Foreign Policy Research Institute
50 Years of Ideas in Service to Our Nation
1955-2005
www.fpri.org

E-Notes
Distributed Exclusively via Fax & Email

CHINA'S GRAND STRATEGY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
by Avery Goldstein

September 27, 2005

Avery  Goldstein   is  Professor   of   Political   Science,
University of Pennsylvania, and Senior Fellow of the Foreign
Policy Research  Institute.   This essay is based on an FPRI
talk  on  Dr.  Goldstein's  latest  book   "Rising  to  the
Challenge:  China's   Grand   Strategy   and   International
Security" (Stanford University Press, 2005) and on testimony
delivered before  the U.S-China Economic and Security Review
Commission (July 2005).


        CHINA'S GRAND STRATEGY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

                      by Avery Goldstein

China's increasing  economic and  military capabilities have
attracted much  attention in  recent years and prompted many
to ask:  How should the world, especially the United States,
respond to  this emerging  great power?  A sensible response
requires not  only figuring  out the  speed  and  extent  of
China's  rise,  but  also  answering  a  question  that  has
received  much   less  attention:   What  is  China's  grand
strategy?   In the  following I briefly outline an answer to
this question.  I begin by explaining the origins of China's
current grand  strategy whose elements coalesced in the mid-
1990s as the leaders in Beijing adjusted to the realities of
the post-Cold War world.  The elements of this strategy came
together when  China's leaders  recognized the  unexpectedly
stiff international  challenges they faced in pursuing their
central foreign  policy goal-to  enable China to emerge as a
true great  power during the 21st century.  After discussing
the  factors  that  shaped  the  grand  strategy  they  have
adopted, I then describe its basic  features and conclude by
considering  some   of  its   implications  for   U.S.-China
relations and U.S. policy towards China.

Two  preliminary  points  of  clarification  are  in  order.
First,  although   the  terrorist   attacks  of   9/11  have
unquestionably affected  China's foreign  relations, in  the
post-Cold War era the turning point for Beijing, in contrast
to Washington,  was not  2001 but  rather the mid-1990s.  It
was during  the mid-1990s  that the  essential  elements  of
China's current  approach were  woven into  a more  coherent
framework.  Second, China's grand strategy is not explicitly
articulated in a formal declaration; it remains implicit and
is  discerned   through  observing   China's   international
relations in recent years. Nevertheless, my use of the label
"grand strategy"  is not  meant merely  as rhetorical window
dressing for  a broad description of China's foreign policy.
Instead,  the  term  is  used  to  indicate  that  there  is
something distinctive  about the  combination of  political,
economic, and  military means  Beijing has  adopted over the
past decade  to ensure  the country's  vital interests  in a
possibly dangerous world.  My invocation of "grand strategy"
also indicates  that I see a central logic that underpins or
integrates Beijing's  foreign policy  decisions across issue
areas and,  as importantly, that this logic takes account of
or anticipates  the expected  reaction of  others to China's
choices.

THE MOTIVATION FOR CHINA'S STRATEGIC TURN
Four factors  explain why China embraced its current foreign
policy approach in the mid-1990s.

1. U.S.  Strength.    By  the  mid-1990s,  Chinese  analysts
recognized that,  contrary to their belief when the Cold War
ended, the world was not quickly going to become multipolar.
Instead, unipolarity  would last  for decades, with the U.S.
remaining the  world's sole  superpower.   As such,  for the
foreseeable future  China would have to operate in a setting
where the  U.S. would  have the ability to frustrate China's
international ambitions.

2.    China's  Weakness.    Although  China's  economic  and
military capabilities were growing as a result of the reform
program in  place since 1979, it still lagged far behind the
world's leading  states, especially  the U.S.   Perhaps most
significantly, as  China's leaders  witnessed U.S.  military
operations during the 1990s, beginning with Operation Desert
Storm in  1991, they  more clearly  recognized just  how far
they had  to go  before their  armed forces were in the same
league as those of the U.S. and its allies.

3.    Nervous  International  Reaction.  Even  though  China
remained economically and militarily outclassed in the first
half of  the 1990s,  its growing  capabilities  had  already
begun to prompt others to debate "China's rise" and led some
to react  in ways  that could  damage China's interests.  In
the U.S., there was new talk about a "China threat" and what
might have  to be  done about  it.   Among China's immediate
neighbors, especially those in Southeast Asia, there was new
concern about  China's assertive  posture towards  resolving
maritime and  territorial disputes,  and some  wondered what
this might  portend about  the role  an even  more  powerful
China  would   play  in   coming  decades.     Against  this
background,    China's     leaders    were     alarmed    by
Washington's efforts  in the  mid-1990s to  update its  Cold
War-vintage alliances  with Australia  and Japan, as well as
enhanced U.S.  military  cooperation  with  the  nations  of
Southeast Asia  -- trends  that Beijing worried might be the
beginnings of  an American-led  regional effort  to  contain
China.

4.   Taiwan Tensions.  In 1995-1996 China saw a challenge to
its sovereignty  claim over  Taiwan from  a  new  cohort  of
elected leaders  on the  island.  When Beijing used military
exercises  to  warn  Taiwan  about  the  risks  of  pursuing
independence,  Washington   responded  with  its  own  naval
maneuvers  that   clearly  signaled   a  continued  American
interest in  Taiwan's security  and the  likelihood of  U.S.
intervention if  China used  force to  press  its  claim  to
Taiwan.   This mini-crisis over Taiwan clarified for Beijing
that in  addition to  long-term, hypothetical concerns about
the U.S.  and others frustrating China's rise to great power
status, China had to worry about a more immediate, specific,
short-term military contingency --  the risk of a war in the
Taiwan Strait  that would  require China  to engage the U.S.
military even  while China's  military  remained  distinctly
outclassed.

In short,  by about 1996, the international situation looked
pretty bleak from China's perspective.  What could Beijing's
leaders do  about it?   Their  answer  has  been  the  grand
strategy, or  the logic,  that has  guided  China's  foreign
policies in  the years  since 1996.  This grand strategy was
not announced  with a  formal declaration,  or even  given a
clear name.   In the last few years, some in China did begin
referring to  their approach  as the  strategy of  "peaceful
rise," a  term more  recently shunned  in favor of "peaceful
development" (a  shift in  terminology for  reasons of style
rather than  substance). Whatever label one uses to describe
it, China  has adopted  a strategy  that aims  to facilitate
China's  rise   by  reducing   the  likelihood  its  growing
capabilities will  alarm others  or provoke  them to  oppose
China.

CHINA'S GRAND STRATEGY
How has  this strategic  logic been  translated into policy?
Since mid-1996  China's leaders  have centered their foreign
policy around two broad efforts.

First, they  have embraced  policies  designed  to  reassure
China's neighbors  and to  enhance the PRC's reputation as a
more  responsible   and  cooperative   international  actor.
Beijing's widely  touted self-restraint  during the  wave of
currency devaluations  that accompanied  the Asian financial
crisis in  the late  1990s was  an  early  example  of  this
effort.   Of more  enduring significance  has  been  China's
active embrace  of multilateralism  since the mid-1990s that
includes  its  central  role  in  the  Shanghai  Cooperation
Organization, its participation in the attempt to work out a
peaceful resolution  of the  nuclear crisis  on  the  Korean
peninsula,  and   especially  its   multipronged  effort  to
facilitate cooperation with the ASEAN countries of Southeast
Asia.

Second, since  1996 China's  leaders have  been engaged in a
concerted effort  to improve  bilateral relations  with  the
world's other major powers in order to reduce the likelihood
that they  will unite  to prevent  China's slow  but  steady
rise.  By cultivating various types of partnerships, Beijing
seeks to  increase the  benefits other  great powers  see in
working with  China and  to underscore the opportunity costs
of working  against it.   These partnerships are expected to
establish a  simple linkage: if China's great power partners
opt to  press Beijing  on matters  important enough  to sour
relations, they  will jeopardize  important benefits such as
economic  opportunities   for  trade   and  investment   and
cooperation in  managing the  security problems  of  weapons
proliferation and terrorism.

In sum,  then, the  grand strategy  that has  guided China's
foreign policy over the past decade emerged as a reaction to
the stiff  challenge Beijing  faces  as  a  relatively  weak
state,  but   one  whose  growing  power  and  international
aspirations already  make others nervous and might lead them
to oppose  China. The  combination of  policies designed  to
cultivate China's  reputation as a responsible international
player and  to nurture  partnerships with major powers seeks
to ensure  an international  context in  which China has the
opportunity  to   continue  the   decades-long  process   of
modernization that  will be  necessary if  it is to become a
true great power.

IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA'S GRAND STRATEGY
In itself,  China's current  grand strategy, a strategy that
seeks a  "peaceful rise"  or "peaceful  development," raises
few concerns.   It  is important, however, to recognize that
this is  explicitly a  strategy for  a period of transition,
designed for  the decades  it will take China to rise.  What
happens after  China rises?  Will it continue to embrace the
current policies that make it basically a responsible status
quo power?   Or,  once it  has amassed greater capabilities,
will China  demand changes  in the  international order that
signal  its  arrival  as  a  disruptive,  revisionist  power
determined  to   alter  the   international  system  to  its
advantage?    Confronted  with  these  important  questions,
Chinese officials  and analysts  typically assert that China
will "never be a hegemon, never practice power politics, and
never pose a threat to its neighbors or to world peace." Yet
many analysts  outside China respond to these questions with
equally firm  convictions, insisting  a more  powerful China
will inevitably  pose a  threat to  international peace  and
stability; they typically justify their view by drawing on a
preferred theory  about international relations or by citing
examples of rising powers that caused trouble in the past.

Which of these contrasting views is closer to the truth?  My
answer is  not only  that we  don't know, but that we simply
can't know. At least not yet.

In looking  to the  future, the  Chinese may  very  well  be
sincerely  representing  their  peaceful  intentions  today.
Nevertheless,  they  cannot  possible  know  how  a  Chinese
government several  decades from now will view its country's
interests or  how it  will choose  to respond  to what  will
inevitably be a much different international situation.  And
in looking  to the future, while foreign analysts are surely
correct in  pointing to  persuasive academic  theories about
the disruptive  potential of  rising powers  and  in  citing
worrisome historical  examples of  them, there are also some
academic theories  and historical  examples that suggest the
rise of a new great power need not inevitably spell trouble.

UNCERTAINTY AND POLICY
If we  cannot be  sure about  how a more powerful China will
behave, how  can we sensibly deal with a rising China in the
coming years?   The  key to  sensible policy in dealing with
China is  to recognize  that we are in the midst of what the
Chinese  sometimes  refer  to  as  a  "period  of  strategic
opportunity."   For at least the next couple of decades, the
areas of  conflict between  the U.S.  and China  (especially
difficult  economic   problems  and   even  the  potentially
dangerous disagreement about Taiwan) are in fact manageable,
not intractable, problems.  And both China and the U.S. have
important common interests (fighting terrorism, dealing with
proliferation, coping  with environmental  degradation,  and
addressing public  health crises  in a  globalized  setting)
that  provide   strong  incentives   for  both  Beijing  and
Washington to  work hard  to manage  and  contain  bilateral
conflicts.   Because conflicting  interests do not yet swamp
common interests  in U.S.-China  relations, there  is  time,
most likely  a couple of decades, to learn whether a longer-
term modus  vivendi is  possible.  Each side will be drawing
conclusions along  the way.   Time  will provide the Chinese
with the opportunity to learn whether the U.S. is willing to
accept a  larger international  role  for  a  more  powerful
China.  Time will also provide the U.S. with the opportunity
to learn  whether China is in fact emerging as a responsible
great  power   with  which  the  U.S.  can  coexist  without
sacrificing American  vital interests.  A sensible policy is
not only  one under  which the  U.S. seizes  this "period of
strategic opportunity"  to monitor what China does, but also
one which  encourages China's  responsible behavior whenever
possible.

There are,  of course,  no guarantees  about how  China will
respond  to   a  sensible   U.S.  approach   of   contingent
cooperation.   Others might  well argue, then, that prudence
requires us  instead to  "to prepare for the worst," that it
is "better  to be safe than sorry," and that wisdom suggests
it is  wiser to  take a  hard line against China while it is
still weak.   For  three reasons,  I think  that position is
misguided.

First,  it   would  undermine   currently   important   U.S.
interests; China  would reciprocate  our hostility  and that
would make it much more difficult for us to address the many
international economic, environmental, and security problems
on which Chinese cooperation is important.

Second, a  policy designed  to contain China and prevent its
rise would  be exceedingly  difficult to  implement.  Unlike
the U.S.  effort to  contain the  former  Soviet  Union,  an
attempt to  contain China would find little support from the
countries whose  support is essential for such a strategy to
succeed.   On the  contrary, with  a few exceptions, such an
approach would  most likely  aggravate relations  with  many
American allies and partners around the world.

Third, and  most importantly,  urgent calls to deal now with
the  possible  dangers  China's  rise  might  one  day  pose
overstate the  risks for  the U.S.  of waiting and watching,
responding as China acts, and adjusting our approach towards
a rising  China as  events warrant.   The  U.S.  holds  huge
advantages over  China, both  in hard and soft power.  There
is no  need to  be stampeded  into prematurely  dealing with
China as  an adversary.   China  cannot become a great power
overnight; it will be a rising power for several decades and
will only  emerge  as  a  great  power  if  it  succeeds  in
overcoming  some   very  daunting   domestic  obstacles   to
modernization.  China  has  adopted  the  grand  strategy  I
described because it recognizes just how weak it is relative
to the  U.S. and  its allies.   As  such,  China's  strategy
reflects its attempt to play a weak hand well.  The U.S., by
contrast, holds most of the high cards; we need only be sure
that we  don't play  our strong  hand poorly.    A  rush  to
judgment about the nature of the China we are likely to face
several decades  from now  is not  only unwise,  it is  also
unnecessary.