China: Rejecting Peace “Made in U.S.A.”
Analysis on China as a Rising Threat to U.S. and U.S.’ Rebalance
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“Kid, if war ever starts in China,” Dad spoke calmly as he gobbled towards the end of dinner, “Shenzhen would undoubtedly be included in the precautionary area if our government declare war towards Japan, or Taiwan.”
“Shouldn’t it be Fujian? I though they have the naval and air force units deployed, don’t think too much Dad; I’d be an old lady if the war ever started. And, I still deeply believe we would all be killed by pollution before missiles arrive.” My eyes were on TV screen while I throw out that casual reply, “aren’t we trying to avoid conflict, plus, no one would sacrifice economic development to war, Shenzhen especially, right? ”
“See, I guess my point is, developed countries doesn’t like us being so adamant on getting stronger and taking over their roles, to them we are only military neophyte, we are good at IT and finance, and … perhaps accounting, we should stick with those and not steal their thunder in security, and it becomes more sensitive when it has to do with energy,” Dad started cleaning up the table, “I will not expand on that, but you get the point. Global security used to be exclusively produced and distributed from U.S., or at most U.K., has nothing to do with us.”
I was going to reply to him, but Dad started talking again.
“By all means, should there be war, you need go back to hometown in northeast, even bordering Russia is better than living coastal nowadays. Coastal cities are more rewarding, but definitely more risk. Finish your dinner and let’s go jog later, got to prepare you for war kiddo.”
Dad was only joking, hopefully. But every daughter can sense the seriousness in parents’ slightest change of tone.
My father dedicated his whole life moving our family from northern city to coastal area seeking for more career opportunities, social welfare and perhaps a superior education opportunity for me. Because of my father’s hard-working spirit and excellency, my household registration card finally says “Shenzhen” with a red-ink National Security Bureau approval firmly stamped on my photo some nine years ago. But, of all a sudden, my caring father who wishes the best for his family is considering moving back again?
I did not realize my father’s concern on national security, I though he was a complete IT guy, neither did I pay attention to the supposedly “gradual rise” of China, because in Shenzhen, we build everything at least three time faster than others. Having a better sensitivity on the outrageously growing numbers, dad was not over-reacting at all: China sustained its double digit GDP growth for two decades, and now Chinese government has increased military spending and expanding territories on securing land and sea. As a faithful listener of CCTV-1 prime time news, it is not hard to detect an ever more assertive tone sent out from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered by Qin Gang, Hong Lei or Hua Chunying. Although China’s rise has benefitted and rejuvenated numerous countries and economies regardless of the historical conflict, China has been constantly demonized in western literature or media, with its leadership depicted as hawkish dictatorship where you would always find China listed in between Democratic Republic of Congo, North Korea and Iran.
Some say, China is taking on more active role in engaging internationally, some other say, China’s provocative action is completely unnecessary and will incur more supervision. From a Chinese perspective, I see this as China rejecting protection or supervision form the western society, especially that from U.S.. Maintaining security should never be the duty for all, it is the exclusive power owned by the most developed, therefore any kind of intervention is fatal, and should be killed since attempt. So, instead of scrambling for a share of security preservation, submissive is largely appreciated and countries are always welcomed to go under the protecting umbrella held by other more “capable countries”. Perhaps this is where China finds U.S. meddlesome, while China irritates U.S. in return.
To blame Chinese government being overly aggressive might not be fair, because most Chinese foreign policies are well intended, but some are not well implemented, or well interpreted, leading to massive misunderstanding. Because Chinese news would not risk their reputation report beyond surface, leaving many crucial factors unexplained, or sometimes distorted. Eventually, attracts more international attention and trigger passive offense. As Chinese news and media remain perfectly un-transparent on the intention and purpose of China’s foreign gesture and actions, I want to respond to father’s question regarding his concern on potential warfare on China’s east coast, and I feel urged to decode China’s intention in strengthening its naval composition, also China’s gesture towards external aggression across the ocean, in order to forecast a likeable future of China’s expansion.
China: Rejecting Peace “Made in U.S.A.”
Analysis on China as a Rising Threat to U.S. and U.S.’ Rebalance
1200 nautical miles away from China:
Japan raised the issue of island procurement towards Senkaku, aka Diaoyu, a more widely recognizable name among Chinese populace, which evoked fervent Chinese nationalism. In less than one week of the nationalism social upheaval, hundreds of Japanese cars and merchandise were torn; some Japanese companies suffered severe decrease in profit or deficits in Mainland China, in some extreme cases some private Japanese entities even faces permanently withdrawal from China.
Recently, Japanese self-defense aircraft jets after Chinese aircraft approached the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, but Beijing maintains that the aircraft is operated by China’s State Oceanic Administration and did not intrude the Japanese airspace. The series of dispatching and tracking accumulates more tension between two countries.
6058 nautical miles away from China:
The most controversial, most irritating, at a certain extent almost an un-invited intruder, a third party involved in the Pacific security, the U.S.. Although U.S. military expenditure towards Asia was not increasing, yet the expenditure in other areas, especially that of Middle East, have decreased in 2012, leaving the percentage of military expenditure on Asian on the rise. While the policy towards China’s increasing standing in Pacific area has shifted from “containing” to “rebalancing”, U.S. did not give up its intensive naval deployment on both western and eastern boundary of the Pacific ocean, setting its surveillance intensely around the South China Sea area, securing its alliances encircled China.
An outline of China U.S. relationship on the sea may look like this: Pacific region has attracted increasing attention not only due to the labor-intense industries and increasing profit on overseas procurement and investment. In reality, fierce economic expansion and gradual power transition have taken place, whilst Pacific military defense network started to build up. Among the top five largest naval powers in the world, four of them are located on the Eurasia continent, three of them touch Pacific Ocean, the other two, undoubtedly, are Russia and the U.S.. China welcomes its first aircraft carrier in 2012 and aiming for a more fierce naval expansion by 2020. Although a neophyte in promoting military capabilities, China is steadily closing the gap with the U.S.. The growing military and economic capabilities send mixed messages to China’s neighbors and the U.S., China is deemed as major threat from then on. In the following discussion, I attempt to offer my perspectives on the deepening conflict on China U.S. relationship and China’s performance in consecutive events like China’s economic rise, territorial expansion, and how the series of event agitated U.S. and China’s neighbor. At the end we will come back to the question on why China refuses to accept U.S.’ offer in maintaining peace.
To start with, China rose almost unnoticed, but certainly in a timely fashion. China has traditionally and intentionally kept its growth and expansion low-key, some scholars look into the post Mao path of growth of China and summarized that China fully enjoyed its “advantage of backwardness”. In other words, China is a last bloomer among its Asian peers, yet, by the time China reset its economic orientation, countries like Japan and Singapore were money-locked and in search for capital liquidation in Asian Financial Crisis. In recent years, with the increasing decline of the western world, China’s growth rate under the Hu administration has outperformed its peers at exponential speed. For instance, U.S. face domestic economic revitalization and foreign security deterrent, full economic recovery in the next few years may seem dim for Washington. On the other hand, half of European Union and Japan are trapped in debt crisis. Finally, the rest of the African world, although celebrating considerable growth after 1995, but are still struggling with insurgents, terrorism, hunger, or disease. While on the other side of the world, transpacific partnership (TPP), a newly promoted economic network for Asia Pacific region and a basis for new international economic cooperation, has emerged, arming at liberalizing and powering economies in Asia Pacific region. Today, Asian Pacific accounts for about 50% of the trade and 60% of global GDP. IMF estimates that by 2030, GDP of Asia will exceeds that of G7. The agreement of regional free trade has boosted approximately 17% of world trade, which translate into willingness of the rest of Asian countries eagerly to participate in the partnership. Asian economic architecture has matured in addition to APEC; other economic forums are on the rise, like ASEAN+3, Asian Summit.
Establishing economic network benefitted the Pacific region as a whole; nonetheless, China’s activeness is deemed as existential threat and strung up its Asian brothers. The source of threat stems from China’s self-victimization. Unlike that of an offensively calculating empire, China’s aggression originates from the sense of insecurity of as nation state. Therefore, China will continue to feel threatened by the U.S. until China pins down America as depicted in the power transition theory, and its allies in located in Pacific area and secures all the sea lines of communication that is essential to China’s energy supply. The defensive nation state mentality makes China always perceives itself as a non-aggressive victim, and will insists that China’s claims in the region is legitimate and moral. Additionally, China’s Third World identity also reinforces this self-victimization. Although China attempts to identify itself as third nation countries, its Asian peers who does not share equal glory does not recognize China’s claim as China’s increasing military aggression provoked more Asian peers against it. In response, nations surrounding china are gearing up in defense of China’s potential attack countries India and South Korea are accusing China for manipulating history to serve its own interest. China’s continue expanding its territory towards south also triggers high-risk hot spot, therefore leading Asian countries deem China’s rise as major factor in ending peace in Asia. For example, the territorial dispute of Koguryo with South Korea. Irritated by China’s military aggression, some Asian eventually choose to line up with U.S. in search for protection in the Pacific region.
To make things worse, owns a history of inflicting border conflict and invading neighbors, this also stirs up Pacific security. The Pax Sinica alignment never truly existed in Asia, which is originally a peaceful rise of China, where China is the center of the civilized world, and all countries surrounding will pay tribute to the center for protection. Contrastingly, there were historical unrest and invasions to other countries throughout history, namely China’s invasion to India in 1962, China’s invasion to Vietnam, territorial conflicts with East Turks, Philippines, Japan, etc. Moreover, now the expansion of China’s Exclusive Economic Zone had irritated many Southeastern Countries, especially Vietnam and Philippines, and forced them to rely more on America. The narrative of ultimate amiable Chineseness and China-centrism fades away as the rest of Asian power emerges. Although China identifies itself as a third world country in Asia, other third world countries do not approve the message and they conglomerates into ASEAN and develop distinct path of growth. In reality, the rest of the Asian powers did not succumb to a China-centered world in the past and are not likely to do so in the future.
Historically, U.S. has been unwilling to be entangled with China. However, in recent years U.S. increased its percentage in military expenditure in Pacific defense deployment, establishing economic and military dependency with Asian alliances, and expanding its surveillance on Pacific Ocean. After Nixon, the anti communist warrior left Washington and set his first step in China in 1972. Although President Nixon stated there are fundamental differences in political ideologies between the U.S. and China, something has to be in common between the two nations in progressing, we need to allow difference and develop into distinct nations without war. From then on, friendship was initiated; Pacific security network was redefined. Although 6000+ nautical miles away from China, U.S. still plays a key role in shaping Asian economic architecture and will maintain its influence over the region. National/regional security is no longer solely defined by border, given varied interest of stakeholder, and limitation of geopolitics like the Sea line of communication and EEZ (exclusive economic zone), global security has more observably shifted from Atlantic to Pacific. U.S. have tailored its posture in Pacific region over the years, while the region itself has changed in very dynamic ways both economically and politically, subsequently, U.S. thinks it should play a larger role in maintaining Pacific security, and they acted accordingly: U.S. have been enhancing military defense power in Pacific Ocean to rebalance rising Asian powers, especially China. U.S. relationship with Asian allies and key partners will remain critical to the region’s future stability and growth. For a higher-level security, U.S. has to forge closer ties with emerging regional partners, and strengthening existing alliances like India, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.
In sum, China rejects the “peace” U.S. offered, which intensifies the future with the U.S. and its Asian allies. To me, what explains for China’s unwillingness to accept the peace made in U.S. is China’s resolute intention to be independent. China holds the largest population in the world, thus the military power should match its size of population in order to protect proportionally. To gain independence, China seeks a defense network through establishing economic ties and is tailored to its own demands that needs collaboration with other Asian countries by placing itself as the central node, which offends various interest of countries and may lead to war. However, it would also be unwise to exclude possibilities of Chinese government maintaining statue quo, China’s economy has just entered the right track and its leadership certainly will not let it enter hibernation because of any reason, neither will China indulge powers threatening its borders or sea lines.
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