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Abstract
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a more assertive China. What happened to China's “peaceful rise” and “charm offensive”? What explains the changes in China's foreign policy? According to interviews with Beijing and Shanghai-based analysts, China's assertiveness between 2008 and 2010 can be divided into two waves, each triggered by a different cause. The first wave seems triggered by a sense in Beijing that Washington, DC was more differential to China's interests, and less committed to East Asia. The second wave seems best explained as China's response to what it perceived as a far more assertive and threatening United States. Both waves were amplified by two domestic challenges: Chinese leaders’ hypersensitivity to popular nationalism and poor bureaucratic coordination among an expanding number of foreign policy actors.
Notes
1. See, respectively, Michael D. Swaine, “Perceptions of an Assertive China,” China Leadership Monitor No. 32 (May 11, 2010), pp. 1–19; Michael D. Swaine, “China's Assertive Behavior—Part One: On Core Interests,” China Leadership Monitor No. 34 (February 22, 2011), pp. 1–25; Thomas Christensen, “The Advantages of an Assertive China,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 90, No. 2 (March/April 2011), pp. 54–67; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “A Shift in Perceptions of Power,” The Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2011, p. 17; Dan Blumenthal, “Riding a Tiger: China's Resurging Foreign Policy Aggression,” Foreign Policy, Shadow Government Blog, April 15, 2011.
2. Christensen, “The Advantages,” p. 67.
3. See, for example, Zheng Bijian, China's Peaceful Rise: Speeches of Zheng Bijian, 1997–2005 (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2005) and Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).
4. For some comprehensive overviews, see Aaron L. Friedberg, “The Future of US-China Relations: Is Conflict Inevitable?” International Security Vol. 30, No. 2 (Fall 2005), pp. 7–45; Thomas J. Christensen, “Fostering Stability or Creating a Monster? The Rise of China and U.S. Policy toward East Asia,” International Security Vol. 31, No. 1 (Summer 2006), pp. 81–126.
5. Nye, “A Shift.”
6. Christensen, “The Advantages,” p. 55.
7. Swaine, “Perceptions.”
8. On nationalism, see Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004) and Peter Hayes Gries, China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). On public opinion, see Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen, “The Domestic Context of Chinese Foreign Policy: Does Public Opinion Matter?” in David M. Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 151–187, and James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China's Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
9. Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel, “China's New Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 82, No. 6 (November 2003), p. 29.
10. See, for example, David Shambaugh, “China's Military Views the World: Ambivalent Security,” International Security Vol. 24, No. 3 (Winter 1999/2000), pp. 52–79; Robert S. Ross, “China's Naval Nationalism: Sources, Prospects, U.S. Response,” International Security Vol. 34, No. 2 (Fall 2009), pp. 46–81; Andrew Scobell, “Is There a Civil-Military Gap in China's Peaceful Rise?” Parameters Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer 2009), pp. 4–22; Michael D. Swaine, “China's Assertive Behavior Part Three: The Role of the Military in Foreign Policy,” China Leadership Monitor No. 36 (2011), pp. 1–17.
11. Linda Jakobson and Dean Knox, New Foreign Policy Actors in China (Stockholm, Sweden: SIPRI Working Paper No. 26, September 2010). See also Bonnie Glaser and Lyle Morris, “Chinese Perceptions of US Decline and Power,” China Brief, Vol. 9, No. 14 (July 9, 2009), pp. 4–6.
12. We prefer “bureaucratic pluralism” over “fractured authority” – The term used by Jakobson and Knox – because we believe the latter is misleading and inaccurate. “Fractured authority” implies that power has become diffuse in Beijing and the Politburo Standing Committee's authority has been weakened or compromised. We contend that the heart of the problem is one of extremely poor bureaucratic coordination, not the diminution of authority of the highest organ of CCP power. Indeed, poor coordination appears to the point that Jacobson and Know are trying to make. See New Foreign Policy Actors.
13. Christensen, “The Advantages.” Swaine also stresses this distinguishing “positive activism” from “confrontational, destabilizing or threatening … assertiveness.” “China's Assertive Behavior, Part One,” p. 2.
14. See, for example, M. Taylor Fravel, Active Defense: Explaining the Evolution of China's Military (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming).
15. Interview #9, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
16. Interview # 14, two Shanghai analysts, April 2011.
17. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
18. Interview #19, Beijing academic, January 2011.
19. Interview #4, Beijing academic, January 2011.
20. Interview #11, Shanghai academic, April 2011. Another insisted that he saw no evidence of increased Chinese assertiveness in recent years. Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
21. See Alan M. Wachman's incisive analysis: “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (April 13, 2011). Available at http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2011hearings/written_testimonies/11_04_13_wrt/11_04_13_wachman_testimony.pdf
22. Jakobson and Knox, New Foreign Policy Actors, pp. 34–30.
23. See the analysis by Murray Scot Tanner, “Changing Windows on a Changing China: The Evolving ‘Think Tank’ System and the Case of the Public Security Sector,” The China Quarterly No. 171 (September 2002), pp. 559–560. On the utility and limitations of interviewing as a research methodology in China, see Benjamin L. Read, “More Than an Interview, Less Than Sedaka: Studying Subtle and Hidden Politics with Site-Intensive Methods,” in Allen Carlson, Mary E. Gallagher, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Melanie Manion, eds., Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 145–161.
24. This was the conclusion of interviews conducted by other researchers in 2009. “Only a minority of experts view the United States as already in decline and the world as on the cusp of becoming truly multipolar.” See Bonnie Glaser and Lyle Morris, “Chinese Perceptions of US Decline and Power,” China Brief Vol. 9, No. 14 (July 9, 2009), pp. 4–6. See also Bonnie S. Glaser, “A Shifting Balance: Chinese Assessments of U.S. Power,” in Craig S. Cohen, ed., Capacity and Resolve: Foreign Assessments of U.S. Power (Washington, DC: CSIS, June 2011), pp. 3–19.
25. Interview #13, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
26. Interview #13, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
27. Interview #17, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
28. Interview #14, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
29. Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
30. Interview #13, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
31. “U.S.-China Joint Statement” Beijing, China, November 17, 2009. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-china-joint-statement
32. Interview #20, Beijing academic, April 2010.
33. Edward Wong, “China Hedges Over Whether South China Sea is a ‘Core Interest’ Worth War,” New York Times, March 31, 2011, p. A12; interviews with U.S. officials and analysts, Washington, DC, 2010 and 2011.
34. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
35. Interview #13, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
36. Interview #9, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
37. Interview #32, PLA researchers, Beijing, June 2008; Interview #51, Beijing scholar, May 2010; Interview #82, Shanghai analyst, March 2011.
38. Chris Buckley, “China Internal Security Spending Jumps Past Army Budget,” Reuters, March 5, 2011.
39. Interview #9, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
40. Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
41. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
42. Murray Scot Tanner, “China Rethinks Unrest,” The Washington Quarterly Vol. 27, No. 3 (2004), pp. 137–156; Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 35–78.
43. Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
44. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
45. This is a major finding of Jakobson and Knox, New Foreign Policy Actors.
46. Interview #5, Beijing academic, January 2011.
47. Interview #4, Beijing academic, January 2011.
48. Lyle Goldstein, “Domestic Politics and the U.S.-China Rivalry,” in Sumit Ganguly and William R. Thompson, eds., Asian Rivalries: Conflict, Escalation, and Limitations on Two-Level Games (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), pp. 55–58. On the multiple agencies responsible for maritime security, see Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy in the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), pp. 78–82.
49. Interview #12, Beijing academic, January 2011.
50. Interview #17, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
51. Interview #4, Beijing academic, January 2011.
52. Interview #12, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
53. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
54. Interview #9, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
55. Interview #12, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
56. Interview #14, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
57. Interview #14, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
58. John Pomfret, “US Takes a Tougher Tone with China,” Washington Post, June 30, 2010.
59. “Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Refutes Fallacies On the South China Sea Issue, 2010/7/26,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China. Available at www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t719460.htm#
60. Cary Huang, “PLA Ramped up China's Stand on US-Korea Drill,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), August 6, 2010, p. 7.
61. “PLA Deputy Chief of Staff Opposes US-ROK Drill … ,” Phoenix TV Hong Kong, July 1, 2010.
62. Luo Yuan, “Why China Opposes US-South Korean Military Exercises in the Yellow Sea,” People's Daily on Line (in English), July 16, 2010.
63. Ouyang Kaiyu, “PLA Major General Characterizes the US-ROK Military Exercise as Wrong Exercise Taking Place at the Wrong Time and in a Wrong Place,” Zhongguo Xinwenshi Beijing (in Chinese), July 19, 2010.
64. “Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo, a Noted Military Expert, Comments on U.S.-South Korean Military Exercises,” Beijing Renmin Wang (in Chinese), July 29, 2010.
65. Interview #13, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
66. Interview #14, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
67. Interview #15, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
68. Interview #15, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
69. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
70. Dai Bingguo, “We Must Stick to the Path of Peaceful Development,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People's Republic of China, December 6, 2010. Available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/topics/cpop/t777704.htm#
71. An English language version of the Dai Bingguo's statement was not posted until several weeks later.
72. Interview #5, Beijing academic, January 2011.
73. Peter Hays Gries, China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Wang Zheng, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
74. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
75. Interview #4, Beijing academic, January 2011.
76. On the former interpretation, see Jakobson and Knox, New Foreign Policy Actors, pp. 15–16. The latter interpretation tends to be a staple of journalistic analyses.
77. Interview #4, Beijing academic, January 2011.
78. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
79. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
80. Interview #18, Bejing analyst, January 2011.
81. Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
82. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011. Taiwanese interviewees also stressed the PLA's influence. Interview #7, Taipei academic; Interview #1, Taipei government official; Interview #16, former Taipei official, all February 2011.
83. See the classic studies by Allen S. Whiting: China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968) and The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1975).
84. See, for example, You Ji, “Making Sense of War Games in the Taiwan Strait,” Journal of Contemporary China No. 6 (1997), pp. 287–305; Andrew Scobell, “Show of Force: Chinese Soldiers, Statesmen and the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Crisis,” Political Science Quarterly Vol. 115, No. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 227–47.
85. Author interviews with PLA researchers, June and October 2008, October 2009, and May 2010.
86. The term “beyond Taiwan” comes from Military Power of the People's Republic of China Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2008), p. 29. For a detailed analysis of the PLA initiatives beyond Taiwan, see Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Andrew Scobell, eds., Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions Other Than Taiwan (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2009).
87. See China's National Defense in 2008 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, January 2009); China's National Defense in 2010 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, March 2011). See also M. Taylor Fravel, “Economic Growth, Regime Insecurity and Military Strategy: Explaining the Rise in Noncombat Operations in China,” Asian Security Vol. 7, No. 3 (September-December 2011), pp. 177–200.
88. Interview #18, Beijing analyst, January 2011.
89. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
90. Swaine, “China's Assertive Behavior Part Three”; Scobell, “Is There a Civil-Military Gap?”
91. Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, January 2012).
92. “Article Sees US New Military Strategies Targeting China, Iran,” People's Daily, January 7, 2012.
93. This argument is also made by Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, “How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijing's Fears,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 91, No. 5 (September/October 2012), pp. 32–47.
94. See also Kenneth Lieberthal and Wang Jisi, Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, March 2012).
95. Interview #10, Shanghai academic, April 2011.
96. On the centrality of the security dilemma for US-China relations, see Thomas J. Christensen, “China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia,” International Security Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999), pp. 49–80; Yong Deng, “Reputation and the Security Dilemma: China Reacts to the China Threat Theory,” in Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross, eds., New Directions in the Study of China's Foreign Policy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 186–216; Paul Godwin, “Asia's Dangerous Security Dilemma,” Current History (September 2010), pp. 264–266.
97. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Beijing's Security Behavior in the Asia-Pacific: Is China a Dissatisfied Power?” in J. J. Suh, Peter J. Katzenstein, and Allen Carlson, eds., Rethinking East Asian Security: Identity, Power, and Efficiency (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 76.
98. Interview #14, Shanghai analysts, April 2011; Interview #3, Shanghai analyst, April 2011.
99. See Cary Huang, “Shock as Party Fails to Anoint Xi,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), September 19, 2009, p. 1.
100. See, for example, Samantha Hoffman, “Sino-Philippine Tension and Trade Both Rising amid Scarborough Standoff,” China Brief Vol. XII, No. 9 (April 26, 2012), pp. 13–16, and J. Michael Cole, “Japan and China Turn the Screw over Island Dispute,” China Brief Vol. XII, No. 18 (September 21, 2012), pp. 2–6.