Foreign Policy Incoherence Limits China's Power in Asia
Iain Mills | Bio | 24 Feb 2011
BEIJING -- Following a period of considerable success and strategic evolution, China's foreign policy has been marked by a less coherent and less constructive approach to international relations over the past year. Nowhere has this shift been more pronounced than on the Asian littoral, a key arena in the country's international rise, where China's opaque naval expansion and increasingly abrasive behavior have begun to undermine previous strategic gains.
China's naval modernization is part of an ongoing force-wide attempt to enhance national military capabilities, particularly in nonconventional warfare and peacetime operations. The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) also has a stated intention to acquire aircraft carrier technology and improve its blue-water reach. The recently unveiled Fifth Five-Year Plan sets out continued hikes for all defense spending for the period 2011-2015, while last week's shake-up of PLAN's top brass seems to be focused on improving the Chinese fleet's ship-based weaponry.
Enhancing naval power serves several strategic functions for Beijing. Most fundamentally, possessing a modern navy is a prerequisite for China's emergence as a genuine counterbalance to American influence in East Asia. To fulfill its ambition of once again becoming the region's central actor, China requires greater maritime power projection and must be able -- and willing -- to shoulder the security responsibilities associated with this role. Improved nonconventional capabilities will allow China to assume a larger role in multilateral initiatives such as regional counterterrorism operations and disaster relief. Maritime reach is also critical to its ability to protect key supply routes in the South China Sea and beyond.
Naval modernization undoubtedly moves the country toward these objectives, but the recent absence of a more coherent policy framework risks limiting the strategic benefits China might gain from expanded naval power. Despite increasing economic interests across the region, China's foreign policy has become vague and often contradictory, and Beijing has yet to articulate how it will deploy its new-found comprehensive strength to help diffuse any of the numerous local geopolitical flashpoints.
In fact, opacity and misinformation over the extent and nature of its rapid military build up have fueled suspicions among other regional actors, nearly all of whom are now increasing their own naval capabilities on the back of a growing perceived threat of Chinese aggression.
Though concern over Chinese intentions is not irrational, China is unlikely to be in a position to mount a realistic military challenge to Washington's "hub and spokes" alliance system for at least several decades. And given that the long-term trend of Chinese foreign policy has been one of moderation and integration, it is too soon to conclude that recent events are indicative of a more general descent into confrontation and zero-sum relations.
That said, although the official rhetoric of the "Peaceful Rise" depicts China as a benign new actor on the global stage, recent behavior would seem to contradict this vision. The Chinese now routinely disregard international shipping norms, for example, buzzing foreign vessels in its Exclusive Economic Zone. They also maintain aggressive stances on multiple territorial disputes, perhaps the most provocative of which was Beijing's declaration last year that it views the entire South China Sea as a "core national interest."
China's failure to assuage its neighbors' concerns over military transparency and posture has been compounded by a number of questionable judgments in the management of important bilateral relations. For example, relations with Japan -- arguably the most important bilateral relationship in the region -- remain febrile, and regressed significantly last year following Beijing's vitriolic reaction to the fishing boat incident at Diaoyu -- or Senkaku, as Japan calls the disputed island chain. Similarly, many were disappointed by China's refusal to be more vocal in its criticism of North Korea following the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan last March, suggesting its alliance with Pyongyang remains a major obstacle to Beijing assuming a fuller regional leadership role.
Moreover, while China has been able to significantly increase its economic reach both regionally and globally, trading partners harbor doubts over the long-term trajectory of these relationships. The initial attraction of the massive economies of scale opened up by a rising China is waning as partner nations become concerned that China's "economy-first" diplomacy is not backed up by adequate social and cultural benefits, and amounts to little more than asymmetric resource exploitation.
Taken together, these diverse factors help explain the renewed demand for a strong U.S. presence on the Asian littoral -- even countries not previously considered American allies, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, have moved closer to Washington as a hedge against China in recent years. Profound trust deficits exist between Beijing and nearly all other regional capitals, and these are currently being exacerbated, not drawn down, by inconsistencies in China's recent foreign policy approach. Ultimately, these deficits reduce Beijing's ability to efficiently translate its growing comprehensive strength into enhanced geopolitical power, while also preventing it from stepping into the leading role it aspires to play in both bilateral and multilateral regional relations.
It would be hard to argue that a responsible China should not possess a military befitting its new global status. The deployment of Chinese vessels on counterpiracy missions in the Gulf of Aden demonstrates just one of the potential benefits this offers the international community. The challenge for Beijing, therefore, is twofold: first, to better justify and explain the scope and scale of its military build-up; and second, to better integrate this into the framework of a foreign policy that offers a clear roadmap for China's evolution as a trustworthy and constructive leader in regional affairs.
Unfortunately, sizeable obstacles exist within the current regime, notably the Communist Party's near-total rejection of transparency in government, and the apparently pronounced divisions between moderate and hard-line factions within the party. Until China can overcome these challenges, concern among its neighbors and other international actors will only continue to grow. And from Beijing's perspective, the potential strategic benefits of greater military capabilities will continue to be undermined by foreign policy incoherence.
Iain Mills is a Beijing-based freelance writer.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...olicy-incoherence-limits-chinas-power-in-asia
