China’s
Rise in Asia
&
Implications for
the United States
By
David Shambaugh
Professor of Political Science & International Affairs
Director, China
Policy Program
The George
Washington University
Paper prepared for Asia-Pacific Security Symposium Meeting
U.S. Security Challenges in a Changing Asia, National
Defense University
(Fort McNair),
April 22-23, 2004
When the United
States gets past its current preoccupations
in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and the Middle East, and refocuses its diplomatic
attention on a broader global basis, it will find a significantly changed Asia. The U.S.
will find that it is no longer as respected in the region. It may still be the strongest power, but this
strength buys less and less influence.
Concomitantly, China’s
power and influence have grown substantially.
China’s
rise as an Asian regional power is the most noteworthy development in Asian
international relations since the rapprochement in Sino-Soviet relations
during the late-1980s. It is having region-wide
implications in several functional spheres—economic, political, security—as
well as on a broad set of bilateral relationships. It is also impacting the development of Asian
multilateralism.
The parameters and implications of China’s
regional rise are large, and can only be summarized in this chapter. The key policy question for the United
States is whether China’s
rise as a regional power is in America’s
fundamental national interests or is inimical to them? In other words, is the Sino-American
relationship in the regional Asian context a zero-sum, positive-sum, or
negative-sum relationship? Like
everything in the world, it is, of course, mixed—but I will argue that
Sino-American interests overlap in many more areas than they diverge, and that
the complementarity of national interests suggest
many areas of current and future cooperation.
Parameters of
China’s Rise
China’s
growing power and influence is felt and can be measured in a number of
ways. Consider three spheres: economic,
political/diplomatic, and military/security.
Economic Influence
In 2002, China’s total trade volume with Japan, South
Korea, India and the ten ASEAN nations reached $205.6 billion in 2002,
reflecting 20-30 percent increases over 2001 (final trade figures for 2003 are
not yet available). Japan
remains China’s
largest trading partner, and vice versa.
Perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that today half of China’s
total trade volume is intra-regional (possibly as much as 60 percent
depending on 2003 year-end totals), and it is relatively balanced (unlike China’s
trade with the West). China’s
imports from other East Asian countries more than doubled from 1995-2002,
rising from $72 billion to $161 billion. It is estimated that East Asia,
as a whole, accounts for over 60 percent of China’s
imports. In 2002 alone China
imported $31 billion from ASEAN countries, while exporting $23.5 billion in
goods and services.
Despite this rapid and impressive
growth in China’s
intra-regional trade, China
is a very long way from dominating East Asian trade patterns. Total regional imports from China
are estimated (2002 data) to amount to only 9 percent, while imports from Japan
amounted to 17 percent, and imports from the United
States at 18 percent. While China’s
trade with some Asian countries is quite developed and growing quickly, it
remains quite underdeveloped with others.
Nonetheless, China’s
economic weight is being increasingly felt region-wide. Not only is China
increasingly trading with its neighbors, and receiving foreign direct
investment from them (an estimated 70 percent of China’s
inbound FDI originates in Asia), Chinese companies are
also beginning to invest in the region. China’s
outbound direct investment (ODI) to other East Asian countries totaled approximately
$1.2 billion by the end of 2001,
out of a total of an estimated $7.1 billion globally. Another estimate, based on a careful
analysis of Chinese government statistics, indicates that China’s
ODI to the entire Asian region (including India
but excluding Russia
and Central Asia) totaled $1.57 billion by the end of
2001, representing 39 percent of China
global ODI. In ASEAN countries alone, by the end of 2001 China
had invested in 740 projects, with a total accumulated investment of $1.091 billion,
of which $655 million is direct Chinese investment. China
has also recently begun to increase its aid and development assistance to other
Asia nations, allocating loans of $150 million for Vietnam,
$400 million for Indonesia,
$200 million for Afghanistan,
and $200 million for Myanmar
(Burma) in
2002.
Taken together, China’s
inbound and outbound trade and FDI is quickly becoming the engine of regional
economic growth in Asia—supplementing Japan
as the “lead geese” in a new model of regional development. This gives Asian countries a huge stake in China’s
continued economic growth and stability.
Political and
Diplomatic Influence
China’s
regional political/diplomatic weight is apparent in both bilateral and
multilateral contexts. Beijing’s
diplomacy has undergone a remarkable transformation in each sphere in recent
years—evincing a more noticeable presence, a more proactive stance, greater
weight, stronger influence, and a deeper integration.
Bilaterally, with the exceptions of Japan
and North Korea
(a category Japan
would not be happy to be put into), China’s
relations with all of its neighbors can be described as close, stable,
and productive.
China
has been enjoying the benefits of its “strategic partnership” with Russia
for almost a decade now. This has
resulted in demarcation and demilitarization of their long common border; close
cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); annual
presidential summits; extensive interaction across a range of fields at the
ministerial level (35 bilateral working groups have been formed to manage these
ties); modest but growing trade; substantial Russian assistance to the Chinese
military; and there is good cooperation between the two in the United Nations
Security Council and on a range of international issues.
China’s
ties with Japan
are growing rapidly in the economic arena, but seem to be frozen—or
regressing—in the political and other domains.
Both countries are the other’s largest trade partner, doing a whopping
bilateral trade of $162 billion in 2003! The dramatic growth in Japan’s
exports to China
(up 40 percent in 2003 over 2002) has helped to pull the Japanese economy out
of its decade-long stagnation, and has also allowed Japan
a slight surplus in the balance of trade.
While the volume and rapidity of growth is impressive, all
other aspects of the Sino-Japanese relationship are far less encouraging. Neither head of state has visited the other
country for over two years, and ministerial meetings are few and far between. The whole relationship remains clouded by the
history issue, which is aggravated by Prime Minister Koizumi’s repeated visits
to the Yasukuni Shrine; continued controversies over
the content of Japanese textbooks; growing disputes over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and forays by Chinese “research”
vessels into the disputed area; Japan’s growing ties with Taiwan; and a series
of incidents in China that have sparked nationalism and outrage among the
Chinese public. These have included the
unearthing of mustard gas stockpiles in Jilin Province
(which killed some civilians), some student altercations in Xian, group
prostitution tourism in Zhuhai, and assertive
internet protests over some conciliatory scholarly articles. Public opinion surveys in both countries reveal
low levels of trust and positive feelings toward the other. Thus there is a yawning gap between the
economic dimension and all other dimensions of the Sino-Japanese relationship.
China’s
ties with North Korea
must also be diagnosed as strained. To
be sure, China
probably has better relations with Pyongyang
than any other nation, but this is not to say that they are sound or
stable. To the contrary, evidence of
frictions and irritations is plentiful. China
is certainly alarmed by North Korea’s
restart of its nuclear weapons program, and as a result has demonstrated a
positive proactive diplomatic stance to forge the Six Party Talks. China
is also concerned about the refugee exodus from North
Korea into China’s
northeastern provinces; North Korea’s
potential nuclear proliferation and existing missile transfers to unstable
states; and the domestic socio-economic-political situation.
In contrast to China’s
ties with Tokyo and Pyongyang,
China’s relations with South
Korea over the past decade have been
dramatically transformed for the better. Government-to-government ties are
intensive. The prime ministers of the
two countries have held reciprocal summits each year, ministerial level
officials interact regularly, and even the two militaries engage in
increasingly regular and deep exchanges. Today, China
is the ROK’s largest trading partner, while South
Korea ranks No. 3 in China’s
trade profile. The ROK is the fifth
largest foreign direct investor in China. More than one million South Koreans visited China
in 2002, while approximately half that many (490,000) Chinese visited South
Korea.
There are currently 60,000 long-term South Korean residents in China.
Of these, 39,000 are South Korean students.
In the most recent academic year (2002-2003) China
had a total of 78,000 foreign students studying in Chinese
universities—exactly half came from South Korea! Approximately 10,000 South Korean companies
operate in China,
many having representative offices in addition to production facilities. Each week 200 air flights shuttle back and
forth between the two countries. South
Korean businessmen regularly fly over for a day’s business and return by
evening. Shipping links are also
numerous.
China’s
ties with Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) are equally sound and evince a
cooperative spirit not previously evident.
Not only is the spirit of ties close, but so too is the substance of
relations. Over the last few of years China
and the ASEAN nations have jointly undertaken a series of important mutual
steps to build their relationship.
Several of these steps are landmarks and of considerable significance
for the international relations of the entire Asian region. Consider the following.
At their
landmark summit in November 2002 China
and ASEAN signed four key agreements:
- Declaration
on Conduct in the South China Sea.
- Joint
Declaration on Cooperation in the Field of Non-Traditional Security
Issues.
- Framework
Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation.
- Memorandum
of Understanding on Agricultural Cooperation.
Of
further importance, at their October 2003 summit, China
formally acceded to ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation,
becoming the first non-ASEAN nation to do so (India
has subsequently followed suit). This
unprecedented accession commits China
to the core elements of the ASEAN’s 1967 charter. Taken together with the Code of Conduct on
the South China Sea, China
has now committed itself formally to non-aggression, non-interference, and a
variety of other conflict resolution mechanisms. At the same Bali
summit, the ASEAN and China
signed a Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity,
which sets out wide ranging areas of cooperation in the political, social,
economic, and security fields. Separate
protocols have also been concluded in the areas of human resource development,
public health, information and communication technology, transportation,
development assistance, the environment, cultural an academic exchanges, and
co-development of the Mekong River Basin. These agreements are all of considerable
significance, but perhaps the one of greatest significance was the Framework
Agreement on Economic Cooperation and Establishment of an ASEAN-China Free
Trade Area (FTA), agreed at the 2001 ASEAN-China Summit and amended at the
2002 Summit. This agreement has done much to address
Southeast Asian concerns about their economies being potentially eclipsed and
displaced by China. With total ASEAN-China trade growing rapidly,
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
set $100 billion as a target to be achieved by 2005 (which would nearly double
the $57 billion level attained in 2001). Premier Wen further
opined that by 2010, when the FTA fully comes in effect, the member states will
likely have a combined population of 2 billion and collective GDP of $3
trillion. There is little doubt that there are
tremendous economic complementarities between China
and ASEAN, as well as redundancies, and that growth in two-way trade and
investment can be expected to grow healthily in coming years.
In South Asia,
China’s ties
have also developed and stabilized—particularly with India. Perhaps one of the most important, yet least
recognized, international events of 2003 was the state visit paid by Indian
Prime Minister Vajpayee to China. The capstone of a decade-long gradual rapprochement
(punctuated by the political fallout from India’s
nuclear tests in 1998), the visit symbolized one of the most critical
developments in Asian affairs. Prime
Minister Vajpayee and his counterpart Premier Wen Jiabao signed an overarching Declaration on Cooperation,
and a total of nine separate protocols for different spheres of bilateral
cooperation—thus fully normalizing relations, and they pledged their countries
to work together for regional stability and peace. Progress was even made on their longstanding
and difficult mutual boundary dispute, codifying an Agreement on the Actual
Line of Control, and agreeing to exchange high-level emissaries to
negotiate a final settlement of the 34-year dispute. Once the 4500 kilometer border is fully
demarcated and delimited, China
will have resolved all of its border disputes.
India
also reiterated its acknowledgement that Tibet
is part of China
and promised not to support any “splittist”
activities undertaken by Tibetan exiles in India. Trade, while only $5 billion in 2002, is
expected to grow quickly.
China’s
ties with Pakistan
remain as close as ever, and China
has played an important (if not always visible) role in the war on al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Chinese interests on a range of important
issues on the subcontinent now coincide with Pakistan
and India,
and this has redounded to Beijing’s
benefit in this triangular relationship.
China’s
ties in Central Asia are similarly sound. Both bilaterally and through the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, Beijing
has been able to build substantive ties.
Among other benefits for Beijing,
this brings the promise of increased energy supplies for China’s
rapidly growing demand.
Thus, virtually all around its
periphery, China
enjoys stable, cooperative, and substantively productive relationships with its
neighbors. China’s
regional diplomacy has won many kudos in recent years, as it has been able to
project a considerably benign image throughout the region. As a result, fears of Chinese hegemony or
dominance, heard just a few years ago, have remarkably dissipated.
China’s
regional involvement and growing influence can also be seen and measured
multilaterally. Just a few years ago, Beijing
was agnostic at best about, and often opposed to, regional
multilateralism. Now there are few more
active proponents than China. China’s now participates actively in: ASEAN +
1 (ASEAN and China), ASEAN + 3 (ASEAN, China, Japan, South Korea), the ASEAN Regional
Forum (ARF), the ASEAN Vision Group, the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting (SOM),
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Pacific Basin Economic Council
(PBEC), and others. While limited to
East Asian and Pacific Rim nations, APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
group) is the only true regional intergovernmental organization, while ASEM
(the Asia-Europe Meeting) has emerged as something of a counterpart linking
Asia and Europe together, while the East Asia-Latin American Cooperation Forum
(established in 1999) does the same for these two continents. In late 2003 China
also proposed that an annual Security Policy Conference be held within the ARF
framework, to be held at the vice-ministerial or ARF “Senior Officials” level. There are also a host of non-governmental
“Track II” groups and dialogues active in the region, most notably the Council
on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), Northeast Asia Security
Cooperation Dialogue (NEASCD), and the Shangri-la Dialogue (convened in Singapore).
China
is active in all of these forums, and has even launched its own regional
dialogue mechanism, the Boao Forum, which meets
annually at a large convention site on Hainan Island. The 2003 session was attended by eight heads
of government and 1000 delegates from around the region. China’s
involvement in these organizations and forums has grown progressively more
comfortable and active since the late-1990s.
This increased level of involvement reflected many factors, particularly
the perception that these were not intrinsically hostile groupings aimed at
containing or constraining China. Quite to the contrary, China
began to realize that they were groupings amenable to China’s
perspectives, influence, and may also have some utility in constraining
American dominance in the region. The
level of China’s
involvement in these organizations exceeds that of the United
States—indeed the U.S.
is not a party to many.
Thus, China’s
involvement and influence throughout the Asian region has grown markedly during
the last few years. Its voice is heard
(and respected) on virtually every issue, and Beijing
is doing much to constructively address different challenges and to shape the
regional agenda. Its influence in some
key parts of the region—notably South Korea and Southeast Asia—is now greater
than that of the United States. It is a
significant player in South Asia and Central
Asia as well.
While China’s
political power and influence have grown, it still lags behind China’s
regional economic clout. But it does not
require a Marxist to realize that the economic base eventually shapes the
political superstructure. What about China’s
regional security/military posture?
China’s
Regional Security/Military Posture
In this domain, China’s
power is also growing. Both its military
capabilities and its involvement in regional security mechanisms have quietly
grown significantly since the late-1990s.
While this dimension of China’s
growing power is not necessarily seen as benign by its neighbors (particularly Taiwan),
it is also apparent that the fears and anxieties heard in the region just a few
years ago about the “China
threat” have dissipated markedly. It is
a refrain still heard in some Asian capitals—notably Tokyo, Taipei, Hanoi, and
New Delhi—but elsewhere in the region previously expressed angst has been
replaced with a range of confidence-building measures and a more benign view
derivative from Beijing’s political and economic posture described above.
Militarily, it is fair to say that the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) has made more progress in the past five years than in the previous
twenty-five years. Every aspect
PLA is becoming more professional and modern. Considerable progress has been made in recent
years in streamlining and upgrading the force structure; improving training,
command and control; centralizing logistics; and other reforms. Yet, the PLA continues to lag qualitatively
behind many of its neighbors in several key categories. Thus China’s
military capabilities remain a mixed picture, albeit steadily improving. The modernization of the PLA proceeds from a
qualitatively low technological and manpower base and the Chinese
military can still not be said to possess power projection capability (other
than ballistic missiles). The backward
base of China’s
defense industrial establishment combined with the Western arms embargo since
1989 has definitely hindered the scope and pace of weapons modernization.
In terms of China’s
positions on regional security concerns, one sees a parallel process to its
regional political involvement outlined above.
That is, China
has become a very active and cooperative partner in a range of
inter-governmental and non-governmental security regimes. It is now a key player in the ARF, SCO, CSCAP,
and participates in a series of bilateral security dialogues (e.g. with India,
Japan, and South
Korea).
China
has become much proactive in the ARF since 2001 and sees it as a potential
basis for establishing a regional cooperative security community. For example, at the November 2003 ARF Inter-Sessional Group (ISG) meeting, China tabled a wide-ranging
set of proposals for increased regional military exchanges and establishing an
annual Security Policy Conference (SPC), at which China is reportedly prepared
to discuss a range of issues it was previously unwilling to entertain in such a
regional forum, e.g. future challenges to regional security; military
strategies and doctrines of member states; the Revolution in Military Affairs
(RMA) and defense modernization in the region; the role of regional militaries
in non-traditional security; defense conversion; civil-military relations; and
other unspecified issues.
This increased involvement has also won Beijing
regional respect, and it has helped to alleviate latent concerns about China’s
regional ambitions. By acceding to the
ASEAN Treaty of Amity of Cooperation (the first non-ASEAN member to do so), China
has committed itself to the peaceful resolution of disputes in Southeast
Asia. The SCO contains similar
commitments with respect to Central Asia.
Thus, taken together with the economic and
political/diplomatic realms, China’s
regional military/security posture has reduced—rather than increased—concerns
about China’s
growing power and potential regional role.
Beijing has also embarked
upon a major propaganda initiative, dubbed “China’s
Peaceful Rise,” aimed at further defusing latent anxieties.
What does this all mean for the United
States?
Implications for the United
States
The implications of China’s
regional rise for the United States
can be viewed along at least two dimensions.
The first is to ask whether China’s
growing power and influence inexorably comes at America’s
expense? Does it mean that the relative
power of the United States
is concomitantly diminished? The second,
more meaningful, dimension is the extent to which the respective national
interests and policies of the United States
and China
coincide (or diverge) on a host of regional issues. Even if the relative balance of power and influence
between the two countries is changed, the operative issue is whether or not the
U.S. and China
can find common ground, and therefore opportunity for cooperation, on a wide
range of regional issues.
With respect to the first issue, it is overly simplistic to
conclude that an increase in China
regional power and influence (both of which have substantially increased since
the late-1990s) inevitably results in a reciprocal decrease in American power
and influence. Power and influence, at
least in a non-bipolar system, as is the case in Asia
today, are not a zero-sum game. In some
cases there may seem to be a correlation—for example, China’s
power and influence have grown particularly in Southeast Asia
and South Korea,
while this is where the American presence and influence has most markedly
declined in the region. While America’s
influence over Japan
has held steady or has grown, China’s
has declined. China’s
influence over North Korea
has declined, but so has that of the United
States (compared with the Clinton
administration). Vis-à-vis Taiwan,
both America’s
and China’s
influence has declined over the last four years. In South Asia, the
ties and influence of both the U.S.
and China have
increased in recent years. In Central
Asia, America’s
interests, presence, and influence have all increased dramatically (from nil)
since 9/11, while China’s
have also grown and remain strong.
Granted these are imprecise, yet commonsense, calculations
of the relative regional influence of China
and the United States. But two points and one observation
emerge. The first is that tallying such
influence as if it were a bank ledger of different portfolio accounts is not
very meaningful (even if it can somehow be measured), as the constituent parts
do not equal the sum total. Surely, the
Asia-Pacific region—stretching from Afghanistan to the western Pacific Ocean—is
large enough for both the United States and China pursue their respect
interests and coexist peacefully, if not cooperatively. Secondly, both parties can gain or lose
influence in a given sub-region or bilateral relationship—it is not a zero-sum
game. The observation is that a decline
in one nation’s influence may have nothing to do with the other nation. For example, America’s
declining image and influence in South Korea
and Southeast Asia owes as much to Washington’s
attitude and behavior as it does to Beijing’s
posture. If anything, China
has been able to move in and exploit the vacuum left by America’s
heavy-handedness, arrogance, and rising anti-American sentiment. Beijing
has played its hand well in this regard, but there are also other factors at
work in each case, e.g. China’s
historical influence, geographic proximity, economic complementarities and
benefits, a convergence of normative views of inter-state relations, and
overlapping security concerns.
This leads us to the second dimension of the U.S.-China
relationship in Asia—the extent to which the two
nation’s policies and interests converge or diverge across a range of regional
issues. Perhaps the best way to both summarize and
visualize these is in the following table.
Table 1
The United
States, China,
and Regional Issues
Issue
|
Convergence
|
Divergence
|
Uncertain
|
|
Developing regional
multilateral institutions
|
|
X
|
|
|
Turning Six-Party Talks into NE
Asian Cooperative Security mechanism
|
|
X
|
|
|
Strengthening ARF
|
|
|
X
|
|
U.S.-Japan Alliance
|
|
|
X
|
|
Other U.S.
Alliances in Region
|
X
|
|
|
|
U.S.
Military Forces in Region
|
|
|
X
|
|
Broader Role for Japan’s
Self-Defense Forces
|
|
X
|
|
|
De-Nuclearization
of North Korea
|
X
|
|
|
|
Sustenance of North Korean
regime
|
|
|
X
|
|
Deepening China-S. Korea
Ties
|
|
X
|
|
|
Fighting Organized Crime, Drug
Smuggling, etc.
|
X
|
|
|
|
Counter-terrorism
|
X
|
|
|
|
Non-Proliferation
|
X
|
|
|
|
Taiwan’s
Defense
|
|
X
|
|
|
Theater Missile Defense for Taiwan
|
|
X
|
|
|
Theater Missile Defense for
Japan & S. Korea
|
|
|
X
|
|
Deepening China-Burma Ties
|
|
X
|
|
|
Deepening China-ASEAN Ties
|
|
|
X
|
|
Stabilizing Indonesia
|
X
|
|
|
|
Maintaining Stability in South
Asia
|
X
|
|
|
|
Ensuring Safety & CBMs in Indian & Pakistani nuclear arsenals
|
X
|
|
|
|
India-Pakistan détente
|
X
|
|
|
|
Stabilizing Nepal &
Controlling Maoist insurgency
|
X
|
|
|
|
Deepening China-India Ties
|
X
|
|
|
|
Deepening U.S.-India Ties
|
|
|
X
|
|
Deepening U.S.-Pakistan ties
|
|
|
X
|
|
Resolving Kashmir
Problem
|
X
|
|
|
|
Deepening U.S.-Central Asian
Ties
|
|
|
X
|
|
U.S.-led Occupation of Afghanistan
|
X
|
|
|
|
China-Russia “Strategic
Partnership”
|
|
X
|
|
|
Shanghai Cooperation
Organization
|
X
|
|
|
|
South China Sea
Dispute
|
|
X
|
|
|
East China Sea
Dispute
|
|
X
|
|
|
|