A Chinese Notion of Indivisibility of Security?

Abstract

A Chinese Notion of Indivisibility of Security? Zha Daojiong (bio) and Dong Ting (bio) Is the inclusion of "indivisible security" in Chinese president Xi Jinping's address at the 2022 Boao Forum for Asia a coincidence of timing with Russian military action against Ukraine or a new expression of Chinese thinking on international security? Regarding timing, the speech was made on February 21, three days before Russia initiated what it called a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Also, the vocabulary "indivisible security" is generally associated with Russian perspectives on international affairs. In terms of substance, the following statements are value-loaded: "we humanity are living in an indivisible security community" and "it is important that we … uphold the principle of indivisible security" caught particular international attention (MFA 2022). They seem to be a general set of principles. Answers to this and extended questions are therefore significant for appraising Chinese positions on the ongoing conflict and potentially consequential for predicting China's security actions in the future. American and other Western reactions to the Chinese utterance range from rebuttal by diplomats to calls for dialogue toward the shaping of a common understanding "in a way that prevents it from becoming a pretext for armed conflict" (Freeman and Stephenson 2022). We deem it meaningful to approach the question by reviewing the phrase's usage in the Chinese language, as international projection of security discourses is country-specific. In Xi's speech, the expression is anquan buke fenge (安全不可分割), put forward as a principle (yuanze, 原则). The core elements therein are anquan (security, 安全) and buke fenge (not to be divided or separated in conceptualization, 不可分割). When used for discussing topics pertaining to national security and/or international affairs, buke fenge can be translated into English as "inalienable," "inseparable" or "indivisible." It is useful and [End Page 323] even necessary to appraise intended meaning and/or nuance in Chinese in contexts. Buke Fenge as Inalienable Since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949, the PRC has steadfastly and unfailingly used buke fenge to refer to its definition of the country's territory and the eventual unification of China as a nation. The appropriate corresponding translation in English is "inalienable." The expression consistently refers to Taiwan: its population and land territories under its control and adjacent territorial waters. That Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and/or China's territory forms the core of what the PRC defines as its One China principle. As is familiar to scholars of contemporary China, when used to qualify the Chinese government's insistence on the territorial scope or sovereign rights, buke fenge also refers to Tibet and Xinjiang, when incidents of instability in those parts of the country occur. In other words, the expression is indigenous. It amounts to a frontal rejection of the notion of "China proper," a term associated with discussing the territorial scope of Chinese empires before its boundaries are established in the modern nation-state system. So much so that the PRC insists that the "Taiwan Question" is domestic by nature; only that the PRC has to live with a One China policy, as is typified by the United States decision, made in 1979, to recognize the PRC as a sovereign entity in the United Nations system but simultaneously to handle its ties with Taiwan through domestic legislations ever since. In this connection, it is useful to note that buke fenge is seldom, if ever, used to describe the PRC's positions or justify actions over the territorial status of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea or land features in the South China Sea. It is true that the PRC has claimed land features in the East China Sea as part of China since ancient times. Over land and waters in the South China Sea, it is more common for Chinese positions to be expressed as having historical rights. China does not subscribe to the notion of those islands and undersea features as terra nullius, nor does it define them as inalienable. In other words, the absence of buke fenge can be understood as a recognition of the disputed nature of sovereignty claims...