The National Security Implications of the Economic Relationship Between the United States and China

United States-China Economic and Security Review Committee ^ | July 2002

[snowsislander]

JULY 2002 - REPORT TO CONGRESS OF THE U.S. - CHINA SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION - THE NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF THE ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA

Chapter 1 - China’s Perceptions of the United States and Strategic Thinking

Key Findings

• The U.S. Government has dedicated insufficient resources to collect, translate, and analyze Chinese writings and statements. Consequently, it has a limited understanding of the perceptions of the United States held by Chinese leaders and the Chinese people. This undermines our government’s ability to respond appropriately to the challenges and opportunities of the relationship, as well as to prepare for potential crises.
  
  
• China’s leaders consistently characterize the United States as a "hegemon", connoting a powerful protagonist and overbearing bully that is China’s major competitor, but they also believe that the United States is a declining power with important military vulnerabilities that can be exploited. China views itself as an emerging power.
  

  
  

• Chinese leaders say that they pursued Word Trade Organization (WTO) membership as a means to continue China’s rapid economic growth, which they consider essential to become a major power. Such rapid economic growth would also help the Chinese Communist Party maintain its monopoly on power. This objective is quite different from one of the main U.S. goals for China’s accession, which is to promote the development of economic, legal and democratic reforms in China, as well as regional stability in Asia.
  
  
• China’s leaders seek to deter the United States from effectively intervening in any Chinese use of force against Taiwan, by denying the United States the unfettered freedom under international law to operate in the seas and airspace near China.
  
  

• The U.S.-China bilateral relationship is uncoordinated within the U.S. Government and does not include the necessary permanent institutions for managing and resolving conflicts. At worst, current U.S. practices have the effect of supporting Chinese efforts to enhance science, economic, financial and technology bases without adequate oversight within our government.
  
  
• Chinese strategic thinking and military planning differ markedly from our own, underscoring the need to study such differences more carefully. Such Chinese thinking draws heavily on ancient Chinese military lore and history, as well as Chinese Communist revolutionary history, and emphasizes nontraditional and asymmetrical techniques designed to enable an inferior power to defeat a superior one. Such techniques include deception, preemption, use of ‘"assassin’s mace" or trump card weaponry, as well as information and cyber warfare. The possibilities of miscalculation, miscommunications, and misunderstandings are high, given the substantial differences in each country’s thinking and planning, and require far more attention from U.S. policymakers and the Congress.
  

• Attempts to build crises-management and confidence-building measures (CBMs) between the United States and China have failed. This is due in part to Chinese strategic thinking which does not value openness, which the Chinese fear could result in revealing weaknesses, and also be construed as negotiation with a "superior" power. This has resulted in a dangerous lack of "circuit breakers" in the U.S.-China military relationship. This contrasts starkly with CBMs China has executed with India, Russia and the ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
  
  

Introduction

The U.S.-China relationship is one of the most important and most difficult bilateral relationships for this nation. Yet U.S. Government officials know woefully little about prevailing Chinese perceptions and strategic thinking.

American policymakers know less than they should about how Chinese leaders assess U.S. foreign policy and the exercise of U.S. power, how China views its role in Asia and beyond, how Chinese leaders have incorporated their thinking and perceptions into economic, political and military planning, and how the Chinese Government has portrayed the United States to its own populace. Over the past year, the Commission has held a series of hearings and briefings with leading U.S. scholars, policymakers, and analysts and translated and analyzed official, semi-official and other Chinese publications, both unclassified and classified, to identify Chinese leadership perceptions and attitudes of the United States and how they might affect U.S. national security interests.

In addition, the Commission contracted independent research, including a major study conducted by the University of Maryland to provide empirical evidence on the messages and tone of Chinese reporting on the U.S. over time, and how it is affected by various events. Given the control of the Chinese leadership over the media, such messages give us insight into how the leadership attempts to portray the United States and thus develop attitudes toward the U.S. among the Chinese people.

The U.S. Government must dedicate far greater resources to collecting and analyzing both open and classified Chinese sources in order to better understand the views of Chinese leaders. U.S. Government efforts in this area are far less extensive than similar efforts our country made to understand the Soviet Union during the Cold War. As the Defense Department noted in its December 2000 Net Assessment Report to Congress, in order to judge whether China is deterred by U.S. military capabilities, we need to understand how the Chinese authorities assess the situation.

The Commission has found that while there are ongoing debates among China’s leaders on various htmects and timelines of their security environment, China’s strategic assessments and public portrayals of U.S. power are shaped by the view that U.S.-style democratic liberalism and the U.S. presence and position of power in the Asian periphery threaten the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. Specifically,

1. China sees the United States as a hegemonic power that is a major obstacle and competitor for influence in Asia;
   
   
2. China believes the United States is a superpower in decline, losing economic, political, and military influence around the world;
   
   
3. China htmires to be a major international power and the dominant power in Asia. To that end, China is actively pursuing a multipolar world where it could align with other rising powers such as Russia, Japan, and Europe in order to check or challenge U.S. power;
   

   
   

4. China’s leaders want to maintain stable and good relations with the United States because the United States is an important market for Chinese goods and an important source of science and technology, financial capital, and foreign direct investment--all central components of China’s rising status and strength.
   
   
5. China’s leaders believe that the United States, although technologically superior in almost every area of military power, can be defeated, most particularly, in a fight over Taiwan in which China controls the timing. Along with logistical and operational weaknesses, Chinese analysts also believe that the United States will not and cannot sustain casualties in pursuit of its vital interests. China is dedicating considerable resources toward preparing for potential conflict with the United States, especially over Taiwan;¹ and
   

   
   

6. September 11 changed the context of China’s approach to the United States but did not change the fundamentals.²

The beliefs of the Chinese leaders shape and direct China’s relations with the United States and China’s economic and military programs. They also influence China’s relations with our major allies, its neighbors, terrorist sponsoring states, and its military doctrine and weapons acquisition programs.

The United States as a "Hegemon"

The term "hegemon," according to Chinese thinking, has a negative connotation, and depicts a power that desires imperialistic control over other powers, and is overbearing and controlling. China has traditionally characterized as hegemons only foreign powers with which it has highly antagonistic relationships. When China split with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it began characterizing the Soviet Union as a Socialist hegemon. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia, and just prior to the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, Beijing characterized Hanoi as a "regional hegemon."

The word "hegemon," usually used alongside other terms such as "imperialist," "unilateralist," and "self-appointed world policeman," is precisely how official Chinese media characterize the United States. Such characterization communicates to the Chinese people that the United States, from the point of view of its foreign policies toward China, is a power with which China has a competitive, if not antagonistic, relationship.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has viewed the U.S. global position with deep suspicion, if not hostility. Chinese leaders believe that the fundamental drive of the United States is to maintain global hegemony by engaging in the shameless pursuit of "power politics," often disguised as a quest for democratization.³

China’s Defense White Paper of 2000 reflects deep concern about an international order predominantly shaped by the United States. It states that "certain big powers" (i.e., the United States) are contributing to instability and "threatening world peace" by pursuing neo-interventionism, new gunboat policy, and neo-economic colonialism.⁴ The document links such new problems to "hegemonism" and the hegemon’s proclivities for playing "power politics."⁵

China has viewed high-profile U.S. military actions of 1999-2001–including the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the EP-3 incident over the South China coast–as glaring examples of "hegemonism" at work, and believes that they have produced an "extremely negative impact" on the international situation.⁶ Beijing has compared the United States to Nazi Germany for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade; it has labeled U.S. involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo as an attempt to maintain U.S. dominance in Europe; it has characterized the enlargement of NATO as an effort to contain and encircle China; and it has criticized U.S. development of ballistic missile defenses as contributing to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.⁷

Furthermore, Beijing has perceived Washington’s "anti-China" streak — from what some American China policy analysts call the "China Threat" theory to others’ regular condemnation of China’s human rights record — as a U.S. attempt to preempt China’s impending challenge to American influence in Asia. Persistent efforts by some members of the U.S. Congress to deny China most-favored nation (MFN) status for much of the 1990s, and to block Chinese accession to the WTO based on labor, human rights and economic grounds, were viewed by the Chinese as a blatant intervention in China’s internal affairs and a convenient excuse to prolong and protect U.S. hegemony.

To Beijing, the U.S. Government practices deception and repeatedly lies about its intentions to maintain hegemony. Therefore, U.S. actions, including those taken in the name of some global public good (such as humanitarian intervention in the Balkans), are seen as part of a conspiracy to impose the U.S. vision of the world on others.⁸ By this logic, even the U.S. policy of engagement with China itself is a new form of "containment" and U.S. support for peaceful evolution toward democracy is no more than a sinister ploy to destroy the Chinese Communist Party.

For instance, even though the top Chinese leadership aggressively pursued China’s entry into the WTO, many Chinese officials still view American support for China’s WTO entry as part of a larger effort to promote democracy in China through economic integration and "peaceful evolution," or to maintain power by disseminating "Americanization."⁹

Paradoxically, Chinese suspicions of U.S. intentions and hostility toward American unipolarity exist alongside the recognition that U.S. trade and investment, technology, and know-how are crucial to China’s search for modernization. The investigative research done by the University of Maryland indicates a contradiction in the leadership’s characterization of the United States to the Chinese people. The contradiction is between their portrayal of U.S. foreign policy and that of the economic relationship, as well as general U.S. relations with China. The former is uniformly negative across the entire survey period by the researchers, and the latter is very positive across the same period. The characterization of the Sino-American relationship is generally positive. As pointed out by the research report to the Commission:

A major theme emerging from the extensive reporting done on U.S. foreign policy is of the United States as a hegemonic power that acts unilaterally and in opposition to general international principles. Aside from the embassy bombing and reconnaissance plane issues, other major themes that emerged included the U.S. war on terrorism, in which the U.S. is taking increasingly strident steps away from international norms.¹⁰

Similarly, Chinese leaders can aggressively seek U.S. trade, investment and financial assistance while simultaneously denouncing U.S. intentions and power.

Post-September 11

Chinese suspicions of the United States did not subside even after a notable upswing in official Sino-American relations after September 11. Rather, official Chinese media has continued to portray the United States as a hegemon, albeit a wounded one. The state media blamed the September 11 terrorist attacks on a misguided and aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The University of Maryland study looked at Chinese media coverage in the time period after September 11 and found that the media, "although supportive at first of the U.S. anti-terrorist position, soon after introduced a more wary tone" and characterized the U.S. war on terrorism as "taking increasingly strident steps away from international norms."¹¹

In the month immediately following September 11, Chinese open sources reiterated three constant decades-old themes: a relative decline in U.S. power is underway, the U.S. Government practices deception and continually lies about its intentions, and China must be vigilant about U.S. actions against China, because the U.S. is making China its enemy. Two days following the attack, the Chinese owned Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao featured an interview in Beijing with two active duty colonels, who said, "The United States has been too self-willed and conceited, likes to dominate others, and has made so many enemies that it has been unable to determine who the enemies were since the attacks occurred."¹²

In a more lengthy analysis of the impact of September 11 on U.S.-Sino relations, the Deputy Director of the influential Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), Yuan Peng, challenged the analysis of some American scholars that counter terrorism cooperation between the United States and China would be the new strategic foundation of U.S.-China relations. Peng argued that cooperation over counter-terrorism "would hardly change [the United States’] deep prejudice towards certain countries. Fundamental contradictions will re-emerge at the end of the counter-terrorist war…And, second, differences between China and the US over a number of related important issues like the definition of terrorism, the goal of the current war, etc. have come to the surface despite good bilateral cooperation over counter-terrorism so far. Such divergences over concrete issues, plus existing problems between the two, might cast shadows over their future ties."¹³

Within days of September 11, videos and DVDs produced by the government appeared in China explaining the attacks.¹⁴ Most notably, a video entitled The Pentagon in Action painstakingly portrays the U.S. Government as a wounded bully whose hegemonic power and ego have been challenged and which is obsessed with irresponsible military retaliations. Despite its occasional sympathetic tone, the video repeatedly cites "the world’s opinions" to criticize America’s "immature and revengeful" counter-terrorist measures. The French prime minister and foreign minister, the German defense minister, the Russian President and China’s President, all "earnestly" urge the U.S. to be cautious, and "don’t behave just like the terrorists." Saddam Hussein appears in this program as a rational statesman urging the U.S. to utilize wisdom rather than force. And Jiang Zemin advises the Americans to use "wisdom, rationality and courage," not just blunt force, in dealing with the world’s real problems.

America’s geopolitical position after September 11 continues to feed Chinese anxiety.¹⁵ Russia, which China has actively courted to balance U.S. hegemony, has drawn even closer to the United States since September 11. This has been underscored by the U.S.-Russia agreement in St. Petersburg and the formation of the NATO-Russian Council. In Central Asia, the United States gained access to bases and facilities in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and was granted permission to overfly the territories of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.¹⁶ In South Asia, the United States cemented a crucial alliance with Pakistan through President Pervez Musharraf. In sum, America’s heightened military presence in China’s "backyard" and improved relations with its neighbors have created anxiety in Beijing about U.S. designs to encircle or contain it.¹⁷Furthermore, not only has the United States not condoned China’s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang Province, it has stepped up pressure on issues ranging from religious freedom to controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).¹⁸

America’s Relative Decline and Perceived Weaknesses

Relative Decline

China’s leaders have been predicting the relative decline of American economic, political and military influence relative to other powers, for decades. Without the decline of the "capitalist" United States, Chinese Marxism would be proven wrong. The debate in China is how long it will take. In the 1990’s, Chinese analysts were predicting that the decline would take five years. Today, revisionists admit that the rate of decline is going to be slower.¹⁹

U.S. unipolarity, they argue, will in time be balanced by rising poles such as the European Union (EU), Russia, Japan, and China. In a multipolar world, U.S. influence would be weakened to accommodate the interests and desires of other powers, especially China.²⁰

Chinese strategists measure national standing by evaluating both quantitatively and qualitatively the politics, economics, military, science and technology, and foreign affairs of a country to determine relative "comprehensive national power (CNP)."²¹ The analysts predictably see U.S. decline in virtually all arenas, and symbols of that decline can be seen everywhere in macro and micro trends, including, for example, the building of newer and higher skyscrapers in Asia.

Among Chinese strategic thinkers, the economic growth of the rising powers, particularly China, is a central component of (relative) U.S. economic decline and the inevitable trend toward multipolarity. An article from CICIR states: "As a result of their economic growth, more and more countries now dare to say ‘no’ to the United States."²² U.S. hegemonic impulses and, consequently its "mistaken foreign policy", will, over time, alienate key European and Asian allies, who after the collapse of the Soviet Union, will be unwilling to remain subordinate to a grand U.S. strategy but instead will assert their own "polarity."²³ China believes that the enhancement of its economic and political power and international influence will lead the new poles, such as the EU and Japan, to seek better relations with Beijing as American hegemony declines.²⁴ The results of the struggles among the Untied States, Europe and Japan will lead all three to "attach more importance to the China factor in their foreign strategies" because of the "enhancement of China’s Comprehensive National Power and the extension of China’s international influence."²⁵

Perceived Military Weaknesses

Chinese strategists also view the United States as relatively weak militarily. Foremost in their strategic considerations are:

• The United States will not and cannot sustain casualties in pursuit of vital interests.²⁶ If China could kill or wound enough American service personnel, as occurred in Somalia, it could effectively deter U.S. forces or force their defeat in the event of a military conflict in East Asia, including in the defense of Taiwan.²⁷

• Despite overwhelming U.S. military and technological superiority, China can still defeat the United States by transforming its weakness into strength and exploiting U.S. vulnerabilities through asymmetric warfare, assassin’s mace weapons, deception, surprise, and preemptive strikes.

In general, Chinese authors assert: the United States barely won the Gulf War (Saddam Hussein could have won with a better strategy); the United States today cannot contain Chinese power; the United States cannot execute its past military strategy of two major regional contingencies; and that U.S. munitions cannot damage deep underground bunkers like those in China.²⁸

Lieutenant General Li Jijun, Vice President of the Academy of Military Science, wrote about the weaknesses of the U.S. military during the Gulf War:

U.S. Armed Forces revealed many weak points. For example, the combat consumption was too great, and it could not last long. There was great reliance on the allied countries. The high-tech equipment was intensive and its key links were rather weak; once they were damaged, combat effectiveness was greatly reduced. Also, if the adversary of the United States was not Iraq, if the battle was not fought on the flat desert, if the Iraqi Armed Forces struck first during the phase when U.S. Armed Forces were still assembling, or if Iraqi Armed forces withdrew suddenly before the U.S. Armed Forces struck, then the outcome of the war might have been quite different.²⁹

Chinese assessments of American military weaknesses have led to a broad conclusion by many Chinese strategists and military authors that the U.S. forces will one day be vulnerable to a Chinese strategy of deception, special silver-bullet "trump card" weapons, and classic defeat of the "superior" by the "inferior."

Finally, a recurring Chinese theme is that the "decay" of American global predominance stems from rampant social problems in the United States, including drugs, crime, social inequality, homelessness, racial tensions, and spiritual and moral crises.³⁰

Chinese Strategic Priorities

It is clear that China anticipates America’s decline and is working to shape a world with a weaker United States and stronger competing poles of power where it can play a central role. China’s strategy to help achieve this objective appears to include biding its time by avoiding confrontation with the United States, and meanwhile gaining access to American investment, technology and know-how. At the same time, Beijing is working to counter U.S. influence and competition by preparing if needed to subdue American forces via military modernization, including asymmetrical means of warfare.³¹

Economic Growth

Economic growth is a central pillar of Chinese power. The Chinese Government and its industries share an overwhelming common and driving goal to increase the power and international standing of China as a nation state. While China’s leaders remain wary of U.S. support for WTO entry, they view accession as essential to continue rapid growth by accelerating economic reform, attracting higher levels of foreign investment, maintaining and expanding export markets and playing a more influential role in shaping the rules of the world trading system.

Over the past two decades, China has undertaken a prodigious economic reform and has seen a dramatic growth in its economy. This growth has been largely propelled by exports from China and foreign direct investment in China, in both of which the United States plays a lead role. China’s growth strategy has also included a stringent commitment to improving its science and technology base by importing both civilian and military technologies from advanced industrial nations, again most importantly, from the United States.

Chinese policy has been guided since the 1970’s by the maxim enunciated by Deng Xiaoping that science and technology from abroad is the prime force of production and central to China’s rise from poverty and weakness. The United States is seen as a major source for this technology. The Chinese have used a variety of overt and covert methods to acquire this technology, including sending large numbers of students abroad to study relevant disciplines, forming joint ventures, partnerships, and using the attraction of its potential consumer market to induce firms to sign investment agreements that require some form of technology transfer.³²

Chinese leaders have repeatedly insisted that peace is fundamental for economic growth. As China’s White paper on National Defense states, "A peaceful international environment and a favorable surrounding environment serves China’s fundamental interests."³³

In the short-to-mid term, China needs the United States to achieve its objective of developing its economy, its science and technology base and its military force.³⁴ While debate periodically erupts among its strategists on how to deal with the United States, patience has been the guiding dictum since Deng Xiaoping launched the modernization drive. Deng’s often quoted advice was, keep cool-headed to observe, be composed to make reactions, stand firmly, hide our capabilities and bide our time, never try to take the lead and be able to accomplish something.

Deng’s advice is followed today. The only real debate in China on U.S. decline is when. The leaders counsel patience, and tolerating whatever the United States does to China, in order to allow China to grow for the next 20 years. The leaders believe that at that time, China will, at best, be equal to the United States or, at least, be able to combine with other powers to check American power. There is a basic sense of confidence at the highest levels that the U.S.-PRC relationship is achieving China’s immediate objectives of growth in exports and foreign direct investment, which will lead to economic growth.³⁵

Strengthening the Party

Chinese leaders believe that American-style democratic capitalism threatens the Chinese Communist Party’s political monopoly, but they believe they can grow economically and still maintain their power. This matter was recently addressed in Jiang Zemin’s announcement of the "Three Represents" in which he called on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to represent the forces of production, the progressive course of China’s culture, and the broad interests of the majority of the Chinese people. According to Jiang, the Three Represents would make the CCP more relevant to the Chinese people amidst the rapid social and economic developments now taking place within China.

Viewed as the centerpiece of Jiang’s effort to modernize the CCP, the strategy was announced together with Jiang’s invitation to intellectuals and entrepreneurs–traditionally viewed as "red capitalists" or the "exploiting class"--to join the CCP. These new members, Jiang argued, would strengthen the CCP with their technological know-how, education, and skills and therefore help strengthen "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

This theory was developed at the Party School, headed by Hu Jintao, Jiang’s anticipated successor.³⁶ At the time that the theory was announced, approximately 100,000 CCP members were business owners.³⁷ If fully implemented, the strategy would fundamentally change the CCP and dilute its traditional membership of workers and peasants. For that reason, Jiang has been accused by ideological hard-liners of betraying the core principles. Some even argue that Jiang is using the Three Represents to build a cult of personality around himself before retiring as President at the upcoming Party Congress in October 2002.

Despite some internal dissent, the CCP has pressed on with a nation-wide propaganda campaign to spread Jiang’s theory. Cadres, academic institutions and ordinary citizens have all been instructed to study and practice it much like they studied Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Expanding China’s International Role

In response to a world in which the United States has not declined as quickly as the Chinese hoped, Beijing put forth a "New Security Concept" in 1996-97, which calls for the abandonment of "Cold War mentality" and a new security order based on "mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation." Having failed to achieve parity or dominance through their own efforts and our failures, the Chinese are now attempting to gain equal footing through diplomacy. The emphasis on equality and cooperation reflects China’s preference for a multi-polar world that conforms less to U.S. influence and more to their own desires.³⁸

Beijing has described traditional U.S. alliances as vestiges of "Cold War Thinking" while at the same time it has sought to establish its own "partnerships" in Asia and around the world. In the past decade, Beijing has established multiple "cooperative" or "constructive partnerships" with countries from Japan to India, from the European Union to the United Kingdom, from Mexico to South Africa.³⁹

Asserting greater influence in the Asia Pacific region is central to China’s strategic policy. And Chinese analysts also see the region as an important source of technology, investment and modern management techniques.⁴⁰

Since 1989, China has sought to create an environment conducive to domestic economic development and regional stability by engaging in confidence building measures (CBMs) with other Asian countries. Such measures have contributed to a reduction of tensions between China and border states such as India, Russia, and three Central Asia republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan).⁴¹ In addition, Beijing has agreed to CBMs with other key players in the Asia region, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). As a result, China has successfully eliminated any dramatic or compelling military threat to its borders, at least for the short term. Most notably, Beijing aggressively sought and reached a friendship and cooperation treaty with Russia, which was intended, in part, to counter-balance U.S. and European global influence.

The record stands in stark contrast to the resistance by China to U.S. Government attempts to develop CBM’s between itself and China. Authoritative U.S. Government sources involved in years of such futile efforts concluded the Chinese simply did not want such CBMs to have a central place in U.S.-China relations. The results were a nearly complete failure in the face of no interest by Chinese. Perhaps even more worrisome is the same lack of interest and success in reducing misunderstandings or miscalculations between Beijing and Taiwan, resulting in no CBMs between them.

Similarly, China’s economic relations with Europe and Japan reflect both an interest in building relations with America’s traditional allies and also decreasing China’s own dependency on the United States. To this end, China has courted Europe and Japan for technology, investments, and markets. China has also thrown a broad net in its efforts to acquire advanced science and technology from abroad. China has cooperative arrangements in both civilian industrial and military areas with countries such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, Brazil, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Its membership in WTO helps broaden China’s outreach to all the players in the world trading system, lessens its dependency on the United States for investment and trade, and makes it even more attractive to foreign investors.

In addition, Beijing is attempting to broadly counter American influence by increasing its involvement in multilateral organizations. On the international level, Beijing has increasingly supported the United Nations, where it has a permanent seat or the Security Council, as a legitimate arbiter of conflicts around the world. Regionally, Beijing has actively sought to strengthen ties with neighbors by signing a statement of friendship and cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, increasing involvement with the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), participating in ASEAN +3 discussions and hosting the all-Asia Boao Economic Forum.⁴²

Military Modernization

On the military front, China is dedicating considerable resources to a military modernization effort, the focus of which is preparing for conflict involving the United States over Taiwan.⁴³ China is upgrading its missile force structure, shortening its response time, and enhancing its reliability and survivability.

Over the past year, China has emphasized a "real world focus" in its military training exercises, emphasizing "rigorous practice in operational capabilities and improving the military’s actual ability to use force."⁴⁴ Among other measures, China is preparing to respond to U.S. forces, if necessary, by developing the capacity to control sea lines of communication and project force there. These objectives entail a substantial build-up of air, marine, airborne, and naval forces. China is not only adding longer range cruise missiles to its inventory, it is also developing through military purchases from traditional U.S. allies an over-the-horizon capability for its cruise missiles to extend the range at which they can strike U.S. naval forces.⁴⁵ China has also publicly stated its intention to be able to neutralize an American aircraft carrier. This objective may, in part, be based on its belief that the United States does not have the will to sustain casualties.

While reaffirming their commitment to economic growth and development, senior Chinese leaders have agreed to a significant increase in funding for military modernization, announcing in March 2002, a 17.6 percent increase in military spending.

The bulk of Chinese defense investment is still commanded by the PLA ground forces and the Chinese military school of thought that endorses the concept of People’s War or Active Defense. This concept supports a large standing army, a suitable defense mobilization base, and opposes dependence on foreign weapons. Nevertheless, beginning in 1985, competition for resources has come from the Local War advocates who were embraced by Deng Xiaoping and have characterized China’s most likely future conflicts as intense but limited local wars."⁴⁶ Since the Gulf War, competition for resources has also come from reformists who are "Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)" advocates, who call for investment in the most exotic and advanced form of weaponry, including what they term "assassin’s mace weapons," which can deliver decisive blows in carefully calculated surprise moves and change the balance of power. There is evidence that the Chinese leadership is allocating resources among these three distinct paths.⁴⁷

Since the Gulf War, PLA analysts seem convinced that their traditional approach to warfare, which focuses on mass and the annihilation of their enemies, would not be successful against an enemy with advanced technologies. In facing a high-tech enemy that relies on the RMA concepts, the PLA’s revised doctrine seeks to exploit perceived weaknesses in such concepts.⁴⁸

Chinese thinking on military planning and action differs markedly from our own, underscoring the need to understand their thinking better than we do now. Drawing on analyses of ancient and modern warfare in China as well as their own extensive revolutionary experience, the Chinese conclude it is not necessary to match U.S. capabilities to achieve victory and believe that the "inferior can defeat the superior." According to such thinking, China can transform weakness into strength by employing deception, surprise and preemptive strikes, creating or leveraging discord amongst the enemy’s internal units, capitalizing on the opponent’s complacency, and using "trump cards" or "assassin’s mace weapons." In fact, assassin’s mace weapons have been given the highest level of attention since August 1999 when Jiang Zemin called for their priority development in a speech.⁴⁹ Such weapons fall in line with a host of other asymmetrical strategies–such as cyber warfare–that the Chinese believe would help to counter U.S. military superiority.⁵⁰

Information warfare--focusing on gaining and exploiting information, attacking the enemy’s information systems and defending one’s own information--is an important component of this asymmetric warfare strategy. Asserted Major General Wang Pufeng, former director of the strategy department of China’s Academy of Military Science: "In the future, information warfare will control the form and future of war. We recognize this developmental trend…and see it has a driving force in the modernization of China’s military and combat readiness. This trend will be highly critical to achieving victory in future wars."⁵¹ One of the consequences of this analysis is that China is increasing its investment in space warfare.⁵² China’s efforts include the pursuit of a viable indigenous space force. Particular attention is being paid to the development of small boosters able to launch satellites at a moment’s notice in a contingency.⁵³

The PLA’s strategy of defeating a "high-tech" opponent through surprise and preemptive attacks "calls for operations aimed at destroying the enemy command system, crippling the enemy information system, destroying the enemy’s most advanced weapons systems, crippling the enemy support (logistics) systems, and disrupting the critical links in the enemy’s campaign systems."⁵⁴

To deal with the gap between mission requirements and capabilities, China’s weapons acquisition policy continues to require weapons purchases and technology acquisition from a host of advanced industrial nations including, along with the United States, Russia, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, France, and Germany. It has also been relying very heavily on its ability to develop and produce missiles to bridge the gap,⁵⁵ while it seeks to build and improve its defense, science and technology and industry and develop its indigenous capacity to build weapons.⁵⁶

Given the PLA assessment methods from the model of "weak defeating the strong," normal western strategies and communications may not operate effectively. The use of "direct" communications cannot be trusted to establish the credibility of Chinese intentions, and may not be interpreted correctly. Thus, so-called confidence building measures might be used to deceive or may be interpreted as a means of Western deception. Once in a crisis, the Chinese may not escalate at the same pace or by the same means as the West, which may lead to misperceptions of the Chinese level of commitment. Indeed, thinking on asymmetric warfare appears to be so pervasive in China today that the Commission believes the troubling possibility of Chinese self-deception could be worrisome in that it could lead to major miscalculations on their part. It is worthy of more attention by American policymakers.

Promoting Nationalism

On the domestic front, China has carefully fanned the flames of nationalism and anti-Americanism through state-controlled media. To counter persistent U.S. objections to China’s behavior in areas from trade to human rights, from weapons proliferation to Taiwan, the Chinese state media has portrayed Washington as the self-appointed policeman of the world, whose foreign policy is inherently aggressive and bent on undermining others countries’ national sovereignty.⁵⁷ The Chinese leadership has projected these negative images while also deliberately embracing those American achievements they would like China to emulate for its own development, such as American advances in high technology.

Years of anti-American propaganda greatly contributed to the popular reaction to September 11, as Chinese Internet users gloated online over America’s national tragedy. The degree of anti-Americanism so embarrassed Beijing that Internet censors were instructed to delete such online content.⁵⁸

China’s promotion of nationalism and anti-Americanism reflects a larger strategy on the part of the CCP to maintain stability and control as the economy rapidly opens up to the outside world and American values and culture.

Official Sino-American Relations

The U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship is at best, deficient for conflict resolution, uncoordinated within the U.S. bureaucracy and, at worst, has the effect of supporting Chinese efforts to enhance their science and technology base without adequate oversight within the U.S. Government.

Science & Technology Exchanges

The main elements of the existing bilateral relationship were established by President Carter in 1979, shortly after the normalization of relations with the PRC. At that time, President Carter and Premier Deng Xiaoping signed the U.S.-China Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, which set up a series of joint commissions and committees to facilitate and promote bilateral dialogue and cooperation. Eleven U.S. Federal Agencies and numerous branches currently participate in cooperative exchanges under the Science and Technology agreement and its nearly 60 protocols, memoranda of understanding, and annexes. These agreements cover cooperative research in diverse fields, including energy, mathematics and chemistry, fisheries, the earth and atmospheric sciences, high-energy physics and other energy related areas, agriculture, cooperation in civil industrial technology, mine safety and miners’ health and disaster research.

According to the Congressional Research Service, which was asked to examine the structure of these agreements, there is no centralized mechanism for coordinating, funding or reporting to Congress on the various cooperative programs occurring within these agencies or commissions.⁵⁹ However, the Department of State in its first comprehensive assessment to Congress of the history and implications of these arrangements reported that the bilateral S&T relationship is coordinated through two mechanisms: the Joint Commission on S&T Cooperation and the S&T Executive Secretaries.⁶⁰ But the Department of State acknowledged that these coordination meetings are infrequent and clearly insufficient to monitor, much less direct, set guidelines, or evaluate the detailed technology transfers being made. The Joint Commission Meeting originally scheduled to meet once a year to coordinate the overall effort meets customarily every two years with the personnel on both sides varying greatly from meeting to meeting. Similarly, according to State, the Executive Secretariat Meeting should annually occur, but in reality the meetings are less frequent.

During President George W. Bush’s visit to China, he and President Jiang Zemin agreed to set up further exchanges and cooperation in the fields of trade, energy, science and technology, environmental protection, AIDS prevention and cure, and law enforcement. Given the history of these activities, the Commission finds that the Executive Branch needs to undertake a major effort to coordinate these exchanges and to inform Congress of the activities and progress on a regular basis.

The Chinese value the economic relationship with the United States very highly and have made strenuous efforts to insulate it from the vagaries of episodic military incidents, tensions, and even confrontations. For example, during the U.S. reconnaissance plane crisis, they "quietly" renewed, according to the Department of State, the agreement on scientific and technology exchanges with the United States. Furthermore, in the early morning after the plane incident, the mayor and other Shanghai officials fanned out across the U.S. firms located in the area to assure these executives that they and their firms would be protected, to encourage them to remain in a business-as-usual mode, despite the rhetoric and tensions associated with the military incident.⁶¹

Confidence Building Measures

The U.S. China relationship is event driven with very few structured mechanisms for conflict resolution or threat reduction. The Four Party Talks addressing the Korean Peninsula and the US-China coalition addressing the South Asian Nuclear Tests in 1998 are two examples of temporary mechanisms that terminated once the issue was resolved or was no longer of central importance. This lack of durable architecture is particularly important, and even dangerous, given the Chinese perceptions of the United States. The United States worked diligently for years with the Soviet Union to establish threat reduction mechanisms to avoid unnecessary or potentially cataclysmic conflict. Despite extensive efforts by the United States to do the same thing, the result has been near total failure.

Over the past decade, the United States has sought to establish a more stable architecture of military CBMs with China, in part, because of growing concern over China’s negative perceptions of U.S. activities in the Asia-Pacific region, specific worrisome military incidents, and the general need to manage crisis. PLA reluctance to acknowledge any legitimacy to U.S. national security concerns has been mainly responsible for the general failure of these initiatives. An underlying factor complicating these efforts has been the Chinese Government’s apprehension about revealing any weakness to the United States. On this latter point the Commission has noted that, whether in the area of threat reduction, budget discussions, or military to military exchanges, the Chinese pattern has been to absorb as much information as possible and share as little as possible.

The implementation of CBMs between China and the United States since 1989 has largely reflected these attitudes and the vicissitudes of a very contentious Sino-American relationship. Following the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989, the United States suspended all military cooperation with China. Regular contact did not resume until September 1993, when the Clinton administration began its policy of "Comprehensive Engagement." Between 1993 to 1995, the following measures were established:⁶²

• Restoration of high-level military exchanges, such as visits to China by Defense Secretary William Perry and two former commanders-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command;

• Enhanced military transparency, including consultations and briefings regarding defense budgets and military strategies;

• Restoration of exchanges of military academic units, such as visits between the American National Defense University (NDU) with the Chinese NDU;

• Establishing joint agreements on preventing nuclear proliferation and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

• Cooperation on defense conversion; and

• Reciprocal visits of naval warships.

The sum total of these efforts is meager, given the increasing level of military operations and interfaces between the Chinese and U.S. military and subsequent events. The CBMs were put aside after China became incensed by Washington’s willingness to permit Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to attend his alumni reunion at Cornell University, on a private visit to the United States in 1995. Momentum was regained after the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis when the U.S. began a discussion with the Chinese about creating a crisis-management mechanism similar to the U.S.-Russian Incidents at Sea Agreement. Helped by the momentum of the 1998 Sino-American presidential summit, a direct presidential communications link (hotline) was established between Presidents Clinton and Jiang, several decades after one was established with the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the two militaries exchanged port visits and reciprocal senior defense and military visits were conducted through the respective National Defense Universities.⁶³

After much effort, the Military Maritime Consultation Agreement was also established to foster a process for dialogue. Unfortunately, it is essentially a hollow shell and only calls for periodic discussions between U.S. and PRC military officials on navigation in international waters to enhance understanding when maritime and air forces operate in close proximity.⁶⁴ This arrangement fell far short of the more robust structure the United States wanted.

The shortcomings of our CBM efforts were dramatically evident in April 2001 during the EP3 incident. At that time the Chinese refused to use the Military Maritime Consultation Agreement to help resolve the crisis. The Chinese refusal was due, in part, to their reluctance to give legitimacy to U.S. activities in the region and also Chinese perceptions of the U.S. as a hegemon with aggressive intent. These elements help to block the development of crisis reduction mechanisms and, consequently, raise the possibility of conflict between the two countries. Similarly, the Chinese are very reluctant to engage in confidence building measures with the Taiwanese. The overriding reason appears to be China’s fears that they will convey legitimacy on the Taiwan regime and reveal their own weaknesses.

By stark contrast, the Chinese are far more forthcoming on establishing CBMs when they clearly perceive them as enhancing China’s rising power. Beijing has successfully used a variety of CBMs to establish better relations with neighboring countries (See appendix for further discussion). The CBMs also have opened up doors to acquiring much-needed weapons systems and technology from Russia and have facilitated force reductions along shared borders with India and Central Asian states.⁶⁵ At the same time, the CBMs have allowed China to reassure its neighbors of the benign nature of its rapid military growth.

In sum, China is keen to encourage any organization or structure that could speed the formation of a multi-polar world. Beijing’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which consists of China, Russia and four Central Asian Republics, could potentially serve as a counter to U.S. foreign policy, while its participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), because of ARF’s emphasis on consensus, prevents any major power (like the United States) from dominating the agenda.⁶⁶ Beijing uses CBMs to achieve regional stability and create options that would undermine U.S. influence and power in Asia.

Library of Congress

Understanding Chinese perceptions and strategic thinking is crucial to the formulation of a sound U.S.-China policy. The Library of Congress China collection is the national repository of published and other material on contemporary China, and plays a critical role in informing the Congress, the Executive Branch, and the public for the national policy debate on China. Unfortunately, in recent years, the Library’s China collection has been poorly maintained and sorely neglected. Insufficient attention has been paid to collecting and organizing open source Chinese materials in key areas relevant to the policy debate, such as military affairs and national security, Chinese foreign policy, and Sino-American relations. Materials that do exist in the Library are not available for easy and free access to the public. Recent studies conducted by reputable China scholars have also called attention to this problem.⁶⁷ The Library’s China collection needs to be greatly improved to serve the nation’s policy debate on China.

National Security Implications

Chinese perceptions of the United States as a hegemonic power and China’s principal rival and competitor have serious implications for U.S. national security.

China is seeking to enhance its national power relative to U.S. power. Potential conflict with the United States over Taiwan is the primary focus for that effort and the reason underlying China’s growing interest in asymmetric warfare. We must not ignore China’s dedicated effort to develop its science and technology base, to acquire advanced technology, and to intimidate and threaten Taiwan. In addition, U.S. security interests are put at risk by China’s proliferation of WMD to terrorist sponsoring states.

Chinese perceptions of the United States as an aggressive power become highly destabilizing when combined with a deliberately weak architecture of crisis management. The efforts to resolve the EP-3 incident last year is an example of this deficiency.

Understanding Chinese perceptions of the United States is central to a successful deterrence and crisis management policy, military and diplomatic strategies and our economic relationship. We do not know as much as we should about Chinese perceptions; we do know that the Chinese have a world view very different from ours and that they devise their policies and strategies from such a view. Given, for example, the PLA’s use of ancient models of the weak defeating the strong, western notions of deterrence may not operate effectively. In a crisis the Chinese may not escalate at the same pace or by the same means as the West, causing the West to miss the level of commitment the Chinese are applying. Unless we understand Chinese perceptions, we run the risk of implementing policies that are ineffective. All of this increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculations.

China’s perceptions of the United States and its related strategic objective of multi-polarity impose limits on the extent of genuine cooperation with shared goals and a common agenda. China’s reliance on deception casts further doubt on the credibility of its cooperation. Nonetheless, China’s recognition that the United States is vital in its modernization, and its recognition that a peaceful international environment is essential for its growth, provides the Untied States important opportunities and leverage.

The combination of Chinese leaders’ perceptions of America as an adversarial hegemon, and the lack of solid bilateral institutions for crisis-management response, is potentially explosive. Chinese leaders may well believe the worst of American intentions, and there is no regular mechanism for resolving misunderstandings. In the worst case, this could lead to military conflict. It is urgent for American leaders to work to correct mistaken Chinese perceptions of us, so that that future Chinese leaders will come to share more of our values–particularly in the areas of democracy and human and labor rights–and view us as reliable partners in the search for peace. There is no short-term solution, and we will most likely have to navigate some highly choppy waters before reaching mutual understanding. But there is no more important mission for our policymakers than this one.

Recommendations

• The Library of Congress China collection today is nearly unusable and is a disgrace, despite two major studies advocating a more robust and sophisticated collection. The Commission recommends, therefore, on an urgent basis that the Congress fund the appropriate implementation of the detailed recommendations already submitted by these two previous investigations.

• The Commission recommends that Congress expand the U.S. Government’s capacities for collection, translation and analysis of open source Chinese language materials, including expanding the scope of Chinese materials translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) and enhancing the Library of Congress’s collection. The Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other appropriate Executive Branch agencies should report annually to the Congress on their resources and progress in this area.

• The Commission recommends that Congress request that the Foreign Broadcast Information Service restore and maintain a national research data bank which identifies Chinese authors and publications and determines their relative authority. Such a data bank would help policy makers and scholars determine the significance of the publications and their relative influence on Chinese policymaking.

• The Commission recommends that Congress provide federal funding and other incentives to strengthen Chinese language and area studies programs in U.S. universities, similar to the program that was developed with regard to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the National Defense Education Act of 1958. In conjunction, there should also be incentives given to post-secondary graduates in this field to provide government service.

• The Commission recommends that Congress request that the President designate an Executive Branch agency to develop a database of all government-to-government and government-funded cooperative programs between the U.S. and China. The database should include a full description of each program, including its history, origin, activities, and statutory basis (if any), and a status report on its achievements to date, and should be in both unclassified and classified form, as appropriate. Congress should receive an annual report on official U.S.-China bilateral programs, based on the database, and the agreements should be submitted to Congress pursuant to the Case Act (PL 92-403).

• The Commission recommends that Congress encourage the Department of Defense to make renewed attempts to develop military-to-military confidence building measures, within the context of a strategic dialogue with China and strictly based on the principles of reciprocity, transparency, consistency and mutual benefit.

 

Chapter 1, Appendix

China’s Confidence Building Measures with Neighboring Countries

India

The Sino-Indian relationship has experienced extreme animosity and repeated attempts to reduce bilateral tensions. China’s invasion of India in 1962 has resulted in unsettled border areas and mutual distrust. In addition, India deeply resents China’s effort to balance Indian power in South Asia through the persistent proliferation of nuclear technology and components to Pakistan. Hostilities between the China and India reached a new height in 1998 when India cited the rise of China and its close ties with Pakistan as key threats that led India to detonate a nuclear bomb. Despite these and other chronic disagreements, China and India have attempted to forge a more stable relationship. Most notably, they agreed to CBMs in 1993 and in 1996 to reduce tension in disputed areas along their common border.

In September 1993, India and China entered into an agreement to maintain peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), declaring that the boundary question should be resolved through peaceful and friendly consultations.⁶⁸ Pending a settlement, the two countries will respect the LAC and rely on experts to check and determine the line where there are differences of alignment. Beijing and Delhi also agreed to a reduction of military forces along the border, to be maintained at levels in conformity with the principle of "mutual and equal security."⁶⁹

As part of this agreement, the two sides agreed to a series of CBMs, including the prohibition of specified levels of military exercises in mutually identified zones and prior notification of exercises at specified levels near the LAC.⁷⁰

In November 1996, during the visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin to India, the two countries signed the Agreement on Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas. The agreement reaffirmed the 1993 commitment to seek a peaceful solution to the boundary dispute and to observe the LAC.⁷¹ The two sides agreed to refrain from deploying armed forces along the LAC to attack the other side; to reduce the strength of armed forces to a minimum along the common border; and provide for bringing down the number of field army, border defense and the paramilitary forces to mutually agreed ceilings and the geographical zones.⁷² In addition, both promised to avoid holding large-scale military exercises and to give prior information of any such exercise involving more than one hazardous chemicals within the 10 km area.⁷³

CBM agreements between China and India have contributed to the reduction of military tensions on the two countries’ shared borders. While mutual distrust and deep-seeded animosity linger, China and India today are no longer facing imminent war.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, China has pursued improved military relations and strategic partnerships with Russia and the central Asian republics, bilaterally and multilaterally, despite its continuing struggle in broader relationships with these counties.⁷⁴ Most significant is the creation of the "Shanghai Five" (later renamed as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization), which consists of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China and first convened in Shanghai in April 1996. The group signed the "Agreement on Confidence-Building in the Military Field in the Border Area," which called for mutual non-use of force and renunciation of military superiority through confidence building measures along their common border. Under the agreement, the armed forces deployed in the 100-km zone on either side of the border shall not be used in attacks against the other side and shall not be engaged in any activities that would endanger the other side or threaten peace and stability in the region.⁷⁵

According to the CBMs, the parties shall:

• Exchange information on the number of personnel and amounts of essential armaments and equipment of land forces, paratroopers, border guards and air defense forces deployed in the 100-km zone;

• Refrain from carrying out military games aimed against the other parties; inform each otherof the military activities in the 100-km zone; invite observers to watch large-scale exercises along the border;

• Allow warships to enter the 100-km zone only on strictly specified occasions, with notable exceptions for Russian warships;

• Prevent dangerous military activities in the zone: redeployment should not acquire a dangerous form and the parties should take measures to prevent stray bullets, shells and rockets from hitting the territory of the other side during military games;

• Promote military cooperation in adjacent districts, such as official visits by military commanders, trips by teams of experts at various levels and observers to watch military exercises;

• Stipulate that border guard units establish contact and exchange information to promote cooperation.

Since 1996, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has held annual summits and has deepened their cooperation in military, cultural and trade and security areas. Recently, statements by the group indicate an inclination to seek an expanded role in international affairs. For example, in July 2000, the group even voiced a thinly veiled criticism of U.S. policy when it declared opposition to "intervention in other countries’ internal affairs on the pretexts of ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘protecting human rights.’"⁷⁶

Southeast Asia

China has pursued CBMs with individual Southeast Asian states to reduce tensions resulting from territorial or border disputes and with Southeast Asia in general through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

In the 1990s, China signed border agreements with Laos and Vietnam and set up CBMs to promote border cooperation. In 1999, China agreed to CBMs with Thailand, which included: enhanced cooperation between the two countries’ strategic and security research institutes, strengthened consultations between military personnel and diplomatic officials in security issues, exchange between the two militaries on humanitarian assistance and rescue, and general exchange of information on military science and technology.⁷⁷ China has also established CBMs with the Philippines to address their territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, especially after the Philippines accused China of taking over one of the islands, the Mischief Reef, in 1995.The CBMs undertaken have included vice-ministerial talks, promotion of high-level visits, agreement to establish a "bilateral consultative mechanism" to cooperate in the South China Sea, and the establishment of the China-Philippines Working Group on Confidence Building Measures.⁷⁸

In addition to establishing CBMs with individual Southeast Asian countries, China has shown great interest in working with ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to maintain good relations with Southeast Asia.⁷⁹ China proposed a free-trade area with ASEAN as a form of "political confidence-building." The Chinese initiative, endorsed by both sides in November 2001, offers to ASEAN trade liberalization measures and tariff reductions even greater than those that China agreed to under the WTO.⁸⁰

China has viewed ARF as a useful venue for China to diffuse tensions with Southeast Asian countries over the disputed ownership of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. ARF have focused heavily on CBMs, which include: multilateral dialogues on security perceptions, a voluntary annual submission of a defense policy statement, high-level defense contacts and exchanges and participation and observation of other members’ military exercises.⁸¹

China has actively pursued involvement in and CBMs with multilateral organizations such as the SCO and ARF for better relations with its neighbors and to seek arrangements that could serve as an alternative to U.S.-style bilateral alliances in Asia.

ENDNOTES:

1. George Tenet, "DCI Worldwide Threat Briefing 2002: Converging Dangers in a Post 9/11 World," Central Intelligence Agency, 6 February 2002.
2. Ibid.
3. U.S.-China Security Review Commission, Hearing on Security Issues: Strategic Perceptions, Written Testimony of Bates Gill, 3 August 2001, 10; Yong Deng, "Hegemon on the Offensive: Chinese Perspectives on U.S. Global Strategy," Political Science Quarterly 116 (2001): 350.

4. Gill, Written Testimony, 8. ; "Text of PRC White Paper on National Defense in 2000," 2-3; translated in FBIS.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Observer, "We Urge Hegemonism Today to Take a Look at the Mirror of History," People’s Daily, 22 June 1999; translated in FBIS.

8. Deng, "Hegemon on the Offensive," 351; Su Ge, "Climbing High to See Afar," Xiandai Guoji Guangxi (Contemporary International Relations) (September 2001), trans., U.S.-China Security Review Commission.
9. Zhang Minqian, "Globalization and U.S. Strategy," Xiandai Guoji Guanxi (Contemporary International Relations) 128 (20 May 2000): 28-31; translated in FBIS.
10. University of Maryland’s Institute for Global Chinese Affairs and the Department of Communication, "Perspectives toward the United States in Selected Newspapers of the People’s Republic of China," prepared for the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, 30 May 2002, 9.

11. Ibid.
12. Michael Pillsbury, "China’s Perceptions of the USA: The View from Open Sources," Report prepared for the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, 4-5; The two PRC colonels quoted were also authors of Unrestricted Warfare, a 1999 book that advocated asymmetric warfare with Chinese characteristics and called on the Chinese Government to explore all possible means—including political, economic, financial, and military—in warfare against a superior power.
13. Yuan Peng, "September 11 Event vs. Sino-US Relations," Xiandai Guoji Guanxi (Contemporary International Relations) (November 2001): 8.

14. Peter Hessler, "Letter From China," The New Yorker, 15 October 2001, 83.
15. Aaron Friedberg, "11 September and the Future of Sino-American Relations," Survival 44 (Spring 2002): 41.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 42.

18. Aaron Friedberg, Informal Presentation to the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, 24 April 2002.
19. U.S.-China Security Review Commission, Hearing on Security Issues: Strategic Perceptions, Oral Testimony of Michael Pillsbury, 3 August 2001, 22.
20. U.S.-China Security Review Commission, Hearing on Security Issues: Strategic Perceptions, Written Testimony of Larry Wortzel, 3 August 2001, 5.
21. "U.S. Defense Secretary’s Report on the Pattern of Military Modernization in China," Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, June 2000, 6.

22. Yan Xiangjun, Yang Bojiang, Chu Shulong and Dao Shulin, "A Survey of Current Asian Pacific Security," Contemporary International Relations 8 (July 1994): 1-2.
23. Pillsbury, "China’s Perceptions of the USA," 8.
24. Ibid., 6,9.
25. Xu Zhixian, Zhang Minqian, and Hong Jianjun, "On the Foreign Strategy and Trends of China Policy of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan at the Turn of the Century," Contemporary International Relations 8 (March 1998): 12-14.

26. Wortzel, Written Testimony, 5.
27. Thomas Christensen, "Posing Problems without Catching Up: China’s Rise and Challenges for U.S. Security Policy," International Security 25 (Spring 2001): 14.
28. Pillsbury, "China’s Perceptions of the USA," 20.

29. Li Jijun, "Notes on Military Theory and Strategy," Military Theory and Conflict, (Beijing: Academy of Military Science Press, 1994) cited in Michael Pillsbury, Chinese Views of Future Warfare (Washington, D.C., Nation Defense University Press, 1997), 227.
30. Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Washington: National Defense University Press), 2000), 86-87.
31. Wortzel, Written Testimony, 1-2.
32. "U.S Commercial Technology Transfers to the People’s Republic of China," Bureau of Export Administration, January 1999, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/dmrr_chinatech.htm>(16 May 2002).

33. "PRC White Paper on National Defense in 2000," Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, 16 October 2000, 2. FBIS: CPP200001016000060.
34. Mark A. Stokes, China’s Strategic Modernization: Implications for the United States (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1999), 140.
35. Pillsbury, Oral Testimony, 22, 69.
36. Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Informal Meeting with the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, July 2001, Washington, D.C.
37. Michael Dorgan, "China’s Jiang Angers Ideologues by Embracing ‘Red Capitalists,’" Knight Ridder, 18 August 2001.

38. Gill, Written Testimony, 10-11.
39. Ibid., 13-15.
40. Wang Yizhou, Multi-Polarity Does Not Equal an Anti-US Position, The Globe Times, (Summer 1999), 4, trans., U.S.-China Security Review Commission, Wang Yizhou argues: "To maintain good relations with our neighboring countries, especially with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, is and has always been our most important diplomatic task. In a new and multi-polar environment, our guidelines of ‘maintaining friendly relations with our neighbors and stabilizing relationships with other surrounding countries’ should not only be continued, they should even push for China to ‘exert greater influence and become a leading force.’ We should strive to make our voice heard more in regional affairs."
41. Kenneth W. Allen, "China’s Approach to Confidence-Building Measures," in Ranjeet K. Singh, ed., Investigating Confidence-Building Measures in the Asia-Pacific Region, May 1999, 23.

42. Gill, Written Testimony, 14.
43. Tenet, "DCI Worldwide Threat Briefing 2002: Converging Dangers in a Post 9/11 World".
44. Ibid.
45. Wortzel, Written Testimony, 10.
46. U.S.-China Security Review Commission, Hearing on Export Controls and China, Written Testimony of Bernard D. Cole and Paul H.B. Goodwin, 17 January 2002, 3.

47. Michael Pillsbury, "China’s Military Strategy Toward the U.S.: A View From Open Sources," Report prepared for U.S.-China Security Review Commission, November 2001, 4.
48. Department of Defense, Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, 2002, 12.
49. Pillsbury, "China’s Military Strategy Toward the U.S.," 5.

50. Richard Betts and Thomas Christensen, "China: Getting the Questions Right," National Interest, no. 62 (Winter 2000).
51. Kathryn L. Gauthier, China as Peer Competitor? Trends in Nuclear Weapons, Space, and Information Warfare," Air War College Maxwell Paper, no.18 (July 1999) 19.
52. U.S. – China Security Commission, Hearing on Security Issues: Strategic Perceptions, Oral Testimony of Richard Fisher, 3 August 2001, 183.
53. U.S. -China Security Review Commission, Hearing on U.S. Export Control Policy Toward China, Written Testimony of Lisa Bronson, 17 January 2002, 1.

54. Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, 15.
55. Gill, Written Testimony, 13.
56. PRC White Paper on National Defense in 2000, 5.
57. Ying Ma, "China’s America Problem," Policy Review no. 111 (February/March 2002),44-45.

58. John Pomfret, "China Censors Anti-U.S. Reaction," Washington Post, 15 September 2001, sec. A.
59. Kerry Dumbaugh, "The early infrastructure of U.S. relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) during the Carter Administration," Congressional Research Service Memorandum, 23 April 2002. (This memorandum was requested on behalf of the U.S.-China Security Review Commission by Senator Robert C. Byrd).
60. Washington, D.C.: Department of State, Report on U.S. – China Science and Technology Cooperation, 2002, 5.

61. U.S.–China Security Review Commission, Shanghai Meeting with U.S. Corporate Executives, November 2001, Shanghai.
62. Xia Liping, "The Evolution of Chinese Views toward CBMs," Michael Krepon, ed., Chinese Perspectives on Confidence-building Measures, Report No. 23, May 1997, 31-33.
63. Kenneth W. Allen, "China’s Approach to Confidence-Building Measures," in Ranjeet K. Singh, ed., Investigating Confidence-Building Measures in the Asia-Pacific Region, May 1999, 14.

64. Ibid.
65. Ibid., 23.
66. Joseph Cheng, "China’s ASEAN Policy in the 1990s: Pushing for Regional Multipolarity, Association of South East Asian Nations," Contemporary Southeast Asia (1 August 1999): 5,6.
67. Professors June Teufel Dreyer and David Shambaugh have conducted separate studies on the Library of Congress China collection and come to similar conclusions about its glaring deficiencies.
68. Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas, 7 September 1993.

69. "India’s Prime Minister Signs "Landmark" Border Agreement with China," Press Trust of India News Agency, 7 September 1993.
70. Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas, 7 September 1993.
71. Agreement between the government of the republic of India and the government of the people’s republic of china on confidence-building measures in the military field and line of actual control in the India-china border areas, 29 November 1996.

72. "Accords Signed with China," All-India Radio, 2 December 1996, 16.
73. Ibid.
74. Sino-Russia Joint Declaration on the Basis of Mutual Relations, (1992); Agreement on the Western Section of the Boundary between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation",(1994).
75. "Yeltsin Visits China: Details of Confidence-building Measures between Four CIS States and China," ITAR-TASS News Agency (World Service), 26 April 1996.

76. Bates Gill, "Shanghai Five: An Attempt to Counter U.S. Influence in Asia?" Newsweek Korea, 24 May 2001.
77. "China-Thailand Joint Statement on Bilateral Cooperation," Xinhua English Newswire, February 5, 1999.
78. Cheng, "China’s ASEAN Policy in the 1990s"; "China, Philippines Sign Joint Statement," Xinhua News Agency, May 17, 2000.

79. The ASEAN members are: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The ASEAN Regional Forum is a 23-nation security forum, proposed in 1993, that groups the ten ASEAN members with Australia, Canada, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, European Union, Japan, Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia and the United States.
80. Susan Lawrence, "China –Asean Trade – Enough for Everyone," Far Eastern Economic Review, (13 June 2002).
81. "Chairman Issues Statement," ASEAN Secretariat, 23 July 1996.

[snowsislander]

My apologies for posting not only a longish piece, but one that is over two years old. However, my search did not yield this when I used 'national security implications' as the search term, and I thought it a valuable and interesting piece on U.S.-Sino relations.

[camas]

one problem is the chinese are smarter then the average US gove type

[Captainpaintball]

bflr

[sam_paine]

The United States will not and cannot sustain casualties in pursuit of vital interests....including Taiwan

I'm thinking that this was one of the additional reasons for this Iraq war....specifically to refute the Somalia arguments.

[snowsislander]

one problem is the chinese are smarter then the average US gove type

Not to go off on a tangent, but the government types must be doing something right: the average cash wage in the U.S. for government types is over $22 per hour, and the average wage for non-government types is less than $17 per hour. Government jobs are also well-known for excellent benefits, unlike a great number of non-government jobs.

[snowsislander]

I'm thinking that this was one of the additional reasons for this Iraq war....specifically to refute the Somalia arguments.

I think it has had that effect, and I hope that the Chinese will take note of this.

As to whether it went into the list of goals before we initiated planning and executing the Iraq war, I myself would be very surprised to find it on that list.

I hope that they also noticed that Japan has actually sent troops to Iraq. Japan's government I think in general is more concerned than ours is about the China situation, which makes sense seeing how physically proximate they are. It is due to the PRC's and the DPRK's provocations that Article 9 of the Japanese constitution is likely to be revised (or if the present situation escalates, it could even be repealed.)

[sam_paine]

I myself would be very surprised to find it on that list.

Of course I wouldn't expect it to be on the "public" list either, but since it speaks SO LOUD on the surface, I'm certain it was included in the oval office discussions.

[snowsislander]

btt(mop)

[InShanghai]

Self Ping for later reading...

[snowsislander]

bttt