Susan L. Shirk
“China’s Multilateral Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific”
Before the
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
“China as an Emerging Regional and Technology Power: Implications for U.S. Economic and Security Interests”
February 12-13, 2004
Before 1994, China was highly skeptical about the value of participating in regional multilateral organizations. It preferred to deal with its neighbors and with the major powers on a bilateral basis. China feared that any grouping of Asians would inevitably gang up against it as the largest, most obvious target. China relished its status as a permanent member of the Security Council in the United Nations, but was reluctant to join regional organizations (Johnston, 1990). Over the past decade, however, China has become a born-again regional multilateralist. It has moved from the sidelines to participate actively in all the various regional multilateral arenas; it has founded new regional organizations on its own; and it has given multilateral cooperation a prominent place in its national security doctrine.
As the organizer of the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an unofficial “track-two” forum for government officials, military officers, and scholars from the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea to discuss regional security issues, I have experienced first hand this transformation in Chinese attitudes toward multilateral engagement. At the time of the first meeting of NEACD in 1993, it was easier to persuade the North Koreans to come than it was the Chinese; only on the eve of the meeting did the PRC Embassy in Washington D.C. finally agree to send a second secretary to attend. In those early days, the Chinese also vetoed any proposal for study projects or agenda items that might lead NEACD in the direction of greater institutionalization. The young, articulate diplomats from the Asia Department of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) who began attending NEACD and various official multilateral fora, however, came to recognize that regional multilateral engagement offered China valuable foreign policy opportunities. This group of officials has led the way in convincing their bureaucratic colleagues and the Chinese leaders that cooperation in multilateral settings helps China reassure others about its intentions and avert hostile reactions to its growing power. Today, China has emerged as the leader of Northeast Asian multilateral cooperation in its hosting of the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem.
While the evidence of China’s growing interest in multilateral cooperation with its neighbors is clear, interpreting it is more difficult: What motivates the Chinese embrace of Asia-Pacific regional multilateralism? Is it a credible signal of China’s peaceful intentions or a Bismarckian strategy to grow stronger without provoking others to combine against it (Goldstein, 2003)? Is participation in multilateral organizations socializing the Chinese into a genuinely cooperative definition of their national security (Johnston, 2003)? Or are the Chinese simply using multilateral diplomacy to pretend to be cooperative while building up militarily in a quest to supplant the United States as the hegemon of the region?
China’s Portfolio of Regional Multilateral Involvements
The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)
The ARF, founded in 1994, is the only region-wide security organization in the Asia-Pacific. The ARF is led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), not by the major powers in the region, because ASEAN leadership was acceptable to both China and the United States. China’s anxieties about joining a regional grouping were eased by having the ASEAN’s in charge. The so-called “ASEAN way” is to emphasize informal dialogue and trust-building over formal agreements and concerted action, avoid interference in internal affairs, and operate by consensus so that the most cautious member can set the pace. From China’s point of view, these elements of the informal, non-institutionalized character of the organization (even today it has no secretariat) reduced the risk of a coordinated effort to constrain its freedom of action.
As an example of “soft regionalism”, the ARF has been derided, particularly in the United States, as nothing more than a “talk shop.” Yet, its influence on China’s foreign policy rhetoric and actions has been substantial. In the beginning, China objected to the establishment of ARF intercessional working groups; but in 1996 it offered to co-chair a group on confidence building methods with the Philippines. After initially opposing the notion of preventative diplomacy to mediate disputes by the ARF Chair or special representatives, China now supports the concept while seeking to carve out the Taiwan issue and its other territorial disputes from it (Johnston, 2003, p 186). China’s public statements at the ARF now endorse the concept of “mutual security.” When the South China Sea territorial dispute was raised in the ARF by the Philippines and the United States, China resisted discussing it in that context; yet the discussions spurred it to intensify its bilateral negotiations with other claimants and negotiate a China-ASEAN code of conduct for the contested territory.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC)
APEC, an organization with broad membership (Chile, Mexico, Peru, Taiwan and Hong Kong are among the members), was founded in 1989 with American support to promote regional economic cooperation Its showcase event is the annual meeting of national leaders where now foreign policy as well as economic issues are discussed. APEC’s declared objective is free and open trade among its industrialized members by 2010 and developing members by 2020. China has used its participation in APEC, in conjunction with its entry to the World Trade Organization in 2000, to signal its commitment to open markets and free trade; The APEC summit hosted by Shanghai in 2000 was a lavish coming-out party for the Chinese economy. The Americans, Australians, and Japanese have played leading roles in APEC, and the organization has a small Singapore secretariat. Still APEC operates according to the same informal, consensus-based procedures as the ARF. Despite APEC’s value as a forum for leaders to gather annually and for technocrats to exchange best practices, it remains an organization with no ability to enforce agreements. The organization has been split between the Anglo-American economies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S.) that want binding agreements for trade liberalization and many of the Asian economies (China, Malaysia) that resist them. (Stubbs, 2002, p 447 ) Beijing’s lukewarm enthusiasm for the organization is reflected in the fact that after the Asian Financial Crisis, instead of trying to extend APEC’s mission to the stabilization of financial markets, China joined with Japan, Korea, and ASEAN to create a new mechanism, the Chiang Mai Initiative, that does not include the United States. China’s initiative to establish a free trade agreement with ASEAN as a group on an accelerated time-table contrasts with the slower pace of trade liberalization in the APEC context.
ASEAN Plus Three
The notion of an Asian regional economic grouping that excludes the United States has been controversial from 1990 when it was first proposed by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad and the United States put pressure on Japan and South Korea to reject it. (At the time China was unenthusiastic because it believed that Japan, as the strongest economy in the region, would dominate the arrangement.) Yet ASEAN remained interested in the idea. When ASEAN was arranging the first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in 1994, it asked Japan, China, and South Korea to join it on the Asian side. Planning meetings brought the group together during 1996 and 1997. And the first leaders meeting of ASEAN plus Three was held at the margin of the ASEAN summit in 1997. The growth of intra-regional economic ties and of an Asian regional identify, as well as an easing of Washington’s opposition, were responsible for the emergence of the grouping.
Just as representatives from the ASEAN plus Three governments were beginning to meet, the Asian Financial Crisis plunged the region into recession and galvanized the establishment of the grouping. China enhanced its reputation in the region by not devaluing its currency and contributing to the International Monetary Fund package for Thailand. The Asian countries were dissatisfied with the response of the IMF and the United States to the crisis. The United States quashed the Japanese proposal of an Asian Monetary Fund. Refusing to be dissuaded, the Asian finance ministers met at the margin of the Asia Development Bank meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2000, and agreed to establish bilateral currency swap agreements (tied to IMF conditions, in order to satisfy the U.S.), an early warning system on short-term capital movements, and a common position on the international financial architecture. Subsequent meetings of economic ministers have created a number of additional practically-oriented cooperative projects.
As the rising economic power in the region, China has used ASEAN plus Three to enhance its influence. It has encouraged the expansion of the group’s agenda beyond economic issues to the point where the organization appears likely to eclipse the ineffectual ARF and APEC. In addition to annual leaders meetings, the ministers of finance, economics, and foreign affairs also meet regularly. China proposed a ministerial meeting on cooperation to combat terrorism and transnational crime that was held in January 2004. Well-aware of the risk that ASEAN plus Three could come to be viewed as an effort to marginalize the United States, China recently has recalibrated by proposing to beef-up the security dimension of the ARF by holding an annual security policy conference for defense officials.
A crucial element in the success of ASEAN plus Three is that China has used it to try to mend relations with Japan. Previously China sought to limit Japan’s regional profile by refusing to engage it in discussions on security and political issues; a 1997-8 Japanese-American proposal to build confidence by holding three-way talks with China was rejected by China. (A senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official explained privately to me that it was because Japan “wasn’t a real power like the United States and China.”) China began consultations with Japan and Korea in the context of ASEAN plus Three insisting that they be limited to economic topics, but over time it has taken the lead in expanding the agenda to political and security issues.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
In 1996, China joined with Russia to found the SCO (originally called the “Shanghai Five”) whose members now include, along with the two powers, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The organization grew out of the lengthy negotiations between China, the Soviet Union, and the Central Asian Soviet republics to resolve their borders. When these republics became independent countries, China sought to make the grouping permanent. Its main goal is to gain the cooperation of these new governments to reduce the threat of Muslim separatism in its Western provinces. The charter of the SCO, signed by President Jiang Zemin and his counterparts in 1996, pledges that all its members will cooperate to combat “terrorism, separatism, and extremism” which in Chinese eyes are more or less synonymous. The charter also contains agreements for specific confidence-building measures similar to that of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. (Johnston, 1993, p 128)
China is extremely proud of the SCO, the first international multilateral organization it has founded itself. As a “home-grown” organization, the SCO has helped build domestic support within China for multilateral diplomacy. For example, the SCO charter signed by President Jiang envisioned joint exercises, something China had never before agreed to. (The first SCO exercises were held in 2003.) The pro-multilateralists in the Asia Department of the Foreign Ministry and the PLA used the SCO precedent to get internal agreement on China’s participation in joint military exercises with other countries, including the United States. China also first embraced the concept of mutual security (see below) in the context of the SCO, and having taken “ownership” of it in this way, promoted it as a positive precedent for the rest of the Asia-Pacific. With China’s backing, the SCO is becoming more institutionalized than other regional multilateral organizations, with a secretariat in Shanghai and a counter-terrorism center in Bishtek.
In addition to these organized multilateral activities, China has also initiated free trade diplomacy with ASEAN and with Japan and South Korea to signal that it is a benevolent regional power. Having been required to open its domestic market much wider than many of its neighbors as the price of its entry to the World Trade Organization, it is relatively inexpensive for China to move toward free trade in many products and services with these neighbors.
Another positive signal is China’s new willingness to join multilateral military activities including those led by the United States and its allies. The People’s Liberation Army has sent observers to the large exercise known as Cobra Gold in Thailand, as well as to joint submarine rescue and mine-sweeping exercises. Beijing’s only limitation is that the exercise must involve a non-traditional (i.e. non-combat) mission. Eventually, as its skills and equipment are upgraded, the PLA intends to go beyond observing to actually participating in multilateral military exercises. It has already held bilateral joint exercises and has invited groups of countries to observe its own exercises. It even has proposed joint military exercises with the United States.
A New Security Concept
Beginning in the mid-1990’s, Chinese scholars, encouraged by the Asia Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, began to develop a theoretical rationale for China’s multilateral diplomacy. They articulated a “new security concept” based on mutual security and contrasted it with traditional and cold war security concepts based on realpolitik. The key element of the new concept is the notion of “win-win” positive sum security, meaning. that a country is more secure if its neighbors also feel secure. A report commissioned by the MFA on this concept acknowledged that in addition to China’s rise its actions on the ground also were causing other states to perceive a threat from China; China needed to demonstrate to its neighbors that it adhered to the existing rules of the international order. Greater activism in multilateral activities would signify that it was a status-quo power (Johnston, 2003, p 130). The new security concept was incorporated in the 1998 PRC White Paper on National Defense.
Guided by this new security concept, China’s multilateral diplomacy is no longer reactive and defensive. In the early 1990’s China joined regional groupings created by others only because it did not want to be left out. After ten years of experience in such groupings, China now has an affirmative commitment to multilateral cooperation in the region and confidently takes its own initiatives to strengthen it.
Motivations for Multilateral Diplomacy
Foreign observers largely agree that China’s primary motivation for its participation in regional multilateral processes is to reassure its neighbors and the United States about its benign intentions. China recognizes that its growing economic and military capabilities create perceptions of a “China threat.” Over time, it has also come to realize that simply denying that it has any aggressive intent is unpersuasive. Its statements of non-aggressive intent are made more credible by its cooperative actions. By joining multilateral organizations and taking multilateral initiatives China builds a reputation as a “responsible power” and heads off hostile reactions to its growing might.
Observers differ, however, as to whether China’s multilateral diplomacy is a carefully cultivated effort to advance national interests by “reassuring those who might collaborate against a putative China threat “(Goldstein, 2003, p 73), or a genuine conversion to mutual security values inculcated by the experience of participating in multilateral processes (Johnston, p 132). It is difficult to find empirical evidence to distinguish the two interpretations, and indeed, both may be occurring simultaneously.
For example, China may promote multilateral security cooperation in Asia for a number of instrumental reasons: not only as a mechanism for reassuring its neighbors, but also eventually to replace the US-centered system of bilateral alliances with a cooperative security architecture in which it plays a leading role. (Western Europe was similarly motivated to integrate Eastern Europe into the CSCE as a way of attenuating Soviet influence in the region.) Yet China’s foreign policy officials and members of the unofficial policy elite may believe sincerely that the values embedded in multilateral cooperation are superior to the values embedded in the U.S. bilateral alliances that originated during the Cold War. Realpolitickal pursuit of national interest does not preclude an idealist commitment to the values of multilateralism.
Consequences of Multilateral Diplomacy
When the United States was a rising power after World War II, it was able to convince other countries that it would not threaten them by creating multilateral global institutions and submitting itself to the authority of these institutions. By binding itself to international rules and regimes, the United States successfully established a hegemonic order (Ikenberry, 2001) Could China’s participation in global and regional multilateral institutions have the same result, enabling China to rise to power without provoking a concerted effort to contain it?
Some of the global regimes that China has committed to, in particular the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the World Trade Organization, embody specific rules and mechanisms for enforcing them. These regimes effectively restrain Chinese behavior and build international confidence that in some important respects, a strong China will not harm the interests of other countries.
The multilateral processes established in the Asia-Pacific region, in comparison, have much less binding force. Organizations like ARF, APEC, and ASEAN plus Three aim to use dialogue to create a normative influence on the actions of their members, but they have not yet established either specific rules or the mechanisms to enforce them. If China’s multilateral diplomacy turns out to be “cheap talk” designed to lull others into believing that its rise is non-threatening until it has the capability to achieve its territorial objectives and dominate its neighbor, ARF, APEC, and ASEAN plus Three have no mechanisms to restrain it.. From the standpoint of China’s neighbors, the country’s activism in multilateral settings is a reassuring signal but not a guarantee of non-aggressive actions. Interestingly, the SCO, the one regional multilateral organization that China has founded itself, has the most specific rules and is moving in the direction of greater institutionalization. This fact suggests that after a decade of experience with multilateral diplomacy, China might not object if other Asian countries now sought to protect themselves by making regional organizations more institutionalized and rule-bound. While proposals to give regional organizations more teeth are likely to gain more traction if they are proposed by Asian governments and not by the U.S. government, the U.S. would gain by supporting them even if they mean restricting its own autonomy.
REFERENCES
Avery Goldstein, “An Emerging China’s Emerging Grand Strategy, A Neo-Bismarckian Turn?” in G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (eds), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp 57-106.
G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Alastair Iain Johnston, “China and Arms Control in the Asia-Pacific Region,” in Frank C. Langdon and Douglas A. Ross (eds), Superpower Maritime Strategy in the Pacific, (London: Routledge, 1990), pp 173-203.
Alastair Iain Johnston, “Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Way and International Relations Theory,” in G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (eds), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp 107-162.
Richard Stubbs, “ASEAN Plus Three, Emerging East Asian Regionalism?” Asian Survey, Vol. 42, No. 3 (2002), pp 440-455.
