----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 6:46 PM Subject: Is China an Aggressive Power? [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Center for Defense Information http://www.cdi.org/dm/2000/issue9/china.html ================ + ================ Is China an Aggressive Power? Dr. Nicholas Berry, Senior Analyst Is China an aggressive power? The answer to this question will largely determine the future size and shape of the U.S. military establishment. The drafting of the Pentagon's 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review is underway. With threats from Iraq and North Korea fading, the current scenario of simultaneously fighting two major theater wars becomes increasingly less credible. The emergence of a perceived Chinese threat, however, would demand that the U.S. military's force structure, troop deployments, weapons procurement, and research and development be primarily focused against China. Needless to say, it would also keep the Pentagon's budget moving up. Without a Chinese threat, force levels and deployments could be reduced and a national security strategy based on building multilateral regional stability could be adopted. History tells us a good deal about the rise of aggressive powers. A review of Chinese history reveals that the Asian giant does not fit the mold, and thus the likelihood of Chinese aggression is close to zero. Five factors appear to be crucial before a country uses military force to establish hegemonic control over foreigners - or at least attempts to do so. They tend to be sequential, each one feeding on the preceding ones: a large, unified state; a rising economy; an ideology of dominance; a superior (relatively) military capability; and (5) popular support for an aggressive foreign policy. LARGE, UNIFIED STATE Logically, one may suspect that the other four factors precede this one ? and to some extent they have. But a unified political unit of relatively significant size must first be established before it can embark on foreign domination. Athens, once a dusty little village, had to grow, incorporate surrounding land for agriculture, develop its port at Piraeus, and enlarge its population. It was then positioned to create an empire beyond its established polity. Rome followed the same pattern, most importantly subduing and replacing its Etruscan neighbor and competitor to establish a secure city-state on the Italian peninsula. Islam roared out of Arabia after Mohammed united all of the Arab-speaking tribes. The Spanish in the 15th century had to unite under Ferdinand and Isabella, Elizabeth I had to consolidate control of the British Isles and ward off the Spanish Armada, and the Dutch in the 17th century had to expel their Spanish occupiers before any of them could contemplate empire. The Russians under Ivan the Terrible warded off invasions from both east and west. The United States fought its war of independence and sought its "Manifest Destiny" to expand coast-to-coast. The Germans and Italians only achieved national unity in the 19th century in an era of rampant European nationalism. Japan was the next to the last modern state (before China) to consolidate central government control with the 1868 Meiji Restoration. China united in 221 B.C. under the emperor Qinshihuangdi after the Warring States era, but was not pacified until conquered by the Mongols. In the 13th century under the Khans, China move westward, conquering all. Although two attempted invasions of Japan failed because "divine winds" (kamikaze ) scattered the Chinese amphibious force, China dominated the Asian land mass north of the Indian subcontinent. In the 15th century it seemed poised to become the world's greatest expansionist power. Its economy was bureaucratically integrated; it had developed printing, paper, and advanced metallurgy; it had gunpowder and rockets and was home to the world's leading mechanical engineers. China built huge warships, some over 400 feet in length with eight, even nine, masts carrying hundreds of people. Its fleets ? one totaled 317 vessels ? plied the Indonesian islands and entered the Indian Ocean in the first half of the 15th century. But the enterprise collapsed. A combination of discomfort with dealing with non-Chinese people, the huge expense of the maritime enterprise, unprofitable trade, and an internal power struggle won by the isolationists ended China's overseas expansion. The new emperor called the fleet home and had it destroyed. In 1477, even the logs of the great voyages were burned. David S. Landes in his The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (W. W. Norton, 1998) concluded: "Isolationism became China. Round, complete, apparently serene, ineffably harmonious, the Celestial Empire purred along for hundreds of years more, impervious and imperturbable. But the world was passing it by." China remained an isolated Middle Kingdom for the next 400 years. Internal power struggles were frequent. By the 19th century China was technologically backward. It lost the Opium War to Britain and a naval war to Japan (which took Taiwan as booty). Foreigners carved up China's coast into spheres of influence, and Christian missionaries arrived to convert the people. Anti-foreign, anti-imperialist Chinese nationalism surged, first with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 followed by the overthrow of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in 1911. Under Sun Yat-sen and then Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalists (Koumingtang or KMT) methodically defeated regional warlords but then faced two challenges. A KMT-Communist alliance broke down in 1927, with the KMT defeating the urban-based Communists. (Mao Zedong's rural-based wing of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] survived.). Before the KMT could consolidate its power, the Japanese in 1931 seized Manchuria and began a full-scale invasion in 1937. That put the second round of the KMT-CCP struggle on hold until war's end in 1945. The CCP emerged victorious on October 1, 1949, and Chiang and his KMT fled to Formosa (Taiwan) where they came under the protection of the U.S. Seventh Fleet after China intervened in the Korean War. Nevertheless, except for Taiwan, the 20th century can be seen as China's search for national unity and sovereignty which culminated in its regaining Hong Kong in 1997 and Macao in 1999. China's historic pattern of seeking territorial integrity is both old and new. The old unity, which spawned the fizzled 15th century attempt at overseas imperialism, left a strong distaste for imperialism that militates against military aggression. The possible exception is the uncompleted effort to re-incorporate Taiwan. Resolving this issue will be a major determinant for future Chinese foreign policy assertiveness. If Taiwan is reunited with the mainland by military force, China would aggressively seek to limit U.S. influence throughout East Asia to ward off a hostile United States. On the other hand, a peaceful reunification with Taiwan would tend to dampen Chinese assertiveness. A RISING ECONOMY The struggle to consolidate state unity always creates a feeling of collective energy and an urge to use the state to promote greater production and create larger markets. Recent studies have shown that the economy - land, labor, capital, and trade - is the best predictor of national power, more so than military might. Athens excelled in agriculture, health measures, water management, crafts, and trade to build its economy. Rome added a safe land and water transit/trade infrastructure and introduced factories powered by waterwheels to increase production. For a time, science, technology, and trade flourished in the Islamic world. Later, the Industrial Revolution shifted economic development to Europe where Great Britain became its first beneficiary. Few areas on the planet have been more hospitable to economic growth than North America with its climate, arable land, rivers and harbors, and natural resources. Add to this mix the pioneering spirit of immigrants and the first program of mass public education, and an economic takeoff became inevitable. The U.S. by 1900 was the world's leading economy. Economic growth rates in Russia, Germany, and Japan also soared before World War I. The imperial thrust of all these states rested on expanding economies. A country's popular belief in a "place in the sun" is largely determined by its rate of economic growth compared to others. Superiority in what sustains and enriches life "naturally" suggests superiority in other areas. The notion of the political survival of the fittest existed long before Darwin. In fact, those with the economy to produce a strong military and the pride to inflame popular enthusiasm would not only survive but dominate. China historically resisted labor-saving technology in favor of a labor-intensive economy, which encouraged rapid population growth. It resisted the comparative advantage of trade, stressing self-sufficiency. It resisted the diffusion of literacy, the growth of an urban middle class, and modern science and social science in favor of maintaining elitism and tradition. China entered the 20th century as "the sleeping giant." World War II and the civil war hampered economic development. The consolidation of mainland China under CCP rule provided an opportunity to modernize the economy. For all the horrors of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, his dictatorship destroyed feudal land relationships, instituted mass education (including for women), and began large-scale industrialization. However, by the time of Mao's death, the Chinese economy had stagnated. It fell to Mao's successor to abandon the stale communist economy by introducing private enterprise, market pricing, foreign direct investment, and trade-promoting policies. From 1978, when he took power, Deng Xiaoping never wavered from his central idea that a growing economy would maintain Chinese unity, keep the CCP in power, facilitate the reunion of separated parts of China, prevent foreign military intimidation, and make China a major world player. He called for the "four modernizations" ? economy, agriculture, education/technology, and military. Data confirm the success of Deng's economic reforms. China's economy averaged over 9 % in annual GDP growth. Since 1980 the GDP has quadrupled to $4.8 trillion, making it the world's fifth largest economy. Per capita income (purchasing power parity) is $3,600. Trade has zoomed to an annual (1998) $340 billion. On the surface China has created the foundation for an expansionist foreign policy. However, substantial internal and external impediments remain. Internally, the western region of China has not prospered as have the coastal provinces, although major programs are underway to redress the imbalance. Attention is being paid to failing state enterprises where labor strikes, protests, and regional unemployment present immediate problems. Endemic corruption in the form of bribes, influence peddling, smuggling, and protection rackets ? all enemies of entrepreneurship ? are being addressed. Finally, environmental pollution has reached the point that health concerns in major cities, especially Beijing, indicate that expensive corrective measures cannot be put off. But most inhibitors of Chinese aggression are external. At one time a nation's "place in the sun" referred to a rising state acquiring colonies. A place in the sun today is a seat at the policy-making table in powerful international organizations. China is a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and is about to join the WTO. It occupies one of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council. It wields influence in ASEAN's Regional Forum (ARF) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Nowhere is China denied its rightful place in world affairs. Globalization decrees that what a state achieves is up to that state. Although this system does penalize those that have difficulty competing (and the World Bank and IMF are now considering debt relief and other ways to help the less advantaged), China has benefitted greatly from globalization. Its economy is highly integrated with the world via trade, foreign direct investment, education (China ranks first in the number of foreign students studying in America), and technology transfers. Why would it risk economic collapse and becoming an international pariah by embarking on imperialistic adventures? As regimes in Iraq and Serbia have learned, aggression provokes isolation. More importantly, all China's major economic partners have close relations with the U.S., and Washington would insist that an aggressive China be quarantined. Furthermore, the U.S. economy is more capable than China's of sustaining the arms and ideology to promote international power. In short, Chinese leaders have no intention of taking on the U.S. and its allies in a quest for regional or world dominance. They prefer a multipolar world and have not formulated an ideology of dominance. AN IDEOLOGY OF DOMINANCE The Greeks saw barbarians beyond their borders. The Romans saw uncivilized and unwashed tribes that needed to be under Rome's protection. Islam believed it had God on its side, as did the Spanish New World conquerors. The Dutch, French, and British believed that people in their "nonage" required enlightened European civilization, so they assumed the "white man's burden." Americans held to the myths of occupying the "city on the hill" and racial superiority; they took the Philippines, as President McKinley said, to guide "our little brown brothers." The Soviet Union believed its ideology was universal and inevitable. Nazi Germany saw racial superiority as fully supporting its military superiority. Japan saw itself as a superior civilization ? one that had resisted European colonialism. It could simultaneously rid Asia of European colonialism and create its own empire, the "Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere." China may think it represents one of history's great civilizations, but it has no dogma on racial superiority. Quite the opposite. The Chinese have long argued that European and American notions of race were simply devices to justify imperialism, nothing more. Perhaps it once believed in the inevitability of communism, but Beijing has been running away from Marxist-Leninism at Olympic speed. Culturally, the Chinese have great difficulty integrating with non-Chinese. Their civilization is only for them, not for other peoples. Even in melting-pot America, many Chinese-Americans find security in Chinatowns. Other overseas Chinese act the same. Their ethnocentrism is not a prescription for dominating foreigners - their Uihgar and Tibetan minorities excepted. Without an ideology of dominance, China is missing a key ingredient for embracing imperialism. Its military forces, therefore, have other duties. SUPERIOR MILITARY CAPABILITY Athens had its fleet and subservient allies. Rome had invincible legions. Islam had its cavalry and was the first to use cannon effectively. The Spanish, Dutch, and British employed advanced ships and firepower to establish empire. The Soviets used the Red Army to create and dominate its East European empire. And Nazi Germany and imperial Japan believed their martial spirit and modern military strategies gave them superiority over the states they would attack. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is heavily skewed to land forces. Only recently has the emphasis shifted to ballistic missiles and air and sea capabilities. It has twenty or so antique DF-5 liquid-fueled ICBMs and its sold-fueled DF-41 is still four or five years away from deployment. It has no aircraft carriers. Of 3,500 jet fighters, only fifty or so are advanced - the Russian made SU-27. It has two modern Sovremenny-class destroyers with Sunburn anti-ship cruise missiles - also bought from Russia. Its amphibious and air assault capability is insufficient to conquer Taiwan, although 250 or so ballistic missiles across the Taiwan Strait target that island. Put simply, the PLA seriously menaces none of its neighbors, all of whom have some relationship with the United States. This is not to say that there is no concern, but if China is planning to create an empire, it certainly is casual about developing the military means to do so. The PLA does have an agenda. It serves to defend the homeland, although that mission is fading in the absence of threats. (Land forces are being reduced by the hundreds of thousands.) The PLA is an instrument of internal control, deterring and combating separatists in Xinjiang and Tibet, pro-democracy dissidents in the cities, and guarding against rural protests. Its conventional units back China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, while its nuclear forces deter any attempts at nuclear blackmail. (The ability for nuclear retaliation, the Chinese leadership believes, will prevent the U.S. from again using nuclear threats against China as it did in the 1950s over Quemoy and Matsu.) Finally, the PLA is gearing up to punish Taiwan if Taipei dares to declare independence. The threat to Taiwan is real. PLA officers frequently say: "We have no intention of attacking anyone, but if called upon [to punish Taiwan] we will do so without question." Such a threat is highly credible regardless of the consequences. There is an arrogance in the PLA born of China's rise to prominence and all the attention paid to it ? especially by Americans ? as a nation on the move. There is no doubt that any U.S. attempt to foster and uphold Taiwan independence will result in armed conflict. Taiwan is considered an internal matter, and any outside intervention on the issue would affront Chinese "sovereignty and territorial integrity." It is not imperialism, Chinese officials insist, to regain a "renegade" province. A proud China on the verge of unity simply would not tolerate dismemberment. At the same time, the maintenance of the "one China principle" will keep Beijing patient. The costs of developing an assault capability, of provoking international economic isolation, of killing fellow Chinese, and of risking military failure if the U.S. supports Taiwan will keep China focused on peaceful efforts to regain Taiwan. Until recently, Chinese leaders have not fully grasped that Taiwan needs to be wooed, not bullied, into reunification. As long as the costs of reunification are perceived on Taiwan as unacceptable, the marriage will not occur. Eventually, the sentiment for Chinese unity may well push Beijing to adopt further, more rewarding approaches to woo Taipei. POPULAR SUPPORT FOR AN AGGRESSIVE FOREIGN POLICY Perhaps the only historical exception to this factor as a prerequisite for imperialistic adventures is Italy beginning in the 1930s. Mussolini had some enthusiastic public support for his attack on Ethiopia, but it soon faded with Italy's aggression against Albania, Greece, France, and the Soviet Union. The clear confirmation of this is the dismal combat record of Italian forces. An army and a people must believe that surrender would be cowardly. Most of all, they must believe that killing foreigners is morally acceptable as seems to have been the attitude of Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Dutch, British, Russians, Germans, and Japanese. Americans were bothered by the U.S.-Philippine War. An extensive anti-imperialist movement emerged led by people as disparate as Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain. Many historians have suggested that America's own history as a colony of Great Britain has produced an ingrained streak of anti-imperialism in the American psyche. The same anti-imperialism sentiments exist in China. China cannot continually protest its history of foreign exploitation and then adopt a cultural norm that its exploitation of foreigners is acceptable. The Chinese may accept that life is full of contradictions, but this one would exemplify cognitive dissonance in the extreme. Taiwan, of course, is not populated by foreigners. CONCLUSIONS Americans who see China as the new imperialist threat need to review the historical record. Unless history is meaningless as a predictor of events, China will not seek an empire. As long as China's periphery is secure and no country is prepared to attack it the PLA will carry out its internal and defensive tasks, including putting pressure on Taiwan not to leave the fold. China will, however, use military force to secure its territory if its leaders believe such action is necessary. China did so in Korea, in border wars with India and Vietnam, in suppressing Tibetan separatists, and in a border skirmish with Soviet forces on Damansky Island. Taiwan remains under the Chinese gun. Overall, globalization renders imperialism passe. Countries, especially the major powers that benefit most from globalization, are status quo powers usually willing to intervene to prevent regional hegemons from disrupting the system. Coalitions in a globalized world have proven relatively easy to organize against major threats, beginning with the UN operation in Cambodia through Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor. The existence of globalization has not been challenged by any major power. Therefore, the central task for U.S. foreign policy is to sustain globalization by striving to integrate all states into international organizations; assist weak states to the point that the system rewards them; work with other states to settle regional conflicts; promote trade, direct investment, and financial stability; and moderate weapons proliferation and arms races. China can be a partner in each area. There is no need for it to be a "strategic partner" because there is no common enemy; a "normal partnership" would do. A realistic Pentagon assessment of the Chinese military threat for its QDR will conclude that a smaller U.S. military establishment focused on regional stability in Asia would be more than sufficient to provide for U.S. security. CALLOUTS The 20th century can be seen as China's search for national unity and sovereignty. Most inhibitors of Chinese aggression are external. The threat to Taiwan is real. Unless history is meaningless as a predictor of events, China will not seek an empire. For Additional Information: Is China a Military Threat?, a CDI video documentary by America's Defense Monitor. =============== + ================ + Please support http://www.antiwar.com, the Catholic Worker and Plowshares movements, and http://www.space4peace.org Sign the STOP STAR WARS petition hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Jules/ We must KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE, and Silence Trident and Project ELF. + Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive your enemies. Come Lord Jesus Christ. Deo Gratias. + ================ + =============== ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
