assistance. While China’s leaders desire denuclearization, they weigh this against other apparently higher priority objectives. A controversial article in the summer of 2004 that caused the journal Strategy and Management to be shut down made the case for different strategic thinking about both the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia. It used the reference group of international society, adding a dimension often missing from zero-sum analysis of states vying for more power. Also, it predicted a new global order, as sought by the United States, which can maintain regional equilibrium and serve China’s interest in stability. Through supporting this order, as in the Six-Party Talks, China would demonstrate that it is a responsible state while also defending its own interests. U.S. troops in Japan and South Korea were opposed by China, but, the article noted, they contribute to a favorable environment for economic growth in those states and in China too. Those troops continue to stabilize the situation for Japan, to control North Korea, and to provide regional balance. As this daring article explained, if the North refuses to support China’s interests as it strives to undercut Sino-U.S. relations, China should be on guard against it while also striving to resolve the crisis peacefully in a way that avoids war or the North’s collapse, both harmful to China’s security.1 The fact that the piece was published revealed that strategic reasoning of this sort is present, but shutting down the journal signified not only sensitivity to Pyongyang’s reaction, but also the

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reality that this did not correspond to and was defiant of the prevailing thinking. China faced a pariah state in Pyongyang and a U.S. ally in Seoul, both amenable to economic ties but inclined to inter-Korean and regional strategies unlikely to win favor in Beijing. It would not be easy to steer a strategic course to prevent either destabilization from North Korean desperation or reunification by absorption reflecting South Korean economic success. Given the North’s preoccupation with reaching a deal with the United States and U.S. sensitivity to the danger of WMD development or proliferation, Chinese thinking could not avoid quadrangular calculations. At stake was not only a serious threat to regional stability, but also the course of reunification of the country on China’s vital northeastern border and the shape of regional security as a result of how that transpired. China played hard to get in normalization with South Korea and then hesitant to go beyond economic relations and especially to pressure North Korea. In turn, it showed patience with the North, reassuring the leadership of its commitment to the security of the state and to whatever reform course that would be chosen. In this way, China positioned itself as the indispensable force for facilitating inter-Korean contacts or responses among the other powers to the North’s actions. As one country after another was blamed for its handling of the North, China emerged almost unscathed as the steadiest and most realistic. Yet, whenever the danger of confrontation spiked, there was reason to consider that in the long run China’s strategy might only prolong and make more lethal the final showdown. After earning credit for contributing in 2003 to 2008 to the negotiations in the Six-Party Talks that offered some promise of a compromise settlement of the nuclear crisis and also of a lasting framework for regional security cooperation, China faced an uncertain period when differences with the North seemed irreconcilable and its response would be tested. In June 2009 after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon for a second time, China finally agreed to tough Security Council sanctions, demonstrating its anger over the North’s unmitigated defiance and newly reassuring the United States, Japan, and South Korea. As the North shifted to a strategy of encouraging talks without committing to denuclearization, China’s responses later in the year demonstrated a dual approach of multilateral cooperation to resume the Six-Party Talks and bilateral assistance to draw the North closer with uncertainty about how conditional this was on true denuclearization.

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The Deng Xiaoping Era Beijing was slow to recognize the benefits of normalization of ties with Seoul. As it searched for models of modernization at the start of the Deng era, studying Japan with special interest, it started taking a close look at the Korean “economic miracle.” Yet, this was not accompanied by much interaction. At first China allowed direct contacts only in emergencies and then with denial that there were any strategic implications. 2 After trade commenced through Hong Kong in 1980–81 at a time of confusion over the direction of the new “open-door” and reform policies, the amount dropped by more than half in 1982–83 as China reassured North Korea of its reliability at the same time as it began to pursue normalization with the Soviet Union and to distance itself from the United States and the U.S. regional strategy.3 Rejecting any “twoKorea” policy after trading accusations with Moscow in 1981 over which was secretly pursuing this, Beijing kept providing the North with vital support. Over the next years it looked askance at the North’s terrorist activities and increasingly denied it a veto over expanded contacts and trade with South Korea; yet these moves fell short of what might be expected from a country committed to regional stability and development. China tried to have it both ways: earning credit in Washington for only mildly protesting U.S. troops stationed in the South or arms sales to that country, while reaffirming positions supportive of Pyongyang, such as that the only way forward was for the two Koreas independently to strive for reunification without outside pressure. In stages, the competition between Beijing and Moscow for Kim Il-song’s favor attenuated from 1982 to 1989. Beijing’s lack of pressure on Kim and tolerance for his dangerous moves, including construction of a nuclear reactor that few doubted was aimed at production of WMD, could be explained as necessary to prevent Kim from falling fully into Moscow’s orbit. Consistent with this interpretation is the fact that only in April 1989 on the eve of Gorbachev’s visit to normalize relations did General Secretary Zhao Ziyang make clear to Kim China’s commitment to a peaceful environment marked by opposition to any confrontation on the peninsula and agreement with the Soviets that they would no longer compete there. Yet, the impact of this message was reduced by the fact that Zhao fell from power in disgrace only six weeks later, China’s critique of the United States and its threat to socialism suddenly became much louder, and in 1990 China’s leaders made clear that they would honor their military commitment to the North as well as maintain their shared verdict on the Korean War as a victory against

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U.S. aggression, a contrast to Soviet glasnost, which was beginning to cast doubt on how the war started and ended.4 Doubtless, more than competition with Moscow was driving Beijing’s approach to Pyongyang. Later analysis would suggest that a major factor was its interest in stability in Northeast China. This refers to fear of hordes of refugees crossing the Yalu River or of soldiers let loose with their weapons running amok. Indeed, there is some validity to this, as Chinese leaders showed great interest at the beginning of the 1990s in revitalizing this part of the country that had been left behind in the dynamism of the 1980s after ranking near the top in the first decades of industrialization and forging a strong cadre of support for both the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. Yet, famine was not yet a focus of concern about the North, and South Korean capital became a primary target of the newly open cities in this region. More important was the fear that separate recognition of two Koreas would be interpreted as a precedent for Taiwan to win support for a two-China approach. Linkages between a divided China and a divided Korea dating from the Korean War were well understood. If China recognized South Korea that might open the way for others, notably the United States, to recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Realizing that it was on the defensive at the end of the decade, Beijing remained cautious. Yet, the momentum of rapidly expanding economic ties and Roh Moo-hyun’s eagerness to satisfy all of China’s demands, including taking a conciliatory approach to the North, left the impression by 1990 that normalization would not take long. Even so, this would have to be done with care given the importance of North Korea serving the multiple goals of blocking the expansion of U.S. power and its alliance reach; leaving open a wedge for China to shape the future of the entire Korean peninsula; and keeping alive at least one socialist state after the international socialist bloc completely disintegrated in 1989. As China realized that Gorbachev’s “new thinking” and domestic reforms were alienating North Korea, its policy toward South Korea grew more f lexible in 1987–89. Then, after China’s conservative retrenchment and isolation following June 4, 1989, its urgent economic needs rapidly drew it closer to the South; yet it was not inclined to make political normalization a priority. On the one hand, Pyongyang was angrily opposed, and in its isolation could behave in a destabilizing manner. On the other, Washington would see it as one more sign that socialism was in retreat and its power was advancing in East Asia. Since there was no prospect of cross-recognition of the two Koreas by Beijing and Washington, talk that communism was moribund aroused even

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more alarm after June 4, 1989. If Moscow dismissively rejected Pyongyang’s veto of normalization with Seoul, Beijing made clear its support for North-South talks leading to joint admission into the United Nations and its determination to keep assisting the North and to support an even-handed approach to the peninsula despite Pyongyang’s wrath toward Sino-South Korean normalization. Chinese officials were convinced that their approach was more strategic. The First Jiang Zemin Period Three peninsular issues seriously challenged China’s strategic thinking in the first half of the 1990s. First, how would China manage the consequences of its decision to normalize political relations with South Korea despite North Korean resistance? Second, what role should China play in the North Korean nuclear crisis that threatened regional stability? Third, once Washington and Pyongyang signed the Agreed Framework to end the crisis, how should China respond to the new strategic environment? Beijing could not avoid the spotlight at a time when Pyongyang shunned it, Seoul gratefully showed its appreciation, and Washington suddenly awakened to the importance of its cooperation The first issue arose after an accommodation had been reached between the two Koreas, as they agreed to enter the United Nations in tandem, and a sharp rift had split Moscow and Pyongyang due to Moscow’s recognition of South Korea. It also coincided with the Soviet Union’s collapse and Russia’s early f loundering, altering the calculus of both Beijing and Pyongyang. Jae Ho Chung cites the South’s successful establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries as an impetus for China to act too. He also notes that since 1990 China had been normalizing ties to many countries, and this was one more case. Yet, one compelling reason for the timing of normalization was that dual membership in the United Nations as “two Koreas” meant that there no longer seemed to be a parallel with Taiwan, which had been negotiating with Beijing without making a case for “two Chinas.”5 In no haste about normalization, China worked hard to prevent a loss of strategic inf luence on the Korean peninsula. Controlling the pace of normalization of relations with an eager Roh Moo-hyun, China could steer North-South relations toward negotiations. With North Korea more dependent on it and South Korea’s economy ideally suited for accelerating the economic development of North China, Beijing correctly foresaw abundant strategic advantages from cautiously proceeding to normalization. 6 While Pyongyang’s

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obstinacy about reform and nuclear weapons development with a goal of forcing U.S. recognition and rewards may have defied China’s expectations, the situation unfolded in a manner that was not unfavorable to it. China could patiently watch as other countries f loundered in their dealings with North Korea, and it realized that they would rely increasingly on it. After years of South Korean pursuit to normalize relations, China yielded without being able to dislodge the South’s dependence on the United States but with expectations for inf luence over its relations with North Korea. Seoul had to prove that its policy was no longer to isolate Pyongyang or pursue regime change, promising to work with Beijing to encourage reform and openness on terms that would reassure the paranoid leadership in Pyongyang. Consistently, Chinese officials urged South Korea to show its willingness to embrace the North, leaving China in the position of benevolent patron available to orchestrate this reconciliation. Beijing must have foreseen that this role would be divisive for U.S.-South Korean relations. Without openly driving a wedge between the two, its persistent strategy of support for engagement on terms that could gradually build trust while showing little concern for extreme human rights violations or any continued threat capacity had little chance of winning favor in Washington. In contrast to Moscow’s loss of relevance in peninsular matters, Beijing positioned itself to be pursued by many states. The second issue already drew attention in the fall of 1991 when China refused to be part of any international pressure on North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program, only privately indicating that it would encourage the North to accept IAEA inspections. This gave China a supportive role in constructive moves while leaving it aloof at times of rising tension. When the crisis erupted in 1993 Beijing insisted on a diplomatic solution without United Nations sanctions or pressure on the North. By April it was being courted by Washington in order to facilitate dialogue with Pyongyang and had agreed to transmit messages. Yet, as negotiations continued in fits and starts, China persisted in seeking U.S. concessions. Only when talks broke down and a Security Council vote occurred was it necessary to take a stand, which led to a decision to join in prodding the North while also watering down the language in order to give impetus to diplomacy. When the crisis was veering toward war in May–June, Beijing did not block Security Council action. It even dropped its opposition to sanctions, while hinting at measures of its own. Before a deal was struck leading to the Agreed Framework, China had succeeded in positioning itself as the

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indispensable force with enough potential leverage on the North and veto power at the United Nations to become the focus of diplomatic maneuvering, even as South Korea and Japan were anxious about marginalization and Russia was complaining about it.7 The first nuclear crisis arguably served China’s immediate interests. Instead of being chastised for blocking UN sanctions, it won credit for steering diplomacy forward. In Washington new appreciation followed for Beijing’s importance in regional security. Seoul welcomed anew Beijing’s role in dealings with Pyongyang, looking to it more after feeling bypassed by Washington at times during the crisis. Instead of another socialist state collapsing and more triumphalism about the spread of democracy, China could look ahead to difficulties in realizing the Agreed Framework that would make it indispensable. Especially Russian frustration at being marginalized in Asia would be helpful in drawing it closer to China. Since the crisis had cast doubt on U.S.Japanese security coordination, Beijing had another reason to be pleased. Yet, while these developments may have suited strategic thinking centered on multipolarity, they left simmering a grave threat to regional security that could raise Japanese anxieties in ways harmful to Chinese interests and, in the long run, rekindle fears in South Korea that would rebound against trust in China. In the short run, the crisis became a major impetus for Japan strengthening its alliance with the United States. Apparent strategic gains from the first nuclear crisis came at a cost that would take many years to tally and cannot be disentangled from the next crisis’s impact. On the third issue of China’s opportunities in the new environment of the Agreed Framework, we observe a reversion to passivity rather than awareness that North Korean famine and U.S. approval of continued negotiations leading toward normalization gave China an unusual chance to narrow the differences between the two sides. While leaders in Pyongyang remained angry at it and many in Washington were inclined to stand by in the hope that North Korea would collapse, Chinese did not expect a collapse and could have foreseen new tensions as well as opportunities. Given strategic thinking focused on hegemonism and multipolarity, they were ill disposed to consider the timeliness of new diplomatic overtures to spur regional cooperation, energize plans to develop Northeast China, encourage Russia to join in a multilateral energy and development program, and respond to recently expressed Japanese and South Korean interest in such cooperation. China’s normalization with South Korea had the strategic benefit of limiting any Japanese plans for leadership in Northeast Asia. Not only

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did Korean democracy and the continued success of Korea’s economy raise new barriers for Japan, but the presence of China as an economic and political partner emboldened Kim Young-sam and the public. At first, normalization appeared to be a win-win situation as leaders assured the Japanese that the recent momentum in their bilateral relations would continue, and during the first nuclear crisis Kim Young-sam was outdoing all of his predecessors in pursuing forward-looking relations. Yet, in 1995–97 when Chinese economic ties bolted ahead as political ties also became closer, China could take satisfaction that South Korean anger with Japan even became manifest in a joint Beijing press conference critical of the latest Japanese provocation over the history issue.8 With Russo-Japanese relations troubled in the mid-1990s, Chinese analysts were ready to take advantage of the vacuum in regional cooperation that North Korea’s maneuvering had intensified and left to fester. The Second Jiang Zemin Period In the final years of Kim Young-sam’s presidency, troubled ties between Seoul and Tokyo contrasted to expanding relations with Beijing. Fourparty talks brought the two together with Washington and Pyongyang, and economic integration was bounding ahead. In the face of the North’s terrible famine, both parties were active in providing assistance along with Washington and Tokyo. At the North’s greatest moment of need when many persons in desperation f led across the Chinese border, China both stepped up its supply of food to assist the North and held back refugee status and international involvement for those who had f led in a manner that accommodated the North. Despite human rights reservations, the South was careful not to criticize China. Only in the fall of 1998 did South Koreans awaken to the fact that the financial crisis that had started in Southeast Asia was bearing down on them. Desperately, they turned to Japan before succumbing to IMF demands for far-reaching financial reforms. The Asian financial crisis saw Beijing take a back seat to Washington and Tokyo as Seoul struggled with the consequences of financial meltdown and IMF dependency. Yet, renewed resentment as well as the election of progressive Kim Dae-jung as president gave China an opening. In 1998 Kim Dae-jung took office with unprecedented assurances to the United States about economic openness in support of globalization and the values associated with it, and he also gave priority to a breakthrough with Japan. Yet, with his proposed Sunshine Policy, China’s importance increased as the state that could facilitate new overtures to

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North Korea and offer Kim the strongest support. Maintaining a posture of “equidistance” even as the North kept aloof, China welcomed Kim’s rapprochement policy to develop cross-border projects that build trust without insisting on reciprocity. The unmistakable message to the South was that no alternative existed to pursuing the North through China’s good graces. The Sunshine Policy fit China’s blueprint for interKorean relations and depended heavily on its own intensification of ties to the North in preparation for the necessary diplomatic breakthrough.9 Having refused to build ties that could be construed as giving Seoul the edge in inter-Korean reconciliation, Beijing now could assure Pyongyang that it had not been abandoned while, at the same time, proving itself essential to the diplomacy of each of the great powers, including the United States which had launched the Perry Process to reach a deal on North Korea’s missiles. If Beijing aspired to a triangle with the two Koreas, placing itself in the enviable pivot position,10 it realized that Pyongyang intended to capitalize on the Sunshine Policy in order to pursue the more desired target of the United States. Given that South Korean politics are polarized and U.S. support for the Sunshine Policy faced strong opposition, China proceeded cautiously even when Russia’s new president Vladimir Putin rushed to insert himself in a pivotal role. Giving the impression that it shared the high priority that U.S. leaders put on denuclearization, China found it convenient to join Kim Dae-jung in arguing that since Kim Jong-il was intent on regime survival he was ready to make a deal that would satisfy the main U.S. objectives. This argument served strategic objectives. Chinese assured everyone that they are the state most supportive of reunification. Their strategy is for the leaders of the two Koreas to agree on a process that will lead in stages to a single state. Yet, Chinese leaders are well aware that this can only mean that the North pressures the South to remove U.S. troops and relax its guard even as the North continues to mass enough artillery along the border to obliterate much of Seoul. In this process, the South would inevitably generously assist the economic reconstruction of the North as China also gets a green light to integrate as fast as possible with the North. With human rights off the agenda and the United States reluctant to do more than the minimum to assist such a regime, South Korea and China would both cooperate and compete in what inevitably would prove to be a drawn-out, complicated process. Objecting to any conditions that might bring about regime collapse, China is guided by a strategy to give it a major say, presumably a greater voice than South Korea, in a process that may

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well not lead to reunification at all. In 2000 this strategy appeared to be working well, and even as Bush reviewed U.S. options in 2001–02 China could patiently wait for his decision. Given Kim Dae-jung’s eagerness to enlist China’s help with his Sunshine Policy, an opportunity existed to solidify ties already growing close through rapid gains in trade and tourism. As a great power dealing with a neighbor known for its nervousness about past dependency on China and its undertow of concern about China’s rise despite caution in airing anything negative, China had reason to show sensitivity. Yet, its overkill in the 2000 trade dispute over garlic exports to South Korea showed its inclination to throw its weight around.11 At a time of South Korean resentment of the United States for the way the Asian financial crisis was handled and then for Bush’s unilateral approach to Pyongyang that abruptly marginalized the South while it demonized the North as part of the “axis of evil,” China’s image did not suffer much. Its relatively low profile kept attention on Bush and then Koizumi for their insensitivity, but China missed opportunities to solidify its image, as concerns over its arrogance and disregard for Korean feelings was building. Refusal to incorporate values into Sino-South Korean relations apart from one foray into joint criticism of Japan over history seemed to work for China for a time. After resentment arose under Kim Young-sam of the way China dealt with desperate refugees, Kim Dae-jung did not want to raise this issue when he advanced his Sunshine Policy. In hope of ever improving ties with China and critical support from China for overtures to the North, progressives showed no interest in raising value concerns, such as in support of a visit by the Dalai Lama, a fellow Buddhist. Repeatedly, China warned the South Korean government and even individual legislators that it was watching their conduct and could be expected to retaliate. Prior to the inauguration of Chen Shuibian, the Chinese ambassador warned legislators not to attend and indicated that China would remember who had gone. Such heavy-handedness left a bad aftertaste not helpful to China’s soft power. Even so, criticism of China was muted. Progressives were more inclined to criticize the United States for real and imagined failings, not adhering to its professed values, than China for excluding values altogether. Yet, Chinese observers could have been under no illusion that conservatives and especially the security and economic elite in South Korea would require more reassurance. Not providing it left relations in a fragile condition. There was something missing from China’s three aims for North Korea: no war, no nuclear weapons, no collapse. Given the likelihood

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that North Korea would adamantly strive to keep its nuclear weapons, what was the strategy for persuading them otherwise? Urging South Korea as well as the United States and Japan to build trust and generously reward the North for small steps that did not signify denuclearization belied the absence of optimism in China that any country had much inf luence over the North. While the next steps in the process of courting the North appeared to serve China’s interests, the danger of a more entrenched nuclear state alarming other countries and causing more instability appears not to have been foremost in China’s calculus, given its strategic priorities. Jiang Zemin’s September 2001 visit to Pyongyang delivered a different message than Bush’s broad-stroke rhetoric following the 9/11 attack on the United States and the specific targeting in his January 2002 “axis of evil” remarks. Jiang threw China’s support behind reconciliation without value judgments. Following Kim Jong-il’s visit to China in 2000, his trip gave momentum to bilateral relations that had frayed in the 1990s. Coming only two months after Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang and barely one year after Kim Dae-jung’s visit, it recognized the merits of vigorous high-level diplomacy that would give “face” to the North Korean regime and reward it well for calming tensions. Jiang’s final years in power saw both the boom of the Sunshine Policy, which was closely in line with China’s longstanding approach, and the bust of Bush’s condemnation of North Korea as part of the “axis of evil,” which imposed values in a manner that could be threatening to China as well. The Perry Process in 1999 followed by U.S. diplomatic ties to the North in 2000 drew optimistic evaluations in China, indicating that at last U.S. policy accepted the North as it is and would include it in a new security framework. Even more optimistic were Chinese evaluations of Kim Jong-il’s readiness to go beyond the Agreed Framework to make a deal that would bring regional stability and the start of the long-delayed reforms by a regime that had been too insecure to relax its control. Yet, the Bush rhetoric and then the way he rejected the Agreed Framework while blaming Kim for cheating with a program of uranium enrichment left China fearful of a U.S. attack. When Jiang met with Bush in Crawford, Texas in late October 2002, he may have understood that Bush was asking him to abandon China’s strategy. On unclear evidence of the extent of an uranium enrichment program, Bush had followed his “axis of evil” speech with a decision to turn from dialogue to pressure toward the North. China did not agree to exert pressure except early in 2003 and only as a means to prod the North into talks that had little prospect, given the positions of the two

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sides. Consistent with its aims since the 1980s, China focused on promoting negotiations between the two adversaries. The Hu Jintao Era By 2003 China’s position in South Korea seemed enviable. It enjoyed a favorable image in contrast to both the surge of anti-Americanism and the recurrence of anti-Japan emotions at each new, perceived historical affront. All China had to do was to nourish the trust that had been building for more than a decade, showing respect for the South’s core nationalist concerns and reinforcing the attitude that its approach to North Korea echoed that of the South. Indeed, winning and maintaining the goodwill of South Korea might be treated as the foremost test of Hu Jintao’s image-building concern for “soft power” and “peaceful rise.” Not only was the South the most industrialized and democratic of the states that were drawing closer to China, but it was the only U.S. ally in that group. If Hu could just sustain the momentum of this shift, China would have, perhaps, its best proof for the argument that its rise was welcomed by its neighbors. It needed, however, to keep two tests in mind: 1) progressives did not monopolize power, and conservatives needed reassurance and 2) support for engagement with North Korea was not unconditional, and a renewed sense of threat could change South Korean expectations for China’s behavior. By 2008, however, China’s image in South Korea had suffered badly. While some factors may have been beyond its control, others testify to shortcomings in its strategic thinking. Not only had China taken the South for granted, it had made clear that national interests in broadening ties with the North and in bolstering its own centrality and history take precedence. As an ally of the United States and a Korean state inclined to spread its democracy and values to the North, South Korea proved to be too far removed from the sort of close partner China was eager to pursue. Concern over hard power and values linked to ideology took precedence over the prospect of increased trust and multilateralism focused on U.S. allies.12 China’s handling of North Korea helped to improve ties with the United States at a sensitive time when Bush’s preemptive foreign assertiveness imperiled relations. From 2003 Bush’s courtship of Hu as a partner in negotiations with Kim Jong-il served a need to defuse U.S. alarm about a “China threat” while also highlighting China’s indispensable role in regional security. Yet, while cooperation grew closer and Chinese trumpeted the unprecedented positive state of relations,

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they did not shy away from continued warnings against U.S. hegemonic intentions, opposing insistence on military and moral superiority. Engagement of North Korea served, as did the war in Iraq, to def lect U.S. moves toward containing China. Stopping the North’s nuclear and missile programs brought the two states closer together, but China did not accept U.S. reasoning about how to proceed. In 2003 when U.S. preemptive assertiveness was at its peak, China tried hard to restrain both antagonists in the nuclear standoff and prevent war. When the danger was less imminent in 2004, however, the mood had shifted to blaming the United States for failing to negotiate realistically. Chinese sources credited the North with flexibility, even taking at face value its declarations that it would abandon nuclear weapons.13 Hopes had risen that a softer U.S. approach could invigorate the Six-Party Talks and promote a favorable security environment for China in Northeast Asia.14 During Bush’s first term Chinese could depict U.S. thinking as ideological, mired in the cold war, contrasting it to their own pragmatic orientation aiming only for peace and stability. Yet, behind China’s convenient dichotomy was a purposive determination to take advantage of Bush’s moral extremism to undercut U.S. realist objectives. Treating the North as virtually an innocent party in the negotiating process, as many did, conformed to this logic.15 The main focus of Chinese strategic thinking remained U.S. hegemonism, which supposedly accounted for U.S. fear of a compromise endangering its alliance with South Korea and imposing other strategic costs, such as in its close ties to Japan.16 Even as Beijing and Washington made considerable progress in working together on the nuclear crisis, the way China assessed the crisis and U.S. motives ref lected assumptions deeply rooted in its post–cold war logic. Chinese censorship was sufficiently loosened for alternative opinions to appear in print at certain times on some sensitive issues. In the first months of 2003 there had been an unusually open debate on policy toward Japan (“new thinking”) before Koizumi’s insistence on visiting the Yasukuni Shrine and the absence of reciprocity in Japanese thinking as well as a popular outcry against such “traitorous” ideas quieted the discussion. In mid-2004 it was convenient to blame China’s renewed censorship of critical writing on a sensitive topic on North Korean pressure. If criticisms of North Korean human rights and censorship and calls for revising the clause in the bilateral treaty that commits China to go to war angered Pyongyang, they no doubt also contradicted the mainstream official line.17 Leaders not only did not need to irritate the North Korean regime, they also could not

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welcome serious probing into tenets still important for guiding foreign policy. Hu Jintao’s visit to Pyongyang in October 2005 brought generous economic aid that helped to accelerate the already rapid growth in bilateral trade. If it was treated as a way to lure the North to the fifth round of talks and build on the momentum of the Joint Statement in September, its effect was to further separate economic relations from the conduct of North Korea. Refusing to participate in the Six-Party Talks, test-firing missiles, and even testing a nuclear weapon did not interrupt the buildup from year to year in one-sided trade, subsidized by China. Since Hu was about to visit Seoul for the APEC summit, his visit to Pyongyang gave an impression of even-handedness. Yet, many in China had grown more confident about China’s position relative to that of the United States and had decided that the United States had renewed its strategy of democratization and regime change.18 The intensification of economic ties with the North suggested a change in strategy, arousing nervousness in the South that this could lead to de facto integration excluding it. While it may have been a means to pressure the United States to rescind financial sanctions against the North and be more compromising, even after the United States acted in that manner in 2007 after China had voted in favor of sanctions on the North twice in 2006, economic ties kept expanding in a manner that indicated China’s was seeking more clout. After China again voted against North Korea at the UN Security Council in April 2009 after a missile test, economic ties kept expanding. Wen Jiabao’s visit to Pyongyang in October promised more of the same. China in 2002–06 gave the impression that it shared the same goal as the United States but believed that only a softer approach would achieve it. In the immediate aftermath of the North’s belligerent acts in the second half of 2006, China further conveyed that it was as upset as the United States and would agree on a combination of carrots and sticks. Yet, China’s trust in U.S. intentions remained uncertain, as if a two-way deal bypassing China that allowed the North to retain nuclear weapons could be forthcoming. In addition, it became clearer that China does not regard the North’s nuclear activities as an imminent security threat. As in 2003, China had voted in the Security Council in order to forestall having the blame shift toward it with possible repercussions on its economic ties with the United States. If Hu succeeded in working closely with Bush while conveying the notion that China now accepts the U.S. status as the lone superpower, he was also striving to upgrade ties with Kim Jong-il to foster trust and to position China for

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the uncertain process ahead. In late 2006 by voting for a compromise resolution on UN sanctions against the North for its nuclear test, Hu gained increased U.S. trust.19 Yet, in 2007–08, as halting progress occurred in the Six-Party Talks primarily due to direct U.S.-North Korean negotiations, Hu expanded economic ties with the North. In 2009 there was no doubt that China was upset about the North’s belligerent actions and was cooperating with sanctions, but it sought to steer a middle road that advanced economic integration with few conditions. While some Chinese experts openly objected to further coddling of the North and called for its isolation by China as well as other states, 20 this could be part of a dualistic approach that left China’s options open as it strove for engagement. Lee Myung-bak’s tilt toward the United States and Japan left Chinese leaders anxious about their leverage. To teach Lee a lesson they could treat him with new reserve, causing concern about bilateral relations, or expand political and economic ties with the North to show that the South might be marginalized. Delaying the acceptance of the credentials of the South Korean ambassador or orchestrating publication of a prominent article on the eve of Lee’s visit warning that the U.S.-South Korean alliance is outdated are examples showing how China shows its pique. Moves to arouse the emotions of the Chinese public against South Korea also exerted a degree of pressure. All of these moves occurred in 2008 against the backdrop of a series of summits ostensibly upgrading ties to a “strategic cooperative partnership.” Yet, cautious about arousing public emotions too much, Chinese leaders tightened censorship on explosive issues such as the Koguryo historical dispute and kept a lid on the vituperative quarreling after the Olympics. China reacted negatively to Lee Myung-bak after his election as president. His low priority for China was a likely factor, as was his high priority for the United States and for incorporating values into foreign policy. Yet, the most important factor appears to have been his colder stance toward North Korea, breaking from Roh’s approach that had been close to that of China. If China had been serious about making denuclearization the first priority and working closely with the United States in the Six-Party Talks, then its reaction would probably not have been so severe. Strategic thinking about pressuring the United States into further compromise without clarity about future elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons lies at the root of this reaction. This attitude filtered down to the Chinese people, contributing to incidents that widened distrust with South Koreans.

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As in the case of Sino-Japanese relations, Hu found summits a useful way of preventing a downward spiral, but he did not have a strategy for reducing the values gap or the security doubts that have arisen. If values faded into the background during Roh Moo-hyun’s tenure, they matter to the Korean people and again became a focus under Lee. An image of Chinese arrogance spread in 2008 over the insensitive handling of many issues from tensions over the “sacred torch” parade in Seoul prior to the Olympics, to the booing of Korean athletes, to the handling of food safety concerns. In the background looms China’s insistence on encouraging a nationalistic and distorted interpretation of the Koguryo state as China’s heritage rather than Korea’s. In this situation China may not have a full-scale strategy for using North Korea to shape regional security and likely would prefer a nonnuclear North, but it fears mostly a negative shift in the status quo favorable to the United States. Concern about instability in the North and refugees is real, but there is a still greater concern. It is not clear, however, that China has shed its pattern of reacting to events to prepare for the next, tense stage if the North grows assertive and U.S. policy shifts from carrots to sticks. It was much easier earning goodwill as convener and occasionally mediator of a process lurching forward than being put on the spot as facilitator of proliferation or of tightening sanctions in what might become a downward spiral. Without advance strategic planning, China may have to make tough choices that its short-term reactive manner has little anticipated. China has not placed a high value on its reputation even as it has taken increased care to avoid the downside of fear of a China threat. It enjoyed increasingly favorable perceptions to 2004 at the same time as the U.S. image was declining in South Korea and Japan’s rise was a greater concern than China’s. This was notably the case after the April 2004 Uri Party success in National Assembly elections. Roh Moohyun’s soft policy toward North Korea made it easier for China to reinvigorate its special relationship with the North, reducing the need to reassure the South and the likelihood of criticism from it. Prudently, China was advancing slogans about “peaceful development” and “harmonious world,” as the view spread that it was prepared to accept a U.S.-led world for decades to come in order to realize domestic goals. If this benign image of a pragmatic, cooperative country did not win over Japan, it resonated elsewhere, notably in South Korea. 21 Yet, it was tarnished to some degree by more assertive Chinese behavior, less cooperation than some had expected, and signs that behind this public relations lurked a harsher reality. By 2008 the goodwill accumulated in South

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Korea had been largely dissipated, despite the fact that it was North Korea that tested a nuclear weapon and threatened the very principles China appeared to welcome. Chinese leaders treat relations with the two Koreas as strictly realist in nature. In the 1980s any shift away from the North would have been a gift to the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the United States, on the other. In the 1990s normalization on the basis of equidistance and passivity in the first nuclear crisis mixed with approval for talks that met the main goals of the adversaries kept realism in the forefront. Yet, opposition to the use of force or even pressure against the North raised doubts then and even more over the following decade that as the status quo shifted either China’s realist logic found benefits in it or national identity themes were blurring that logic. More than communist fraternity, traditional sinocentrism appears to have been at work. Second only to the emotional case that Taiwan is an existential issue of defending sovereignty, the Korean peninsula with South Korea included registers as a matter of entitlement based on past hierarchical ties. This is more than balance-of-power logic. It also is a form of extrapolation from the past worldview and current theory that denounces hegemonism but only pays lip service to equality among states. Influence along its border is only fitting for a rising country with China’s power. When the United States has failed to recognize that inf luence—just by conceding the host role in the Six-Party Talks it does not go far enough—or South Korea denies it, as Lee Myung-bak has done, China rightly becomes less cooperative. In 2009 the nuclear crisis posed a more serious problem, as Pyongyang instead of awaiting a new engagement effort from Obama, defiantly fired off missiles, tested a nuclear weapon, and broke off cooperation in the Six-Party Talks after the other five states agreed on a critical Security Council statement. Having long called for greater U.S. f lexibility in negotiating with the North, Beijing had become concerned about being marginalized in 2007–08 and now had to deal with a far more complicated situation testing contradictions between its goals of managing relations with the United States, realizing denuclearization, and maintaining the North as a strategic asset or at least a neutral force that does not change the balance of power in a negative way. 22 Instead of receiving praise for orchestrating a successful process of “word-for-word, action-for-action,” China was in danger of being exposed for following a one-sided strategy of tilting toward passivity when the need for a coordinated response was at its peak. Only in the June 2009 tougher UN resolution did China swing its weight behind multilateralism focused

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on five versus one. Yet, when Kim Jong-il showed slight signs of f lexibility and welcoming talks. Wen’s visit to Pyongyang suggested that China would offer rewards well beyond what seemed appropriate to Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington. Conclusion China’s strategic thinking toward the Korean peninsula brought considerable success. It gained great advantage from South Korean economic ties as it increasingly became indispensable for the South’s attempts to manage North Korea and balance ties to the great powers active in Northeast Asia. From the first nuclear crisis to the Sunshine Policy to the Six-Party Talks its importance kept growing. This served China’s aims in relations with the United States, while marginalizing Japan in ways that complicated its relations with both the United States and South Korea. Yet, the gains achieved when the South was under a progressive president and U.S.-North Korean ties were centered on talks aimed at denuclearization would eventually have to be tested in a far less hopeful environment, where a conservative president in Seoul faced a belligerent Pyongyang. After delaying to 1992 in normalizing ties with South Korea and forcing its hand with North Korea, China for about fifteen years enjoyed a unique position in peninsular affairs, especially welcomed by the South as the gateway to the North and also by the United States as the best hope to promote negotiations and avoid a worst-case scenario. It played this role effectively, showing patience in troubled times and finding a middle road when prospects for that had risen. It was walking a tightrope, however, given how serious the issues at stake were and how hesitant it remained to make far-reaching decisions. For a time in 2003–04 it appeared that Beijing and Seoul were drawing closer together at the expense of U.S.-South Korean ties. They took a similar position on how to deal with North Korea, including remonstrating with the Bush administration to change its posture in the SixParty Talks. Yet, Beijing did not trust the South Koreans to deviate far from U.S. alliance relations. Also, it focused more on improving ties with Pyongyang than on maintaining the momentum with Seoul. With this in mind, it saw the South as competition for influence in the North. As Chinese trade with North Korea rose rapidly over the next years, South Korean also awakened to this competition. Given China’s strategy, it is not surprising that Sino-South Korean relations eventually deteriorated.

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China did not normalize relations with the expectation that it could find common ground with South Korea on values. After all, Roh Taewoo was considered an ardent anticommunist. China continued to remain suspicious of Koreans, especially the elite, over values, while pragmatically steering relations forward for other reasons. Even when progressives held power for a decade and greater consensus was reached on avoiding any criticism of North Korean human rights, China’s leaders did not foresee this as leading to a meeting of the minds. The value gap—rooted in closeness to the West and Korean nationalism—was too great to bridge. South Koreans, however, show more sensitivity to values issues: China’s treatment of refugees from North Korea, the troubling Koguryo issue, and, under Lee Myung-bak, reaffirmation of values in U.S. alliance relations. At the core is concern that sinocentrism will be revived, leaving Koreans dependent again. Trying to balance the goal of keeping the trust of North Korea as an honest broker supportive of regime security and reassuring South Korea as a close economic partner in need of reassurance about regional stability, China alienated both from 2006. Indeed, the core of the problem dates back to the 1980s when it gave priority to the North’s interests and then to the limited normalization of relations with the South in 1992 and subsequent first nuclear crisis when China’s passivity placed balance of power and value objectives above regional stability. In this situation, China won little credit from the North while also not agreeing to an approach that could satisfy, in the long run, the South. North Korean leaders continue to perceive China leaning to the side of South Korea and the United States, especially in 2006 after their f lurry of missiles and later their nuclear test. Yet, China’s hesitation to keep pressure on the North contributed to the perception by South Koreans that they needed a leader inclined to draw closer to the United States. China insists that it is most supportive of a united Korea, but its conditions often go unreported. It aims to deny the United States strategic benefit, listening posts on the border and presumably alliance ties with the new, united Korea. Alert to North Korean sensitivities, China does not favor strategic dialogue with the United States about the future of the peninsula. Of course, it rejects such a dialogue with South Korea and any effort to forge a group among the other five to prepare for contingencies in the North. In spite of these limitations, China still has not faced its most critical tests. In 2009 rapid deterioration in North-South and U.S.-North Korean relations made it likely that China would have to make choices it had long avoided. This might be the principal test of how far it was ready to go in shifting from the cautionary advice of

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Deng Xiaoping toward the new assertiveness that was sought by those emboldened by China’s rise and changes in the international environment. The Korean peninsula is testing China’s “peaceful rise.” In June 2009 it agreed to financial sanctions and a ban on arms exports from the North that somewhat tilted the balance to pressuring the North for its extreme conduct. This move drew praise from states that prioritized denuclearization. It raised hope that earnest efforts of Obama to engage China would be reciprocated, but responding to extreme behavior in one instance with a compromise resolution does not signify a strategic shift in China.

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CHAPTER 9

Strategic Thought on Southeast and South Asia Southeast and South Asia were secondary to Northeast Asia and even Central Asia through much of Chinese history. As relations with Russia and Japan took center stage in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this situation continued. In the 1980s strategic thinking centered on great power relations, even if economic openness raised the significance of Southeast Asia. Only from the 1990s does the gap narrow considerably, but maneuvering over the Korean peninsula and, as before, pursuit of Russia superseded any strategic priority to the south. At the same time, the rise of Southeast and South Asia in China’s strategic thinking was notable for at least four reasons: 1) intensification of great power rivalries, as Moscow was marginalized and Washington and Tokyo became drawn into these areas in new ways; 2) spillover from rapid Asian economic integration, in which China gained a prominent place; 3) the search for ASEAN-centered regionalism, fueled by uncertainty about leadership within Southeast Asia and a realization that giving new meaning to this entity would be important for stability; and 4) the growing salience of India and Pakistan as states that could command the attention of the great powers and inf luence the course of Asian reorganization. As these areas gained newfound importance, Chinese debates about international relations paid increasing attention to them. Neighboring countries rank second to great power relations in the hierarchy of China’s external concerns. The two categories converge to a degree because the other great powers are regarded as actors in Southeast and South Asia, to the point that these areas are often depicted as arenas for countering hegemonism or managing relations with one or another great power. Unlike Northeast Asia or Central Asia, they are

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also viewed of late as less dominated by one or another great power and more amenable to China’s rise. While economic ties provide the means to exert inf luence, Chinese strategic thinking centers mostly on the balance of power, as seen in military, political, and cultural ties. Another characteristic of these regions to China’s south is the presence of states little integrated into the international community and defiant of it. Befriending Pakistan and later Myanmar, after it had sponsored revolutionary movements and become the sole partner of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, China found that it could fill a vacuum with its refusal to base foreign policy on universal values. Over time China’s inf luence expanded, relying on economic lures to establish a stronger presence but not forsaking values as a measure of its priorities and as a tool to wield against U.S. pressure as seen in the Asian financial crisis and again in the war against terror, and also against Japan’s claims to leadership despite its historical cloud and its U.S. dependency. Above all, Beijing’s opportunities came from a Southeast Asian desire to boost ASEAN as a weak form of regionalism and the hostility between Pakistan and India that blocked serious South Asian regionalism. Given the clear military superiority of the United States in the Indian Ocean and its ability to link up with other military forces in the region, China had to concentrate on economic leverage and soft power arguments as it attempted to build up political clout. In addition to preferential bilateral relations, its objective was regional reorganization. Top on its list after 2000 was establishment of exclusive regionalism to turn Southeast Asia away from the United States and prime the area, as China’s rise continued, for increasing leadership from Beijing. To achieve this goal, China needed Japan’s support. Moreover, it was intent on denying India a balancing role in Southeast Asia as well as leadership in South Asia, especially as Washington and Tokyo increasingly looked to New Delhi. In spite of negative views of Japan and India, they needed to be swayed as partners. This led to a balancing act: Getting Japan and India to drop their guard against China’s advancing clout, while forging a regional balance that would constrain these two great powers. Based on interviews with Southeast Asian officials and specialists, Robert Sutter argued in 2005 that “benign and attentive Chinese diplomacy” that put aside differences and emphasized common geoeconomic interests was greatly welcomed. China was now recognized as supportive of regional stability, and states in the region were eager for the United States and Japan to cooperate with it as it rose in power. Yet, governments sought balance among the great powers and “many foresaw the possibility of China adopting a more interventionist stance.”1

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The burden was on Beijing to moderate any ambitions in recognition of the hedging by states in this region and to cooperate with the other great powers whose presence was perceived more positively by most states in Southeast Asia. As NATO’s war in Afghanistan spilled increasingly into Pakistan in 2008–09, a second challenge for Beijing was becoming no less evident. No longer was this a war in the shadows, left to smolder as the Iraq War consumed U.S. energies. Instead, it was now a clash of considerable consequence, which the Obama administration sought to resolve through a regional approach, involving various great powers and capable of shaping the future of South Asia. With uncertainty about Pakistan’s future and new importance for resolving the Indian-Pakistan dispute, China would be tested on how willing it would be to help to establish a joint framework focused on regional stability. As in Southeast Asia, its inclination toward limited multilateralism warning against hegemonism would not suffice. Southeast Asia For China, Southeast Asia is an arena in which great powers compete for strategic inf luence. As in the Vietnam War when the United States battled to dominate the region, the focus remains on U.S. determination to keep its hegemony in the face of opposition, now supported by China’s putatively opposite strategy of treating others equally, building mutual trust, and fostering joint development. Indicative of China’s enlightened approach is its FTA with the region, deemed the biggest in the world for developing countries and behind only the EU and NAFTA in scale. Supposedly out of touch with this region in part because of its one-sided antiterrorism struggle, the United States is gradually becoming excluded, as, according to this view, China’s influence keeps growing. In response, U.S. efforts are seen as trying to extend hegemony in various ways: 1) preempting regionalism with attempts to forge artificial, supra-regionalism via APEC or an APEC FTA, which aims to weaken East Asian integration; 2) enlisting Japan in a plot directed at attenuating East Asian regionalism with inclusion in the new EAS of Australia, New Zealand, and India; and 3) fomenting a “colored” revolution in Myanmar to alter the regional balance of states. 2 This reported strategy is criticized for containing China’s rise through such means as interfering in the internal affairs of Southeast Asian states and boosting military and economic ties with Indonesia, Vietnam, and others as counterweights. Critical to this type of analysis is the argument that

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democratization and human rights are slogans employed for strategic aims, among which is control of the sea route from the Persian Gulf to China. It follows that China should reject such ideals, while concentrating on its own strategic advance in opposition to U.S. hegemony. This is the basic logic in strategic thinking that combines reassurances of cooperation with insistence on the need to sustain competition. In the 1980s China was obsessed with settling the score with Vietnam and getting the Soviet Union to abandon its support of Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia. Whereas many thought that the foremost issue in Sino-Soviet relations was the territorial dispute or the threat of Soviet forces massed along China’s northern border, in the fall of 1985 China made clear that the foremost barrier to normalization was the Soviet support that allowed Vietnam to remain in Cambodia. Failing to prioritize normalizing relations with Indonesia and Singapore or to do more than to warn against Japan’s unjust aspirations in the region, China’s regional approach was narrowly centered during this decade. Apart from drawing investment from overseas Chinese, Southeast Asia was a secondary focus. After 1989 the cold war ended abruptly in Southeast Asia; the Soviet Union lost its special relationship with Vietnam after the latter had no choice but to abandon its occupation of Cambodia. Seeing an opening and then anxious to overcome pressure from global sanctions, China was quick to intensify its involvement in the region, capitalizing first on Myanmar’s international isolation after its military leaders rejected the results of an election and then on Cambodia’s revival of special bilateral ties. Ties to other states were more urgent after June 4, 1989, leading to the restoration of relations. The earlier sense that prospects in the region were not very strong shifted, as overseas Chinese funneled investments into China and states in the region declined to join in international sanctions. Indonesia and Singapore gained special importance. Given the prospect of rapidly rising trade volumes, the economic gains were obvious. No longer would China simply concede the region to U.S. and Japanese interests. In 1990–91, it made a strong comeback with support from governments in this region willing to countenance a new economic partner. At a time of China’s isolation, the political and strategic gains were considerable. Opportunism characterized China’s response to growing animosity to Western values in Mahathir’s Malaysia as Asian values drew increasing attention, as if they were part of the new ideological divide after the cold war. With Mahathir pressing the case for ASEAN to expand into an Asian organization excluding the United States, China took comfort

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in its widening foothold in the region. The Asian financial crisis brought another turning point in Chinese strategic thinking toward Southeast Asia. Not only did increased trust in China due to its currency policies and preferential loans create an opening for more intensive economic interactions, rivaling those of Japan, but there was a sense that countries in the region and ASEAN as an emerging regional entity sought more great power equilibrium.3 Another opening came with abruptly worsening Indonesian relations with the United States over its atrocities in East Timor. Yet, China was aggressive in pressing territorial claims and remained hesitant about multilateralism as it prioritized multipolarity in its strategic thinking. After delays in the 1980s, China did not make the most of its chances to allay concern about its strategic intentions through most of the 1990s. Chinese trace rising and suspect Japanese ambitions in Southeast Asia to a change in strategy in the 1970s. While the United States sought more burden-sharing as it pulled back following the Vietnam War, Japan saw an opportunity to become a political and cultural great power. It aimed to stand on Asia and face the world, to represent an Eastern cultural sphere, and boldly to replace the United States in the region.4 After the end of the cold war Japan switched to pressing for Asian-Pacific regionalism with emphasis on East Asia and Southeast Asia as its backyard in the context of a new tripartite global, economic system shared with the United States and the EU. Raising doubts about its realization, sources left the impression that this was not in China’s national interest. Yet, Chinese found assurance in the conclusion that Japan would not succeed. Cultural diversity leaves trust in Japan in doubt. Overseas Chinese play a large role in regional economies and are not likely to go along. U.S. use of human rights to pressure countries alienates them and reverberates against Japan. Clearly conditions for regionalism were not ripe, buying time for China to develop its own strategy to deny Japan any leadership. In 1992 when Japan sent its first peacekeeping forces to Cambodia, responses warned that it had begun an all-out advance to the south. It is enlisting ASEAN’s help, and it has designs on Vietnam, filling the vacuum left after the departure of the Soviet Union. With Japan critical of China’s position on the Spratly Islands and arousing nearby states, China faced a challenge in responding to this newly assertive strategy.5 Its positive engagement with many of the states of Southeast Asia in the first half of the 1990s was seen as overcoming this challenge. Chinese claimed to detect a hardening of Japan’s position against their country in 1992. Despite events to celebrate the twentieth

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anniversary of normalization, they found fault with Japan’s renewed effort to strengthen U.S. ties, detecting an uncooperative tone toward their country. In November 1991 Miyazawa’s concept of a world peace order was seen as a step back from Kaifu’s March 1990 notion of a new order, which just noted respect for freedom and democracy but omitted human rights, as Japan seemed to be at odds with the United States and the G-7. In February 1992 Japan’s vote on a resolution about Tibet was taken as its first attempt to pressure China on human rights, and when Jiang Zemin and other leaders visited Japan in the spring the issue was raised. Suggesting that U.S. pressure against Japan for not meeting its obligations prodded it to show it is a responsible power, critics also asserted with the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a threat the media in Japan were beginning to treat China that way. To distract concerns about its own behavior, Japan exaggerated China’s military buildup and ambitions. It is accused of trying to isolate China in Southeast Asia, as if only Japan can restore Asian stability. Treating the Bush-Kaifu meeting early in 1991 and the follow-up announcement of conditions for ODA (including the weapons exports, military budget, and democracy and human rights of a country) as a turning point, one source concluded that Japan was targeting China.6 As its strategies toward Russia and North Korea were failing, Southeast Asia appeared to be the principal battleground. Blocking Japan’s ambitions here became a goal, and it remained so even after China appeared to gain an edge after 2000. With U.S. forces withdrawing from bases in the Philippines in 1991 and Russia of no strategic consequence, Southeast Asia attracted China not only as a tempting target for expanding economic openness and overcoming political isolation, but also for redressing the security balance along one of the country’s borders. In order to take advantage of this possibility, Beijing played a constructive role in settlement of Cambodian strife after the withdrawal of Vietnam and in management of territorial disputes in the South China Sea. These moves reassured states still suspicious of past Chinese support or rebel movements on their territory. Having already found common cause with Thailand over Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia and with Malaysia in keeping the United States at a distance, Beijing followed normalization with Singapore with acknowledgment of that state’s efforts to promote cross-Strait dialogue and with Indonesia by not insisting very hard on that state cutting indirect political contacts with Taiwan.7 Flexibility in Southeast Asia revealed considerable strategic moderation in the early 1990s.

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Cambodia and Vietnam are special cases. Ties to the leadership in Cambodia were strong in the 1970s before Vietnam invaded and grew strong again after the Vietnamese troops departed. The views of experts counted for less in light of the attitudes of officials that they benefitted from longstanding insight, as also is true for North Korea. After Cambodia had been removed as an obstacle to relations, territorial differences remained especially with Vietnam. When Vietnam was admitted into ASEAN in 1995 and at the same time normalized relations with the United States, it became more important for China to improve relations. This offered Vietnam some assurance that it did not have to face China alone, while it also gave China new incentives to keep territorial differences from interfering with region-wide objectives. Yet, the 1992 Chinese law claiming full control over territorial waters and the right to protect them with force and the occupation of the disputed Mischief Reef in 1995 kept Vietnam and some other states alert to China’s assertiveness. The maritime dispute over the Spratly Islands lingered even as the states of ASEAN together welcomed China into a balance of great powers. It was a sign of more mature strategic thinking that China managed in agreements on a border treaty and a maritime demarcation plan to calm Vietnamese concerns at the same time as two-way trade was growing rapidly and Vietnam was becoming supportive of China’s new overtures to ASEAN. 8 In the second half of the 1990s new opportunities arose for China in Southeast Asia. Blaming the United States for its response to the Asian financial crisis, some states were receptive to China’s cooperative attitude, including attentiveness to the problem of FDI shifting ever more away from Southeast Asian producers to the booming Chinese manufacturing belts. Moreover, China embraced the ASEAN Way, which opposed outside interference and accepted a diversity of values and political systems. Having aroused anxiety earlier in the decade with an aggressive stance on its territorial claims in the South China Sea, China was careful to focus instead on economic issues that were causing the most concern in Southeast Asia, offering new cooperation. Following the rush to normalization of relations after 1989, the acceptance of regionalism centered on ASEAN from 1997–99 raised China’s profile in this region. Another turning point in Chinese strategic thinking toward Southeast Asia can be dated from late 2003 with the signing of the TAC treaty and intensification of security ties. Rapidly accelerating economic relations complemented by strategic partnerships put relations on a new plain in the context of deepening great power competition. If India was

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now becoming active in the region and Japan remained the principal player maneuvering over regional organization, Chinese viewed the two main strategic actors as the United States and China, each professing to respect the other’s presence while striving to limit it. They pointed to a contradiction between what Washington said and its actual plans.9 Writers depicted U.S. policy in Southeast Asia as directed primarily against their country. U.S. interest in the region dropped in the 1990s but was seen to rise as China’s presence grew later in the decade. Even when Bush tactically improved cooperation with China from 2002, Chinese warned that their state was still seen as a threat, which, as its rise continued, would have to be contained. Viewing the region as the crossroads of oceans and the vital oil supply line of its allies, the United States would, we are told, continue to oppose China’s rise.10 Such analyses omit the question of overlapping versus contending interests. It is assumed that a zero-sum struggle is under way. In Central Asia, analysts emphasized the promise of Sino-Russian ties leading to a win-win outcome, and in Northeast as the Six-Party Talks advanced, they were inclined to accept the possibility of a mutually favorable outcome. Yet, in Southeast Asia where tensions were much lower, the drumbeat of accusations against hegemonism continued. Through the 2000s in the midst of U.S. wars in two corners of Asia and alarm over WMD proliferation in two other states, China exaggerated U.S. offensive intentions in much quieter Southeast Asia. After 9/11 the United States pressed Southeast Asian states to join in rooting out terrorist elements in the region. At the same time, concern rose that the narrow Malacca Straits would become not only an increasing target of pirates but also a vulnerable choke point where traffic to East Asia could be put in jeopardy. Although after 9/11 attention turned to terror groups there, this is often treated as secondary to weakening China; the war against terror became an excuse to deepen military ties in the region. As China’s oil imports through the Straits rose dramatically, its interest grew. Concerned that the United States was using the pretext of terrorism to take control of the Straits through a proposed regional maritime security initiative, China supported Malaysia’s refusal to accept the initiative. Moreover, in 2003–04 as the United States was also trying to internationalize security in the region with its proliferation security initiative, China backed a regional alternative broadening the functions of ASEAN ⫹ 3 to include security. Although China’s expanding navy was still too weak to exert much inf luence in the area, the struggle had begun between its plans for the future and the U.S. approach, which China saw as the latest form of hegemonism. China’s

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strategy, however, caused a backlash. Not only Japan, but Indonesia, Singapore, and other states did not welcome assertive moves to exclude the United States, which countered with a more accommodating approach, focusing on Indonesia, relying more on Australia, and not putting itself so much in the forefront. Especially Vietnam, despite growing economic integration with China, stayed wary, seeking the reassurance of the U.S. regional presence. The U.S. war against terrorism intensified its interest in security ties in Southeast Asia, but it also presented an opportunity for China. While there was some concern that U.S. pressure for closer military and political ties would come at China’s expense, the backlash against the obsessive U.S. approach as well as the desire for balanced great power relations reinforced the momentum China was achieving with its burgeoning economic ties. The momentum in ASEAN favored stability and economic development, domestic concerns taking priority without any inclination for abrupt change that might be linked to the promotion of democracy or vigorous campaigns against domestic Islamic groups. China found more space to operate, opposing pressure on Myanmar and casting doubt on U.S. motives. By 2005 when U.S. policy shifted away from treating this region primarily as a high-priority front against terrorism, China’s position was more secure. China had finally by 2000 developed a sufficient base throughout ASEAN to advance plans for exclusive regionalism. This started with trade, including a plan for a China-ASEAN FTA in a decade. By 2004 expectations were high that Indonesia would swing its support to regionalism through ASEAN ⫹ 3, fulfilling the promise of the EAS Vision Group five years earlier. Yet, in 2005 as the first East Asian Summit approached, Japan succeeded in winning Indonesian approval for its alternative proposal for an expanded EAS that China would be much less likely to dominate. China’s plans were thwarted, as the countries of Southeast Asia reacted to its excessive initiatives to shape a region free of U.S. leadership. While some of them were bothered by U.S. neglect or one-sided focus on antiterrorism, they did not accept China’s view of U.S. hegemonism and its danger for the region. Instead, they opted for arrangements that limited any one power’s hold over ASEAN while encouraging an enduring balance of as many powers as possible. Zero-sum logic did not apply only to the U.S. role in the region. Chinese also cast doubt on Japan’s motives in Southeast Asia. Arguing that Japan insists on becoming the regional leader, they contend that it does not treat these states equally. Extrapolating from arguments about historical revisionism in dealing with issues such as the Yasukuni Shrine,

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analysts find evidence of extreme nationalism and contempt for its neighbors in Japan’s alleged opposition to regional cooperation as well as planned containment of China’s rise. Reliance on U.S. political and military power in the region alienates Japan. Arguments that draw a direct link between Japanese pretensions to liberate Asia to 1945 based on a sense of superiority and new efforts to make Japan regional leader dismiss the values and policies of postwar Japan.11 Having become marginalized in Northeast Asia and fearing further isolation, Japan had supposedly intensified its competition with China in this area. Such analysis assumes that China’s rise poses no problems since the result is assumed to be a region with equality among states in which no hegemonism could occur. After 1989 China had successfully turned to the countries of Southeast Asia to avoid isolation, and after another strategic reevaluation in 1999 it again targeted this area for quick returns in the midst of a more sobering environment. By 2002 agreements were in place to keep territorial disputes from interfering with improved relations. Signing the TAC in 2003 reassured ASEAN as a unit and helped to boost military ties with specific states. With the United States giving priority to other regions and China’s future looking ever brighter, strategic gains in Southeast Asia appeared to be the crowning success in its international diplomacy. Increasingly, China had become the initiator, but indications that it would like to steer ASEAN toward a different balance of power faced resistance that it may not have appreciated. Its economic clout proved quite limited, as seen in investments and assistance. Also, not only Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam, but even Malaysia preferred to hedge against China.12 Its military ties in the region show no sign of overtaking those of the United States. The very fact of China’s rapid rise alerts states determined to preserve a regional balance of power to be more cautious. There is no sign that China’s strategic thinking has found an answer to these limitations on its rise. Overall, China succeeded in addressing regional concerns—economic, military, and cultural—about its rise.13 After its first wave of success in expanding ties in this area, it found that reservations remained widespread, even fueling talk of a China threat, in the mid-1990s. Assertiveness linked to territorial and economic issues gave way to efforts to build trust, stressing ever-growing stable ties that reinforced ASEAN and did not pose a direct challenge to other powers. The Asian financial crisis gave China an opening to improve its image with constructive steps. Entry into the WTO tested its sensitivity to economic anxieties in Southeast Asian states, and it responded effectively. A more

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positive attitude toward multilateral organizations helped to build trust on political issues too. If nervousness about China’s rapid military rise has not dissipated, the impact is not as serious as it would have been without China’s intense diplomatic engagement. During the 2000s Chinese made considerable progress in building up soft power in this region. Cultural contacts grew rapidly, and reassuring language kept emanating from Beijing. In this record of achievement there was considerable room for self-satisfaction. In the period after 2000 booming trade gave China a chance to play a leading role in responding to ASEAN’s interest in strengthening the organization. Countering efforts by U.S. officials to turn ASEAN or part of it into a security force opposed to terrorism and piracy and turning away from attempts by some members of ASEAN to pressure Myanmar over human rights, China sought to steer the organization into strong economic ties and to develop infrastructure favoring northsouth linkages. In these years China grew active in nontraditional security cooperation, but its main concern remained alleged U.S. aims to label China’s military buildup a threat and to rally countries, especially in Southeast Asia, to hedge against it. After all, the priority buildup of naval and air power no longer seemed to be narrowly focused on Taiwan, but instead was extending through the South China Sea in the direction of Southeast Asia. Rather than assuaging the anxieties of other countries, Chinese writers blamed them for stirring up hostility, often at U.S. instigation. Perhaps, the biggest battleground in Chinese eyes was Indonesia— because of its demographic and geographic dominance in the region. In the 1980s China discounted any chance of gaining leverage there, as memories endured of Suharto’s brutal crackdown on communists and longstanding discrimination against overseas Chinese. With Suharto still in power and Indonesia only gradually broadening its international perspective, China saw little chance for an opening apart from economic relations before the financial crisis. After the crisis and Suharto’s fall, however, its situation improved. Yet, analysts point to the aftermath of 9/11 and U.S.-Indonesian relations in explaining China’s strategic options. In its antiterror campaign launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the United States lost ground in Moslem Indonesia. Then in the tsunami relief effort it strove to rebuild military ties and inf luence allegedly in order to contain China. The situation for China has not been favorable, supposedly due to continued prejudice against overseas China and the reluctance of some media to credit China with tsunami relief.14 A high degree of complementarity, leading to massive export of

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natural resources and an upsurge in investments from China, and realization, along with ASEAN as a whole, of benefits from a balance among powers, have helped, but rivalry with the United States continues unabated. Beijing has improved ties with Jakarta but still is searching for a strategic opening to gain an advantage in the triangle with the United States that stands at the forefront in its thinking. Wariness toward China’s intentions persists, leading many states in the region to welcome U.S. leadership and further diversified dependence on the powers. In addition to the Philippines and Singapore that lean toward the United States, Indonesia and Malaysia are careful not to lean toward China, and Thailand and Vietnam keep their distance from China even as they have worked hard to reassure it. Economically, there is still a sense of competitiveness to the degree that countries are keen not to fall into a sinocentric regional economic order.15 China has made great gains in the region, but the road forward toward a breakthrough that would satisfy critics of U.S. hegemonism is paved with obstacles. China recognizes that as much as Southeast Asia is the region where it is most successful in boosting its inf luence, there is almost no bandwagoning with it, and the United States for the foreseeable future will remain the key balancer. China’s gains serve to limit the United States and Japan, whose ambitions have at times been on display, but there are inherent limitations even to making it first among equals in a region keen on its own initiative through ASEAN. In 1990–94 it headed off Japanese aspirations after the cold war to solidify its position there. In 1997–98 the Asian financial crisis did not give the forces of globalization under U.S. overall leadership or Japanese financial assistance the dominance that some expected. Also, in 2001–03 the U.S. hope of rallying the region behind the war against terror was not realized. China actively raised its profile in each of these periods, realizing its goals of denying other powers a new advantage. Yet, it must be patient, counting on economic ties above all without trying to gain an advantage of its own, if it is to keep up the momentum of its rise in this region. Given improved U.S.-Australian-Indonesian ties, an evolving nexus between Vietnam and Singapore, and the shift of Malaysia and Thailand after leaders inclined toward China left office, China’s leadership aspirations in Southeast Asia have been exposed as unrealistic. Indeed, with tensions over territorial disputes rising again in 2009 and the financial crisis hitting Southeast Asian trading countries heavily, China groped for a response, offering more infrastructure assistance that would tie the countries closer to it while also sending naval vessels that would assert

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its territorial claims. No response suggested that China’s hopes of a few years back for translating growing economic ties into substantial political leverage would be realized. Not even its triangular prospects of Sino-ASEAN-Japanese regional balance were realistic. One possibility under discussion was an equal triangle where China and Japan would duplicate the path of Germany and France in drawing European states together working as strategic partners with Southeast Asian states through their collective entity of ASEAN. Yet, this depends on a coherent ASEAN position, which is unrealistic. An alternative structure would be for China and ASEAN to forge strong ties as Japan focuses more on its U.S. ties.16 Yet, this has little prospect, given opposition from all sides. In 2009 China was able to f lex its economic muscle in the area when many states were suffering from a sharp economic contraction. Its success in using economic ties to enhance its position in Southeast Asia continued. Yet, there was no sign that this would change the balance among the great powers active in the region. U.S. ties that set the overall framework for regional security show no signs of abating. Japanese involvement in the area is not diminishing. Efforts to present these countries as dealing with the states of Southeast Asia for narrow selfinterest rang increasingly hollow. Chinese strategizing about the balance between competition and cooperation and the limitations of ASEAN did not prepare the way for a new wave of cooperation beneficial to the region’s future. South Asia From the late 1950s to the late 1980s China’s rivalry with India was the principal factor shaping its views of South Asia. Strong ties to Pakistan served this objective and made sense during the decade when Pakistan was the gateway to the Afghan war of resistance to the Soviet occupation. Yet, China went much further than the United States in building up Pakistan as a military force, including nuclear weapons, which could turn on India and endanger regional stability. It delayed improving relations with India. Only at the end of the 1980s as the Soviet Union was pulling away from Afghanistan and the cold war was ending did China recognize the value of a new strategic approach. Yet, the legacy of ill will and rivalry toward India remained a barrier to clear strategic thinking.17 If historical and territorial disputes plague China’s relations with Japan, they also have a serious detrimental effect on relations with

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India. After the first summit in 1988 that set in motion a gradual improvement in ties, memories of 1962 in India and China’s failure to address them in a satisfactory manner put a brake on relations. Chinese blame the security establishment and politicians in India for playing the “victimization card,” which holds that China invaded, has kept occupying Indian territory, and may unleash a new war.18 This makes the China threat theory particularly strong in India, leading to alarm that Chinese economic activity in nearby states is directed against India and threatens to contain it. While suggesting that a breakthrough on history and territory would give a big boost to all-around bilateral relations, Chinese writers have no advice on how to do this. In contrast to the upbeat assessment of bilateral ties in many sources, there is at times an undercurrent of warnings about how China can counter or pressure India. The buildup of China’s naval power may challenge Indian supremacy at sea. Close ties to states in Southeast Asia reduce the chance that India can make inroads there. Economic and security ties in South Asia are raising China’s profile. Indeed, not only is Pakistan a close partner, but Nepal and Sri Lanka are responding favorably to Chinese initiatives. If Chinese are reluctant to credit Indian fears of encirclement, they depict a region troubled by Indian hegemonic ambitions and receptive to closer relations with China. Chinese sources describe major adjustments in Indian foreign policy since 1998 on the heels of its nuclear tests. It has increased its military budget and diversified its arms purchases. In 2000 cooperation intensified with the United States, leading to support for U.S. military strategy such as withdrawal from the ABM treaty. This has led China to give more credence to India as a pole in emerging multipolarity. It puts pressure on China that could contribute to an arms race. It also suggests the possibility that China’s energy shipments will be endangered.19 Even if Chinese point to some positive aspects of recent Indian foreign policy, including more active diplomatic ties with China, they warn of a growing strategic challenge. Overall, however, the proclivity to paint a positive image of bilateral relations obscures the warnings that are buried in the text. China was slow to raise India’s status as a power, downplaying it in the 1980s and 1990s and hesitantly upgrading it as relations improved in the 2000s. India’s economic reforms from 1991, nuclear tests in 1998, and widening U.S. ties around 2005 all caught China’s attention. Economic power, marked by overall growth or information technology gains in the global division of labor, mattered, as did military power, including a naval buildup in the Indian Ocean as China’s navy was

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preparing to advance in that direction. As an emerging economic driver in the world economy with aspirations for military clout beyond its own neighborhood, India loomed as a country that China could not ignore. As in coverage of rivalries with other powers, open Chinese coverage highlights the positive, supporting the doctrine of “peaceful development.” Even in 1998 when the Indians justified their nuclear tests with reference to the danger from China, this was not stressed on the Chinese side, leading to asymmetrical perceptions. 20 Brief ly in 1998 it seemed that Washington and Beijing agreed in criticizing New Delhi for its nuclear tests, but Beijing’s effort to hold down India’s rise clashed with Washington’s thinking. 21 At a time when the hopeful mood seen in two bilateral summits was quickly souring, Chinese were debating whether to swing sharply against U.S. hegemonism. That position drew on an erroneous reading of aggressiveness, as if on many fronts Washington was intent on containing China’s rise. Although China’s leaders eventually rejected a swing toward anti-Americanism, differences over great power relations, including India, were indicative of the downward drift in bilateral relations that would not easily be reversed. One theme in Chinese writings is that India is making a mistake by becoming entangled in U.S. efforts to contain China. Insisting that there is no need for a Sino-Indian rivalry, despite areas of conflict, Chinese take satisfaction from improving relations even if they acknowledge there has been no breakthrough. Yet, they warn that Indo-U.S. ties must be watched closely, given the suspect motives of both sides. Mostly, these sources find a basis for hope in expanding bilateral relations, including trade, and they qualify the many negative conclusions about India’s nervousness toward China and attraction to the United States by noting that India ultimately prefers an autonomous foreign policy. 22 Chinese have not treated India as an equal, seeing it as behind economically and in comprehensive national power. After the setback in relations in 1998, only in 2002 was new momentum established for getting past the border dispute as well as expanding trade rapidly. Chinese blame India for perceiving their country as a competitor, failing to report Indian concerns about aggressive Chinese moves on all sides of their country. Similar to its handling of other great powers, China conveyed an upbeat message about improving relations even as analysis kept questioning India’s ambitions and policies. 23 Belatedly, China has adopted the same upbeat approach to Indian relations as it has to relations with other great powers. Reasons for cooperation are considerable. Ties are on an upswing with good progress being made through increased meetings between leaders. Declarations

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and joint documents have established a positive foundation. The problems that do exist, notably a border dispute, should not interfere with improving ties. Yet, in writings that discuss Indian intentions rather than Sino-Indian meetings a different tone can be found. India’s naval buildup since the 1980s has hegemonic tendencies. Its conduct toward Pakistan is unjustified, seeking containment. India seeks to exclude other great powers, especially China, from the South Asian region. The China threat thesis is popular there. Recently, its aspirations have extended to Southeast Asia, aiming to block China or possibly at a time of conf lict to close off the Malacca Straits. Cognizant of these problems, Chinese stress the importance of cooperation to overcome them while at the same time impugning the motives of another rising power seeking great power balance. Even as bilateral ties with India slowly improved, China was hesitant to adjust its overall regional strategy. Maintaining strong ties with Pakistan and Myanmar, it warned against India’s attempts at regional hegemony. Despite its own faster growth in military expenditures, China kept warning that India’s heavy military expenses hurt its peaceful reputation and arouse suspicion in its neighbors. 24 More than any other region of Asia, China depicted South Asia in zero-sum terms, blaming one state within the region. For a time China’s softening position toward India appeared to be significantly affecting regional relations. As trade ties with India were at last growing rapidly, China supported its entry into the Security Council as a permanent member, as opposed to the opposition shown to Japan’s application. With U.S. pursuit of India producing tangible results and Japan now avidly joining the chase, China was intensifying its own diplomacy and indicating more willingness to manage bilateral problems, such as the border dispute and naval deployment in the Indian Ocean as China’s own expanding navy was starting to move into the area. There was much talk of common interests and excellent prospects for expanded ties. With Washington delicately balancing relations with India and Pakistan in its diplomacy, China had a better chance to do the same. Yet, the legacy of opposition to India prevailed. Policies toward the border, regional ties in South Asia, and India’s ties to other great powers reflected the limits of China’s overtures. Conclusion Both Southeast and South Asia are quite divided in foreign policy orientation. This poses a strategic challenge since China both remains

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close to the states considered problematic in each region and strives to improve ties with other states, including the ones regarded as the leading voices in the region. Does it stand in the way of ASEAN efforts to strengthen regionalism through agreeing on some values and openness or does it defend Burma with the worst human rights record? Despite some moves that suggest cooperation in persuading Myanmar to make some concessions, for example, admitting a United Nations representative, China’s insistence on noninterference in internal affairs does not help to institutionalize robust regionalism or proceed toward a community of shared values. In South Asia does it work toward reconciliation aimed at suppressing Pakistan’s internal extremists and accepting India as regional leader or is it determined to undercut India’s aspirations? From India’s point of view, the latter has prevailed. A divide-and-conquer approach has yet to be overcome in favor of firm support for regional stability and the development of regional institutions that can best foster trust. Nonetheless, by working with other states through ASEAN and engaging in dialogue with Pakistan on how to assist the U.S. moves for regional stability, China showed signs of change. In the early 1990s, China wrestled not only with the task of avoiding any U.S. alliance expansion and ideological diffusion moves but also, of comparable importance, exerting influence on Russian and Japanese moves that could alter the regional balance. In these circumstances, regional diplomacy in all directions acquired new urgency. In oversimplified terms, China faced a choice of an inclusive East Asia, joining with the United States and Japan, or an exclusive, divisive East Asia, insisting on a role that, at best, sought to marginalize the United States and Japan. The former perspective assumed China’s rise would take considerable time, time would be on China’s side, the priority of Deng Xiaoping on peace and stability would operate in the coming decades with positive economic effects, a positive appeal to Taiwan could be sustained, U.S. concern about China’s rise could be alleviated, and academic experts could make the case that the evolving regional and world order served China’s long-term interests. In contrast, the latter perspective was pessimistic about U.S. intentions toward a rising China, warned about Taiwan’s push for full independence, criticized Japan and the U.S. alliance system as inimical to China’s spreading inf luence, pressed for maximum energy security, and had hope that enough partners could be found—especially Russia—to give China the option of resisting efforts to entrap it in a regional order not of its choosing. Beleaguered, proud China might delay its choice, slowing efforts to forge an inclusive

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East Asia and keeping open, as its power rose, the possibility that it might opt for a more divisive region. At opposite ends of southern China Taiwan and Tibet have become tests of foreign relations, nowhere more so than in the regions to China’s south. China has been successful since the start of the 1990s in securing Southeast Asian acceptance of its one-China policy, marginalizing Taiwan politically if not convincing many states to provide the kind of blanket support for China’s approach to reunification that Russia offers. Still vigilant to transgressions in dealing with Taiwan’s leaders, China’s attention has turned more to maritime disputes. In doing so, it pits its claims to sovereignty against those of the Southeast Asian states closest to the Spratly and Parsifal Islands. After downplaying these territorial issues for a time, China became more assertive in 2008. The Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia resist China’s claims, and all have been improving their relations with the United States, although not actively balancing against China. These are also the states closest to Taiwan, which are unlikely to support an assertive Chinese approach. China’s approach to Tibet has become more aggressive, not only raising alarm in many Western countries but specifically testing relations with India, which is blamed for hosting and supporting the Dalai Lama. After ruthlessly suppressing riots in Tibet in March 2008, China announced in March 2009 a policy to treat states that challenged its policy as if they were attacking its sovereignty, the equivalent of opposing the one-China policy toward Taiwan. Insisting that all calls by the Dalai Lama for religious and cultural autonomy are just “independence in disguise,” China is prepared to test whether countries will jeopardize their already substantial economic and, perhaps, even diplomatic relations by allowing the Dalai Lama to visit and supporting his cause. This serves as a warning to India that if it attaches itself to a new coalition appealing to democratic values China can put pressure on it, charging that it is endangering China’s sovereignty and teaming with other South Asian states that welcome China’s economic support and have grievances with their prominent neighbor. Against the background of improving economic ties and claims to be reducing longstanding political tensions with India, this supposed test of China’s sovereignty threatens to arouse new tension. Given the growing danger of strife in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan causing wide instability, such a narrow obsession with sovereignty does not serve the interests of U.S.-led multilateralism to control Al Qaeda and the Taliban and keep nuclear weapons in Pakistan out of the reach of terrorists.

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On the basis of strategic thinking toward South and Southeast Asia, one might get the impression that China is determined to draw border states closer under its benevolent leadership with offers of economic largesse and lasting stability but only at the cost of accepting some sort of Pax Sinica, where China sets the rules. Yet, prospects for this outcome are not high. Strategic debates are slow to appreciate the benefits of working more closely with all of the great powers in these regions. The stakes for China in areas where no countries are posing a threat to it are best freed from the slanted vision of a worldview still obsessed with enduring geopolitical competition between great powers. Although strategic rhetoric in China was slow to register changes, improved ties to the United States and Japan were making acceptance of multilateral cooperation easier. The Sino-U.S. strategic dialogue kept broadening, and the atmosphere remained positive. In 2009 Obama sought to extend it further with the prospect that China would cooperate in developing a new multilateral approach to South Asia. SinoJapanese summits became more productive as well, fostering a more cooperative spirit for dealing with Southeast Asia after tensions peaked in 2005. Such upbeat great power ties would make it easier for China to achieve a breakthrough in thinking toward Southeast and South Asia, but there was no clear evidence that trust with either power sufficed for a breakthrough in China. In November 2009 Obama visited the region, attending the APEC meeting in Singapore and spending the most time in China. While his emphasis was on winning support for nuclear showdowns with Iran and North Korea as well as for the expanded war in Afghanistan, the challenge at every stop was to reconcile Chinese and U.S. views of Asian reorganization. Obama sought an inclusive region, which faced its security problems directly and prepared to address value differences. In contrast, Hu relied on China’s growing clout to counter Obama’s message and block its dissemination to the Chinese people. For the first time a U.S. president was meeting with ASEAN and offering it a type of community opposed to China’s blueprint. Yet, this was done in a spirit not of containing China, but of welcoming it on terms that would deny its designs for regional leadership while recognizing other aspirations.

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CHAPTER 10

Strategic Thought on Regionalism Strategic thinking about regionalism is most clearly revealed through an inductive approach to reasoning about multiple regions and various countries salient to multilateral cooperation. Over four periods and in four directions prospects for regionalism f luctuated, as leaders grew more supportive only if they limit its scope and use it for leadership or to steer relations with one or more of the great powers toward a more balanced partnership. Eventually, in Southeast Asia, China focused on ASEAN ⫹ 3, in Central Asia on the SCO, in Northeast Asia on the SixParty Talks, and in South Asia it was being challenged in 2009 to consider a U.S.-led initiative for a multilateral approach to the dangerous strife in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Drawing together strands of strategic thinking from the prior chapters, we also evaluate how they intersect on the larger scale of Asian reorganization. Michael Swaine and Ashley Tellis characterize China’s grand strategy toward all of the great powers as a mix of cooptation and prevention, allowing it to resist foreign pressure as it takes various steps to enhance its national security. On some issues, such as territorial disputes of more than minor concern, it relies on a strategy of postponement. On international regimes it takes an instrumental approach, awakening to the benefits of participating in some while resisting or even undercutting others.1 Similarly, China has grown to support various plans for Asian regionalism, but only on well-controlled terms. Indeed, since 2000 China has acquired an image as the strongest backer of regionalism, but this should be qualified by awareness that it opposes steps others view as essential. Over a quarter century Chinese thinking about joining regional groupings changed. Fearful of submitting itself to bodies dominated by other powers and limiting its options or even its sovereignty, China gradually calculated that involvement could be realized on terms that

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did not jeopardize its national interests or even would be favorable to its own leadership. APEC would not be turned into an instrument of joint U.S.-Japanese power, and it could be kept from developing into a strong entity that limited China’s ambition on a less grand scale. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) could foster some exchange on security matters without pressuring China to conform. These and any other bodies that included the United States and were suspected of becoming vehicles for its hegemonism might be tolerated as long as China was positioned to block moves to strengthen them. Organizations that emerged later with China’s active support were viewed more positively, but also with some reservations. The Shanghai-5 and later the SCO could give China a real say on Central Asian questions without leaving it completely vulnerable to demands by Russia that traditionally held sway in this area. ASEAN ⫹ 3 improved access to Southeast Asian states, while entwining Japan in a quest for regionalism that undercut its fears of a “China threat.” Even a security-focused organization established to meet U.S. concerns over North Korea would not mean that the U.S. control would dictate the course of the Six-Party Talks, manipulating China in the process. These organizations served China’s interests, revealing its growing confidence in a measure of multilateralism as one means to realize rising aspirations for leadership in neighboring areas. In each of these bodies China championed reconciliation, but it did so in a manner provocative to the other great powers active in that region and too solicitous of the needs of outlier states that did not respect universal values to give other states confidence in China’s intentions. Acceptance of limited multilateralism did not signify relaxation of rigid thinking about sovereignty and national interests. On matters related to China’s ethnic minority territories, Taiwan, maritime disputes, and how regional groupings could form the basis for regionalism, there were firm limits to how far China would go. The less the prospect of imposing values in resolving problems, the easier it was for the leadership to embrace. Gradually accepting some types of regionalism served many purposes, as China’s clout in shaping Asian reorganization was growing, but it remained anchored in calculations both about the balance of great powers and the opportunity for leverage in surrounding areas. Regionalism posed problems because other great powers stood in the way of an extension of Chinese leadership. The U.S. Seventh Fleet and overall military superiority limited China’s prospects in corralling Taiwan on terms that would recognize the full extent of Chinese sovereignty, and they also made it difficult to enforce maritime claims

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to disputed islands. In the dispersed maritime states of Southeast Asia, the fact that China could not match the naval power of the United States and its allies also reduced its clout. Rivalry with Japan complicated attempts to build regional groupings with ASEAN that could give China the edge. After all, Japan was well established in Southeast Asia and was determined to deny China any type of dominant role. Inland, Russia proved to be the principal barrier to the realization of China’s inherent advantage in dealing with sparsely populated states. While Russia saw benefit in forming an organization that could counter U.S. power and Western inf luence, it was determined to stymie Chinese efforts to assert control. Careful strategic moves were needed to develop organizations useful to China’s rise but not threatening to suspicious neighbors and great power rivals. After twenty-five years of rising inf luence, Chinese on the eve of the second decade of the twenty-first century still cannot foresee any region where their country could shape regional institutions as desired. The environment for regionalism repeatedly shifted from the 1980s. The means for China to influence regional associations also changed. It gained confidence as it took a more active role in various groupings and as growing economic resources gave it new leverage. In each period China faced the challenge of calibrating its leverage against the opportunities that had arisen in the new environment. Strategic thinking coped well with existing impediments, but it stumbled before formidable barriers to achieving more. As a defensive tactic, Chinese strategy succeeded, but when assertive moves were attempted they proved ineffective against a collective backlash led by one or another great power. By 2009 the limits of China’s approach to regionalism were unmistakable. In each area it was being tested anew. It could retain its strategic blinders as a force narrowing prospects for more substantial regionalism. It could become more assertive in striving to put itself in a leadership role. Alternatively, China could realize the benefits to stability from a shift in strategy, accepting a broad reorganization of Asia based on a balance among the great powers and openness to globalization, but this would conflict with past strategic thinking. As China’s comprehensive power rose relative to that of Japan, it grew more positive about the merits of some forms of regionalism. Initially, this took the form of minimal Asia-Pacific multilateralism. Next it focused on regionalism with a weakened Russia that could help to manage the potential for conf lict over a vacuum that existed in Central Asia. Later, China approved economic regionalism with ASEAN at the core to overcome the Asian financial crisis and boost coherence in

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a weak organization, serving the added benefit of corralling Japan into forward-looking cooperation. Finally, China reluctantly acceded to U.S. requests to become host to another mechanism linked to regionalism, important in redirecting U.S. foreign policy and providing a measure of stability. Although by 2003 China generally accepted the positive potential of this range of regionalism, it was still far from amenable to realistic moves to forge what deserves to be called East Asian regionalism of a scope and purpose befitting that name. It was ready for limited multilateralism to block other great powers from shaping a region to their own specifications or to bolster its bilateral moves, but China remained fearful of substantial integration that could solidify regional ties that might complicate a sinocentric advance. Previously I traced stages in the pursuit of regionalism in Northeast Asia, showing Japan’s rising and then declining interest and the growth of Chinese interest by the start of the 2000s. 2 Reviewing the area’s record of f lawed regionalism—conf licting strategies, inconsistent policies in periods lasting just two to three years each, and lack of consensus on many prerequisites—, I concluded with eleven lessons that could be drawn from the failures to date. Each stood as a test for China as well as other states: 1) embracing globalization, which China has somewhat done, but only by narrowing the meaning of this term to economics and some nontraditional security threats without setting aside its separate approach to traditional security and values; 2) steering North Korea toward regionalism, which it has also approached cautiously, once again with strong reservations about the implications for China’s inf luence over the reunification process and the regional balance of power; 3) finding an accord with Japan where neither state would become regional leader, which made certain headway through revitalized bilateral summits but failed to address the main problems; 4) building U.S. support for regionalism, something China was slow to pursue and has yet to take seriously; 5) recognizing South Korea’s critical position, which China has hesitated to do; 6) encouraging Russia’s active involvement, for which the record is mixed since China welcomes Russia as a partner primarily in limited sub-regionalism; 7) fostering a regional identity, which conf licts with its rising nationalism; 8) compromising on territorial disputes, on which the record remains mixed to the extent that China is still viewed with suspicion; 9) nurturing engines of regionalism, in contrast to China’s recent preference to proceed bilaterally, notably on energy; 10) accepting a gradual timetable, consistent with China’s strategic outlook but doubtful in the absence of a realistic grasp of the compromises that would move

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regionalism forward; and 11) establishing a new organization and making Northeast Asia the focus, toward which some moves after 2003 indicate progress but China has not shown enthusiasm for the EAS or the fifth working group of the Six-Party Talks that had the most potential for evolving in this manner.3 A second set of findings developed primarily in this series of books on strategic thought toward Asia reveals other shortcomings in each country’s thinking from 2004, ref lecting the way it had evolved since the 1980s. They too can guide us in thinking about the limitations of Chinese strategic thought: 1) lingering assumptions of the late cold war era continue to interfere with strategic thinking, notably in China which stridently faults others for persistent cold war logic when it is one of the most guilty for sustained balance-of-power reasoning and opposition to universal values; 2) Japan’s repeated misjudgments about regional policies and growing doubts about regionalism pose a challenge, to which China insensitively responded, trying to capitalize on U.S.-Japanese differences; 3) South Korea’s groping shifts in strategic thinking tested China’s patience and showcased its failure to build on promising trends with recognition that security must come first and that the South’s abiding interest in regionalism provides an opportunity; 4) Russia’s dependence on China and frustration with the United States may have short-term appeal, but they should not stand in the way of Chinese encouragement to Russia for full-f ledged regionalism rather than hostility toward globalization; 5) China’s regional strategy after the cold war may have been more successful than those of its Asian neighbors, but after it missed many opportunities it now must adjust substantially if regionalism is the goal; and 6) the shift in the late Bush period toward building a solid foundation for cooperation and the election of Obama have created a more favorable environment for institution building on behalf of regionalism, which China has yet to grasp, given obsessive strategic thinking. Chronology of Strategic Thinking about Regionalism In the 1980s Chinese analysts found their country surrounded with scant hope for shaping regional institutions. A decade after the breakthrough in Sino-U.S. relations, the only regional partners were North Korea, where Soviet power cancelled out China’s, and Pakistan, where different notions of Islamic fundamentalist causes created a ticking time bomb for the protection of Xinjiang. At first, the Soviet Union seemed to be tightening its grip along China’s borders, supporting

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Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, then invading Afghanistan, and still intensifying its military buildup all along China’s northern border. Freeing itself from this vise took priority in the quest for regaining regional inf luence. At the same time, the U.S. maritime cordon, stretching around Taiwan, also was regarded as a barrier to China breaking free of its narrow geographical confines. Washington wanted it to join, considering the common threat from Soviet expansionism grounds for this. Yet, Beijing had no desire after escaping from the status of junior partner to the Soviet Union of entering the tight embrace of an even more powerful superpower hostile to its values. As Soviet overextension in Asia became clearer and the vitality of the U.S.-led countries aroused ever more attention, Beijing drew a clear line between economic integration to assist urgent development needs and political resistance to contain spillover from moves by the United States or Japan aimed at breaking down regional noneconomic barriers. In the waning years of the cold war, U.S. and Japanese officials eyed a reforming China with new expectations for regionalism. Americans saw the collapse of international communism as a time when democracy was confirmed as the wave of the future and the dropping of barriers to trade, investment, and information flows as internationalization that leads naturally to mutual trust and political cooperation. Maintaining alliances and forging new Asia-Pacific organizations such as APEC would promote these goals. Japan aspired to Asia-based institutions that would put it at the center of regionalism. Different ideas won appeal: sponsorship of APEC served to diffuse U.S. concern; the Sea of Japan economic rim promised cross-border networks without having to resolve big problems in interstate relations; the “f lying-goose” model could extend beyond production networks; as Sino-U.S. relations deteriorated after June 4, 1989, Japan might become a bridge assisting China’s growing interest in neighboring countries; and at the start of the next decade, the initiative by Malaysia’s Mahathir for an exclusive East Asian Economic Caucus piqued interest in Tokyo before strong U.S. opposition led it to back down. For China, all plans of this sort posed a danger that it would be overwhelmed by multilateralism intended to pressure it on matters of financial and legal globalization, security confidence building, and, not least of all, values consensus. All could have undermined the institutions deemed vital for the legitimacy and rule of the Chinese Communist Party or national sovereignty. In the case of APEC, the fact that Taiwan is a full member means that China will not countenance additional functions that could serve as a channel for Taiwan to be treated as a sovereign state.

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China joined the World Bank and IMF in 1980 as the best path for entering the international economic community. In the second half of the decade after Deng decided to intensify economic reform China broadened its support of multilateralism, but its acceptance was limited to cautious adherence to existing norms seen as enabling faster economic growth. Even as reforms received a further boost in 1992, the suspicious mood that had been heightened in 1989 did not dissipate.4 Over several years in the middle of the decade it resisted adding conf lict resolution to the mandate of ARF, grew anxious about renewed U.S.-Japanese security ties, and opposed Japan’s proposal for an AMF. In the first half of the 1990s Chinese were particularly nervous about regionalism built on the ruins of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the sanctions that aimed at their country’s isolation and transformation. Their hopes centered on widening the divisions between great powers and undermining the moral authority of the supposed victors in the cold war. The fact that U.S. and Japanese leaders could not agree on globalization or even the purposes of APEC made their tensions over trade convenient for China to expand ties along its borders. Although in the early opening of the new states of Central Asia and the first nuclear crisis with North Korea China seemed to be at a big disadvantage, the United States did not capitalize on its superior position. Nor would a newly revitalized ASEAN allow Japan to draw Southeast Asia into its regional sphere. Defensive moves by China were not decisive in blocking regionalism, but they raised expectations for later action. It was assumed that China could become a full participant in a new economic order without facing its institutionalization in a manner that would impose genuine regionalism.5 From the end of the 1990s strategic thinking was shifting from multipolarity to multilateralism, but optimists who regarded this as a kind of convergence in thinking did not take into account the continued powerful hold of balance-of-power logic. After all, multipolarity in the 1990s was a variant of strategic triangle reasoning in the 1970s–1980s, and it, in turn, gave way as China grew stronger in the 2000s to a form of bilateralism mixed with regionalism, in which China blocked U.S. hegemonism by working with other states on a regional basis for limited objectives. Given hesitation about critical elements of multilateralism, it is more apt to treat this as a stage in China’s shift toward active leadership ref lecting current power calculations than support for multilateralism that could seriously limit China’s rising power through hard or soft power. A supposed transition from strategic triangle logic in the

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1980s to multipolarity thinking in the 1990s to multilateral reasoning in the 2000s represented much less change than met the eye. At the end of the 1990s Chinese voiced support for multilateralism, treating it as a legacy of Jiang Zemin building on the Deng legacy of the open door. Instead of confining access to individual states based on shared policies or values, Beijing would widen entry, welcoming all types of states. As the meaning and scope of multilateralism was clarified in 2000–01, 6 its application was tested in arrangements focused on the west, the southeast, and the northeast. At mid-decade Hu Jintao added the concept of a harmonious world, recognizing that the nature of multilateralism in Asia was becoming increasingly political as well as economic. Incorporating security as an objective, Hu appeared to be amenable to robust multilateralism. Given support for establishing an East Asian community, the image spread that, even if China was jockeying for more leadership and might not agree to particular arrangements, it now was favorable to regionalism. It was eager to broaden the functions of the SCO. It pressed to make ASEAN ⫹ 3 into a force for wide-ranging cooperation. Also, it won praise for energetically boosting the Six-Party Talks. Behind the facade of China championing regionalism, however, was the reality of it fending off other notions of regionalism as it competed for leadership in surrounding areas and kept its long-term strategy of restructuring great power relations focused on a new foundation. When pressed, it sought an exclusive SCO and ASEAN ⫹ 3 bereft of a values agenda and it limited its support for the Six-Party Talks to steps that did not unduly pressure North Korea. As Tiananmen receded into the background and China succeeded in blocking condemnation of its human rights record by international organizations, it could afford to relax its guard against multilateralism. After the end of the 1990s, it did so on territorial matters in search of stability to achieve other foreign policy objectives and in recognition of the superior power of the United States and the need not to challenge it directly while earning more goodwill.7 The greatest momentum toward regionalism occurred in the first years of the new century with financial cooperation in the foreground. Not only were memories still fresh of the Asian financial crisis, but states saw a chance to strengthen their control over any new onslaught from market forces by working closely together in an institutionalized manner. As several participants in ASEAN ⫹ 3 built up ever-larger financial reserves, they agreed on swap arrangements and a bond fund. Negotiations for new FTAs became livelier.8 All states perceived economic benefits, but that did not mean they could agree on how to move beyond them either to a regional FTA with

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wide-ranging value for regionalism or to the divisive strategic concerns that block regionalism. In the 2000s another window of opportunity arose involving the United States and its ally Australia in Asian regionalism. Making Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine a precondition for summit visits to each other’s country, China spoiled the atmosphere for bilateral ties more than was necessary. In the midst of this troubled period it also opposed the establishment of the East Asian Summit as the organization that would lead in pursuit of a regional community. The result was a standoff between the EAS and ASEAN ⫹ 3 that slowed the pace of regionalism. Improving Sino-U.S. relations could have provided an opportunity to seek a compromise that would have allayed U.S. fears of exclusive regionalism, which were reflected in the hesitation of Japan and some of the states in Southeast Asia to resolve this stalemate. Without reassuring the United States, there was little prospect that Japan would work closely with China on regionalism. Distorting U.S. intentions in Southeast Asia with crude references to hegemonism repeats the pattern of mischaracterizing Gorbachev as antisocialist and Japan as revisionist, while allowing the best opportunities to ground relations in wide-ranging multilateralism to pass. From 2004–05 Russia was even more blatant than China about wanting to exclude the United States, while gaining entry into the EAS. If China lent some support to its entry after the decision had been made to expand the new organization to include India, Australia, and New Zealand, its own case was not helped by Putin’s emotional appeal to balance U.S. power. China was beginning to become aware of the costs of being closely identified with Russia as its rhetoric grew more intemperate. Yet, the benefits easily outweighed the costs, and it could patiently persist with this partnership as a brake on security cooperation and values consensus deemed to be in the interest of the West. With regionalism in Southeast Asia slowed by the standoff between ASEAN ⫹ 3 and the EAS and regionalism in Central Asia unable to advance far due to Russia’s more assertive role, in 2006–08 Northeast Asia became the venue where prospects were both most favorable and most easily transformed into a downward spiral of mistrust. On the positive side, establishment of a working group in the Six-Party Talks to forge a regional security framework indicated the importance of these talks for addressing the critical differences among great powers standing in the way of any security architecture in Asia. On the negative side, even after the Joint Agreement North Korea proved to be a source of division more than a shared problem that could draw the other five

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states closer. With its serious challenge to regional stability, the stakes had been raised. Finding common cause would greatly raise confidence on the prospects for regionalism, but failing to do so could well doom meaningful regionalism.9 At the center in this search was China, torn by different priorities in dealing with the Six-Party Talks and their implications for relations with the other five countries. In 2003–08 it could proceed hesitantly, but in 2009 it faced a test of a different order. This would require agreeing to put pressure on North Korea that could draw the other states closer together, while also reasserting its commitment to work for a compromise path to denuclearization that would leave open the possibility of six-way cooperation should the North recognize how isolated it had become. In June 2009 a partial response to the North’s string of belligerence was only a minimalist sign of joint pursuit of regionalism on Northeast Asian security, not a breakthrough to real support. As in response to global financial crisis in 2009, China envisions closer economic ties in Asia driving the world economy and regionalism that will give added clout to the region. It rarely pays attention to any cultural prerequisites for regionalism.10 It narrows its approach to security, notably in the Six-Party Talks, in ways that fail to reassure the other great powers except Russia.11 This formula stands in the way of genuine regionalism. The United States and Regionalism The three historical patterns in East Asian international relations leave a fragile foundation for regionalism capable of winning the support of four great powers and many lesser powers alert to past power struggles. A long history of sinocentrism accustomed China to top billing without any need to consider equality among states, but this could not apply in the modern era. The half-century Japanese pursuit of regionalism with increasing resort to colonialism then shook regional trust with lasting impact on what any successor to its leadership might have in mind. Finally, a half century of U.S. dominance centered on rallying the majority of countries to its side and standing firm against others did not provide guidelines on how to bridge the gaps that still prevailed in Asia. While China cooperated in 1972 to 1989 in opposing Soviet expansionism, it refused to become part of a U.S.-led region. Given the fact that Japan, India, and the new Russian state also did not endorse that kind of regionalism, the foundation for a new order remained weak. After the cold war, regionalism would have to start anew with ample assurances

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on the most sensitive issues of security and values. Yet, it could not bypass rising China’s recollection of historical entitlement, nervous Japan’s goal of not being marginalized, and the strong U.S. insistence on gaining a deciding voice on how to construct regionalism. In contrast to the shaky basis for forging mutual trust in multilateral institutions, the economic conditions for regionalism were favorable and improving rapidly. The U.S. sponsorship of free markets reverberated in first Japan, then the “four little tigers,” by the 1980s much of Southeast Asia, and finally China too becoming intertwined in one vast production and consumption network. When U.S. economic growth slowed, Japan filled the slack through the 1980s. As Japan fell into a decade-long swoon, China’s growth was a principal driver of economic integration. In the 1980s China was in the back of the pack, receiving investments for labor-intensive industries for exports largely to Japan and the United States. From the mid-1990s it diversified as large international corporations put ever more manufacturing there, linkages expanded to a chain of producers across the region, and markets diversified to boost intraregional commerce. China’s importance to economic integration rose further in the next decade, as recovery after the Asian financial crisis and start-of-century U.S. slump depended heavily on its double-digit growth. Fear of another currency crisis and hope for bilateral and regional FTAs after the formation of the WTO stimulated new interest in economic regionalism.12 A sharp discrepancy existed between the perceived benefits of greater economic institutionalization across East Asia and growing tensions over security, history, and nationalist trends in this region. China’s aspirations in East Asia combine sinocentrism, a socialist worldview, and manipulation of great power relations to maximum advantage for China’s rise. It views the biggest barriers as other countries’ pursuit of regional leadership, even associating this with encirclement. Consequently, it aims to weaken their inf luence—U.S. led alliances, economic integration centering on other great powers, and cultural understandings that favor their soft power. In the case of the most troublesome states—North Korea, Myanmar, and Pakistan— China strives to make them dependent, while also finding them useful in dividing other states in their responses. In a region in great f lux as China’s role expands, the foremost strategic challenge is to manage the response to its rise. This means that it seeks to make itself indispensable to others as it cultivates an image of benign cooperation without hegemonic intentions. Its goal is to become a magnet for other states, initially economically, but also politically and culturally. Vital to this

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objective has been to neutralize the U.S. response. This began in 1971–72 as U.S. leaders appreciated China’s role in containing Soviet power, and gained new potential from 1978 with U.S. encouragement for China’s economic reforms as the path to interdependency amidst integration of the world economy. In 1984–89 hopes rose intermittently for China’s ideological break from socialism. From 1992 hopes centered on an advancing market economy producing spillover effects for transformation. In 2003–08 hopes shifted to strategic dialogue and cooperation in dealing with North Korea as well as the absence of strident criticism of U.S. military action in Iraq. Conveying reasonableness and f lexibility, China alleviated many concerns in the United States and elsewhere while giving an impression of maturing behavior and playing a more helpful role in resolving international problems. This served the strategy of biding its time as it built up its power. The Hu-Bush relationship had shifted from prudent management of U.S. unilateralism to cautious positioning to make China increasingly indispensable to new multilateralism. In Asia as in global affairs China has gradually become more international in its orientation. Starting with the United Nations and the World Bank and advancing to the WTO and Six-Party Talks, China has learned that multilateralism often brings it credit as well as economic benefits. At times, participation also serves to weaken vested interests inside China. Yet, on strategic questions China’s role often has more to do with limiting U.S. assertiveness than becoming part of an existing consensus. Ironically, George W. Bush’s alienation of international opinion and image of disrespect for internationalism made it possible for China to cloak itself in the mantle of responsible defender of these institutions. Yet, its insistence on noninterference in the internal affairs of states, especially its partners, limited the momentum of the Hu-Bush agreement to deal with issues beyond the scope of ordinary bilateralism. At each turn in the pursuit of regionalism, one question was paramount. Did the United States regard the emergence of regionalism as supportive of globalization or not? Given the troubled history of protectionism in the region and the uncertain path of resolving differences over security, U.S. skepticism was understandable and needed to be addressed. This was the case in concern: 1) in 1988–90 over possible Soviet backtracking toward balancing U.S. power; 2) in 1991–98 over Japan jumping on the Asian values bandwagon and revitalizing some sort of crony capitalism under state guidance; 3) in 2000–01 over South Korea rushing forward with regionalism as a back door to regional

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consensus on North Korea before troubling differences over how to deal with that pariah state were resolved; and 4) in 2002–05 over China taking the lead in forging exclusive regionalism while also growing more confident in challenging U.S. power and values. In the first two instances, U.S. hesitation coincided with Chinese strategy to avoid strong regional entanglements. In the third instance, China accepted the goals of the East Asian Vision Group and East Asian Study Group without any urgency about realizing them. Yet, the last of these cases saw China boldly reach for new power without addressing U.S. or Japanese concerns. Joining a regional organization with the United States never entered into its calculations, but enlisting Japan in the cause of regionalism was a growing desire. Proposals for regionalism ref lected narrow nationalist ambitions or bold idealist aspirations. Japan’s drive to steer regionalism in the first half of the 1990s and China’s moves to do so in 2001–05 were of the former type. In contrast, Mikhail Gorbachev’s desperate move to forge a regional security system in order to keep his country relevant and Kim Dae-jung’s optimistic appeal for an East Asian community to buttress his state’s long-shot Sunshine Policy with the momentum of a region coming together were cases of idealism. China did not subscribe to such idealism, was suspicious of Japan’s ambitions, and made its own move at a time when it overestimated its leverage in Southeast Asia and its chances of sustaining Japanese interest that had faded rapidly from 2002. U.S. idealism did not find a receptive audience in China because international and regional reorganization appeared to privilege U.S. values and security interests. At a time of Jimmy Carter’s optimism about China’s new reforms when Americans were eager to welcome China into capitalist economic order, Deng Xiaoping shut his “open door” part way with the crackdown on “democracy wall” and decision to protect his “four cardinal principles” in support of the political and ideological order. One decade later when Ronald Reagan’s high hopes for the end of the cold war were evolving into George H.W. Bush’s eagerness to draw China closer into a new order, Deng recoiled at the Asia-Pacific integration and unified world order that the U.S. envisioned even before the June 4 reverse course. The next peak of American hopefulness about drawing China closer in a regional framework occurred during the late 1990s as Bill Clinton made a long visit to China without even stopping in Japan amidst efforts to build on evercloser economic ties. Yet, obsessed with how to forge multipolarity and beginning to see an opportunity for Asian regionalism that excluded

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the United States, China’s leaders rejected these overtures as they overreacted to “interventionism” in the Kosovo War as a threat to China’s territorial integrity. Finally, after another decade the last years of George W. Bush and start-up of Barack Obama’s tenure produced a fourth wave of U.S. enthusiasm for a new framework to solidify ties between the two states in a broader context. Striving through strategic and economic dialogues to build trust and work through misunderstandings, this was the most intense effort to persuade China’s leaders that overlapping interests are far more important than differences and the United States seeks prosperity for both countries not some kind of zero-sum outcome. Yet, it was still early to determine if China, now confident of its own rapid rise, would again rebuff such appeals or would it be more accommodating. The pattern over four decades is for China to compromise when U.S. leaders are most assertive, but to reveal the depth of their suspicions when these leaders are most eager to bring China into a wider framework of cooperation. China appears to understand pressure because it is expected, but idealism is suspect as something that must be based on ulterior motives. Since Chinese strategic thinking operates at two levels—reassurances in summits and normally in assessing the state of bilateral relations, but suspicions about motives and in evaluating the overall competition for power—they assume a similar duality in U.S. rhetoric and assumptions about the combination of economic integration and security competition. Whereas some observers attribute negativism to Chinese public opinion, driving officials to caution about boosting bilateral ties, it is often officials in the background security and party hierarchy who raise the deepest suspicions while others who are closest contact with foreigners convey a more positive message. The leadership split in the 1980s that led to the ouster of two party secretaries survived in the form of a dual worldview among officials with sharply divergent official responsibilities. As the U.S. role in East Asia receded some due to priorities in Southwest and South Asia, some officials sought to leave in place a kind of NATO of the East focused not only on broadening the scope of the alliance with Japan but also enlisting Australia in new responsibilities across the southern edge of Asia and reaching out overtly to India and indirectly to Taiwan for a maritime arc of security. Yet, U.S. strategic overreaching, caution in these territories toward defense budget increases, and electoral reversals for leaders most keen on cooperation left ample room for China to escape any kind of cordon. A strategy of appealing for regional cooperation independent of the United States

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and offering substantial economic incentives left China relatively unpressured, as its military buildup warned that moves by Taiwan for de jure independence would not be tolerated. Regionalism in East Asia appeared to be on an upswing in 2005, but actually it was reaching an impasse, increasingly visible by 2009. In each region China had set a direction for regional development that could not lead to new momentum. Its narrow view on how to pursue regionalism was self-limiting. In the SCO Sino-Russian relations were premised on joint opposition to the United States in Central Asia. That reached a peak in 2005 with direct calls to remove U.S. bases, but a more assertive Russia with more determination to corner the energy resources of Central Asia would not approve an increased role for China that would inevitably follow from more substantial regionalism. In 2005 too a compromise was reached on establishing an enlarged group known as the EAS and fortifying the existing group of ASEAN ⫹ 3 in pursuit of an East Asian community. Yet, what appeared to be a compromise was really a standoff, boding badly for either of these organizations to advance the cause of regionalism. Likewise, the year 2005 saw a summer of intensified negotiations in the Six-Party Talks, which produced the Joint Statement as a genuine product of multisided talks and China’s active role as the chair. Yet, the decision by U.S. leaders to impose financial sanctions followed by the decision of North Korean leaders to f lex their threat potential showed the limitations of the other states, and after bilateral talks reached agreement that was ratified in the Joint Agreement China took a narrow view of this region-building effort even before the North withdrew from it in April 2009. The North may return to the Six-Party Talks, and China may explore broader cooperation again. Obama, having won the Nobel Prize with an image of encouraging multilateral cooperation, and Hatoyama, coming to office as a backer of Asian community building, are likely to be positive inf luences. If in the past impasses were inherent in the way China approached regionalism in separate border regions, new opportunities existed to take a more positive attitude. China remains at a crossroads as the second decade of the century approaches. When China joined APEC in 1991 and ARF in 1994 it was wary that it would be isolated and pressured in these organizations. Even as it became clear that there was no U.S. domination, China did not focus hopes for regionalism on such broad Asia-Pacific gatherings. As it reassessed the prospects for multipolarity in 1999–2000, China became more positive about multilateralism on a smaller scale where U.S. control was absent. It found areas with a pariah state (Northeast Asia),

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states weakly globalized (Central Asia), and states joined together in a regional entity but deeply divided (Southeast Asia). Each presented an enticing opportunity, where China’s economic largess could be effective. It could facilitate North Korea’s pursuit of bilateral ties with the United States, give five states in Central Asia support in avoiding pressure to accept universal values, and assure ASEAN of backing for its leadership aspirations. While hesitating to be seen as working against the United States, China could pursue independent goals in each of these regions. It supported a gradual buildup of regionalism, accepting a non-traditional security role.13 At the heart of the problem of region building was the way China approached the role of the United States in Asia. No matter what was said about newfound trust and the growing acceptance of multilateralism, China remained preoccupied with hegemonism. It did not want to facilitate U.S.-Russian, U.S.-North Korean, or U.S.-ASEAN relations that would solidify the U.S. position in one or another region. It sought ASEAN ⫹ 3 exclusive of the United States, and it did not favor ARF dealing with Taiwan, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, or North Korea. Given its predispositions, there was no sign of a process of regionalism that the United States could support. Omitting security and values as confidence-building themes, left economics to shoulder too large a burden. China’s position in each region was too weak to expect a breakthrough on the basis of the strategy it was following. North Korea did not want to rely on it, Central Asian states were intent on exploring multiple options, and the seven states of ASEAN also present at APEC were ready to meet with the U.S. president annually at that gathering.14 After Hu Jintao introduced his concept of a “harmonious world,” analysts drew a contrast with the U.S. hegemonic approach. While the former calls for equality among states and acceptance of good ties to the contending powers, the latter is seen as focusing on U.S. domination and containment of China’s rise. Also, China insists that it respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states unlike U.S. policies rooted in hegemony. Even as Sino-U.S. relations seemed to be advancing well in 2008, writers kept insisting that in a two-sided strategy the United States continued on a course of containing China that had intensified from 2000. Concealing China’s own two-sided strategy of stressing ties better than ever while warning of nefarious motives unchanged, Chinese also argued that U.S. intrusiveness produced a kind of clash of civilizations and China’s acceptance of diversity has the opposite effect.15 Actually, China’s preoccupation with blocking the spread of universal

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values and standing behind noninterference in internal affairs masked its own tendencies to interpret the struggle as a clash of civilizations. Prospects for Regionalism In light of previous Chinese miscalculations of relative power, there is no reason to anticipate, despite its elaborate formulas for comparing comprehensive national power, that it will not overestimate China’s power again. Perhaps, the most immediate mistake could be to see a nuclear-armed North Korea with missiles capable of threatening other states as more favorable to rising Chinese power than a U.S.-led coalition pressuring the North to abandon its nuclear program. Another overestimation could relate to letting the opportunity of Ma Ying-jeou’s presidency in Taiwan pass without making overtures to reassure the Taiwanese people that moves in the direction of reunification do not mean subjecting their territory to China’s rigid notions of undivided sovereignty and limited human rights. Other short-sightedness could occur in unduly dismissing Japan’s power relative to China’s or assuming that the U.S. position in East Asia is declining rapidly. China’s approach to regionalism reveals the limits of its strategic thinking. In the 1980s when Gorbachev first raised the possibility of multilateral security cooperation China’s vision was limited to the struggle between socialism and capitalism and the strategic triangle with the United States. It missed an opportunity to work with the Soviet leader before he turned almost entirely to the West, leaving China to wait until it was too late for normalization to inf luence the balance of power. In the 1990s as Japan pressed for regionalism, China resisted in fear that Japan would gain the lead. Just as hostility to the “new thinking” of Gorbachev kept growing into rage that interfered further with strategic adjustments until the Soviet Union finally collapsed, antipathy to Japan’s audacity to look beyond its moral right as a former militarist state culminated in a campaign atmosphere focused on the patriotic war against Japan. Only at the end of the decade did leaders awaken to the indispensability of cooperation with Japan in Asian multilateralism, not too late to begin working together through ASEAN ⫹ 3, but not in time to keep Japan’s trust and take maximum advantage of timing that could have led to substantial regionalism. Chinese rightly point with pride to a history of remarkably little expansionism as if their country is programmed to avoid hegemonism, but they ignore a long record of sinocentrism in which the superior status of China was reinforced in myriad ways. Even if China avoids

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aggression toward its neighbors, it shows little awareness of the need to avoid arrogance. Overemphasizing cultural uniqueness and distorting the meaning of universal values do not create a suitable environment for cultural understanding. Behind many of the shortcomings in strategic thinking lies reasoning about values that makes Chinese support for regionalism difficult beyond its recent minimalist approach. A number of illusions have stood in the forefront of China’s goal of regionalism through Southeast Asia. First is the notion that ASEAN is a unified force that will keep working together well in forging increased regionalism. The real cleavages and troubles in achieving substantial regionalism with ASEAN, as constituted, are obscured. Second is the idea the FTAs signed in the region signify full free trade as understood elsewhere and the region is poised for ever more economic integration. The many loopholes in existing FTAs and the weak commitment to further openness in some of the countries of ASEAN are rarely noted. Third is acceptance of the goal of building the East Asian community as if the countries involved actually agreed on fundamental tenets of a possible community. In fact, profound divergence exists on matters at the heart of constructing a community, and just establishing this goal seems to have little meaning for trying to reconcile them. Chinese published materials never give a credible answer to the question of what is necessary to induce Japan to find common cause to agree on a process to establish East Asian regionalism. This was Japan’s goal early in the 1990s, and only China’s resistance prevented it. Later in the decade China’s cautious acquiescence made possible creation of ASEAN ⫹ 3 and the later upgrading of the ⫹ 3. Given Japan’s eagerness for an Asian Monetary Fund, there is no doubt that if China had welcomed such a move, it would have been possible. Dragging its feet, China missed the chance to establish regionalism of the kind it sought after the turn of the century. In 2003–08 as the EAS took shape and started to function China still had an opportunity to throw its weight behind the new organization. Yet, the presence of Australia, New Zealand, and India defied Beijing’s purposes for regionalism. With this range of members, it could not expect to be the leader and it would face pressure to address security and values issues in moving toward the goal of an East Asian community. Beijing preferred to keep ASEAN at the center of a narrower group that would avoid such sensitive maters. Unable to assure Japan about the path forward to a supposedly shared goal, it had to settle for a standoff between two organizations neither of which had a mandate to accomplish much more than the economic agenda set earlier.

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Despite the proliferation of new multilateral groupings in the AsiaPacific, this is an area of “underinstitutionalization,” especially on noneconomic matters.16 China plays a leading role in shaping regional institutions, supporting some options but not others. China became an enthusiastic supporter of regionalism of a limited sort. Its focus was “the more open the economic borders, the better,” while insisting that problems of a noneconomic character should often be brushed aside rather than addressed as states pursued regionalism. While listing various types of problems, it dismissed their significance.17 After all, China’s own calculus favored economic ties to boost its rise, while hesitating in most cases about security or value demands that could serve to limit its f lexibility. Regionalism could provide many benefits to the countries of East Asia, not least to China. Its proclaimed primary goals of peace and development would get a boost from the stability that accompanies close coordination and firm institutional ties and with more intense economic integration. Given the vital role the United States plays in providing security in the region, excluding it from regionalism without a parallel security agreement is tantamount to dooming efforts to go beyond a minimalist approach. Many in China appreciate the economic benefits of regionalism and also recognize that they cannot stand alone with other functions. Yet, other noneconomic calculations hold China back. One factor is hesitation to accept a norms-based order that would incorporate values. Another is the instrumental goal of weakening U.S alliances in the region. Indeed, China appears to concentrate on interdependence with countries that are not great powers, such as the states of ASEAN, in order to strengthen its competitive position versus the United States. In these ways it approaches regionalism to limit as much as possible constraints on its behavior. Indicative of this is its reluctance to join in energy multilateralism, which could limit its control over this strategic asset. Taking precedence over stability and economic gains is a strategic logic rooted in balance-of-power calculations as well as in a tendency to narrow the values deemed acceptable in guiding the search for regional cooperation. Objective conditions continue to favor China’s growing inf luence in Asia. Better able than neighboring states to cope with the global financial crisis, China becomes even more of a magnet for their exports and their requests for investments and assistance. Still critical to managing the belligerence of North Korea, it is well positioned to dictate the balance between carrots and sticks. The prospect of a regional coalition able to combine military power and values, as discussed by Americans

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and Japanese during the decade, has greatly receded. Regional reorganization without China appears unthinkable, but that does not mean China is poised to shape regionalism as it desires. U.S. power—strategic, air, maritime, alliance, financial, and soft—remains too strong for China to gain the status of leader. Japanese opposition, pressuring U.S. compromises as well as Chinese advances, has become too determined, even enduring under Hatoyama’s more regional orientation. Russian reservations, tempered with support to the degree China’s rise is limited, cannot be dismissed. As Indian competition rises in one direction, Indonesian ambitions are beginning to surface in another, and South Korean hesitation comes more into the open in a third. China cannot expect regionalism on its own terms. It will stand as first among equals when facing its neighbors in any direction and be able to wield inf luence of various types. Yet, only if it overcomes its outdated strategic thinking can it expect to become part of a regional framework beyond the very restricted recently established structures that are already reaching the limits of their effectiveness. This may combine some elements of an East Asian Community excluding the United States with a security structure including it, but a largely exclusive approach will not win wide support. Earlier strategic reviews were tempered by awareness of China’s weakness. In 2008–09 the situation was different. Rising economic and military power instilled a new sense of entitlement. The Olympics were treated in the familiar fashion of China under pressure from the West. Its pride was at stake, and opponents were not just the rightists of the Republican Party or the revisionists among Japan’s politicians, but the very humanist tradition that had made democracy and human rights a priority. Choosing to demonize the Dalai Lama and to make a provocative torch parade a test of China’s honor, leaders tried to brand critics as hypocritical. They also fell back on high-sounding verbal distractions such as “peaceful development,” “harmonious society,” “harmonious world,” and “scientific development,” labels that conceal a perceived great power struggle where values are manipulated, serving to distort the true nature of China’s strategic competition. More transparency and less strategic duality, in which contradictions are repeated without serious effort to reconcile them and find a consistent, coherent message, would increase the chances for regionalism beyond the limited multilateralism countenanced to date. Chinese strategic thinking has come a long way over three decades, but it remains fettered by narrow assumptions buttressed by censorship. If bilateralism is deemed to be insufficient, the path toward regionalism

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demands further substantial strategic rethinking. This must start with the great powers: 1) reassessing the U.S. role in Asia by dropping the term hegemonism and recognizing the reality of hedging against China and agreeing on values that boost trust; 2) acknowledging the rise of Japan as a great power, whose real interests require a great deal more reassurance than China has yet provided; 3) shifting from viewing Russia as a pawn in antihegemonism or multipolarity to welcoming it as normal state in the joint search for globalization; and 4) upgrading India’s status as a rising power whose foreign interests deserve respect. Only by appreciating the salience of great power consensus will China succeed in developing enduring Asian regionalism. Another critical ingredient in constructive strategic thinking is to pursue stability in each region of Asia as the priority, not just pay lip service to it while marginalizing actions that could be in contradiction to other strategic goals. Taiwan, North Korea, and Pakistan remain the principal tests for China’s commitment to stability. In 2009 two of these trouble zones plunged into crisis conditions, as only Taiwan was under control. As Obama intensified U.S. interest in seeking a multilateral response, neighboring states were set on edge, prepared to work more closely with U.S. envoys but uncertain if a broad coalition could be built to tackle dangerous situations. China occupied a critical position in the search for security multilateralism that could become the basis for broader regionalism. If it could approach these issues strategically in a manner reassuring to other states and continue on the moderate course toward Taiwan that was praised in 2008, then China would go a long way toward steering the second decade of the twenty-first century on a sustainable path toward regionalism. This would, however, require a significant shift away from the strategic triangle logic of the 1980s, the 1990s multipolarity reasoning, and even the strategic duality convenience of the 2000s. Standing at a crossroads between inclusive and far-reaching regionalism welcoming to the United States and Japan and the revival of sinocentrism insistent on China’s primacy at the center of Asia as its various regions became increasingly interlocked into one, China is most in need of a transfusion of strategic thinking if it is serious about supporting stability as the key to development.

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Notes

Chapter 1 1. Thomas J. Christensen, “China,” in Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, eds., Strategic Asia 2001–2002: Power and Purpose (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001), p. 28. 2. Thomas J. Christensen, “China,” in Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, eds., Strategic Asia 2002–2003: Asian Aftershocks (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2002), pp. 51–94. 3. Thomas J. Christensen and Michael A. Glosny, “China: Sources of Stability in U.S.-China Security Relations,” in Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, eds., Strategic Asia 2003–2004: Fragility & Crisis (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2003), pp. 53–80. 4. Michael D. Swaine, “China: Exploiting a Strategic Opening,” in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2004–2005: Confronting Terrorism in the Pursuit of Power (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2004), pp. 92–93. 5. David Shambaugh, “China’s Military Modernization: Making Steady and Surprising Progress,” in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2005–2006: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005), pp. 102–103. 6. Michael R. Chambers, “Rising China: The Search for Power and Plenty,” in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2006–2007: Trade, Interdependence, and Security (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2006), p. 102. 7. Kenneth Lieberthal, “How Domestic Forces Shape the PRC’s Grand Strategy and International Impact,” in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2007–2008: Domestic Political Change and Grand Strategy (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2007), p. 63. 8. Michael D. Swaine, “Managing China as a Strategic Challenge,” in Ashley J. Tellis, Mercy Kuo, and Andrew Marble, eds., Strategic Asia 2008–2009: Challenges and Choices (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2008), p. 76. 9. David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Robert G. Sutter, China’s

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10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

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Rise in Asia: Promises and Perils (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Yan Zhu, “Sulian jieti hou shijie xingshi fazhan quxiang,”Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, May 1993, pp. 1–4. Li Yonghui, “Zhongguo heping fazhan jinchengzhong de Zhongeri guanxi,” Eluosi, Zhongya, Dongou wenti, No. 4, 2007, pp. 67–77. Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978–1985 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). Renmin ribao, December 4, 1992, p. 5. Jiang Lifeng, “Xinshidai Zongri guanxi de zhongdian: jingji jixu hezuo,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 9, 1992, pp. 1–3. Liu Jiange, “Riben minzuzhuyi yu ‘Dongya gongtungti’ shexiang de neizai chongtu,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 6, 2007, p. 83.

Chapter 2 1. Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978–1985; Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Soviet-Watchers in the 1980s: A New Era in Scholarship,” World Politics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (July 1985), pp. 435–74. 2. David Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972– 1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 3. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan 1989–2001: The Struggle to Balance Partnership and Rivalry,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 2002), pp. 95–129. 4. Rozman, “China’s Soviet Watchers in the 1980s,” p. 436. 5. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Concurrent Debate about the Gorbachev Era,” in Thomas Bernstein and Li Hua-Yu, eds., China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949 to the Present (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, forthcoming). 6. Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism: Bilateral Distrust in the Shadow of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 44–45. 7. Zhang Jinglin, “Shilun yu dangqian fanba douzheng youguande jige renshi wenti,” Sulian dongou wenti, No. 6, 1982, pp. 1–5. 8. O.L. Ostroukhov, Podkhod KNR k problemam obespecheniia bezopasnosti i sotrudnichestva v ATR (konets 70-kh—80-e gody) (Moscow: IMEMO, avtoreferat of candidate’s dissertation, 1991), pp. 7–8. 9. Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978–1985, p. 54. 10. Sulian he bufen Dongou guojia jing ji gaige (Beijing: CASS Shijie jingji yanjiusuo, June 1981), p. 2. 11. Zhou Shucheng, Xu Xin, and Jin Chuanyuan, eds., Sulian jing ji gaige gaikuang (Beijing: Renmin daxue chubanshe, 1981), p. 2. 12. Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978–1985, pp. 102–43.

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13. Ribenxuekan bianjibu, ed., Ribenxue yanjiu lunwen mulu suoyin (1978– 1991) (Beijing: Riben xuekan, 1992). 14. Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 15. Song Shaoying, Riben jueqi lun (Changchun: Dongbei shifan daxue chubanshe, 1990), pp. 318–20. 16. Zhou Lihua, “90 niandai de Yatai xingshi: zuotanhui congshu,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 6, 1988, pp. 29–31. 17. Beijing daxue Riben yanjiu zhongxin, ed., Ribenxue (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1991), p. 44. 18. Jae Ho Chung, Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 19. John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), pp. 68, 258, 328–31. 20. Wu Yikang, “Qian tan shijie jingji de duojihua qushi—jinaping weilai shi ‘Taipingyang shidai’ de tifa,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi neican, No. 4, 1984, pp. 12–17. 21. Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism, p. 51. 22. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Quest for a Great Power Identity,” Orbis, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Summer 1999), p. 389. 23. “Ligen zhengfu cujin minzhu yundong shuping,” Shijie jijg ji yu zhengzhi neican, No. 7, 1984, pp. 37–40. 24. David Shambaugh, “Patterns of Interaction in Sino-American Relations,” in Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh, eds., Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 204–05; David Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist, pp. 246–73. 25. Gilbert Rozman, “The Comparative Study of Socialism in China: The Social Sciences at a Crossroads,” Social Research, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter 1987), pp. 631–61. 26. Song Shaoying, Riben jueqi lun, p. 320. 27. Li Hanmei, “Rimei guanxi de xianzhuang ji jiushi niandai de zhanwang,” in Beijing daxue Riben yanjiu zhongxin, Ribenxue, pp. 139–53.

Chapter 3 1. The principal journals such as Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi dropped the term neican (internal consultation) from their title, while some conservative mouthpieces such as Waiguo wenti yanjiu took some time before they towed the reformist line. 2. Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Relations in the 1990s: A Balance Sheet,” Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 93–113; Gilbert Rozman, “China, Japan, and the Post-Soviet Upheaval: Global Opportunities and Regional Risks,” in Karen Dawisha, ed., The

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

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International Dimension of Post-Communist Transitions in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 147–76; Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Mutual Assessments,” in Sherman Garnett, ed., Rapprochement or Rivalry? Russia-China Relations in a Changing Asia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), pp. 147–74. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan 1989–2001, pp. 95–129. “Suri guanxi wenti xuexu zuotanhui,” Sulian dongou wenti, No. 3, 1991, p. 87. Zhang Xiao, “Liangji gezhu de xiaoshi yu shijie shehuizhuyi wenti qianjing,” Dangdai shijie shehuizhuyi wenti, No. 2, 1994, pp. 64–67. Liu Dexi, Sun Yan, and Liu Songwu, Sulian jieti hou de Zhonge guanxi (Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), pp. 67–69. Li Shisheng, “Guanyu guoji xinzhixu jige wenti de tantao,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 10, 1992, pp. 41–46. Wang Huaining, “Shijie zhengzhi jingji xingshi,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 2, 1993, pp. 1–3. Ge Linsheng, “Lun Eluosi lianbang de duiwai jingji zhanlue yu woguo duice,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 9, 1992, pp. 1–6. Li Cong, “Zhuazhu dangqian youli shiji, jiakuai gaige kaifang bufa,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 6, 1992, pp. 1–7. “Dangqian Eluosi xingshi zuotanhui,” Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, No. 6, 1992, p. 90. Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Washington: National Defense University Press, 2000), pp. 3–61. “Yinianlai Riben xingshi huigu jiqi qianjing fenxi,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 3, 1992, pp. 15–16. Li Kenan, “Ribenren de guojiaguan yu Riben guojia zhanlue mubiao,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 6, 1992, pp. 3–8. “Riben jianjue shuo ‘bu,’ ” Zhanhou Rimei guanxi de cong jie (Beijing: Junshi chubanshe, 1992), p. 1. Cai Mengje, “Nanchaoxian chanye zhishu fazhan qianzhe,” Waiguo wenti yanjiu, No. 1, 1991, p. 45. Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), pp. 158–59, 187–88, 198–99. Zhou Dongyan, “Cong Xiyatu huiyi kan Meiri de Yatai zhanlue,” Dongbeiya luntan, No. 1, 1994, pp. 1–5. Chen Qimao, “Guanyu zai Yatai diqu jianli zhengzhi xinzhixu de tansuo,” Guoji wenti yanjiu, No. 1, 1992, pp. 1–8. Gilbert Rozman, “Turning Fortresses into Free Trade Zones,” in Sherman Garnett, ed., Rapprochement or Rivalry? pp. 177–202. Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism, pp. 91–99, 111–18. Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism, pp. 148–49.

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23. Cheng Bifan, “Yatai xingshi yu zhanwang,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 2, 1993, pp. 4–8. 24. Gaye Christoffersen, “China and the Asia-Pacific: Need for a Grand Strategy,” Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 11 (November 1996), pp. 1072–73. 25. Ge Linsheng, “Sulian bengkui yuanyin pouxi,” Shijie jing ji qingkuang, June 15, 1992, pp. 8–13. 26. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Quest for Great Power Identity,” pp. 389–90; Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan, 1989–2001,” pp. 100–06. 27. Liu Changli, “Duojihua shidai de shijie jingji,” Caijing luntan, No. 1, 1994, pp. 62–67. 28. Heilong jiang ribao, January 1, 1993, p. 5.

Chapter 4 1. Richard Bush, “Chinese Decisionmaking under Stress: The Taiwan Strait, 1995–2004,” and Paul H.B. Godwin, “Decisionmaking under Stress: The Unintentional Bombing of China’s Belgrade Embassy and the EP-3 Collision,” in Andrew Scobell and Larry M. Wortzel, eds., Chinese National Security Decisionmaking under Stress (Carlisle: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2005), pp. 135–90. 2. Renmin ribao, October 23, 1999, p. 1. 3. Joseph Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 211–14. 4. Song Yimin, “The US Security Strategy, World Power Division and Foreign Policy: A New Readjustment,” International Studies, No. 12–13, 1998, pp. 1–16. 5. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Quest for Great Power Identity,” pp. 383–402. 6. Yang Zheng, ed., 1999 zhi hou: 21 shiji Zhongguo yu shijie de guanxi (Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 263–65. 7. Shi Ze and Xia Yishan, “Eluosi daxuan jiqi fazhan qushi,” Guoji wenti yanjiu, No. 4, 1996, pp. 8–12. 8. Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Mutual Assessments,” pp. 154–59. 9. Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment, pp. 63–105. 10. Tang Qiangang, “Riben de Ouya waijiao he Zhongya anquan,” in Disijie Zongya xingshi yu Shanghai hezuo zuzhi guoji yantaohui lunwenji (Shanghai: Shanghai guoji wenti yanjiusuo, 2004), pp. 88–91. 11. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan, 1989–2001,” p. 107. 12. Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan,” p. 113. 13. Ibid., pp. 113–14. 14. Feng Zhaokui, “Gongyehua yu Zhongri guanxi,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 9, 2003, pp. 13–14. 15. Wang Chuanbao, Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi luntan, No. 5, 1999, p. 32.

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16. Hai Yun and Li Jingjie, eds., Yeliqin shidai de Eluosi: waijiao quan (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2001). 17. David Finkelstein, “China Reconsiders Its National Security: The Great Peace and Development Debate of 1999” (Alexandria: The CAN Corporation, 2000). 18. Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment, pp. 107–53. 19. Ji Weidong, “ ‘Ajiateki kachi’ ron ni motozuku dogi gaiko no kanosei,” Sekai, October 1999, pp. 282–94. 20. Yu Yongding, “Dangqian shijie jingji xingshi, quanqiuhua chushi ji dui Zhongguo de taozhan,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi luntan, No. 5, 1999, pp. 8–9.

Chapter 5 1. David Michael Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 2. Xu Jian, “Feiquantong anquan wenti yu guoji anquan hezuo,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 3, 2003, pp. 3–7; Ni Feng, “Ping Bushi zhengfu de duiwai zhanlue,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 3, 2003, pp. 8–13. 3. Wang Yizhou, “Zhongri guanxi de shige wenti,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 9, 2003, p. 8. 4. Zheng Yu, ““Eluosi anquan zhanlue diaozheng jiqi yingxiang,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 3, 2003, pp. 19–22. 5. Yue Shaozheng, “Bushi shangtai hou de Rimei guanxi jiqi zoushi,” Shijie xingshi yanjiu, February 4, 2004, pp. 2–6. 6. “Zhonge zhanlue huoban guanxi shifou fasheng bianhua?” Zhongguo guo qing diaocha neican—guoji, No. 3, 2003, pp. 4–6. 7. Huanqiu shibao, October 29, 2003, p. 7. 8. Bobo Lo, Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2008). 9. Gilbert Rozman, “The Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership: How Close? Where To?” in David M. Finkelstein and James Bellacqua, eds., The Future of China-Russia Relations (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), pp. 12–32. 10. Qin Minggui, “Zhonge guanxi wending fazhan de yimian,” Ouya shehui fazhan yanjiu, January 5, 2004, pp. 1–9. 11. Liu Guiling, “Zhonge nengyuan guandao hezuo de xianjing,” Guoji ciliao xinxi, April 2004, pp. 21–23. 12. Wang Yizhou, “Zhongri guanxi de shige wenti,” pp. 8–9; Shi Yinhong, “Guanyu Zhongri guanxi de zhanluexing,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 9, 2003, pp. 10–11. 13. Wang Hongfang, “Koizumi zhizheng hou xiang ‘zhengzhi daguo’ quanmian tuijin de guiji,” Guoji ciliao xinxi, April 2004, pp. 24–27. 14. Feng Zhaokui and Guan Zhixiong, “Duitan: Zongri guanxi weishemme ‘jingre zhengleng?’ ” Dongbeiya yanjiu, No. 2, 2003, pp. 5–12.

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15. Gilbert Rozman, “Narrowing the Values Gap in Sino-Japanese Relations: Lessons from 2006–2008,” in Gerrit Gong and Victor Teo, eds., Reconceptualizing the Divide: Identity, Memory, and Nationalism in SinoJapanese Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp. 26–52. 16. Mark Lanteigne, “In Medias Res: The Development of Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a Security Community,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Winter 2006–07), pp. 616–18. 17. Gilbert Rozman, “South Korea and the Sino-Japanese Rivalry: A Middle Power’s Options within the East Asian Core Triangle,” Pacific Review, Vol. 20, No. 2 (June 2007), pp. 197–220. 18. Piao Jianyi, “Chaoxian he wenti jiqi weilai zouxiang,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 3, pp. 23–36. 19. Huanqiu shibao, October 13, 2003, p. 2. 20. Huanqiu shibao, October 10, 2003, p. 2. 21. Gilbert Rozman, Strategic Thinking about the Korean Nuclear Crisis: Four Parties Caught between North Korea and the United States (New York: Palgrave, 2007), Chs. 5–6. 22. Huanqiu shibao, September 12, 2003, p. 14.

Chapter 6 1. Gilbert Rozman, “Moscow’s China-Watchers in the Post-Mao Era: The Response to a Changing China,” The China Quarterly Vol. 94 (June 1983), 215–41; Gilbert Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism: Soviet Criticisms of China (Princeton University Press, 1985); Gilbert Rozman “China’s SovietWatchers in the 1980s,” 435–74. 2. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Concurrent Debate about the Gorbachev Era.” 3. John Garver, “The Chinese Communist Party and the Collapse of Soviet Communism,” The China Quarterly, No. 133 (March 1993), pp. 1–26; David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party, p. 57. 4. Gilbert Rozman, “The Comparative Study of Socialism in China,” pp. 631–61. 5. See articles in the journals Dongou Zhongya yanjiu, newly opened with a new title in place of Sulian Dongou wenti, and Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, formerly Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi neican. An example in the latter is Luo Zhaohong, “Sulian jieti jiqu dui shijie jingji yu zhengzhi geju de yingxiang,” No. 10, 1992, pp. 1–5. 6. Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Relations in the 1990s,” pp. 93–113; Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Mutual Assessments,” pp. 147–74. 7. Gilbert Rozman, “Turning Fortresses into Free Trade Zones,” pp. 177–202. 8. Gilbert Rozman, “China, Japan, and the Post-Soviet Upheaval: Global Opportunities and Regional Risks,” pp. 147–76.

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9. Liu Fenghua, “Zhongguo zai Zhongya zhengce de yanbian,” Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 6, 2007, pp. 66–67. 10. Gilbert Rozman, “A New Sino-Russian-American Triangle?” Orbis, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Fall 2000), pp. 541–55. 11. Qi Degang, “9–11 shijian hou E duimei guanxi diaozheng ji duie yingxiang,”Ouya shehui fazhan dongtai, April 29, 2002, pp. 1–7. 12. Huanqiu shibao, May 30, 2002, p. 7. 13. Bobo Lo, Axis of Convenience, p. 89. 14. Gilbert Rozman, “The Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership,” pp. 32–66. 15. “2006 nian de woguo zhoubian anquan huanjing chengxian 6 da tedian,” Neibu cankao, No. 1, 2007, pp. 27–28. 16. Yan Xuetong and Xu Jin, “Zhongmei ruan shili bijiao,” Xiandai guoji guanxi, No. 1, 2008, pp. 24–29. 17. Xu Linshi, “Zhonge Dongbu diqu ziyou maoyi qu chuangjian yanjiu,”Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 6, 2007, pp. 58–62. 18. Sebastien Peyrouse, “Economic Aspects of the Chinese-Central Asia Rapprochement,” Johns Hopkins SAIS, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Silk Road Studies Program Paper, September 2007, p. 9. 19. Mark Lanteigne, “In Meidas Res: The Development of Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a Security Community,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Winter 2006–07), pp. 605–22. 20. Wang Xiaoquan, “Eluosi dui Shanghai hezuo zuzhi de zhengce yanbian,” Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 3, 2007, pp. 67–75. 21. Wu Dahui, “Meiguo dui Zhongya de junshi anquan,” Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 2, 2008, p. 74. 22. Cong Peng and Zheng Quanhan, “Jinnian Meie guanxi jielun,” Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 2, 2008, pp. 67–71. 23. CICIR, “Eluosi qiangshi fuxing jiqi zhanlue yingxiang,” Eluosi Zhongya Dongou yanjiu, No. 4, 2007, pp. 6–8. 24. Pan Guang, “China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” in Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian, eds., China and the New International Order (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 249–53. 25. Wang Shuhan, “Woguo yu Zhongya quyi guojia jingji zhixu hezuo de zhuyao jinzhan wenti yu jianyi,” Diaocha baogao, No. 64, December 12, 2007, pp. 1–13. 26. “Henbosuru ‘Shanghai kyoryoku koso,’ ” Sentaku, September 2007, pp. 30–31. 27. Liu Fenghua, “Zhongguo zai Zhongya zhengce de yanbian,” pp. 70–72.

Chapter 7 1. Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Changing Images of Japan 1989–2001, pp. 95–129; Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Quest for Great Power Identity,” pp. 383–402.

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2. He Yinan, The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 3. Feng Zhaokui, “Zhongri jingji hezuo de yiyi,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 43, July 18, 1985, pp. 2–3. 4. “Riben wenhua zuotanhui congshu,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 5, April 1986, pp. 14–18. 5. “Riben waijiao zhengce fazhan chushi zuotanhui,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 6, 1987, pp. 28–31. 6. Zheng Zhishi, “2000 nian de shijie xingshi he Riben de zuoyong zuotanhui zongshu,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 7, 1988, pp. 16–19. 7. Tomoyuki Kojima, “Prospect for Sino-Japanese Relations in the 1990s,” in Dalcheong Kim, ed., Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia (Seoul: Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, 1990), pp. 59–79. 8. Renmin ribao, November 4, 1992, p. 6. 9. Wang Jiafu, “Lun Dongbeiya shichang de zhanlue jiegou,” Long jiang shehuikexue, No. 4, 1992, pp. 37–41. 10. Asahi shimbun, August 12, 1991, p. 1. 11. Feng Zhaokui, “Yazhou xingshi fazhan de ruokan tedian,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 2, 1993, pp. 22–24. 12. Yan Jihe, “Riben de guoji zuoyong wenti shuping,” Yatai ziliao, February 17, 1992, p.5. 13. Kaneko Hidetoshi, “Tenno hochu no butai ura,” Ajia jiho, No. 7, 1992, pp. 2–3. 14. Qian Wenrong, “Kelintun zhizheng hou de Zhongmei guanxi,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 2, 1993, pp. 60–63. 15. Jiang Lifeng, Riben wenti ziliao, No. 9, 1992, pp. 1–3 16. Yang Yunzhong, “Riben zouxiang zhengzhi daguo de bufa mingxian jiakuai,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 6, 1992, pp. 15–18 17. Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 18. Wang Mengli, “Riben minzu jingshen zhi pouxi,” Riben wenti yanjiu, No. 4, 1994, pp. 11–18. 19. Cheng Hua, “Riben zhengzai cong jingji daguo zouxiang zhengzhi daguo,” Waiguo wenti yanjiu, No. 4, 1992, pp. 30–34. 20. Li Genan, “Lengzhanhou Rimei guanxi zhongxin diaozheng,” Waiguo wenti yanjiu, No. 3, 1992, pp. 41–44. 21. See articles in Waiguo wenti yanjiu, No. 3, 1993, including Li Genan, “Riben de ‘xin Yazhou guan’ yu Yatai daxia,” pp. 38–40. 22. Xu Zhixian, “Forecasting Sino-Japanese Relations in the 21st Century,” Contemporary International Relations, No. 9, 1998, pp. 1–11. 23. Guo Qiang, “Riben junguozhuyi sihui zai qingranzhong furan,” Neibu cankao, pp. 35–39. 24. Asahi shimbun, October 21, 1999, p.4.

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25. Ming Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic, and Transformation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006). 26. Gilbert Rozman, “New Challenges in the Regional Integration of China and Japan in 2005,” in Satow Toyoshi and Li Enmin,eds., The Possibility of an East Asian Community: Rethinking the Sino-Japanese Relationship (Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 2006), pp. 389–410. 27. Wang Dawei, “Cong ‘shijie diyi’ kan Zhongri chaju,” Gaige neican, No. 34, 2007, pp. 43–45. 28. “Zhongrihan zibaoqu dui sanguo zhizaoye de yingxiang fenxi,” and “Dongbeiya shiyou anquan xingshi ji woguo de duice jianyi,” Diaocha yanjiu baogao, November 19, 2007, pp. 15–17, and December 19, 2007, pp. 1–2. 29. Liu Xing, “Shilun Rimei dongmeng de shengmingli,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 6, 2007, pp. 37–46. 30. Li Yonghui, “Zhongguo heping fazhan jinchengzhong de Zhongeri guanxi,” Eluosi, Zhongya, Dongou yanjiu, No. 4, 2007, pp. 67–77. 31. Lian Degui, “Xin Fukudazhuyi yu Zhongri guanxi,” Xiandai guoji guanxi, No. 12, 2007, pp. 58–62. 32. Gilbert Rozman, “Narrowing the Values Gap in Sino-Japanese Relations: Lessons from 2006–2008,” pp. 26–52.

Chapter 8 1. Wang Zhongwen, “Yi xinshijiao junshi Chaoxian wenti yu Dongbeiya xingshi,” Zhanlue yu goanli, No. 4, 2004, pp. 92–94. 2. Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 144–45. 3. Scott Snyder, China’s Rise and the Two Koreas: Politics, Economics, Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2009), pp. 28–29. 4. Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations, pp. 84–87. 5. Jae Ho Chung, Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 69–70. 6. Snyder, China’s Rise and the Two Koreas, pp. 37–38. 7. Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical, pp. 41, 101, 154–60, 198–99, 404–05. 8. Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism, pp. 168–70. 9. Snyder, China’s Rise and the Two Koreas, pp. 87–90. 10. Jae Ho Chung, “Korea and China in Northeast Asia: From Stable Bifurcation to Complicated Interdependence,” in Charles K. Armstrong, Gilbert Rozman, Samuel S. Kim, and Stephen Kotkin, eds., Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism ion Northeast Asia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), pp. 210–11. 11. Jae Ho Chung, “From a Special Relationship to a Normal Partnership? Interpreting the “Garlic Battle” in Sino-South Korean Relations,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter 2003–04), pp. 549–68.

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12. Jae Ho Chung, “China’s Ascendancy and the Korean Peninsula: From Interest Reevaluation to Strategic Realignment?” in David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift, pp. 151–69. 13. Gilbert Rozman, “The Geopolitics of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” in Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, eds., Strategic Asia 2003–04: Fragility and Crisis (Seattle: The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2003), pp. 245–61. 14. Rozman, Strategic Thinking about the Korean Nuclear Crisis, pp. 103–09. 15. Jiang Xiyuan, “Chaohe wenti yu Dongbeiya anquan hezuo kuangjia qianjing,” Riben xuekan, No. 3 (2004), pp. 46–47. 16. Zhang Jinfang, “Chaohe wenti zhanuan huahan,” Shijie xingshi yanjiu, No. 51 (December 24, 2003), pp. 23–26; Zhang Liangui, “Chaoxian bandao de tongyi yu Zhongguo,” Dangdai Yatai, May 2004, pp. 34–36. 17. Rozman, Strategic Thinking about the Korean Nuclear Crisis, p. 111. 18. “Wenti buduan: Meiguo zhanlue mubiao bianlema?” Huanqiu shibao, October 7, 2005. 19. Gilbert Rozman, “The United States and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis: Views from China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea,” in Jonathan D. Pollack, ed., Asia Eyes America: Regional Perspectives on U.S.-Asia Pacific Strategy in the 21st Century (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2007), pp. 63–90. 20. Chu Shulong, “The North Korean Nuclear Issue Calls for New Thinking and New Policy,” Asia Security Initiative, September 3, 2009. 21. Jae Ho Chung, “The ‘Rise of China and Its Impact on South Korea’s Strategic Soul-Searching,” and Robert Sutter, “The Rise of China and South Korea,” Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies, Vol. 15, 2005, The Newly Emerging Asian Order and the Korean Peninsula, pp. 1–12, 13–30. 22. Shi Yinhong, “China and the North Korean Nuclear Issue: Competing Interests and Persistent Policy Dilemmas,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol. 21, No. 1 (March, 2009), pp. 34–36.

Chapter 9 1. Robert G. Sutter, China’s Rise in Asia: Promises and Perils (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 202–03. 2. Lin Xining, “Quanqiuhua beiying xiade Mian zhengzhi weiji,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 1, 2009, p. 10. 3. Xu Shanbao, “Zhongguo—Dongmeng guanxi 40nian fazhan de licheng jiqi houshi,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 6, 2007, pp. 54–59. 4. Beijing daxue Riben yanjiu zhongxin, ed., Ribenxue . 5. Liu Jiangyong, “Riben zhengzi quanmian nanjin,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 10, 1992, pp. 1–3. 6. Zhang Biqing, “Riben duihua guanxi xin dongxiang,” Riben wenti ziliao, No. 10, 1992, pp. 3–6.

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7. Jing-dong Yuan, China-ASEAN Relations: Perspectives, Prospects and Implications for U.S. Interests (Carlyle, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), pp. 34–41. 8. Brantly Womack, China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 212–35. 9. Xu Shanbao, “Zhongguo—Dongmeng guanxi 40nian fazhan de licheng jiqi houshi?,” p. 59. 10. Xu Mei, “Meiguo Dongnanya anquan zhengce de zhuyao yingxiang insu fenxi,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 3, 2007, pp. 14–18. 11. Liu Jiange, “Riben minzuzhuyi yu ‘Dongya gongtungti’ shexiang de neizai chongtu,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 6, 2007, pp. 82–85. 12. Sheng Lijun, “China and ASEAN in Asian Regional Integration,” in Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian, eds., China and the New International Order, pp. 256–74. 13. Michael A. Glosny, “Heading toward a Win-Win Future? Recent Developments in China’s Policy toward Southeast Asia,” Asian Security, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2006), pp. 24–57. 14. Wen Beiya, “Zhongguo—Inni zhanlue huoban guanxi de xianjuang yu zhanwang,” Dongnanya yanjiu, No. 1, 2007, pp. 35–38. 15. Yu Changsen, “Zhongguo Riben Dongmeng sanjiao guanxi jiegou bianhua yu Dongya yitihua qianjing,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 5, 2003, pp. 65–68. 16. Evelyn Goh, “Southeast Asia: Strategic Diversification in the ‘Asian Century,’ ” in Ashley J. Telles, Mercy Kuo, and Andrew Marble, eds., Strategic Asia 2008–09: Challenges and Choices, pp. 267–72, 286. 17. John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001). 18. Wang Hongwei, “Zai xinshiji shenhua Zhongyin guanxi mianlin de tiaozhan,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 6, 2008, pp. 15–17. 19. Zhao Xingang, “Xiandai Indu de waijiao zhanlue yu Zhongguo de anquan huanjing,” Xian dianshi kexue daxue xuebao (shehuikexueban), Vol. 14, No. 2 (June 2004). 20. John Garver, “Asymmetrical Indian and Chinese Threat Perceptions,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2004), pp. 109–34. 21. Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 148–51 22. Wu Yongnian, Zhao Gancheng, and Ma Ying, 21 shiji Zhongyin waijiao xin zhenglun (Shanghai: Zewen chubanshe, 2002), pp. 174–77, 230. 23. Susan L. Craig, Chinese Perceptions of Traditional and Nontraditional Security Threats (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), pp. 86–97. 24. Zheng Ruixiang, Yindu de jueqi yu Zhongyin guanxi (Beijing: Xiandai shijie chubanshe, 2006), pp. 219–21.

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Chapter 10 1. Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, CA: R AND, 2000), pp. 119–40. 2. Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism. 3. Ibid., pp. 366–77. 4. Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “China’s Evolving Multilateralism in Asia,” in Kent E. Calder and Francis Fukuyama, eds., East Asian Multilateralism: Prospects for Regional Stability (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), pp. 116–18. 5. Song Shaoying, “Dongya jingji xinzhixu de jianli yu Zhongguo jingji guanxi,” Dongbeiya yanjiu, No. 3, 1992, pp. 3–8. 6. Shen Jiru, “Duobian waijiao he duoji shijie,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 10, 2001, pp. 20–24; Wang Yizhou, “Zhongguo yu duobian waijiao,” Shijie jing ji yu zhengzhi, No. 10, 2001, pp. 4–5. 7. Allen Carlson, Unifying China, Integrating with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 86–90. 8. Ellen L. Frost, Asia’s New Regionalism (London: Lynne Rienner, 2008), pp. 168–74. 9. Jaewoo Choo, “Northeast Asia Regionalism and China: From an Outside-in Perspective,” in Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian, eds., China and the New International Order, pp. 218–32. 10. Gilbert Rozman, “Cultural Prerequisites of East Asian Regionalism in an Age of Globalization,” Korean Observer, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 149–79. 11. Gilbert Rozman, “Security Challenges to the United States in Northeast Asia: Looking beyond the Transformation of the Six-Party Talks,” in Chu Shulong and Gilbert Rozman, eds., East Asian Security: Two Views (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), pp. 33–56; Gilbert Rozman, “Turning the Six-Party Talks into a Multilateral Security Framework for Northeast Asia,” in KEI 2008 Towards Sustainable Economic & Security Relations in East Asia: U.S. and ROK Policy Options, Joint U.S.—Korea Academic Studies, Vol. 18, 2008, pp. 149–66. 12. Zhang Yunling, “Dongya hezuo yu Zhongguo—Dongmeng ziyou maoyi de jianshe,” Dangdai Yatai, No. 1, 2002, pp. 6–11. 13. Wu Xinbo, “Chinese Perspectives on Building an East Asian Community in the Twenty-first Century,” in Michael J. Green and Bates Gill, eds., Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 55–73. 14. Ralph Cossa, “Evolving U.S. Views on Asia’s Future Institutional Architecture,” in Green and Gill, eds., Asia’s New Multilateralism, pp. 42–43.

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15. Li Shiyan, “Meiguo ‘‘Yatai ezhi’ zhanlue yu Zhongguo ‘hejie shijie’ waijiao boyi: ping 2008 nian Meiguo ‘Zhongguo zhunli baogao,’ ” Dangdai Yatai, No. 4, 2008, pp. 61–64. 16. Green and Gill, eds., Asia’s New Multilateralism, p. 12. 17. Fang Hua, ““Dongbeiya quyi jingji hezuo xianzhuang ji qianjing,” Xiandai guoji guanxi, No. 11, 2008, p. 62.

Index

Abe Shinzo, 109–10, 112, 116, 120, 170–1, 174–5; and Chinese initiative, 12 Afghanistan, 24, 219; Soviet war, 7–8, 53–5, 134, 136, 211, 224; U.S. war, 6, 11, 26, 111–14, 121, 124, 147–8, 201, 209, 216–17 Agreed Framework, 102, 122, 182–4, 188 Andropov, Iury, 15, 51, 55, 62, 137 Anti spiritual pollution campaign, 55, 61 APEC, 80, 111, 115, 163, 191, 201, 217, 220, 224–5, 233–4 Arkhipov, Ivan, 124 Arms race, 51–2, 63 Arms sales, from Russia, 12, 18–19, 31, 72–5, 95–7, 117–18, 138–45, 150, 153 ASEAN, 19, 76, 81, 121, 203–4, 209–11, 215, 217; strength of, 26, 43–4, 104, 150, 200, 225, 234; and triangularity, 18, 21, 221; and values, 12, 203, 236; Way, 205–7 ASEAN + 3, 12, 91, 115, 206–7; and China, 26, 120, 122, 219–20, 226–7, 233–6; formation of, 10, 100–4 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 220, 225, 233–4 Asian Development Bank, 102 Asian financial crisis, 26, 100, 102–3, 106, 175, 185, 203–5; and China’s economic card, 208, 200; response

to, 10, 19, 33, 39, 208–10, 221, 226, 229 Asian Games, 163 Asian Monetary Fund, 168, 225, 236 Asian reorganization, 2, 5, 11, 69, 120, 152, 200, 217, 219–21, 234 Aso Taro, 120, 172 Australia, 122, 201, 207, 210, 227, 232, 236 Authoritarianism, 33–4, 103, 128 Axis of evil, 122, 187–8 Balance of power, 9, 47, 62–4, 71, 83, 90, 100, 157, 195; and end of the cold war, 52, 54, 76, 78, 225; equilibrium in, 69, 95, 178; orientation of, 19, 23, 67, 200, 220; and Russia, 107, 133, 135, 141–3; and U.S. domination, 3, 26, 37, 93, 110, 114; versus integration, 27–8, 51–4, 80, 91–2, 121, 223, 237 Bandwagoning, 5, 27, 210 Beijing consensus, 33, 35, 109 Bourgeois peaceful evolution, 1, 7, 33, 51, 83, 93 Brezhnev, Leonid, 47, 49, 53, 134–6, 139 Bush, George H.W., and new world order, 6, 56, 73, 160, 231; and values, 62

256

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Index

Bush, George W., assertiveness of, 11, 109–11, 122, 144, 169, 187–91, 195; and bilateral ties, 7, 12, 107, 206, 223; and dialogue, 13–14, 113, 230, 232; repudiation of, 114, 125; and unilateralism, 6–8, 22, 36, 38, 116–18 Cambodia, and Japan, 164, 203; and Vietnam, 49, 53–4, 59, 134, 136, 200, 202, 205, 224 Carter, Jimmy, 7, 52, 80, 135, 231 Censorship, and academic debate, 28–9, 37, 40–1, 68–9, 73, 82–3, 95, 105, 135, 141; and analysis, 44, 74, 89, 149–50, 178, 238–9; and information, 30, 33–4, 56, 61–2, 192; internal (neibu) sources, 3–4, 58; in Soviet Union, 137 Central Asia, 5, 118, 124, 141, 219–21, 225, 234; and balance of power, 124, 200–1; and energy, 18–19, 99; history of, 14, 35; and Russian role, 9, 12, 17, 43–4, 75, 95, 97, 133, 145–53, 227; as a threat, 15–16; and U.S., 16, 91, 104, 121; and U.S. bases, 10–11, 116, 144, 147–9, 233 Chambers, Michael, 3 Chen Shui-bian, 12–13, 113, 117, 169 Chen Yun, 62 China threat, 14, 32, 40, 83, 93–4, 106, 112; and India, 103, 212, 214; and Japan, 1, 21, 43, 100, 120, 163, 172, 174, 204, 220; and Southeast Asia, 82, 208–9; and U.S., 91, 189–90 Christensen, Thomas, 2 Climate change, 6–7, 14, 115 Clinton, Bill, 8, 10, 36, 41, 161–6; and economic ties, 9, 71; and human rights, 6, 80, 85–7, 94, 111; interest in improved ties, 90, 93, 104, 106, 234 Clinton, Hillary, 7

Cold war, and Asia, 51–2, 155, 228; end of, 9, 20, 36, 39, 52, 72, 74, 84–7, 136, 165, 202, 211, 224, 231; mentality of, 42, 61, 94–5, 109, 190, 223; revival of, 149, 170 Color revolutions, 121, 147–8, 201 Communist Party, congresses of, 38, 71, 92, 103, 110–11, 135, 157; division within, 28–9, 55, 62, 74, 92, 137, 164–5; legitimacy of, 15, 35, 47, 56, 61, 70, 135–6, 139, 157, 224; Political Standing Committee, 69; support for, 30–1, 55, 181 Comprehensive national power, 27, 36, 70; as a goal, 2, 5, 30, 47, 52, 68, 110, 152; means to, 31, 84, 160; and rankings, 103, 109, 159, 221, 235; theory of, 129 Confucianism, 32–3, 41, 60–1 Containment, 19, 26, 32, 73, 82, 92–4, 104, 112, 116–17, 125, 201, 214, 224, 232–4; and Japan, 119, 208; of Soviet Union, 51, 134–5, 173 Continental and maritime strategies, 64, 81 Cross-border ties, 16–17, 59, 75, 96, 138–43, 152; and border fever, 80–1, 224 CSIS, Pacific Forum, 3 Cultural Revolution, 35, 55–6, 134 Currency, 14, 203 Dalai Lama, 14, 25, 115, 127, 187, 216, 238 Darfur, 22 Democracy, 55, 135, and India, 103, 216; and Russia, 74; and South Korea, 22, 185 extension of, 11, 16, 70, 111, 118, 127, 184, 202, 207, 224; movement, 7, 62 Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), 21, 120, 175

Index Deng Xiaoping, and democracy, 62, 231; and Japan, 10, 161; and lying low, 14, 40, 75, 89, 111, 115, 196–7; and Moscow, 17, 54–5, 134–41; and post-Mao shift, 38, 49; and strategy, 2, 23, 27, 31–6, 42–4, 47, 51, 56, 110, 225; and theory after cold war, 30, 67–8, 70–3, 76, 215; and U.S. ties, 8, 52 Dependency, 6–7, 71, 109, 176–7, 187, 216; on China, 16, 43, 74, 112, 141, 143, 151, 229; on the United States, 19, 61, 73, 135, 155–6, 168 Developing country, 82 Division of labor, 19, 64, 70–1, 91, 109, 163, 212, 229 East Asian community, 12, 19, 21, 115, 120, 122, 174–5, 226, 231–8 East Asian Summit (EAS), 26, 201, 207, 223, 227, 233, 236 East Asian Vision Group, 207, 231 East China Sea, 170 East Timor, 10, 203 Eastern Europe, 52–3, 182 Economic interdependence as a lever, 3, 6, 9, 43, 211, 221, 226, 230, 234 Economic miracles, 19–20, 36, 114, 175–6, 180; of China, 28, 31, 51, 63, 85, 90, 127–8 Energy, 14; pipeline routes, 17–18, 99, 119; and Russia, 12, 16, 118, 145–6, 149–52, 168, 233; security, 24–5, 173, 212 Environment, 77, 127–8, 162 EP-3 airplane collision, 90 Equidistance, 6, 28, 49, 52–3, 136–9, 152; and the Korean peninsula, 186, 196 Ethnic minority rights, 17, 26, 220 Eurasian diplomacy, 99–100 European Union (EU), 76, 105, 115, 144, 201, 211; and triangularity, 32, 87, 164, 203

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Flying geese model, 19–21, 56, 157, 224; and production networks, 81, 229 Four-party talks, 11, 102, 104, 185 Free-Trade Agreements (FTAs), 121–2, 146, 173, 229, with ASEAN, 201, 207, 226, 236 Friendship relations, 4, 41, 48, 56–7, 60, 84, 101, 155–7; end of, 161, 165; revival of, 159, 171 Fukuda Yasuo, 120, 171–5 G-2, 115–16, 129 G-7, 115, 204 G-20, 115 Generational differences, 55, 129 Georgia, 18, 116, 145, 149 Germany, 76, 105, 211 Globalization, 10, 39, 84, 107; and convergence, 27; and economic integration, 51, 63, 67, 90, 92, 96–8, 103, 146, 173; interpretation of, 185, 225, 239; resistance to, 44, 69, 80, 104, 221–4 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 15, 47–56, 61–2, 136–40; and 1991 coup, 72–3, 86, 160; negative image of, 28, 83, 153, 227, 235; new thinking and glasnost of, 31, 152, 179–81; values shift of, 231 Hard power, and soft power, 9, 28, 33, 41, 60–1, 77, 110, 118, 125, 128, 187, 189;countered by soft power, 145, 200, 209, 229; and Japan, 161, 174–5; and Korean peninsula, 22 Harmonious society or world, 14, 33, 35, 40–2, 111, 113, 127, 129, 145, 193; and multilateralism, 226, 238 Hashimoto Ryutaro, 100, 166–7 Hatoyama Yukio, 21, 115, 120, 175, 233, 238

258

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Index

Hegemonism, 7, 41, 43, 52–4, 105, 220; and China’s opposition, 28, 30–8, 71, 73, 82, 91–2, 194, 225–7, 239; increased danger of, 99–100, 107, 206; of Japan, 159–60, 208; and Moscow, 12, 15, 118, 135, 140, 145, 148, 156; of U.S., 60–1, 69, 74, 94, 110, 120, 144, 202, 234; ways to check, 84–5, 97, 114, 125, 128, 199–201, 220 History card, 58, 77, 90, 100, 156, 159–61, 174, 235 Hong Kong, 20, 64, 92–3, 180 Hu Jintao, 33–5, 110–11, 118; and Japan ties, 21, 137, 170–6; and Korean peninsula, 23, 189–95; and U.S. ties, 12, 23, 217, 230, 234; assertiveness of, 14, 30, 113, 115; strategic thinking of, 2, 40–4, 126–9, 226 Hu Yaobang, 28, 55, 57, 137, 157, 176 Human rights, 14, 26, 83, 86, 105, 127, 215; and Japan, 160, 204; as a lever, 6–7, 94, 147, 202–4, 226; and North Korea, 22, 24, 32, 183–90; and the U.S., 10–11, 16, 70, 77, 85, 111, 121 Humanism, 33, 62, 238 Humanitarian intervention, 7, 10, 93–4, 232 Humiliation, 29–32, 61, 82, 125, 133 Ideology, 27–8, 31, 39–40, 47–55, 68, 70, 95; danger of, 30, 61–2, 74, 83–4, 117, 145; and Moscow, 3, 134–41, 145, 147; reduced role of, 2, 9, 42, 126, 230; trumping realism, 106, 137 Imperialism, legacy of, 11, 50, 144; opposition to, 28–30, 38, 42, 92, 162, 164; social, 53, 133–4, 141 India, 24–7, 113–14, 123, 211–16, 228, and EAS, 201, 227, 236; and Japan, 119; and Russia, 117; and Tibet, 127; and U.S. ties, 11, 39, 103, 232; nuclear program of, 86, 94, 98; rise

of, 5–6, 49; rivalry with, 12, 43, 59, 64, 238; shared interests with, 13, 125; view of its power, 76, 104–5, 199, 239 Indian Ocean, 202, 212, 214, 230 Indonesia, 6, 10, 25–6, 60, 201–3, 207–10, 216 International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), 183 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 151, 185, 225 Iran, 14, 18, 24, 126, 148, 217 Iraq War, 116–17, 170, 190, 201, 209; and Sino-U.S. ties, 3, 6, 23, 111–12, 230; as trap for U.S., 11–12, 114, 124 Islamic radicalism, 12–13, 16, 104, 151 Japan, 19–21, 47–9, 56–9, 76–9, 99–102, 119–20, 155–76; apologies of, 65; balanced analysis of, 239; as a bridge, 224; comparisons with, 2, 7, 28, 40; emperor, 84; historical ties to, 33, 35, 208, 228; new thinking toward, 36–7, 125; as political or military great power, 60, 70–1, 75, 80, 86, 116, 203–4; politics of, 70; reconciliation with, 8, 13, 41, 222; relations with Moscow, 51, 69, 74, 139–41, 152; reparations, 31; romanticism of, 30, 40; wedge with U.S., 9, 32, 39, 95, 223, 225 Jiang Zemin, 34, 95, 110; and Bush, 23, 36, 188; and Clinton, 10, 36, 80, 164; and Japan, 77, 93, 100–1, 104, 161–9, 171, 204; and Moscow, 73, 136; power of, 69; strategic thinking of, 2, 42–4, 83, 90, 129, 226 Joint Agreement of Feb. 2007, 12, 23, 129, 227, 233 Joint Statement of Sept. 2005, 23, 191, 233 Kaifu Toshiki, 62, 160, 204 Kazakhstan, 147

Index Khrushchev, Nikita, 53 Kim Dae-jung, 91, 100, 122, 167, 185–8, 231 Kim Il-song, 180 Kim Jong-il, 112, 122, 127, 188–91, 195 Kim Young-nam, 102 Kim Young-sam, 185 Koguryo, 22, 43, 192–3, 196 Koizumi Junichiro, alienation of China, 12, 21, 37, 41, 109–11, 119–20, 169–76, 227; and Korean peninsula, 190; and regionalism, 122; and U.S. ties, 117 Korean autonomous area, 59 Korean War, 177–81 Kosovo War, 1, 92–4, 98, 105–6, 143, 232; and Belgrade embassy bombing, 7–8, 10, 38, 90 Kozyrev, Andrei, 140 Kyrgyzstan, 121 Leadership in China, 27–8, 34–5, 42–4, 232 Lee Myung-bak, 22, 121, 192–6 Lee Teng-hui, 41, 86–7, 90, 95, 104, 163, 167–9 Li Peng, 54, 104, 159–60 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 20, 161–2, 167 Lieberthal, Kenneth, 3 Ma Ying-jeou, 7, 129, 235 Mahathir, Mohammed, 202, 224 Malacca Straits, 206, 214 Malaysia, 86, 204, 210 Mao Zedong, and Japan, 155; and Nixon, 40–1, 156; de-Maoization, 7, 35, 89, 135; radicalism of, 2, 23, 30, 35; verdict on, 55; worldview of, 49, 61, 68, 134, 152 Medvedev, Dmitry, 18 Middle East, 123 Military, build-up, 6, 9, 21, 25, 31, 49, 70, 161–2, 204, 209, 214,

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259

233; factor, 3, 72, 93, 117; interests, 29, 48, 65, 67, 181; naval competition, 7, 14, 170, 200, 206, 212, 220–1; transparency, 13, 127; views of, 149, 164–5 Missile defense, 95, 116, 148 Miyazawa Kiichi, 204 Modernization, focus of, 47; and convergence, 28, 48, 71; and East Asian model, 33, 56, 103, 180; and Japanese model, 156–8, 163 Moldava, 149 Mongolia, 5, 16–17, 55, 59, 140 Mori Yoshiro, 174 Multilateralism, limitations on, 6, 13, 26–8, 44, 104, 128–30, 189, 220–2; shift toward, 93, 109, 120–1, 169, 201, 230; support for, 34, 49, 80–1, 91, 106, 114, 226; tensions over, 4, 86–7, 224–5, 238 Multipolarity, 28, 31, 39, 72–6, 83–7, 95, 159–60, 231; and India, 103, 212; and Russia, 6, 9, 17, 70, 94, 99, 118, 141, 143, 149, 153, 239; and the U.S., 14, 93; assumptions about, 15, 36, 41, 89–90, 106–7; limits to, 91–3, 101, 112–16, 184; shift to multilateralism, 9–10, 20, 203, 225–6, 233 Myanmar (Burma), 10, 23–4, 43, 59, 64, 113, 124, 207–9, 215; and ASEAN, 12–13, 44, 104; and leverage, 5, 214, 229; and threat, 200, 201 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 51–5, 56–7, 62, 137, 157, 176 National identity, 22, 35, 61–2, 105, 222; of Japan, 158–62, 167; of Russia, 9, 152 NATO, 93, 98, 105, 117, 146, 150; expansion of, 73, 94–5, 104, 148, 232; war, 1, 10

260

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Index

Neighboring countries as priority, 85, 94, 113, 119, 199 Nepal, 212 New Zealand, 122, 201, 227, 236 9/11, impact of, 2, 10–11, 24, 26, 109–11, 116, 119, 143, 149, 170, 206 Nixon, Richard, 135 Non-traditional security, 19, 32, 145, 209, 222 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 201 North Korea, 23–5, 59, 76–80, 102, 116–22, 177–97, 233–5; attitude toward China, 12; and balance of power, 112–13, 222; crises over, 3, 11, 145; debate over, 37, 89; face of, 59; first nuclear crisis, 69, 87, 102, 225; information on, 3, 35; and Japan, 120; and leverage, 5, 229; missiles, 7, 91, 168; nuclear program, 7, 11, 13–14, 94; pressure on, 11–12, 36, 124, 223, 228; regime change, 32, 94; and Sino-U.S. ties, 3, 92, 129, 217, 230; support for, 35, 43–44, 64 Northeast China, 29, 59, 75, 146, 166, 169, 181; and cross-border ties, 22, 81, 140, 179 Nye initiative, 78, 100, 163 Obama, Barack, and Nobel Prize, 233; challenge of, 8, 18, 26, 33, 201, 217; coordination with, 11–12, 126, 194, 197, 223, 232, 239; start in office, 6, 14, 114–15 Obuchi Keizo, 10, 100, 167 Official Development Assistance (ODA), 50, 58, 65, 77, 84, 100–2, 106, 123, 156, 159–64, 204 Ohira Masahiro, 156–7 Olympics, 59, 127; in Beijing, 32, 41, 111, 115, 172, 192; denial of, 86, 91, 125; glory in, 114, 126–7, 238; sacred torch parade, 22, 171, 193

Open door, 1, 43, 226, 231 Overseas Chinese, 60, 64, 149, 160, 202–3, 209 Pakistan, 199, 219, 229, 239; and limiting India, 5, 8, 12, 23–7, 112–13, 212–15; and Sino-U.S. ties, 11, 97, 111, 121; as a danger, 44, 126, 200, 223; nuclear program of, 13–14, 43, 59, 64, 98, 211, 216 Parsifal Islands, 216 Patriotic education, 83, 162–5 Peace and development, 2, 8, 43, 47, 57, 99, 136, 158, 171, 237; school of, 28, 215 Peaceful development or rise, 14, 22, 25, 33, 42, 189, 193, 197, 238 Perry Process, 102, 186, 188 Persian Gulf War, 9, 67, 72–4, 80, 97, 165 Philippines, 11, 204, 210, 216 Poland, 53, 62 Primakov, Evgeny, 9, 15, 94, 143, 152 Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 11, 24, 32, 43, 85, 128, 148, 178–9, 193, 206 Public opinion, 121, 144, 155, 167; in China, 4, 28, 34, 57, 71, 82, 101, 106, 114, 157, 193–4, 232; and cultural ties, 30–1; and demonstrations, 143, 169–71, 176; and Internet, 168, 170; toward China, 14, 20, 22–3, 42, 77, 83, 90, 93, 100, 102, 105, 161–5, 174–5; toward the U.S., 11, 230 Putin, Vladimir, 6, and the U.S., 9–10, 17, 98, 116, 118–20, 143–5; and Korean peninsula, 186, 188; assertiveness of, 12, 15, 18, 43, 109–11, 119, 126, 148–53, 227 Rakhmanin, O.B., 75 Reagan, Ronald, and Deng Xiaoping, 35, 56, 137, 231; and Sino-Soviet

Index ties, 6, 8; assertiveness of, 47, 50–3, 61–5, 135 Refugees, 22, 102, 178, 181, 185, 187, 196 Regionalism, and Japan, 83, 101, 119–21, 160, 168–72, 175, 199–204; and Japan’s leadership, 7, 9, 19, 70, 75, 155, 210, 224, 235; China’s leadership of, 51, 56–9, 200, 219–21, 237–8; cultural prerequisites, 150, 228; exclusive type, 10, 27, 203, 207, 215, 226–7, 231; fear of, 49, 80; limits on, 44, 87, 122–4, 222–3; perspective of, 2, 35, 72; U.S. view of, 217, 230 Responsible stakeholder, 14, 111, 113, 129 Revisionism, and China ties, 48; and realism in Japan, 77–8; dropping the label with Russia, 1, 53; impact of, 20, 28; of Russia, 134, 140; opposition to, 28–30, 34, 53, 77, 227 Roh Moo-hyun, 122, 129, 181–2, 192–3 Roh Tae-woo, 78, 196 Russia, 14–19, 51–5, 72–6, 94–9, 115–19, 133–53; anti-Americanism of, 91, 223; changing ties in 1990s, 8–9, 31, 39; pressure by U.S., 11, 92; role in Asia, 5, 102; swing toward the U.S., 39, 69–71 Russian Far East, 17, 75, 96, 141–5; and Siberia, 18, 146 Scientific development, 238 Sea lanes, 202; and energy security, 18, 24, 119, 123, 206, 209–11 Shambaugh, David, 3 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or Shanghai-5, and China’s clout, 120; and China’s focus, 120, 219–20; and Russian ties, 9, 17, 145–9, 233; formation of, 99, 104, 126; military exercises of, 12, 150; strength of, 10–11, 44, 116, 120–1, 226

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Singapore, 20, 60, 71, 202, 204, 207–8, 210, 217 Sinocentrism, signs of, 22, 30, 37, 84, 159, 222, 229, 239; tensions over, 4–5, 111, 120–1, 210, 217; tradition of, 18, 29, 32–3, 35, 196, 228, 235–6 Sino-Russian strategic partnership, 6, 95–9, 142–7; and war games, 121, 150; formation of, 17, 90, 152; problems with, 16, 40, 117–18, 238 Sino-Soviet split, 28, 48–9, 54–5, 61, 133, 136–9, 152, 180–1, 202; and Soviet threat, 9, 142, 156–7, 223–4 Sino-U.S.-Japan triangle, 20–1, 27, 75, 83, 92–3, 99, 117, 120, 158–70 Six-Party Talks, 38, 43, 113, 129, 178–9, 189–95, 230; and China’s focus, 219–20, 226, 233; and Japanese ties, 21, 119, 120–2; and Russian ties, 18, 153; and South Korean ties, 22, 43, 113; and U.S. ties, 11–12, 17; fifth working group, 223, 227 Smile diplomacy, 10, 93, 99–100, 107, 117, 168–9 Socialism, 50–5; bloc of, 73, 180; bloc’s collapse, 1, 16, 26, 52, 67, 181, 224; label of, 68; reform of, 8, 49, 139, 230; thinking of, 28, 42, 48, 134–8; vs. capitalism, 14–15, 30, 71, 106, 109, 152, 235 South Asia, 5, 8, 11–12, 26, 41, 113, 121, 219, 232; competition over, 199 South China Sea, 24, 82, 204, 209, 234 South Korea, 5, 19, 58–9, 179–97, 222–3, 230–1, 238; alliance with U.S., 11, 21–2, 39, 178; antiAmericanism, 22; economic strength of, 20, 49, 71, 76; goodwill of, 22–3, 30, 43, 86, 121; historic ties to, 35, 176; normalization with, 8, 36, 65, 79; pressure on, 34; and Sino-U.S. ties, 95; ties to Japan, 18, 20, 78, 119; ties to Russia, 102

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Southeast Asia, 48, 76, 126, 214–20, 236; and Japan, 21, 102–3, 164; competition over, 5, 23–6, 39, 95, 122, 199, 227; and normalization, 8, 59–60, 81–2, 202–4; reshaping of, 10–12, 104, 113, 121, 221 Southwest Asia, 2, 232 Sovereignty, and legitimacy, 61, 70, 224; and non-interference, 10, 13, 23, 79, 113, 140, 160, 215, 230, 235; glorification of, 37, 43; sensitivity over, 25–6, 32, 34, 70, 90–1, 94, 126–7, 143, 145, 173, 219–20; theme of, 52, 105, 194 Soviet Union, assertiveness of, 15, 51–4, 142, 202, 224, 228; collapse of, 9, 16, 26, 36, 67–8, 73–4, 80, 97, 137–9, 182; comparisons with, 2–3, 7, 35, 38, 83, 152–3; ideology toward, 1, 48–50, 55, 61–2; normalization with, 3, 6, 8, 36, 47, 53, 73, 135–42, 152, 202; North Korean ties of, 58–9, 180, 183; shock of collapse, 8, 42, 72, 86, 152, 204, 235 “Splittism,” 31–2, 91, 127, 147–9, 151 Spratly Islands, 81, 126, 205, 216 Sri Lanka, 212 Status quo power, 30, 94, 122, 127 Strategic dialogue, 13–14, 113, 170, 217, 230, 232 Strategic thinking, limits on, 66, 89–91, 95, 105, 153, 190, 195; duality of, 3–4, 26, 77, 92, 175–6, 232–4, 238–9; overview of, 1–2, 30–44, 64–7, 80, 84–7, 128–30, 174–6; pride in, 15; reviews of, 92–4, 101, 106–7, 110, 114, 139; shifts in, 47, 76, 155–7, 208; zerosum reasoning, 27–8, 68–70, 75, 94–5, 142, 149, 178, 206–8, 214 Strategic triangle, 6, 15, 35–6, 51–6, 64–5, 136–8, 152; pivot of, 17–18, 49, 83; revival of, 94, 96, 118, 225; shadow of, 76, 142–4, 235, 239 Suharto, 209

Sunshine Policy, 11, 22, 91, 102, 185–9, 231 Sutter, Robert, 200 Swaine, Michael, 3, 219 Taiwan, and Chinese ties, 12, 24–5, 239; and Japan, 57, 70, 99, 156, 158, 163, 169–74; and Korean example, 178, 181; and Russia, 70, 73–4, 97, 142, 145, 152; and Sino-U.S. ties, 2–3, 13, 18–19, 49, 52–3, 79, 116–17, 125–9, 140; and Southeast Asia, 204, 215; and U.S. motives, 30–2, 37, 52, 91, 224, 232–3; arm sales to, 74; economic miracle of, 20; isolation of, 78, 104; priority of, 13–14, 114, 194; sovereignty push of, 81, 86, 113, 224; urgency of action, 7, 34, 40–1, 49, 61–2, 90–3, 215–16, 235 Taiwan Relations Act, 135 Taiwan Strait crisis, 86, 89–90, 92, 95, 100, 104, 166 Taiwanization, 25, 83 Takeshita Noboru, 159 Tanaka Kakuei, 41 Technology transfer, 31, 56–7, 77, 91, 102, 159–63 Tellis, Ashley, 219 Territory, and border demarcation, 96, 140–3, 226; and maritime issues, 24, 216, 220, 234; disputes over, 125, 133–4, 137–41, 161, 166, 169, 202–5, 211–12; 219, 222; integrity of, 2, 232 Terrorism, 32, 38, 148–9; and Al Qaeda or Taliban, 124, 126, 147, 216; U.S. obsession with, 201, 206–9 Thailand, 204, 210 Three fundamental obstacles, 17, 49, 54–5, 136–8, 202; and fourth obstacle, 65 Tiananmen, and suppression, 7, 43; escaping from sanctions, 78, 85–6, 202, 226; impact of, 30–2, 34–9, 49, 89, 106, 136, 165, 171–2, 181;

Index isolation afterwards, 26, 66, 138, 141–2; and Moscow, 141; sanctions following, 1, 20, 42, 159, 162; shock of, 63, 76 Tianxiaguan, 32–3 Tibet, 22, 32, 59, 91, 115, 127, 171, 204, 216 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), 205, 208 Treaty of Nerchinsk, 133 Tsunami relief, 209 Ukraine, 18, 149 United Nations, 75, 92, 115, 117–19, 160, 175, 182, 215, 230; bypassing of, 10, 105, 143; Security Council balance, 145; Security Council reform, 84, 123, 162, 164–5, 170–1, 174, 214; Security Council resolutions, 12, 23–4, 79–80, 112, 124, 179, 183, 191, 194, 228 United States, alliance with Korea, 21–2, 121; as force for stability, 13; cooperation with, 2, 48, 52, 82, 230; decline of, 9, 12, 38–9, 41, 90–1, 109–10; image problems of, 33, 86, 103, 124; military superiority of, 208; normalization with, 1, 6, 40, 134, 156; overcommitment of, 5, 11, 25, 36, 110–11; rivalry with Japan, 9, 19, 20, 60, 63, 77–82, 85, 160; triumphalism of, 25, 66, 95, 184 U.S.-Japan alliance, 5, 10–11, 21, 57, 69–80, 107, 117, 120, 156–7, 170, 172–3, 232; and defense guidelines, 92–3, 99–100, 104–5, 163, 166, 184; and Russia, 96–7; and South Korea, 119, 179 Universal values, 7, 12, 25, 42, 127, 152, 174, 234–6; danger of, 29, 33–5, 62, 129, 200, 220, 223 Uzbekistan, 121, 147

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Values, and civilizational divides, 63, 80–1, 96, 160, 167, 234; Asian, 33, 103, 168, 202, 231; and collapse of Soviet Union, 8, 26, 73; and Moscow, 55, 85, 118, 143–5; relevance of, 23, 94; simplification of, 37, 105; and Sino-South Korean ties, 121, 187, 196; threat of, 32–3, 50, 83, 106, 224; and U.S. assertiveness, 60–3, 66, 70, 91, 103, 111; and U.S.-Japan ties, 117, 120 Vietnam, 49, 52–5, 59, 64, 81, 134, 136, 202, 204–5, 210, 224; improved ties to, 207–9, 216; War with U.S., 201, 203 Wen Jiabao, 112, 122, 171–2 Westernization, 31, 70, 91, 96 World Bank, 102, 225, 230 World economic crisis, 6–7, 25, 40, 43, 111, 114–15, 228, 237; and Russia, 18, 151 World Trade Organization (WTO), 10, 90, 97, 101, 103, 107, 120, 174; impact of, 122, 208, 229–30 Xinjiang, 59, 91, 98, 104, 126; and China’s West, 65, 147; and Islamic fervor, 16, 24, 141–6, 151, 223 Yasukuni Shrine, 21, 41, 116, 119–20, 169–73, 176, 190, 207, 227 Yeltsin, Boris, 83, 102–4, 138–41; and 1991 putsch, 15, 86, 153; Atlanticism of, 9, 136; meetings with, 16, 73, 75–6, 96, 143; and U.S. ties, 10, 90, 93; and Westernizers, 81, 83 Zhao Ziyang, 28, 55, 137, 180 Zhou Enlai, 56, 155 Zhu Rongji, 100–2, 171