China’s Regional Strategy

By Zhang Yunling and Tang Shiping

In the past few years, both Chinese and foreign analysts have begun to reach the conclusion that China has developed a fairly consistent and coherent grand strategy in the past decade, even though they may disagree somewhat on the nature and content of that grand strategy.¹ Assuming that China’s regional strategy reflects and supports China’s grand strategy, this chapter will offer an assessment of China’s regional strategy. Because China is a regional power with very limited global interests, we also presume that China’s regional strategy largely corresponds to its grand strategy.

This chapter will first briefly describe China’s grand strategy by elaborating its core ideas and practices. Second, it will offer an assessment of China’s regional strategy, highlighting its goals, strategic thinking, and outcomes. Finally, it will draw some implications for the future of the region and U.S.China relations.

ASSESSING CHINA’S GRAND STRATEGY

Because economic development is considered the only way to tackle all the pressing challenges that China is facing and will face, China’s grand strategy must serve the central purpose of development.² Therefore, the central objective of China’s grand strategy in the past two decades-a strategy that may well last to 2050-can be captured in just one phrase: to secure and shape a security, economic, and political environment that is conducive to China concentrating on its economic, social, and political development.

Conceptualizing China’s Grand Strategy

Four core concepts underpin China’s current grand strategy. The first can be traced back to Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. Chinese leaders since Sun’s time have always believed that China rightly belongs to the “great power” (da guo) club by virtue of its size, population, civilization, history, and, more recently, its growing wealth. Even if China was not a great power during the past two centuries, China’s current goal is to make China a great power again.

Secondly, Deng Xiaoping realized early on that China needs a stable and peaceful international environment for its “Four Modernizations” program to succeed. However, when he toured several Southeast Asian countries in 1978, Deng was surprised to find that not many of China’s neighbors trusted China; China’s communist political system, earlier policies of exporting revolution, and the sensitive issue of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia had made many countries in the region suspicious of China’s intentions. This made Deng realize that China’s security conundrum in the 1960-70s had not been the work of external forces alone, but rather the product of the interaction between China’s behavior and the outside world. Deng’s realization was a momentous shift: in essence, he grasped the existence of the security dilemma.³ Since then, this realization has exerted a profound influence on China’s strategic thinking and behavior.⁴

The third concept is self-restraint, embodied in Deng’s famous doctrine buyao dangtou (do not seek leadership).⁵ In his numerous speeches between 1990 and 1992, Deng repeatedly warned his successors against actively seeking leadership in global or regional affairs and shouldering responsibilities that China cannot bear. In essence, Deng was preaching a doctrine of self-restraint.

The fourth concept began to take shape under Deng, but it developed more fully under Jiang Zemin, especially after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Living in an increasingly interdependent world, many Chinese analysts and policy makers gradually came to realize that both China’s economic welfare and its security depend heavily on its interaction with the outside world; therefore, China has to participate in world affairs more actively.⁶ Yet joining the world not only affords China the opportunity for gain, but it also requires that China shoulder certain burdens and responsibilities. China thus has to behave as a “responsible great power” ( fuzeren de daguo).⁷ Recognizing the existence of the security dilemma and exercising self-restraint are hallmarks of “defensive realism,”⁸ while accepting interdependence as a fact of life and behaving responsibly are trademarks of neoliberalism.⁹

The Practice of China’s Grand Strategy

Four features distinguish China’s current practice of grand strategy. First, in accordance with its self-image as a great power, China has maintained an active “great power diplomacy” (daguo waijiao). Its goal is to maintain a workable relationship with all major great powers and project an image of China as a great power both abroad and at home.¹⁰ In particular, recognizing that the United States is the world’s sole superpower and one of China’s key providers of capital, technology, and market, China can ill afford to have an irreparable rupture in the Sino-U.S. relationship. Accordingly, China’s great power diplomacy is very much oriented toward the United States. Chinese policy makers have worked hard to maintain a workable relationship with Washington, despite strong domestic opposition against being too accommodating of the United States, especially after incidents like the 1995-96 crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and the 2001 EP-3 spy plane incident.

Second, related to its recognition of the security dilemma and its understanding that the Sino-U.S. relationship will always have its ups and downs, China has pursued a strategy of maintaining amicable relationships with its neighbors (mulin youhao, wending zhoubian) to hedge against downturns in Sino-U.S. relations. Deng Xiaoping and his successors understand clearly that, with more than fifteen countries bordering China, an aggressive posture is simply not in China’s interest, no matter how powerful China becomes, because aggression would lead to a counterbalancing alliance of China’s neighbors and a distant power (the United States). If, however, China adopts a defensive realist approach, most regional countries would be reluctant to adopt a policy of hard containment, and thus China would likely enjoy a benign regional security environment. To this end, China has made strenuous efforts to improve its relationships with its neighboring countries, sometimes by making significant concessions despite strong domestic opposition.¹¹

Third, since the early 1990s China has begun to take a more active stand in regional and global multilateral institutions and initiatives, even though China’s embrace of multilateralism has been gradual and incomplete (every state is a limited multilateralist).¹² Moreover, understanding the difference between cooperation in economic and security arenas,¹³ China has been more active in multilateral economic institutions than in security institutions. Therefore, while China has taken the lead in pushing forward some regional multilateral economic cooperation initiatives,¹⁴ it has been less enthusiastic about moving from consultations and confidence-building measures (CBMs) to more codified and institutionalized security arrange-ments.¹⁵ With China’s “new security concept” (xin anquan guandian) emphasizing security cooperation measures such as CBMs rather than multilateral security institutions,¹⁶ this reluctance is apparent.

Fourth, while China has gradually become more willing to shoulder certain responsibilities as required by the international community, it has been highly selective in choosing the sorts of responsibilities it is willing to accept. Ascribing to a traditional definition of sovereignty, China has consistently opposed international interventions unless a state requested such intervention and the intervention has the authorization of the United Nations.¹⁷

FASHIONING CHINA’S REGIONAL STRATEGY

Because China is a regional power with limited global interests, China’s regional strategy is, to a large extent, the core of its grand strategy, and both the ideas and practices of its regional strategy reflect the imperatives of its grand strategy.¹⁸ Asia is the only region in which all aspects of China’s national interest-security, economic, and political-are present. Therefore, the way that China pursues the objectives of its regional strategy-an integrated approach that simultaneously pursues security, economic, and political interests-cannot be easily applied to any other region (say, Africa or Europe).

The Security-Economic-Political Axis

China realizes that, in the security sphere, Asia is the region with the world’s highest concentration of major power interaction. Accordingly, the number one goal of China’s regional security strategy is to maintain at least a workable relationship with all the major powers in the region (the United States, Russia, Japan, and India) so that China will never again become isolated and encircled by great powers. Because China views the region as a shield from pressure exerted by other great powers, the second security goal of China’s regional strategy is to maintain a cordial relationship with regional states in order to prevent a containment coalition led by any combination of the external great powers from emerging.

China understands that it is already a regional economic power, and its weight will continue to increase if its economy continues to grow. The challenge confronting China is how to make China’s economic growth an opportunity for the region rather than a threat, so that regional states will not coalesce to thwart China’s economic growth. Because of the prevalent perceptions that foreign direct investment (FDI) formerly going to ASEAN countries is now being sucked into China, and that China is gaining competitive advantages over ASEAN countries in many sectors,¹⁹ China has to alleviate the fears of ASEAN and other countries in the region that China will pose undue economic challenges, which in turn could generate a more general fear of China. Increasingly, assuming neoliberalism’s core belief that economic interdependence creates common interest and lessens the probability of conflict, China has decided that the best strategy is eventually to make China a locomotive for regional growth by serving as a market for regional states and a provider of investment and technology for the region.²⁰

China understands that, politically, it will have only limited global influence for many decades to come,²¹ and thus in the near term the main theater for China to exert its political influence will be the Asian region. Recognizing that it cannot expect to have a global voice if it cannot even be a regional political heavyweight, as part of its regional strategy, China seeks to establish the country as indispensable for addressing regional issues. Since political influence can only be effective when other states respect not only a nation’s power but also its opinion, China reasons that the best way to achieve regional political influence is through cultivating an image as a responsible (regional) great power that is constructively involved in addressing and alleviating various regional issues.

Strategic Thinking and the Practice of China’s Regional Strategy

Like its grand strategy, China’s regional strategy is also underpinned by several important ideas. The first idea underpinning China’s regional strategy is the desirability of seeking comprehensive cooperation and partnership relationships with all regional states. For instance, China’s initial interaction with ASEAN came via the ARF, which remains quite security-oriented; lately, however, China has elevated its relationship with ASEAN to a strategic partnership by further developing its economic and political relationships through the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC-SEA).²² Likewise, China’s relationship with Russia and Central Asian states used to be heavily security-oriented, but China has similarly been actively pursuing closer economic integration with Russia and Central Asian states under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).²³ In contrast, China’s relationship with South Korea was mostly commercial at the beginning, yet China has now developed a rather close, if not cordial, relationship with South Korea in the security and political arenas, too.²⁴ Similarly, participation in regional or subregional initiatives-such as the Kunming Initiative and the Greater Mekong Program-also aims to improve China’s security and political relationships with regional countries like India and Vietnam.

The second idea is that the most effective way for China to show that it is a responsible power is to shoulder responsibilities placed upon it and to demonstrate its benign intentions by exercising self-restraint and displaying willingness to be restrained.²⁵ This idea has led directly to actions such as not devaluing the renminbi during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, joining the TAC-SEA, and largely letting ASEAN states dictate the norms regarding the South China Sea dispute.²⁶

The third idea is that as long as the United States does not threaten China’s core interests, China can live with a “hegemonic power” (although not with “hegemonic behavior”).²⁷ Therefore, there is no need for China to counter the United States simply because the latter is powerful. Instead, China merely needs to work with others to restrain U.S. hegemonic behavior when America acts against international norms.²⁸ Following this logic, many experts in China have argued that as long as Washington acts like a responsible power and obeys international law and norms, it is in China’s interest to integrate into the international system rather than remain an outsider. If China rises inside the system, rather than aiming for fundamental transformation of the system, not only will it have more influence on reshaping the future of the system, but it will also be more likely that China’s rise is a peaceful one.²⁹ Chinese leaders and foreign policy experts have undertaken a careful survey of other rising powers in history in order to draw appropriate lessons and not repeat mistakes made by other great powers. Fundamentally, China wants a “peaceful rise” (heping jueqi), and most Chinese elites believe that only an intrasystem rise can be a peaceful one.³⁰

More importantly, China realizes that the U.S. presence in the region is useful to some extent, and that the U.S. security umbrella makes regional states more comfortable in dealing with China.³¹ The result is that China has now publicly acknowledged and accepted the utility of the American presence in the region, as indicated by Chinese officials’ repeated assurances to U.S. officials that “China does not wish to push the U.S. out of the region.”

The fourth idea concerns China’s regional economic development strategy. As China’s economy expanded, Beijing had to choose between two alternative approaches for becoming more integrated with the rest of the region: China could follow the approach taken by Japan, investing in the region but keeping its domestic market largely closed, or the approach taken by the United States, opening its domestic market and creating interdependence. China decided that the U.S. approach was more appropriate and effective. By opening up its own market and letting regional states establish a commercial presence in China, Beijing also hopes that regional states will be more receptive to China’s economic growth and consider it a greater opportunity than a threat.³²

The fifth idea is embracing regional multilateralism. China’s increased involvement in regional institutions demonstrates China’s benign intentions and its willingness to have its power constrained; this is increasingly appreciated throughout Asia, and regional multilateralism is now accepted as one of the keys for China and regional states to comanage the rise of China and to shape the evolving regional order.³³ China’s experience in the ARF and SCO also gave China more confidence in playing a more active role in regional multilateral platforms.³⁴ By embracing regional multilateral initiatives and channeling its growing power into a more institutionalized setting, China also hopes to make its closer relationship with regional states less alarming to the United States.

Finally, because of China’s growing confidence in its ability to shape the regional environment, China is becoming more active on the global stage, including in multilateral institutions and the security arena.³⁵ With a new “fourth generation” of leadership in power in Beijing, the early indication is that this new activism will continue, and likely even increase.³⁶

Practices and Outcomes

China’s practice of regional strategy-which can be summarized as “participate actively, demonstrate restraint, offer reassurance, open markets, foster interdependence, create common interests, and reduce conflict”-is far more active, flexible, and comprehensive than ever before.³⁷ Clearly, among Chinese leaders and the policy elite there is general satisfaction with China’s regional strategy and its largely positive outcomes to date.³⁸ This general satisfaction is also reflected in the writings of international affairs experts: most analysts agree that China’s security environment is improving rather than deteriorating.39

In Southeast Asia, the interactions between ASEAN countries and China have led to a mitigation rather than an exacerbation of the security dilemma between them.40 All ASEAN countries have explicitly rejected a containment approach toward China,⁴¹ and emphasize that the ARF is not intended to contain China but merely to socialize China.⁴² China, on the other hand, while aware of ASEAN’s intention of constraining China through socialization, has actually come to recognize the utility of this approach because it can serve as a credible signal of reassurance to ASEAN states.

Of real importance, by signing the TAC-SEA and Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea with ASEAN, China has renounced the option of force for settling disputes. And if ASEAN is indeed evolving toward a regional security community,⁴³ China has signaled that it may be interested in being part of that security community, too. By initiating a Free Trade Area (FTA) with ASEAN countries, China has indicated that it desires a more integrated regional economy. The result is that ASEAN countries and China are engaged in constructive cooperation and coexistence rather than
confrontation.⁴⁴

In Northeast Asia, China has dramatically improved its relationships with Russia, South Korea, and Mongolia and has managed to largely repair its estranged relationship with North Korea. Even with respect to the more difficult Sino-Japanese relationship, China has consistently pursued an accommodating relationship with Japan despite strong domestic opposition. The hotly contested domestic debate about China’s policy toward Japan,⁴⁵ the continuing interest in a China-Japan-South Korea FTA,⁴⁶ and the call for letting ASEAN and South Korea bring China and Japan together under “10 + 3″⁴⁷ all underscore that China understands that the future of the region depends upon a constructive relationship between China and Japan.⁴⁸ Therefore, while Japan and China are far from reaching a complete reconciliation for the time being, and their uneasy relationship remains a critical source of the uncertainty for the region, the probability of conflict between the two countries remains slim.⁴⁹

China is adopting an approach toward Russia and Central Asia that is similar to the one it has adopted toward East Asia by developing a comprehensive relationship with regional states. By working closely with Russia and Central Asian states, China has successfully brought SCO through the storm of 9/11 in much better shape than most would have predicted. With economic integration now operating as its second leg, the SCO is becoming an anchor for stability in the Eurasian heartland. By pushing for economic integration in Central Asia, China again signaled its willingness to let Central Asian states share the opportunity associated with China’s development, especially with its “Western Development” policy.

In South Asia, China has also achieved a breakthrough in its difficult relationship with India, although India continues to view China warily. There are three main dimensions to the improved Sino-Indian relationship. First of all, the geographic presence of the Himalayas renders the security dilemma between India and China less severe. Second, while China still treasures its close ties with Pakistan, China has not allowed Sino-Indian ties to be held hostage to Sino-Pakistan ties. Third, India, and especially those in its military, now recognize that China’s challenge to India is more about economics than about security.⁵⁰ With trade between India and China increasing rapidly in recent years, it is possible to imagine that the two countries will find their shared interests to be substantial enough to warrant more effort toward reaching an accommodation on their border dispute in the next couple of years.

On the central question of U.S.-China relations, after the rocky period when the administration of George W. Bush took power, the relationship is now back on track, partly thanks to 9/11.⁵¹ Although it is difficult to argue that there has been a qualitative shift in the relationship, a qualified optimism about the near-term prospects of the relationship exists in both capitals. With the United States deeply engaged in its war against terrorism, and China taking some of the responsibility for managing the North Korean crisis, both governments seem ready to let events play out for a little while so that they can gain a better understanding of the other side’s intentions. The danger with this arrangement is, of course, that while they are cooperating well on regional and global issues, the Taiwan situation has worsened and contains significant dangers for derailing the otherwise positive relationship.

Overall, most Chinese policy elites agree that China’s regional strategy, despite its imperfections, has proven very successful in recent years. Hence, one would expect the current strategy to continue, unless something dramatic alters its course.

THE FUTURE OF CHINA’S REGIONAL STRATEGY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

What could change the current course of China’s regional strategy? Two external factors, dynamically linked with the debate on “peace and development” inside China, will shape China’s regional strategy in the future.⁵²

U.S. Perceptions and U.S.-China Interactions

Because the United States remains at the center of China’s strategic calculus, the first external factor that is going to influence the future of China’s regional strategy is U.S. long-term strategic intentions toward China and how Washington views China’s interaction with regional countries. What the United States is doing, plans to do, or even is rumored to do will influence China’s behavior.⁵³

In dealing with the United States, however, China faces a conundrum that cannot be easily overcome. Because there will always be voices inside the United States arguing that China will become an inevitable foe, and some, looking through the zero-sum prism, will continue to view any perceived or real increase of Chinese influence in the region as at least potentially detrimental to U.S. interests, China faces a difficult balancing act in dealing with regional states but reassuring Washington. If China actively participates in regional affairs and norms, some in the United States will take it as a sign that China is aiming to challenge U.S. dominance. At the same time, international politics is becoming more regional,⁵⁴ and this again puts China in a difficult situation.

There are three possible scenarios for how the U.S.-China relationship may evolve in a regional context. The first scenario is that even though many regional initiatives (for instance, the ARF and ASEAN Plus Three, or APT) were not originally China’s idea, China has begun to actively participate in them for fear of being left out. As China increases its involvement in these bodies, the United States may deem that China and other Asian states are trying to exclude the United States from the region. Second, there are some regional programs that did evolve from China’s initiatives, but these initiatives were actually designed to assure regional states of China’s benign intentions (e.g., ASEAN-China FTA, and the recent ARF Security Policy Confer-ence).⁵⁵ Nonetheless, because these initiatives originated with China, they arouse U.S. suspicions. Finally, there are initiatives (e.g., SCO) that are designed to limit U.S. influence.⁵⁶ The problem is that the United States will pay attention only to its exclusion, even though the SCO is a stabilizing force.⁵⁷

On the other hand, over the years China has come to recognize that regional states are more qualified to comment on the “China threat” because of their geographical proximity and relatively smaller size (thus they are more vulnerable and sensitive), yet it is exactly in these countries that the China threat theory is losing its audience.⁵⁸ On the contrary, the global hegemon, the United States, tends to exaggerate other countries’ capabilities and hostility, as it did in the case of the Soviet Union and Japan.

Accordingly, China should pay less attention to rhetoric about the China threat coming out from the United States. This, in turn, causes many Chinese analysts to argue that China should pay more attention to working with regional states and putting the region in good order rather than appeasing the “Blue Team” in the United States. The rationale is that as long as regional states do not consider China a clear and present danger, and China and regional states can manage the region well, the United States will be hard pressed to forge a containment coalition. This means that regional states are becoming more important to China, and the weight of the United States in China’s strategic calculus may face a reevaluation.⁵⁹

With the United States taking active measures to hedge against or even contain China’s rise, and China becoming less attentive to U.S. concerns when it believes it is acting together with regional states, both situations have potential to increase the mutual suspicion between the two countries, resulting in a classic security dilemma. This security dilemma will add yet another dimension of uncertainty to bilateral relations.

China’s current grand and regional strategies do not rely upon pushing the United States out of Asia, not only because China lacks the capacity to do so, but also because China does not deem this to be in its own best interests or those of the region.⁶⁰ Chinese leaders now appreciate that the United States plays some indispensable constructive roles in the region. This recognition has led China to repeatedly reassure the United States that China does not want to expel the United States from China and welcomes their constructive presence in the region.⁶¹

Yet the picture from Washington is less clear. Despite the recent warming of the U.S.-China relationship and a few U.S. signals of assurance, especially on Taiwan, China is concerned about the possibility that those measures designed to contain China (outlined in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, but put on hold because of September 11) will be resurrected when Washington finishes its business in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the United States is serious about its engagement policy with China, then it must be ready to assure China that a certain increase in China’s influence in the region need not be threatening, but could actually be desirable for long-term U.S. interests, as long as China plays according to inter national and regional norms and its influence is channeled through and within regional multilateral institutions. Indeed, as China becomes more integrated into the region, it becomes a pillar for long-term regional stability, and serves long-term U.S. interests far better than a China that remains a regional outcast.⁶² Moreover, this recognition could actually gain the United States more respect, and thus more influence, in the region, because although Asian states do want the United States to stay engaged in the region, they do not want an unwarranted confrontation between the United States and China because of an active containment policy pursued by Washington.⁶³

Such a recognition by Washington will demand a few fundamental changes in the American mentality and will require abandoning several self-propagated myths: (1) that because the United States is the “indispensable nation,” it has to lead all global and regional initiatives all the time; (2) that China seeks to push the United States out of the region and reestablish the “Middle Kingdom order” in East Asia; and (3) that a divided East Asia is in the interests of the United States.⁶⁴

CHINA AND REGIONAL STATES: FROM UNEASY COEXISTENCE TO SECURITY COMMUNITY?

When the Chinese economy entered a new boom phase in the mid-1990s, the China threat theory, popularized by prominent Western commentators such as Charles Krauthammer and the late Gerald Segal,⁶⁵ began to resonate in the Asian region. With a decade behind us, however, the possibility that China is going to march down the South China Sea because of its insatiable demand for oil has yet to become reality, and it in fact may never come to pass.⁶⁶ While one can argue that it is the U.S. forward military presence and other restraining forces that prevented China from taking any expansionist action, another explanation should also be seriously considered: China may harbor no such evil design on its neighbors after all.

One can expect that after all that China has done in the past twenty years to improve its relations with its neighbors, the China threat theory would have lost some of its audience in the region.⁶⁷ That is indeed the case, and in some areas the transformation of attitudes has been remarkable. Because assurance cannot be absolute among states, and it is always difficult to gauge regional states’ confidence in China’s benign intentions, the question is how many regional states have come to appreciate that China can also be a benign power, and how much do these states trust China’s benign intentions?⁶⁸

In Southeast Asia, although ASEAN states are not ready to completely relax their vigilance against China yet, as indicated by their various security arrangements with the United States,69 neither do they expect that China will conquer Southeast Asia in the future. More tellingly, they refuse to adopt the hard containment approach against China advocated by some in the Bush administration.⁷⁰ There have been remarkable changes in the ASEAN states’ perceptions of China’s intentions: most ASEAN states have come to recognize that China does not pose a real security threat for them, and the principal challenge they face is commercial. The result is that ASEAN’s perception of China has improved more significantly than most would have predicted just a few years ago.⁷¹ Likewise, China’s relationship with Russia and Central Asian states is evolving in the same direction. Despite lingering suspicion, Russia’s perception of China has greatly improved.⁷²

Nonetheless, distrust of China persists in Asia.⁷³ Whether this persistent distrust is due to deep-seated historical factors or exists because it is profitable to keep China off balance is not the question. The crucial point is that this persisting doubt about Chinese intentions undercuts support for China’s current benign strategy toward the region.

Some foreign policy specialists in China believe that most regional states have been so intoxicated by the China threat myth that it is hopeless to convince them of its fallacy, and that China should thus not try to appease them. These Chinese analysts argue that no matter what China does, Asian states will never come to trust China. This persistent distrust of China is creating a new kind of “victim syndrome” and playing into the hands of pessimists inside China. If regional states continue to view China skeptically, despite China’s persistent effort to appease its neighbors, the Chinese leadership may eventually reach the same conclusion as the pessimists. The rest of the world must try to understand that too much distrust of China’s benign intentions may produce the opposite effect. This disastrous scenario is something that China and regional countries must work together to prevent.

CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

Until the late 1990s, many observers would have agreed that China was still searching for a coherent national identity and was not sure of its proper role in the Asian region.⁷⁴ Today, we can perhaps argue that China has largely completed its painful search for a national identity, thus becoming more confident of its relationships and its position in the region. Today, China no longer sees itself as a country facing imminent external danger or on the verge of internal implosion. Instead, it sees itself as a country with resources for managing its grand transformation and a growing ability to shape its environment.⁷⁵ One would expect that as long as China’s optimistic assessment of its external environment and its self-identify as a responsible great power continue to hold,⁷⁶ China’s current grand and regional strategies will also continue. If this is so, the world and the region can take a more relaxed posture toward this “fourth rise of China” and behave accordingly,⁷⁷ and this will in turn reinforce the domestic support for China’s current grand and regional strategies.⁷⁸ In the end, the future of the Asia-Pacific region depends not only upon China’s choice of strategy, but also upon the strategies of other countries in the region, including the United States.

NOTES:

1. 1. Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh, eds., Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Jonathan Pollack and Richard Yang, eds., In China’s Shadow: Regional Perspectives on Chinese Foreign Policy and Military Development (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1998); Wu Xinbo, “China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power,” in Asian Security Practice, ed. Muthiah Ala-gappa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); Chu Shulong, “Development of China’s Security Thinking in the Post-Cold War Era,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 9 (1999): 11-15; Michael Swaine and Ashley Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2000); Avery Goldstein, “The Diplomatic Face of China’s Grand Strategy: A Rising Power’s Emerging Choice,” China Quarterly 168 (December 2001): 835-64; Tang Shiping, “Understanding China’s Security Strategy,” Guoji Zhengzhi Yanjiu [Studies of international politics] 3 (2002): 128-35; Tang Shiping and Peter Hayes Gries, “China’s Security Strategy: From Offensive to Defensive Realism and Beyond,” EAI Working Paper No. 97 (October 2002), East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore; Evan Medeiros and Taylor Fravel, “China’s New Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 6 (November-December 2003): 22-35.
2. This section of the chapter draws heavily from Tang Shiping and Peter Gries, “China’s Security Strategy.”
3. For more on the security dilemma, see John Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 2 ( January 1950): 157-80; Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (January 1978): 189-214; Charles Glaser, “Political Consequences of Military Strategy: Expanding and Refining the Spiral and Deterrence Models,” World Politics 44 (July 1992): 497-538; Charles L. Glaser, “The Security Dilemma Revisited,” World Politics 50 (October 1997): 171-201.
4. Former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew might have played a pivotal role in transforming Deng’s understanding. See Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000 (Singapore: Straits Times Press and Times Media, 2001), 663-68.
5. Deng Xiaoping, Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan [Selected works of Deng Xiaoping] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1993) 3: 321. Needless to say, Deng’s doctrine is quite a departure from Mao’s desire to be a leader in the socialist camp and the third world.
6. In academia, Zhang Yunling’s 1998 article on interdependence can serve as the harbinger. Zhang Yunling, “Interdependence in World Economy,” Ouzhou Yan-jiu [European studies] 4 (1988): 1-10.
7. Wang Yizhou, “Three Tasks: Development, Sovereignty, and Responsibility,” Shijie Zhishi 5 (2001): 8-10. “Responsible great power” began to appear frequently in official Chinese pronouncements following the Asian financial crisis.
8. For more on defensive realism, see Jeffery W. Talioferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy,” International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000/2001): 128-61.
9. For more on neoliberalism, see Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 2d ed. (Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman and Co., 1989).
10. Ye Zicheng, “The Inevitability of China’s Great Power Diplomacy,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 1 (2001): 10.
11. China has demonstrated remarkable restraint, for example, in dealing with Japan on the Diaoyu Island dispute and in dealing with ASEAN countries over the South China Sea dispute. For this point, see James Miles, “Chinese Nationalism, U.S. Policy and Asian Security,” Survival 42, no. 4 (Winter 2000/2001): 51-72; S. D. Muni, “China’s Strategic Engagement with the New ASEAN,” IDSS Monograph No. 2 (Singapore: Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, 2002). Also noteworthy is that in resolving border disputes with other countries, it has been China that often makes the most concessions (Taylor Fravel, personal communication).
12. For China’s engagement in multilateral economic and security institutions, see Margaret M. Pearson, “The Major Multilateral Economic Institutions Engage China” and Alastair Iain Johnston and Paul Evans, “China’s Engagement with Multilateral Security Institutions,” both in Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power, ed. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (London: Routledge, 1999), 207-34 and 235-72.
13. Charles Lipson, “International Cooperation in Security and Economic Affairs,” World Politics 37 (October 1984): 1-23.
14. These initiatives include China’s Free Trade Area with ASEAN, the Kunming Initiative, and the Greater Mekong Program. For more on the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, see Mark Wang, “Why China Speeded up Plans for FTA with ASEAN,” Straits Times, November 14, 2001. For the Kunming Initiative, which covers India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and southwestern China, see P. V. Indiresan, “The Kunming Initiative,” Frontline (New Delhi) 17, no. 7 (April 14, 2000): 98-102; Ramtanu Maitra, “Prospects Brighten for Kunming Initiative,” Asia Times, February 12, 2003, available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/south_asia/EB12Df04.html; Zhang Gu-angping, “Framework Proposal for Sub-regional Economic Cooperation between Bengal Gulf States and China’s Southwest,” Yazhou Luntan [Asia forum] 1 (1999): 47-50. For the Greater Mekong Program, which covers southwest China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, see “Multinational Greater Mekong Program Gears Up,” available at http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jun/ 35761.htm.
15. The most notable case is China’s reluctance to move from supporting CBMs to preventive diplomacy (PD) within the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). See Pan Zhenqiang, “A Chinese Perspective,” in The Future of the ARF, ed. Khoo How San, 49-57 (Singapore: Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, 1999); Ding Kuisong, “ARF and Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific,” Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary international relations] 7 (1998): 6-12; Liang Yunxiang and Zhao Tian, “ARF: Understanding its Function and Role,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 1 (2001): 41-45. Whether this attitude is changing is not clear.
16. For a similar assessment, see Chu Shulong, “Development of China’s Security Thinking in the post-Cold War Era,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 10 (1999): 11-15; Wu Peng, “China’s View Toward Security in Asia
    Pacific and Its Development,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 5 (1999): 12-16.
17. Tang Yongshen, “The Evolution of U.N. Peacekeeping and Trends,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 5 (2001): 65-70. For an overview of China’s attitude toward international intervention, see Bates Gill and James Reilly, “Sovereignty, Intervention, and Peacekeeping: The View from Beijing,” Survival 42, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 41-59. So far, China has participated in international peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, East Timor, former Yugoslavia, and Africa.
18. Here “Asia” means the broad Asian continent.
19. Whether China is siphoning off FDI that was previously destined for ASEAN countries is a debatable. See “Economic Survey of Singapore, Foreign Direct Investments to China and ASEAN: Has ASEAN Been Losing Out?” third quarter, 2002, available at http://www.mti.gov.sg/public/PDF/CMT/NWS_2002Q3_FDI1.pdf?sid =92&cid = 1418.
    20. Since 2000 China’s imports from ASEAN countries have been increasing at an annual rate of 30 to 40 percent. More importantly, in contrast to conventional wisdom, major exports from ASEAN countries to China have not been primarily raw material, but mostly electronics components. For a detailed discussion, see Chen Wen, “China-ASEAN Bilateral Trade,” Dangdai Yatai [Contemporary Asia] 8 (2003): 42-49; Kwei-bo Huang, “The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area: Background, Framework, and Political Implications,” available at http://www.dsis.org.tw/peaceforum/ papers/2002-02/APE0202001e.htm.
20. For an explicit argument that China will never become a global power (and, therefore, that China should be satisfied with being a regional power), see Chu Shu-long, “China’s National Interest, Power, and Strategy,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 4 (1999): 13-18; Tang Shiping, “Once Again on China’s Grand Strategy,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 4 (2001): 29-37.
21. “China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership,” press release from ASEAN Secretariat, available at http://www.aseansec.org/15286.htm.
22. “Declaration of the Heads of Government of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 2002,” available at http://www.mfa.kz/ english/sco/140901.htm. For early ideas regarding pushing economic integration in the SCO, see Tang Shiping, “Central Asia Economic Integration in the Shadow of Sino-Russia Strategic Partnership,” Dangdai Yatai [Contemporary Asia] 7 (2000): 27-33, and “Regional Economic Integration in Central Asia: The Sino-Russia Relationship,” Asian Survey 40, no. 2 (March-April 2000): 360-76.
23. Jae-ho Chung, “South Korea Between Eagle and Dragon: Perceptual Ambivalence and Strategic Dilemma,” Asian Survey 41, no. 4 (September-October 2001): 777-96.
24. For the theoretical foundation of this argument, see Tang Shiping, “A Systemic Theory of Security Environment,” Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming. For its shorter Chinese version, see Tang Shiping, “A Systemic Theory of Security Environment,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 8 (2001): 16-22. For similar arguments intended for other countries (mostly the United States), see G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Chong Guan Kwa and See Seng Tan, “The Keystone of World Order,” Washington Quarterly 24, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 95-103.
25. As Medeiros and Fravel have noted, the Joint Declaration on the Code of Conduct over the South China Sea between ASEAN and China contained mostly language chosen by ASEAN and few words sought by the Chinese side. See Medeiros and Fravel, “China’s New Diplomacy,”
26. For the joint declaration, see “ASEAN and China Sign Declaration on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea,” November 4, 2002, available at http://www.aseansec.org.
27. Wang Jisi, “How U.S. Hegemonic Thinking Was Born,” Huanqiu Shibao [Global times], September 19, 2003; “The Logic of American Hegemony,” Meiguo Yanjiu [American studies] 3 (2003): 7-30. Wang’s idea basically reflects the logic of “balance-of-threat” theory, developed by Stephen Walt in The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
28. For the idea of forming an “axis of restraining,” see Tang Shiping, “Washington: Bully in a China Shop,” Straits Times, March 31, 2003.
29. Tang Shiping, “Once Again on China’s Grand Strategy,” 29-37; Zhang Bai-jia, “Change Oneself, Change the World,” Zhongguo Shehui Kexue [China social science] 1 (2002): 4-19.
30. For “heping jueqi,” see Yoichi Funabashi, “China Is Preparing a ‘Peaceful Ascendancy,’” International Herald Tribune, December 30, 2003; Zheng Bijian, “China’s Peaceful Rise and the Future of Asia,” speech delivered to the Boao Asia Forum, available at http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/OP-c/448115.htm.
31. For instance, the United States can maintain security arrangements with Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia and still manage to limit the security dilemma between these countries. It is difficult to imagine that China could achieve the same feat.
32. China’s FTA initiative with ASEAN is a clear manifestation of this intention to let regional states share the growth opportunity associated with China’s economic transformation. See Zhang Yunling, “Why Push East Asian Regional Cooperation,” Guoji Jingji Pinglun [International economy review] 5 (2003): 48-50; Chen Hong, “Sharing Growth: East Asian Regional Economic Cooperation,” in ibid, 51-55.
33. Men Honghua, “International Regimes and China’s Strategic Choice,” Zhong-guo Shehui Kexue [China social science] 2 (2001): 178-87; Pan Zhongying, “China’s Asia Strategy: Flexible Multilateralism,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 10 (2001): 30-35; Wang Yizhou, “China in the New Century and Multilateralism Diplomacy,” Taipingyang Xuebao [Asia-Pacific studies] 4 (2001): 4-12.
34. For argument that China’s ARF experience has been transformational, see Rosemary Foot, “China in the ASEAN Regional Forum: Organization Process and Domestic Models of Thought,” Asian Survey 38, no. 5 (May 1998): 425-40.
35. Cheng-chwee Kuik, “Multilateralism in China’s ASEAN policy,” SAIS Working Paper Series, WP-05-03, available at http://www.sais-jhu.edu/workingpapers/ WP-05-03b.pdf; Philip Burdon, “China’s Changing Role in the Asia-Pacific Region,” speech delivered at the New Zealand China Friendship Society, available at http://www.nzchinasociety.org.nz/conferencespeeches.html#philip.
36. For Chinese readings of the style of diplomacy of the new leadership, see Zhuang Liwei, “Hu Jintao: Critical Trip,” Nanfang Zhuang [Southern circle] 239 (June 2003): 12-14.
37. This is our own description and is not in the official Chinese diplomatic lexicon.
38. Jiang Zemin’s speech to the 16th Party Congress still emphasized that “peace and development remain the two major trends of our time,” thus temporarily foreclosing the debate that followed the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
39. For a comprehensive and generally optimistic assessment of China’s future security environment, see Zhang Yunling, ed., China’s International Environment in Asia-Pacific 2010-2015 (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2003). For a less optimistic assessment of China’s future security environment, see Yan Xuetong, “Assessing and Pondering China’s Security Environment,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 2 (2000): 5-10; Zhang Ruizhuang, “Reassessing China’s International Environment: Peace and Development Is Not the Trend of Our Time,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 1 (2001): 20-30.
40. Alan Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan, 2000), chapter 5.
41. Amitav Acharya argued that ASEAN countries are generally adopting a mixed strategy called “counter-dominance” toward external great powers, including China. Amitav Acharya, “Engagement, Containment, or Counter-Dominance: Malaysia’s Response to the Rise of China,” in Engaging China, ed. Johnston and Ross, 129-51; see also David Shambaugh, “Containment or Engagement of China: Calculating Beijing’s Response,” International Security 21, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 180-209, at p. 186.
42. Jusuf Wanandi, “ASEAN’s China Strategy: Towards Deeper Engagement,” Survival 38, no. 3 (Autumn 1996): 117-28; Amitav Acharya, “Seeking Security in the Dragon’s Shadow: China and Southeast Asia in the Emerging Asia Order,” Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS) Working Paper No. 44 (2003), available at http://www.idss.edu.sg/WorkingPapers/WP44.pdf.
43. Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2001).
44. Acharya, “Seeking Security in the Dragon’s Shadow”; Alice D. Ba, “China and ASEAN: Renavigating Relations for a 21st Century Asia,” Asian Survey 43, no. 4 (July-August 2003): 622-47.
45. Ma Lichen, “New Thinking toward Japan: Anxiety among Chinese and Japanese Public,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 6 (2002): 41-47; Shi Yinhong, “Sino-Japan Rapprochement and China’s Diplomatic Revolution,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 2 (2003): 71-75.
46. Chi Yuanjie and Tian Zhongjing, “Building a China-Japan-South Korea Economic Cooperation Entity,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 10 (2001): 33-37.
47. Tang Shiping and Zhou Xiaobing, “ASEAN, China, Japan and the Future of East Asia,” Guoji Jingji Pinglun [International economy review] 6 (2001): 19-24.
48. Tang Shiping, “Last Chance for East Asian Economic Integration,” Straits Times, November 19, 2002; “Japan’s Choice and the Future of East Asia,” Zhongguo Jingji Shibao [China economic times], July 20, 2001; Zhang, “Why Push East Asian Regional Cooperation.”
49. For similar arguments, see David Lampton and Gregory C. May, A Big Power Agenda for East Asia: America, China, and Japan, Nixon Center Monograph, pp. 49-59, available at http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/monographs/mis-silemono.pdf; Michael A. McDevitt, “History and Geostrategy in East Asia,” PacNet Newsletter, August 10, 2001.
50. The recent China-India joint naval maneuver is an indication that the two countries do not see each other as an imminent threat. See “China Holds Maneuvers with India,” Associated Press, November 14, 2003.
51. For an upbeat statement from the former secretary of state, see Colin Powell, “Remarks at Conference on China-U.S. Relations,” available at http://www .state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/25950.htm. Also see David Shambaugh, “The New Stability in US-China Relations: Causes and Consequences,” in Strategic Surprise: U.S.China Relations in the Early 21st Century, ed. Jonathan Pollack (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2004); Thomas J. Christensen, “PRC Security Relations with the United States: Why Things Are Going So Well,” available at http://www .chinaleadershipmonitor.org/20034/tc.pdf.
52. The debate on “peace and development” reignited after the 1999 U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Two questions are crucial in this debate: (1) Is the outside world (mostly the United States and regional states) generally friendly or fundamentally hostile to China? (2) Has human history really entered into an era of “peace and development,” or was this assessment simply a Chinese dream? The journal Shijie Zhishi [World affairs] devoted two special issues to this debate. See Shijie Zhishi nos. 15 and 16 (April 2000). Also see Zhang, “Reassessing China’s International Environment”; Shi Yinhong, “Correctly Assess World Order and Its Trend,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 4 (1999): 103-5.
53. As Jervis puts it, “Countries like the United States which are large, powerful, and speak out on most issues with enormous volume, if not with enormous clarity, can influence others’ definition of reality” (Robert Jervis, The Symbolic Nature of Nuclear Politics [Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987], 4).
54. See Amitav Acharya, “Regionalism and the Coming World Order,” unpublished paper; David A. Lake and Patrick Morgan, eds., Regional Order: Building Security in a New World (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); S. Neil MacFarlane and Thomas G. Weiss, “Regional Organizations and Regional Security,” Security Studies 2, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 6-37. For Chinese analysts’ writing on this issue, see Wang Xueyu, “Regionalization of International Security: An Analytical Framework,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 3 (2003): 17-22; Su Hao, “Regionalism and the Making of Regional Cooperation Framework in East Asia,” Waijiao Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Foreign Affairs College] 1 (2003): 1-8.
55. For instance, it was reported that former premier Zhu Rongji made the decision to table the ASEAN-China FTA proposal (which was originally put forward by an expert group of which Zhang Yunling is a member) because he had just experienced (during the 2000 ASEAN-China Summit) a full day of ASEAN complaining that China was going to squeeze them to death economically. Likewise, China’s proposal for an East Asian military dialogue was an initiative to dispel regional states’ perception that China is not interested in multilateral military-to-military dialogue. For the story behind ASEAN-China FTA, see Lee Siew Hua, “Shocking Proposition: How an Uncertain ASEAN Came to Accept China’s Free-Trade Idea,” Straits Times, March 15, 2002.
56. SCO came to exist largely because China, Russia, and the three Central Asian states did not want to squander the goodwill generated from the successful demarcation of their borders.
57. Admittedly, states (and people) generally pay more attention to bad news than to good, whether it is real or perceived. Of course, if one state is already convinced of another state’s malign intention, it is extremely difficult to change that perception. See Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperceptions in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 372, 310-15.
58. For surveys of regional states’ perception of the “China threat,” see Herbert Yee and Ian Storey, eds., The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002).
59. Tang Shiping, “China’s Security Environment in 2010-2015: Critical Factors and Trends,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 5 (October 2002): 34-45, at 42-43.
60. Goldstein, “Diplomatic Face of China’s Grand Strategy,” 854; Medeiros and Fravel, “China’s New Diplomacy”; Tang Shiping and Cao Xiaoyang, “China, U.S., and Japan: Searching for the Foundation of Mutual Security,” Zhanlue yu Guanli [Strategy and management] 1 (2002): 99-109.
61. Some may argue that such public assurance is not credible because China does not have the capability to expel the United States from the region anyway. But according to the theory of “costly signaling,” this rhetoric, which is not domestically popular, is credible because it is also costly. Likewise, if the U.S. administration were to make a statement that was domestically costly, it would be a credible signal to China. For the theory of “costly signaling,” see James D. Morrow, “Capability, Uncertainty, and Resolve: A Limited Information Model of Crisis Bargaining,” American Journal of Political Science 33, no. 4 (November 1989): 941-72; James D. Fearon, “Signaling Foreign Policy Interest: Typing Hands versus Sinking Cost,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no. 1 (February 1997): 68-90.
62. Charles A. Kupchan, “After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity,” International Security 23, no. 2 (Fall 1998): 40-79, at 62-63.
63. Roger Mitton, “Living with Elephants,” Asiaweek, August 31, 2001, 31-32.
64. For prominent commentators voicing concern about the U.S. divide-and-rule approach toward East Asia, see Han Sung-Joo, quoted in Tim Shor-rock, “East Asian Community Remains Elusive,” Asia Times, February 5, 2002; Wang Gungwu, “Divided Asia Plays into Hands of West,” Straits Times, February 7, 2003.
65. See Joe Barnes, “Slaying the China Dragon: The New China Threat School,” Baker Institute Working Paper (April 1999), available at http://www.rice.edu/ projects/baker/Pubs/workingpapers/efac/barnes.html. For samples of the China threat argument, see Denny Roy, “Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to East Asian Security,” International Security 19, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 149-68; Charles Krauthammer, “Why We Must Contain China” Time, July 31, 1995, 72; Gerald Segal, “East Asia and the ‘Constrainment’ of China,” International Security 20, no. 4 (Spring 1996): 107-35.
66. Michael Gallagher, “China’s Illusory Threat to the South China Sea,” International Security 19, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 169-94; Robert A. Manning, “The Asian Energy Predicament,” Survival 42, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 73-88; Evan A. Feigen-baum, “China’s Military Posture and the New Economics Geopolitics,” Survival 41, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 71-88.
67. For surveys of regional states’ perceptions of China’s intention, see Yee and Storey, eds., The China Threat; Leonard C. Sebastian, “Southeast Asian Perceptions of China: The Challenge of Achieving a New Strategic Accommodation,” in Southeast Asia Perspectives on Security, ed. Derek da Cunha, 158-81 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000).
68. As many have argued before, China has been historically and can become again a benign hegemon. See Wang Gungwu, “China’s Place in the Region: The Search for Allies and Friends,” Indonesia Quarterly 25, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 421; Collins, The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia, 139-44; Mohammed Mahathir, quoted in “Southeast Asia and China: Threat and Opportunities,” Asia Times, August 2, 2003.
69. ASEAN states are thus not bandwagoning with China (because bandwago-ning is primarily about security), at least not at the moment. For the argument that ASEAN states are, in fact, bandwagoning with China, see David Kang, “Getting Asia Wrong,” International Security 27, no. 4 (Spring 2003): 57-85. The best description for ASEAN’s China policy may be a combination of genuine trust and opportunism: ASEAN is taking advantage of China’s economic growth but still hedging against the possibility that China will become aggressive in the future. Also see Acharya, “Seeking Security in the Dragon’s Shadow.”
70. For a detailed discussion, see Gaye Christoffersen, “The Role of East Asia in Sino-American Relations,” Asian Survey 42, no. 3 (May-June 2002): 369-96. Also see Mitton, “Living with Elephants.”
71. Ba, “China and ASEAN.”
72. Alexander Lukin, “Russia’s Image of China and Russian-Chinese Relations,” Brookings Institution Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies (CNAPS) Working Paper Series, May 2001, available at http://www.brookingsinstitution.org/ dybdocroot/fp/cnaps/papers/lukinwp_01.pdf.
73. One indicator is that it took ASEAN countries quite some time to accept China’s offer for a FTA with ASEAN. See Lee Siew Hua, “Shocking Proposition.”
74. Robert A. Scalapino, “China’s Multiple Identities in East Asia: China as a Regional Force,” in China’s Quest for National Identity, ed. Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, 215-36 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).
75. For discussion of how China’s new self-image influences its diplomacy, see Zhang Yunling and Tang Shiping, “A More Self-Confident China Will Be a Responsible Power,” Straits Times, October 2, 2002; Xiao Huangrong, “China’s Great Power Responsibility and Regionalism Strategy,” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World economics and politics] 1 (2003): 46-51; Medeiros and Fravel, “China’s New Diplomacy.”
76. Jiang Zemin’s 16th Party Congress speech indicates that optimists are still carrying the day.
77. Wang Gungwu, “The Fourth Rise of China,” unpublished lecture notes, December 5, 2003.
78. Early signs indicate that the new Chinese leadership will largely stick to the current strategic assessment and strategy.

Source: “Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics“, University Of California Press Berkeley, 2005