regional policy — an evolving diplomacy that pays equal, if not more, attention to China’s western periphery at a time when the declared focus of U.S. strategy is to turn greater American attention eastward. Indeed, the Indo-Pacific strategy being developed by the Trump administration brings attention to the new dimension of great power rivalry in the India Ocean region. Ultimately, the chapters aim to provide another platform from which one may understand China’s periphery policy and, by extension, its international relations and rise, in greater totality and depth.
1Xi Jinping, The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), p. 326.
2Bonnie Glaser and Deep Pal, “China’s periphery diplomacy initiative: Implications for China’s neighbours and the United States”, China–US Focus, November 7, 2013.
3Important speech of Xi Jinping at peripheral diplomacy work conference, Xinhua, October 25, 2013.
4 Ibid.
5Su Xiaohui, “Why China puts more and more emphasis on peripheral diplomacy,” People’s Daily (overseas edition), December 22, 2014.
6Graham Allison, “Thucydides’s trap has been sprung in the Pacific”, Financial Times, August 21, 2012.
7Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, American and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 88–89.
Broad Regional Context
Chapter
2
China’s Changing Perspective of its Periphery Environment
Jianwei Wang
The periphery always occupies an important position in China’s foreign policy. However, the degree of criticalness and urgency of the peripheral diplomacy could vary depending on China’s perception of its peripheral environment: whether it is stable and benign or volatile and threatening. Decision-makers in Beijing make policy adjustments accordingly. Since 2010, China’s periphery environment has undergone significant geostrategic changes, particularly in East Asia. China’s perceptions of these changes naturally influence their foreign policy postures in the region. This chapter attempts to trace China’s evolving perspective of its peripheral environment, including its estimation and analysis of the nature of changes, the causes of changes, the implications for China’s interest and the possible ways to deal with the changing environment.
Periphery Environment: Better or Worse?
Chinese foreign policymakers and elites are fully aware that compared to other major powers, China’s peripheral environment is not necessarily favorable. Many agree that China’s peripheral environment is the most complicated among major powers.1
It is characterized by several features. First, China has many neighboring countries with very complicated situations. Their relations with China are too changeable. Many of them are close to China in geography but not in heart. Second, China has many complicated and various legacies of disputes with its neighbors ranging from territorial, historical, maritime to humanistic ones. These disputes can be easily inflamed. Third, China’s relations with its neighbors have experienced ups and downs following the rise and fall of China’s own development.2
In the post-Cold War period, however, Chinese analysts emphasize the relative stability and peacefulness of its periphery. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union and for a period of time, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa and elsewhere were characterized by war and chaos. China felt fortunate that Asia, particularly East Asia, remained relatively calm. This was in sharp contrast with the heyday of the Cold War period when Asia was plunged into one war after another while Europe enjoyed a long peace. In a way, China was a victim of the geopolitical instability in Asia. With few exceptions, China’s relations with its neighbors were characterized by tension, hostility and military conflict. The periphery in a large measure was perceived a threat to China and the Chinese had a mentality of being under siege by “imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries”. Even after China improved relations with the superpower across the Pacific and the United States, a source of much hostility behind China’s embattled interactions with its neighbors, its relations with many periphery countries remained unfriendly, a typical pattern of “be friendly with those far away and attack those nearby.” China was characterized as a regional power without a regional strategy.
China began to seriously cultivate its relations with the peripheral countries in the 1990s. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, China was isolated by the West and suffered from economic and political sanctions. On the other hand, “the Asian values” made China’s ties with its Asian neighbors less affected. In order to break the diplomatic isolation, China “discovered” its periphery and made its own “pivot” to Asia. For example, China significantly improved relations with the peripheral countries which resulted in normalization of relations with all ASEAN countries. Ever since then, China had put its relationship with the peripheral countries on a pretty solid ground. Some predicted that those hot spots in China’s periphery such as the Korea issue, South China Sea issue, India–Pakistan conflict would gradually die down and have less adverse effect on China’s security. The only issue that could disrupt and worsen China’s security environment was the Taiwan issue.3 The 9/11 terrorist attack provided another strategic opportunity to further deepen China’s relations with the peripheral countries. Taking advantage of the American unintended neglect of Asia resulting from the two bloody wars in Middle East, China took the initiative to speed up the process of economic integration in the region. China became the first major power in the region to establish Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN countries, surprising both the United States and Japan. The Western media was full of stories on how China’s charming offensive undermined the American influence in the region.4 At that time, China’s assessment of its peripheral environment was sanguine. Many considered that China’s relations with its peripheral countries were at their best in history. They claimed that the perception of “China threat” in China’s periphery was fading away and it was replaced by the perception of “China opportunity”.
The honeymoon, however, did not last for too long. After President Obama came to power in 2009, the United States had been “returning” to Asia in an accelerated pace as highlighted by his famous “Asia Rebalance” or “Pivot to Asia” strategy. Facing the joint pushing back by the United States and its allies, China’s position of “outshining others” soon began to evaporate. Particularly since 2010, a series of events in the region on the Korean Peninsula, East China Sea and South China Sea significantly increased the tension and China’s perceived hardline policy on maritime disputes reversed the favorable feelings toward China. How to assess China’s changing peripheral environment? Has it become worse or better; if worse, how much worse; what are the implications for China’s security? Chinese scholars and analysts began to reassess China’s peripheral environment and displayed somewhat different opinions on these issues.
For some, the impact of the U.S. war on terror on China’s peripheral environment is not as positive as it was thought before. Although the 9/11 did divert America’s strategic attention to the Asia-Pacific, the U.S. war on terror actually helped Washington increase its military presence in China’s periphery including Central Asia and South Asia, in which the United States had little military existence before. In this way, the United States pretty much completed its strategic encirclement of China.5 This tendency of encircling China of course was reinforced by Obama’s Asia
