中国的防御性现实主义China's defensive realism

allbarcelona · 发表于 2005-12-28 18:12:53

COMMENT
 China's defensive realism
 By Yiwei Wang
 
 SHANGHAI - At first glance, the world was very surprised by the timing of the announcement last Friday that Beijing was starting the legislative initiative of an anti-secession law, as it came after Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence party and its allies suffered a defeat in Taiwan's legislative elections on December 11. This means Beijing is not so naive as to take it for granted that the danger of Chen's so-called pan-greens (the governing coalition) going for independence will disappear now that the opposition pan-blues have won a small majority of seats in Taiwan's parliament. But lest it influence the legislative election, Beijing waited and then kicked off the long-awaited legislative initiate a week after the Taiwan polls.
 
 That Beijing named the legislative initiative an anti-secession bill, not a unification bill to be voted into law next year, also shows that China understands that unification is not the main political attraction in Taiwan, while maintaining the status quo is in the common interest of both Beijing and Washington. China would be legally obliged to prevent Taiwan independence, but would not necessarily push urgently for unification. In this regard, defensive realism has been the main philosophy of China. In other words, Beijing has changed its mind from preparing for the best outcome (the unification of Taiwan and mainland China) to avoiding the worst scenario (Taiwan's independence).
 
 In the past, China was just considering how to cope with the American initiative, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, so this step sends an important signal to the world that China will take the offensive path to defending its national interests to serve its peaceful rise. So there is no surprise that Taiwan authority argued that the legislative initiative would further Beijing's possible pre-emptive strike against Taiwan's independence, based on the new law.
 
 In China, there has been a long-running dispute over whether to take legislative action to deter Taiwan's pursuit of independence or exercise political wisdom to deal with so sensitive an issue as Taiwan. Many worry that the law, expected to be approved and go into effect next year, will limit Beijing leaders' own room for maneuver and compromise on such an issue. But facing the increasing danger of the legislative independence of Taiwan and suffering from America's Taiwan Relations Act for 25 years, China has begun to consider the legislative approach to express letter and the spirit of rule of law in its paramount domestic issue. Moving from a political to a legislative approach is also in keeping with China determination to improve the ruling ability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
 
 For a long time, Beijing has offered carrots to Taiwan's people with what they evidently believed to be the empty warning of war if Chen Shui-bian pursues independence. But unfortunately, to the regret of Beijing, 70% of the Taiwanese people do not believe that Beijing dares to use force if Taiwan declares independence because Beijing is afraid of being involved in a confrontation with Washington, or without the full assurance of winning the war. So, Chen Shui-bian has gone to the extreme to test Beijing's tolerance again and again. Beijing's deterrence has failed to keep the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Now Beijing is relying on the sticks of law rather than carrots to regain the deterrence advantage, and it is trying to separate the swing or middle ground and neutral Taiwanese to make a clear distinction with Chen Shui-bian's radical independence. Otherwise, China is hard pressed to achieve its peaceful rise and win the strategic period. Also, because of Taiwan's worsening situation, Beijing has claimed peaceful development to take the place of peaceful rise since April of this year.
 
 The Taiwan issue is always a touchstone to identity friends and foes or close friends and distant relations for China. Responding to a query about the proposed Chinese anti-secession legislation that appears aimed at Taiwan, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, "The Russian [side] supports the Chinese side's policies in questions concerning the defense of the state unity and territorial integrity of the People's Republic of China." By contrast, Japan responded by deciding to issuing a visa to former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui, making the Chinese government very angry.
 
 Washington gave a chilly response to Beijing's plans. The US government exhorts both sides of the Taiwan Strait to really focus on engaging in dialogue and to refrain from hardening their positions or taking any unilateral actions to change the status quo, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Friday. Contradicting Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that US-China relations have entered the best period since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China considers that the mutual trust between both sides has reached the lowest point since the end of Cold War. The chairman of the US House of Representative, Congressman Henry Hyde, made a remark in Hong Kong on December 2, criticizing China. This reminds China that the ****istration of US President George W Bush will do more to try to contain China's influence in Asia in the next four years - not just let China achieve its strategic period or span of time, making use of America's strategic sinking into Iraq.
 
 Another dangerous signal is America's improving alliance with Japan and Taiwan. In a reversal of its long-standing policy, the United States will post military officers to its mission in Taipei for the first time since 1979, according to the leading defense journal Jane's Defense Weekly.
 
 How to build up strategic mutual trust between China and the US and change the philosophy from the last resort to the best preparation has been China's challenge in dealing with the United States. Two misperceptions are key to understand this.
 
 China threat vs America threat
 After the end of the Cold War, the "China threat" has a huge market in American official and academic circles, and this view is criticized by the Chinese government as the old Cold War mentality. In the White House and Pentagon, the hawks treat China as the long-term strategic adversary; at the same time, because of the worsening of the Taiwan problem and America's continuous selling of advanced weapons to Taiwan, mainland China considers these developments to encourage Taiwan's independence. In the eyes of Chinese strategists, "the America Opportunity Theory" has been replaced by "the America Threat Theory". Strident voices frequently can be heard concerning the serious situation of "Taiwan's independence", saying that China will not scruple to have a strategic showdown with the US.
 
 Considering that China and the US are both nuclear powers and considering their basic disputes over the Taiwan issue, people begin to worry about the possibility of nuclear confrontation between the two great powers. Mutual assured destruction (MAD), which disappeared from the minds of people with the end of the Cold War, becomes topical once again. The recent military exercises of mainland China, America and Taiwan confirm and strengthen such worries. Both sides across the strait are saying "you can win the peace only if you can win the war". This seems to return to the logic of thousands of years ago: if you want peace, please prepare for war.
 
 How to transcend the Cold War's logic, changing the Sino-US relations from the path of preparing for the last resort to pursuit of the best possible outcome? We must build up the strategic mutual trust between China and the US, especially on the Taiwan issue.
 
 Balance and power vs preponderance of power
 Besides Chen Shui-bian's intentional offending (history has witnessed many examples of small powers drawing great powers into conflicts, such as Britain and France during the Fashoda Crisis in 1898 - when a disputed village on the upper Nile threatened to escalate into a larger conflict), the deep reasons behind Sino-US relations changing from strategic partner to strategic competitor lie in the soft conflict initiated by the different strategic thinking between China and the US on the Taiwan issue.
 
 China advocates the policy of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems", while at the same time, Beijing says it "cannot promise to give up use of military force". China's way of thinking is the logic of "subduing the enemy without any fighting", ie, only when mainland China is strong enough can it defeat any independence impulse of Taiwan and maintain peace and stability across the strait. On the contrary, Chen Shui-bian's logic is achieving the de facto independence of Taiwan before an overwhelming strategic shift in the mainland's favor. In his inaugural speech on May 20 he stated clearly that China's next 20-year "strategic opportunity period" is the strategic opportunity period for Taiwan's democracy and prospects; in other words, Taiwan's strategic opportunity period toward independence. This brings about great distrust across the Taiwan Strait. America, which due to the limit of legal texts and promises, has no choice but to involve itself on the Taiwan side to help the island in a possible confrontation with the mainland.
 
 So, the strategic distrust between China and the US has been enhanced. On the Taiwan issue, America's logic is that "peace comes from balance of power". But former Chinese president Jiang Zemin suggested reducing America's weapons sales to Taiwan by decreasing China's missiles' deployment in Fujian when he met President Bush in Crawford, Texas. Bush denied resolutely his suggestion, which disappointed Jiang greatly. This reminds Chinese that America's excuse of keeping the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait is quite hypocritical. China also is disappointed and feels it is hypocritical for the US to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan and enhance the military alliance among America, Japan and Taiwan, while at the same time insisting on the so-called "one China policy" in order to comfort the mainland with the empty commitment of "no support of Taiwan's independence". Actually, besides the "one China policy" (indeed, the US "one China policy" is totally different from China's "one China principle"), the US has another policy - "one Taiwan policy".
 
 America's "one China" statement is weak while the "one Taiwan" policy is solid. In the eyes of Chinese, America's position of not supporting Taiwan's independence is tactical and insincere, while supporting Taiwan's peaceful separation from the mainland is strategic and essential. More and more facts show that the US, due to the restraint of provisions and systems, has involved itself deeper and deeper in the soft conflict with China. Whether we can govern and manage the Sino-US relations well or not concerns world peace and regional stability, which cannot rely on Chen Shui-bian's clear-headed approach, but should depend on the wisdom and farsightedness of people of both sides.
 
 You actually don't understand my heart
 There are strategic misunderstandings between China and the US. The strategic mistrusts between China and the US are not limited to the Taiwan issue - take the North Korean nuclear issue. China's thinking in dealing with this issue is quite clear: to advance the establishment of a peaceful arrangement on the Korean Peninsula through the six-party talks, ending the Cold War on the peninsula and then promoting Asia's integration and its rise. The future solid regional cooperation in northeast Asia will lay a foundation for China's peaceful rise. But America can't believe in such a model. As many Americans claim in the media or in conferences, China is playing the North Korean nuclear card, hoping to make a deal with the US on the Taiwan issue. Even more, the divergences within the Bush ****istration enhance China's misunderstanding: those in the Pentagon and the White House, even inside the State Department have different proposals so that the US missed the opportunities to reach initial arrangements with North Korea - and objectively these missed opportunities have given North Korea opportunities to speed up its own nuclear program.
 
 The internal disputes in the Bush ****istration not only damage US national interests, but also send the wrong signals to the outside world. The disputes within the American government result in the United States being seen as ambiguous and damage the US image in the world.
 
 Embodied in the judgment of China, the US also fails to grasp the essence of China's objectives. China's peaceful rise strategy has positive meanings for the United States and it sends two basic messages to the Americans: China will not challenge US hegemony in the world and China hopes to keep the status quo across the Taiwan Strait; China is not eager to quickly solve the Taiwan problem - prohibiting Taiwan's independence, not achieving unification is China's main task in the next 20 years.
 
 All this information is positive, but US officials in power deeply distrust China, and are inclined to think that China's strategy of peaceful rise and its strategic need for a period of peaceful opportunity and development are just means of speeding up China's rise when the US has been involved deeply in the Middle East and its anti-terror campaign. They see China's anti-terrorism efforts as being just a gesture to the US; China may achieve a peaceful rise, but after that, China will not bring about peace, so goes the thinking of US conservatives. So the US highlights the model of India's peaceful rise, dismissing, even questioning the Chinese model of rising.
 
 On the peaceful rise issue, the United States focuses on the result while China emphasizes the process. This is the difference between China and the US. This is the inevitable result of a lack of strategic mutual trust between China and the US. More generally speaking, this is the result of the US habit of preparing for the worst-case scenario. Remember that when Deng Xiaoping was interviewed by an Italian reporter on "one country, two systems" policy in Hong Kong, he said: "Why will China keep the system of Hong Kong for 50 years and not any other period". Deng answered, "Fifty years is the transition period; after that, there is no need to change [Hong Kong's system]". Therefore, if China can grasp the next 20-year "strategic opportunity period" and achieve a peaceful rise, then China will be on the complete, verifiable, irreversible peaceful track after a peaceful rise.
 
 Back to the future: Strategic mutual trust is the key
 If both China and the US take actions based completely on their own logic, caring little about the others, they will follow in the footsteps of "the security dilemma" between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The arms race and military exercise across the Taiwan Strait are the omen. US sales of advanced weapons to Taiwan undoubtedly are pouring oil on the fire. For the US itself, it will be drinking poison to quench its thirst. The United States will know sooner or later that the arms race across the Taiwan Strait endangers the stability of China-US strategic relations and even in the end draws the two countries into a strategic showdown. The US is proud of its democratic institutions, but at the same time ,the checks and balance within the US government prohibited America from pulling its troops back from Vietnam. The military-industrial complex, lobby politics and campaign politics have involved the US more and more deeply in the Taiwan issue, without any sign of pulling back.
 
 On the Taiwan issue, China and the US both are driven by their domestic politics. Chinese domestic politics, America's so-called nationalism and anti-Americanism restrain the Chinese government from making a soft gesture on the Taiwan issue. To some extent, we can say that China and America are all falling into a strange dishonest circle because of the Taiwan issue: Beijing just talks about the "one China principle" and the "Three Communiques", never mentioning "the Taiwan Relations Act" and "Six Assurances"; the White House speaks of the latter not the former to Taiwan and its Congress. The situation across the Taiwan Strait today is totally different from the past. The US policy of strategic ambiguity is either out of date or not working so well. It is time for America to change its assurance from the original "does not urge the Taiwan authority to go to the table for negotiation with the mainland" into "not be responsible for the unilateral result cost by Taiwan's independence impulse."
 
 The strained situation across the Taiwan Strait in the future requires us to handle the problem with great intelligence and wisdom, rather than in a small and "smart" way, we should seek the farsighted result rather than short-term benefits and build up the strategic mutual trust between China and America. Hopefully, the American side can understand that China's anti-secession law initiative is the important step in this direction.
 
 Yiwei Wang is the Assistant to the Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University.
 
 (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) <div>此帖由 allbarcelona 在 2005-12-28 18:15 进行编辑...</div>

白鹤 · 发表于 2005-12-28 21:27:30

恩支持~~

		自动登录	找回密码
密码			注册

中国的防御性现实主义China&#39;s defensive realism

相关帖子

中国的防御性现实主义China's defensive realism