China’s Growth as a Regional Economic Power:
Impacts and Implications
Presented before the
Dr. Bates Gill
Freeman Chair in China Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Introduction
Allow me to begin by thanking Chairman Robinson, Vice Chairman D’Amato, as well as the co-chairs for today’s session, Commissioners Bartholomew and Dreyer, for the invitation to speak before the Commission today. I congratulate the Commission on holding this timely and important discussion of China growing economic influence in Asia and its implications for the region and the United States.
I have been asked to help set the stage for today’s hearing by providing an overview of China’s regional strategy, with a particular emphasis on the broad diplomatic, political, and security htmects of that strategy. With this in mind, my brief remarks will begin by identifying and discussing three key trends which increasingly define China’s growing regional influence, and will conclude by noting some of the principal implications to be drawn from of these developments.
Three key trends
China’s evolving regional strategy can be captured with reference to three key trends. A closer look at these three trends shows that the tactics which Beijing employs to achieve its interests have become more subtle, nuanced, flexible and sophisticated, and, increasingly, successful.
Overall, these trends are embedded in an increased “confidence” evident in China foreign and security policy, particularly with regard to regional strategy. This marks an important change. From the mid-1990s and into 2000, China’s regional strategy was less a reflection of its strength than its self-perceived weakness and frustration with an increasingly troubled global and regional security environment. These views derived primarily, though not entirely, from Beijing’s negative perceptions of U.S. policies in the Asian region and elsewhere around the globe.
However, more recently, and especially over the past two to three years, China’s regional political, diplomatic and security strategy has become less stridently reactive and concerned, and steadily more proactive and confident. This trend predated the global shifts brought on by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but were accelerated by them, as the new strategic concern of terrorism overtook and sidetracked overt contentiousness between the United States and China. China’s entry into the WTO in December 2001 and the smooth transition of power to the new “Fourth Generation” leadership in Beijing further strengthened China’s more confident approach toward the international and regional security situation.
Across the spectrum of China’s foreign policy elite are found new calls for a more “mature”, “constructive”, and “responsible” great power diplomacy for China. Such appeals call for abandoning China’s long-held and reactive “victimhood” complex, putting memories of the country’s “century of shame” to one side, and identifying more closely with a “great power mentality” befitting China’s larger and more secure position in regional and global affairs. This broad policy approach is both cause and effect of China’s more confident perception of its regional and global situation. A look at three key trends helps sharpen our understanding of China’s emergent confidence.
More proactive regional approach A first identifiable trend in China’s regional strategy is its more proactive nature. Beijing has increasingly taken the initiative in trying to foster a security environment consistent with its interests, but which aims to engage its neighbors more openly and beneficially. For example, since the mid-1990s, Beijing has reached out and established more than 15 “strategic partnerships” with major bilateral and multilateral partners, with more than half of them in Asia-Pacific region. These “partnerships” may in some cases be largely political symbolism, but the important point is that China sees their importance as a means to expand its regional influence.
In some cases, these arrangements have moved beyond symbolism to deeper, sustained, and institutionalized relationships. For example, at Beijing’s urging, having established a strategic partnership, China and Russia signed a 25-article “friendship treaty” during the Jiang-Putin summit of June 2001. China-ASEAN relations have moved forward with the establishment of efforts to achieve a China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, and agreement to cooperate on a full range of non-traditional security issues. The establishment of European Union-China summitry in the mid-1990s has led to deeply institutionalized dialogue channels across a range of issues; the sixth EU-China summit, held in October 2003, concluded two major agreements on satellite navigation cooperation and tourism facilitation, as well as the establishment of a new mechanism for industrial policy dialogue.
China also took the lead in establishing and expanding the “Shanghai Five” process as a way to manage security matters with its Central Asian neighbors, and in seeing to its institutionalization as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001. China also had a leading role in establishing the importance of the annual ASEAN + 3 consultations, which includes security-related discussions amongst China and its East Asian neighbors Japan, South Korea, and the ten states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In the spring 2002, Beijing quietly approached the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to explore the possibilities of initiating a security dialogue, which was later announced in October that year and held in January 2003. Beginning in 2002-03, China has been a far more active player in efforts to resolve differences between the United States and North Korea, initiating three-party consultations in April 2003, hosting six-party discussions (United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan, Russia) in August 2003 (with plans to hold another round in December 2003), and orchestrating an active diplomatic effort with the key parties to keep the channels of dialogue open and moving toward resolution.
Increased support for and participation in regional security mechanisms A second important trend defining China’s evolving regional strategy concerns increased participation in and appreciation of regional security and confidence-building mechanisms.
Two of the best examples of this increased activity involve the SCO and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Beijing has also actively seen to the institutionalization of the SCO as a regional, multilateral security and confidence-building mechanism. Under SCO auspices, China and its Central Asian neighbors Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan engage in range of multilateral discussion and exchanges, from annual head-of-state and head-of-government summits, to regular meetings amongst senior counterparts in the fields of security, economics and trade, to the establishment of the SCO counterterrorism center in Bishkek, to the formal establishment of an SCO secretariat, based in Beijing, which will open its doors in January 2004. China and its SCO neighbors have participated in at least two joint military training exercises, the first in October 2002 between China and Kyrgyzstan, and the second in August 2003 involving China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
In Southeast Asia, China has deepened its interest and participation in the ARF since the mid- to late-1990s across a range of activities, confidence-building measures, hosting of meetings and conferences, and submission of data and information on security issues to the ARF. At the July 2002 meeting of the ARF, Beijing for the first time submitted a formal “position paper” which provided a detailed explanation of the new security concept. China proposed in 2001 that ARF members report on and send observers to multilateral joint military exercises. In another example, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing proposed to the June 2003 ARF meeting that the organization establish a new “Security Policy Conference”, to be attended largely by senior military personnel from ARF participating governments.
Beijing also moved in the late 1990s and early 2000s to initiate dialogue channels with ASEAN outside of the ARF process. In 2002, China and ASEAN established the “Cooperative Operations in Response to Dangerous Drugs”, which has included ministry-level meetings amongst China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand to deal with the challenge of drug smuggling in their shared border regions. During the China-ASEAN meeting of November 2002, the parties reached a “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” to govern the activities of claimants to various parts of the South China Sea, and reduce the potential for tension and conflict in the disputed areas.
China has also been increasingly more open to participating as an observer of foreign military exercises in East Asia, including those run by the United States, such as Cobra Gold. In an unprecedented step, China in August 2003 allowed foreign military personnel from 15 countries – including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Canada, Tanzania, Thailand, and Turkey – to observe Chinese military exercises involving 5,000 Chinese troops at the country’s large tactical training base in Inner Mongolia. China has also become far more active in dispatching naval vessels abroad for friendly port visits: the country’s first naval crossing the Pacific took place in early 1997 with a visits to the United States, Mexico, Chile, Peru, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand; in 1998-99, Chinese naval vessels made friendly port calls to New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Tanzania and South Africa; in a major first, the Chinese navy completed a circumnavigation of the world in 2002, visiting 10 countries along the way; in October and November 2003, a Chinese missile destroyer and naval supply ship undertook a 37-day voyage paying port visits to Guam, Brunei, and Singapore.
It is worth mentioning that China has also demonstrated its support for regional mechanisms and multilateralism in other parts of the world. These measures have included its political and financial support for regime change in and rebuilding of Afghanistan and increased personnel contributions to United Nations peacekeeping activities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The December 2003 trip by Premier Wen Jiabao, which includes a stop in the United States, will also include his trip to Ethiopia to take part in the second China-Africa summit. Beginning in the late 1990s and significantly increasing in 2003, China ramped up its contributions to United Nations peacekeeping: China has nearly 300 observers, troops and police serving in eight U.N. missions, the highest number of Chinese personnel since the early 1990s.
China has also stepped up its support for a range of post-September 11, 2001 counterterrorism initiatives, including the establishment of counterterrorism dialogues with the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan and India, submission of a report to the Security Council Anti-Terrorism Commission on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1373, and accession to 10 of the 12 international counterterrorism conventions. China has also reached a number of cooperative counterterror agreements with the United States, including China’s participation in the Container Security Initiative announced in July 2003.
Emphasizing economic and political influence An increased emphasis on economic and political influence – while downplaying (though certainly not abandoning) its growing military strength – is a third key trend shaping Beijing’s growing regional influence an increased emphasis on economic and political influence. In a prominent example of this tendency, China’s role as host for the 2001 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit in 2001 not only demonstrated its “arrival” as a major regional economic and political power, but also showcased its diplomatic adeptness in facilitating the meeting’s joint counterterrorism statement.
In Northeast Asia, China is trying to flex its political and economic influence – such as putting a squeeze on economic assistance – to cajole North Korea toward a more agreeable posture, not only in terms of differences between Washington and Pyongyang, but also in terms of promoting political and economic reform and opening in the North. In Central Asia, China envisions an increasing role for economic and political ties, especially with countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, to build upon and solidify gains made in the security sphere over the late-1990s. In Southeast Asia, Beijing has been adept in more confidently exercising its increasing economic and political influence in Southeast Asia to assuage the security concerns of its neighbors. The “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” with ASEAN in November 2003, and China’s signing of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Friendship during the ASEAN-China summit in October 2003, were security-related political moves welcomed by Southeast Asia.
The increased Chinese emphasis on economic and political levers of regional power is best illustrated by the more nuanced, multifaceted, but still tough Chinese approach toward Taiwan. In the late 1990s and into 2000, Beijing openly threatened Taiwan with military action, such as the missile tests of 1995 and 1996, and the bellicose rhetoric suggesting a timetable for forcible reunification in the run-up to the 2000 Taiwan presidential election. It appears Chinese leaders may be more willing to exercise economic and political levers—without abandoning the steady military buildup—to entice and co-opt different Taiwan-based constituencies into sharing a vision of cross-Strait relations that is closer to Beijing. While considerable tension, uncertainty, and potential instability and conflict still weigh heavily in the cross-Strait dynamic, Beijing’s approach in recent years appears is part of a more confident regional strategy overall.
Implications
Looking ahead, two key points may help us assess and gauge the prospects for what has been a relatively successful regional strategy for China. First, depending on the direction of the global war on terror and developments in other hotspots, the world may become an increasingly dangerous, uncertain and unstable place for Chinese interests, forcing Beijing to reassess its security position and make some very difficult decisions. For example, Beijing was not supportive of American intervention in Iraq, and would be extremely apprehensive about further American expansion of military action, not only for the disruptions it might bring to the international and regional security situation, but also for what it might mean in terms of American “hegemony” and military predominance. Indeed, many developments related to the counterterrorism effort exacerbate, rather than alleviate, long-standing Chinese concerns about the U.S.-led regional and global security order.
Likewise, a deterioration of the security situation on China’s immediate periphery – up to and including war on the Korean peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait – would profoundly shake China’s new confidence and, especially with regard to Taiwan, possibly bring it into conflict with the United States and its allies. Difficult choices lie ahead for Beijing regarding North Korea and Taiwan, and, if anything, these choices are likely to become all the more thorny.
Second, significant question marks continue to define the longer-term U.S.-China relationship in Asia. For example, at what point does China’s successful cultivation of and influence in its regional neighbors significantly encroach upon spheres of influence enjoyed for decades by the United States? In many respects, Beijing’s successful diplomacy and its promotion of a “new security concept” can be seen as Beijing’s effort to offer an alternative security system in the region in contrast to Washington’s framework of U.S. leadership, military alliances and a forward-based presence. Many in the United States and China harbor long-term concerns about one another. These understandings on both sides of the U.S.-China relationship point to potentially contentious times ahead as China emerges as a more prominent player in Asia.
But whether China’s regional security trajectory smoothly continues on its currently successful trajectory or meets setbacks, one point seems certain: for better or worse, China is likely to become all the more capable at effectively pursuing its national goals and strategies, both within the region and among larger external powers with interests in the region such as the United States. That in itself is a relatively new and exceptional situation demanding far greater attention. I hope this hearing can make a useful contribution to that process.
Thank you.