RESTRICTED
}
*
CHINA IN ASIA: CURRENT PATTERNS OF POLICY
1. Even in a short-term study it is worth recalling at the outset that foreign policy in China is merely a function of objectives set within the country and for the country as a whole. These include, notably, the modernisation and all-round strengthening of the economy, the retrieval of what is still lacking for the unification of the homeland (notably Taiwan), and the reassertion and protec- tion of Chinese national pride. These are long-running, in some sense even permanent objectives. What is noteworthy about the present period in Chinese policy, and distinguishes it from other times when nationalism had a more exclusive, xenophobic character, is that Chinese leaders have seen and said plainly that their aims cannot be achieved without (a) a long spell of external peace and (b) cooperation with and assistance from the international community.
•
2. What Chinese leaders have not explained
—
-
no doubt because it is hardly an immediate issue is what part they see China playing in the world when and if current goals are achieved. They have ruled out one extreme by declaring that China will never try to exercise hegemony. But short of that, there is still clearly much scope for enlarging China's regional influence and raising its international standing. China is not, in other words, a status quo power but a kind of power-in-waiting. The surface pattern of its foreign policy today is transitional and not necessarily a precedent, just as eclectic policies within the country are passed off as a "primary phase" of socialism. The surest sign of this is the great care the Chinese take to avoid entering into commitments that would hamper their future freedom of action, above all in the strategic sphere. The few exceptions, like the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Hong Kong, fit the rule that national unity and strength is the one overriding aim. (The 'deideologising" of policy which all this implies is so clear and complete that ideology will not need to be mentioned again in what follows.)
3. Japanese analysts, with more at stake, are trying harder than most to guess at what long-term schemes underlie the multiplicity of China's diplomatic relations and the apparent fatuousness of such general slogans as "the new international order". One recent article by a Japanese analyst suggests that China imagines a future world in which there will be 2 nuclear superpowers US and USSR; 3 economic powers - US, EC and Japan; and 3 great political powers, the US, USSR and China. As a hypothesis this has the merit of bringing out the fact that China cannot rely on either overwhelming strategic, or convincing economic, power in pursuit of its international ambitions. (Its GDP could be impressive by the end of the century if current growth rates continue, but China can hardly afford to wait until then to start competing and consolidating its position. And it knows it can only reach its economic goals with a great deal of outside help, which in the immediate term is a constraining rather than a strength- ening influence on foreign policy.) Its main assets are, in fact,
RESTRICTED
/geo-political
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.