China's Power and Asian Security

Mingjiang Li, Kalyan M. Kemburi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138782792
• eBook ISBN: 9781317668169
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

One of the most significant factors for contemporary international relations is the growth of China's economic, military, and political power. Indeed, few analysts would dispute the observation that China's power has strongly influenced the structure of the international system, major-power strategic relations, international security, the patterns of trans-border economic activities, and most importantly, the political and security dynamics in Asia in the twenty-first century.

This book maps the growth of China's political, economic, and military capabilities and its impact on the security order in Asia over the coming decades. While updating the emerging power dimensions and prevailing discourse, it provides a nuanced analysis of whether the growth of Chinese power is resulting in Beijing becoming more assertive, or even aggressive, in its behavior and pursuit of national interests. It also examines how the key Asian countries perceive and react to the growth of China's power and how US rebalancing would play out in the context of Beijing's political, economic, and military power.

China's Power and Asian Security will be of huge interest to student and scholars of Asian politics, Chinese politics, security studies and international security and international relations more generally.

Part I China's power Capabilities and perceptions

1 Growth of China's power Capabilities, perceptions, and practice^*

Mingjiang Li, Kalyan Kemburi and Zhang Hongzhou

DOI: 10.4324/9781315769011-1

Power is one of the most contested concepts in the field of social sciences. In the middle of the last century, the academic definition of power transitioned from the power-as-resources approach to the relational power approach, whereby power is not just conceived on basis of absolute capabilities but as an ability of A to cause a change in the behavior of B. Nevertheless, power-as-resources is still a preferred definition within the policy community for its concrete measurable indicators. One main problem with this approach is that a particular power capability could be an asset in one situation, but a liability in a different situation. To illustrate, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the weapon systems that aided the US forces in achieving a rapid victory against the Iraqi regular forces faced limitations in dealing with the insurgents fighting in an urban environment.

One of the most significant factors for contemporary international relations is the growth of China’s economic, military, and political power. In recent decades, following the power-as-resources approach, several scholars and government agencies have extensively documented this phenomenon. As intentions are hard to predict, the key in understanding the impact of China’s growing power is to evaluate Beijing’s ability to convert these power resources into behavioral outcomes in the target states. This edited volume intends to undertake this evaluation.

Three decades of continuous high economic growth has provided Beijing the means to engage in the qualitative and quantitative expansion of its power resources. In the military arena, for instance, China’s US$132 billion defense spending in 2014 is the highest in Asia and comes only after the United States globally.¹ Although the Chinese military—People’s Liberation Army—has a long march to match the technological sophistication of the US military or even the Japan Self-Defense Forces, it has been successful in creating pockets of technological excellence and in acquiring platforms to conduct asymmetrical warfare. To enable the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with regional as well as long-distance power projection and ensure its rapid deployment of ground forces, there has also been a steady induction of sophisticated weapon systems ranging from nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, fourth generation aircraft, to space-based systems and capabilities.

Historically, the study of international relations has predominantly focused on military force with relative neglect of economic statecraft. To close the gap, this volume includes the economic power of Beijing. As Samuel Huntington noted, “Economic activity is probably the most important source of power . . . in a world in which military conflict between major states is unlikely [and] economic power will be increasingly important in determining the primacy or subordination of states.”² Further, as a Singapore-based newspaper the Straits Times noted in 2009, “The new great game in Asia is centered less on military power, but more on the complex exercise of winning friends and influencing people and thought.”³ Economic tools such as trade, aid, and investments increase the potential for success in this complex exercise of winning friends and influencing ideas. Although economic tools cost more than diplomacy or propaganda, they cost less financially and politically and even result in less collateral damage compared to military tools for a region under the shadow of nuclear weapons.

In the case of China, the world has been in awe over Beijing’s double-digit economic growth for almost three decades, and its success in lifting more than 600 million people out of poverty, in establishing a world-class infrastructure, and in emerging as the global assembly line. In 2012, China emerged as the world’s largest trading nation with a trade volume of US$3.87 trillion.⁴ Beijing has secured a critical position in Asia by being the largest trading partner for Japan, South Korea, India, and Southeast Asia. Scholars, however, have paid little attention to the evaluation of the utility and the scope of economic power behind such achievements. Although globalization has made the world less coercible and has created economic interdependencies, as Joseph Nye highlighted, “manipulating the asymmetries of interdependence is an important dimension of economic power.”⁵

In tune with the going-out policy, China’s outward direct investment (ODI) grew from US$5.5 billion to over US$77 billion yearly from 2004 to 2012, and is expected to reach US$150 billion by 2015.⁶ In 2009 and 2010, two Chinese state-owned banks extended more loans to developing countries than the World Bank.⁷ Similarly, China has emerged as an important global aid donor. As with its defense budget, estimating China’s aid has been difficult. According to the Center for Global Development, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Beijing’s aid estimates range from US$1.5 billion to US$25 billion in 2009. Most of this aid is channeled to infrastructural and developmental projects. Nevertheless, aid has the potential to create hard economic power, especially when it is used to build economic and administrative capabilities of the recipient nation.

Few analysts would dispute the observation that China’s power has strongly influenced the structure of the international system, major-power strategic relations, international security, the patterns of trans-border economic activities, and most importantly, the political and security dynamics in Asia in the twenty-first century. Many observers believe that China’s growing power goes hand in hand with its assertiveness in handling key security issues in Asia, for instance the South China Sea dispute. As a result, the tone of recent media reports, scholarly writings, and foreign government documents on China’s role in regional security is predominantly pessimistic. Many have observed that growing Chinese economic power has contributed to a dual regional structure in Asia whereby China takes the lead in regional economic development while the United States is responsible for security and stability. This situation has put pressure on regional states to take sides between Beijing and Washington. The impetus for Washington’s strategic rebalance towards Asia is at least partially in response to China’s growing regional economic and political influence, if not security challenge.

This volume maps the growth of China’s political, economic, and military capabilities and its impact on the security order in Asia over the coming decades. The strength of this edited volume lies in its geographic comprehensiveness and thematic uniqueness. This volume is also timely because it captures Beijing’s increasing confidence (assertiveness particularly during 2008–2011) in using its political, economic, and military resources to pursue its national interests in Asia. This volume also contains extensive updates on the emerging power dimensions and the prevailing discourse.

With these updates, this volume contains works that attempt to unravel three puzzles:

• Does the growth of Chinese power bring about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in its pursuit of national interests?
• How do the key Asian countries perceive and react to the growth of China’s power?
• How would US rebalancing play out in the context of Beijing’s political, economic, and military power?

The following section provides an overview of the concept of power in China, starting from Sun Zi’s Art of War, Mao Zedong’s On Protracted Warfare, to Deng Xiaoping’s emphasis on developing economic capabilities, and the recent development of the concept of Comprehensive National Power. With this historical background, in the second section we map the recent growth in economic and military capabilities of China. The penultimate section looks at the prevailing discourse among Chinese and foreigners, as well as providing a preview of the recent practice of the Chinese government in using some of these emerging power capabilities. The final section offers a preview of the chapters in this volume.

Concept of power in China—past and present

The concept of power, or national power to be precise, is definitely not a new term in the Chinese strategic thinking. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period (722 to 476 bc), China’s great strategist Sun Zi wrote in his famous Art of War that the outcome of war largely depended on the power of each state. His concept of power refers to not only military might but also economics, geography, politics and subjective guidance. More than 700 years ago, the Song dynasty—the largest economy in the world and one of the most prosperous dynasties in the entire history of China—was defeated by the Mongols from the North. This defeat propelled the Chinese strategic thinkers to recognize that in addition to economic prosperity military capabilities should always be a critical element of a country’s power.

Similarly, reflecting on the defeat of the mighty Qing Dynasty by the British more than 150 years ago, Chinese strategists identified poor political coordination, backward culture and technology, as well as a fragmented political system, as the main reasons for Qing’s defeat, which led to China’s Hundred Years Humiliation. Then, during the Sino-Japanese war, Mao Zedong in his On Protracted Warfare declared that despite Japanese military supremacy, China would eventually win the war because it surpassed Japan in terms of power, measured by territorial size, population, and international support.

The modern concept of national power in China came into force during the 1980s after Deng Xiaoping’s new assessment of China’s security environment: the growth of the world’s peace exceeded the growth of the forces of war. As peace and development emerged as the main trend in the evolvement of international affairs, Deng felt that military force could no longer be the sole criterion and primary index of a country’s power. He then urged his government to place economic development at the top of the country’s agenda.

Subsequently, in the mid-1980s, Chinese analysts developed the concept of Comprehensive National Power (CNP), defined as the combined overall conditions and strengths of a country in numerous areas, considering both qualitative and quantitative measures. While the qualitative measurement facilitates general discussions of a country’s strengths and weaknesses, the quantitative method yields numerical values of a country’s CNP using form...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• PART I China’s power: capabilities and perceptions
• 1 Growth of China’s power: capabilities, perceptions, and practice
• 2 The rise of China and the emerging order in Asia
• 3 China’s military buildup: regional repercussions
• PART II China’s power and US strategic rebalance: Chinese and American perspectives
• 4 China’s assessments of U.S. rebalancing/pivot to Asia
• 5 China’s rising power and the U.S. rebalance to Asia: implications for U.S.–China relations
• PART III China’s power: security order in Asia
• 6 Peripheral South Asian response to the growth of Chinese power: a study in dichotomous continuity
• 7 India’s perceptions and responses to the growth of Chinese power
• 8 Canberra’s Beijing balance: Australian perceptions of and responses to Chinese power
• 9 Facing the challenges: ASEAN’s institutional responses to China’s rise
• 10 Evaluating Southeast Asian responses to China’s rise: the vital context of managing great power resurgence
• 11 China–Central Asia: a new economic, security, and logistic network
• 12 China’s challenges in accommodating both Koreas
• 13 The rise of China and Japan’s foreign policy reorientation
• 14 The changing security dynamics in Northeast Asia and the US alliances with Japan and South Korea: toward synchronization
• Index