[Int’l workshop for Peace&Disarmament] Defensive but Active : Chinese Security Policy in Asia-Pacific region(Han Hua)

Session 1. Security Policies and Civil Priorities in the Asia-Pacific Region
 

Introduction

Derived from three-decade economic growth and two-decade defense modernization, China has apparently mounted debates among security analysts and policy makers in Asia Pacific region over the implications of the rise of China for the future regional security configuration and strategic landscape. Optimists believe that a strong China is not necessarily a threat to its neighbors and to regional stability and security as a whole because Beijing has not behaved as a revisionist state. Rather China has presented to this region an opportunity as China’s export-oriented economy has, to a great extent, relied on good relations with outside world and the profound interdependence between China and the world has fostered regional cooperation and integrity. Pessimists, however, insist that a rising China is likely to pose a challenge, more likely a threat, to Asian status quo and security. They believe that a strong China is deemed to bring change in the balance of power and power transition will happen sooner or later, conflict, therefore, is hard to be prevented. If China’s aggregate power continues to grow, Beijing will seek to resolve its territory disputes with its neighbors through a more disruptive approach; to push US, the established power, out of Asia, and to seize the recourses and control the sea-lanes that many countries in this region heavily rely on.
     

Put it in a simply way, which scenario between the two that optimists or pessimists predict would unfold in the future largely depends on what the established power, the US does, but also depends on what the rising power, China does. More specifically, what approach China has followed and will follow in its efforts to safeguard its security is vital for the better off in Asia Pacific region. Over the last decades, China has taken a defensive and cooperative approach in making and implementing it security policy. In addition to its sovereignty and integrity objective, creating a peaceful environment conceived to its huge economic programs has been a key priority in Chinese security calculus. To reach these objectives, China has either signed border agreements with most of all countries that have boundary disputes on its land borders or tranquilized the land and maritime disputed boundaries; practiced economic diplomacy aiming at cultivating sustainable and substantial relations with countries in this region; participated and played a proactive role in multilateral and regional forums and security regimes, and upgraded its limited deterrence. China’s pragmatism and non-coercive posture have earned certain credits, and China’s deeds in wake of 1997 Asian financial crisis make its neighbors start to treat China as a responsible power. 

However, the recent events—Beijing’s resolute opposition to US arms transfer to Taiwan, Province of China and to Obama’s meeting with Da Lai, the leader of Tibetan exile-government, and to the US-ROK joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, adjoining to China’s territory, after the Cheonan tragedy, Beijing’s open criticism of Secretary Clinton’s speech over South China Sea in Hanoi, which is seen as a response to Chinese growing naval capability and Beijing’s assertion of the South China Sea as one of its “core national interests”, and Sino-Japanese wrangling after Japanese authorities to seize Chinese fishing ships in waters around the Diaoyu Islands, which China has its territorial claim—lead to an impression that China is now becoming more “assertive” and “arrogant” in its dealing with outside world, and even to aggressively exercise its fledged muscle in pursuing dominance in Asia-Pacific region. Security policy is one way to show one’s strategic intention, which as mentioned above, determines the future in Asia-Pacific region. Does China’s assertiveness mean a primary change of its security policy?

 White paper and China’s security policy

This paper argues while China’s security policy and posture, which characterized by defensive and cooperative in nature has not changed, China has taken steps to develop a capability to defuse tension and “crises before they escalate into a conflict” should they occur. On the one hand, China’s National Defense 2004 and 2008 White Papers reiterate that China’s “military strategy of active defense” is defensive in nature. According to Chen Zhou, a military officer at the PLA Military Science Academy who was involved in drafting the country’s defense white papers, “The defensive nature of China’s defense policy has not changed, regardless of the country’s national strength and military power.” Indeed, 2008 White Paper declares that China would “advocate the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means and oppose aggression, expansion and enlargement of military alliances.” And, China would stick to the road of peaceful development, pursue an open-up strategy for mutual benefit, and promote the building of a harmonious world with enduring peace.

On the other hand, the scope and priority on which China’s national security based have witnessed changes. In specific, with China’s economic growth incresingly depends on oil and other resourses in the Middle East and Africa, the security of the sea lane, from Arabian Sea to Pacific ocean, where more than 50% of energy import comes through, has emerged as a present challenge for China, particular for Chinese Navy (PLAN). Moreover, conventional and nonconventional security threat to the free navigation in international waters have driven Beijing to upgrade its capability to ensure its sea-route security. China has joined in multilateral compiongn against pivacy. As a result, the area in which China national security rests on, has broadened. However, if this is a indicator to conclude the Chinese have given up the defensiveness in its policy is too early to tell. To be sure, changing its security policy and posture by engaging in a “blue water” naval strategy that reflecting an ambitious global power projection plan, and by showing its stronger will to safeguard its territorial integrity would take risks to confront US, the global hegemony, let alone other neighboring countries. The risks are too high and too costly for China to afford. To date, Chinese leadership has taken efforts, such as diversifing energy resourse, to cope with the “Malucca Dilemma”.

Furthermore, a notion of “defusing tension and crisis escalation” has featured in Chinese security policy debates over the last years even though it has not appeared literally in the White Paper. The idea seeks essentially to prevent escalation of tensions and crises, especially in the areas that are vital for China’s security. To reach that goal, defense capability, confidence building measures and diplomacy are all of tools to be used. Defense capability includes a robust/credible and deterrent/retaliation. The 2008 White Paper elaborates China’s nuclear deterrence with an unprecedented length making China’s strategic intention and operation more transparent. Confidence building consigns to exchange of port visits, joint military exercises, and so forth. And diplomacy stands for crisis management, institutional building of regional cooperative security.

 Defensiveness in Chinese security policy

China’s security environment and its capability to defense its sovereignty and integrity have significantly improved. Indeed, it is not facing any imminent threat of invasion across its long land border as it has resolved most of border disputes with its neighbors; with reconciliation across the Taiwan(Province of China) Straits, the possibility that the west Pacific becomes a flashpoint has been mitigated. However, China is still facing challenges to its security and the challenges, and the security environment has more complicated, as the White Paper states.

 First, the core threat and security challenges are more internal rather than external. The new White Paper puts a list of threats/challenges that China is facing, the top three are all about the integrity of China as a sovereign state. The separatism in Taiwan(Province of China), Tibet, and Xinjiang are the present threat to China’s national security. The problems have been there for six decades since the PRC was established. It is new that they are appearing on the top agenda for Chinese leadership.    

Second, some claim that the “blue water navy” program has shown China’s aggressiveness and expansionism in its pursuit of security based on an assumption that navy is more offensive than army, and China has emphasized on navy buildup in last two decades. They plainly rule out the tradition in China’s security culture. China has not a strong Naval culture through its entire history. The increase of allocation to Navy and other military sectors are more a make-up than a strategically calculated plan. And the Navy buildup is driven by economic ambition rather than a expansionist agenda. In the history tells us, the naval powers which derived by economic inention are more sustainable and successful than those driven by expansionist ambition. As one says, while it is widely accepted that China has been strengthening its military capabilities, observers can hardly agree on Chinese intentions and what China has achieved. It is difficult to tell what is myth and what is reality. Generally speaking, those who narrowly focus on defense issues tend to be more alarmist while those who look at Chinese defense policy in a broader context are more sanguine about Chinese military modernization.

Third, China has consistently looked for cooperative security in the course of its rise. Take an example, the South China Sea issue, Beijing remains a key security issue to Southeast Asian nations. China’s soft approach has contributed to the quietness of the issue for over a decade. Bitzinger noted in 2007 that China had made “a concerted effort not to let the South China Sea issue become a major domestic political football and that it had not seized or occupied additional islands in the Spratlys since 1995. However, with China’s soft approach under increasing pressure, China’s legislature in December 2007 ratified plans for a new city administration called Sansha, with headquarters in Hainan Island to manage the three archipelagos of Paracel, Spratly and Macclessfield Bank. Nevertheless, a regional bloc against China on the issue may well harden the Chinese position and make the issue more complicated. ☼

◯ Hua HAN / China
Hua HAN is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Arms Control and Disarmament at the School of International Studies (SIS), Peking University, China. She teaches courses in International Relations in South Asia, International Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation, and US Politics and Foreign Policy. Her research interests cover South Asia and arms control and nonproliferation. Han Hua has been a visiting researcher at School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute(SIPRI), Sweden, The Stimson Center and Monterey Center for Nonproliferation in Washington DC and Monterey, The Victoria University, Canada, and the Peace and Conflict Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden. She is Director for Arms Control and Disarmament, SIS and has led programs and projects on regional nuclear nonproliferation, confidence building measures and nuclear deep-cut. She has also written extensively on Arms Control, nonproliferation and South Asia for journals and newspapers in China and abroad. Co-authored books are Li Liangguang, Ye Zhengjia and Han Hua: China Relations with South Asian Countries, Social Science Literature Press, China, 2001, and Eric Arnett, edited, Arms Control in South South Asia after the Test Ban treaty, Oxford University Press, 1997