China's Relations with its Neighbours

Abstract

It is a measure of China's vastness and its geographic dominance of east Asia that it shares land borders with 14 countries and maritime boundaries with several others. This article doesn't attempt to examine China's relations with all of its neighbours. Instead, it offers some preliminary observations about patterns and trends in its regional and tactics, with an emphasis on those areas where we differ with the conventional wisdom on these subjects. Citing Chinese actions and statements, too often ignored, this article argues that that we must assess Chinese regional and tactics with much more wariness and skepticism. Indeed, given a Chinese strategic culture that emphasizes secrecy, deception, and surprise, there is really no alternative.This article draws on our current ongoing research project that assesses China's dealings with its continental neighbours as well as on more general research on China's grand strategy and on its ever-evolving tactics in pursuit of its strategic goals.BACKGROUNDIt is widely acknowledged that, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, China's relative power vis-a-vis its regional neighbours soared. Instead of confronting Soviet bloc encirclement along most of its land borders from the Russian far east to Indochina, China found itself suddenly unchallenged in continental east Asia. This surge in strategic latitude coincided with the resurgence in the early 1990s of China's unprecedented economic take-off. This was a giddy period for China's ruling elite, all the more so because it had successfully weathered the post-Tiananmen political crisis. It felt free to cast off its balance-of-power of the previous two decades and adopt instead a new highly ambitious that aimed at nothing less than regional domination that recalled the traditional tributary state system.Most notably, China turned its attention in the early 1990s to maritime east Asia, where it belligerently pursued its maritime claims and took a confrontational approach towards Japan and Taiwan in particular. Its adventurist and aggressive tactics during that period included demanding ever more sincere apologies from Japan for its actions in the second World War, punctuating its legal stance that the South China Sea is a Chinese lake by seizing Mischief Reef from the Philippines, and then, most dramatically, staging massive military exercises in 1995 and 1996 that were openly labelled a rehearsal for an invasion of Taiwan.CHINA'S CONTINENTAL POLICIESDuring that same period, China was employing a very different set of tactics towards most of its neighbours on its land borders. Seemingly gracious in unearned victory, China declared its good will and its friendship toward countries that, only months ago in some cases, had played their parts in the Soviet Union's efforts to militarily encircle China. China backed its friendly stance with conciliatory proposals to several neighbours to settle longstanding border disputes on terms so reasonable that subsequent negotiations soon yielded several agreements.Soft bordersMany analysts have cited those agreements as evidence of China's sincerity when it asserts that it seeks peace and stability, especially along its borders, because they are necessary if China is going to continue its rapid economic development uninterrupted. Be that as it may, what western analysts almost universally overlooked was that China secretly demanded a strategically significant quid pro quo for its border concessions. In interviews, two senior government officials in Kazakhstan and two senior provincial government officials in the Russian far east recounted, in virtually identical terms, how China had demanded that their jurisdictions, as part of the border demarcation package, agree to eliminate most restrictions on the movement of people and trade across the borders in both directions. With large populations and a thriving economy near these borders, China stood to benefit much more than its neighbours when measured in terms of influence. …