China's Relations with Arabia and the Gulf 1949-1999

Mohamed Mousa Mohamed Ali Bin Huwaidin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135786885
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a detailed analysis of China's foreign policy towards the Gulf and Arabian peninsula region from the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the end of the 20th century. Based on extensive original research, it looks at the relations between China and each of the countries of the region over the entire period. It demonstrates that two key factors have shaped China's foreign policy with the region - China's relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, and China's drive to increase its economic ties with the countries of the region, especially after becoming a net importer of oil in the early 1990s.

Part I
Introduction

1
General elements and literature review

FOCUS AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This book focuses on the foreign policy of one of the most important and influential states in today’s international system, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and attempts to assess its relations with the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region. The book identifies and explores different forces and variables that have impacted China’s foreign policy behaviour towards the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region from the time of the establishment of the PRC in October 1949 until the end of the twentieth century. Its purpose is to establish and develop a comprehensive understanding of China’s foreign policy behaviour towards the countries of this region. Such an understanding is critical for analysts of China’s foreign policy and policy makers, particularly in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region, to explain and even predict China’s behaviour towards the region. The book also aims at filling an important gap in the study of China’s foreign policy. Most of the current works on China’s foreign policy towards the region deal with this area as part of the bigger picture of China’s relations with either the Arab world or the Middle East. No other study has dealt comprehensively with the issues of China’s foreign relations with the countries of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region. This work is the first comprehensive attempt at exploring China’s relations with the region during and after the Cold War. It covers China’s political, economic, and social interactions with Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This work aims to overcome the shortcomings pertaining to the study of China’s foreign policy towards the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region. The literature on China’s foreign relations with the countries of the region does not cover China’s relations with all the countries of this area. Instead, it focuses on studying China’s foreign relations with some of the countries of the region in the context of the implications for China’s relations with the rest. Abidi’s study (1982), for example, focuses on China’s relations with Iran, leaving only a part of his study to the discussion of China’s relations with the other Gulf countries. Other studies such as Yitzhak Shichor’s (1979), John Calabrese’s (1991), and Lillian Craig Harris’s (1993) study China’s foreign relations with the countries of the region in the context of China’s foreign relations with the rest of the Middle East. Issues such as China’s relations with Egypt and China’s policy on the Palestine question are treated, along with China’s relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, as the key issues in shaping China’s foreign policy towards the countries of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula region. This work, however, is an attempt to provide the first comprehensive study of China’s foreign policy towards the region, covering China’s interaction with all its countries during and after the Cold War.

WHY STUDY CHINA?

China’s economic and strategic weight, at both the global and regional levels, forms one of the most prominent elements in today’s international politics. China’s importance reflects two significant factors. The first is the sustained growth of the Chinese economy since 1979 and its implications for China’s long-term economic and strategic power. The second is the increased political muscle and military capability of China and its continued transfer of advanced military technology to many parts of the world.

Since 1979, China has embarked upon one of the most successful economic modernization programmes in the world. A programme that earned China a 9.3 per cent average annual growth rate of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 1979 and 1993, and 11.8 per cent in 1994 and 9.8 per cent in 1996. Such growth was one of the highest in the world, particularly since the rest of the world experienced an average growth rate of just 2.6 per cent for the same period. China’s GDP increased 3.76-fold in just 15 years (Fei-Ling Wang 1998: 68). The World Bank has estimated that China’s economic output will reach $10 trillion by the middle of the twenty-first century; and it is expected that China will become the world’s largest economy, in terms of GDP, by 2010 (Frolic 1997: 324). Today, China’s dynamic economy attracts more foreign investments than any other country in the world, except the United States. The implications of the strong Chinese economy are said to be important for regional security. Gary Klintworth (1995) argues that the strong Chinese economy gives the Chinese a lucrative interest in the preservation of regional stability, which may account for Beijing’s contribution to resolving Cambodia’s civil war and keeping the 1994 Korean crisis from escalating (Klintworth 1995: 488). Stuart Harris (1995) indicates that the world wants a strong Chinese economy, to prevent the dangers of internal instability and to deepen its participation in the world economy, potentially making China a more responsible international actor and a lucrative economic partner with its neighbours. Harris, however, argues that a strong economy could also provide China with the basis for immense political power, which Beijing might use to force its own interests upon its neighbours (Harris 1995: 37). In either case, China’s regional and global significance will be enhanced as the Chinese economy continues to grow in an impressive manner.

However, it is not only economic modernization that has created an important role for China in today’s international system, but also China’s increasing military capabilities and its continuing political and military cooperation with many countries in the world. China is not only a nuclear power but also a power possessing some of the world’s most advanced military technologies and has military dominance over many of its Asian neighbours. It is working to enhance and increase its military capabilities by developing a modern tactical airforce, which includes the Russian Su-27, the FC-1 light fighter, the F-10 multi-role fighter, the advanced XXJ fighter, the F-8 IIM interceptor, and the FB-7 striker (Anselmo 1997: 324). It is also developing much more accurate ballistic and cruise missiles. In addition, China is increasing its naval offensive capability by purchasing two Russian Sovermeny-Class destroyers and four Russian Kilo-Class conventional submarines, as well as developing its own nuclear powered boats (Hynes n.d.). Such an increase in China’s military capabilities has been coupled with a rise in Chinese military technology exports to many parts of the world including the Middle East. China has emerged as one of the world’s major suppliers of military hardware. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbooks, China became the sixth leading supplier of major conventional weapons in the 1990s. The value of China’s military exports was around US$4,357 million between 1992 and 1996 (SIPRI 1997: 268). China sees its military cooperation with countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Libya (some of the Middle Eastern countries that China has provided with military technology), as both a source of hard currency and an opportunity for Beijing’s foreign policy to score some political and strategic points. International concerns over Chinese military transfer is prompted not just by China becoming one of the leading arms exporters in the world, but by the type of country that China is providing weaponry technology to. Most of the countries that China is believed to have supplied arms technology to are countries perceived by the West as dangerous to regional and world stability and supportive of terrorist activities. This, therefore, has upgraded China’s importance to the West as well. Its cooperation with the West in halting its military transfer to such countries is considered a vital Western interest.

China’s geography, population, and political weight in the international arena have also contributed to increasing China’s role in the international system. China is a vast country of 9.6 million square kilometres, next in size only to Russia and Canada. Its land borders total 22,800 kilometres and bound fifteen different countries. Across the seas to the east and the south-east are South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Because of its military power, China has been able to secure and ensure stability in its border areas. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (1999) argue that small neighbours, like South Korea, will reconcile to reduce the threat and benefit from cooperation; on the other hand, countries such as Japan and India might pursue an aggressive strategy in an attempt to balance against China (Johnston and Ross 1999: 283). Both Japan and India are countries that China has continued to have territorial and border disputes with. Not surprisingly, therefore, China’s rising military power has triggered a similar response in these two countries to increase their own military capabilities. Japan began to expand its military spending and work, and has advocated implementation of a national missile defence theatre. India, on the other hand, started to build up its own military capability by becoming a nuclear power (Bracken 1999).

China is the world’s most populous nation, where over 1.2 billion people, 22 per cent of the world’s population, lives (excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao) (Benewick and Donald 1999: 11–17). It is predicted that China’s population will reach 1.63 billion by the year 2030 (including Hong Kong and Macao) (Brown 1995). The political weight of the large Chinese population is believed to be one of the most important factors to be felt not only in regional terms but also internationally. According to Lester Brown (1995), China’s arable land will dwindle greatly in the process of industrialization. This will lead to a decrease in China’s self-reliance in food supply, which, according to his calculation, will cause a worldwide food crisis in the coming century (Brown 1995). Scot Stevenson (1998) highlights this point by arguing that if the continuing growth of China’s population is not matched by an increase in the welfare of the people, massive population movements from China to the neighbouring countries could threaten the region. This would clearly spell large political, economic, and social problems for the neighbouring countries, in particular, and for the security of the region, in general (Stevenson 1998; Goldstone 1995: 35–52). Some have even indicated that the continuing growth of China’s population could force China to adopt a more aggressive policy and push towards the new territories and natural resources of Central Asia (Ehteshami 2000: 108). It is not surprising then to witness Japan, South Korea, Singapore, America, and South-East Asian countries pursuing an engaging economic policy with China. It can also be said that the sixty million wealthy, overseas, ethnic Chinese who occupy key economic positions in many South-East Asian countries also contribute to China’s importance. Steven W. Mosher (2000) has highlighted the dangers to the Far East of China using its overseas ethnic population to re-establish its regional hegemony. To Mosher, the increased numbers and role of the ethnic Chinese populations in many countries of Asia could encourage China to redraw its borders and set new claims over new territories, and could also lead China to justify its intervention in the internal affairs of many countries of the region.

All of the above contributes to the widespread international certainty that current policies towards China should reflect long-term national and multilateral responses to the rise in Chinese influence and power. A constructive type of engagement has been adopted by many countries of the world in their relations with China. The goal of this strategy has been to make China’s leaders more sensitive to regional and international security and political concerns through dialogue and peaceful discussion.

LITERATURE SURVEY

There is a wide range of literature examining and analysing different aspects of China’s foreign policy. Two major schools of thought have dominated this study. One school has argued for the internal factor as the most dominant factor in shaping China’s foreign policy. The other school has focused on China’s rivalry with both the United States and the Soviet Union as its motivating factor. The latter argues that China’s relations with both the United States and the Soviet Union have been the pre-eminent factors in shaping China’s foreign policy towards the world. Since the former is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2, the latter will be the focus here.

Some Chinese foreign policy strategies have been regarded by scholars as a natural result of Beijing’s perception of its relations with Washington and Moscow. The ‘two camps’ theory and the ‘leaning to one side’ policy of the early 1950s, for instance, are both widely accepted to be products of China’s perception of superpower behaviour during that period. Chun-tu Hsueh and Robert C. North (1977) argue that these two Chinese foreign policies had been derived from the policies of both the United States and the Soviet Union towards China in the 1950s. They believe that Washington’s criticism of communist government in China and Washington’s unprecedented support for the nationalist government in Taiwan pushed China towards adopting the two foreign policy strategies (Chun-tu Hsueh and North 1977: 49–53). Similar argument is also made by Michael H. Hunt (1996). Hunt indicates that Mao Zedong was flexible and opportunistic in his handling of China’s foreign policy. Mao, according to Hunt, was willing to reach a deal with Washington before the adoption of these two foreign policies. However, it was American rigidity that prevented accommodation, which in the end led China to adopt the hostile foreign policies of leaning to one side and the two camps (Hunt 1996).

China’s perception of its relations with the two superpowers was also reflected in the literature studying the changes in Chinese foreign policy in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the growing political and ideological disputes between Beijing and Moscow. As China began to look to Third World countries as potential allies in the struggle against imperialism, particularly following the Bandung Conference, China-Soviet relations started to deteriorate. Chen Jian and Yang Kuisong (1998) contribute the tension between the two countries to Khrushchev’s secret speech of February 1956, in which he attacked Stalin’s policy. According to them, China’s foreign policy towards the world had shifted, following Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin, from pursuing alignment with the Soviet Union towards challenging the Soviets throughout the Third World. Donald S. Zagoria (1962) contributes the differences between Beijing and Moscow to calculations of the risk involved in protecting and supporting local revolutionary movements. While Moscow accused the Chinese of minimizing the dangers of all-out nuclear war, the Chinese accused the Russians of exaggerating those dangers (Zagoria 1962). The result was the failure of the Chinese-Soviet alliance, which was marked by extensive border clashes and disputes (Doolin 1965). This development in Chinese-Soviet relations was perceived by many international analysts to have a profound impact on the direction of China’s foreign policy. Peter van Ness (1970) argues that China, after the collapse of its alliance with the Soviet Union, began to use its support for revolutionary movements as an instrument of its foreign policy throughout the Third World; therefore, challenging the Soviet presence and influence there. Tai Sung An (1976) believes that the deterioration in China-Soviet relations urged Chinese foreign policy makers to adopt countermeasures to spoil Soviet efforts in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa by seeking a ‘united front’. The United States was not left out of this new Chinese foreign policy outlook. The shift in China’s foreign policy towards Washington in the late 1960s and early 1970s was seen by many as part of both Beijing and Washington’s efforts to undermine Soviet policy in Asia, Europe, and in other regions. Jonathan D. Pollack (1991) finds that the opening of China to the United States ‘reflected longer-term strategic developments that directly affected Beijing’s security calculation’. Among these developments was ‘the increase in Soviet conventional and nuclear forces deployed in Asia that posed a direct threat to the security of China’ (Pollack 1991). Such an analysis continued to dominate China’s foreign policy towards the two powers in the 1970s (Pollack 1991: 402–7). With regard to China’s relations with the United States, John W. Garver (1993) argues that the new Chinese policy originated in the ancient Chinese strategy of ‘using barbarians to control barbarians’. According to Garver (1993a: 74–6), China was aiming to divide the superpowers by improving relations with the United States, then use the strength of the United States to offset that of the Soviet Union. Garver, in my opinion, is right when he indicates that China was aiming, by developing relations with the United States, to use Washington to undermine Moscow’s policies throughout the world. Robert G. Sutter (1978a) sees China’s need to use Chinese-American rapprochement to offset the Soviet pressure on China as the main factor that led Beijing to pursue a new foreign policy.

He argues that the outbreak of Sino-Soviet border clashes in late 1960s and the American pullback from Asia had motivated China to improve relations with the United States and its allies around the world. The Chinese, on one hand, saw the American pullback from Asia as solid evidence of Washington’s interest in improved relations with Beijing and the abolishment of its containment policy. The change in China’s foreign policy was evident in the adoption of a flexible policy towards Eastern Europe. The aim was to turn Soviet bloc discontent with Moscow to China’s advantage. China also focused on strengthening its influence in key neighbouring countries and on blocking suspected Soviet initiatives there. In North Vietnam, China began to overlook its past differences with the North Vietnamese, adopting a more amicable attitude towards its communist neighbour. In North Korea, China continued its efforts to demonstrate its solidarity with Pyongyang (Sutter 1978a: 63–102). Harry Harding (1992: 162–9) talks about the rationale in continuing the strategic relationship between Beijing and Washington. He views Chinese-American strategic relations as an important counterweight to Soviet power in Asia, which could have helped promote the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the removal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. Jonathan D. Pollack (1984) argues that the continued improvement in Chinese-American relations at the end of the 1970s was based not only on Chinese anxieties about Soviet political and military encirclement, but also on the ascendance of Deng Xiaoping who was prepared to cement ties with the West. Deng was hoping to receive some vital assistance for China’s modernization effort.

However, the literature on China’s foreign policy in the 1980s started to play down the impact of China’s relations with the United States and the Soviet Union on China’s foreign policy. New variables, like modernization, have been seen as the dominant factors in determining China’s foreign policy.¹ Yet, in the 1990s, another school of thought began to see China’s foreign policy as being driven by its ambitions to emerge as a powerful state that will dominate regional and, to some extent, international affairs. Two main developments in China brought about a profusion of ‘China threat’ literature. First was the increase in China’s military capability compared to East and South-East Asian countries and its continuing military cooperation with many unfriendly Third World countries to the West. Second was the rapid rise in China’s economic power and the advanced technological investment by Western companies in China. The main assumption of the ‘China threat’ thesis could be traced to the general finding of Samuel P. Huntington (1996). In this and some other earlier works, Huntington underlines how Chinese civilization presented a challenge to Western civilization. He believes that in the post-Cold War era, the ideological conflict has been replaced by a conflict of civilizations, which has become the root of international conflicts and wars. He has also said that the primary adversary of Western civilization is Islam and Confucianism, which have formed a coalition challenging Western values, interests, and power. While Huntington’s argument provoked a great deal of controversy among Chinese officials and intellectuals who criticized him ‘for ignorance of and bias against Chinese culture’, (Wang Zhongren 1997: 7–8) many Western scholars have adopted this argument in explaining China’s foreign policy. The work of Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, ‘The coming conflict with America’ (1997), illustrates this. Bernstein and Munro argue that the Chinese leadership since the late 1980s has taken an offensive national policy, which is contrary to American interests, and aims to replace the United States as the dominant power in Asia. China since then, according to Bernstein and Munro (1997: 18–32), has come to see Washington not as a strategic partner but as the chief obstacle to its own strategic ambitions. Therefore, it has worked to reduce American influence in Asia, to prevent Tokyo and Washington from containing China, to build up its military capability, and to expand its influence in the region’s essential sea lanes. In a later work, Bernstein and Munro (1998) argue that China’s policy towards the United States is focusing on using Washington to achieve China’s goals; meanwhile, the United States policy towards China is not guided by a clear and firm sense of American national interests. In their opinion, the United States’ military, economic, and political engagements with China are serving Beijing’s national interests more than those of Washington. They encourage Washington to adopt a clear policy that outlines the need to prevent China from becoming the hostile hegemon that could interfere with the American pursuit of its interests in Asia (Bernstein and Munro 1998: 203–21). Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II (1998) agree with the above argument and indicate that China is the only foreign country currently targeting American cities for nuclear destruction. They criticize the Clinton administration for selling out America’s national security by cooperating with Beijing militarily and allowing the Chinese government to influence American politics by raising campaign cash. In a later work, Timperlake and Triplett argue that China, armed with the most modern weapons of mass destruction, is the only regime in the world that poses a greater threat to global security. To Timperlake and Triplett, China is an expanding regional power poised to dominate the Pacific by challenging the United States and its allies in the region. The increasing capability of its military, the continuing supply of arms technology to ‘terrorist countries’, the growing Chinese forces in the South China Sea, and the continuing threat to Taiwan have been directed by China’s foreign policy objective to dominate the region and get rid of American influence there (Timperlake and Triplett 1999). Steven...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PART I: INTRODUCTION
• PART II: CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
• PART III: CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD THE GULF AND ARABIAN PENINSULA REGION
• PART IV: CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX
• BIBLIOGRAPHY