Review Essay of

David Shambaugh, “China’s Military Views the World: Ambivalent Security,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 3, Winter 1999–2000, pp. 52–79.

and

Evan A. Feigenbaum, “China’s Military Posture and the New Economic Geopolitics,” Survival, Vol. 41, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 71–88.

by Alberto Di Felice

October 2007

The rapid emergence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a regional political and economic power calls into question its overall attitude toward the security environment of the Asia-Pacific region. Important questions remain about what choices, particularly in the military domain, China’s leaders will make as the country’s power and influence grow. Will China choose a peaceful pathway of integration with the U.S. hegemon, or will it choose—or find itself upon—a pathway along which it would increasingly and aggressively (i.e., militarily) dictate the terms of foreign security to challenge the status quo?
The reviewed articles focus on China’s long-range strategic orientation and military posture. David Shambaugh examines the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) interpretation of the regional and international security environment by scouring PLA publications (books and journals) and interviews with PLA officers and think tanks, with a broad perspective comprising China’s relationships with the United States, Japan, North Korea, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia, and India. Evan A. Feigenbaum addresses the issue from the point of view of Chinese energy security policy, particularly with regard to the South China Sea area. This review will summarize the authors’ main arguments before discussing their relationship and relative weight. It will argue in favor of a combined reading of the articles which supports the view that China’s ambivalent perception of its security environment, still strongly influenced by territorial issues, is tempered by economic calculations which, along with U.S. engagement, will help to maintain the essence of the status quo.
Shambaugh begins with a discussion of the main characteristics of the PLA top personnel. The PLA high command he describes has now changed since the publication of the article in 1999, as the old leadership has been replaced by a new generation of generals and colonels who as a rule tend to be better educated and trained, speak foreign languages, and take a less narrow worldview. Nonetheless, opportunities for foreign interaction are still restricted. He stresses a shift toward further separation between the Communist party and the military, which has the potential to affect the dynamics of China’s external, as well as internal, security calculus (see also Shambaugh, 2003). The author then moves on to assess PLA perceptions about the other countries that have a stake in the region. We will focus in particular on PLA perceptions about the U.S. Especially following the Kosovo war, PLA leaders and analysts are acutely aware of the sizable distance in terms of military equipment and training vis-à-vis the U.S., and have started to act in order to fill the gap, particularly through a review of strategic air capabilities. China has relatively wider ranging capabilities for ground and naval battles, but would still be unable to effectively counteract U.S. military deployments. The U.S. is clearly seen as “hegemonic, expansionist, and bent on global and regional domination,” (p. 61) to which PLA analysts respond with allegiance to the cause of multipolarity, accompanied by a persistent faith in the fact that confrontations will emerge between the U.S. and its allies (e.g., Japan), and that America’s military engagement in multiple arenas will undermine its power. Although differing, more optimistic views emerge, the general picture shows an essential “clash of worldviews about the structure, nature, and norms of international relations and security” (p. 78) between the two countries, reflecting an ambivalent sense of security and deep angst among PLA officials. Shambaugh, however, highlights the need for a continuing American engagement with the PLA in order to facilitate mutual understanding and the accommodation of Chinese objectives into the interests of other international actors. “Geography and long-term national interests,” says Shambaugh, “suggest … that the United States and China must coexist in the world and in the Asia-Pacific region” (p. 79).
Feigenbaum carries out an analysis of the Chinese stance in the region based on an assessment of the relationship between China’s economic development strategy and its more extensive military policy objectives. The central question posed in his article is whether China will use force to challenge the current U.S. dominance of shipping routes in order to secure access to resources. He relies on quantitative and qualitative data to prove that after the 1949 declaration of the People’s Republic, all conflicts in which China has been involved have been shaped predominantly by security concerns, as opposed to matters relating to the economy or the need to secure access to resources. Such security-related calculations have included for the most part sovereignty claims over major territories, and border disputes. Reflecting the dominant literature, Feigenbaum posits the existence of a realpolitik approach of the Chinese leadership to international relations, one that considers the use of military power as an effectual means for the purpose of settling disputes. As history shows, argues the author, this has been especially the case for sovereignty and territorial claims, but virtually never for reasons related to sheer economy. The South China Sea area, with the unresolved issue of Chinese claims over the Spratly Archipelago, is of particular importance in the light of its strategic sea-lane position for international trade and the sea-borne shipment of oil supplies. As the dispute involves the navigational and economic interests of the U.S. and Japan, it is one of the main security problems affecting the region. It is also a prime example of the difficulty in distinguishing China’s rigid and inflexible diplomatic stance on issues of sovereignty (i.e., the definition of territorial borders) from its will to safeguard its economic interests (i.e., energy security, dependence on resource supply and routes of trade). Feigenbaum emphasizes the need not to mistake the perceived assertive position of the Beijing government on the issue, linked essentially to sovereignty, for an across-the-board strategic aggressiveness in the region based on balance-of-power considerations. He lists four major reasons which seem to limit the possibility that an armed conflict may break, or at least minimize its potential danger. First, the overwhelming technological advantage of the U.S. navy, combined with geography (China as an essentially continental power; see also Gallagher, 1994) and American alliances, is likely to guarantee Washington naval dominance of the area for at least another 25 years (Feigenbaum calculates that, on the whole, the military modernization of China will take yet 30 to 50 years before Beijing can adopt a coherent proactive strategy to challenge Washington). Second, an open system of regional access to strategic goods and resources serves the commercial needs of both the U.S. and China. Third, the Spratly Islands are too small to offer Beijing valid regional power-projection points. Fourth, were China to gain possession of the islands, the overall security status quo in the region would remain largely untouched, as U.S. maritime balancing would not be seriously undermined. The author’s general assumption is that the two countries will alternate cooperation and rivalry, and that the former best serves the matter-of-fact Chinese plan of action to secure access to energy resources through free-riding of U.S. hegemony.
As can be seen, both Shambaugh and Feigenbaum conclude that a tension between competition and rivalry on one side, and coexistence and cooperation on the other, will shape the future of U.S.-China relations, and consequently the entire security environment of the Asia-Pacific. Their discussions are largely in line with Yong Deng’s (2001) concept of “negative strategic cooperation.” Shambaugh’s analysis seems to provide a slightly darker perspective on the relationship between the two powers, reflecting long-held distrust and secrecy on the part of the PLA. By navigating the thicket of PLA publications, his article makes an important contribution to understanding how the Chinese military sees the world, especially given the lack of transparency and direct access that characterizes the Chinese army. However, by stressing the importance of these perceptions, it fails to link its evidentiary reconstruction of the PLA’s representation of China’s security environment to broader political and economic interests. It is these interests that ultimately, and increasingly, determine the shape of Chinese military modernization and action. In a similar analysis based primarily on PLA sources, Finkelstein (2007) argues that although China does not release its official equivalent of a “National Security Strategy,” an assessment of the “Military Strategic Guidelines” issued by the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party can provide valuable insight into the “ends, ways, and means” of the Chinese military—i.e., the actual content of China’s national military strategy. In particular, he argues that the guidelines promulgated in 1993 by Jiang Zemin still explain Chinese behavior:

[O]bserving and serving the national development strategy, being based on fighting to win local wars under modern high-tech conditions, accelerating the development of our army’s quality, working hard to enhance our army’s emergency operations capabilities, enhancing strong points and avoiding weaknesses, being flexible in meeting changes, containing the war, winning the war, defending national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and maintaining the unity of the motherland and social stability, in order to provide a strong powerful secure safeguard for reform, opening up, and the development of modernization (Jiang Zemin, cited in Finkelstein, 2007: 127).

From this standpoint, Feigenbaum’s article has a firmer grasp on issues that are crucial to the main long-term objective of the Chinese leadership: the preservation of the Communist regime. To achieve this goal, the Chinese government has to create the conditions for internal stability and economic growth, of which the protection of key resources is one of the fundamental pillars. Although Feigenbaum argues that “the South China Sea should not serve as an indicator … of China’s broader strategic behavior,” (p. 73) it does in fact help to comprehend the extent and nature of the conflicting factors behind China’s plan of action. Along with Taiwan, the South China Sea is considered as a “domestic issue,” one of the last regions where disputes over Chinese sovereignty have not yet been settled, and is an area where traditional territorial claims overlap with strictly economic calculations. Contrary to some claims (see for example Segal, 1996), China is heavily constrained by economic interdependence. As long as China’s economic interests (i.e., access to commercial routes) are guaranteed by the current state of affairs, the PRC is unlikely to act militarily to defend its sovereignty claims or its economic needs, thereby risking to put its continued growth in peril, unless it is forced to do so. “A stable international environment is usually viewed as beneficial to trade and foreign investment. Given both economic and military risks, Chinese leaders would have to ask themselves if islands that are barely noticeable on the map are really worth the risk of even a temporary disruption of the impressive flow of foreign investment into their country” (Gallagher, 1994: 187). China’s current military buildup seems driven predominantly by the need to make up for lost time and modernize its military equipment to “prepare to fight: (1) total war versus limited or local war; (2) local wars ‘under normal conditions’ versus ‘local wars under modern high-tech conditions’” (Finkelstein, 2007: 90). Rather than precipitating crises, this modernization seems to pursue an “Active Defense Strategy,” having the aim of deterring, and responding to, unwanted behavior on the part of other actors that may endanger Chinese objectives—e.g., the repatriation of Taiwan, or the defense of commercial routes.
On the whole, however, the two authors’ analyses converge on the need for the U.S. to follow a strategy of engagement or “enmeshment” with China, as opposed to a strategy of simple appeasement or, on the other hand, of outright containment (see Roy, 1996). Shambaugh’s description of the PLA’s perceived “sources of instability, uncertainty, and potential threat” (p. 77) supports Feigenbaum’s contention that China’s use of force is closely related with sovereignty issues. “In internal policy debates, the PLA is the hypernationalistic guardian of claimed Chinese territorial sovereignty and is the institution charged with enforcing these claims” (Shambaugh: 52). So long as U.S. presence in the region is not on a one-way collision course with—and does actually protect—the Chinese national interest, China will continue to feel substantially at ease with the status quo. At the same time, as its economy grows, it will carry its military transformation and modernization plan forward to be able to face potential threats to its sovereignty or economic interests if necessary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Yong Deng, “Hegemon on the Offensive: Chinese Perspectives on U.S. Global Strategy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 116, No. 3, Fall 2001, pp. 343–65.

David M. Finkelstein, “China’s National Military Strategy: An Overview of the ‘Military Strategic Guidelines’,” in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell (eds.), Right Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, September 2007, pp. 69–140.

Michael G. Gallagher, “China’s Illusory Threat to the South China Sea,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1, Summer 1994, pp. 169–94.

Rupert Hodder, “China and the World: Perception and Analysis,” The Pacific Review, Vol. 12, No. 9, 1999, pp. 61–77.

Denny Roy, “The ‘China Threat’ Issue: Major Arguments,” Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 8, August 1996, pp. 758–71.

Andrew Scobell and Larry Wortzel (eds.), Civil-Military Change in China: Elites, Institutes, and Ideas After the 16th Party Congress, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, September 2004.

Gerald Segal, “East Asia and the ‘constrainment’ of China,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 4, Spring 1996, pp. 107–35.

David Shambaugh, “China’s New High Command,” in Stephen J. Flanagan and Michael E. Marti (eds.), The People’s Liberation Army and China in Transition, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, August 2003, pp. 43–65.