Opinion & Commentary
Authoritarian China won’t bow to US policy
During a recent conversation about US-China relations, a Senior Colonel from the People’s Liberation Army angrily declared that America and its allies such as Australia wanted China to be ‘neutered just like Japan’: economically powerful and politically cooperative but strategically dormant and militarily inhibited. His intention was not to insult the Japanese but to express irritation about persistent American-led attempts to ‘shape’ Beijing’s future strategic options and ‘manage’ China’s rise just as Washington did to Tokyo after the Second World War.
That China is not Japan leads us to an uncomfortable reality: China is too big, proud and independently-minded to be ‘managed’. Despite the existence of genuine disagreement about domestic policy, the one area of broad consensus within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in foreign policy. Putting the rhetoric of ‘win-win’ relations and ‘peaceful development’ aside, Beijing has long considered America its ‘strategic competitor’ in the region and the contest for power and influence to be a ‘zero-sum’ game.
The Senior Colonel might be too dismissive of Japan but he has a point. Washington’s approach is to encourage China to rise within the system of regional rules and laws that have been developed since World War Two. Having risen within an order based on open markets, rule-of-law, democratic community – and underpin by American preeminence and military alliances – the hope is that China will be coaxed into accepting that its enduring interests lie in upholding the existing order and the permanence of American strategic primary in Asia.
If the grand-plan worked for Japan and South Korea, it is unlikely to work for China.
There is the issue of size and China’s past greatness. The dominant civilization in Asia for most of the past 3,000 years, China is home to four-fifths of the population of East Asia and has two and the half times more people than the whole of Southeast Asia. As far as the CCP is concerned, China’s natural place is atop an Asian hierarchy while America’s role in Asia has been as a post-World War Two interloper, albeit a constructive one.
Moreover, America’s grand-plan is not only designed to preserve the peace but also intended to be transformative. As with Japan, Washington still assumes that further economic liberalization will bring prosperity, and that this will bring domestic respect for pluralism and human rights.
However, the modern Chinese model places far more power and wealth in the hands of the state sector than occurred in Japan or South Korea. State-owned champions are being nurtured to dominate domestic markets at the expense of the Chinese private sector in order to prevent the rise of an independently-minded middle class. Getting ahead means working with the Party rather than independently of it. Economic, much less political liberalization is hardly the CCP’s intended endgame for the country.
These differences in political values have strategic relevance. The CCP (correctly) believes authoritarian China will forever remain a distrusted ‘outsider’ within any US-led system in the region. After all, it is no coincidence that all of Washington’s ‘enemies’ are generally non-democratic states such as North Korea, Myanmar and Iran. As countless internal CCP documents reveal, Beijing feels enormously uncomfortable rising within a US-led order that explicitly seeks to eventually reform the domestic authoritarian institutions of regional participants. The CCP is therefore not just attempting to restore China’s natural place on top of an Asian hierarchy but is also fighting for its continued authoritarian existence.
Subsequently, China sees American preeminence in Asia as having a limited shelf-life. In addition to the historical fact that great powers do not willingly cede influence, Beijing believes that Chinese preponderance in Asia requires the eventual dilution of American regional security alliances in the region, and eventually, the diminishing of the US military presence itself.
Pour through the most recent Chinese writings on strategy and approximately four-fifths will be about how best to bind, dilute, overcome or transcend American power and influence in Asia. For example, Chinese tactical maneuvers within multilateral forums in Asia are designed to weaken the relevance and efficacy of Washington’s military alliances in the region. Even as America devotes ships, troops, and money in preserving the peace in Asia, China exists as a security free-rider, rather than as a trusted or responsible contributor – all the while focusing solely on building its ‘comprehensive national power’ at the expense of America.
None of this is to imply that war with China is inevitable or even likely: treating China as a ‘strategic competitor is not the same as treating it as an ‘adversary’. Although China views America apprehensively, a still weak China plagued by domestic weaknesses generally seeks tactical cooperation wherever possible without expecting strategic partnership as the next logical step – meaning that coordinated leverage against Beijing is still extremely effective.
But it does mean accepting the reality that entreaties to be China’s ‘zhengyou’ – a true friend who offers unflinching advice and counsel restraint – will be persistently rebuffed by Beijing whilst Australia retains its ‘special relationship’ with America.
Dr John Lee is a foreign policy research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute.
