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p-service and sometimes genuine support to efforts for global armament, China is most unlikely to take the binding steps of adhesion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty or to a Comprehensive Test Ban.
16. Japan poses special problems for Chinese policy in this context, as the only other power in east Asia with a supra-regional role. The Chinese are predisposed to fear, distrust and strive to master the Japanese by virtue of painful historical experience. They are uneasy about, and to a limited extent in competition with, Japan's economic strength in the region. Further ahead, they have practical grounds for concern that a politically and militarily strong Japan might frustrate their own longer-term ambitions and squeeze them out of the most profitable ground for manoeuvre between the two super-powers. They are particularly nervous about what the Japanese might do in relation to Taiwan. For all these reasons, it has been a high Chinese priority to try to curb any trend to Japanese rearmament and to enforce Japanese recognition of China's own standing and territorial claims, inter alia by skilful use of the "war guilt" theme, These negative elements in Sino-Japanese relations are of course balanced by China's plain need for Japanese capital, technology and industrial skills, so that a kind of self-correcting mechanism ought to hold the Chinese back from ever going too far in throwing their weight around with the Japanese. At a deeper level, however, Japan's economic success provokes envy and resentment. How could Japan, a province of the Sinic world, come to do better than the heartland of this world?
17.
Western analysts have often speculated about the possibility of a Sino-Japanese tandem as the future dominant force in East Asian affairs. This model would not be ruled out in Chinese eyes if Japan could be reduced to the position of a junior partner, politically and militarily, with an economy which was more complementary than competitive. The question is, of course, whether Japan could ever accept such a role - or indeed whether it would make for strategic stability in face of continuing Soviet strength, except with a large continuing American presence which by that time might not suit the Chinese, Japanese, or even the Americans.
18. Among her "inner regional" concerns, China's first priority must be the recovery of Taiwan. Peking's present goal is to take advantage of the unfreezing which is taking place in Taiwan by exploiting the new possibilities of direct human and (prospectively) commercial contact to lay the foundations for future reunification. This strategy is by no means bound to work; but the Chinese will be ready to lay the blame stridently on others, especially the Americans and Japanese, if it does not. On other regional issues, China's policy can be explained by a few simple and constant elements of raison d'etat, obscured though these often become by an ingrained penchant for secrecy when dealing with nearby Communist regimes. The aims are to roll back the Soviet Union; to neutralise other potentially hostile regional powers (in particular Vietnam); to maintain and when possible make good China's own territorial claims; but to control the level of existing military tensions and Chinese military commitments, avoid creating new tensions and commitments; and above all do nothing that might risk drawing a strong and more permanent super-power presence into the area. These considerations explain both the sometimes
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