Watching the dragon: as China's military and economic strength increases, the United States must keep an eye on the Far East

National Review, Oct 14, 1996 by Franklin L. Lavin

CHINESE officials are fond of stating that China has never really been an aggressor internationally. And it is true -- throughout the thousands of years of recorded Chinese history, China has only infrequently been involved in external wars.

But this may be less reassuring than it appears. Might not geography and technology account for some of China's behavior? After all, even today China lacks the means to traverse Siberia and conquer Russia; or to traverse the Himalayas and conquer India; or to traverse the seas and conquer other countries. At various times China has readily established suzerainty over territories unlucky enough not to be separated by natural barriers: Indochina, Tibet, Korea, Central Asia. Although China has rarely been involved in wars, it has been involved in as many wars as it could be.

Moreover, in examining state behavior "internal" to China -- when it was fragmented into several kingdoms -- we see that Chinese states behaved, not surprisingly, like the states of Europe: rising and falling, forging alliances, conquering enemies. In other words, among themselves Chinese states behaved as other states behaved. In the broader setting of global politics, the Chinese have simply been absent from the game. The twenty-first century, however, will be different.

We may get a glimpse of the demands a newly ascendant China will place on the international system by looking at China's relations with its immediate neighbors -- particularly at recent developments in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea.

Bilateral trading issues are the current centerpiece of U.S. -China relations, and there are still gripping human-rights issues, but it is China's forward policy in the region that poses the most significant challenge to longer-term U.S. and Asian interests. And this is a challenge the Clinton Administration is choosing to skirt, with attendant risks at a later date.

China signaled its new, aggressive policy in January 1995, when it established facilities on the appropriately named Mischief Reef --a contested atoll near the Philippine island of Palawan. Conflicting claims of sovereignty are nothing new in international affairs; nor are they a new matter for China's foreign policy. The People's Republic seized islands in the Paracel Group (north of the Spratlys) from South Vietnam in 1974 as Saigon was collapsing and U.S. support was being phased out. China also grabbed islands from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) in 1978 just as Hanoi was loosening ties to its protector, Moscow. And now China has occupied islands claimed by the Philippines, following the withdrawal of U.S. bases.

The breadth of China's claims in the region are worth contemplating. They are based on a fourteenth-century voyage of an intrepid Chinese admiral, and they extend as far as waters off the coast of Borneo, some 6,000 miles from Peking. To give a sense of Peking's expansive self-perception, from Peking to the farthest reaches of the claim is a greater distance than from Moscow to Gibraltar. These waters have substantial economic and military importance, not only because of their vast expanse (larger than the Mediterranean Sea) but also because they cut across one of the world's major sea lanes, that between the Far East and the Middle East, through which some 25 per cent of the world's shipping passes. Some 90 per cent of Japans's oil flows through this territory, and the U.S. Pacific fleet passes through it to get to the Middle East or the Indian Ocean.

THERE are many schools of thought as to China's motives and ultimate goals in the South China Sea. Is Peking expanding for economic reasons -- a desire for access to oil or fishing rights in the South China Sea? Is it regional politics -- to garner an advantage vis-a-vis China's neighbors? Is it strategic -- to dominate the sea lanes vital to the United States, Japan, and the other industrialized countries? Or is the motivation to be found in domestic politics -- the desire to placate the military in the swirling currents of the post-Deng succession?

Examining journals, press reports, and seminar presentations over the past year, one can find a multiplicity of theories. Some say the Chinese want an air base in the Spratlys. Some say they are "merely" seeking to strengthen their hand in negotiations over the contested claim. Some see the move as a way to pressure Manila to agree to "joint exploration" of oil and other resources in the area covered by their conflicting claims, with joint terms dictated by Peking.

Tactically, China's move indicates a purposefulness that leaves many in Washington uneasy. Look at three dimensions: 1) The PRC picked arguably the weakest military power in the region from which to take territory. 2) Although five different entities claim parts of the Spratlys, the PRC seized territory on which there was only one competing claim. 3) The PRC acted swiftly, presenting the world with a fait accompli.

In March 1996, China undertook another massive military enterprise, in the form of an exercise in the Taiwan Straits. With over 150,000 troops involved, it was the largest military activity China had undertaken since the Korean War. The exercise took place the week before Taiwan's first direct presidential elections and included missile tests off of Taiwan's main ports, resulting in the rerouting of ships, a drop in the New Taiwan Dollar, and a run on the Taiwan stock market.