and this trend was greatly consolidated in 2017. The Philippines and Vietnam have maintained their momentum of improving ties with China. ASEAN countries including Singapore have been attaching more importance to their relations with Beijing. The framework for the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea has been agreed upon. The Sino-Japanese relationship has finally broken out of its slump. Ties between Beijing and Seoul returned to a more amicable path of collaboration since Moon Jae-in was elected as the South Korean President. China and India resolved the Doklam standoff peacefully. The biggest challenge in China’s periphery in 2017 was the situation on the Korean Peninsula, demonstrating the limitations of China’s ability to shape the landscape around it. With the unexpected thaw between ROK and DPRK and the prospect of DPRK–U.S. summit in 2018, however, even the tension on Korean Peninsula has significantly tempered. The editorial concludes that although problems on China’s periphery cannot be avoided in years to come, the progress in 2017 indicates that “emerging China has the resources to solve and control the problems even as they increase.” As long as Beijing keeps its strong development momentum, China will be able to implement even greater strategic initiatives in its periphery.
This upbeat assessment was echoed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in his remarks at the year end of 2017. He asserts that China has been able to maintain the stability and the momentum of cooperation in its periphery in the last 5 years. Among other things, China improved its relations with Vietnam, Mongol and the Philippines. China–ROK relations walked out of the shadow of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and began to recover. The long-frozen relationship between China and Japan has also began to show some signs of thawing. China’s relationship with India also has stabilized after the Doklam standoff.23
Not everyone agrees with this confident assessment. Some analysts emphasize that the overall periphery security situation has not changed fundamentally. It remains highly complex and risky like never seen before.24 Security pressures from all directions have not reduced. The cost of maintaining peripheral security has been on the rise. Therefore, China has to pay more attention to the new situation and new changes in China’s periphery. First, the assault of traditional geopolitical conflict on China’s peripheral stability cannot be underestimated. The geopolitical conflict in China’s periphery resulting from major power interference constitutes the major external security pressure for China. Second, the military adventures by hegemonic powers with regard to maritime security in general and South China Sea in particular in the region cannot be underestimated. Third, the impact of peripheral security on China’s internal stability cannot be underestimated. The Internet era has increased the connection and interaction between peripheral security and internal security. As a result, there is no absolute peripheral security and no absolute internal security.25 These two securities are highly intertwined making the management more difficult.
What Caused Changes: Others or Self?
Irrespective of the different assessments about the degree and nature of changes in China’s peripheral environment, most agree that significant changes have taken place in the region. Then why has the geopolitical setting suddenly shifted after a decade of relative stability and tranquility? What are the critical causes leading to changes in China’s periphery?
The most common line of analysis is to attribute the change to the extra-regional power — the United States. It was Obama’s strategy of “Pivot to Asia” or “Asia Rebalance” that triggered all these changes. This strategy started soon after Obama came to power and intensified since 2010 with the purpose of regaining the strategic superiority or initiative lost to China in recent years because of the war on terror. Encouraged by this strategy, some of China’s peripheral countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, for their own interest, began to challenge China on territorial and maritime disputes to test its base line of tolerance. Another thrust of this returning to Asia strategy is to promote domestic changes in some of China’s traditional allies such as Myanmar, leading to its alienation from Beijing.
The Asia Rebalance strategy indicates that the role of the U.S. factor in China’s periphery has changed significantly. The strategic priority of the U.S. policy altered from changing the rising China to managing the rising China. Washington began to project more military and diplomatic resources to the region continuously. From almost all new changes and hot spots in China’s periphery, one can see the shadow of the United States. The increase of the U.S. factor disrupted the peripheral security order painstakingly cultivated by China in recent years and seriously challenged China’s peaceful development.26
Along the same line of arguments, some Chinese analysts point out that the U.S. “Asia Rebalance” strategy indicated three major changes in American diplomatic and security policy. First, the United States looked at the Asia-Pacific as its strategic priority, with no more ambiguity on this issue. Second, the United States completely gave up the G2 policy in dealing with China at the initial period of the Obama administration. From now on, the United State attempts to curb and contain China and also encourage its allies and security partners to do the same. Third, the United States increased its intervention into China’s maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors by taking sides so as to enhance its military, diplomatic and political presence in the region.27
Another important feature of the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” strategy, in the eyes of some Chinese observers, is its emphasis on the security alliance system in East Asia and its impact on East Asia’s security structure. The Asia Rebalance strategy led to new changes in East Asia’s security structure and the alliance politics entered a new period of strategic planning in full swing. This is the fundamental reason behind the tensions in the South China Sea. As a result of this structural change, China is facing a series of new issues and unprecedented new pressures and new challenges in its peripheral security.28 The U.S.– centered Asia-Pacific security system continuously squeezes China’s strategic space.29
This is manifested in a series of events that have produced significant impact upon China’s security environment causing complicated changes in China’s peripheral security environment. United States was building a C-shape ring of encirclement against China. As a result, there emerged the so-called wild goose security model in which the United States formed a multi-layer security structure with the U.S. occupying a central position. The first tier is the United States which plays the role of a wild goose. The second tier is the U.S.–Japan and U.S.–Korea security alliances. The third tier is the U.S. security alliance with Australia, Thailand and the Philippines. The fourth tier is the U.S. partnership with India, Vietnam and Indonesia.30 The goal of this strategy is to limit the scope of the influence of China’s rise and prevent it from challenging the U.S. leadership position in the region.31
More specifically, the threats to China’s peripheral security mainly come from two directions. One is the Korean Peninsula. China suffered from the war brinkmanship policy of the parties involved. The growing tensions on the peninsula pushed up the military and security coordination between the United States, Korea and Japan. The first formal U.S.–Japan–Korea trilateral security mechanism emerged imposing serious challenges to China’s national security. The other threat is from the sea, namely the maritime disputes. China’s conflict with Japan in East China Sea and with Southeastern Asian countries put a lot of security pressure upon China. Many peripheral countries formed “a community of common interest” on the maritime issues to confront China.32
In sum, Washington is the troublemaker in China’s periphery, making its otherwise benign and quiet environment grimmer. From the above cursory survey, one can clearly detect the negative evaluation of Chinese foreign policy elites of the U.S. Asia Rebalance strategy. This strategy, however, was largely discarded after Donald Trump came to power. One of the first things that Trump did after he took over power was to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a key component of the Asia Rebalance. U.S. State Department Officials also made it clear that words like “pivot” and “rebalance” were something of the past and Trump administration will have its own formulation of Asia-Pacific policy.33
