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November 08, 2006

The China Question

A General Assessment of China’s Likely Future Strategic Intentions

 

 

This work was adapted from an academic piece written earlier this year.

 

There seems readily apparent a divergence of opinion within Western circles on the future strategic intentions of China. This divergence is complicated by being divided along ideological as well as economic lines, which often crisscross and diverge from one another and at other times run completely parallel. On the one hand there is the strange alliance between those both on the political left who are ideologically driven and those of various political affiliations whose interest in profit takes center stage. Both groups have become willing to overlook both the condition of workers in China or any future threat by the regime and are essentially two sides of the same coin. This coin makes up a powerful coalition for the status quo in Western policy towards China and the unlikelihood of any change in our policy of not tying economic favors to human rights or strategic concerns. This is likely much more the case in light of recent US elections. Bill Gertz refers to those friendly to communist Chinese interests as “red-teamers”. On the other hand there is the “blue team,” which is made up largely of anti-communist conservatives, human rights groups, and military strategists who use some of the CPC’s own language and actions taken in the public and private spheres to compare it to Nazi Germany in both form and intent.

 

In the face of what has proven to work against the Soviet Union – strategic economic policies coupled with a hardening of our intelligence and military infrastructure, many (not all, but many) on the ideological left in the US see China as a victim of US hegemony (as they see many other groups and regimes, including North Korea and radical Islam). They believe strongly that the only way to bring about a less combative China and a China less threatening to its neighbors as well as US interests is to draw down further our strategic profile in the region and by increasing rather than decreasing our scientific and technological cooperation. Believers in this policy maintain that once this is adequately achieved and the US and China achieve parity, China will no longer seek to undermine us economically or strategically. It is also important to point out that adherents to this view of Sino-US relations also deny Chinese involvement in significant continued weapons proliferation in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and other states as a result of Chinese direct involvement through its state-run enterprises and the PLA. They believe with some current accuracy that China is still a loosely clung ball of mud and straw; however, they may not wish to precisely examine the CCP-run government’s resolve to change toward the more pernicious and its statements to use practical resources to bring that about, including the political life-support provided by Western investors.

 

While attending a luncheon at the Federal Reserve in Dallas a few months ago, I picked up a sizable brochure touting the myriad economic opportunities for investors in China. The publication, "China’s Churn", was written by FED economist Maredith Walker after her guided tour through China. Walker has since been promoted to a spot in the New York FED. But certainly her tour guides didn’t really need to show her the pretty new buildings or modern town centers in Pudong, Wenzhou, Beijing, or Honk Kong, among others. Two figures have made industrialists glaze over with drunken delight. The first is a potential workforce and consumer market 7 times the size of that in the United States. The next is the wage rate for those living in China: suppressed by officials to make it far below that of even the poorest LDCs and LLDCs in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. China has also shown growth potential – with a 7-8% rate of annual growth, which obviously is enormous. And finally, what makes this market possible is political willingness to allow trade to go forward by Washington. The publication quotes Alan Greenspan (former FED chair) as declaring that,

 

China, with a population of 1.2 billion people, has an economy that when measured taking into account the purchasing power of alternative currencies is larger than that of Japan and may be approaching half the size of the U.S. economy.

 

Indeed, the publication in its introduction states that China is currently expected to surpass Japan to become the world’s second-most powerful economy behind that of the United States. So for investors only interested in milk and honey and not interested in whether there is a fish hook awaiting them or their better interests (not to mention the plight of dissidents in China, many of whom are being forced into labor through the Laogai system producing products for the West), China looks irresistibly succulant.

 

Many so-called “blue teamers” of course see China’s churn as something akin to the massive economic explosion seen in early Nazi Germany, where western investors infused large amounts of assets into Germany’s economy, allowing the state to build the world’s most modern and ready force while ironically, keeping it no secret before or during the fact. The dollar reigned supreme and human rights and national security took a back seat, some assert. But assuming China is attempting to follow in “Hitlerian” footsteps, how likely is consummation?

 

First, the CCP must maintain ideological control during its unprecedented economic and information expansion. Almost twenty years after the Tiananmen massacre, Chinese citizens have more access to Western influence via the internet and other media as well as Western travelers and through academic exchange programs than in any time in its history. CCP allows this for three reasons: it hopes the contact will help to help in its propaganda push toward the West, it hopes to use exchanges (particularly in government, technology and the sciences) to help it gather more intelligence political and S&T that it can use strategically, and it hopes that controlled access to the West will help persuade Chinese citizens that Western ideals of liberty and freedom go too far and therefore should be curtailed in China. (It might also be argued that some in the West are making similar calculations that the interchange will go the other way).

 

At the same time, China attempts to strengthen filters on information flow to ensure desired results. One method is by rewarding outside journalists and other members of the media, politicians, and the business community for helping maintain a positive image of China abroad. This reward program works much like a club for which its members are granted access to exclusive opportunities within China. And for those who do not play along: no access to China at all. This helps to make it far more likely that documentaries coming out of China pass along mostly state-approved content (e.g. anything one might happen to see on the Discovery Times Channel). China is also working hard to control its citizens’ access and expressions of thought on the internet. With the help of willing western accomplices Google, Yahoo, and others, China has censored search results and been given the whereabouts of internet dissidents such as Li Zhi, among others. China truly the nascent counterintelligence state is also using the internet offensively, to steal technology from other states and to attack computer networks abroad (as we addressed in our group discussion last week).

 

China is also using the internet along with a variety of “on the ground” resources to go after ideological diversion within the regime. According to the most recent figures I could find from 2000, 2.7 million of the presently estimated 60 million Christians have been arrested. Of those, 440,000 were sentenced to forced labor and re-education. 200,000 Christians have been forced to flee their homes and families and over 10,000 have recently been martyred for their faith. Another 20,000 have been disabled through brutal torture, nearly 130,000 are under constant surveillance, and at least 1,120,000 face fines and other penalties for simply practicing their Christian faith. This says nothing of devout Buddhists such as those in Tibet, Muslims, Hindus, or other religious minorities – or even what the state considers heretical communists (Clearharmony.net). Dissident Hao Wu of course has been a recent poster child for reform, but there are many who obviously are no longer alive to tell their story.

 

Among the two ways that China has used its capitalistic instincts to buttress its lacking social conscience has been first with the harvesting of organs of dissidents and common criminals while selling them abroad through the black market, according to 2001 congressional testimony by Dr. Wang Guoqi before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. The other came later through accounts in the press that tissue from dead prisoners was being offered for the production of skin care products being sold in Europe, which naturally has brought forth some comparisons to the infamous Nazi lampshade.

 

Those doubtful of a more open CCP-controlled China also point to continued aggressive espionage, rate of military modernization (including its ICBM nuclear forces), and refusal to abide by key treaties to which China is signatory, such as aspects of GAT, Kyoto, and various non-proliferation agreements, particularly with respect to North Korea, to which Chinese officials still refer to their relationship with Pyongyang as “closer than teeth and gums”. As for the accessibility of raw materials necessary to keep China’s war machine churning, not only is Middle Eastern oil viable for China, as the somewhat outdated DIJ (Defense Intelligence Journal, Vol. 10, Number 1, Winter 2001) assessment states, but Russian oil is too. As long as Sino-Russian relations remain strong (and there are many things to make that so), China will have access to that market and other Russian markets for raw goods (and lest we forget, Russian armaments). Incidentally, the DIJ estimation of Russian decline appears to be sadly off from present realities and trends. Putin’s consolidation of power internally and externally – the latter by a re-emphasis on military prowess – coupled with the great success of much-needed Gazprom services in Europe are two leading components of this. So China most likely will be able to enjoy a stable ally to the north so long as politics between the two remain good. 

 

It seems reasonable that those who gather information about China not simply from those ordained to dispense information by the Chinese Information Ministry, might have a better footing on the true political climate in Beijing, so I am inclined to lean more “blue” in that respect. Beijing’s military goals seem in little doubt and those who debate them have yet to produce anything worthwhile in regard to proof that CCP intentions are in any way friendly to the West or the region. But, the question is whether Beijing’s wish list will match its “get list”, particularly by 2015. Even as Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Olympics Berlin-style, it may not be able to then follow through with its flight of fancy. Again, China appears to lack somewhat the efficiency on the ground the Soviets maintained through their “progress” operations in the former Eastern Bloc (though it's good to avoid going overboard in underestimating their ability to exert control). China is largely rural, allowing in theory for more detachment from centralized government and little of that may significantly change by 2015 even as infrastructure as expected improves. But without real purges, local authorities will still be able at times to be bought off or be driven by conscience more than ideological dogma. Word is arising from personal sources inside China that in some cases, communist dogma is being ignored with respect to enforcement of laws against religious groups. Officials, it is said, have expressed in some cases that because they could see the benefit to the community in lower crime and improved citizenship behavior within a particular religious sect and among members of the community at large, they’ve been persuaded to passively or even actively lend their support to those groups in direct opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. We may also see many of those not arrested but who sympathized with the Tiananmen demonstrators now arising to positions of authority in technology, law enforcement, and the many of the commanding heights of governmental totality.

 

Another thing which might hamper the regime’s goals of strategic supremacy in the region and China’s stated goal of bipolarity with the US globally is the timing of China’s population apex. In other words, the availability of the greatest number of military-capable males in contrast to its closing the strategic technology gap before the effects of family-reduction policies begin to be felt with the emerging adult population. Now of course one can assume Chinese leaders will work with whatever they have whenever they decide they are ready to make any kind of move either against Taiwan or other opponents; however, it is nonetheless worthy of noting. In the March/April issue of Foreign Policy magazine, an article titled “The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration” notes that the current overall ratio of males to females at 120 to 100 respectively is creating quite a bit of angst among males in search of something to do. One can also surmise this passing peak of battle-able males is being eyed by nervous Chinese generals. So while political corruption, disenchantment with totalitarianism on the local and perhaps among some at the national level, along with a growing distaste for the effete leadership in Beijing may be growing, one cannot discount the state taking whatever actions are necessary for the CCP to hold on to power and to project that power internally and externally (the ends often being one and the same), while firing up militant nationalism with communist characteristics (which invariably means purges) as an indispensable component in that. Further, if prior action is any indicator of future performance, we might be wise to expect it.

 

Thus, it would seem right to re-examine our policy toward China on at least two levels: that of human rights and of protecting our strategic best interest (and in the case of a communist China, the two are really inseparable). Perhaps an economic middle ground can be found for our anxious investors, but were hostilities to erupt (either hot or cold), China has already promised to use those economic ties to harm us – and harm us right now they could. While it would without question do them harm also, they’re not a democracy and they can to some large extent ignore the effects on their populous by sheer use of suppressive tactics, so long as a. the regime is not already significantly weakened under its cloak, b. internal resistance (social and perhaps militant) is not perceived to be propelling itself with solid forward momentum difficult to oppose, and c. the water level outside the dock remains unchanged. In other words, so long as relative Chinese power remains the same internally as it was when China pulled out of US markets, the regime may be able to ignore the dire consequences such action would have on the economic lives of its citizens. Even in a best-case scenario, US elected officials would need to acknowledge economic losses and at least appear to diligently seek to mitigate them. “Standing on the shoulders of giants” is both the practical and preferred strategy chosen by Red China to advance its agenda against US interests, from spying to economic entanglements to political influence both licit and illicit, and a possibly potent one.

 

So, while it's apparent that a divergence of opinion within Western circles on China’s endgame may well continue to be exist along ideological and economic lines, it is the responsibility of the US government to see to the protection of its long-term interests and base them on sound principles rather than political ones. Intentions are a tricky thing to pinpoint, but they can be inferred by the presence of militant ideologies and hostile policies repeatedly verbalized and carried out by such things as intensified spying and military buildups. By cutting off many economic ties to the Soviet Union the U.S. won concessions on human rights and strategically as well. The same can be said with North Korea. If China balks, at least then we know we are dealing with a weaker and hostile China rather than a strong or even superior hostile China that has tentacles firmly suctioned to every hemisphere including our own. Until Chinese leaders ameliorate their foreign policy both by seeking to end the stream of remarks by officials on the order of “war with the US is inevitable” along with other rhetoric which threatens East Asia and also ceases activity necessary to prepare to make good on past or future threats, we need to learn from the pages of history. Indeed, those pages are plentiful with examples set forth by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and others and are followed by communist China, thus we must also study them and prepare lest we be hoisted on our own petard. To any degree a hoisting should occur, it most certainly would be unpleasant for us, let alone China’s own people and closest neighbors.

 

 

Posted by Martin at November 8, 2006 03:47 PM

Comments

Posted by: Roger C. S. Lin at November 21, 2006 05:36 AM