The Period of Strategic Opportunities for China’s Development after the U.S. Eastward Shift of Its Strategic Focus

By Zheng Shan. Kunming Institute, PLA

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The Period of Strategic Opportunities for China’s Development after the U.S. Eastward Shift of Its Strategic Focus

By Zheng Shan. Kunming Institute, PLA

Since the United States shifts its strategic focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region, a series of new changes have taken place in the world strategic situation. To judge the fundamental trend of the period of strategic opportunities for China’s development, the key is to analyze what favorable factors and unfavorable challenges are provided by the major developing trend of the world situation to the external conditions for China’s development since the U.S. eastward shift of its strategic focus. To understand these issues is very important for us to grasp the period of strategic opportunities for China’s development.

I. The United States Actively Pursues a “Rebalancing” Strategy to China.

China-U.S. relationship is a critical state to state relationship in the world strategic architecture. For a long time, the United States has carried out the China policy of containment plus engagement, i.e. carrying out strategic dialogues with China so as to maintain the common interests while doing everything possible to restrain China so as to prevent China from rising. Since the “9/11” attacks, the United States has sunk deeply into the mire of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, which have reduced its capability to control the international situation, and symbolized its falling down from the peak of unilateralism. As the United States declines and China develops, the United States has “the anxiety of the times” and “phobia of China”.1According to the survey by the U.S. strategic research institutions, nearly 60% of Americans believes that China’s economy will surpass that of the United States and become the world “l(fā)eading country”. Therefore, after eastward shift of its strategic focus, the United States implements a “rebalancing strategy” to China.2Feeling that the United States is in deep crisis, U.S. President Obama states that the U.S. will never be No. 2 in the world.3Hillary Clinton, U.S. State Secretary, said that the Asia-Pacific region becomes a key driving force in global politics and taking advantage of this driving force is able to free the United States from predicaments in which it alone is unable to save the situation.4The U.S. strategic logic is to squeeze China development space by suppressing it and to change the relations from stakeholders to a strategic target and implement a “strategic rebalancing policy” to China from political, economic and military perspectives. Politically, the United States has increasingly strengthened its suspicion about China and constantly spread “China threat”. Especially since China’s economic aggregate reached 40 trillion RMB,5surpassed that of Japan and became the world second largest economy in 2010, and foreign media generally forecast that China is likely to catch up with the United States in 5 years according to China’s development speed. The United States believes that China’s quick development and military “maturity” has become a challenge to the U.S. dominated international system and even considered China a “derailed” country.6Therefore, the United States exerts pressure on China during bilateral and multilateral interactions in political areas of international norms, human rights diplomacy, ideologies, democratization process, social transparency, etc., and provokes disputes of Diaoyu Island and the disputes in South China Sea, which force the Asia-Pacific countries take sides and tries to weaken China’s influence in the world and isolate China.

Economically, although China has become the world second largest economy, the gap of economic aggregate between China and the United States is still very large. In 2010, the U.S. economic aggregate reached US$13 trillion, and China had just half of that according to the exchange rate between U.S. dollar and Chinese RMB. With very close economic contacts, up to now, China is still the U.S. largest creditor country by holding reassure bonds worth US$1.1536 trillion.7China-U.S. economic relations have become a “Siamese” type. However, in order to survive the economic crisis, the United States carries out the quantitative easing monetary policy by printing and issuing a great deal of notes and forcing Chinese RMB to appreciate. The United States and other Western countries make all kinds of restrictions on intellectual property rights, anti-dumping, transfer of property rights and market share, etc. which affect the bilateral economic exchanges.

Militarily, the United States has formulated the theories of “air-sea battle” and joint intervening operation, and focused forward deployment mainly on China, and established commander centers and forward bases in West Pacific Ocean supported by the military bases in Southeast Asia, Japan and Guam and will deploy 60% of its military forces in the Asia-Pacific region. In order to encircle China, the United States plans two encirclement lines on land and sea. The land encirclement begins with Mongolia, through Central Asia to South Asia, and the sea encirclement line composed of three-tier islands chains: the first chain made up of the military bases in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; the second chain from the military commander center in Guam extended to the military bases in Australia and New Zealand; and the third chain from the military bases in Hawaii Islands, through to the Midway Island and Alaska to Aleutian Islands. The connected area of the land line and the sea line is in India and Burma respectively. If anything happens, the east coastal areas of China will become main battle fields, central cities, industrial parks and important transportation lines will be targeted and the China-India border areas and China-Myanmar border areas are likely to become land battlefields.

Based on the situation mentioned above, the main purpose of the U.S. “rebalancing strategy” is to encircle, restrain and control China and stall China’s development. The United States argues that China is no longer a rising power but is actually a world power.8In order to offset China’s increasing international influence, the United States unites its allied countries in Asia to carry out “rebalancing strategy” to China, and in essence creates a kind of power balance posture of low-intensive confrontation and highlights the U.S. leadership. It is predicted that it is by 2018 that it is able to free from the crisis.9The U.S. strategists generally believe that the U.S. attitude to China is increasingly decided by its sentiments of suspicions, fears and misgivings about China.10The main problem between China and the United States is short of strategic trust. In the coming 10 years, the period of strategic opportunities for China’s development still exists.

II. The Europe “Central Position” Has Been Weakened.

Europe has been the world center. During the cold war period, Western European countries had played an important role in the U.S.-dominated world order as the United States and the Soviet Union sought world hegemony. As the United States shifts its strategic focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region, the EU standing has been weakened and the existing value of NATO is also questioned. Since the U.S. declined control of the EU and NATO, the independence of the EU and NATO member countries is strengthened. That will be very important for China to maintain its development period of strategic opportunities and resist the pressure brought about by the U.S. “rebalancing strategy”.

First, hit by European sovereign debt crisis, the weakened Europe-centered position is mainly represented by not only the hindered European integration process but also the affected EU’s role in the world order.

Since the U.S. financial crisis spreads to Europe, the economy in European countries has been generally in recession. The major force that maintains EU function is the Franco-German axis. Over the recent 5 years (from 2007 to 2011), Germany’s GDP has grown by 3% and France’s GDP has fallen by 2%. German unemployment decreases by 2% while French unemployment rises by 1%.11Therefore, in the partnership of Franco-German, there are a few scenarios of solution in the sovereign debt crisis in the Euro zone. The first is to abolish the Euro, which will lead to greater recession. The second stands for establishing an “EU State” to implement a unified fiscal policy and discipline so that the EU can survive the crisis by promoting integration. If the second scenario is realized, it will be an important check and balance to the U.S. economic hegemony and conducive to diversification of international monetary clearing units.

Second, the weakened Europe-centered position is also represented by Britain’s marginalized role in the EU.

Britain claims that it has special relations with the United States and plays a bridge role between Europe and the United States. Britain is an EU member country but has not joined the Euro zone. When signing the Treaty of Lisbon, Britain got “the exceptional right” inside the EU. While the EU countries discussed strengthening fiscal disciplines, Britain vetoed the bill for the reason of impeding its sovereignty, which is considered negative by other EU members. This reflects that the EU shares no consensus internally and the U.S. domination of the EU has declined.

Third, the Europe-centered position is weakened, but its independence is enhanced.

Since eastward shift of its strategic focus, the United States has been unable to intervene deeply in the EU affairs. In this context, countries in Central and Eastern Europe have got correspondingly the opportunities to develop. Since 2010, their average economic growth rate reached 4.3%, higher than 1.1% growth rate by the EU senior members,12however, their general economic development level is still lower than the Western European countries. Different from the developed countries in Western Europe, the foreign policies of these countries are generally “indecisive and “l(fā)ooking in every direction”.13The Central and Eastern European countries have a long history and good wishes to develop economic and trade relations with China.

Therefore, the 27 EU members are changeable. James F. Hoge, Jr. describes Europe’s situation as a variable geometry.14The changing features of the EU indicates that after the U.S. eastward shifts of its strategic focus, China’s period of strategic opportunities still exists. For example, regarding China’s core interests, the EU attitude is obviously different from that of the United States. During his visit in October 2012, Japanese Foreign Minister Genba Koichiro met with the senior government officials of France, Britain and Germany and tried to lobby EU to support Japan’s stand on the Diaoyu Islands dispute. However, he was received coldly and returned to Japan with a little success. EU media generally maintain that Japanese claim on sovereignty of Diaoyu Islands is untenable15and even believe that the U.S. involvement in the disputes is very stupid.16

Ⅲ. Chaos in Asia

The U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy is an important part of its global strategy. Geopolitically, the United States is a Pacific country and has never left the Asia-Pacific region. The so-called returning to Asia only reflects that the United States has once again strengthened its attention to East Asia due to the neglect of East Asia because of anti-terrorism. Since the “9/11” attacks, the U.S. strategic confidence and capability to deal with complicated emergencies have declined and the United States has a strong feeling of loss, which can be felt from the words of the U.S. leaders.17In order to maintain and strengthen U.S. leadership in the Asia-Pacific region, improve the regional security situation, push regional prosperity, and promote U.S. values, the U.S. Government uses the means of stirring up troubles, conducting military exercises and forward deployment to create tensions, then, acts as a peace maker to go-between countries improperly in an attempt to maintain a moderate tense situation in East Asia and makes East Asia full of chaos. So a strategic situation like a noodle bowl in East Asia occurs.18

The most serious problem in Asian chaos is the lingering nuclear clouds. The United States and Russia are the two largest nuclear weapons states in the world. According to the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, the two countries jointly have 23,000 nuclear war heads, the total equivalent to 20 billion tones of TNT dynamite and the total destructive power is 150,000 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The two countries have many nuclear military bases in Asia. On October 25, 2012, the two countries launched new-type missiles almost on the same day. The world should still maintain a period of “balance of nuclear terror”.19

In Asia, the United States uses double standards to appease some countries for developing nuclear technologies. In 1998, India consecutively conducted 5 nuclear tests and then Pakistan followed. India and Pakistan have actually become nuclear weapons states. In December 2006, the U.S. Congress passed the Bill on U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Technology Cooperation submitted by Henry Hyde, Chairman of International Relations Committee, the House of Representatives. In September 2007, the United States and India reached the Agreement on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation, which symbolizes that the world has entered the second nuclear age.20The so-called second nuclear age refers to an age of nuclear differentiation and in fact an age of disorderly development of nuclear power. It is the United States that takes a lead in undermining the world nonproliferation system and nuclear control system.

Currently, the DPRK nuclear issue and Iran nuclear issue are still unfinished. The United States threatens to prevent the DPRK from conducting nuclear tests with war and Israel tries to launch surgical strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Under the pretext of dealing with the DPRK’s nuclear threat, the United States tries to persuade South Korea to join its global anti-missile system. The United States has deployed high-precision anti-missile radar systems in Japan, which mainly monitor Russia, China and the DPRK. In fact, Japan has the technologies to make nuclear weapons and has certain amount of plutonium, which can make at least 30 small- and medium-sized warheads,21and it is the “three non-nuclear principles” that prevent Japan from crossing the nuclear threshold.

The worst problem in Asian chaos is the disputes over islands sovereignty between neighboring countries, which have fostered tense situation in Asia and made the Asian security situation worrying. Since the U.S. eastward shift of its strategic focus, the disputes over islands sovereignty between neighboring countries have obviously worsened. Firstly, in the South China Sea, the United States directly involves in the disputes by sending navy ships and cooperating with the Philippines and Vietnam. Hillary Clinton, Sectary of State, attended the ASEAN senior official meeting and tried to internationalize the South China Sea disputes. Soon after the situation in South China Sea eased a little bit, Japan’s “nationalized” Diaoyu Islands once again stirs up the disputes over the islands. Japan has disputes over islands with South Korea, China and Russia, however its disputes with China are the worst, which is relevant with the U.S. support behind the curtain. The United States voices that it would maintain “neutral”, however in reality it claims that Diaoyu Islands are within the scope of defense under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and plans to conduct military exercise for taking the islands. Only because China firmly safeguards its sovereignty and takes strong counter-measures, the United States and Japan have to cancel the joint exercises in Japan. However, the disputes over Diaoyu Islands will continue for a long time to come and the U.S. opinions believe that with the high national sentiments in the two countries, it is rather difficult for them to calm down and the U.S. support to Japan has pushed itself to the forefront of the disputes.22

The chaos in Asia is also reflected by economic downturn and poor development. Since eastward shift of its strategic focus, the United States carries out a series of measures to damage the East Asian economic integrating process and tries to hold back China’s economic development by the issues of high taxation, anti-dumping, intellectual property rights and RMB exchange rate. In the East Asian economic integrating process dominated by ASEAN, the United States intimidates some ASEAN members by security and military issues and makes some ASEAN members formulate two-sided policies with economic dependence on China and security dependence on the United States. So ASEAN gradually becomes a lame duck. The United States keeps away ASEAN and initiates the TPP, which highlights the U.S. economic hegemony and weakens ASEAN’s leading role. Once TPP is in function, the platform dominated by ASEAN will completely lose its role. To hinder East Asian economic integrating process and weaken China’s economic influence so as to disable economic development in East Asia is an U.S. goal.

Ⅳ Maintaining Vigilance and Preventing Japan From Again Becoming the Hotbed of a New War

Japan is the defeated country in the Second World War. During the U.S.-led Tokyo Trial, the United States did not completely liquidate the war crime by Japanese war criminals for its selfish reasons and the cold war needs, which mainly include: Firstly, it did not abolish the emperor system. Secondly, the punishment of the war criminals is so ineffective that Kishi, a war criminal, soon entered political circle and became Japanese Prime Minister. Thirdly, it did not punish the anti-human crimes by Japanese war criminals and whereabouts of the specimen and strains of the infamous 731 Units of Bacteria are still unknown up to today. Fourthly, as the Japanese militarism system was transformed into a democratic system, the peace education was done so poorly about its aggression history that up to now Japan still refuses to admit the war holocaust. Fifthly, the Potsdam Proclamation is not implemented completely so the relevant islands sovereignty is still disputed, which violates the spirit of the Proclamation.

The purpose of the U.S. military deployment in Japan is to prevent Japan from reviving militarism. However, it has not performed its duty well. After the Korea War broke out, it changed its policy to Japan and entered into a military alliance with Japan and started to support and arm Japan. So, Japan tries to get free from the U.S. control and become a “normal” country since it revitalizes its economy. Japan tries to amend its Constitution and particularly the Article IX of the Constitution and get the collective self-defense right (the right to war). But the United States has winked at Japan’s developments.

The right-wing tendency of the Japanese political circle has led to high vigilance from the international opinion recently. The media in Singapore believes that Japan invaded not only China but also brought holocaust to Southeast Asian countries in WWII. The United States supports Japan and carries out the so-called “safeguarding regional stability” in high profile, and in the end may have to eat the bitter fruit. One article by Associated Press also notes that Japan refuses to reflect on the historic issues and is full of resentment not only to China, but also to the United States due to the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. The annual commemoration of the atomic bombing aims at nurturing its “hatred” in the whole nation.23The opinion in Britain emphasizes that while the Japanese government caters to the right-winger media, a small group of nationalists may do harm to the outside world and create military conflicts.24The opinion in France points out that various countries in the world believe the rightist tendency of Japanese politics will exert profound impacts on regional security. The U.S. East Asia policy must pay attention to this, or the Pearl Harbor incident is likely to repeat in Guam.25The Japanese right-wing groups have formed a new party and actively lobby a bill to end the U.S. military deployment in Japan before the 100thanniversary of the end of WWII.26

Ⅴ.The New Features of China’s Development Period of Strategic Opportunities

As the U.S. eastward shift of its strategic focus, all kinds of forces in the world are undergoing major changes and reorganization. The international situation witnesses some changes, some of which are favorable to China’s development and some are not. However, in general, there are more favorable factors than unfavorable ones. In the coming 10 years, the possibility of the outbreak of a world war is unlikely. This is because the major powers games and the growing strength of emerging economies will check the war-fermenting elements, and peace and development are still the common wish of peoples of all countries. However, a local war is hardly avoidable. The competition and impetuosity for development in the beginning of the new century may catalyze the inherent contradictions between countries and lead to local armed conflicts. In view of the general trend, world peace and common prosperity of mankind are universal, and opportunities and challenges co-exist while opportunities are bigger than challenges. The features of China’s development period of strategic opportunities can be drawn from the aforementioned:

(1) The complication and changeability of the strategic posture

The coming 10 years is a period in which all kinds of contradictions and geopolitical frictions may break out in the world, which makes China’s period of strategic opportunities full of complication and changeability. Since U.S. eastward shift of its strategic focus, China will be in the centre of contradictions, which is created by the U.S. rebalancing strategy to China. The United States tries to seek world hegemony by leading the Asia-Pacific region and will inevitably face many contradictions including the contradictions between war and peace, between the East and the West, between the rich and poor, between seeking hegemony and anti-hegemony, between old and new international orders, between economic frictions and counter measures and between cultural infiltration and anti-infiltration.

The feature of complication and changeability determines that China can do much in the new period of strategic opportunities. It is the development of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics that China pursues and it is the world hegemony that the United States seeks. China should take advantage of this strategic differentiation to solve contradictions, and prevent the intensification of contradictions and reduce disputes based on differentiated interests among various countries in spite of contradictions with other countries.

(2) The controllability of crisis management

In the coming ten years, the period of strategic opportunities China faces covers an environment with resilience and changeability, which have stages and intermittence. Even if a war breaks out, it will be a short local war with intermittent periods of armistice and fight. The common interests between China and the United States are larger than the factors of their confrontation. It is unlikely that a direct war will take place between the two countries unless there is a war maniac in the United States. There is a certain possibility of conflict over the disputed Diaoyu Islands between China and Japan. If a conflict breaks out, it will be a short local one. Although the United States proclaims that the marine area of Diaoyu Islands is within the scope of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, it is unlikely that it will involve in a conflict for Japan’s interests. Although China and India have disputes over border territory, the two countries share similar development opportunities. The United States keeps vigilant against rising China and India. It is relatively difficult for the United States to whip up a border war between China and India because the two peoples maintain a high vigilance.

Under the mega-trend of deepening globalization, the power of peace is far bigger than that of elements for war. Even if a crisis of war crops up from time to time, various countries try their best to respond to the danger of a war and the world peace is still in a balance of terror, however the power of justice will inevitably overcome the intention for a war. Toady, with highly advanced information technologies, no country can win a complete victory through a war. With the development of multipolarization, various forces are checking each other, and are able to limit the war factors to the controllability.

(3) The universality of the value interests

In view of values, China’s development offers universal benefits to the world since world economy is still in recession, and China’s development is a driving force for the world economic development. Therefore, China’s period of strategic opportunities has the characteristic of universality.

Various countries in the world generally welcome China’s development. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spanish former Prime Minister, believes in an article that China is the most diversified country, now is the second largest economy and will become the largest economy in the world one day. This is just a beginning because the world in the future can not do without China.27IMF argues that China rises in the world with other countries on the same starting line under the conditions of information technology, the United States should not fear China or hinder China’s development since the U.S. power alone is unable to support the global economy. Now it is time that other countries develop and stimulate economy growth and the United States should not seek confrontation with China but cooperate with it.28

Seeing from values and interests, competition is the law of value of the market economy and therefore no country should fear competition, but should look at other countries’ development with a peaceful attitude so as to promote common prosperity of mankind. China’s rise does not constitute any threat to any other country and on the contrary will be a contribution to world peace and the common prosperity of mankind. Firmly taking the road of peaceful development, building socialism with Chinese characteristics is the established guideline of China.

1. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “America’s Engagement in the Asia-pacific”, October 28, 2010.

http://State.gov/secretary/rm/2010/10150141.htm

2. Speech by US President Barack Obama to Australian Parliament, November, 16, 2011.

http://www.americanrhetoric.Com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamaaustralianparliament.htm

3. Remarks by the president in State of the Union Address, January 27, 2010.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-state-union-address.

4. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton, “The Pacific Century of the United States”, Foreign Policy, U.S. November 2011, p.8

5. Htt://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/qtsj/gjsj/2010/t20110629_402735431.htm.

6. Yang Wenjing, “China’s Integration into the International Mechanisms and the U.S. Factor”, Contemporary International Relations, No.10, 2004.

7. The website of Financial Times, October 17, 2012.

8. Li Xiaokun, “Mullen addresses sea disputes”, China Daily, July 11, 2011.

9. Leslie Gelb, “The Elusive Obama Doctrine”, National Interests, September-October, 2012.

10. Economic observer, October 17, 2011, p.50.

11. Website of Le Monde, October 26, 2012.

12. Website of BBC, September 8, 2012.

13. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. National Economic Accounts.

http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp.

14. James F. Hoge, Jr., “A Global Power Shift in the Making”, Foreign Affairs, July-August, 2012.

15. Uprising (Spain), October 2, 1012.

16. Le Monde, October 3, 2012.

17. President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 2009. www. Whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address.

18. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “America’s Engagement in the Asia-pacific”, October 28, 2010,

http://www.state.gov.secretary/rm/2010/10/150141.htm.

19. “The noodle bow—why trade agreements are all the rage in Asia”, the Economist, September 3, 2009.

20. International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, Britain, October 26, 2012.

21. Keith Payne, “Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age”, Lexington University of Kentucky press, 1996.

22. ICNND: Eliminating Nuclear Threat.

23. Zaobao (Singapore), October 11, 2012.

24. Associated Press, Tokyo, October 13, 2012.

25. Website of Economist, October 6, 2012.

26. Website of AFP, October 7, 2012.

27. StrategyPage.com, U.S., October 30, 2012.

28. Website of Le Monde, October 25, 2012.