China factor makes Asia volatile

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri
The Statesman, 21 October

The closure of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of China as a major power in Asian affairs. This has been the result of its well-orchestrated post-Cold War twin strategy of building its power projection capabilities yet, at the same time, seeking engagement and friendship ~ which it regarded as a tactical input towards its envisioned goal of a great power status. A great power profile, Beijing’s leaders felt, was imperative for fulfilling its multi-faceted political, economic and military ambitions. And it is with this aim in view that China participated in global regimes like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). While it made a diplomatic offensive to engage its Asian neighbours, it went out of its way to perk up its bilateral relations with once “hostile” (the Chinese version of the term “hostile” also means “rival”) states like Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the Asean member states. It also made a desperate attempt to earn international credibility by participating in various international and regional multilateral fora thus trying to show a humane face to its armed forces. These efforts include publishing its defence spending, sending military personnel to six UN peacekeeping task zones in West Asia, Iraq and Kuwait, West Sahara, Cambodia, Mozambique and Libya. But despite all this, Beijing could hardly allay fears and misgivings amongst its Asian neighbours. Therefore, the strategic scenario in Asia remained as it was before the 1990s.

In fact, the China factor remained a source of concern to many states in Asia, particularly to those in the periphery of its borders. With many of these states Beijing’s relations have been far from friendly in the past and some bilateral disputes still remain unresolved. These states have every reason to be alarmed about China’s strategic intentions. In sheer size the Chinese military is awesome. With more than 3 million strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its huge military-industrial complex, China’s military system has no peer in the world. Obviously, this is a significant factor in the security and strategic calculations of other states in the region with a direct impact on their defence expenditure and arms-upgrading initiatives. Moreover, in the Asian strategic context, China’s nuclear inventory, including its ballistic missiles give it an edge over any other country in Asia. China’s Army, Air Force, Navy and missile force ~ each of them the largest in the continent ~ have mitigated many of the drawbacks stemming from structural and technological obsolescence confronting the Chinese military system. Although the disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union has been a major setback to China in terms of ideological and systemic stability, it has significantly reduced its threat perception posed by the second most powerful global military power in the world. The Sino-Soviet dispute had long been a thorn in the flesh of Beijing. Somewhat relaxed, China now concentrated on not only economic development but also modernisation of its military capabilities. The nature of the military modernisation programme considerably heightened tension in the neighbouring states of China. This, in conjunction with Beijing’s readiness to use military force to bolster its domestic political goals and suppress all vestiges of opposition to it, as demonstrated by the brutal killing of pro-democratic agitators in June 1989 as well as its well-calculated military forays to secure territorial claims, or foreign policy goals, makes China an uncertain and volatile factor in the Asian strategic scenario.

Here it must be borne in mind that China holds the unique distinction of being a country that shares common borders with the largest number of nations. These nations are: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrghzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, North Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal. It also shares its maritime borders with Taiwan and Japan. This list can be further extended by including China’s adversaries in the unsettled maritime boundaries in the South China Sea which is the main focus of China’s military modernisation. China has fought wars with the USA in Korea (1951-53), India (1962), former Soviet Union (1968) and with Vietnam (1978-79). China has also been charged by various other neighbouring countries of giving not only support but also arms to local insurgents and military juntas amounting to blatant interference in their internal affairs. It has also been accused of violating international treaties to which it is a party by exporting certain prohibited military weapons and technologies. This track record does not assure its neighbours of peaceful coexistence with the Chinese dragon. It is, indeed, disquieting for many countries in Asia that the Chinese are still sunken in the “Middle Kingdom” syndrome – a sense of racial supremacy and expect all other nations to “kowtow” to it. In fact, the national pride of the Chinese has its root deep in a militaristic ethos and a history of external onslaughts, internal intrigues and changing regimes. This national mindset is essentially hegemonic and can never be conducive to a stable and balanced security paradigm.

China’s export of arms and military technologies to other countries merits a little elaboration. It is no longer a secret that Beijing exported almost all kinds of missiles, including its DF-3 (or CSS-2) intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia, nuclear weapons related know-how to Pakistan (it is widely believed that Pakistan’s Ghauri missile is a replica of China’s Deng Fong (eastern wind), huge arms to the Khmer Rouge that perpetrated a virtual genocidal ultra-left campaign in Cambodia in 1991, to the military regime in Myanmar beginning 1990 and to both Iran and Iraq during the Gulf conflict All this underlines Beijing’s destabilising strategy in Asia as a whole.

After the Gulf War came to an end, the Chinese leadership felt the necessity to revise its strategic concepts which resulted in the issuance of a “new operation decree” by Jiang Zemin in his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). This change came about after a long discussion in various forums, including the Liberation Army Daily. The new decree emphasised, for example, that “the basic task of warfare should be to safeguard the territorial integrity and reunification of the motherland. Offensive warfare should be the main pattern of military action and mobile warfare can play a vital role in realising strategic objectives. In waging local warfare under high-tech conditions, due to the features of high weapon efficiency, unsettled frontiers, and fast changing operational patterns, it is absolutely imperative to maintain a high level of alertness and force mobility in order to get an upper hand in battlefield initiative. Such thinking brought about some significant attributes to the Chinese strategic planning: all military campaigns will be offensive; the campaigns will be swift, stunning to the enemy, simultaneous operation by the maximum use of the army, airforce and, if needed, the navy; the timing of the operation will be bases on advanced and accurate information and intelligence and, above all, the first strike should be localised. Obviously, the neighbouring countries will ignore the implications of this strategy at their peril.

Clarifying the importance of this “new thinking” General Fu Quanyou said: “Operation decrees gives a new dimension to the capabilities of our armed forces. The existing operation decrees were promulgated in the mid-80s. Since then, far-reaching changes have taken place around us and we must now look afresh at our strategic perception. This perception demands our armed forces to remain in foolproof preparedness for any eventuality. Our enemies must not surprise us. We will surprise them. We must defeat them at the shortest notice and to this end in view, we must demonstrate our mastery over military technologies. And it is exactly for this reason that we must give our close attention to further modernisation of our military system.”

China’s military modernisation is far more complex than what normally meets the eye. One of the basic reasons for this complexity is the fact that the PLA is not only an all-encompassing monolith comprising the army, the navy and the air force, but also the armed police and every other ingredient of external and internal, even provincial, security. It is not an army of the state. It is an army of the Communist Party. However, in terms of power equations in China, the party, the PLA, and the state work more as separate, independent entities that coordinate as they revolve around their “Great Leaders” who often hold multiple offices and depend more on personal loyalties than official channels in which case “power” very often flows out of the barrel of a gun.

The “new operation decree” and its clarification by General Quanyou are no music to the states not only in China’s close periphery but also other states of Asia within the range of China’s ballistic missiles. The power imbalance resulting from China’s “offensive” military posture and “military modernisation” makes the strategic scenario of the continent of Asia not only increasingly variable but also volcanic.

The author is a senior fellow in International Relations at the University of London. He has recently authored Leftism in India 1917-1947