out-side powers
From the perspective of peripheral diplomacy, Beijing stresses that its policy toward ASEAN countries is intended to strengthen its relations with ASEAN countries in many areas while defending its core interests regarding sovereignty issues. But what exactly has prompted the Chinese leadership to place such an unprecedentedly strong and specific emphasis on these activities at this time? And what specific goals or outcomes does Beijing have in mind regarding Chinese peripheral diplomacy toward ASEAN countries?
Among authoritative or quasi-authoritative sources, these largely platitudinous descriptions of Chinese goals rarely include specific
examples. However, non-authoritative sources provide ample cases.
One very notable example is provided by a Chinese scholar who states that Beijing’s Southeast Asia peripheral diplomacy should ad-dress four distinct goals or aspects.
First, Beijing must maintain peace and stability with ASEAN neighboring countries, in part by seeking “a peaceful solution to ter-ritorial disputes, such as those in the South China Sea, with some of mainland China’s neighbors through dialogue and consultation,” al-though Beijing “will oppose any party’s provocative acts that stir up trouble in the region.” Second, Beijing must develop mutually beneficial cooperation by forming a greater web of “crossed economic corridors from south to north and west to east,” thereby “hastening interconnectivity and infrastructure construction.” This apparently relates to the notion of the Maritime Silk Road and economic corridors, as mentioned above. Third, it must enhance security in the periphery by creating “a common security circle in neighboring regions,” in which mainland China “adheres to a security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and coordination…and positively pro-vides public products for regional security.” Fourth, Beijing should work “to establish a community of common destiny and promote friendly exchanges through various channels, cultivate more friends and partners, and share weal and woe with them.”33
We can find in the above that the key challenge confronting
main-Zhao Kejin, “Common destiny needs stability,” China Daily, December 31, 2013,
<http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2013-12/31/content_17207489.htm>. The author is deputy director of Center for U.S.-China Relations, Tsinghua University. Also see Chen Xiangyang, 〈中國周邊外交新境界〉(“New Vista for China’s Peri-pheral Diplomacy”),《 瞭 望 觀 察 網 》(Liaowang) , November 4, 2013, <http://
www.lwgcw.com/NewsShow.aspx?newsId=33431>; Zhu Feng, “China’s Security
land China’s neighborhood policy toward the ASEAN countries there-fore focuses on how to craft and implement an integrated strategy that simultaneously maintains and expands existing positive and bene-ficial, long-term relations with ASEAN nations and organizations (and involved powers such as the United States), while more effectively protecting and advancing mainland China’s sovereignty interests, es-pecially in the South China Sea. Many Chinese observers readily recognize this challenge. Moreover, for some observers, it is linked to certain weaknesses in mainland China’s neighborhood policy, such as coordinating between economic and security objectives, and the inability to reverse an image of mainland China as a threat to ASEAN states.
The tensions over sovereignty and resource issues with mainland China have been caused and exacerbated by other parties, either directly (in the case of the disputants themselves) or indirectly, in the case of the United States and Japan (the latter concerning the South China Sea disputes). Although few if any nations would publicly acknowledge that they might be to blame for sovereignty disputes, Chinese sources are especially adamant on this point, which contributes to a fervent level of self-righteousness.34The involvement of Wash-ington and Tokyo in these disputes is almost uniformly seen as
Situation in the Periphery: Problems and Challenges,”《現代國際關係》(Xiandai Guoji Guanxi), October 20, 2013. Zhu in particular stresses the importance, as objectives, of the land and maritime Silk Road economic belts put forward by Xi Jinping, stating that they “to a considerable degree [point] out for us the new direction for future peripheral strategic planning.” For a similar point, see Shao Yuqun, “Two Roads, But One Destination?”
Zhang Yunling & Zhou Fangyin, “Chapter One: China’s Relations with Its Neighbors after Reform and Opening up,” in Wang Yizhou, ed., Transformation of Foreign Affairs and International Relations in China, 1978-2008 (Leiden:
Brill NV, 2011), pp. 37-72.
unhelpful at best, and fundamentally disruptive and threatening at worst. Indeed, although authoritative sources usually avoid making such an explicit connection, many other Chinese sources believe that increased U.S. involvement in mainland China’s peripheral disputes encourages or permits other claimants to “make trouble.”
In fact, in addition to the general emphasis on taking a more as-sertive stance toward territorial and other disputes, the other main feature of Beijing’s new neighborhood policy is the emphasis on using it growing economic clout to develop an enduring, integrated set of relationships with ASEAN states that will eventually alter their incentive structure in ways that benefit mainland China and themselves.
This undertaking—centered on the creation of the Maritime Silk Road, economic corridors, major infrastructure investments, oil pipe-lines, and other transnational or regional development projects—is usually cast in positive terms as an effort to build and deepen positive-sum, mutually beneficial development ties. That said, the importance of such undertakings in an overall effort to create a set of positive and negative inducements for other states is to not “make trouble for China.”35 For some observers, this changed environment could and should eventually result in new security arrangeme nts that favor main-land China, as well as in clearer, more determined efforts to punish wrong-doing as defined by Beijing.36
Chen Xiangyang,〈應對“大周邊”六板塊〉 (“Deal With the Six Plates of the
‘Grand Periphery’ ”),《瞭望觀察網》(Liaowang), August 23, 2010, <http://www.
lwgcw.com/NewsShow.aspx? newsId=11720>. Chen refers to the above six areas as six large “plates” that together constitute China’s “grand periphery.” A military source cites six major aspects of China’s peripheral environment in 2014: Russia, Japan, North Korea, India, Central Asia, and ASEAN. See〈2014, 中國周邊形 勢六大看點〉(“2014: Six major aspects of China’s periphery situation”), Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, January 6, 2014, <http://
www.mod.gov.cn/big5/opinion/2014-01/06/content_4482084.htm>.
It is tempting to conclude from such apparent desires and intentions that most Chinese view, and hence probably under Xi-Li’s leadership, the neighborhood policy not only as a more effective way of balancing the potentially conflicting goals of cooperative development and the defense of sovereignty, but also as a means of challenging the current U.S.-led security order in the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, it is important to note that while undoubtedly suspicious of U.S. intentions, some Chinese observers reject the idea that Beijing’s problems with ASEAN states are due primarily to the United States and the U.S.-led security order. More importantly, several observers also imply, if not outrightly argue, that the only viable long-term environment for mainland China’s periphery and the Asia-Pacific region is one that involves a more cooperative Sino-U.S. relationship. This fact, and the absence of overtly confrontational rhetoric toward the U.S.
in authoritative commentary on peripheral diplomacy, suggests that Beijing does not necessarily regard its relations with ASEAN states as part of a zero-sum competition with Washington.
Michael D. Swaine, “Chinese Views and Commentary on Periphery Diplomacy,”
China Leadership Monitor, No. 44, July 28, 2014, China Leadership Monitor,
<http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm44ms.pdf>.
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