China's Grand Strategy. Lukas K. Danner.
China's Grand Strategy. Lukas K. Danner.
China's Grand Strategy. Lukas K. Danner.
GRAND
STRATEGY
Contradictory Foreign Policy?
China’s Grand Strategy
Lukas K. Danner
China’s Grand
Strategy
Contradictory Foreign Policy?
Lukas K. Danner
Florida International University
Miami, FL, USA
In the last few years, China’s rise has certainly contributed to the onset of
the perceived decline of the American-led, unipolar, post-Cold War inter-
national order. This book deals with China’s ‘grand strategy’ or its inter-
national policy. The more China has grown, the more its grand strategy
has come into focus in policy-making and academic circles. ‘Peaceful
Development’ has been the chosen course for China’s grand strategy as it
sought to ascend the ranks of the great-power circle to which it belonged
for millennia until the ‘Century of Humiliation’ and its aftermath. In the
recent past, however, China has become more assertive in its actions and
has begun to pursue its goals more aggressively and less introspectively
than before. This book positions itself within the debate on the coherence
of China’s grand strategy that has resulted from these recent actions.
Whereas most other explanations rely on power transition theory or other
material explanations, this book attempts to solve the puzzle innovatively
through a cultural inquiry focusing on China’s preoccupation with gain-
ing back the honor that it lost at the hands of the West and Japan during
the ‘Century of Humiliation.’ In this endeavor, as with any scientific
research, the aim is to be objective and systematic. Therefore, this book
certainly does not represent an apologist effort to rectify China’s some-
times aggressive behavior. Rather, it seeks to present an explanation of
vii
viii PREFACE
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 Introduction 1
7 Conclusion 193
Index 203
xiii
List of Acronyms
AC Arctic Council
ADB Asian Development Bank
ADIZ Air Defense Identification Zone
AFP Agence France Press
AIIB Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
ALCOM Alaskan Command
AP Associated Press
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
ASAT Anti-Satellite
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BFA Boao Forum for Asia
C4ISR Command, Control, Communications, Computers,
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
CAA Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CNSA China National Space Administration
DC Developed Country
DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
ECS East China Sea
ECSPI East China Sea Peace Initiative
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
EFTA European Free Trade Agreement
EU European Union
xv
xvi List of Acronyms
xix
List of Tables
xxi
Note on Chinese Names and Terms
Chinese terms and names are spelled using Pinyin, unless another
transliteration using a different standard (for instance, Wade-Giles) is more
commonly used and referred to. For example, Hong Kong instead of
Xianggang for the big southern Chinese metropolis, or Confucius instead
of Kong Zi.
Chinese names of authors, politicians, and historically important people
are presented in the standard Chinese way of surname followed by given
name. This is also done using Pinyin unless bibliographic information was
recorded in the given book with another transliteration or unless the per-
son in question is known better under a name transliterated using another
standard. For example, Deng Xiaoping for the famous Chinese Communist
leader, but Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kai-shek for the equally famous
Republican Chinese leaders.
xxiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
China has attracted much attention in the last decades with its perceived
rise as a potential successor to the United States as the global hegemon. As
history shows us, seldom has there been a great-power that rose without
going to a major systemic war, like the rise of France and the Napoleonic
Wars, the rise of Germany and World Wars I and II, or the rise of Japan
and World War II. Because of this, China’s rise is perceived to potentially
endanger international peace, too. Since the prevailing perspective in these
countries and in the United States is based, particularly, on Western-
centric assumptions, world politics experts in these societies often assume
that in its process of ascendancy, China will inevitably clash against its
immediate regional neighbors as well as with other extra-regional great-
powers. Such a belief is compounded by mixed signals coming out of
China over the last decade, that is, incoherence of grand strategy, where
official pronouncements indicate a China that views itself like a peripheral
country, trying to accomplish sustained economic development and other
policy goals that are inconsistent with those of a great-power and rising
regional hegemon. Yet, often deeds signal China’s desire to assert its lead-
ership position in the region and in the world.
This ostensible contradiction has prompted a number of world politics
experts to question whether this is a purposive, strategic ploy on the part
of China to confuse other international actors. Thus, the argument remains
that conclusions about China’s inevitable violent (or possibly peaceful)
rise and its apparent purposive, tactical contradistinction between words
and deeds for strategic gains are exceedingly superficial and simplistic.
the assumption that national interest always means security and survival of
the nation-state in question, in China’s case additionally, the national
interest is assumed to entail the preservation of its territorial boundaries
and integrity, recovering territory regarded as lost, gaining the interna-
tional acceptance and recognition as the only legitimate government to
represent China internationally, and improving its status on the world
scale (Teufel Dreyer 2012, p. 331).
To be clear, ‘internal coherence’ of any nation’s grand strategy is
defined here as ‘the manner in which different policies within a grand
strategy design support or undermine each other’ (Papasotiriou 1992,
p. v). In the case of grand strategy incoherence, the policy inputs, that is,
‘military strategy, economic policy, diplomacy, and legitimacy’ (Ibid., p. v)
will then undermine each other. In China’s case, its general grand strategy
of ‘Peaceful Development (or Rise)’ and ‘Keeping a Low Profile’ contra-
dicts the recently rising and bold assertiveness that it notably exhibits in
the East and South China Sea. Yan Xuetong argues that there was a grand
strategy shift from the previous grand strategy to one that he calls ‘Striving
for Achievement’ (2014). Others argue that China exhibits a grand strat-
egy along the lines of ‘Selective Leadership,’ alluding to the grand strategy
notion advanced by Robert J. Art as ‘Selective Engagement’ (Chen 2014;
Art 2009). Confucianism, which China has used historically as the official
state ideology, contradicts China’s current power politics, saber-rattling,
and muscle flexing in the region, as well as several other historical instances.
Similarly, ‘Peaceful Development’ contradicts the rising assertiveness of
China. What is going to be explained is the incoherence of China’s grand
strategy. This means that it operates on two assumptions: first, it is assumed
that China is not undergoing a change from one grand strategy to another4;
and second, China (as well as any other great or rising power) actually has
a grand strategy. In short, I accept the existence of a longitudinal Chinese
grand strategy.
By definition, grand strategy utilizes all tools of statecraft at the disposal
of the nation-state to reach strategic objectives in the military, diplomatic,
and economic realms. Accordingly, grand strategy incoherence is seen
when means are used to attain policy goals that are radically different from
those that have been enunciated by key national policy-makers and lead-
ers. In the military, diplomatic, and economic realms, strategic policy
refers to the rational use of military, diplomatic, and economic tools in
order to advance and protect a nation-state’s national security interest in
these three policy spheres.5
4 L. K. DANNER
compelled to conceal its capacities and bide its time and is convinced that
its time has come. This is what inspired the debate on China’s rising asser-
tiveness which in turn also influenced the present debate on the nature
and course of its grand strategy.
There are several different viewpoints about China’s grand strategy rep-
resented by different factions. First, some scholars believe that China
either has no grand strategy and is still in search of one, or is merely acting
pragmatically. Second, there is an argument that China does have a grand
strategy but it is a contradictory one. Third, some observers have argued
that it is not in China’s culture to have one coherent grand strategy but
rather to seek a middle way. And fourth, China may be shifting from
‘Peaceful Development’ to another grand strategy.
The first group of scholars think of China as either having no grand
strategy or that its grand strategy is to be pragmatic. These scholars are
grouped together since to ‘be pragmatic’ implies ad hoc adjustments and a
lack of consistency, which means there is no ‘grand strategy.’ Many policy
scholars believe that China is a pragmatic power practicing realpolitik.
Opposed to this would be most theoretical scholars who argue that every
great-power has a grand strategy—no matter if it is concealed or pro-
claimed, and no matter if it is contradictory or cohesive. Eric Hyer with his
recent published book The Pragmatic Dragon (2015) would be a repre-
sentative of this group.10
The second group believes that China does have a grand strategy but
that it is contradictory. Barry Buzan recently published ‘The Logic and
Contradictions of “Peaceful Rise/Development” as China’s Grand
Strategy,’ and Denny Roy equally aligned himself with this strand of the
debate in ‘China’s Grand Strategy Not Absent, Just Contradictory.’11 The
contradictions that they see are, for example, China claiming to engage in
foreign relations promoting international peace yet showing no hesitance
in utilizing hard power capabilities in territorial disputes while continu-
ously increasing its military budget.
The third strand of the debate emphasizes the distinctiveness of Chinese
culture. While Western powers may have one single grand strategy, China
has developed very differently in its long history and thus its worldview is
not the same. Qin Yaqing may be said to be the spearhead of this group
explaining such an argument in his recent ‘Continuity through Change:
Background Knowledge and China’s International Strategy.’12 Qin’s
approach highlights the cultural importance of China being inclined to
6 L. K. DANNER
using the ‘middle way’ between two strategies, always having a grand
strategy in flux.
The abovementioned ‘From Keeping a Low Profile to Striving for
Achievement’ by Yan Xuetong is an example for the fourth strand, arguing
that China should change, is in the process of changing, or has already
changed its grand strategy from ‘Peaceful Development’ to something
else.13 In Yan’s case, that is ‘Striving for Achievement,’ a more active inter-
national strategy. Wang Jianwei and Chen Dingding call for a lighter ver-
sion of this calling it ‘Selective Leadership,’ that is, a grand strategic
approach that is not quite as active as that suggested by Yan.14
Notes
1. See, for example, Pant (2011), Malik (2011), Huisken (2010), Fenby
(2008).
2. This is contrary to the belief of some realists that a theory of realism may
be applied through time and space, and without any regard for cultural
values, norms, or beliefs. See, for instance, Waltz (2010 [1979]), or
Mearsheimer (2003).
3. See Lebow (2009), pp. 43ff.
4. That is so, if one subscribes to the belief that China’s grand strategy is in
fact changing from one to another, as Yan Xuetong argues. I do not sub-
scribe to this.
5. While this definition is broad, the research design with the case studies are
going to select singular, most salient events of grand strategy manifesta-
tions which stay within this broad definition, however, representing nar-
row parts of it. In this way, the research becomes more feasible.
6. For the flexibility and definition of the concept of national interest, see
Rosenau (1968), Hill (2013), or Clinton (1994), among others. Since this
book subscribes to using the inherently realist concept of grand strategy, it
also subscribes to a realist understanding of national interest as universally
being security and survival of the nation-state. That does not mean that
grand strategy goals cannot be different from country to country.
8 L. K. DANNER
7. That is, if one subscribes to the belief that China’s grand strategy is in fact
changing from one to another, as Yan Xuetong argues. I do not subscribe
to the notion of a transformation of China’s grand strategy but, rather, to
the peculiarity of its basic incoherence.
8. See Papasotiriou (1992). For further reading on grand strategy, see, for
instance, Brands (2014), Dueck (2006), Freyberg-Inan et al. (2009),
Kapstein and Mastaduno (1999), Kay (2015), Layne (2009), Lobell
(2003), Lobell et al. (2009), Mahnken (2012), Taliaferro et al. (2013), or
Taylor (2010).
9. See Lebow (2009), pp. 43–164, and pp. 505–570.
10. See Hyer (2015).
11. See Buzan (2014) and Roy (2014).
12. See Qin (2014).
13. See Yan (2014).
14. See Wang and Chen (2012).
15. For more information on case study methodology, see Eckstein (1975),
George and Bennett (2005), Kohli et al. (1995), Lijphart (1971), or Van
Evera (1997).
References
Art, Robert J. “The Strategy of Selective Engagement.” In The Use of Force:
Military Power and International Politics, edited by Robert J. Art, and Kenneth
N. Waltz, 327–348. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009.
Brands, Hal. What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American grand
Strategy from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2014.
Buzan, Barry. “The Logic and Contradictions of ‘Peaceful Rise/Development’ as
China’s Grand Strategy.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7, no. 4
(Winter 2014): 381–420.
Chen, Dingding. “Selective Leadership: China’s New Grand Strategy.” Paper
Presented at the Fourth Global International Studies Conference of the World
International Studies Committee, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, August 6–9,
2014.
Clinton, W. David. The Two Faces of National Interest. New Orleans: Louisiana
State University Press, 1994.
Dueck, Colin. 2006. Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American
Grand Strategy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Eckstein, Harry. “Case Studies and Theory in Political Science.” In Handbook of
Political Science. Volume 7, edited by Fred Greenstein, and Nelson Polsby,
79–138. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975.
Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the
Present. New York: Ecco, 2008.
INTRODUCTION 9
My main argument is that honor is a main driver for China’s actions on the
global stage. There is no doubt that economic interest and the search for
wealth as well as security considerations also play an important role in
China’s foreign affairs, but turning one’s eyes to the cultural driver, honor,
may contribute to a better understanding of Chinese policy. My argument
is based on the fact that China is not a Western country and that the more
common analyses which focus on material facts, capabilities, and interests,
that is, related to economy of security, would yield incorrect and largely
Euro-centric explanations to something that should rather be explained
through ‘Chinese eyes’: on the basis of Chinese assumptions, culture, and
understandings of international politics—and not through the historical
experience of the Judeo-Christian civilization on which most of all theo-
ries of international relations are based upon.
I put forward the argument that honor is an important socio-cultural
factor that can enable one to explain and better understand an often-
ambivalent behavior exhibited by China. In this line of argument which
dates as early as Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War published
around 400 BCE, honor is an important socio-cultural driver which may
well lead to change in international relations (Thucydides 2009; Lebow
2009). Honor is a function of self-esteem (Lebow 2009, p. 64); self-
esteem, in turn, forms and influences identity. Honor feeds status, stand-
ing, and prestige (Ibid., pp. 64ff.). What is being challenged by the present
Insofar, in the following it will not be assumed that reason and emotion
are opposites but rather that there can be ‘emotion-driven’ rationality.
THE TRIBUTARY SYSTEM AND THE ‘CENTURY OF HUMILIATION’ 13
system as, inherent in the tributary system and its name, they would come
to the emperor and perform rites in recognition of the Chinese empire’s
dominance and geopolitical influence. The koutou is perhaps the most
well-known rite and metaphorically full of meaning, involved with such a
ceremonial visit of a tributary to China: the delegate of the foreign royal,
chief, or spiritual leader would have to kneel down to the ground and tip
it with his forehead three times. Practically, this rite showed the subjuga-
tion of the state or nomadic group whom the particular delegation
represented.
As the Chinese empire was obviously not a parliamentary monarchy but
more of a hereditary authoritarian-style, yet bureaucratically meritocratic
(and insofar said to be ‘modern’) monarchic state form, legitimacy for
imperial rule was achieved not with elections but with, for example, the
tributary system. International relations, albeit taking place on the inter-
national level, were therefore also critically important for domestic politics
in imperial China. The Chinese government sought prestige externally for
its own internal legitimization, that is, legitimizing its state ideology by
way of subtly imposing it on others, as well, and by having quasi-vassal
states show the prestige through tributary delegations to its own popula-
tion,6 for example, the relationship of Ming China to the Goryeo Korea
right after the ascendance of the Ming Dynasty in an effort to establish
legitimacy quickly (Shih 2012).
The fact that all these tributaries regarded the Chinese state ideology as
ingrained in the tributary system so highly and bowed before the emperor
gave the imperial family and administration prestige, recognition, and
reputation, which translated to legitimacy vis-à-vis its own population
domestically. Because of this, honor, and with it, prestige and reputation,
on the international level, is historically intrinsically important to domestic
rule in China.
Third, externally, China also gave status, prestige, reputation, and rec-
ognition to the tributaries through this system. For example, and most
significantly, they bestowed royal titles on the leaders of the tributaries
(Twitchett and Fairbank 1978, p. 237).
With requiring them, more or less, to adopt Confucian ideology in a
subtle way, the Chinese also gave their neighbors a powerful state ideology
at hand which they could use to legitimize their own rule at home and
hierarchically organize their societies. Here, legitimacy plays a role, as
well, not just for the tributaries which were of course thankful to use
Chinese state ideology in their own countries. The Chinese state ideology
THE TRIBUTARY SYSTEM AND THE ‘CENTURY OF HUMILIATION’ 15
was legitimized to them and their populations because the Chinese were
regarded as the most advanced civilization known to mankind in Asia, and
their prowess was proof that this system and ideology has led them to
achieve a great deal as the regional hegemon in Asia.7
This third argument on the relationship between legitimacy, honor, and
tributary relations can even be taken further. For China, legitimacy—both
internal and external—heavily relied on the tributary system. And even
though the tributary system institutionalized the hegemony of China over
much of East Asia, and put the other states in it under suzerainty, China
was actually—despite the fact that the distribution of capabilities were by
far in favor of China—acting quite sensibly with appreciating the ‘junior
partner’ states, Korea and Japan, as well as the Turkic nomads to its north
and west.8 Kang mistakenly reads from literature relying on Chinese
sources that ‘a key element of the tribute system was the explicitly unequal
nature of the relationship’ (Kang 2010, p. 57). This is so, because for
domestic purposes the Chinese used a ‘carefully chosen vocabulary (…) to
suggest Chinese superiority’ (Yun 1998, p. 2).9
But outside of the domestic Chinese arena this was perceived differ-
ently because the Chinese did not talk to their neighbors condescendingly;
for example, ‘the Mongol tribes often ‘thought of the tribute system as a
tribute paid to them’’ (Yun 1998, p. 3; partial quote from Serruys 1967,
p. 21). And at times, for instance, Korea saw the relationship with China
as being on an equal footing.10 So, even though China was aware of its
hegemonic status in East Asia, it did not abuse it excessively, and—for the
most part—merely employed it for legitimacy purposes, for example
through historiographical dynasty histories for internal legitimacy. But in
their position that the tributary system saw the Chinese in, there was some
leeway for great-power management11 as happened concerning the man-
agement of the relations between Korea and Japan: ‘the identical status
assigned to the rulers of Yi Korea and Ashikaga Japan under the Ming
tribute system seems to have facilitated the establishment of formal rela-
tions between the two neighbors on the basis of ‘equality’’ (Kim 1980,
p. 15; also quoted in Kang 2010, p. 60).
Thus, one can conclude, that the tributary system was not just impor-
tant in terms of saving the other’s face but also for political purposes, that
is, legitimacy.
16 L. K. DANNER
sovereignty relates mostly to internal legitimacy for China. Ever since the
(quasi-)colonial experience from the mid nineteenth century to the mid
twentieth century and beyond (given Hong Kong’s late return in 1997),
that is, the ‘Century of Humiliation,’ this sort of obsession with sover-
eignty has been ingrained into China’s collective memory.
colonization were for China, that is, the violation of China’s sovereignty
and territorial integrity. Nowadays we witness a China that has been, since
decades, obsessed with enforcing its territorial integrity very strictly. One
example is the fact that China will not engage in foreign relations with a
country that does not accept Tibet and Taiwan as inherent parts of China’s
territory. Also in its engagement with other nations, China holds the non-
interference into internal affairs very dearly and does not accept others to
interfere in its own internal affairs in turn, either. In short, the history
behind the ‘Century of Humiliation’ (and the victim mentality which was
created from it) ‘helps to explain why the Chinese are obsessed with issues
regarding sovereignty, national unification, and territorial integrity’ (Zhu
2013, p. 119f.).
In all this, it is inherently implied that by the term and concept of the
‘Century of Humiliation,’ China has had to endure a fatal blow to its sta-
tus as the regional hegemon in Asia. Along with the loss of status, it lost
reputation, recognition, and prestige of course. The ‘Century of
Humiliation’ was an attack on China’s honor, especially concerning the
honor it was able to project with its prestige and status internationally.
This was clearly missing after China was forced to open up, become part
of the existing Western-based international society, and the ensuing demise
of the tributary relations China had used as a basis to gaining prestige
since centuries. All of the sudden, China saw itself humiliated and without
an ‘outlet’ for its international relations in terms of honor, which, as dis-
cussed above, is inherently connected to legitimacy—externally and
internally—throughout China’s history. China found itself in a honor
vacuum, thus legitimacy vacuum and, overall identity crisis, if one will.
Summary
Based on the example of the ADIZ elaborated on above, it is possible to
argue that China is a perfectly rational actor in the international system by
all (Western or Eastern) standards of measurement, that is, mostly acting
with economic interest and security in mind. However, in certain circum-
stances, honor—mostly for internal legitimacy purposes—influences China
to leave the course of ratio and enter into unreasonable clime, or at least
follow an ‘emotion-driven’ rationality. The aforementioned features of
China’s behavior toward foreign powers are critical in relation to honor
driving international relations of China vis-à-vis internal legitimacy. In the
end, this explains why sometimes China diverges from its grand strategy,
22 L. K. DANNER
and why most of the time it does not. The example of the AIIB can be
seen as a perfectly good example of China sticking to its grand strategy of
‘Peaceful Development’ and one in which the cultural driver of honor
relates to external legitimacy, that is, China gaining prestige and recogni-
tion from the international community of states by joining its develop-
ment project as founding members—especially traditional US allies, such
as Western European nations, South Korea, or Australia.
As argued above, the cultural driver of honor explains this grand strat-
egy incoherence. Whether one calls this a variable or a constant is up for
argumentation. Most scholars would argue that culture is a constant rather
than a variable, since it is highly resistant to change or changes only slowly.
Assuming that it is honor which is of critical importance in explaining
China’s grand strategy design incoherence, then it is not too far-fetched to
say that it can be considered an intermediate variable, since there are situ-
ations in which China—predictably—diverges from its grand strategic
course and acts in a way that can be perceived by other nations as irrational
(in the utility-maximizing sense) by others. It can certainly be argued, too,
that since the humiliation trauma has been ingrained in China’s culture, it
is part of the constant, and, therefore, when China predictably diverges
from its grand strategy, it is only natural that it would do so because it is
in its identity. This means China will constantly diverge from its grand
strategy in certain situations, that is, not all the time. But since this trauma
is underlying in China’s international policies, and only triggered some-
times, when honor and grand strategy do not fit certain conditions (espe-
cially when its territorial integrity may be endangered), it may be valid to
still consider it a constant rather than variable.
Notes
1. In this respect, I will assume that emotions are ‘collectivized’ and that
through identity-based structures and culture, emotions are intersubjec-
tively shared. These, in turn, are translated into the state and/or the
decision-making structures of the state.
2. See, for example, Ding and Xu (2015).
3. See, for example, Kang (2010) or Kang (2003).
4. See, for example, Chun (1968).
5. The capital was never a constant in Chinese history. What concerns the
capital in the last five dynasties, the last imperial capital was Beiping, today’s
Beijing, during Qing dynasty under Manchu rule. In the Yuan Dynasty
THE TRIBUTARY SYSTEM AND THE ‘CENTURY OF HUMILIATION’ 23
trauma or condition could also equally refer to that but there may or may
not be some situational element, and they have a slightly derogatory ring
to them, especially trauma. Hence, I chose complex in reference to the
‘Century of Humiliation’s’ influence on China’s state behavior.
13. For an in-depth account of legitimation in imperial China, see Chan
(1984).
14. Besides this term, this period is sometimes referred to as ‘Century of
National Humiliation,’ or ‘(One) Hundred Years of (National)
Humiliation,’ too. See, for example, Wang (2012).
15. For more information about how China’s victim mentality came into exis-
tence and was molded by its leadership, see, for example, Callahan (2004),
Gries et al. (2009), He (2007), Wang (2008, 2012).
16. For more information on how politics shaped this process, see, for exam-
ple, Wang (2016).
17. Especially what concerns Japan, some Chinese leaders have had favorable—
or at least not antagonistic—views of Japan during some time periods. At
times, Japan was seen as an East Asian fraternal nation with which China
should cooperate. Sun Yat-sen held this view, but also Mao Zedong ini-
tially. Still, nowadays the relationship with Japan is mostly antagonistic,
particularly what concerns politics and societal relations.
References
Bull, Hedley. Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. 4th Edition.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Callahan, William A. “National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation, and Chinese
Nationalism.” Alternatives 29 (2004): 199–218.
Chan, Hok-lam. Legitimation in Imperial China: Discussions Under the Jurchen-
Jin Dynasty (1115–1234). Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984.
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Development.” Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of
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Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations, edited by John
K. Fairbank, 90–111. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
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Dynasty’s perception and utilization on the tribute system].”
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Ding, Min, and Xu Jie. The Chinese Way. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015.
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Beliefs and the Perception of Threat in Northeast Asia: Colonialism, the
THE TRIBUTARY SYSTEM AND THE ‘CENTURY OF HUMILIATION’ 25
the calculated relationship of means to large ends. It’s about how one uses
whatever one has to get to wherever it is one wants to go. Our knowledge
of [grand strategy] derives chiefly from the realm of war and statecraft
because the fighting of wars and the management of states have demanded
the calculation of relationships between means and ends (…). But grand
strategy need not apply only to war and statecraft: it’s potentially applicable
to any endeavor in which means must be deployed in the pursuit of impor-
tant ends. (Gaddis 2009)
important geopolitical effects[:] First, as [China gains] relative power, [it is]
more likely to attempt to advance [its] standing in the international system.
Second, [its] growing power fuels [its] geopolitical ambitions, and, as [it]
seek[s] control over the external environment through expansion, [its]
external interests and commitments expand and begin to collide with those
of other great powers. (2009, p. 115)
To apply grand strategy to the Chinese case, therefore, seems quite fit-
ting because ‘Chinese strategic doctrine tends to draw on a cultural-
historical experience that emphasizes patience and thinking in terms of
decades, not months or years’ (Kay 2015, p. 111; italics added), which
goes hand in hand with Lobell’s assertion regarding the long-term nature
of grand strategy. China has historically been a regional hegemon and
great-power, and arguably has now reacquired such a status, or at least is
in the process of doing so.
Grand strategy is a strategic concept that applies above all to great-
powers and hegemons, simply because smaller powers do not have the
combined capabilities to influence world order according to their wishes.
CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT GRAND STRATEGY 31
power politics on the part of China against the United States, Japan,
Vietnam, the Philippines, and India. Some elements of economic policy
will, therefore, have been in line with PD, but there are other elements
that undermine this grand strategy. Any sort of power political economic
policy, like that of artificial currency undervaluation as China practices it,
would therefore undermine its proclaimed grand strategy, even while serv-
ing the national interest in some way. The same trend is evident in the
other two policy inputs of diplomacy and military strategy.
From this doctrine it becomes clear that China has so-called anti-
hegemonism as one of its main themes of foreign policy. At least until
China became strong (which it was not yet during Deng’s tenure), its
capabilities and strengths were to be hidden. Conversely, this means Deng
intended for its weaknesses not to be hidden; this is something we still find
prominent today, as China keeps insisting that it is still in fact a developing
nation and not yet a developed country (DC). Internationally, Deng saw
China as keeping a low profile so as to not distract from domestic eco-
nomic development. The centrality of the security and survival of China as
a nation-state is shown by the second sentence in this doctrine. Finally,
Deng saw China as being a rational actor, as exemplified by the first and
third sentence in the doctrine.
CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT GRAND STRATEGY 33
Deng’s foreign policy doctrine then was taken as a basis for PD, which
was at first called ‘Peaceful Rise’ but was changed because it was perceived
as threatening by some nations and media outlets. Jiang Zemin continued
in this tradition. Zheng Bijian further developed this doctrine and coined
the policy of ‘Peaceful Rise’ (和平崛起 heping jueqi) and popularized it in
the West in a Foreign Affairs article in 2005. This was mainly a move by
the then policy advisor to President Hu Jintao to counter the growing
fears over China emerging as a great-power, especially on the part of the
adjacent nation-states in what China calls the first and second ring.
Generally, China’s unmanaged rise has caused conflict, just like the unman-
aged fall.3 As Roy explains, ‘China is probably more sensitive to this phe-
nomenon than any other rising power in history’ (Roy 2013, p. 153). The
comparison of China with Germany as a rising power is one of the most
frequently used.4 The word rise seems to have been an issue with some of
China’s neighbors, as it was indeed perceived as slightly threatening.5
Therefore, the name of the grand strategy was changed to PD (和平发展
heping fazhan).6
It is clear that while Deng’s foreign policy doctrine served as the main
basis for the current PD in the beginning, not all of its four-letter combi-
nations can still be said to be followed completely. For example, keeping a
low profile and hiding one’s strengths cannot be said to be strictly fol-
lowed anymore, in a time where China throws around its weight in claim-
ing territory in the East China Sea (ECS) and South China Sea (SCS),
builds up a blue-water navy, or hosts the Olympics. There is also evidence
that China does attempt to exert its power; for example, concerning lead-
ership of the Global South.7
After having first published a white paper on ‘China’s Peaceful
Development Road’ (中国和平发展道路 zhongguo heping fazhan daolu)
in 2005, a follow-up policy report was issued in 2011 entitled ‘China’s
Peaceful Development.’8 The key foreign policies of the latter were as
follows:
In fact, only the second of what Zheng calls grand strategies or tran-
scendences can be called a grand strategy, according to the traditional defi-
nition as utilized in this analysis. The first and third strategies are more
domestically relevant policies and may fall under those points that Buzan
relates to China’s regime security (maintaining CCP rule, high economic
growth, social stability).
Judging by a triangulation of sources (and secondary literature) of the
2011 white paper on PD, Zheng’s Foreign Affairs article, and Buzan’s
recent article in the Chinese Journal of International Politics, the following
components of PD shall be discarded as lessor only indirectly relevant in
an international context for the purpose of this book’s analysis:
–– ‘Maintaining the exclusive rule of the communist party;
–– Maintaining high economic growth’ (Buzan 2014, p. 101) (‘tran-
scend the old model of industrialization’ (Zheng 2005, p. 22))
–– ‘Maintaining the stability of Chinese society’ (Buzan 2014, p. 101)
(‘transcend outdated modes of social control’ [Zheng 2005, p. 22])
Conversely, these internationally relevant components of PD shall be
used to analyze whether China diverged from it:
CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT GRAND STRATEGY 37
In the same article, Gray also emphasizes that historical memory may
play a very important role in the making of grand strategy:
In the same vein, Ken Booth elaborates more upon the relationship
between strategy and culture, saying that
one’s cultural heredity can prevent an individual or group from seeing (or
seeing as acceptable) certain options which might nevertheless be rational in
an objective sense. The kamikaze pilot is a good example. (…) Secondly,
culture is important because it shapes the ends which create the problem to
which rational thinking has to be addressed. If an outsider cannot under-
stand or sympathise with the reasonableness of particular ends, he may not
appreciate the rationality of the means. (Booth 1979, p. 64)
CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT GRAND STRATEGY 39
Similarly, Booth agrees with the argument here that legitimacy plays a
preeminent role and is defined in conjunction with culture. Legitimacy is
a concept ‘which is both subjective and contextual’ (Booth 1979, p. 68).
Fear and the attendant search for security (and survival) will be mainly
associated with the grand strategy design component of military strategy.
Honor and the attendant search for prestige, status, and recognition will
be mainly associated with the grand strategy design components of diplo-
macy and legitimacy. Also, (economic) interest and the attendant search
for wealth is inherently connected to the grand strategy design component
of economic policy. That is not to say that the same cultural drive cannot
interfere with non-associated policy inputs of grand strategy design. To
find out to what extent this happens or not will also be part of the analysis
of this case, as well as how this could contribute to the internal incoher-
ence of China’s grand strategy design.
As explained above, honor and its manifestations occupy an important
place in China’s international politics, which can in many ways be said to
exceed the importance attributed to fear or economic interest. The latter
two cultural drives and their respective outcomes of security and wealth
should rather be seen as a result of having attained prestige, status, and
recognition. They will, however, help to reinforce honor and the attain-
ment of prestige in the end.
Preliminarily, the problem with the Chinese grand strategy case seems
to be that the Chinese government has attached its legitimacy to eco-
nomic growth and success without any moral component, which is some-
thing Yan Xuetong has recently criticized, calling for a ‘humane authority’
in China (Yan 2011). Similar to wealth, China is gaining in military
power, modernizing its military, acquiring aircraft carriers, building a
blue-water navy, and aiming to achieve parity with the United States and
Russia in nuclear weapons. This inspires fear rather than reverence in the
surrounding nations, and even in the global community. Again, the above
translation of prestige into Chinese as literally meaning awe- or fear-
inspiring shows the absolute importance of honor, prestige, status, and
recognition.
Very similar to the noble family that acquired ‘te’ by financing the poor
and needy in Van Ess’ example for gaining prestige, China can be accused
of the same strategy in terms of its acting as a spearhead of the developing
world (the Third World) through foreign aid against the current global
hegemon, the United States. This leads to internal as well as external legit-
imacy or recognition through the developing nations, elevating the
40 L. K. DANNER
external status and recognition for China, as well as legitimizing the ruling
party’s governing mandate at home, as manifested by rising nationalism.
As far as China’s relations and grand strategy regarding the great-powers
(United States, European Union [EU], Russia, Japan, India), it might be
the case that China does not see a way other than arousing fear in its
equals, the other and still higher-ranking great-powers, and therefore
enhancing its prestige through being feared by them.
Following the above analysis of the driving cultural forces in China’s
experience, honor and its search for prestige, status, and recognition
should be considered the most important cultural motivation behind
China’s international relations. This is historically connected to China’s
internal and external legitimacy, which only goes to reinforce its impor-
tance. Material factors, such as military and economic capabilities, as one
would respectively associate with the motives of fear and interest, are to be
considered less important.
The following analysis of the six most salient case studies of China’s
behavior on the regional and international stage since 2009 will be evalu-
ated with respect to motives and catering toward the national interest and
proclaimed grand strategy. Close attention will be paid to analyzing the
validity of the hypotheses that it is the driver of honor and to increase
prestige, status, and recognition, which eventually leads to the internal
incoherence of Chinese grand strategy design, as suspected.
But, as shown above, this also leads back to honor and the search for
prestige. On the one hand, in Chinese ancient culture it was regarded as
honorable to show that one was able to acquire wealth. On the other
hand, it is certain that the military deterrence of China mattered, since the
Chinese empire was an unmatchable adversary compared to many of its
adjacent neighbors in terms of size of territory, population, advancement
of civilization, or economic output. Having a centralized state apparatus
and hereditary monarchy, along with the mostly Confucian (and some
Legalist) state ideology, honor and prestige mattered greatly as a way to
legitimize rule. Additionally, economic interest with wealth and fear with
security certainly were two very important pillars contributing to this
attainment of honor and prestige. In a system where there was no other
legitimation, especially for the initial setup of a particular dynasty, this was
crucial.
The theoretical argument aims to establish that honor played a big role
not only in China’s diplomatic history in the past but also now in its cur-
rent affairs. There are clear signs of this in recent decades, such as the
publication of an important policy advisor, Zheng Bijian, indicating that
China sought great-power status in 2005; China’s soft power initiative
spearheaded by the creation of Confucius Institutes; how China presented
itself during the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing in August 2008;
the rising assertiveness on China’s part as a suggested consequence of
changing perceptions of its rising versus a declining American superpower
in the light of the global financial crisis which started in the developed
countries, most prominently the United States; China’s introduction of an
aircraft carrier fleet to build up a blue-water navy; its space program; its
ever-rising military budget and military modernization as a whole; and,
most recently, the Chinese proposal and eventual founding of the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank. At first glance, it may not be too far-
fetched to posit that some of these endeavors of the Chinese government
were not undertaken solely to increase its GDP on the wealth side, or
increase its security on the fear side. All of these examples have in common
that they are aimed to increase China’s prestige, reputation, recognition,
and status.
However, in China’s foreign affairs, honor’s relation to legitimacy
needs to be divided into internal and external legitimacy. One could easily
fall prey to the misperception that foreign affairs are only related to exter-
nal legitimacy; that is, China’s reputation, recognition, and status as per-
ceived by the international community. However, China currently is still a
42 L. K. DANNER
Peaceful Assertive
Honor
(Prestige, Reputation, Status, Recognition)
Legitimacy
External ~ Internal ~
Peaceful Assertive
Peaceful Development
Notes
1. Defensive and offensive realists see the international system as anarchic.
They focus on states that they see as unitary, monolithic actors. This is dif-
ferent from liberal International Relations scholars who see the state as
permeable, meaning that interest groups within a state as well as organiza-
tional processes are of relevance to them. Realists tend to see the national
interest of a state rather than multiple interests of different groups within
it. For realists, the national interest can usually be defined as survival and
46 L. K. DANNER
security of the state for defensive realists, and power maximization for the
sake of security for offensive realists. Realists see their grand theory of
international relations as universally applicable through time and space,
with no need to take culture, values, or the like into account. This may also
be due to the theoretical parsimony of realism, that is, the striving for as
few variables as possible to explain or predict something.
2. This is part of a paper presented at the 56th Annual Meeting
of the International Studies Association in New Orleans, February 18–21,
2015.
3. World War I, for example, may be said to have been partly caused by the
rising German power and the falling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The
rising Japanese Empire may be said to have caused conflict during the
First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars, and Germany during World War
II in Europe. For a good account of this phenomenon, see, for example,
Kliman (2014).
4. Well-meaning analysts usually call China a ‘Neo-Bismarckian giant’; that is,
a great-power that engages its neighborhood, reassuring it of peaceful
intentions—much like that practiced by the Prussian (and later Imperial
German) Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the latter third of the nine-
teenth century. A few analysts see China going in the direction of Germany
under Wilhelm II, though.
5. See, for instance, Roy (2013).
6. For a good summary of the course of the course of ‘Peaceful Rise’ rhetoric
of the last few years, see Luttwak (2012), pp. 273–276.
7. See, for example, Pu (2012). For background on this debate, see Kawashima
(2011).
8. See China (2005) and China (2011).
9. See, for instance, Christensen (1996), Layne (2009), or Ye (2011).
10. See Christensen (1996).
11. See Ye (2011).
12. See Layne (2009).
13. See, for instance, Pu (2012), or Richardson (2012).
14. See, for instance, Shih and Huang (2015).
15. As explained above, the drives of habit and reason will be omitted from this
analysis, as habit is not emphasized very much anyway by Lebow, and rea-
son is a Eurocentric cultural drive that does not really apply to China’s
case.
16. See, for example, Booth (1979), or Johnston (1998).
CHINA’S PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT GRAND STRATEGY 47
References
Beach, Derek, and Rasmus Brun Pedersen. Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations
and Guidelines. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013.
Booth, Ken. Strategy and Ethnocentrism. London: Croom Helm, 1979.
Buzan, Barry. “The Logic and Contradictions of ‘Peaceful Rise/Development’ as
China’s Grand Strategy.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7, no. 4
(Winter 2014): 381–420.
China, State Council of the People’s Republic of. 2011. “China’s Peaceful
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of China (September 6). http://in.chineseembassy.org/eng/zt/peaceful/
t855717.htm. Accessed on December 1, 2015.
China, State Council of the People’s Republic of. 2005. “China’s Peaceful
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public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN023152.pdf. Accessed on November
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Grand Strategy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
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Sixiang Yanjiu. Beijing: Lantian Chubanshe, 1998.
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Affairs 89, no. 5 (2013): 1285–1295.
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Johnston, Alastair Iain. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in
Chinese History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Kawashima, Shin. “The Development of the Debate Over ‘Hiding One’s Talents
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(2011): 14–36.
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Search for Peace. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
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48 L. K. DANNER
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84, no. 5 (September/October 2005): 18-24.
CHAPTER 4
China’s diplomacy during the given time frame (2009–2017) has been
involved in many incidents that could be used for analysis. The chosen
case pertaining to the diplomatic policy in China’s grand strategy design
and its internal legitimacy is one of the most salient and memorable in the
time frame. In this case, China has made an exception to the otherwise
‘golden rule’ of sovereignty in the case of Russia’s annexation of the
Crimean Peninsula, as well as the support for secessionists in eastern
Ukraine. It came as a surprise to many that China did not take Ukraine’s
side, since Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity by annexing
Crimea and sending troops (disguised as vacationing soldiers traveling pri-
vately) to eastern Ukraine. Also, the chosen case in relation to China’s
external legitimacy is the massive diplomatic initiative engaging with
Eurasia called One Belt, One Road (OBOR). Naturally, since this initiative
is directed outward, it is mostly relevant to external legitimacy. However,
it has a dimension of relevance to internal legitimacy, insofar as it can be
understood as an economic stimulus for the Chinese economy and insofar
as receiving external legitimacy benefits China internally (as noted in the
preceding chapter [Chap. 3] on China’s historic tributary relations with its
neighbors). Another case that was chosen based on mixed legitimacy is
that of China’s engagement with the Arctic Council (AC) and the even-
tual approval of its permanent observer status therein. Internal legitimacy
in this case is visible in the economic importance of the Arctic Sea and the
potential resources it houses, as well as the prestige associated with a pres-
ence there—far away from China itself; external legitimacy could be found
Course of Events
As explained earlier, China has a long tradition of taking the side of coun-
tries that have been the victims of sovereignty infringement, especially
with regard to the non-interference in internal affairs and the territorial
integrity of any country. Sean Kay writes on China’s history concerning
this kind of behavior:
Thus, China taking Russia’s side in the Ukraine Crisis came as quite a
shock to many observers of China’s international behavior over the last
several years, particularly in light of China’s emphasis on territorial
sovereignty in its own grand strategy. China’s behavior makes a balance-
of-power kind of impression, in which the West and East confront each
other again as adversaries, just as they did during the Cold War. Moreover,
a Sino-Russian deal to which both parties agreed during a May 2014 visit,
in which China secured large quantities of oil and gas from Russia in addi-
tion to other areas of economic cooperation, could give the impression
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 55
that China received a pay-off for taking Russia’s side, ultimately taking
advantage of economic sanctions imposed on Russia in the aftermath of its
annexation of Crimea. This impression was prevalent at least the first cou-
ple of months after the crisis; a few months later, there came news of
China investing heavily in Ukraine and ‘Kyiv [increasing] its agricultural
trade with Beijing by more than 50 percent’ (Sieren 2015).
We hope relevant parties will exercise restraints and make efforts to ease the
situation rather than further escalate it. The relevant conflicts must be
resolved through diplomatic means on the basis of taking into account the
interests of all parties. We advocate the establishment of the mechanism of
international contacts to seek a political solution under the framework of law
and order. (…)
Respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each country is an
important principle that the Chinese diplomatic policy has been constantly
upholding, which will not change (China 2014).
The effects of U.S. policy have been all too apparent as Russian-Chinese
cooperation has accelerated rapidly since March 2014. With regard to over-
all political relations, during his state visit to Shanghai in May, Putin gushed
that bilateral interactions had become the ‘best in all their many centuries of
history.’ Striking also was the Russian president’s frequent use of the term
‘alliance,’ albeit not with reference to military ties. In addition to this posi-
tive rhetoric, it was during the May trip that Russia and China finally signed
their mammoth 30-year, $400 billion gas deal. After more than ten years of
inconclusive negotiations, it seems that Western sanctions helped break the
impasse by pushing Russia to accept China’s price terms (Brown 2015).
that the nature and root cause of [the] Ukraine crisis was the game between
Russia and western powers, including the United States and the European
Union. ‘There were internal and external reasons for the Ukraine crisis.
Originally, the issue stemmed from Ukraine’s internal problems, but it now
was not a simple internal matter. Without external intervention from differ-
ent powers, the Ukrainian problem would not develop into the serious crisis
as it be (sic!) [.]’ (…) On the one hand, China and Ukraine are traditional
friendly countries. China has always pursued the principles of non-
interference, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. And
on the other hand, China acknowledges that the issue involved complicated
historical elements (Sun 2015).
Part of the ‘Century of Humiliation’ is the fact that China does have a
long-term goal of recovering territories that it considers to have previously
been parts of China. These territories include India’s Arunachal Pradesh
(what China calls ‘South Tibet’) the now-Russian parts of the Manchurian
northeast, today’s Republic of Mongolia (what China calls ‘Outer
Mongolia’), the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands (or ‘Diaoyu’ Islands
in Chinese), and—perhaps the most comprehensible claim—Taiwan.
Naturally, the ‘Chinese-ness’ of these territories and islands is a matter of
debate. Even Taiwan—seemingly the clearest case of cultural and histori-
cal closeness to China—has had a history of separation from the mainland
and colonization by other powers, such as the Netherlands and Japan. To
argue that Arunachal Pradesh (‘South Tibet’) rightfully belongs to China
because it was once under Tibetan influence is even more far-fetched, to
say nothing of the question of whether the northern part of Tibet should
be an inherent part of China in the first place.
That China should suddenly show overt support to a big power (Russia)
against a relatively weak one (Ukraine) in annexing a peninsula (Crimea)
with strong historical and cultural influence from the nearby annexing
aggressor does give a sense of China readying itself to become one such
aggressor, with Taiwan first in line for annexation. China’s ‘problem’
regarding these lost territories is the fact that the ‘Century of Humiliation’
left China weak and left its former territories in the hands of major powers
(Russia, India, Japan) or at least with guarantees of protection from major
powers (Russia, United States).
How, then, can we explain China’s long-lasting preoccupation with
non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs? China was—and still
is—a country that is clearly more on the pluralism side (putting a premium
on state sovereignty) than the solidarism side (putting a premium on
transnational convergence such as human rights) of an international soci-
ety spectrum. As such a pluralist state, it is natural for China to emphasize
and jealously protect its sovereignty, particularly in light of its own experi-
ence of relinquishing some of that sovereignty to infringing great powers
(e.g., granting Hong Kong as a British colony).
Furthermore, China has historically been more used to being the
aggressor (i.e., infringing on others’ sovereignty, such as by claiming
suzerainty over adjacent states via its tributary system). Given its paradoxi-
cal development during the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, it
was left with little choice but to defend its own borders in the weak posi-
tion it held following the Japanese occupation of World War II and the
58 L. K. DANNER
Table 4.1 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of the legal non-
persistence on the norm of territorial integrity in the case of the Crimean annexa-
tion and Russia-backed encroachments in eastern Ukraine
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
Defense of territorial integrity Divergence
(not objecting to Russia’s intervention into Ukraine
contradicts China’s own standpoint)
Increase of national power Convergence
(no direct effect on China, but energy deal with Russia,
and more FDI into Ukraine)
Anti-hegemonism Convergence
(siding with Russia versus the West)
Maintenance of favorable Convergence and Divergence
economic markets (Convergence: China and Russia’s deal; divergence:
antiquated East-West thinking may translate negatively
to economic relations)
International responsibility Divergence
(China sided, at least at first, with the aggressor side of
this conflict; neutral in UN)
Avoidance of ‘China threat’ Divergence
misperception (threat perception by others increased because of
alignment with the Russian aggressor)
Improving China’s Divergence
international reputation (no improvement in China’s reputation, rather damage
because of contradicting itself)
Moreover, the deal switched the roles of the two countries compared to
post-World War II, when China was inferior to the Soviet Union, to a situ-
ation in which China is far superior, at least economically, to Russia.
Anti-hegemonism, or balance-of-power theory, would prescribe that
one should side with the weaker side in a conflict. By siding with Russia
versus the unified West (i.e., the European Union and the United States),
China did follow this principle. However, China’s action as interpreted as
going against the United States would already meet the conditions of con-
verging with anti-hegemonism, but it is more than clear that China con-
verged here. Also, in this case, since Ukraine is thousands of miles away
from China’s borders and can be said to be even on a different continent
entirely, it would be hard to accuse China of having hegemonic ambitions
in that sphere.6
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 61
Alternative Explanations
It is possible to argue that China is engaging in raw-power politics without
any attached values and opted to take Russia’s side in this case despite its
rather consistent stance on the issue of non-interference. We have seen
China increasingly augment the international market on energy resources
in the last few years, acting in a neomercantilist fashion. The Russian
energy deal combined with the later heavy investments in Ukraine paint an
equally ‘beggar thy neighbor’ picture, which can be described as selfish or,
according to Luttwak, ‘autistic.’8 As such, the premium would be on
‘interest’ in this case. Nevertheless, this may be an all-too-Eurocentric way
of arguing.
It is also possible to conceive this step in the political arena by China as
having been brought on by the Sino-Russian agreement that was released
only days after China taking Russia’s side. A similar agreement between
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 63
Mao and Stalin in the early 1950s placed China, having just overcome
years of Japanese occupation and the ensuing civil war, as junior partner to
Russia (i.e., seeking Russia’s help). This time, China took advantage of
Russia’s suffering under a Western embargo and, in general, its depen-
dence on the export of natural resources. In effect, China has now become
the senior partner. The premium in such an explanation would be placed
on ‘economic interest.’ Even so, the satisfaction of looking down on
Russia in this situation comes after centuries of competition because of
border disputes and Russian interest in Manchuria. In this respect, from
China’s perspective, Russia is not really different than the Western powers
or Japan, and ‘honor’ may play a role even in this explanation.
Finally, it is possible to speculate that China may be preparing itself to
annex territories that it historically considers as its own parts. We have
seen such attempts in the ECS and SCS, and it could be possible for them
to happen on land as well. For the most part, these territories are in
today’s North India, the Russian Far East, and the Mongolian Republic,
although Taiwan would be the first step before anything else could be
considered for annexation. The Russian argument for including Crimea
into its federation was related not only to the ethnicity of the local popu-
lation but also to historical claim. The Russian Far East and Taiwan
would best fit such an argument, if China considered doing the same. For
North India and Mongolia, China could only claim to act on behalf of
two of its many minorities, the Tibetans and Mongolians, in addition to
historical claims and the ‘belonging-together’ of North Tibet and South
Tibet and of Inner and Outer Mongolia. If we subscribe to this specula-
tion, we can reason that this now-inconsistent behavior may or may not
become more consistent and be followed by greater Chinese assertiveness
in the future.
Summary
China’s inconsistent behavior in the Ukraine Crisis mostly pertained to
internal legitimacy. The biggest surprise to the international community
was that China, for the first time, did not stick to its ‘golden rule’ of non-
interference in internal affairs, that is, putting sovereignty and territorial
integrity on a pedestal. Standing up to the ‘West,’ and the United States
in particular, is certainly according to the will of many hypernationalists
within China, whether it is for the right reasons or not. Internally, securing
an energy supply from Russia can certainly be said to be rational behavior
64 L. K. DANNER
Course of Events
The AC was established in 1996 by those states that possess territory
above the Arctic Circle, the so-called Arctic Eight, that is, Denmark (for
its autonomous constituent country Greenland), Iceland, Norway,
Sweden, Finland, Russia, Canada, and the United States. Prior to this,
these states were only loosely cooperating as signatories of a 1991 treaty,
the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy. The establishment in 1996
was marked by the signing of the Declaration on the Establishment of the
Arctic Council, often referred to as the Ottawa Declaration, where it was
signed on September 19, 1996. It specified the member-states as the eight
Arctic nations and a number of non-state organizations representing
indigenous peoples, such as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. More
importantly for China, it stated that ‘[o]bserver status in the Arctic
Council is open to: (a) non-Arctic states; (b) inter-governmental and
66 L. K. DANNER
to five years (the second interval probably lengthened out in order to have
the icebreaker be in the Arctic during the Olympic Summer Games in
Beijing), then in steady intervals of two years. Prior to the engagement
with the AC, China had also set up an Arctic research station, the Yellow
River Station, in July 2004 in Ny-Ålesund on Norway’s Svalbard (previ-
ously known as Spitsbergen) archipelago (Administration 2017b).
In July 2010, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a speech
entitled ‘China’s View on Arctic Cooperation’ (China 2010). In it, the
Chinese government takes stock of the current state of engagement with
the Arctic region but also the AC and its constituent members:
China is now an ad hoc observer to the Arctic Council, and is applying for
the observer status of the Council. China has Arctic scientific cooperation
and governmental dialogue with Norway, and relevant cooperation with
Canada and United States. China has Arctic scientific cooperation with
Russia, but no governmental dialogue yet. China is looking forward to
enhance cooperation with relevant parties, in particular Arctic States (China
2010).
the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo stalled the pro-
cess, since the Nobel Peace Prize is celebrated annually in Norway’s capi-
tal, Oslo. China decided to sever relations with Norway as a result of this
award decision for about seven years until relations were normalized
again in December 2016, and it was decided that negotiations for the
FTA would resume in mid-2017 (China 2017b).11 China’s engagement
with Iceland also brought about a Sino-Icelandic Arctic research facility
near Akureyri, construction of which began in 2016, and the opening of
a Confucius Institute in 2008 (Hanban 2017; Hafstað 2016). These are
but a few examples of how China tried to court the Arctic Eight—
another being the improvement of Sino-Russian relations amid the
Ukraine Crisis of 2013 which has been discussed above which may or
may not have eased known Russian concerns of China’s accession to
permanent observer status.
In 2013, China’s request for permanent observer status was finally
accepted during the biannual meeting in Kiruna under the chairmanship
of Sweden—perhaps partially due to these immense diplomatic courtship
efforts. As during the 2011 biannual AC meeting in Nuuk, Greenland,
there had been no final decision, and rather than denying permanent
observer applications, the AC made the rather elegant decision to, instead,
completely overhaul the rules and regulations for observer states (and
governmental and non-governmental organizations) and unify the appli-
cations. Interestingly, the AC had given the permanent observer status not
just to China at the time of the 2013 Kiruna meeting, but also to Italy,
Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore at the same time.
From the long stalling process and the fact that others also were given the
same status, it could be assumed that the AC were concerned with the
weight that China would bring to the table—considering its military and
economic might.12
In early 2017—a couple of years after the OBOR diplomatic initiative
had been pitched by President Xi—talk started that China may possibly be
adding the Arctic sea route in addition to the existing maritime Silk Road
to Europe via the Malacca Strait, Indian Ocean, and Suez Canal, and the
one added to New Zealand/Oceania along the Pacific shoreline. Li
Xiguang of Tsinghua University was being quoted by the South China
Morning Post as having said that ‘Beijing’s strategy does not stop at belt
and road. (…) The full name of the strategy will be ‘One Belt, One Road,
One Circle,’ and the circle refers to the Arctic Circle’ (Huang 2017). And
indeed, China issued a statement entitled ‘Vision for Maritime Cooperation
70 L. K. DANNER
under the Belt and Road Initiative’ on June 20, 2017, which mentioned
several important policy objectives in regard to the Arctic, as well as the
plan to include ‘[a]nother blue economic passage (…) envisioned [to
lead] up to Europe via the Arctic Ocean’ (Xinhua 2017b). Next to the
well-known pillars of China’s Arctic strategy, the participation in the AC
was also re-affirmed: ‘China will actively participate in the events orga-
nized by Arctic-related international organizations’ (Xinhua 2017c) under
the statement’s ‘IV. Cooperation Priorities, (…) 4.2 Ocean-based pros-
perity’ (Xinhua 2017c). During President Xi Jinping’s visit of Moscow (on
the way to the G-20 meeting in Hamburg) on July 4, 2017, China agreed
with Russia to develop the so-called Ice Silk Road via the Northern Sea
Route which follows along Russia’s northern shore—making the expan-
sion of the maritime silk road official (Xinhua 2017b).
Furthermore, on July 20, 2017, the Xuelong departed for the eighth
Arctic expedition, the first one to attempt a full ‘circumnavigation of the
Arctic rim’ (Xinhua 2017a).
Lin Shanqing, deputy director of the State Oceanic Administration, said the
expedition is another milestone in the country’s polar exploration efforts[:]
‘Usually, Arctic expeditions are carried out once every two years. Starting
this year, we plan to increase the frequency of expeditions’ (Xinhua 2017a).
Table 4.2 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of China’s Arctic
Council diplomacy
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
to the Chinese mainland still and to which at the very least historical claims
can be fabricated, even if not in compliance with the UNCLOS. Therefore,
China is both converging and diverging from the PD grand strategy in
terms of defending one’s territorial integrity, depending on one’s view-
point (see Table 4.2 for a summary of this case’s convergences and
divergences).
Regarding China’s increasing national power, the case of engagement
of the AC and possible benefits, mostly of economic nature, for the future,
presents a rather clear-cut convergence with PD. Should the promises of
the Arctic seabed hold true, then China will have a lot to gain—or at least
partake in the gains thereof—in natural resources and savings in time for
soon-to-be ice-free shipping routes through the Arctic Sea.
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 73
well over 1000 miles away from the Arctic Circle alone. The ‘China threat’
theory and to whom it applies is usually focused on China’s neighboring
states, especially in Asia, since these are more prone to be immediately
affected by a rising China. In this case, one needs to look beyond those
boundaries to see whether China was perceived as a threat by the Arctic
Eight, for example. In a mid-2016 workshop held at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks in which the Arctic Eight participated alongside the
United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM), Alaskan Command
(ALCOM), and the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense
Command (NORAD), one workshop scenario was specifically addressing
the concern that China’s interest in the Arctic brings along:
The fact that a workshop like this would probe an exercise like this and
rate the document as ‘unclassified’ thereafter, would suggest that there is
a certain level of threat perception involved with China’s interest in the
Arctic. Nevertheless, China has not demonstrated any cause for concern
and has, thus far, relied on cooperation with the Artic Eight. The d
ocument
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 75
also notes as a key observation that ‘China’s intentions in the Arctic are
largely driven by (…) long-term considerations’ (Workshop 2016, p. 14)
which suggests that in the near-to-midterm, there is nothing to seriously
worry about in the opinion of AC founding members and their militaries.
Nations in the SCS, such as Indonesia or Vietnam, which perhaps still have
the advantage that China needs to ‘play nice’ due to the importance of the
Malacca Strait and the important SLoCs leading through the Indian
Ocean and SCS via the said strait, may have to worry about prospectively
ice-free Arctic SLoCs such as the Northern Sea Route to Europe—giving
China a viable alternative. This may lead to a China that would be able to
act with less inhibitions about what concerns its territorial claims in the
SCS and, in turn, risen levels of threat perception in those immediately
neighboring states. Thus, the assessment on whether China converges
with or diverges from its PD grand strategy on the count of reducing per-
ception of itself as threatening is dependent on a number of factors, such
as time and viewpoint.
Concerning China’s international reputation, the process which ended
in becoming a permanent AC observer state was certainly beneficial for it.
It earned China much attention in the Western media and at home. The
fact that the world could witness Chinese scientific engagement
Alternative Explanations
Alternative explanations are rather hard to come up with in the case of
China’s engagement of the AC. It is seemingly far-fetched to imagine that
China could just be interested out of scientific interest, as it sometimes
claims. Of course, the asserted reasons for the research undertaken within
the Arctic Circle is to measure the impact of climatic changes from there
on the environment of the Chinese mainland. Given the importance that
improving environmental conditions takes domestically in China, the
explanation for that sort of rhetoric emanates from the internal legitimacy
realm.
That an economic explanation would help in this case, is more feasible,
though. Still, the prestige factor seems a better way to understand the
initial and present interest in becoming a permanent observer of the AC
per se, as the economic benefits are not to be expected in the near term yet
and will heavily depend on the willingness to cooperate of one of the AC
members. Nevertheless, much of the economic benefits that mining in the
Arctic Sea promises leads back to the energy hunger associated with
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Summary
The application for permanent observer status in the AC by China, and
the interest associated with it which China has been displaying since 2007,
is a case of mixed legitimacy, while mostly conforming to PD grand strat-
egy. Prestige and honor play a role in the motivation of China’s applica-
tion to AC permanent observer status insofar as that the ultimate accession
to the AC shows determination on the part of China on a number of
points: On the one hand the case shows a partially negative motivation in
the sense that China does not want to be shut out by other major powers
from diplomatic institutions that it may not have access to. In the past,
China has been taken advantage of, especially during the ‘Century of
Humiliation’ years during which it was internally disunited and, thus,
helpless to the intrusion of the West and Japan. As a result, China carries
with it a trauma that the West would somehow decide to exclude it at the
decision table in present and future, for example, concerning the Arctic.
On the other hand, there was also a dimension of positive motivation in
this case, that is, it clearly demonstrated the self-understanding of China as
a truly global power—reflected in this entire process of engaging with the
AC. Due to the fact that China does not hold territory within the Arctic
Circle, or anywhere near it, accession to the AC as permanent member
shows that it now feels ready to be active in international affairs—outside
of its well-known Asian neighborhood. Additionally, this sort of diplo-
matic engagement helps others perceive China as an internationally
responsible actor who actively contributes to global governance. Picture
sequences of a Chinese icebreaker by the name of ‘Snow Dragon’ moving
through meter-thick Arctic ice may call into mind the more glorious times
in Chinese history and remind one of the famous Ming seafarer Zheng
He—sometimes naturally or incidentally—sometimes invoked by the
Chinese government, as, for example, during President Xi Jinping’s key-
note speech at the May 2017 Belt and Road Forum in Beijing (Xi 2017).
So, concerning the overall motivation, one could argue that it was a mixed
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 77
Worth mentioning are some reservations from the scholarly and policy
community about the OBOR initiative; while it is designed with a decades-
long trajectory, it is still quite recent, having begun in late 2013 and been
put into government documents in early 2015. As the renowned Chinese
scholar Chen Dingding correctly assesses,
the OBOR initiatives (sic) are not guaranteed to succeed and in many ways
they might actually fail if the Chinese government does not play its cards
right. And there is some evidence that the government might not be han-
dling its cards right at the moment (Chen 2015).
Course of Events
The first part of the concept for the OBOR—the land-based, traditional
Silk Road for the twenty-first century—was first mentioned by President
Xi while traveling to neighboring Kazakhstan in September 2013. ‘In a
speech delivered at Nazarbayev University, Xi suggested that China and
Central Asia cooperate to build a Silk Road Economic Belt. It was the first
time the Chinese leadership mentioned the strategic vision’ (Xinhua
2015b). This, of course, makes sense insofar as the Kazakhs are landlocked
and the first country through which the Silk Road extends as seen from
Beijing.
Just one month later, in October 2013, the second, sea-based part of
the OBOR vision was completed while Xi Jinping was visiting Indonesia,
a crucial friend for China to have in the event of a sea blockade in the
future:
Again, the choice of Indonesia does not seem random but rather per-
fectly logical. It is an island-nation and is situated on the south side of the
Strait of Malacca. Indonesia, is extremely important to China in terms of
its reliance on commercial trade and delivery of resources such as oil via
the major sea lanes from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East to Northeast
Asia. Associated with the Malacca Strait in particular is China’s constant
fear that other countries, especially the United States, could decide to
enforce a sea blockade at this hotspot, which would have detrimental con-
sequences for its energy security and economic performance. As such, it
makes perfect sense to use an official visit to Indonesia to announce the
Maritime Silk Road of the OBOR initiative, since this is also the first
country passed through via the sea route when leaving Chinese sovereign
(maritime) territory, which extends to the southernmost parts of the SCS
(i.e., Indonesia’s shores).16
The next important date in the chronology of the OBOR was another
month later in November, when, for the first time in China, and for the
first time not directly through a speech of President Xi but through a CCP
party organ, ‘[t]he Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China called for accelerating infrastructure
links among neighboring countries and facilitating the Belt and Road ini-
tiative’ (Xinhua 2015b). Whereas the initial focus had been on economic
cooperation, the infrastructural aspect was more highlighted now. At
another domestic event, President Xi fused these two aspects (infrastruc-
ture and economic advancement), calling for the OBOR ‘to promote con-
nectedness of infrastructure and build a community of common interests’
(Xinhua 2015b).
The first bilateral agreement associated with the OBOR was between
China and Russia and followed a few months later, in February 2014,
when ‘Xi and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, reached a consen-
sus on construction of the Belt and Road, as well as its connection with
Russia’s Euro-Asia Railways’ (Xinhua 2015b). Interestingly, this was in
the midst of the Ukraine Crisis, just a few weeks before Russia’s move to
annex Crimea in March 2014 and the abovementioned Sino-Russian
agreement in May 2014. Strategically, gaining Russia’s cooperation in the
OBOR was very important, as Russia has historically enjoyed a high level
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of influence over Central Asia and extended influence in the Middle East
and Eastern Europe, all of which are integral parts of the OBOR.
In March 2014, in his second annual report on government work,
Prime Minister (PM) Li ‘called for accelerating Belt and Road construc-
tion (…) and for balanced development of the Bangladesh-China-India-
Myanmar Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’
(Xinhua 2015b). In this instance, the perhaps unaltruistic posture also
comes to bear, especially because it is a report meant less for the outside
world than for domestic legitimacy, in which Li spoke of ‘[u]shering in a
new phase of China’s opening to the outside world and ensuring its high
standard performance’ (Xinhua 2014c).17
In the second instance after the February bilateral agreement with
Russia, China agreed to a specific project with its neighbor state Kazakhstan
in May 2014. The project, a logistics terminal (which is fitting with the
theme of the Silk Road as a trade route) was to be
jointly built by China and Kazakhstan [and] went into operation in the port
of Lianyungang in east China’s Jiangsu Province. The terminal, with a total
investment of 606 million yuan (98 million U.S. dollars), is considered a
platform for goods from central Asian countries to reach overseas markets
(Xinhua 2015b).
will work with the relevant countries in developing the Silk Road Economic
Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. We will move faster to
strengthen infrastructure connectivity with China’s neighbors, simplify cus-
toms clearance procedures, and build international logistics gateways. We
will work to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the
Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor. We will make
China’s interior and border areas more open to the outside world, promote
the innovation-driven development of economic and technological develop-
ment zones, and upgrade both border and cross-border economic coopera-
tion areas. We will work actively to develop pilot free trade zones in Shanghai,
Guangdong, Tianjin, and Fujian, and extend good practices developed in
these zones to the rest of the country so that such zones become leading
reform and opening up areas, each with its own distinctive features (Xinhua
2015c).
Following the move from the proposal and planning stage of the OBOR
to the first manifestations as described above, the Western media started to
report more on the initiative as well. As comparisons associated with
reporting on the OBOR to the post-World War II US Marshall Plan grew
in number:
In March 2015, the OBOR was first put into a proper government
programmatic document. The three government agencies working on it
were:
While giving the OBOR initiative more structure and detail, the docu-
ment still left the necessary wiggle room for interpretation and maneuver-
ing in the future; nevertheless, it was intended to function as a roadmap
for the development of the OBOR as an umbrella diplomatic initiative.
The established powers’ concern that China was suggesting to rewrite the
currently liberal, US-led international order by the OBOR initiative,
which could turn out to be a revisionist agenda, was addressed insofar as
the document mentioned that it would be:
in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. (…) [It] is har-
monious and inclusive. It advocates tolerance among civilizations, respects
the paths and modes of development chosen by different countries, and
supports dialogues among different civilizations on the principles of seeking
common ground while shelving differences and drawing on each other’s
strengths, so that all countries can coexist in peace for common prosperity.
(…) It will abide by market rules and international norms, give play to the
decisive role of the market in resource allocation and the primary role of
enterprises, and let the governments perform their due functions. (…) It
accommodates the interests and concerns of all parties involved, and seeks a
conjunction of interests and the ‘biggest common denominator’ for coop-
eration so as to give full play to the wisdom and creativity, strengths and
potentials of all parties (Commission 2015).
norms that China likes to uphold, such as ‘the Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence: mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s
internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence’
(Commission 2015).
The necessary wiggle room mentioned above can be seen in statements
on the geographical dimension of the OBOR initiative, in that ‘[i]t covers,
but is not limited to, the area of the ancient Silk Road. It is open to all
countries, and international and regional organizations for engagement,
so that the results of the concerted efforts will benefit wider areas’
(Commission 2015). Although unlikely, this technically implies that
Oceania and Latin and North America could become part of the OBOR.
Arguably, this statement might have been included simply to avoid making
the OBOR initiative seem like an exclusive club that locks out nations with
which China has friendly relations. The document still does not give a
timetable of what is to be done when; instead, it focuses mainly on empha-
sizing the OBOR initiative’s message of bringing together the European,
African, and Asian continents via better infrastructural and logistical
connection.
The external legitimacy sought through the OBOR works not only to
enhance China’s reputation outside the spheres of the Middle Kingdom
(especially immediate neighbors) but also to internally strengthen the
foothold of the CCP with the domestic population. Overcoming the
‘Century of Humiliation’ is central to the CCP’s strategy to use national-
ism for its rectification of home rule. In essence, if the OBOR becomes a
long-term success and sustainably improves China’s international reputa-
tion and prestige, this would be a return to the role imperial China enjoyed
before the onset of the First Opium War in 1939, in which it was able to
actively steer international affairs, mainly with its tributary system vehicle.
Importantly, the OBOR initiative not only means that China is willing
to engage the international community responsibly (in a way that is
half-altruistic and half-selfish) but also that China is aiming to return to
the status quo from before the First Opium War and the subsequent
‘Century of Humiliation’ and start dictating the rules and norms of inter-
national relations again rather than merely having to follow them. After
all, from the Chinese viewpoint, ‘[n]ations in the “Confucian zone” of
civilization are supposed to accept China’s natural leadership, not attempt
to resurrect old empires or align with a foreign hegemon such as the
United States’ (Pillsbury 2015, p. 205). While to some, especially the erst-
while aggressors associated with the humiliation complex (i.e., Japan and
the West), this may seem like an action of a revisionist power, to many
nations of the Third World, especially those that do not necessarily have to
fear the rise of China as direct neighbors, this may be seen as a good thing
in terms of external legitimacy. More importantly, internally, China gains
prestige with its own population in going against the world order, as it was
established first by the British global hegemony and then further advanced
by the US global hegemony after World War II. Thus, while being mainly
a case of external legitimacy, the case of OBOR also contains a layer of
internal legitimacy, which is associated not only with the OBOR’s prom-
ised economic stimulus for the Chinese market but also, and importantly,
with its diplomatic dimension and the prestige it brings.
the event that the OBOR turns out to have the sort of subtlety of the
medieval tributary system or modern-day US-American orthodox capital-
ism and democracy, China may also gain power via the third face of power
(i.e., shaping other nations’ initial preferences and ideas).
The factor of keeping favorable economic markets is an important one
in the case of the OBOR. As Reeves writes, the OBOR:
On the other hand, rather than seeking to ‘flex its muscles’ by suggest-
ing the OBOR initiative, China may intend to go specifically against the
‘China threat’ misperception, as outlaid in the PD grand strategy. The fact
that investing so heavily in the region can be interpreted as altruistic
behavior (even though China is likely to benefit more than the OBOR
participant nations) may ameliorate some foreign decision-makers’ per-
ception of China rising and should, therefore, be considered as converging
with the PD grand strategy.
Clearly, the OBOR increases China’s reputation, since it is a very ambi-
tious program aimed at unifying many nations in the pursuit of economic
growth. Moreover, the OBOR hints heavily at the more glamorous times
of China’s history, when the Silk Road on the land route and the Maritime
Silk Road were major trading paths and the Middle Kingdom was the
nation with the highest GDP globally.
Alternative Explanations
There is little doubt that honor—and by extension status, prestige, reputa-
tion, and recognition—plays a determining role in the development and
eventual realization of the OBOR. Naturally, China has been undertaking
such infrastructure and other development projects bilaterally in negotia-
tion with individual nations, and most likely it would have continued with
this practice of bilateral projects with or without OBOR. As such, OBOR
can be seen as a skillful diplomatic move in pooling projects that would
have happened either way.
Since the OBOR calls on the historical memory of tributary relations
and Silk Road trade, the four different deeper meanings of the tributary
system suggested by scholars can be partially considered as alternative
explanations. The tributary system has been described as (1) simply an
economic trading place, (2) merely a symbolic diplomatic exercise without
a tangible purpose besides the symbolic status-giving and -receiving ges-
tures, (3) an expression of the realpolitik in a system in which China guar-
anteed security in exchange for suzerainty over adjacent kingdoms’
territories, and (4) an alliance (implicitly against the constant threat of
freely roaming nomads) on the basis of real equality which was interpreted
and communicated domestically in different ways by every kingdom
involved.
Otherwise, economic interest and security concerns certainly matter
here, too. Making the periphery more secure by helping it develop
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 89
Summary
The case of the OBOR shows mostly converging behavior, with only
minor doubts on the points of anti-hegemonism and the perception of
China as a threat. Overall, the more outward-focused OBOR initiative
met all factors of the PD grand strategy, and therefore China did not
diverge from it. Since this grand strategy manifestation perfectly converges
with the PD grand strategy, and since it is mostly meant to be outward-
looking and peaceful, it is not too far-fetched to say that the lion’s share of
the OBOR is related to honor and external legitimacy. However, as men-
tioned earlier, there are minor layers of internal legitimacy as well.
These layers of internal legitimacy may be divided into two types. One
the one hand, there are the economic benefits China will likely gain from
the OBOR in the short term, as well as those to be gained in the long
term. On the other hand, there is the international diplomatic prestige to
be gained, which will also have effects at the domestic level through main-
taining and creating jobs and projects for Chinese construction companies
for the necessary infrastructural work over the next decades of the OBOR.
This kind of altruistic-seeming economic stimulus for China’s own market
was typically undertaken in the past in bilateral projects that functioned as
quasi-foreign aid by China to the recipient country. All the OBOR really
does—albeit impressively and with much pomp and circumstance—is to
harness China’s diplomatic actions into a larger cross-regional initiative.
Related to this short-term gain for China is the general longer-term advan-
tage of maintaining a beneficial regional and global market for Chinese
exports on which China still heavily depends. In theory, better infrastruc-
ture and more trade, especially with China, will help to develop the recipi-
ent country as well, making them wealthier and thus increasing the
potential for China to export more to that neighbor.
In addition, the diplomatic international prestige that China has been
and is bound to receive externally from the generous OBOR initiative also
has effects at the domestic level. This engagement with the international
community is a reflection of China’s risen status as a great power, and the
prestige and recognition associated with the positive feedback from the
90 L. K. DANNER
Notes
1. See Luttwak (2012) for an in-depth account of this.
2. See, for example, Tiezzi (2014a), or Tiezzi (2014b).
3. See Zhang (2015).
4. For further reading on China’s involvement in Ukraine, see, for example,
Baggiani (2015) or Blank (2015).
5. Tibet is the only clear case of Han-Chinese population which China claims
as its inherent territory. An exception to this is the ‘detour’ claim of argu-
ing that ‘South Tibet’ should be part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region
of China, or possibly that ‘Outer Mongolia’ should be part of the Chinese
‘Inner Mongolia’ province.
6. In the event that China goes against the United States or its allies in East
Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia, conforming to anti-hegemonism may
also carry an accusation of China’s own implicit regional hegemonic
ambitions.
7. See Luttwak (2012).
8. See Luttwak (2012).
9. Russia—connected to its long-standing obsession with gaining access to
ice-free ports—Port Arthur (today’s Lüshunkou district of Dalian city) was
annexed during that time in history, and a railway from the Russian home-
land all the way to Port Arthur was built to gain access to this ice-free sea
haven. Incidentally, the recent annexation of Crimea is equally connected
92 L. K. DANNER
to the Russian search for ice-free sea ports much like this late nineteenth-/
early twentieth-century case.
10. For a comprehensive analysis of China’s strategy toward the Arctic, see
Abel (2012).
11. See Chap. 5 for more information on these FTAs.
12. The EU had also applied for permanent observer status during the 2013
Kiruna meeting of the AC. In a sense, the EU would have been a good
counterweight to China, but likely due to the restrictive stance on fishing
rights in Brussels, this was not a viable option for the AC. Instead, India
alone, along with Japan and South Korea, was the better alternative in this
case.
13. Unless otherwise stated, this chapter will refer to OBOR as a diplomatic
initiative, since the term strategy in the context of diplomacy might be
confused with the security concepts of grand strategy, tactics, and so forth.
14. An earlier version of this subchapter was published in parts in Danner
(2016).
15. Here, too, one cannot help but think of the Chinese equivalent of the
Russian obsession with ice-free seaports; that is, the possibility of facing a
hypothetical traumatic experience in the form of a U.S.-initiated naval
blockade on the Malacca Strait, which is central to the maritime Silk Road
and China’s access to trading with much of the world via ships. It seems
that a hedging behavior underlies many such diplomatic initiatives and
infrastructural projects, which seem altruistic at first but paranoid at second
glance. Also, consider China’s interest in the Arctic and possible future sea
routes via an ice-free global North. See prior subchapter for more
information.
16. For a full account of Chinese claims in the SCS and their implications, see,
for example, Gao and Jia (2013) and Kaplan (2015), respectively.
17. See also China (2015a), China (2015b), Xinhua (2014b) and Salidjanova
and Koch-Weser (2014).
18. Laos, Myanmar, or Cambodia are not APEC members, as they do not
border the Pacific Ocean.
19. For more information about the 2014 Central Economic Work Conference,
see Tiezzi (2014c) and Xinhua (2014a).
20. See also Xinhua (2015c).
21. The ‘first face of power’: ‘Payment or economic inducement to do what
you initially did not want to may seem more attractive to the subject, but
any payment can easily be turned into a negative sanction by the implicit or
explicit threat of its removal. (…) Moreover, in unequal bargaining rela-
tionships, (…) a paltry ‘take it or leave it’ payment may give the [LDC]
little sense of choice’ (Nye 2011, p. 12). The ‘second face of power’: ‘If
ideas and institutions can be used to frame the agenda for action in a way
DIPLOMATIC CASE STUDIES 93
that make others’ preferences seem irrelevant or out of bounds, then it may
be possible to shape others’ preferences by affecting their expectations of
what is legitimate or feasible. Agenda-framing focuses on the ability to keep
issues off the table, or as Sherlock Holmes might put it, dogs that fail to
bark’ (Nye 2011, p. 12). The ‘third face of power’: ‘[I]deas and beliefs also
help shape others’ initial preferences. (…) [One] can also exercise power
over [another] by determining [their] very wants. [One] can shape [oth-
ers’] basic or initial preferences, not merely change the situation in a way
that makes [them] change [their] strategy for achieving [one’s] preferences.
(…) If [one] can get others to want the same outcomes that [one] wants, it
will not be necessary to override their initial desires’ (Nye 2011, p. 13).
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CHAPTER 5
No doubt the following three cases are not the only cases which would
lend themselves to an analysis of China’s economic policy as a manifes-
tation of its grand strategy in the selected time frame. First, China’s rare
earth elements (REEs) export restrictions in 2010, second, its proposal
for, and eventual founding of, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB) after 2013, as well as, third, its signing of multiple Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs) in the analyzed time period, for example, with New
Zealand, Iceland, or Switzerland, were, on the one hand, highly dis-
cussed by the media and, therefore, can be considered salient cases for
economic policy—or at least three of the most salient cases in the time
frame—and, on the other hand, fulfill the case selection standards as
one case pertains to internal, another to external legitimacy, and yet
another offers mixed legitimacy—the fourth grand strategy design input
besides those of the case study groups (economic, military, and diplomatic
policies/strategies).
The 2010 REE export restrictions should clearly be classified as
speaking to internal legitimacy.1 Export restrictions in general are a pro-
tectionist move in our global market—impeding free trade. In the cur-
rent international system, as championed by the United States, such
restrictions are frowned upon as going against the integration of mar-
kets. Thus, a presumption that such restrictions speak to external legiti-
macy is ungrounded. They are mainly interpreted as an action against
Japan, China’s ex-conqueror, archenemy, and—some would say—
China’s ‘Other’ against which it identifies. By catering to the population’s
earth exports to Japan, and arrested four Japanese nationals for allegedly
trespassing in restricted Chinese military areas (Pillsbury 2015, p. 204)
The case’s further development saw the appeal to the WTO by the
United States, Japan, and the European Union (EU) in 2012, China’s
losing the case in 2014, China’s appeal of the WTO verdict shortly there-
after, and the rejection of the latter by the WTO in the same year. Since
early 2015, the REE trade has been unrestricted, but by 2012, China had
lost its leverage over Japan with this export restriction as Japanese demand
decreased and Japan sought REEs elsewhere.9 The period during the
WTO case more or less coincided with the diplomatic Ice Age between
China and Japan from late 2012 to late 2014, when the Senkaku/Diaoyu
Islands dispute flared up again and tensions were high.
Course of Events
As mentioned earlier, the case had its origin in an area seemingly unrelated
to economic policy,10 that is, the collision of a Chinese fishing boat with
two vessels from Japanese coastal law enforcement on September 7, 2010.
Japanese authorities seized the captain of the Chinese ship together with
his crew as a consequence. Japan released the boat and 14 of the crew less
than a week after the incident. Tokyo, however, kept Captain Zhan
Qixiong in custody, where he remained pending investigation (Chang
2010). Even so, China expected Japan to immediately release its captured
citizen and apologize for seizing him and his crew in the first place. Equally
assertive was how China’s behavior translated on the diplomatic level:
Besides these measures, ‘China has also detained four Japanese nation-
als on suspicion of violating a law protecting military facilities’ (Inoue
2010, p. x). Japan, however, expected China to pay for damage to the
vessels and issue an official apology for encroaching into Japanese waters:
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 105
Zhan himself remained adamant that he had done nothing wrong. ‘The
Diaoyutai Islands are a part of China. I went there to fish. That’s legal,’ he
said upon his return to China. ‘Those people grabbed me – that was illegal.’
China’s government shared Zhan’s stance[.] (…) Beijing considers Japan’s
Coast Guard patrols to be illegal, since China claims the disputed islands
and surrounding waters as its territory (Tiezzi 2014).
[O]n October 19, the China Daily reported that the country would cut its
total exports of rare earths by 30 percent in 2011 in order to ‘protect over-
exploitation.’ The following week, China’s vice-minister of commerce, Jiang
Yaoping, visited Tokyo to meet with METI Minister Ō hata. Ō hata repeated
Japan’s request that China ease its restrictions on the export of rare earths.
On November 13, Minister Ō hata met with Zhang Ping, China’s director
of the Development and Reform Commission, on the sidelines of the
Yokohama APEC Summit. The METI had initiated this meeting, which
lasted for two and a half hours. Afterward, Zhang noted that the rare earth
issue would be ‘properly resolve[d] very soon.’ The next day, Minister
Ō hata announced that twenty-six of the twenty-seven companies surveyed
by the METI reported that for the first time since the trawler incident, they
could see ‘signs of improvement.’ By the end of the first week of December,
Ō hata reported that twenty-one shipments were confirmed the week before
and an additional ten more shipments were released that week. More ship-
ments were still stuck in customs, but the Chinese government was working
with METI to clear them. By late December, shipments had returned to
normal levels (Smith 2015b, p. 192).
With this March 2012 announcement, the case concerning the Chinese
quasi-embargo on REEs entered the WTO’s dispute settlement process.15
The resolution of this case, including the following appeal by China,
would take more than two and a half years. China’s defense strategy rested
heavily on the argument that the export restrictions were taken to protect
the well-being of its population by reducing their production.16
However, the effect that China supposedly intended for the quasi-
embargo restricting the export of REEs diminished about two years after
108 L. K. DANNER
China fired back at Japan in Tuesday’s regular Foreign Ministry press con-
ference. Spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters that the 2010 collision
‘was a severe incident when the Japanese side grossly infringed upon
China’s territorial sovereignty and damaged Chinese fishermen’s legitimate
rights and interests.’ Hua also reiterated Beijing’s position that ‘any judicial
measures adopted by the Japanese side against Chinese fishermen and fish-
ing boats, including detention and investigation are illegal and invalid’
(Tiezzi 2014)
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 109
The WTO finally ruled on March 26, 2014, ‘that the Chinese restric-
tions, which [took] the form of export quotas, export duties and other
measures, ran counter to commitments China made when it joined the
WTO in 2001’ (Pruzin 2014). Even though China tried to utilize its
‘right to invoke Article XX of GATT 1994’ (Pruzin 2014), it had no right
to—in the WTO’s view—19 since there was no
China appealed the WTO decision within the necessary time period.
However, with a final WTO decision on August 7, 2014, China lost its
appeal and was required—just as in the case on export restrictions on
other natural resources decided on a year earlier—that it needed to abide
by official regulations and discontinue the export restrictions to accom-
modate the WTO non-discrimination rule. Indeed, by September 8, 2014,
China’s REE exports increased by a margin of 31 percent from the previ-
ous month (Xinhua 2014). Starting January 4, 2015, China officially
announced that it had ended the quotas for REEs (Yap 2015).
On April 24, 2015, China decided to discontinue the export tax on
REEs would to strengthen renewed demand.20 Nevertheless, whereas
China was producing and offering nearly all REEs on the market in the
mid- and late 2000s, now the estimate was that it ‘produce[d] about 85
percent of global supply’ (Stringer 2015). However, given that China had
followed a policy of restricting REE exports, it is no surprise that the mar-
ket share dropped in reaction to Japan and others seeking the necessary
resources elsewhere.
salient case in the analyzed time period in terms of the unambiguous asser-
tiveness China showed on the economic front. For the most part, China
kept with its general abiding by capitalism—perhaps ‘with Chinese charac-
teristics’—and continued with ‘playing our game’ (Steinfeld 2010).
Naturally, it seems contradictory at first glance for China to go so hard
against (especially) Japan on the economic dimension: Japan has been the
number one trade partner of China for decades, and it has a big stake in
China with a relatively high amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in
China throughout the last three-plus decades. In a word, it comes across
as irrational for China to do as it did, let alone contradicting its own PD
grand strategy. Such sanctioning behavior is usually utilized in situations
in which one nation (or a coalition) tries to compel the sanctioned nation
to do something, or—at the least—deter it from further escalating the
situation. Examples include the sanctions enacted against Iran because of
its nuclear program and against Russia because of its assertiveness in eastern
Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.
Relating this assertive behavior to honor and internal legitimacy is not
overly difficult since this case involves Japan, China’s main regional rival,
which some may identify as its archenemy. As mentioned earlier, China’s
honor was hurt significantly by Japanese militarism and imperialism in the
late nineteenth up until the midtwentieth century in the First and Second
Sino-Japanese Wars and colonization/quasi-annexation of its northeast-
ern territory and eastern seaboard. In today’s nationalism within China,
Japan still plays an important negative role, especially with respect to over-
coming this humiliating trauma. It is not too far-fetched to say that much
of the nationalist anger associated with this humiliation is directed against
Japan and less so against other great powers which were equally involved
in this chapter of Chinese history (e.g., Britain, which started it with the
First Opium War).
The immediate relationship to the humiliating trauma and China’s
humiliation of national honor in the past is that the incident which kick-
started the REE embargo happened in maritime territory which China
considers to be a historically inherent part of its erstwhile imperial empire.
Therefore, as China sees it, Japan’s control over this part of the East China
Sea is an ‘ill-gotten [territorial gain]’ through unlawful, unfair means
(Pillsbury 2015, p. 205). As mentioned above, the trauma China suffered
at the hands of the Western aggressors and Japan triggered a preoccupa-
tion with China’s sovereignty and especially territorial integrity. On the
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 111
one hand, China aims to reunify its territory to reach the glory that it once
had under the largest territorial expansion during the Qing era. This, for
the moment, is restricted to the East and South China Seas, as well as
Taiwan, and ‘South Tibet’ (Arunachal Pradesh).21 On the other hand, as
China’s internal legitimacy is increasingly tied to nationalism and ancient
culture, and less so to the Marxist-Leninist-Mao-Deng ideological spec-
trum and economic growth, assertive moves against Japan placate the
population and back approval rates for an otherwise not legitimized
regime. In relation to nationalism and the Japanese ‘Other,’ what is also
particularly striking is that the incident together with the Chinese assertive
economic reaction happened only very shortly before the 38th anniversary
of the official start of Sino-Japanese foreign relations in 1972.22
That China’s internal legitimacy still depended on economic growth
(i.e., how successful the government was in lifting people out of poverty,
creating new jobs, pushing annual growth of gross domestic product
(GDP) toward double digits, keeping the market stable) was forgotten for
a couple of days by the government. First, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) via its Foreign Ministry issued extremely nationalist statements
against Japan filled with rage to backtrack to the course of PD:
perhaps otherwise rational behavior and led China off the rational course,
off the course of its PD grand strategy, and toward irrational behavior.
Table 5.1 Divergence from or conformance with PD in the case of the REE
export limitations
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
to break the alliance between Japan and the United States by attracting
Japan and calling on to its Asian nature to illuminate the externality of the
United States in ‘their’ region: ‘Beijing’s willingness to extend spats like
these to international trade was worrisome. (…) Then for the first time,
Japan joined European and American governments in requesting consul-
tations at the WTO with China concerning its restraints of rare earth
exports’ (Smith 2015b, p. 201f.). Whereas Japan had not really sided with
the West before on such economic issues within the WTO, the export
restrictions on REEs had now led it to do exactly that. Thus, in a way, this
behavior contradicted the divide et impera strategy of China against the
US-Japan alliance. Nevertheless, it was still conforming on the whole, as
the behavior was directed against the alliance.
The PD factor of maintaining favorable economic markets may be
debatable as to whether it is actually conforming or diverging—especially
because this is an outward-looking factor category in China’s PD grand
strategy. Rather than either-or, one can argue that it was both conforming
and diverging at the same time. On the one hand, China may not have
suffered under unfavorable conditions, but it was the international market
which became more unfavorable concerning REEs and China was diverg-
ing from PD, acting assertively, selfishly, and without regard for other
nations in the market, which is often referred to as neomercantilism. On
the other hand, China had the upper hand in the control of REEs, tung-
sten, and molybdenum, having a quasi-monopoly and, therefore, was able
to create a market in which it could profit by driving up the price of REEs
through reducing the supply for export, while giving its own domestic
market a decisive edge in access to REEs. Thus, China conformed here,
too. The fact that this played out as described above reinforces the analysis
that this is a case of internal legitimacy—China looking out for the benefit
of its own population, not that of others, especially DCs.
Considering China’s living up to international responsibility, another
more outward-looking factor, it was clearly diverging here. The export
limitations hit the international market hard for the years it was enacted.
Objectively speaking, there cannot be much discussion that this was irre-
sponsible behavior on the part of China and nothing where other nations
would think they benefitted. Here, China diverged from PD. Subjectively
speaking, it is possible to ask, as one Chinese scholar once did, ‘‘Responsible
to whom? To whose standards? The United States? Never!’’ (Shambaugh
2013, p. 40; partially quoted from Pilling 2010).
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 115
Alternative Explanations
It seems relatively clear that China reacted with an REE quasi-embargo to
Japan’s arrest of the fishing boat captain and crew in disputed waters of the
East China Sea. Nevertheless, the process of influencing and manipulating
the price mechanism by means of restricting exports with quotas which
started in 2009 and not in particular with respect to Japan should be sepa-
rated from the exacerbation that occurred in 2010 and the following years.
What remains unclear is how intentional this quasi-embargo was on the
part of the Chinese and, if it was not intentional that exports were held at
customs, then was it the intent of the Chinese government not to intervene
in customs officials’ independent patriotic acts? Either way, a minimum
amount of intent can certainly be assumed. As Smith writes, taking the
intentionality argument further in terms of using it as a threat or not in
2010 and onwards:
Whether the Chinese government used this as a threat during the crisis
remains suspected but unconfirmed. The difficulty in assessing the exact role
of Chinese officials in the embargo of rare earth materials lies partly in the
lack of transparency over the export process. If an embargo was imposed, it
was informally imposed, and the question remains whether the Beijing
116 L. K. DANNER
officials were aware of the actions taken by customs officials at the point of
export. (Smith 2015b, p. 201f )
Other than these arguments, there is not much room for alternative
explanations. Certainly, that this is a long-term development in China’s
export strategy concerning REEs has to be mentioned. However, the
Chinese government undoubtedly used the crisis with Japan in 2010 to
exacerbate the mild trend in export reduction as evidenced since 2006
and—more so—since 2009. Even so, back in 2009, prices of metals—even
REEs—had declined in value in response to the 2008 global financial crisis
and the toll it took on the global economy resulted in less demand in raw
materials. Reducing its exports merely meant adjusting to this situation to
not lose too much on the lower prices which resulted from lower demand.
By 2010 and onward, the global economy had picked up momentum,
and—if the initial export reduction was in reaction to a weak global econ-
omy—then reducing it further would not have made sense. In essence,
this particular case is unambiguously an assertive strategic act using eco-
nomic means by China against Japan.
Summary
In almost every respect, this case catered to China’s internal legitimacy.
No nation could have approved of what China did with its market might
in the area of REEs in its assertive and unilateral manner. Its own popula-
tion, and especially the hypernationalists among them, surely was pleased
when China stood up against the ex-colonial lord and showed Japan (and
the West) its growing muscles:
To demonize Japan, China has sent the message that it regards Japan’s
wealth, and its position as America’s ally in Asia, as products of ill-gotten
gains from World War II. Professor Arne Westad (…) calls this phenomenon
a ‘virulent new form of state-sanctioned anti-Japanese nationalism. (Pillsbury
2015, p. 205)
violence on the streets of Japan and China against the respective national
citizens or businesses in each territory.
Also, acting assertively against others is what the hypernationalist fac-
tions of China’s population often demand from their government. Such
demands are often expressed in Internet blogs and forums, as well as in
anonymous letters to the Foreign Ministry. For example, one such letter
contained calcium pills to suggest that the government needed to develop
‘backbone’ against the international community and show the country’s
military might. Thus, these export restrictions mostly catered to internal
legitimacy and mostly diverged from China’s PD grand strategy, especially
on the outward-looking factors which relate to external legitimacy.
being interference into internal affairs. Part of this stance is China’s self-
view as the ‘voice of the developing world’ and the fact that not many
Western-type, liberal democracies can be found within it.
After acceding to the WTO in the early 2000s, China made efforts to
move to the treasured ‘market economy status’ under WTO rules. One
way of doing this was via the arrangement of FTAs in which the partner
nation would usually acknowledge that China had such status—though,
diplomatically invoked. This was especially powerful when the FTA was
made with a Western and/or OECD member-nation, such as the FTA
concluded with New Zealand which was the first Western and OECD
nation to agree with China on an FTA and also attribute it with the ‘mar-
ket economy’ status as a result of that process. Though that specific FTA
was signed outside of the analyzed time frame in 2008, it initiated a dom-
ino effect (arguably to the present day) in which the interest of other
Western states, such as Australia, Iceland, Switzerland, or Norway, was
awakened. The former three followed New Zealand’s example and went
and concluded FTAs with China, whereas Norway is still in negotiations
to achieve an FTA. Naturally, the geoeconomic relevance of attracting
Western countries’ interest in FTAs with China cannot be undervalued,
also as it helps move forward China’s PD grand strategy. Though, FTAs
with states and organizations in Asia were also important for PD (e.g.,
those FTAs concluded with South Korea, Singapore, ASEAN, or negotia-
tions for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership [RCEP]),
the prestige that is associated with Western/OECD nations—and the
elevation in international standing and global recognition it comes with—
agreeing to enter into an agreement with China outweighs those with
Asian nations—as China already sees itself to be economically advanced in
its own region.
Course of Events
The first relevant FTA with a Western nation was concluded with New
Zealand. Talks with New Zealand on an FTA started in November 2004.
The China-New Zealand FTA was signed on April 7, 2008, and came into
force on October 1, 2008. On November 23, 2016, the trade ministers of
the two nations announced that they would be seeking an upgrade of the
existing FTA with new rounds of negotiations (China 2016). Areas of
negotiation to be tackled were to be ‘service trade, competition policy,
e-commerce, agricultural cooperation, environment, technical trade
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 119
Official negotiations for the FTA began on September 19, 2008, when
delegates of both countries met for the first round (Sverdrup-Thygeson
and Lanteigne 2016; China 2017c). Another seven rounds of negotiation
would follow in three- to six-month rhythm with the eighth round having
taken place on September 17, 2010. However, ‘the decision in [October]
2010 to honour [Liu Xiaobo], a leading dissident serving a jail sentence
for subversion of state power, sparked fury in Beijing and led to the cutting
of political and commercial links’ (Milne 2016). This took the extent of
the suspension of ‘not only (…) bilateral government contacts (…), but
many business ties and joint research and academic relationships also
suffer[ing]’ (Sverdrup-Thygeson and Lanteigne 2016). As a result, trade
between the two nations plummeted: While salmon exported from Norway
to China took a share of 92 percent of the China’s overall salmon imports
in 2010, Norway’s share of that was down to 29 percent in early 2013
with China compensating that by importing more from other nations such
as the UK (Milne 2013). Norway tried to make it up to China and address
the crisis in different ways. On the one hand, Norway did not oppose
China’s application to become a permanent observer in the Arctic Council
in which Norway is a founding member and part of the Arctic Eight. On
the other hand, Norway declined an official ‘meeting with the Dalai Lama
during his May 2014 Norwegian visit’ (Sverdrup-Thygeson and Lanteigne
2016). These gestures, together with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, even-
tually succeeded in reestablishing Sino-Norwegian relations in December
2016. In April 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that
a consensus was reached with Norway on restarting all economic and trade
agreements (China 2017d). During that April visit of the Norwegian PM
in Beijing, it was also agreed that the negotiations for the prospective FTA
were to be resumed with the ninth round of negotiations in the near future
(China 2017e).
GDP and the livelihoods and jobs of its own population, but also external
legitimacy as in showing its peaceful intentions, demonstrating that it will
play by existing international rules, and advancing bilateral trade with a
positive effect on global trade.
Table 5.2 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of China’s FTA
strategy
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
any FTA would do harm to economic markets, and, thus, China’s FTA
strategy is converging with its PD targets.
China’s prolific FTA making is also fully in compliance with the PD
grand strategy factor of international responsibility. Operating within the
WTO rules, China is showing that it can act within a Western trading
framework. Though it has been accused of unfair practices such as dump-
ing or export restrictions (see above), these FTAs are good examples of
China’s positive impact on global trade. Generally, this sort of behavior is
encouraged by all nations, even the United States.
For the most part, China was not being perceived as a threat by either
partner nations or those not involved with an FTA with China. The FTA
partners observed in this analysis are all relatively far removed from China
and—perhaps due to the geographic distance—it is just natural that they
would not fall prey to the ‘China threat’ perception that is otherwise very
common for direct neighbors of China. Even so, there have been FTA
conclusions of China with its directly adjacent neighbors such as the
China-ASEAN FTA or the more recent FTA with South Korea. Insofar,
China converges with PD grand strategy on this count, too.
One main factor in improving China’s international reputation with
these FTAs was the fact that China had each of the FTA partners sign a
memorandum of understanding in which they officially acknowledge the
so-called market economy status as per the WTO rules:
Alternative Explanations
Needless to say, the cultural driver of economic interest in search for mon-
etary profits is certainly relevant in the case of bilateral FTAs. Should
China gain more from the FTA than the partner nation, this would be very
beneficial for China’s side of the balance-of-trade sheet. Though, usually
China is the nation that already has trade tilted in its favor as more prod-
ucts are imported from China into the partner country than exported.
After concluding the FTA with New Zealand, China was only able to
double its exports to New Zealand, while the Kiwi nation was able to
export four times more to China than prior to the FTA. Insofar, this would
speak for an explanation in which honor and prestige play a role—next to
the involvement of economic interest.
Due to the targeting of Western allies, for example, the traditional US
allies in the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, as well as those
European nations that are not in the EU but merely the EFTA, one could
attempt an explanation along the lines of China trying to use its large
domestic market in order to plant discord among the Westerners—along
the lines of divide et impera. Indeed, Iceland canceled its EU membership
application after having moved to candidacy right before concluding the
FTA with China. But in other cases of Western nations that are either
already FTA partners or currently in talks with China, no such suspicion
could be detected. And even in the case of Iceland, there is not much
concern to be had in terms of a complete defection to China. Recent stud-
ies on Icelandic attitudes toward foreign nations and trade partners reflect
the long-standing, good relations with American and European, especially
Nordic, partners, and a healthy reservation of any other nation—including
China (Vu 2015).
126 L. K. DANNER
Summary
In summary, the case of recent FTAs of China with Western/OECD
nations presented a mixed image of external as well as internal legitimacy.
First, the enhancement of bilateral trade—as in ease of doing business as
well as increasing the volume—which is the main function of any FTA,
contributed to internal as well as external legitimacy due to the expected
outcome of benefits for the FTA partner economy as well as more global
trade (external) and a higher GDP for China domestically (internal).
Second, for China to make these FTAs with Western nations such as
Switzerland or New Zealand is also helpful for overcoming the ‘Century
of Humiliation’ complex (or trauma). As previously discussed, the
‘Century of Humiliation’ consisted of several lost wars of a weak China
against a powerful West and Japan. In the aftermath of these lost wars, the
dictated peace treaties came to be known in China as so-called unequal
treaties, which usually imposed conditions on China—also in relation to
its economy—that were more beneficial for the West and Japan than for
China. Conversely, these newly agreed-upon FTAs with Western nations
are now on equal footing and can be said to be mutually beneficial. Insofar,
this point goes toward China’s internal legitimacy.
And, third, another aspect of these FTAs is that they showcase China as
an active engager with the international community. Historically, this is
reminiscent of and could be compared to imperial China’s peaceful and
glorious times in which the tributary system played a pivotal role in engag-
ing and trading with surrounding nations. Many representatives of Western
nations and Western-dominated international institutions have been
demanding China to become more engaged in the existing international
community and a responsible actor within it. Concluding these FTAs can
be seen as an example of China following their advice and, thus, speaking
to external legitimacy. What concerns internal legitimacy would be the fact
that the historical comparison with the tributary system and the glorious
times of imperial China comes to mind when regarding these recent FTAs.
was well received by most Asian states but regarded skeptically by allies of
the United States and the West in general. This is because China did not
make its intention clear in founding such a new financial institution since
the IMF, WB, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) already handled
loans for LDCs and infrastructure development support. The AIIB was
founded on October 24, 2014, with more than a dozen Asian and non-
Asian countries as founding member-signatories, including Vietnam,
India, and the Philippines. Thus, while it is a valid argument that this case
is an example of assertiveness, the presence of countries that are not really
allies of China but rather have more or less long-standing and unresolved
disputes with China should hint that this initially was not a geoeconomic
or geopolitical instrument of China.
Nevertheless, the ambiguity of this case makes it interesting. At first
look, this is a case that perfectly converges with the PD grand strategy. On
the dimension of legitimacy, it can be seen as pertaining to both internal
and external, although external legitimacy is likely more at the heart of this
action (i.e., to give China recognition and enhanced reputation from the
global state community).
Course of Events
Shortly after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, China became more asser-
tive in pushing for changes in the organizational setup concerning eco-
nomic international organizations and their underlying ideology. The
Washington Consensus had informed the IMF and WB since the Orthodox
Revival under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan—attaching strings
of privatization, deregulation, free trade promotion, and democratization
to loans given out by these organizations.
This was also reflected in the speculated push for a non-European suc-
cessor of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in May 2011 from the
IMF managing directorship. As we know now, it took a lot of convincing
for Christine Lagarde to become the new IMF managing director. Likely,
this took a promise for the RMB to become one of the Special Drawing
Rights (SDRs) basket currencies—even if it was not going to fulfill all of
the conditions on the list, given the speculated artificial undervaluation of
the RMB to keep exports attractive. However, at this point and with the
looming leadership change within the CCP from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping,
it may have become clear that the IMF and other existing international
organizations would not change their outlook and method of conducting
business in relation to China—possibly prompting the development of
new organizations by China itself.
Before introduction of the AIIB idea by President Xi, ‘[i]n 2014,
BRICS economies formed a development bank of their own, but it remains
to be seen if this bank will pose any significant challenge to existing institu-
tions or even if its members will be able to sustain the internal consensus
necessary to make the bank effective’ (Christensen 2015, p. 57). Whereas
BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) did not seek membership from a
large number of nations, this was different with the AIIB. All the develop-
ments prior to the AIIB proposal and founding showcase China’s ‘interest
in developing alternative economic and financial institutions to traditional
Western-backed regimes. One example is China’s plans for an Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (Yazhou jichusheshi touzi yinhang 亚洲基
础设施投资银行)’ (Lanteigne 2016, p. 63).
During a visit to Indonesia in October 2013, President Xi first men-
tioned the idea of a new Asian bank which would work along the lines of
the so-called Beijing Consensus—giving loans without conditions
attached. The still-to-be-named new financial institution
was to have an initial value of US$50 billion with Beijing providing the
greatest proportion of the initial start-up funding. The initiative was in part
a response to Chinese frustration over what it considered the slow pace of
infrastructure development in Asia and the domination of Western interests
within the IMF and World Bank, despite China’s rise as an economic power.
(Lanteigne 2016, p. 64)
Shortly after the inception of the AIIB, the United States expressed its mis-
givings about the new bank due to concerns about Beijing’s growing diplo-
matic power as well as whether the bank would uphold ‘international
standards of governance and transparency’. Washington also appeared to be
tacitly discouraging its partners and allies from signing on to the AIIB. The
original signatories to the AIIB project were governments from East, South
and Southeast Asia, although New Zealand, which has a long history of
independent foreign policymaking vis-à-vis the United States, did agree to
sign on. Other American partners in the Asia-Pacific region such as the
Philippines and Singapore also agreed to join, but others such as Australia,
Japan and South Korea originally opted to steer clear, mainly due to US
concerns. Despite Beijing’s call for AIIB partners from all around the world,
during the opening months of 2015 it appeared that the new bank would be
strictly regional in scope. (Lanteigne 2016, p. 65f )
In line with New Zealand joining, March 2015 saw Chinese lobbying
efforts pay off and those of the United States fail with a domino effect of
Western nations joining as prospective founding members. Britain’s appli-
cation to join on March 12 was certainly the trigger of this domino effect
(Xinhua 2015)—given its status as the financial capital of Europe. What
followed was
China’s foreign policy concepts toward its weak neighbouring states, such as
the ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy, are premised on the assumption that
economic exchange and a commitment to common development are the
most effective means of ensuring stability on its borders. (Reeves 2015, p. i)
Table 5.3 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of the AIIB
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
from China and likely all who succeed him in the future—as with the tradi-
tion of a European heading the IMF and an American heading the WB.
Naturally, China, which provided the main impetus and idea for the
bank, will also provide most of its funding; these large investment sums
from the AIIB can act as rewards and threats at the same time for the
recipient nations in China’s Asian periphery. As rewards can be taken away,
there is an implicit threat involved even in these seemingly altruistic eco-
nomic development actions. Given that China also provides much of the
funding, it is not too far-fetched to assume that this will also give it con-
siderable power over agenda-setting, for example. Last but not least, hav-
ing this new institutional vehicle will spread the Chinese idea of ‘no strings
attached’ development funding along the lines of the (in)famous Beijing
Consensus. Power balancing behavior may very well be underlying these
actions in that a power increase exists—if not at present, then more likely
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 135
The AIIB will grant China a virtuous cycle of benefits, expanding its political
and economic leverage across Asia and aiding its efforts to elevate the yuan
as an international reserve currency. And it is China’s own companies, with
unrivaled experience building affordable infrastructure, that will be uniquely
positioned to reap the benefits of the AIIB’s initial capitalization of $100
billion. (Smith 2015a)
136 L. K. DANNER
[T]he West’s call for China to play a greater role in global governance is (…)
‘a trap to exhaust our limited resources!’ (…) Not only do many see global
governance as a trap for China, they also question the concept of ‘respon-
sible power.’ ‘Responsible to whom? To whose standards? The United
States? Never!’ shouted one scholar. (Shambaugh 2013, p. 40; partially
quoted from Pilling 2010)
On the whole, it seems clear at first look that the AIIB is meant to help
Asian neighboring nations which are LDCs. Thus, establishing this insti-
tution which will make it easier, quicker, and more efficient for these
nations to obtain infrastructure investment should elevate approval rates
among these neighbors, especially those that remain suspicious of whether
China is a threat or not. Since this bank is for Asia specifically, whether
these nations perceive this as responsible behavior or not should matter
most.
Nevertheless, the last two centuries were mostly dominated by Western
nations, also considering that the last two global hegemons were the
British and, currently, the Americans. The global governance we see today
is still largely influenced by the West. The United States and Japan seem to
have perceived the AIIB founding as an attempt by China to go against
institutional economic practices as preferred by them—along the lines of
the orthodox-liberal Washington Consensus. Thus, the United States has
pressured its Asian allies and tried to persuade nations in the Indo-Pacific
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 137
region not to join as founding members of the AIIB. This clearly consti-
tutes a perception by the United States and Japan of China acting irre-
sponsibly. However, this is a very large minority because even close US
allies such as the ROK and Australia in Asia-Pacific joined the AIIB found-
ing efforts of China. Also, the cherry on top was really the ascendance of
non-Asian DCs, such as Germany or Britain, which ultimately demon-
strates international approval and makes the United States’ and Japan’s
minority position appear inconsequential. Additionally, in early December,
the IMF decided to include the Chinese RMB as basket currency together
with the US dollar, euro, British pound sterling, and Japanese yen—which
can indirectly be counted as the IMF’s approval of a more active China.25
Conceivably, creation of the AIIB may have been meant to do just that
(i.e., avoid others interpreting China’s rise as threatening). Rather, the
payoff via infrastructure investment in China’s periphery could likely
change some decision-makers’ minds to accept China’s preponderance in
the long term—up to it being the global hegemon much like in hege-
monic stability theory (HST)—so as to put them in a position to believe
that following China’s lead will benefit them in one way or another. Thus,
the AIIB and associated perceptions by future investment recipients would
constitute converging to PD grand strategy.
However, the AIIB may have had just the opposite effect: China reach-
ing out regionally to gain more influence economically in Asian neighbor-
ing states may reinforce fears that China—with rising power—also exhibits
rising regional hegemonic ambitions. The AIIB could be meant to cement
this sphere of influence in economic and financial terms for decades and
centuries to come—much like the tributary system did in the medieval
past. Arguing along these lines—really depending on one’s viewpoint and,
possibly, future trajectory of the institution, the founding of the AIIB
would diverge from PD grand strategy as an assertive action.
As Jeff Smith writes: ‘[s]ome applaud China for assuming greater inter-
national responsibility and wielding soft power to aid Asia’s growth. Some
oppose the move as undermining the U.S.-led economic order and using
aid as a tool to advance China’s strategic agenda’ (2015a). Whether the
endeavor to initiate the AIIB is with benign, altruistic intentions or selfish,
power-maximizing ambitions, the goal of this institution (i.e., development
of Asia) is a noble cause in itself—probably to be seen separately from
China’s intentions. Spending large sums of money to the apparent advan-
tage of adjacent nations—some of which cannot look back on historically
138 L. K. DANNER
Alternative Explanations
As mentioned above, some observers interpret the AIIB as a power politi-
cal instrument of China to show discontent with US-led Bretton Woods
institutions like the IMF and WB, along with the ADB. In such a view,
economic calculation may not play a big role but rather China’s pursuit to
replace the institutions of the current global order in the long term does.
This is an alternative view that has the very big picture in mind and is very
long term. The premium here is placed on fear and this would be an expla-
nation in terms of pure power politics. A more geopolitical take would be
to see the AIIB as a tool to cement a Chinese sphere of influence and
China’s regional primacy in Asia. This is similar to the above alternative
explanation but with a short- to mid-term viewpoint and concerns a more
regional than global level of analysis.
An alternative explanation based more on values than power politics is
one hypothesizing that China wants to promote its own Beijing Consensus
versus the Washington Consensus. It certainly is similar to the power
political explanation but has to do with changing values on the global level
in the long term.
Economic interest may also have played into the decision to propose
and found the AIIB. On the one hand, having a better regional economic
environment benefits China because its economy still depends heavily on
exports. Adjacent nations with economies that are doing better will ask for
more goods to be imported from China. On the other hand, the AIIB
may turn out to be an economic stimulus program for the Chinese econ-
omy more directly: if China operates its investment in the infrastructure of
Asian LDCs much like it does in Africa, then bringing Chinese laborers to
foreign construction sites and having Chinese (state-owned or private)
corporations carry out the infrastructure construction will funnel the
‘investment’ partly back to China directly, not just indirectly through
higher export revenues which may or may not happen based on the respec-
tive LDC’s future trajectory:
[T]he West’s call for China to play a greater role in global governance is (…)
‘a trap to exhaust our limited resources!’ (…) Not only do many see global
governance as a trap for China, they also question the concept of ‘respon-
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 139
Much of China’s aid comes in the form of hard infrastructure: roads, rails,
buildings, stadiums, etc. Even though these do have a positive impact on the
recipient country in the end, they are normally built entirely with imported
Chinese labor by Chinese construction companies with contracts from the
Chinese government. This combined with an excessive and obsessive focus
on extractive industries and raw materials has led to charges of ‘neo-
colonialism’ (which Beijing is hypersensitive and defensive about).
(Shambaugh 2013, p. 110)
Summary
Very similar to the OBOR, the AIIB proposal and founding perfectly con-
verged with the PD grand strategy. The little doubt there is about possible
divergence from PD grand strategy is the interpretation of China’s ambi-
tion in Asia as a regional hegemon, on the global level of challenging the
organizational structure which the United States created with its allies
after World War II and the Cold War, and the perception of many Asian
nations that China may be a possible future threat. All these ambitions
cannot be argued against as they either remain to be seen or are already
implicitly ingrained in such grand strategy manifestations as the AIIB;
sometimes China follows more than one motive at a time, much like a
mixed-motive interpretation of US hegemony—using rewards and threats.
That the AIIB was intended mostly for external legitimacy purposes
becomes clear immediately given the front-and-center LDC development
endeavor for which the AIIB was created. However, the external legiti-
140 L. K. DANNER
macy has come and will come from multiple corners. First, it comes from
LDCs profiting from infrastructural development financing and China
being celebrated as a ‘responsible great-power’ in the meantime. Second,
it comes from China’s profiting financially since the loans will be given out
in RMB. Third, it comes from many US allies having joined as founding
members while the United States and Japan did not join and basically lost
this stand-off. Fourth, it comes from further establishing the Beijing
Consensus internationally and using the AIIB as a precedent for future
world order once the United States relinquishes leadership fully. Finally, it
comes from living up to the earlier success of China’s medieval tributary
system.
The double-effect that the OBOR had is equally relevant for the AIIB
with respect to serving external legitimacy at the same time as internal
legitimacy: First, China’s economy will be served by the AIIB despite the
initial investment of billions into it since construction companies likely will
be coming from China—even in a fair public bidding process because few
can do work cheaper than China with Chinese labor. Also, in the long
term, profits will derive from being able to export more to affected LDCs
and gaining access to natural resources there. Thus, the AIIB will help the
economy to be stimulated and earn back the initial investment into it. This
is relevant since economic growth still figures into internal legitimacy,
even though nationalism and historic legacy are quickly becoming impor-
tant parts of it.
As for the historic legacy for internal legitimacy, the humiliation com-
plex is accommodated by the United States and Japan both staying out of
the founding of the AIIB and—so far—also out of common membership.
Actually, the AIIB is often interpreted as a challenge to the US- and the
Japan-led ADB. Standing up to China’s archenemies brings the CCP extra
points for the AIIB project, especially with hypernationalists.
External legitimacy, nevertheless, is the key component here in terms of
honor and legitimacy. What concerns this interplay of external and internal
legitimacy—being a benign and altruistic leader in the regional Asian and
global community while at the same time trying to serve China’s own
national interest—, in essence, is that ‘[t]he AIIB has the virtue of advanc-
ing both agendas, but it represents just one finger in a Chinese hand
grasping Asia in an ever-tighter embrace’ (Smith 2015a).
To come back to external legitimacy, the ‘win’ against the United States
involved the joining of very close American allies since the United States
did not condone such actions. The reason for the Europeans and traditional
ECONOMIC CASE STUDIES 141
US allies joining the AIIB seems like a Chinese success of offers for buy-
off and a superficial benign hegemonic strategy having worked out.
Publicly, however, the Europeans claimed that their motivation for joining
was to influence the initial setup of the AIIB and its governing framework
so as to hold China to its word of being complementary to the IMF, WB,
ADB, and other pre-existing international organizations. On the Chinese
side, the joining of many US allies but without Japan or the United States
was certainly one side of the success in the AIIB story: this was a firsthand,
publicly played-out show of risen status of the PRC next to a declining US
hegemony which could not enforce alliance discipline and ‘soundly
appeared to [have lost]’ (Lanteigne 2016, p. 66) to the lure of the hard
power of Chinese money packaged into a ‘good cause’ (i.e., helping
develop infrastructure of needy states).
In the long term, the RMB as currency in which the AIIB loans are
given out, will gain importance internationally. The imminent finalization
of the founding of the AIIB in late December 2015 put additional pres-
sure on the IMF—besides the size of the Chinese market and growth of
Chinese power over the last decades—to accept the RMB as an SDR bas-
ket currency earlier that same month. The trajectory seems to be that the
RMB will first follow in the footsteps of the euro as the second most dealt
currency in the coming decades before it takes over the US dollar.
Last but not least, the leadership showcased by China in suggesting the
AIIB and realizing it in such a quick process while gaining the member-
ship of a range of global nations, including European nations, is an
immense upgrade to its status, tackles the humiliation complex, and brings
the Chinese back on track to pick up from pre-1839 by setting up a sort
of modern tributary relationship for the twenty-first century.
Notes
1. There was also an earlier case of export restrictions on ‘eight raw materials
used as inputs in the steel, aluminum and chemicals industries [which the
WTO had already condemned]’ (Pruzin 2014). However, since this case
was not as intertwined with China’s security strategy and diplomacy as the
case of the REEs (plus Tungsten and Molybdenum) was, it was not consid-
ered here. For further in-depth analyses of the REE export restrictions, see,
for instance, Ma (2012) and Morrison and Tang (2012).
2. In the past years, elections have been introduced for some local level, low-
stakes political positions. This is, of course, nowhere near the level of the
142 L. K. DANNER
that is, to augment the market and attain as many natural resources as pos-
sible to be in a position to fuel growth of its market for decades to come.
Besides this potential existence of fossil resources, the fishing grounds near
these islands are known to be very rich as well, and therefore can be con-
sidered valid to China’s economy, too.
11. See BBC News (2010a).
12. While this seems to be a standard phrase from the Foreign Ministry, to
suggest that patriotism—an emotion—should be expressed rationally
seems very far from reality, though. These two, emotion or passion and
ratio or reason, have been seen as opposites by many theorists, such as Karl
von Clausewitz in his unfinished work On War, writing on his famous trin-
ity of war, that is, passion, reason, and chance. See Clausewitz (2012
[1832]).
13. An immediate reaction by the Japanese was to seek diversification of the
countries from which it obtained REE, since it realized its overdependence
on China in the embargo. As a consequence, Japan started ‘negotiating
agreements with Vietnam, Mongolia and Australia to develop new mines’
(BBC News 2010b).
14. It is important to separate the deliberate and secret order to delay exports
of REEs to Japan in customs and the cut in export quotas from the fact
that, in 2009, China had already begun to exert governmental influence on
the quantity of REEs exploited and on the domestic market, so as to have
prices rise—similarly to what OPEC orchestrated in the 1970s. From this
intervention in the price mechanism, the customs delays, temporary bans,
and reductions of export quotas have to be viewed separately.
15. Interestingly, as mentioned above, this case which began in March 2012
was not the first WTO dispute settlement case against China’s export prac-
tices: ‘This request for consultations was the first step in the dispute settle-
ment process at the WTO. The request (Dispute Settlement 431, DS431)
by the European Union, the United States, and Japan for consultations
with China at the WTO on rare earth export restraints was made on March
13, 2012, and came on the heels of a prior dispute settlement panel finding
against China on ‘measures related to the exportation of various raw mate-
rials’ (DS394). Although Japan did not participate in this dispute settle-
ment case, the WTO panel found that ‘China’s export duties were
inconsistent with the commitments China had agreed to in its Protocol of
Accession. The Panel also found that export quotas imposed by China on
some of the raw materials were inconsistent with WTO rules’ (‘DS394
Summary of Key Findings,’ released on July 5, 2011). See World Trade
Organization (2015a) and World Trade Organization (2015b). China
appealed this decision the following month, but in January 2012 it lost its
appeal on export restrictions on raw materials. Thus, the case on rare earths
144 L. K. DANNER
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CHAPTER 6
Course of Events
To understand the current ADIZ proclamation by China, one has to go
back to former rounds of disputes over the islands between Japan and
China, as well as the beginning of the current, still unresolved round of
dispute. The first five instances of escalation which came in three phases of
the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands territorial dispute took place after World War
II in early 1970s, in the late 1970s, and the 1990s/2000s, respectively.3
Interestingly, Japan now—more than 40 years after the first round of dis-
pute—‘claim[s] that there was no formal agreement to ‘shelve’ or put the
issue aside in 1978 and that in fact no controversy exists’ (Smith 2013,
p. 37).
The current, sixth, round of the territorial dispute can be said to have
begun in 2010 when plans for the mutual exploitation of the natural
resources in the ECS were again frustrated in September because of the
‘collision between a Chinese fishing boat and two Japanese Coast Guard
vessels off the Diaoyu Islands’ (Wang 2010). Japan detained the Chinese
captain concerned but eventually released him after about two weeks
(Fackler and Johnson 2010). China acted as a more forceful actor in this
renewed dispute over the islands and—as described above—started
‘block[ing] crucial exports to Japan of rare earths, which are metals vital
to Japan’s auto and electronics industries’ (Fackler and Johnson 2010),
for example. China had been growing economically in strength for
decades, of course, and was one of the countries whose economy came
back quite quickly after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. This led many in
China to believe that the United States was now in relative decline and
that China was gaining in power and, therefore, should throw its weight
around internationally. One consequence was a change in policy toward
the islands under analysis here to reflect this new assertiveness. As Kei
Koga notes:
The time during the incident and the following months were marked
by nationalistic protests in both countries. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and other US government officials backed the Japanese through
confirmation of the Senkakus as defendable territory under their mutual
treaty. Eventually, the situation stabilized to the extent that a celebratory
visit of a Chinese delegation to Japan commemorating 40 years of official
Sino-Japanese relations was planned for 2012. However, as with the ear-
lier plans for joint development of natural resources in the ECS, some-
thing thwarted these plans.
The escalation in 2012 began with the plan of an ultranationalist
Japanese group in April ‘to purchase the islands with cash collected in a
national fund-raising campaign’ (Smith 2013, p. 27). This, in turn,
sparked activists from Hong Kong to travel to the Diaoyu/Senkaku
Islands. In essence, parts of the population began to escalate the dispute
in 2012. August saw many anti-Japanese protests in China and perhaps
drew in the government of Japan with action of its own: As explained
above, the Japanese government used to merely rent the rights on some of
the Senkaku islets. ‘On 11 September 2012, the Japanese government
signed a contract worth 2.05 billion yen ($26.1 million) with Kunioki
Kurihara, a private businessman, to purchase three of the five main islands
that constitute the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island group, an action that effec-
tively nationalized the islands’ (Smith 2013, p. 27). The Chinese govern-
ment went on to cancel the planned celebration of four decades of
Sino-Japanese relations. Whether or not the Japanese government thought
that nationalizing the islands would create a precedent and eventually
deescalate the dispute remains a conjecture; Japan’s actions to buy the
islands certainly did the opposite and intensified the situation. The Chinese
protests were destructive not only to Japanese cars and goods but also to
Japanese expats living in China. On many occasions since this event,
Chinese and Taiwanese military ships, including the Chinese aircraft car-
rier, have regularly entered the waters around the archipelago to protest
Japan’s purchase of the islands (Takenaka and Kaneko 2012).
The situation continued to be precarious throughout 2013 and wors-
ened toward the end of the year until it reached a low point in 2014. Also,
the use of Chinese and Japanese names for the islands has always been
156 L. K. DANNER
controversial since the first dispute over them in the late 1960s and it
remains so in this sixth round: In January 2013, a ‘1950 document show-
ing that China used to view the Japan-controlled Senkakus as part of the
Ryukyu Islands, or modern-day Okinawa Prefecture[, which] (…) report-
edly used Japanese names, including Senkaku, to refer to the islets[,]’ (Jiji
2013) was said to have been found in the diplomatic archives of the
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In late November 2013, China unilaterally set up an ADIZ over the
ECS, roughly correlating to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) it claims
and its continental shelf. The United States, Japan, and the ROK reacted
with protests. The United States also sent a military plane into the ADIZ.
This did not really assuage this dispute but rather had the opposite effect.
Otherwise, and especially before, the United States tried to act as a ratio-
nally deescalating force by, for example, backing Japan with statements
that armed conflict over the Senkakus would involve the United States
through the alliance with Japan as recorded in the 1960 treaty (Whitlock
2012); in other words, the United States was and is (from its viewpoint)
promoting stability in the heated dispute by supporting the balance of
power in Asia in bolstering the weaker side, that of Japan: ‘[T]he
U.S. Department of Defense announced that China’s new ADIZ would in
no way affect U.S. military operations in and around the East China Sea
and reiterated the U.S. security commitment to Japan’ (Smith 2015,
p. 232f.). Even though Taiwan also sent its coast guard to record its pro-
test, the Taiwanese government tried to prevent an escalation of the dis-
pute with the ECS Peace Initiative (Chen 2013).
The fact that China proclaimed an ADIZ was not the controversial part
of the situation in late November 2013—rather, the problem was how it
did it and the geographic space it claimed:
Japan and South Korea had long maintained similar zones within which
entering foreign aircraft were requested to identify themselves and their des-
tinations. China’s ADIZ, however, overlapped with those of both countries
and aligned largely with the airspace above its continental shelf. Thus,
China’s ADIZ challenged Japan’s in roughly the same way as its continental
shelf claim did. Moreover, China’s ADIZ included the disputed Senkaku
Islands, establishing a clear contest between Chinese and Japanese air patrols
over the islands. Interestingly, the new ADIZ also included an island whose
sovereignty Seoul and Beijing disputed. When the South Korean govern-
ment asked China to redraw its ADIZ line, Beijing refused, forcing Seoul to
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 157
take a far more rigid position than it otherwise might have. Both the timing
and the way in which Beijing declared it would enforce its ADIZ bothered
its neighbors. (Smith 2015, p. 232f.)
Japan does not acknowledge that the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands are dis-
puted by China, from the Chinese point of view, the islands constitute an
inherently Chinese territory and would therefore enlarge China’s sover-
eign maritime territory further than it would without the Senkakus being
Chinese. Thus, taking the Chinese point of view into account, the ADIZ
proclamation is not against the stipulations of defending one’s territory in
its PD grand strategy and, therefore, is converging. Whether such a move
was necessary is a question written on a different sheet.
Second, the Senkakus were not under Chinese control for the couple of
decades after the end of World War II, when it was under American con-
trol from previous Japanese control. After this, the islands were given back
to Japan for administrative control. The reality is that the Senkakus have
not been under Chinese control for quite some time. Therefore, from an
objective viewpoint, the action must be seen as a violation of Japan’s ter-
ritorial integrity and not as defending one’s own territory. This would
mean that China’s behavior in declaring an ADIZ diverges from PD grand
strategy.
Therefore, this point is evaluated as China being both in convergence
with and divergence from its PD grand strategy. Arguably, China needs
to answer to only its own people, and its national interest is served better
by having declared the ADIZ rather than not. The tendency is toward
this action being on the converging side but, of course, China does not
rise and act in a vacuum with respect to international relations. Especially
with territory as a scarce resource on earth, one also has to consider the
interests and ownership claims of other nations, such as Japan. Insofar,
China can be said to both diverge and converge with PD grand strategy
in this case (see Table 6.1 for an overview of analyzed divergences and
convergences).
Strictly speaking, since the territorial claim exceeded China’s actually
controlled maritime territory (i.e., cut into Japanese-controlled territory),
this led to new territorial gains on China’s part. Therefore, this should
count as an instance in which power increased for the state of China, espe-
cially considering that this was a gain against Japan, a power to be reck-
oned with, and not a weak peripheral neighbor state of China.4
In addition, China always claimed that this was inherently Chinese ter-
ritory and never acknowledged Japanese control over the uninhabited
islets. Whether this ADIZ is seen as an increase in power and not just a
manifestation, or ‘locking in,’ of the status quo as perceived by China
160 L. K. DANNER
Table 6.1 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of the declara-
tion of the ADIZ over the ECS
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
depends on one’s perspective on the dispute and whether one even recog-
nizes a dispute. If that is the case, it would still not belong to the diverging
category but just be a mere realization of China’s grand strategy to defend
its territory (or as an attempt to reunify, if one believes in the abovemen-
tioned understanding of a power increase).
This category can be interpreted as converging or diverging. If one
subscribes to the ADIZ as a revisionist act, this action may be understood
to be against Japan since it overlaps with territory Japan considers its own,
or at least it was clearly perceived by Japan and the United States as a pro-
vocative action. Therefore, it may be said to be directed against Japan and
the American superpower’s alliance. This would be classic balance-of-
power strategic behavior on China’s part, or ‘anti-hegemonism’ in China’s
official vocabulary, and therefore converging with its grand strategy.
Also, if one understands the ADIZ as a status quo manifestation of
what China understands to be its historic borders, then its declaration is
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 161
counted as perfectly converging with its grand strategy. Oana Burcu argues
that ‘China’s ADIZ alone does not clearly signal the rise of a revisionist
[China]. Rather, a case has been made that China is reacting to changes in
its external environment and this is particularly relevant in relation to
Diaoyu/Senkaku islands’ (2014, p. 9). However, if one understands
China’s ADIZ as a sign of non-acceptance of de facto existing borders, and
therefore revisionism, then a different argument arises. Such an enlarge-
ment of Chinese borders would constitute ambitions of the Middle
Kingdom to reach the status of a regional hegemon again, as it has been
for so many centuries before, to restore the Sino-centric order. Thus, in
case this ADIZ is one of many offensive, power-maximizing, and border-
enlarging international doings by China, it would constitute pursuing
hegemony itself and therefore be against the principle of anti-hegemonism
(i.e., diverging from PD grand strategy).
While the declaration of an ADIZ may not have had a direct influence
on economic markets, it certainly did not help the overall icy atmosphere
that the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute had created since mid to late
2012. Perhaps this (re-) action by China (and how it was received by Japan
and the United States) was even critical in prolonging it another year until
late 2014, when diplomatic relations between China and Japan slowly
normalized again. Some repercussions transferred from this military action
not just into diplomacy but also into the economy. As it certainly did not
contribute to normalization, the declaration of the ADIZ may be counted
as diverging from grand strategy.
Naturally, declaring an ADIZ is a defensive action at first glance, but
claiming the ADIZ over what is objectively speaking Japanese territory is
irresponsible and offensive—at least from a Japanese (and its US ally) per-
spective. This may—in a way—lead to a violent conflict down the road as
both Japan’s and China’s ADIZs overlap and both may defend their mari-
time territory in this geographic imbrication. Thus, this would qualify as
China not behaving like an internationally responsible actor. Certainly,
China’s goal here was to ensure national border security rather than relate
to the international level. Nevertheless, China was stretching the interna-
tional rules by such behavior and, since acting as an internationally respon-
sible power is part of its grand strategy, declaring an ADIZ over
foreign-controlled territory diverges from it.
The evaluation category of avoidance of the misperception of China
being a threat combined with this case is not to be understood as pertain-
ing to Japan, which is without much doubt the ‘Other’ to Chinese iden-
162 L. K. DANNER
tity—and the other way around, China is the ‘Other’ to Japan. Thus, one
can argue that this category does not apply to Sino-Japanese relations
since they likely perceived each other as possible threats to begin with.
Rather, the repercussions of this assertive action on the part of China in
relations with smaller and middle powers surrounding China is of concern
here—leaving foreign relations of China with Japan and even great powers
such as the United States, Russia, and India aside.
Such a clearly assertive action as declaring an ADIZ over enemy-
controlled maritime territory would contribute to observers seeing China
as a threat. Developments in the ECS and SCS are on a somewhat similar
footing with the exception that there are no contractual (yet still partly
loosely aligned) US allies involved in the SCS (Vietnam, Philippines,
Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia) and, contrary to that, exceptionally close US
allies (ROK, Japan, ROC)—some of which have many US troops on bases
on their soil—in the ECS.
This assertive action then would more than likely have led to the smaller
Southeast Asian nations perceiving China as a threat. China has been
assertive, too, in the SCS with its so-called island-building, that is, bring-
ing soil to small archipelagos there, enlarging their territory, and militarily
repurposing them as stationary aircraft carriers by building runways on
them. Combined with these dynamics, such an action as the ADIZ decla-
ration in the ECS in late 2013 at least triggered fears that China would
double down with a second ADIZ also for the SCS (Keck 2014)—even
building up so much pressure as to force the Chinese government to react
via its Xinhua state media agency to deny rumors of an ADIZ in the SCS
(Xinhua 2014); this action clearly diverges from the PD grand strategy.
This category also diverges from grand strategy: The suddenness and
assertiveness of the ADIZ declaration (i.e., the fact that it was unilaterally
announced without previous instructions to—at least—adjacent nations
and kept secret until official announcement) does seem alarming. It by no
means increased the international reputation of China. Rather, it may have
rather decreased China’s reputation before increasing it. Because it was
perceived as a revisionist action, China’s reputation cannot have been
ameliorated. Often, China is seen as a future (or even current) global
hegemonic successor to the United States—the highest possible status of
a great power, or superpower. There can be global hegemons with benign
(altruistic), exploitative (selfish), or mixed motives (both altruistic and
selfish). Whereas the United States is most often seen as either a benign or
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 163
Alternative Explanations
As outlined above, how the borders are interpreted and claimed deter-
mines how one assesses whether this is actually assertive, revisionist behav-
ior or merely securing one’s borders, the status quo. Should one subscribe
to the latter, China’s behavior perfectly converged with PD grand strategy
although it likely was aware of how the behavior would be received by
Japan and the United States (and the ROK and ROC peripherally), that is,
as assertive. Assuming the former—that this was objectively revisionist
behavior—its effect stays the same, that is, how it was received by adjacent
nations, the United States, and the international society of states.
Otherwise, there are no viable alternative explanations for the ADIZ
declaration as it is a very straightforward military action to secure China’s
own territory, and perhaps to set a precedent to be copied in the SCS.
Summary
This case of the ADIZ declaration clearly catered to China’s internal legiti-
macy. On the one hand, this action went mainly against Japan (i.e., the
ex-occupying-nation and historical archenemy). Although the Diaoyu/
Senkaku Islands territorial dispute was put off in several instances, to be
decided by later generations, vast parts of China’s nationalist-leaning pop-
ulation has demanded a reaction by the communist government to the
purchase of islets in this ECS archipelago by the Japanese government—
something that was perceived by the Chinese population and government
as a very assertive and nationalist action on the part of Japan. To put
China’s assertive action into perspective, it was merely a reaction—along
the lines of ‘fight fire with fire.’ Intriguingly, just when the diplomatic rela-
tions were basically put on ice after the first military showings around the
Senkakus in the fall of 2012, there would have been an important Sino-
Japanese event scheduled: September 29, 2012, would have marked the
fortieth anniversary of the official establishment of diplomatic relations
between China and Japan. Such a celebration would have not boded
164 L. K. DANNER
Course of Events
As mentioned above, the space program reaches further back than the ana-
lyzed time frame of this book. ‘China joined the “space club” on April 24,
1970, when it successfully sent its first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, into orbit
with its Long March rocket’ (Yang and Yu 2015; italics added). Fast-forward
to the twenty-first century, ‘China’s [five-day] Shenzhou[-6] manned mis-
sion of 12-17 October 2005 firmly established China’s place as a major
space player’ (Johnson-Freese and Erickson 2006, p. 12). Celebrating the
45th year anniversary of the 1970 launch of the first satellite into space in
2015, the Xinhua news agency reported that ‘China is now developing
Dongfanghong-5 with cutting edge technologies, which will be applied to
the ‘Internet Plus’ strategy’ (Yang and Yu 2015; italics added).
In short, China was late to the game and has come a long way since. In
the past few years, China has made extraordinary progress in terms of the
frequency of its launches into outer space. In 2007—just prior to the start
of the analyzed time frame of this book—China reported a mere ten
launched spaceflights, Russia had 22, and the United States had 16
launches (Logan 2007), whereas more recently, in 2016, China reported
22, the United States also 22, and Russia only 19 launches (Krebs 2017;
Pascaline 2016). This somewhat also reflects the growth China has under-
gone in the last decade and technological advances relative to the United
States and Russia.
Since 2000, China has been publishing a white paper on its space pro-
gram in a steadfast cycle of five—initially six—years (i.e., in 2000, 2006,
2011, and 2016). For the time period in question here, major accomplish-
ments included another manned space mission, the Shenzhou-7, from
September 25–28, 2008 (China 2011). Additionally,
China also became the third country in the world to master the key technol-
ogy of astronaut space extravehicular activity, completing a space material
test outside the spaceship and an experiment on deploying and a ccompanying
166 L. K. DANNER
publicized six days after the test (Covault 2007). ‘The PLA conducted the
test near China’s Xichang Space Center in Sichuan province. (…) China
reportedly used a two-stage, solid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile. (…)
[The U.S.,] (…) Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan,
Taiwan, and the European Union reportedly (…) issued concerns’ (Kan
2007, p. 1f.). The issue that most countries took with this ASAT weapon
test was that it was not announced prior to implementation in addition to
the PRC trying to keep it a secret until ‘its Foreign Ministry (…) issue[d]
a public statement [on] January 23, saying that China calls for the peaceful
use of space and that the test was not aimed at any country’ (Kan 2007,
p. 2; Guardian 2007). Obviously, the missile test—and how it was carried
out—speaks a different language: one that—for the United States—raised
‘questions about China’s capability and intention to attack U.S. satellites’
(Kan 2007, p. 2). A more recent assessment from US military circles see
this Chinese ASAT technology already so advanced that ‘China will soon
be able to destroy every satellite in space’ (Keck 2015).
On a more positive note, China’s most recent white paper on its space
activities from late 2016 closes with a sustained commitment to develop-
ing its space program in the coming years:
What concerns the connection of the current space program with older
history of China, that is, the imperial, glorious times in its history, even
though one might not notice an obvious connection between the two at
first glance, there still is one. While the first satellites, rockets, and other
such space equipment may have been named fitting the ideological prefer-
ences and personal cults of the time, this naming pattern has changed in
the past few years. The equipment that was developed in the 1960s and
1970s was given names that mostly were of Communist origin such as
Dongfanghong (东方红) which means ‘The East Is Red’ and the
Changzheng (长征) ‘Long March’ rocket referring to the color commonly
associated with Communism and the legendary march led by Mao Zedong
from October 1934 to October 1935 which helped the Chinese
Communists escape from military assault by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republicans
and consolidated Mao’s leadership role within the CCP, respectively. In
the more recent past, names for newly developed equipment which is not
in an existing series have not anymore used Communist names or allusions
to Communist history but rather have reached further back into China’s
ancient past and mythology.5 Aolong (遨龙) is a small satellite that can be
translated as ‘Roaming Dragon’ or simply ‘Dragon’ and alludes to the
mythological animal that was usually associated with very positive mean-
ings in ancient China; Chang’e (嫦娥) is the name of the Chinese explora-
tion program of the Moon and refers to the goddess of the Moon of the
same name in Chinese mythology (though, different from the Western
belief, this is not a personification of the moon but rather a goddess that
lives on the Moon); Yutu (玉兔) is the name of a lunar rover which was
sent to the Moon with said Chang’e mission and literally translated means
‘Jade Rabbit’ and is another allusion to aforementioned mythological tale
as the goddess began to feel lonely on the Moon and befriended a rabbit
that lives there, too; and Tiangong (天宫) translates to ‘Heavenly Palace’
and is the Chinese space station that is in the process of being built up
which naturally alludes to imperial times of Chinese history.
Next to the connection with its ancient past through language, the fact
that China is active via its technological advancements providing less
developed nations (or generally nations without the capability to shoot a
satellite into outer space) help with their space program or services for
their satellite needs could be seen as reminiscent of the centuries of tribu-
tary relations in which neighboring nations also looked up to imperial
China with admiration of its pioneering achievements in technology and
civilization.
170 L. K. DANNER
Table 6.2 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of China’s space
program
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
obvious partner for China to balance the United States with, given the
NATO and the generally close American-European relationship. The
cooperation with the EU and Russia taken together, one may, thus, see
China as abiding by its own concept of anti-hegemonism. But also apart
from cooperating with others to counter the US dominance, the Chinese
actions themselves also can be said to do the same: For example, the
abovementioned 2007 ASAT missile test was identified in ‘[v]arious com-
ments by PLA officers and PRC civilian analysts (…) as needed to counter
perceived U.S. ‘hegemony’ in space and target the vulnerability of U.S.
dependence on satellites’ (Kan 2007, p. 3). On the other hand, many
observers assert that China may have the intention to dominate space
itself—at least in the mid to long term, that is, become the space hege-
mon. This intention may be found in words such as those of President Xi
Jinping who ‘asked scientists to help realize China’s dream of becoming a
global space giant’ (Vasani 2017). In terms of the possibility of malevolent
intentions on the part of China regarding space, Garretson and Goswami
assess that ‘[w]hile China is unlikely to play the spoiler [in space], it is also
possible that China could strategically surprise itself with actions of inter-
national consequences that have not been broadly considered’ (2017).
The PD factor of maintaining favorable economic markets is fully met
here, if not to say that China mainly intends to achieve this as a primary
goal of its space program. Goswami, for example, sees the space race and
China’s program as focused on mainly ‘offer[ing] cost-effective space
technology for future commercial benefits’ (2017). According to Johnson-
Freese and Erickson: ‘China sees a space program as generating technol-
ogy, and technology as spurring economic development’ in turn, while
having the beneficial side effect of ‘[heightening] student interest in sci-
ence and engineering program (…), and technical jobs are created’ (2006,
p. 12). Similarly, Goswami states that ‘Chinese President Xi Jinping
believes that China’s investment in outer space will enhance scientific
innovation, boost creative entrepreneurial success, and create long-term
prosperity for the Chinese nation’ (2017).
The space program also helps China largely converge with its PD factor
of international responsibility. Via its relatively advanced space program
China is able to ‘offer services to countries in [its] strategic [neighbor-
hood]’ (Goswami 2017). This could be understood as a sort of foreign aid
to less developed nations through technological transfer as the PRC
‘utilize[s] its outer space program for regional diplomatic ends, to enhance
both diplomatic influence and future commercial avenues. (…) China has
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 173
already helped both Pakistan and Sri Lanka launch communication satel-
lites and is in talks with Maldives, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Nepal’
(Ibidem). Next to that, ‘China is a growing power in space and an active
member in formulating international space policy (…) [which is also]
quite open-minded about a new regime that incorporates commercial
entities, property rights, and novel governance regimes’ (Garretson and
Goswami 2017). Additionally:
China has been a strong proponent of an arms control regime in space and
has argued for the peaceful use of outer space in the United Nations’
Conference on Disarmament and at the Prevention of an Arms Race in
Outer Space dialogue. (Logan 2007, p. 2)
Via the space program, China was also able to improve its international
reputation. ‘China has helped Nigeria, Pakistan and Bolivia with their satel-
lite research and signed 12 international satellite contracts’ (Yang and Yu
2015). Evidently, the advances in the space program also furthered China’s
prestige, status, international standing, and reputation through the media
attention it received in the past few years—as elaborated on above. Therefore,
China also fully converged with this factor in PD. As Rob Chambers puts it:
‘a country that is able to build its own satellites, launch them, and then
control them to exploit the space domain is among an elite group of nations
and enjoys higher prestige than those that cannot’ (2009, p. 7f.).
Alternative Explanations
It is relatively hard to conceive that increasing China’s prestige and inter-
national standing could not be a prime motivating factor in fast-tracking
the space program in the past few years. In many ways, it may even almost
have been a problem for China to not have had a space program that is at
par with those of European nations, Japan, or the United States. Precisely
because China has been perceived as having risen to the grandeur of cen-
turies past, the fact that it had not been able to send a human to the Moon
(or something of that extent) is a mismatch with the prestige that China
has earned in the past few years, especially since the perceived decline of
the United States has set in with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. So,
alternatively to arguing that advances in the space program have been
made in order to improve China’s international reputation, one could put
forth the argument that China’s international reputation (e.g., as earned
by unprecedented double-digit GDP growth) was actually being dragged
down by the fact that it did not have a prestigious, technologically
advanced space program already, and that, therefore, China found itself in
a situation of misalignment rather than adding to its standing.
Another alternative explanation could be that, indeed, as Goswami
argues a mere economically motivated space program. She writes that
‘China’s space ambition is to harness the vast resources available in space
to benefit and sustain its economic rise’ (2016). Goswami identifies
‘Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP), lunar and asteroid mining, and estab-
lishing its own space station’ (2016) as China’s primary goals in the space
program. So, essentially, Goswami does not see the short-term benefit of
more or less easily gained prestige via space launches and manned mis-
sions, but the PRC’s intention to focus on the long term and put natural
resources and energy acquisition first in its goals for the space program.
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 175
Summary
All in all, China’s space capabilities have helped provide it with increased
respect, recognizing that it is on track to become as advanced as most
other nations when it comes to that area of asymmetric capabilities with
possible military use. But China also impressed with advances in the civil-
ian use spectrum—now providing services to other nations in regard to
their satellite needs, cooperating with developed countries in the West on
common space research, as well as supporting other less developed coun-
tries in their own space program efforts.
The case of the space program demonstrates quite obviously, that honor
and, in relation to it, external and internal legitimacy are central drivers.
First, China has reached 22 launches of satellites and other space equip-
ment via its Changzheng series carrier rocket in the year 2016, which was
at parity with the United States at the top spot and ahead of Russia which
only had 19. This clearly enhanced its international standing and prestige.
Given cooperation with many of the Western nations in research and
development of space technology, this also spoke to being a responsible
power and gaining external legitimacy.
Second, as the self-proclaimed ‘Voice of the Third World,’ China gained
external legitimacy from aiding other less developed countries with their
space programs and offering low-cost space-related services. Though the
very assertive ASAT weapon test of 2007 cannot be said to have too much
of a positive influence on China’s standing and legitimacy, as it was largely
perceived as a reckless exercise, it was, and is also, an effort to advance its
‘anti-hegemonism’ PD factor, that is, countering the US military domi-
nance and attacking it at its (probably) weakest spot, which is the heavy
dependence on satellites when it comes to military operations and intelli-
gence work. Though, the latter aspect speaks more to awe and the cultural
driver of fear than to prestige and honor.
Third, China aimed at acquiring legitimacy internally via the space
program through multiple channels. On the one hand, it markets its space
program as advancing China’s economic development at home. On the
other hand, the PRC has moved to using language and symbols around
the space program that alludes to traditional and more glorious times of
Chinese history—such as with the Chang’e lunar exploratory program or
the Tiangong space station. During Chinese imperial times, the Middle
Kingdom was always highly regarded for its advanced civilization and
technology, for example, as the inventors of gun powder or the compass.
176 L. K. DANNER
Fourth, yet another factor where the space program helps with internal
legitimacy is the competition with the other Asian powers, especially India
and Japan. Chinese nationalism is particularly focused on Japan as the
‘Other’ and, as such, to outdo it in terms of space activities (at the very
least in the number of space launches) is satisfying to many Chinese ultra-
nationalists. Here, again, prestige is the number one factor, and, in gen-
eral, space programs have been associated with national prestige acquisition
since the Cold War.
Course of Events
As of December 2015, China is the ninth largest contributor to UN PKMs
worldwide and the largest among the UNSC permanent five members
(P5). It contributed 161 police personnel, 36 UN military experts, and
2882 troops—more than 3000 UN PKM personnel in total. This com-
pares to the United States’ 82 total contributions, Russia’s 79, France’s
909, and Britain’s 289.7 Currently, China has troops deployed on UN
PKMs in Liberia, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and
Lebanon, previously having deployed troops to Haiti, Libya, Iraq, Kuwait,
and Cambodia. This engagement in UN PKMs should be valued highly by
the international community because
Beijing views with deep suspicion one of the great projects of the post-Cold
War international system: multilateral humanitarian intervention. (…)
Beijing does not like this post-Cold War trend one bit. Sanctions and inter-
ventions against the will of sovereign states in the developing world run
against China’s post-1978 domestic and international ideology. (…) In this
narrative, the real goal of international pressure was not the promotion of
‘so-called human right’ but the subjugation of China in a Western-dominated
international order. With that (…), China has been very reluctant to sanc-
tion other sovereign states on such grounds, let alone allow UN-backed
military intervention for the purpose of furthering humanitarian or security
goals. (Christensen 2015, p. 162f.)
Only slowly and with increasing power and, thus, international confi-
dence did the stance on UN PKMs change: ‘Finally, after harbouring
much suspicion about multilateral security cooperation, Beijing has altered
its views considerably since the turn of the century, favouring multilateral
security cooperation in areas such as arms control agreements and United
Nations peacekeeping missions’ (Lanteigne 2016, p. 6).
The process of changing China’s mind took some time: At the begin-
ning, the PRC was not even expressly pro-UN intervention when it first
inherited the seat in the UNSC from the ROC in the 1970s; after decades
of change and its famous unprecedented (re-)rise to great power status,
China now actively participates in UN PKMs. As Marc Lanteigne writes:
178 L. K. DANNER
‘China has praised the UN’s views on security-building and more recently
on disarmament, and during the 1990s took a more conciliatory view on
United Nations peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention. China
would later match words with deeds’ (2016, p. 78). ‘The origins of
China’s involvement date to the 1989-1992 period, when it first dis-
patched military observers to Africa and the Middle East, and military
engineering corps to Cambodia’ (Shambaugh 2013, p. 299).
The decisive change in China’s view to support UN PKMs does not
mean that it abandoned its belief in the somewhat pluralist conception of
territorial integrity and sovereignty:
For a long time, it was true for Chinese deployments that ‘[i]n UN
peacekeeping operations, the ground forces take part with engineers,
logisticians, and medical personnel rather than with other combat units’
(Heilmann and Schmidt 2014, p. 60). However, 2013 marked the first
time China sent troops abroad with an actual fighting brief within a UN
PKM. As Christensen explains:
Until it agreed to deploy ‘blue helmets’ to Mali in 2013, China had never
agreed to send combat troops to PKO or stabilization missions. But China
still lost fourteen peacekeeping and stabilization personnel in incidents such
as Israeli air strikes in Lebanon and the earthquake in Haiti. China even
trains large numbers of other countries’ peacekeepers in an impressive facil-
ity outside of Beijing. (Christensen 2015, p. 163)
This step to cross the threshold of sending combat troops abroad marks
a major change in China’s attitude and actions within the UN framework.
More recently, in summer 2015, the Ministry of Defense published a
white paper, ‘China’s Military Strategy,’ in which it also lays out a plan of
action vis-à-vis UN military strategy under the subheading ‘Fulfilling
international responsibilities and obligations’ (China 2015):
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 179
Any statistic on whose basis China can prove its splendor and cast a
shadow on the traditional great powers at the same time helps increase its
status and reputation in a positive manner—such as UN PKMs participa-
tion. For many living in developed countries (DCs), it is still a bit of a
stretch to imagine a Chinese future superpower with a global presence
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 181
that will act as police force the same way the United States has. The for-
eign media exposure in the framework of UN PKMs is certainly helpful in
the power-transitioning process to reach people’s hearts and minds to
accept a benign Chinese leadership role.
While UN peacekeeping participation may have significantly increased
China’s external legitimacy vis-à-vis the other great powers, another
dimension is the external legitimacy vis-à-vis the LDCs. China likes to
present itself as the leader of the Third World, and as such it is helpful to
slowly develop standing not just on the diplomatic and economic levels—
which China has been doing maybe even to exhaustion—but also with
respect to establishing security and a military foothold. That China is tak-
ing part in UN PKMs to impress LDCs more so than the P5 may be con-
firmed by a look at who else values contributing to UN PKMs: Next to
China, the ‘Top 10’ of nations contributing most in total to UN PKMs are
Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Rwanda, Nepal, Senegal, Ghana,
and Nigeria.8
Despite contradicting a previously held position not to intervene in
other countries and, thus, interfere with their internal affairs, seeing China
with a global presence helps with internal legitimacy for domestic pur-
poses. The home front understands that when China was in a relatively
weak position post-World War II and post-Civil War in the 1950s, it had
not much of a choice other than to condemn the ‘Century of Humiliation’
and the behavior of Japan and others to semi-colonize and semi-subjugate
China. The Chinese leadership had to develop a strong principled stand
against interference in general. Now that China is powerful and to be
reckoned with, the change in this stance is easily comprehensible. It can-
not necessarily be interpreted as picking up on the historical legacy of the
tributary system, especially if interpreted as a coercive tool which China
used to subjugate neighbors; but it is possible to think of UN PKM par-
ticipation as a tool to help overcome the humiliation complex.
Table 6.3 Divergence from or convergence with PD in the case of the continued
participation in UN peacekeeping missions
Factor in PD Convergence/Divergence
This category does not seem very relevant for the factor of economic
markets. However, if one defines the maintenance of favorable economic
markets as also keeping peace politically and militarily, then participating
in a UN PKM certainly applies as converging with PD grand strategy. As
China has also heavily invested in those affected countries in which UN
PKMs are taking place or may take place in the future, participation in
them contributes not only to an altruistic ‘greater good,’ but in effect also
to China’s own selfish, corporate interests.
The factor of international responsibility is without doubt the center-
piece of the Chinese government’s motivation to participate in UN PKMs.
China has been called to support international peace more actively by
being the ‘responsible stakeholder’ it should be—starting with WB
President Zoellick’s speech in 2005.10 On the one hand, taking on more
responsibility through UN PKMs is certainly a step in the direction that
Zoellick and others talked about. On the other hand, some domestic
Chinese voices are convinced that ‘the West’s call for China to play a
184 L. K. DANNER
China has received very high marks and positive evaluations for the quality
and the integrity of its personnel and contributions to PKO operations (…).
They are increasingly involved in mission leadership and decision making.
(…) All in all, China’s contributions to UNPKO have been a definite ‘net
plus’ for the UN, China, and the recipient countries. It is a tangible—per-
haps the most tangible—indication of China’s contribution to global gover-
MILITARY CASE STUDIES 185
Alternative Explanations
With the UN PKM, there is little doubt that it is an exercise meant to
increase external legitimacy, as it took China a long time to move from its
strong stand on sovereignty—a pluralist conception of the international
society of states—toward a softer understanding of sovereignty that allows
for intervention and peacekeeping.
That this could further facilitate economic access is most certainly a
positive byproduct for the Chinese. China has been expanding into those
countries in which UN PKMs become necessary since investors from DCs
may shy away from investing large sums of money in countries on the
verge of becoming ‘failed states.’ Thus, one cannot deny that the cultural
driver of interest plays a role here—but nevertheless not for the purpose of
determining external legitimacy.
An explanation which would erode external legitimacy is the eventual
use of the UN PKM experience for coercive purposes—even if the partici-
pation per se may seem peaceful at the time; as Heilmann and Schmidt
imply in relation to talking about dual-use technology:
Summary
A look at China’s continued participation in UN PKMs clearly shows that
honor and, in relation to it, external legitimacy are the central drivers.
First, taking part in PKMs enhances China’s profile as a responsible great
power engaging the international community. This speaks to the existing
great powers which have called on China time and again to take on more
responsibility. Such participation takes the steam out of that debate while
helping China’s status and reputation. Today, ‘China has arguably taken
186 L. K. DANNER
Notes
1. An earlier version of this subchapter was published in parts in Danner
(2014).
2. This may or may not be understood as China’s assertive reaction in the
context of the United States having announced its ‘Pivot to
Asia’/‘Rebalancing’ strategy. See, for instance, Adamson (2013).
3. For a full account of the first three phases and first five rounds of disputes,
see, for example, Danner (2014), pp. 227ff.
4. Today, of course territorial gains are often written off as an antiquated way
of increasing power but rather to see power increases in terms of economic
power, technological advancement, or military strength. This can be said
to have been a general trend with a censure around the end of the Second
World War, that is, the fact that the dynamics of measuring a nation’s
power went from quantity (of territory, soldiers, population) to quality
(GDP, types of weapons, technology). This is not to say that perhaps China
does still think along these antiquated lines—this may very well be the case.
5. The Dongfanghong (‘The East Is Red’) series continues to this day with
Dongfanghong-4 satellites being launched latest and the Dongfanghong-5
satellites currently in research and development; see Yang and Yu (2015).
6. An earlier version of this subchapter was published in parts in Danner
(2016).
7. See UN (2015).
8. See UN (2015).
9. See, for instance, Linklater and Suganami (2006, p. 261), Scheipers (2010,
p. 15ff.), or Navari and Green (2013). Pluralism is the wing of interna-
tional society of states which put a great emphasis on sovereignty, borders,
territorial integrity, and non-interference in internal affairs. The other side
of international society—said to be the more progressive, Western stance—
is that of solidarism, which emphasizes that territorial integrity can and
should be softened in certain situations, for example, threat of an immi-
nent genocide. Naturally, states which suffered a similar fate as China, who
were victims of colonialism and exploitation by stronger nations, usually
belong to the pluralist faction, so as to prevent future intrusion into their
internal affairs and secure their survival as a nation.
10. See Zoellick (2005).
188 L. K. DANNER
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CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
Territorial integrity
Increasing power
Anti-hegemonism
Factors in PD |
Maintaining market
International responsibility
Inward-looking | Outward-looking
Factors in PD
Improving reputation
CONCLUSION 195
Revisiting the Hypotheses
The first hypothesis, stating that the grand strategy is internally incoherent
if policy diverges from or is incongruent with China’s standard of national
honor, held partially true for the three within-case studies analyzed in
which internal incoherence of the PD grand strategy was actually present.
In these three analyzed incoherent events (Ukraine Crisis, REEs, ADIZ),
what led to the incongruence with PD grand strategy was not completely
due to incongruence between policy and honor but rather due to incon-
gruence of policy with some aspects of China’s standard of national honor
as it pertains to domestic/internal legitimacy (see Table 7.2 for an over-
view of the analyzed hypotheses and outcomes).
The second hypothesis, stating that the grand strategy is internally coher-
ent if policy is consistent or congruent with China’s sense of national honor,
proved to be again partially confirmed in the three events with incoherence
(Ukraine Crisis, REEs, ADIZ) for the reasons mentioned above, whereas it
was completely confirmed for the six within-cases (Arctic Council [AC], One
Belt One Road [OBOR], Free Trade Agreements [FTAs], Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank [AIIB], Space Program, United Nations Peacekeeping
Missions [UN PKMs]) in which grand strategy was in fact coherent. In these
six latter cases, aspects of China’s standard of national honor in both internal
and external legitimacy were observed and, therefore, congruence with an
internally coherent grand strategy resulted as a consequence.
The third hypothesis, stating that China will tend to use peaceful means
if its goal is enhancing external legitimacy, was corroborated by those
three cases in which peaceful means were used while advancing mainly
external legitimacy (OBOR, AIIB, UN PKMs), as well as those events
where both external and internal legitimacy were advanced (AC, FTAs,
Space Program). It did not apply to the other three cases (Ukraine crisis,
REEs, ADIZ), in which solely internal legitimacy was advanced.
The fourth hypothesis, stating that China will tend to use assertive
means if the goal is enhancing internal legitimacy, was corroborated for
the three within-case studies that enhanced only internal legitimacy
(Ukraine crisis, REEs, ADIZ) but was not confirmed for the six cases in
which either mostly external (OBOR, AIIB, UN PKM) or a mix of internal
and external legitimacy (AC, FTAs, Space Program) were furthered. In
these latter six cases, China did not resort to assertive means.
In testing these four hypotheses, a relatively clear situational answer
came to the fore through the analysis (see Fig. 7.1): if a grand strategy
Table 7.2 Overview of tested hypotheses as confirmed ( ), disconfirmed ( ), or both ( )
Internal legitimacy cases Mixed legitimacy cases External legitimacy cases
External
Legitimacy Converge
Peaceful with
Mixed (Exter- Behavior ‘PD’
nal + Internal)
Given Situation Legitimacy
Assertive Diverge
Internal
Behavior from
Legitimacy
‘PD’
Implications for Theory
On a theoretical level, this book agrees with studies such as those of Thomas
Christensen (1996) and Christopher Layne (2009) in that domestic factors
(legitimacy) matter greatly and impact the country’s grand strategy. Second,
this book finds that grand strategy manifestations need to be contextual-
ized within domestic factors as well as cultural/historical factors. Only then
can an originally Western theory be adapted to a non-Western case. Third,
the analysis showed the general importance of ideational factors, which
may be applicable for Western countries’ grand strategic analysis as well.
Precisely this is exemplified by the fact that when China’s grand strat-
egy manifestations focus on internal legitimacy, the outward-looking fac-
tors are completely ignored and coherence with the PD grand strategy is
broken. In these cases of internal-legitimacy-related manifestations,
inward-looking factors of PD are more likely to be adhered to, especially
as seen from China’s own perspective. On the other hand, external-
legitimacy-related and mixed-legitimacy manifestations are by and large
CONCLUSION 199
always coherent with the PD grand strategy in terms of both inward- and
outward-looking factors.
In the normative debate over whether all great powers have a visible
grand strategy or whether there can be no grand strategy or multiple
grand strategies employed at the same time, the results show that China
has overwhelmingly kept to its grand strategy core priorities. These main
aims of the PD grand strategy could be clearly identified in most analyzed
events.
Debating whether or not countries always act rationally, or whether it is
too simple to make a clear distinction between emotion and rationality,
this study suggests that the answer depends on one’s viewpoint; that is,
even if China’s actions might seem irrational to a foreign nation, they are
perfectly rational to China at all times. On the one hand, this can be easily
explained by the fact that foreign nations will not naturally take China’s
internal legitimacy, honor, or other intangible factors into account but
rather will decide that, materialistically speaking, China’s behavior was
irrational at times. On the other hand, acting in consideration of honor
and in pursuit of status, reputation, recognition, and prestige, as well as
the related legitimacy, can be perfectly rational from China’s perspective.
Nonetheless, emotion also plays into China’s self-perceived rational actions
via the ‘Century of Humiliation’ complex and the desire to once again rise
to the historical role of regional hegemon, earning the respect of the other
great powers. What political psychologists have recently termed ‘emotion-
driven’ rationality therefore comes closest to the findings of this book.1
Regarding the debate over whether culture (in this analysis, the related
cultural driver of honor) should be considered a variable or a constant, this
study finds that the generally held belief that culture is a constant applies
in this case. Since the historical experience of having been a regional hege-
mon for many centuries until the recent ‘Century of Humiliation’ has
been ingrained in China’s political culture and historical memory, its pref-
erences about external and internal legitimacy follow from that experience.
Thus, it is only natural for China to diverge in some situations (i.e., in
those associated with internal legitimacy) from its PD grand strategy.
Implications for Policy
In terms of implications for US foreign policy, China’s actions need to be
filtered through a legitimacy ‘lens,’ which may allow some apparent threats
to be called out as ‘bluffs.’ Regarding China’s policies and grand strategy
200 L. K. DANNER
Notes
1. See, for instance, Shenkman (2016).
2. See Denyer (2016).
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202 L. K. DANNER
Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), xv, status of, 3, 4, 11–17, 21, 23n6, 30,
83, 131 35, 37, 39–41, 43, 51, 58, 59,
Brazil, 131 64–69, 72, 73, 76, 84, 85,
Brunei, 52, 144n24, 162 88–91, 92n12, 100, 103, 112,
Buzan, Barry, 5, 8n11, 34–37 118, 120–122, 124, 130, 132,
141, 153, 159–164, 168, 174,
177, 180, 184, 185, 193, 195,
C 199, 200
Cambodia, 92n18, 144n24, 177, 178 UN Participation of, xvi, 176–178,
Century of Humiliation, vii, 6, 181–186, 196
19–21, 56–59, 71, 76, 120, in war with Vietnam, 31
168, 195, 199 China, Republic of (ROC), see Taiwan
Chang’e (lunar mission), 166, 169, 175 Chinese Civil War, 19, 63, 64, 176, 181
Chen, Dingding, 3, 6, 8n14, 68, 78, Chinese Communist Party (CCP), xv,
87, 156 20, 35, 36, 58, 79, 81, 85, 89–91,
Cheonan, 52 111, 128, 140, 142n2, 164, 169
Chiang, Kai-shek, 169 Chinese Republican Party (GMD), 58
China, People’s Republic of (PRC) Christensen, Thomas, 28, 34, 46n9,
fear in foreign affairs of, 2, 13, 37, 46n10, 128, 135, 177, 178,
39–41, 43, 64, 77, 79, 85, 87, 182, 198
90, 138, 175, 184, 195 Climate change, 65
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Cold War, vii, 36, 53, 54, 58, 61, 65,
xvi, 41, 88, 111, 122, 152, 82, 139, 157, 167, 176, 177, 195
174, 187n4 Command, Control, Communications,
historical memory, 6, 7, 16, 38, 88, Computers, Intelligence,
90, 199 Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
honor in foreign affairs of, vii, 2, 4, (C4ISR), 170
6, 7, 11–16, 21, 22, 27, 37, Confucian, 13, 14, 16, 23n7, 41, 42
39–41, 43, 45, 58, 63–65, 70, Confucianism, 3, 31
76, 77, 84, 88–91, 110–112, Confucius, ix, xiii, 17, 41, 43, 69
116, 121, 125, 140, 164, 175, Cyber warfare, 152
180, 185, 193, 195, 196, 199
(economic) interest in foreign affairs
of, 11, 13, 21, 39–41, 43, 63, D
77, 88, 122, 125, 195 Dalai Lama, 120
involvement of in Ukraine Crisis, Democracy, 23n7, 87, 122, 142n2
54, 56 Deng, Xiaoping, xxiii, 4, 32, 33, 42,
national sovereignty, 19–21, 51, 111, 176, 184, 200
53–57, 59, 63, 84, 108, 110, Denmark, 65, 68, 131
154, 156, 158, 178, 180, 181, Diaoyu Islands, 42, 52, 104, 105,
185, 187n9 142n10, 154
space program, 7, 41, 151, 152, Dongfanghong (satellite), 165, 169,
164–176 187n5
INDEX
205
E I
East China Sea (ECS), xv, 7, 17, 18, Iceland, 65, 68, 70, 71, 74, 99, 101,
33, 42, 52, 63, 64, 71, 102, 105, 118, 119, 122, 125, 131
108, 110, 113, 115, 142n10, India, 31, 32, 40, 57, 63, 69, 80, 82,
144n18, 151, 153–164, 195 87, 92n12, 127, 129, 144n24,
Egypt, 131 151, 162, 168, 173, 176, 181
European Union (EU), xv, 40, 56, 68, Indonesia, 75, 78, 79, 81, 121, 128,
87, 92n12, 101, 103, 104, 107, 129, 162
113, 119, 122, 125, 168, 171, Iran, 29, 110, 131, 151
172, 195 Island building, 162
Israel, 131
Italy, 69, 131
F
Finland, 65, 70, 131
France, xv, 1, 18, 66, 131, 177 J
Free Trade Agreement (FTA), xvi, 6, Japan, vii, 1, 15, 18, 20, 32, 36, 40,
68, 69, 78, 101, 117–126 42, 52, 56, 57, 63, 64, 66, 69,
85, 87, 90, 99, 102, 104–106,
108, 110–113, 116, 120, 130,
G 131, 135, 137, 140, 151–157,
Georgia, Republic of, 131 159–161, 163, 164, 167, 168,
Germany, 1, 18, 33, 36, 46n3, 46n4, 171, 173, 176, 181, 195
66, 131, 135, 137
Global Financial Crisis, 4, 58
Grand strategy, vii, viii, 1–7, 7n4, 7n5, K
7n6, 8n7, 8n8, 12, 16, 21, 22, Kazakhstan, 78, 80, 144n24
27–40, 45, 51, 53, 54, 59, 62, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic
64, 72, 73, 75, 76, 86–90, of (DPRK), xv, 29, 52, 53, 100,
92n13, 99, 101, 102, 109, 110, 132, 176, 180
112–115, 117, 118, 122, 124, Korea, Republic of (ROK), 18, 22,
127, 133, 135–137, 139, 92n12, 101, 118, 124, 130, 156,
151–153, 159–164, 167, 170, 167, 168, 173, 176
173, 181–184, 193, 195, 196, Kuwait, 129, 144n24, 177
198–201 Kyrgyzstan, 131
H L
Hegemon, 1 Laos, 81, 92n18, 100, 144n24
Hu, Jintao, 33, 53, 127, 128, 157, Lebow, Richard Ned, 2, 4, 7n3, 8n9,
176, 201 11, 37, 46n15, 193
206 INDEX
Singapore, 52, 69, 81, 118, 130, United Kingdom (UK), 19, 23n7, 66,
144n24 110, 120, 121, 130, 131, 135, 137
Song Dynasty, 23n5 United States (US), xvi, 1, 2, 23n7,
South Africa, 131 27, 29, 30, 34, 37, 39, 40, 54,
South China Sea (SCS), xvi, 33, 52, 56, 59, 67, 74, 103, 107, 114,
58, 63, 64, 79, 81, 92n16, 158, 117, 127, 130, 135, 136, 139,
162, 163 143n15, 153, 156, 167, 176
Spain, 66, 131 Uzbekistan, 144n24
Sri Lanka, 144n24, 152, 173
Sweden, 65, 69, 131
Switzerland, 99, 101, 118, 119, 121, V
122, 124, 131 Vietnam, 31, 32, 75, 81, 87, 127,
129, 143n13, 144n24, 162
T
Taiwan (ROC), xvi, 18, 21, 54, 57, W
58, 63, 111, 130, 132, 151, 154, Wen, Jiabao, 53, 104
156, 167, 176 World Trade Organization (WTO), 104
Tang Dynasty, 23n5
Thailand, 81, 144n24
Tiangong (space station), 166, X
169, 175 Xi, Jinping, 42, 52, 53, 69, 70, 76–80,
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), xvi, 83, 117, 121, 128, 129, 131,
91, 101 157, 170, 172, 201
Tributary system, 6, 13–17, 20, 23n6,
23n8, 40, 43, 57, 85, 87, 88, 90,
132, 135, 137, 140, 181, 186 Y
Trump, Donald, 117, 200 Yan, Xuetong, 3, 6, 7n4, 8n7, 8n13, 39
Turkey, 131 Yuan Dynasty, 22n5
Yutu (lunar rover), 166, 169
U
Ukraine, 6, 42, 51, 53, 54, 56–64, 66, Z
69, 79, 110, 195, 196 Zheng, Bijian, 4, 33, 35–37, 41, 71,
United Arab Emirates (UAE), 131 76, 121