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TOC | Summary | Foreword | Two | Three | Four | Five | Notes | About the Author Foreword President Clinton’s June 1998 trip to Beijing—the first visit of an American president to the People’s Republic of China since the violent suppression of demonstrators at Tiananmen in 1989—marks a concerned effort by the administration to rebuild a normal leadership dialogue between the PRC and the United States. Yet the trip is taking place in a polarized political environment in Washington. Some congressional leaders challenge the appropriateness of the presidential visit amidst charges of illegal Chinese contributions to the 1996 presidential campaign, allegations of unwise—or unduly influenced—administration approvals of exports of militarily sensitive technologies to the PRC, Chinese sales of nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan and Iran, and unresolved concerns about Chinese human rights and trade practices. Many observers of Sino-American relations wonder whether it is possible to sustain a normal relationship between the two countries. For close to ten years, the West has viewed China with concern and suspicion. After the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and the unremitting suppression of all organized political and religious dissident, China’s Communist leaders reaffirmed their adherence to a policy of one-party rule. The country’s external behavior offered equally disquieting signs: the slow but purposeful buildup of a capacity to project military power abroad; the proliferation of military technologies to unstable areas of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia; assertive naval deployments to contested areas of the South China Sea; and, most starkly, the salvo of missiles launched at Taiwan’s sea lanes as a warning against the island’s gestures toward independence during its 1996 presidential election campaign. Yet there are signs of another, less threatening and reform-minded China: as an applicant to the World Trade Organization, a stabilizer in Asia’s financial crisis, and a partner in the Four Party Talks on the Korean Peninsula. Domestically, China has at last responded to Western pleas to free a number of leading political dissidents, is promoting elections in rural villages for local leaders, and is dealing with the recently returned Hong Kong with restraint. Which is the China we face: a threatening “emerging superpower” with global ambitions that challenge America’s security and economic interests? Or a reform-minded, developing country that knows it must adapt institutions inherited from the era of revolutionary communism to the requirements of global good citizenship? In this timely Peaceworks, Professor Chen Jian examines the foreign-policy behavior of the People’s Republic from inside the country. What his examination reveals is a much more circumscribed power than many of its foreign critics describe: a country that remains in some ways revolutionary, yet desirous of becoming an “insider” in the international community; a country that until very recently could boast of ten percent annual economic growth, yet must address widespread poverty across most of its rural interior; a country that can mobilize its vast populace in a crisis, but whose leaders fear political disintegration as a result of the pull of strong regional political, economic, and ethnic forces. In short, Chen argues, today’s China is wrestling with many profound domestic problems and contradictions, and these challenges keep China’s leaders focused internally, not on an adventurous course of external ambition. This is not to say that Professor Chen dismisses the recent assertiveness of China’s foreign policy, particularly the “missile diplomacy” the People’s Republic conducted off Taiwan’s shores in 1996—an action that brought a speedy response from the United States, in the form of a deployment of two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Taiwan Strait area; nor does Chen dismiss the PRC’s maneuvering in the South China Sea. Yes, China’s foreign policy has been assertive, Chen argues, but not expansionist. Indeed, at the end of the twentieth century, China faces a crucial historical juncture. Roughly two decades after Mao Zedong’s death and Deng Xiaoping’s initiation of a process of rapid economic growth, the People’s Republic is still struggling with a profound identity crisis. Professor Chen contends that this crisis manifests itself at several fundamental levels: the role of the Chinese Communist Party in leading a population concerned with raising living standards, not building a socialist society; the disparity between the country’s thriving coastal areas and economically laggard interior provinces; China’s place in a world of “Western” values and institutions; and even the very notion of a Chinese identity. Mao’s revolutionary foreign policy attempted to overcome the sense of insecurity China suffered during its late imperial and republican eras, and the chairman’s legacy still influences not only Beijing’s assessment of the world, but its ability to mobilize its citizenry as well. Deng’s economic reforms have ushered in a period of unprecedented growth and social change, yet they have exposed the once-isolated country to diverse foreign influences; in the process, they have generated social forces that could destabilize the country’s political order. In assessing the Communist Party’s position in the new China, Professor Chen asks some rather stark questions: What will be the future of the People’s Republic if the Chinese people discover that the party has outlived its usefulness? If the party does collapse, what new institutions will attempt to maintain China’s territorial integrity? Will the country disintegrate, splitting not only the powerful coastal regions away from the rural interior, but Tibet and western China away from the rest of the country? Viewed from this internal perspective, Chen argues, the “China threat” could come from purely domestic sources, not external aggressiveness: massive social dislocations stemming from the destabilizing effects of economic transformation, widespread protest over widening inequalities of wealth, environmental catastrophes, mass migrations. Can China peacefully coexist with the West? As Professor Chen argues, a consensus has emerged among Beijing’s leaders that China’s continued economic growth requires international stability. Yet there is a core set of foreign policy goals that cannot be compromised, and it is here that Chen’s internal analysis produces disturbing foreign policy conclusions: While China can redress past colonial injustices with its reacquisition of Hong Kong and, in 1999, Macao, the unresolved issue of Taiwan’s status lies at the heart of the regime’s notion of China’s national integrity. Deng’s reforms have moved China into the international community, exposing it to the global regimes and universal norms and values that govern international exchange. Will such interactions eventually lead to the adoption of democratic institutions in the People’s Republic? Chen’s answer is optimistically affirmative, but he adds that such a development will take time, and that it will not result from activist policy pressures from the West supported by economic incentives and moral suasion. To be sure, rudimentary democratic institutions are in evidence at the lowest levels of the PRC’s political system, as Professor Chen points out, and Beijing has evinced a grudging (if momentary) acceptance of universal norms in the realm of human rights through its recent release of political dissidents such as Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan. But China’s history also has seen prospects for political change evaporate suddenly—and sometimes violently—during periods when there seemed to be an opening for reforms, such as the “Democracy Wall” movement in the late 1970s and Tiananmen in 1989. Certainly, continued economic achievements will demand a more open society and more pluralism in political decision making, but, Chen cautions, the West should not link economic achievements to immediate progress in establishing democratic institutions. Chen’s message may not comfort Western policymakers who urge a more assertive policy to induce China to change its internal behavior to conform with universal norms befitting major powers in the international community. However, his analysis of the domestic sources of China’s foreign policy at least helps to temper the notion of a China “threat.” In fact, given the kind of turmoil Chinese elites and masses alike are experiencing in the post-Deng era, Chen argues, China’s domestic and foreign policies should be seen as “challenges,” which the West, particularly the United States, can turn to its advantage by continuing to pursue a policy of constructive engagement. Unlike most Western analysts of Chinese affairs, Chen brings a unique personal background and interpretive perspective to his study. His formative years were spent in the People’s Republic as a Red Guard during Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and he began his graduate studies at Fudan and East China Normal Universities in Shanghai. Now an associate professor of history at Southern Illinois University, Chen retains his Chinese citizenship and regularly travels to China to research archives and interview officials on the history of China’s foreign policy. During his 1996–97 fellowship in the Institute’s Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace, Professor Chen provided U.S. officials and scholars with special insights into foreign-policy making in the People’s Republic. This Peaceworks is just one of the products of Professor Chen’s period of research at the Institute. The United States Institute of Peace has devoted many other resources—particularly in its Research and Studies Program—to examining China’s impact on the East Asia region and in the global arena as well. We have published two Special Reports on Asian security—Beyond the Asian Financial Crisis in April 1998, and North Korea’s Decline and China’s Strategic Dilemmas in October 1997—in addition to several previous reports on political developments on the Korean Peninsula and in the South China Sea. While the conclusions of this Peaceworks will remain the subject of debate well past the Clinton-Jiang summit—and indeed well into the next century—Chen Jian has nevertheless provided us with a well-informed and informative perspective on China’s international behavior and foreign policy. Richard H. Solomon, President United States Institute of Peace TOC | Summary | Foreword | Two | Three | Four | Five | Notes | About the Author Home | Jobs | FAQs | Contact Us | Directions | Privacy Policy | Site Map United States Institute of Peace -- 1200 17th Street NW -- Washington, DC 20036
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