Opinion & Commentary
Australia in a bind deciphering China's future intentions
Ever since China’s great reformer, Deng Xiaoping, instructed Chinese leaders to ‘Hide Brightness, nourish obscurity’, the world has been playing a guessing game in trying to decipher Beijing’s longer term intentions. Now that the release of the defence white paper is imminent, officials such as lead author Michael Pezzullo, the deputy defense secretary, was handed the unenviable task of trying to unravel the mystery.
Pezzullo has had no shortage of help from the sidelines with strategic and intelligence experts all offering their views as to whether China will be more friend or foe; whether it will fit into or disrupt the existing regional order. As these experts are at pains to remind us, the future is not yet written. Some are wisely hedging their bets while others are keen not to take a stab at all. But we need not be completely groping in the dark. There are clues in the tea leaves if only we look beyond our side of the fence and take the time to go to the source.
The region is currently dominated by America and has been since the Second World War. Not surprisingly then, Beijing and Chinese policy analysts are obsessed with America. For example, in an examination of one hundred recent articles and memos by leading officials, policy experts and academics in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), I found that around four in every five documents were about America: understanding American political values and its system; and how to limit, circumvent, bind or reduce American power and influence. In looking at these documents, if there are any doubts that Beijing views Washington as a strategic competitor, they should be dispelled.
Unlike our strategists, counterparts in Beijing are actually remarkably clear about how they think the future security environment will look like.
First, Beijing views international politics in broadly neorealist terms – the distribution of power in the world will determine tomorrow’s conflicts. In particular, China clearly sees building competition between itself and America as the defining big-picture strategic play. Beijing believes that tension can be managed but never resolved between the established power and the emerging one. It is a structural inevitability. As one prominent CASS analyst puts it, America is currently distracted but the “spearhead will soon be pointed at Beijing.”
But the prospect of serious future tension is not all about abstract notions of power distribution. There are specific long-term objectives that China has not abandoned since Mao Zedong proclaimed the Republic of China in 1949. China with its 5,000 year old history views itself as an exceptional power in similarly ways that America also does – both believe that they are destined to become truly great powers in human history. It takes its ‘modern mission’ extremely seriously: to return China the seat of ‘benign dominance’ in Asia. Subsequently, China continually claims the whole of the South China Sea as its ‘historic waters’.
There is added strategic significance here. Over 80 percent of Chinese imports, especially oil, pass through these American dominated waters. China is hugely vulnerable to economic strangulation should tensions escalate. Despite diplomatic denials, it is unlikely that Beijing will feel secure until it approaches naval parity with the Americans. It is also unlikely that the US and its allies would be comfortable with a Chinese aircraft carrier regularly patrolling these waters.
Second, even if realism is now the rage in the post-Bush world, not so in China. Beijing believes that America is a unique superpower since it is seeking to relentlessly not only build and maintain its power, but also spread its democratic values. This is of grave concern to authoritarian China since it believes that America and its allies will have grave difficulty accepting a greater leadership role for Beijing while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains exclusively in power. Political values have strategic significance.
What has Beijing been doing about it? As the memos and articles revealed, it is all about limiting, circumventing, binding or reducing American influence.
For example, China has been promoting multilateralism or the ‘democratisation of international relations’ in the region. This is obviously to China’s advantage since any formal process that offers Beijing an equal say reduces the advantage of the American hegemon. China has also proposed new security structures that are designed to undercut the US by excluding it: ASEAN+3 etc.
More generally, China has been pushing concepts such as ‘harmonious world’ which really means strict sovereignty and non-interference in another’s domestic affairs. The problem is that as its’ capabilities and interests grows, Beijing has a tendency to widen its definition of its ‘domestic affairs’.
Tension is inevitable but war isn’t. Despite its ambitions, China is probably the most analytical rising power in history. It is well aware of its core weaknesses in its economy, civil society, dependence on Western markets, as well as on a stable regional environment in which to develop. It therefore remains a cautious power, but no less a frustrated one.
Dr John Lee is a Visiting Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
