China's strategic calculations - CIR 30 March 2006

Last week, prompted by President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing, we looked at the strategic partnership between Russia and China, and in particular we drew attention to Putin’s implicit citing of the US as the reason for this deepening relationship. Curbing US unilateralism is also a motivation for China, but it is not the most important one.

In remarks made ahead of his visit to China, Putin spelled out the opposition of both Russia and China to "double standards" in international affairs, which he said were having a negative impact on international relations and increasing the "conflict among different civilizations". He then went on to say: "It should be acknowledged that such conflict has not only been caused by terrorism and extremism but is also a result of the move of someone [the US] to handle international relations in ideology-based and stereotyped ways…"

Russia clearly sees its alignment with China as a means of diluting US global dominance. China does have similar concerns, but its primary motivation for a close relationship with Russia is more specific. It sees all the most-immediate risks to its security as coming from the east, and thus it wants to eliminate to the maximum extent possible risks that might emanate from its northern, western, and southern flanks.

Gao Zichuan, an associate professor of the PLA Naval Command Academy, said earlier this week: "The situation on the seas (that is to the east and south) is more severe than those on land (that is to the west and north). Not only have there been problems concerning China’s sovereignty and security in Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Diaoyu Island, and the continental shelf in the East China Sea, also there has been the hot issue of the Korean peninsula, which affects the overall regional situation."

He could have added that (as we pointed out in our 23 March Special Bulletin) ownership of virtually all the South China Sea is contested and that China believes the potential oil resources of the region could be as high as 213bn barrels against current proven reserves of about 7.0bn barrels. Although no one else shares such optimism over the potential reserves, the possibility of large energy resources in the disputed region increases the security concerns of everyone at a time when oil consumption by Asian countries could rise from around 15m barrels per day in 2002 to over 33m bpd in 2025.

According to Zichuan: "To effectively uphold our national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity, we must step up the building of our defence capability on the sea. At the same time China should step up cooperation with Russia, India, central Asia, and other countries in order to ensure a security environment on the land. In turn, China should place the focus on coping with challenges from the sea. In addition…the threats facing China from the sea are very realistic, and the consequences of failing to get prepared while facing threats and dangers are beyond imagination."

No doubt Zichuan is predisposed towards such an analysis of China’s strategic imperatives by his naval connections, but as a reflection of the way in which Beijing sees its strategic imperatives, it is no less accurate for that. And it is important because it provides Beijing’s answer to the question posed last year by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.

Speaking at the Shangri-La conference in Singapore in early June, Rumsfeld asked: "China appears to be expanding its missile forces…[it] also is improving its ability to project power and developing advanced systems of military technology; since no nation threatens China one must wonder: why this growing investment, why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases, why these continuing robust deployments?"

The answer is that China doesn’t see things the same way as the US. It believes its vital interests in the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and Taiwan are all potentially threatened - and, even the US would agree over this, it is concerned about the stability of the Korean peninsula.

This is why China is building up its military strength on its eastern seaboard, but it is also why China is working so hard at strengthening its relations with Russia, to strengthen its strategic position in South Asia (by trying to improve relations with India at the same time as maintaining strong ties with Pakistan and building influence in Nepal and Bangladesh), and to bolster the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a means of improving security in Central Asia and neutralizing the threat from Uighur separatism. The fact that neither the United States nor Japan, let alone Taiwan, likes what China is doing does not mean that it lacks a rationale. Joe de Courcy, Editor.