Chinese
leaders are torn by two conflicting goals: The desire to regain “lost” islands
and waters and a need to maintain stable relations with neighbors and
America.
During a July 2015 television news show, Renmin University professor Shi
Yinhong was asked to define China’s strategy in the South China Sea. After
first declining to answer the question—“I can’t tell this to outsiders. I can’t
tell you.”—the raspy-voiced professor quickly found a compromise between
discretion and the academic’s inherent need to expatiate. With fellow guest,
naval analyst Li Jie, nodding on, Shi described China’s strategy in four
characters: 步步为营 (bubu weiying): “Building
fortifications after each new advance.”
Professor Shi’s image of an army on the
march, carefully consolidating its position after new territory is gained, is
only the latest in a long line of metaphors used to depict China’s recent
expansion in maritime East Asia. Most are products of American minds. They range
from the sartorial to the salacious. Some, like “salami slicing,” are standard terms used by
political scientists for decades. Many will doubtless serve as fodder for
future scholars seeking to understand both the observers and the
observed.
Almost all of these metaphors are descriptive. That is, they are largely based
on analysis of patterns of behavior. As such, they shed little light on how
Chinese policymakers may actually think about their options. To understand
that, one must begin by recognizing the colossal contradiction that sits at the
heart of China’s approach to its maritime disputes.
The Weight of Desire:
Chinese policymakers, citing
“international law,” claim that the country is entitled to
jurisdiction over three million square kilometers of ocean. However, so the Chinese narrative goes, nearly half of this
“maritime territory” is contested by other states. With Taiwan quiescent, it is
no wonder then that China’s disputes dominate the thinking of those who craft
the country’s peacetime maritime strategy.
When formulating maritime dispute
strategy, Chinese leaders are torn by two conflicting desires. These might be
imagined as the two ends of an equal-arm balance. The first desire is to regain
“lost” islands and waters controlled or contested by foreign states. The second
is a desire to maintain stable relations with these same states and with the
“global hegemon” (i.e., the U.S.)—a condition deemed essential for the number
one objective of China’s grand strategy, economic development. Chinese policy,
then, should be understood as a function of how Chinese policymakers balance
these two desires.
This metaphor is not original. In a 2013 paper, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(CASS) researcher Zhang Jie looked at the evolution of Chinese dispute strategy
and identified three discrete periods. The first period, lasting until 2009,
she calls the period of keeping a low-profile, when China self-consciously
strived not to let its claims harm relations with other states. In 2010 and
2011, what Zhang labels the period of policy oscillation, Chinese leaders
sometimes took assertive action and sometimes showed restraint, with policy
swinging back and forth like a pendulum.
Phase three began in 2012 and continues to
the present. Zhang calls it the period of proactivity. In her view,
changes in observed behavior across these three periods were a result of
Chinese policymakers altering their judgments about the relative importance of
advancing and defending China’s maritime claims—called “rights protection” (weiquan)—and
maintaining stable relations with its neighbors and the U.S. (weiwen).
Evidence from the Real World:
Unfortunately for the reader, Zhang does
not bear out her theory with empirical evidence. A close analysis of the
available record, however, does validate Zhang’s thesis. Indeed, Chinese
policymakers have long conceived of dispute policy in terms of rights
protection and stability maintenance. Moreover, the desire for stability is
often explicitly linked to the so-called “period
of strategic opportunity,” a concept referring to the first two decades of the
21st century during which China can expect an international environment
generally congenial to its economic development.
As early as March 2009, but probably earlier, the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued “strategic guidelines” that called for
managing these two contradictory desires. Since at least 2008, the concepts have appeared
in authoritative statements on China’s maritime policy, above all in sources
associated with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). But the
rights/stability construct also appear in documents drafted by the Ministry of
Agriculture, which until recently oversaw China’s Fisheries Law Enforcement
(FLE) force, a major actor on China’s maritime frontier. The 12th Five Year Plan for Fisheries Development
(2011-2015), for instance, calls for the increased presence of FLE ships in
“sensitive” (i.e., disputed) waters while pointing out the need to
“appropriately handle the relationship between rights protection and stability
maintenance.”
This construct also appears in expressions
of military strategy. In a June 3, 2010 article in the PLA Navy’s official
newspaper, head of navy Admiral Wu Shengli called for the service to “research
the question of planning and organizing naval operations and deployments on the
basis of the guidelines of ‘unifying rights protection and stability
maintenance’… We must succeed in both resolutely protecting our rights and
actively maintaining stability…” Most recently, the need to balance rights and
stability was highlighted in the 2015 white paper on
China’s military strategy. These, then, are concepts with real currency within
the organizations responsible for formulating and executing Chinese maritime
policy.
The Balance Shifts:
In 2012, Chinese policy became much more
assertive, both in the South China Sea—most dramatically with the seizure of Scarborough
Shoal—and in the East China Sea, with augmented law enforcement
presence near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Chinese leaders signaled this policy
shift through their public statements, in particular, how they spoke of
“rights” and “stability.” At the July 2012 World Peace Forum in Beijing, Xi
Jinping said that regional stability was a laudable
aim but it would only be pursued “on the foundation of resolutely defending
state sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.” Ostensibly echoing
this new tone, SOA Director Liu Cigui wrote in a November 2012 article that finding the right balance
between rights and stability was important; however, the “precondition” was
that China would have to “safeguard national territorial sovereignty and
maritime rights and interests.” In other words, “rights” were to receive
greater priority than they had in the past.
The most definitive public acknowledgment
of this shift took place in 2013. On July 31st of that year, the CCP held a
Politburo meeting entirely devoted to the topic of transforming China into a
“maritime power.” They invited two experts—one from CNOOC (of South China Sea oil rig fame) and one from SOA—to brief
them. After their presentations, Xi Jinping offered his own views on the key
elements of China’s maritime power strategy.
Xi called for “four shifts” (sige
zhuanbian), i.e., four changes to policy. Three of the four shifts
involved questions of the role of the ocean in China’s economic development.
Xi’s fourth shift identified the need for a new balance between rights and
stability. His choice of words implied a judgment that in the past China had
attached too much importance to stability, to the detriment of rights. In the
days following the Politburo meeting, Chinese experts dissected Xi’s remarks in
articles published on the front page of SOA’s newspaper, China Ocean News.
Peace and stability were important, they concluded, but in the final analysis
China’s “rights” were more important.
Perhaps the most lucid description of this
shift can be found in a feature article published in a July 2014 issue of People’s
Daily. The article cites Chinese academic Jin Canrong, who, echoing
Xi’s language, points out, “For a fairly long period of time, our approach in
the maritime domain was to prioritize stability maintenance. When another state
infringed on our maritime rights and interests, we would usually choose to
tolerate it, for the sake of safeguarding regional stability. But now, on the
path to becoming a maritime power, we must consider both rights protection and
stability maintenance.”
The rights/stability
balance is not static. In an important January 2014 speech, SOA Director Liu Cigui highlighted
the importance of maintaining a “dynamic balance” between these two objectives.
Although 2012 was a year of fundamental shift, Chinese policymakers continue to
make micro-calibrations in light of the responses of other states. Beijing’s
decision to cease its blockade of the Second Thomas
Shoal may be an example of this type of adjustment.
Placing a Hand on the Scale:
If the equal-arm balance is the best metaphor for understanding Chinese dispute
strategy, and if we are in the age of weiquan, what does this imply
for American policy? The rights/stability model suggests the repercussions of
inaction. Chinese policymakers have plainly concluded that their current
approach allows them to behave more assertively than in the past without
harming stability to an unacceptable degree. They will likely continue to favor
“rights,” wherever and whenever possible. It would be irrational for them not to.
Given the special attributes of the sea as
a medium of conflict, there is a tremendous amount that China can do without
resorting to the use of military force. The ocean cannot be garrisoned; if it
is to be controlled, it must be patrolled. Most other disputants are simply not
up to the task. China has the fleet and—after island construction in the
Spratly Archipelago is complete—the bases to enable constant presence. Expect,
then, increasingly vigorous efforts to act as the arbiter of maritime activity
in disputed waters, especially in the South China Sea.
Chinese strategists have clearly
recognized the value of controlling access to and from islands and other land
features. By deciding who can and cannot use the sea, China is able to decide
who can and cannot occupy land. With Scarborough Shoal, the Second Thomas
Shoal, and now the Luconia Breakers, China has used maritime
law enforcement ships to achieve these ends nonviolently, daring other states
to fire the first shot. There is strong reason to believe that China will adopt
this approach to assert control over other features—if it judges such actions
pose no threat to stability.
The rights/stability model also provides a
solid foundation for debating American policy responses. It reveals that
Beijing is acutely conscious that its actions risk creating instability in its
foreign relations. Moreover, it suggests that instability is its greatest
concern. Thus, if the U.S. wishes to contain the spatial expansion of the
Chinese state, it must be prepared to conjure the specter of instability. That
is, Chinese policymakers must be persuaded that their actions could lead to
outcomes that ultimately threaten the “period of strategic opportunity.” Given
the apparent cracks in the foundation of China’s economic model, this prospect
has likely never been more fearsome to Chinese leaders.
Ryan Martinson is a researcher at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies
Institute
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