BEIJING - In 2005, Zheng Bijian, then executive vice-president of the Central
Party School, a former political adviser to Communist Party secretary Hu
Yaobang, and for years right-hand man to President Hu Jintao, published an
essay in the US detailing China's doctrine about its peaceful rise. [1]
The article argued that China would not seek hegemonic status in the world and
would not engage in expansionist wars. It explained how historic Imperial
China, although very powerful at times, never went out of its own political
basin.
Zheng’s argument was a response to Western allegations that China, as it grew
strong and powerful, would also grow aggressive, just as 19th-century Germany
did, thus leading
Europe and the world into the Great War of the early 20th century. Coming as it
did from a person with such an illustrious background, it was a public
political pledge: China in the future would not become aggressive, and if it
did, anybody could turn this article against Beijing, making it lose face and
essential international political capital.
According to Chinese political logic, then, this pledge was very significant:
it was and remains a commitment about future policies, by which China's
internal and international credibility and accountability may be gauged.
However, Western skeptics know full well that political pledges can be warped
and turned upside down if political necessities arise. The real question then
is, they argue, will China feel it necessary to put aside the pledge about its
peaceful rise and engage in an aggressive foreign policy? What would the
conditions be for such aggressive behavior? Would a unilateral declaration of
independence by Taiwan tip the balance? How then can we believe that China is
serious about its peaceful rise?
China's love for peace may then look like that of 19th-century Germany - it
will keep the peace only as long as doing so fits its goals, otherwise it will
resort to war.
Yet the comparison between present-day China and 19th-century Germany is
extremely weak. Germany gained its status as a continental superpower thanks to
two successful wars against two of the major powers of the time. In 1866,
Prussia defeated Austria, putting a definite end to the 1,000-year-old Holy
Roman Empire, for centuries the bulwark of Catholicism in the Europe. And in
1870, Prussia defeated Napoleon III, stopping French ambitions over Europe.
Those two wars proved to Europe, then the political center of the world, the
prowess of the Prussian army and the Prussian state. The wars also greatly
enlarged Prussian territory and transformed it into the German Empire, which
eventually fought and almost beat single-handedly all of Europe between 1914
and 1918. Thus we can see that Imperial Germany was born out of wars against
the major powers of the time, and thanks to those wars it shaped its own
territory, with expansions at the expense of Austria and France.
China has not fought an expansionist war for more than a century. In fact,
during that period it has fought wars against enemies trying to carve out its
territory. China had its last border war in the early 1970s against the USSR,
and its very last military clash occurred in 1988 against some Vietnamese
coastal patrols; only a few score people were involved and the incident was
soon buried under a flurry of diplomacy.
The major setback to the past 30 years of reforms was after the 1989 Tiananmen
crackdown. For a couple of years, Chinese business and development suffered
heavily. Although China was not involved in a foreign war and the protests did
not evolve into a civil war, the episode sufficed to scare both domestic and
foreign enterprises.
Still, unlike other rising powers, China has managed to grow its economy at the
rate of almost 10% a year for the past 30 years without wars or any major
domestic or international confrontation. China, in other words, managed to grow
thanks to peace. This has guaranteed a peaceful environment, conducive to
business, and also, very importantly, no major wastage in costly wars or
armament programs that would have drawn investment away from productive goals.
In fact, these 30 years have been the most peaceful of the past 170 years,
since the time of the First Opium War. That was followed by the Taiping
Rebellion, then battles against Britain, France, Japan and Russia, until the
Boxer Rebellion and the humiliating crackdown at the hands of foreign powers in
1900. It was the last straw for the Qing Dynasty, which fell soon after,
starting a long period of civil war culminating with the Japanese invasion.
When the Communists took power, it was not the end of Chinese bellicosity.
Millions died in domestic political movements, while hundreds of thousands of
"volunteers" were dispatched abroad to "support the revolution" in neighboring
countries, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) itself was called to defend
the motherland against the Americans and South Koreans (1951), the Indians
(1962), the Russians (1971), and the Vietnamese (1979).
All these wars, these movements, and these deaths did not advance China's
international profile an inch - quite the contrary. They squandered political
and physical capital and made China and the Chinese people very poor.
In the past 30 years, there was just the one violent clash (against the
Vietnamese boats in 1988), and the previous intense violence of mass movements
and the crackdowns against them has been on the wane. Hundreds of Tiananmen
protesters were shot at, but the number of casualties was minor compared with
those during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s, or the land reform
of the 1950s, when millions lost their lives. And since 1989, even such a large
crackdown as that against the Falungong in 1999 was minimal if measured against
that of Tiananmen.
One can see that the less violence, the faster and steadier the economic
growth. The lesson learned in the past 30 years is that China can rise through
peace, not through war. Peace can make China rise; war would stop its rise and
move it backward.
Therefore, the reality is much stronger than Zheng argued. China absolutely
needs peace for its development. Without peace, its development could be put in
jeopardy and gains made in the past three decades could easily be forfeited.
China is fully aware that a series of simple and serious mistakes can easily
dent and destroy national position and wealth. The gross domestic product of
Qing China in 1840 was more than one-third of global GDP, thus it was about 50%
richer than the United States was in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet the refusal to
engage in trade with European powers, a series of mistakes with foreign
countries and a massive domestic rebellion over about 60 years massively
impoverished and weakened the country. China's GDP will be for many years still
below 10% of global GDP, a fact that clearly tells us how great its interest is
in keeping a peaceful environment and shunning wars or confrontations.
Furthermore, China for more than a decade has heavily financed the US debt.
China is the United States' major creditor, and possibly 70% of its foreign
reserves are in US dollars, so China is financing the US armed forces, in
theory its major military enemy.
Still, we have to understand that China has no interest in presenting its
thesis in these terms. If it were to say "we desperately need peace", this
could invite bullying, something China deeply fears given its past 170 years of
history. China thus needs to show itself strong to preempt any provocation and
challenge. Therefore the doctrine of the peaceful rise is crafted in a clever
manner. China promises only not to be aggressive, and thus avoids conceding
that it needs peace and thus inviting provocation. However, the objective
reality is that it does need peace, the only guarantor of development.
China will sacrifice peace only if an external threat starts an internal power
struggle against the balance of power in the Communist Party. For instance, if
Taiwan were unilaterally to declare independence, the Chinese president must go
to war. To do otherwise would show that the leadership is too dovish, which
could trigger a power struggle whereby hawks, accusing the leaders of being
spineless weaklings, could try to topple them and change the overall political
system, endangering the political stability of the whole country.
However, going to war even in such an extreme case would be no guarantee of
safekeeping power. If the PLA were defeated in a limited war, this could start
a power struggle in Beijing that could topple the leadership. China's
semi-defeat in the 1979 war against Vietnam helped to secure the path of Deng
Xiaoping's reforms against the left-wingers, who took part in the arrest of the
Gang of Four. Reforms were deemed necessary to modernize the PLA, until then
predominately considered the backbone of the party, but which did not perform
well in Vietnam.
China needs an army strong enough to win a limited war, or even better an army
strong enough to make a potential enemy shy away without firing a shot. Every
route to war is risky for China and its leadership, and conversely all those in
China considering or calling for war may have another agenda - some ax to grind
against the present leadership.
China and its leadership are thus walking a very dangerous tightrope that
becomes thicker and better as the economy grows stronger, but which remains a
tightrope.
A different political system, less fragile then the present secretive and
authoritarian one, could offer better guarantees of overall stability in case
of crisis because of war. However, as in all rising countries, nationalistic
programs can easily become springboards to power for ambitious and unscrupulous
men, and a more democratic China could be held hostage by nationalistic
elements. They could push their nationalistic schemes and stir up disgruntled
youth as a way to gain power.
Overall, one cannot rule out the possibility that the present political system,
because of its inherent fragility, is more conducive to peace than a more open
political system, which would be stronger in a crisis.
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