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Africa: Understanding China's Strategy - Beyond 'Non-Interference'

Stephen Marks

6 November 2008

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opinion

With China's 'rise' prompting new questions around the country's strategy and the motivations behind how it conducts its international affairs and foreign policy, Stephen Marks considers the direction the country may take in light of new developments. Dispelling simplistic interpretations of Chinese indifference to human rights and environmental concerns in countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, the author that the Asia giant has an essential interest in promoting peace, social stability, good governance and equitable development in its African partner countries.

The principle of 'non-interference' is often seen, especially in relation to Sudan and Zimbabwe, merely as a cynical cloak for the pursuit of China's national self-interest regardless of human rights and good governance issues. If so, China would hardly be unique. Beijing's approach is not significantly different in this respect from the way other countries pursue their interests. As Professor David Kang of Dartmouth College puts it: 'The United States is highly selective about who we're moral about. We support Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia-huge human-rights violators-because we have other strategic interests. China's not unique in cutting deals with bad governments and providing them arms.'(1)

But the possibility should not be overlooked that it also represents a genuine assessment of China's national self-interest as a rising power with no capacity for military force projection on a significant global scale, and therefore with a vested interest in preserving a rule-governed international system.

The thesis that these considerations were as weighty as oil-related considerations in China's Sudan policy, and in its gradual shift, was outlined by Stephen Morrison and Bates Gill in their memorandum to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in February 2007:

'Sudan's contributions to China's total energy needs are very small: Sudan accounts for only 5 percent of China's total oil imports, and less than 1 percent of China's total energy consumption. While the relationship with Sudan is important on a microeconomic level to some of China's oil firms, it does not represent a critical strategic relationship on a macro-economic scale. Sudan's energy is important to China and its future, but China's motivations for its policies in Sudan also have their roots elsewhere. An important, but often overlooked motivation is Beijing's concern with protecting the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference. These have been cast as bedrock to China's strategy for becoming a global power backed by robust alliances. But even on this issue, Beijing's interests in Sudan are pulled in other directions: from within China itself, from Beijing's interest in enhancing its standing in the UN, and in its interest in sustaining bilateral relations with Washington, European states, and African powers.'(2)

UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S STRATEGY

This view of China's motives in no way depends on some rosy or indulgent view of China as inherently more pacific or altruistic than any other power. China does not have the physical or financial capacity for a military response on the scale of the already-established powers. One lesson the Chinese leadership is widely held to have learnt from the collapse of the Soviet Union is the folly of getting trapped in an arms race with the USA. There is also the related imperative to avoid being seen as a threat.(3)

This explanation is of course entirely compatible with the view that China's stance could alter at a later date when its 'rise' has been successfully completed. But some at least of the advocates of the present policy justify it on universal rather than pragmatic and conjunctural grounds.

One of the foremost of these is Zheng Bijian, a former vice-chair of the Central Party School when President Hu Jintao was its chairman and a former propaganda minister, and originator of the phrase 'peaceful rise.' As he maintains:

'Some emerging powers in modern history have plundered other countries' resources through invasion, colonization, expansion, or even large-scale wars of aggression. China's emergence thus far has been driven by capital, technology, and resources acquired through peaceful means... China will not follow the path of Germany leading up to World War I or those of Germany and Japan leading up to World War II, when these countries violently plundered resources and pursued hegemony. Neither will China follow the path of the great powers vying for global domination during the Cold War. Instead, China will transcend ideological differences to strive for peace, development, and cooperation with all countries of the world...'(4)

According to Mark Leonard, Zheng Bijian's theory was backed up by a major research project sponsored by Hu Jintao and carried out mainly by PhD students from Shanghai, which looked at 40 case studies of rising powers and concluded that 'rising powers "which chose the road of aggression and expansion" have ultimately failed.' (5)

Nonetheless the 'peaceful rise' theory, while still implicit in Chinese public statements and policy stances, appears to have fallen out of favour in its more explicit forms as a result of inner leadership factional struggles, and also as a result of a counter-offensive by more nationalist academics, fearful in particular that it might be seen as a sign of weakness over the issue of Taiwan.

This may indicate an erratic movement between the second and third of the three possible foreign policy choices identified by Professor Qin Yaqing of China Foreign Afffairs University, namely aggressive nationalism, utilitarian realism, and cooperative internationalism. He maintains that China's foreign policy decision-makers are currently between the second and third, and moving towards the third.(6)

THE OTHER MYTHOLOGY

At this point we have to consider the danger of falling into a different and older sort of Western mythologising about China. In avoiding the 'yellow peril' demonology often resorted to by lazy media pundits (might we not be falling into the earlier mythology of the enlightenment thinkers such as Leibnitz and Voltaire who took at face value the Confucian self-image of imperial China, and enthused over a pacific empire presided over by a rational and benevolent bureaucracy?(7)

Might its modern version not be the consoling myth of a benevolent superpower, convinced in its own rational self-interest of the need to leave behind the pursuit of military self-aggrandisement in favour of a pacific rule-governed world order?

If China's intentions are pacific, why should she require a 17.6% increase in her defence budget for 2008(8), bringing the annual total to $58m and ranking her fourth in global defence spending?(9)

The official explanation includes the need to increase benefits for military personnel to reflect rising living standards, to cover increases in the cost of oil, and to increase education and training. But another stated aim is to enhance the ability to fight a defensive war based on information technologies.

According to Jane's industrial quarterly: 'The United States has the world's biggest defense budget by far, at $696.30 billion. The rest of the top five is Britain, $79.27 billion; France, $65.74 billion; China, US$58.07 billion; and Japan, $48.1 billion.'

The announced Chinese defence budget has more than quadrupled since 1998, but some analysts put the real figure much higher. Informed defence analysts appear to agree that these increases have resulted in large pay and benefit increases in the form of new uniforms, better food and living quarters, an array of new, mostly Chinese-made equipment - especially computers and communications gear - and increased tempo and realism of training exercises.(10)

In considering how this fits with China's claim to a purely defensive strategy it is certainly necessary to recall that the country's definition of its national territory includes not only Taiwan but also the disputed islands in the South China Seas.

Thus the potential for offensive action to deter a Taiwanese move to independence would fit within China's definition of 'defensive', although the purpose of such a stance would also be seen as an incentive to contain the conflict within non-military limits.

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