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Updated Wednesday, May 6, 2009 11:12 am TWN, By Dr. John Lee, Special to The China Post

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Australia in a bind deciphering China's future intentions

Ever since China's great reformer, Deng Xiaoping, instructed Chinese leaders to 'Hide Brightness, nourish obscurity,' the region has been playing a guessing game trying to decipher Beijing's longer term intentions. It was recently Australia's turn with the release of the defense white paper. It is one thing to hedge bets — probably wise since the future is unknown — but it is another thing to include every possibility, which means avoiding taking a stab at all. The white paper does at least refocus Australian strategic attention on Asia. But deciphering the mystery of China would have been easier if only Australian strategists spent more time going to the source.

The white paper seems confused. For example, it elevates China as the major variable in the future security environment but offers little when it comes to understanding Chinese strategic intentions. Yet, Beijing is not as secretive as most Australians tend to assume. Chinese counterparts are actually remarkably clear about how they think the future security environment will look like.

The region is currently dominated by America and has been since the Second World War. Not surprisingly then, Beijing and Chinese policy analysts are obsessed with America. For example, in an examination of one hundred recent articles and memos by leading officials, policy experts and academics in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), I found that around four in every five documents were about America, understanding American political values and its system, and how to limit, circumvent, bind or reduce American power and influence. In looking at these documents, if there are any doubts that Beijing views Washington as a strategic competitor, they should be dispelled.

First, Beijing views international politics in broadly neorealist terms — the distribution of power in the world will determine tomorrow's conflicts. In particular, China clearly sees building competition between itself and America as the defining big-picture strategic play. Beijing believes that tension can be managed but never resolved between the established power and the emerging one. It is a structural inevitability. As one prominent CASS analyst puts it, America is currently distracted but the “spearhead will soon be pointed at Beijing.”

But the prospect of serious future tension is not all about abstract notions of power distribution. There are specific long-term objectives that China has not abandoned since Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949.

China, with its 5,000 year old history, views itself as an exceptional power in similarly ways that America also does — both believe that they are destined to become truly great powers in human history. It takes its 'modern mission' extremely seriously: To return China the seat of 'benign dominance' in Asia. Subsequently, China continually claims the whole of the South China Sea as its 'historic waters.'

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Comments

May 8, 2009 m@

It would be lovely to see an end to the Mainland/Taiwan bickering that inevitably results in anti-China articles (although this is more nuanced than most). Until then, the Chinese diaspora can only been seen as [expletive deleted] of the Orient: They don't respect themselves, why should anyone else?