China in the Indian Ocean Region: Lessons in PRC Grand Strategy

Abstract

This article examines China's grand strategy by analyzing evidence of the PRC's activity in the Indian Ocean region. This includes a review of applicable theoretical concepts from the realist school of thought, a discussion of Chinese activities in the region, and a consideration of alternative perspectives. The overarching theme throughout this study is an attempt to determine what effect China's view towards the United States has on its southwestern development, and what the nature of China's grand strategy could mean for the Indian Ocean region in the future. The study concludes with an analysis of the applicability of the selected international relations literature, and a qualified prediction of future PRC involvement in the region.

Notes

1. For the effect of China's rise on the international system (including theoretical implications), see: Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China's Grand Strategy and International Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 81–101; Goldstein, “Great Expectations: Interpreting China's Arrival,” International Security, vol. 22, no. 3 (Winter, 1997–98): 36–73; Yong Deng and Thomas G. Moore, “China Views Globalization: Toward a New Great-Power Politics?” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 117–136. For implications toward American and international security, see: Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Project Air Force, 2000); Robert G. Sutter, China's Rise in Asia: Promises and Perils (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), especially pp. 265–279; David Shambaugh, “China's Military Views the World: Ambivalent Security,” International Security, vol. 24, no. 3 (Winter 1999–2000): 52–79. For China's effect on Asian geopolitics, see: Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), pp. 30–66, 159–189; Thomas M. Kane, Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power (Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2002), especially pp. 108–133; Shambaugh, “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order,” International Security, vol. 29, no. 3 (Winter 2004–05): 64–99; Robert S. Ross, “The Geography of the Peace: East Asia in the Twenty-First Century,” International Security, vol. 23, no. 4 (Spring 1999): 81–118; Julie M. Rahm, “Russia, China, India: A New Strategic Triangle for a New Cold War?” Parameters, vol. XXXI, no. 4 (Winter 2001–02): 87–97; Chung Min Lee, “China's Rise, Asia's Dilemma,” The National Interest no. 81 (Fall 2005): 88–94; Subodh Atal, “The New Great Game,” The National Interest, no. 81 (Fall 2005): 101–105.

2. Applied IR theory in this study is taken from the realist/neorealist school of thought. Debating the merits of various IR concepts is beyond the scope of this analysis, but because this study focuses on the international dimensions of China's foreign policy and geopolitical situation, it seems most appropriate to apply concepts that assume the preeminence of external factors in shaping state behavior, rather than models that emphasize domestic politics, individual leaders, or supranational institutions as the key factors. This analysis therefore assumes an anarchic international system that causes states with great-power status (or aspirations to such status) to behave as peer competitors. Possible outcomes in PRC policy due to these factors are discussed below.

3. Maria Hsia Chang provides a concise (if abridged) analysis of the evolution of Chinese political ideology from the end of Maoist rule to the present day. She notes that following Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping created an ideology that withdrew emphasis on communist class-warfare (which had previously resulted in the disastrous Cultural Revolution under Mao), and replaced it with the notion that China was simply in the initial stages of socialist development. Although critical of Mao, this new ideology “enabled Deng to explain away mistakes of the past and present while, at the same time … justify the need for market reforms to develop the economy.” Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would continue to dominate as the sole legitimate political authority. Deng explained this as “the notion of the vanguard,” where the CCP would continue to guide China along the path to more advanced stages of socialism, and eventually realize the communist utopia Mao had envisioned. In doing so, Deng also cultivated a renewed sense of Chinese “developmental nationalism” among the citizenry, by emphasizing the decades of foreign aggression that had humiliated China since the Opium War. According to Chang, Deng's message was that, “It was only with the founding of the People's Republic that [the] Chinese finally ‘achieved status,’ ‘stood up,’ and ‘changed China's image.’ Having felt inferior for more than a century, [the] Chinese finally attained confidence in themselves and would no longer be intimidated.” Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the subsequent end of the Cold War, the PRC cultivated a further evolution in nationalist ideology, from Deng's emphasis on “developmental nationalism” to a “patriotic nationalism” that, despite being opaque in its formal characteristics, serves “not only [as] an ideological replacement for an obsolete Marxism, it also functions… as a unifying force that can hold together a society experiencing the disruptive forces associated with rapid economic development.” The CCP continues to justify its apparent contradictory existence (that is, the enduring rule of a “communist” leadership over a state system that has clearly abandoned any Marxist/Leninist/Maoist socio-economic principles) by arguing that its leadership prevailed over various foreign and internal difficulties (including the Japanese invasion, the civil war, and tensions with the United States and Soviet Union, as well as overseeing the market reforms that replaced Mao's crippling policies), and that “only with the party's continuing leadership can China adequately defend itself and achieve territorial reunification—and in doing so, fully restore the national honor and dignity so grievously impaired since the Opium War.” See: Maria Hsia Chang, Return of the Dragon: China's Wounded Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 155–181.

4. This perspective is argued by numerous China scholars. Notable examples utilized in this study include: Swaine and Tellis, pp. 197–229; Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, pp. 81–101, 145–146; Sutter, pp. 26–39, 65–71.

5. Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security, vol. 18, no. 2 (Autumn 1993): 64, 66, 75–78. Waltz actually cites China (along with Japan and Germany) as a state expected to become a great power in an emerging multipolar system, although, significantly, he notes that in the nuclear era challenges to the hegemonic state may come via economic form, rather than militarily (as was typical in the past).

6. Waltz, 77.

7. The extremely rapid growth of the Chinese economy (as measured by GDP) is widely acknowledged. The CIA World Factbook notes “a quadrupling of GDP since 1978. Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, China in 2004 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US.” See: Central Intelligence Agency, “The World Factbook: China,” available: 〈http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html〉, accessed 20 October 2005. For military expansion and modernization, see: Richard A. Bitzinger, “Analyzing Chinese Military Expenditures,” in The People's Liberation Army and China in Transition, Stephen J. Flanagan and Michael E. Marti, eds., (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2003), pp. 177–193. Bitzinger notes that despite a lack of transparency from China regarding its military spending, “we can estimate that, after inflation, China's official defense budget has more than doubled between 1989 and 2000.” It is unclear from Bitzinger's analysis exactly how much of these expenditures are applied to force modernization, although there is an assumption by Bitzinger (among others) that the PRC allocates R&D and other modernization funds separately from the official military budget, meaning that spending is probably even higher than official estimates assume.

8. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (New York: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 5.

9. To be clear, Walt does not discount Waltz's model of the inevitable redistribution of power, but simply augments it by arguing that threat perception is integral to the manner of this redistribution. States may in fact prefer to “bandwagon” with the hegemonic power, although Walt notes that this is a rare occurrence.

10. Walt, 5.

11. Among the most important of these policies is the relationship of the United States with Taiwan, especially since the end of the Cold War. See: Allen S. Whiting, “China's Use of Force, 1950–96, and Taiwan,” International Security, vol. 26, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 103–131; Whiting, “The PLA and China's Threat Perceptions,” The China Quarterly, no. 146 (June 1996): 604–607. Perhaps more importantly (because of its abstract and nondisprovable nature), the PRC also perceives an attempt by the United States to “encircle” China with its alliance structure and force posture. See: Shambaugh, “China's Military Views the World: Ambivalent Security,” pp. 61–67; Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, pp. 90–92, 148–149. Obviously, the United States' Taiwan policy and its other interests in the Asia-Pacific region contribute heavily to China's encirclement/containment concerns.

12. Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, vol. 30, no. 2 (January 1978): 170.

13. Ibid., 174–175.

14. Thomas J. Christensen, “Chinese Realpolitik,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 75, no. 5 (September–October 1996): 45–48.

15. Christensen, “The Contemporary Security Dilemma: Deterring a Taiwan Conflict,” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4 (Autumn 2002): 7–21, see especially 14–20.

16. Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge, pp. 91–92. Goldstein in fact explicitly states in reference to Taiwan and China in the last decade, “unsure about one another's current and future intentions, each side prudently made the effort necessary to counter the improving military capabilities of its potential adversary. As a result, the sort of vexing cycle described by the security dilemma prevailed in the Taiwan Strait … The United States [was] indirectly caught in the dilemma… Washington's approval of military transfers to and support for Taiwan… alarmed leaders in Beijing who saw it as increasing the challenge they faced and requiring a response.”

17. Shambaugh, “Sino-American Strategic Relations: From Partners to Competitors,” Survival, vol. 42, no. 1 (Spring, 2000): 103–107.

18. Satu P. Limaye, “Recalibration Not Transformation: U.S. Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific,” in Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order, See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya, eds., (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), pp. 207–210; Sutter, pp. 32–33.

19. Obviously, there is significant overlap in these categories. For instance, many of China's partnerships in the region are based on its need to acquire the resources of local states, meaning that the diplomatic relationship is driven by the economic goals. For the purposes of this paper, I consider China's diplomatic relations on a bilateral basis to include those states that have a sufficient level of power that allow them to shape regional dynamics, although this may include consideration of critical multilateral organizations as well. Economically, I define China's relations in the region in terms of the economic ties they have created—including energy agreements and production plans. Geostrategically, I examine both China's control over strategically important locations and the potential for a Chinese military presence in the region in the near-term future.

20. What makes these states critical, as opposed to say, Iran or Indonesia, is their geographic position. While Iran or Indonesia may exert considerable influence in particular areas of the region (west and east, respectively), it remains unlikely that they will be central actors in the overall development of the region. Furthermore, the fact that India and Pakistan are nuclear weapons states provides them with strategic capabilities that other states in the region do not possess, making them all the more important in relative terms.

21. To be clear, “global great power” is not intended to mean “superpower.” It refers to a state with hegemonic power in its own region, with the potential of significant influence upon a multipolar international system, should one arise.

22. Although India currently lags significantly behind China in both economic growth and military capability, the two states are remarkably similar with respect to their histories of colonial invasion, slow processes of economic privatization, massive populations, and large land masses with vast coastal areas. It is certainly possible that India will eventually demonstrate parity in growth and power projection capabilities with China. For examples of India's economic progress vis-à-vis China, see: Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna, “Can India Overtake China?” Foreign Policy, issue 137 (July–August, 2003): 74–81; for India's overall development, including militarily compared to China, see: George Perkovich, “Is India a Major Power?” The Washington Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1 (Winter 2003–2004): 129–144, especially 136–140. For an alternative perspective (that India has little hope of effectively competing with China either economically or strategically), see: John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001), especially pp. 368–389.

23. Garver; Sumit Ganguly, “India and China: Border Issues, Domestic Integration, and International Security,” in The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know, Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, eds., (NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 103–133. This antagonism resulted in a brief Himalayan border war in 1962, in which China decisively defeated India, causing the latter to suffer humiliation and to reexamine its strategic policies.

24. Tellis, “China and India in Asia,” in Frankel and Harding, pp. 137–139.

25. Steven A. Hoffman, “The International Politics of Southern Asia,” in Zones of Amity, Zones of Enmity: The Prospects for Economic and Military Security in Asia, James Sperling, Yogendra Malik, and David Louscher, eds., (Boston: Brill, 1998), p. 51.

26. Shambaugh, “China Engages Asia,” pp. 82–83.

27. Jean-Luc Racine, “The Uncertain Triangle: India, China and Pakistan, the Regional and International Dimensions,” paper produced for the Center for the Study of India and South Asia, 2001, available: 〈www.ceri-sciencespo.com/archive/jan01/racine.pdf〉, accessed on 10 October 2005, pp. 6–9.

28. Ganguly, pp. 117–118.

29. Garver states, “between 1956 … and the mid-1980s, Pakistan was the top-ranking recipient of Chinese assistance, outranking the next-highest recipient (Sri Lanka) by 500 percent. During that period, China extended between $400 million and $1 billion in aid to Pakistan. Much of this aid was military.” See Garver, p. 234.

30. Perkovich, “The Nuclear and Security Balance,” in Frankel and Harding, pp. 199–203. Perkovich also cites Chinese concerns of Soviet encroachment in Central Asia as a reason for the ongoing assistance to Pakistan, but notes that “Chinese assistance to Pakistan's missile program appears to have been directed first and foremost at helping Pakistan to balance India and at creating local nuisances that would keep India from becoming more than a hamstrung regional power.”

31. Ibid., p. 201. This is an acute concern because of China's problems with Islamic extremism in its disputed but resource-rich Xinjiang province, located at the far west of China and bordering disputed areas with India and Pakistan.

32. Ibid.

33. Racine, p. 7. Despite this change in rhetoric, is seems clear that China still intends to use Pakistan against India for the foreseeable future. Mohan Malik argues that regardless of its recent diplomatic reorientation, China will continue to provide military aid and strategic support to Pakistan, if it is required to prevent India from gaining regional hegemony. See: Mohan Malik, “The China Factor in the India-Pakistan Conflict,” Parameters (Spring 2003): 35–50.

34. Tarique Niazi, “New Challenges in Sino-Pakistani Relations,” China Brief, vol. 5, no. 14 (21 June 2005): 9. Niazi states, “Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in bilateral trade between China and Pakistan, which has now jumped to $2.5 billion a year, accounting for 20 percent of China's trade with South Asia and 10 percent of Pakistan's total trade of about $25 billion in 2004.”

35. According to Cole, “China's economy will continue to grow, a process that will require annual energy increases of 4 to 5 percent through 2020 (compared with growth of about 1 percent in the industrialized countries). China currently both consumes and produces about 10 percent of the world's energy.” See: Cole, “Oil for the Lamps of China—Beijing's 21st–Century Search for Energy,” McNair Paper 67 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2003): 69.

36. Sergei Troush, “China's Changing Oil Strategy and its Foreign Policy Implications,” CNAPS Working Paper (Fall, 1999), available: 〈http://www.brookings.edu/printme.wbs?page=/fp/cnaps/papers/1999troush.htm〉, accessed on 29 September 2005; A more recent estimate places China's oil import dependence much higher, estimating 61 percent by 2010, and 76.9 percent by 2020. See: P. K. Ghosh, “Maritime Security Challenges in South Asia and the Indian Ocean: Response Strategies,” paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies—American-Pacific Sealanes Security Institute conference on Maritime Security in Asia (Honolulu, HI: 18–20 January 2004), 3; Cole does not cite specific estimates for the start of the next decade, but states that China has faced a “lack of success locating additional domestic petroleum resources and the probability that offshore sources will never satisfy more than approximately 10 percent of China's petroleum requirements. Hence, Beijing will remain forced to seek international energy supplies.” See Cole, “Oil for the Lamps of China,” p. 72.

37. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, pp. 54–62.

38. Mihir Roy, “Maritime Security in South West Asia,” paper produced for the Institute for International Policy Studies (2002), available: 〈http://www.iips.org/Roy-paper.pdf〉, accessed on 10 October 2005, 1.

39. Niazi, “China's March on South Asia,” China Brief, vol. 5, no. 9 (26 April 2005): 3.

40. Atal, “The New Great Game.”

41. Ibid., 102; Cole also supports this claim but includes Russia as a regional competitor from the Chinese perspective as well. See Cole, “Oil for the Lamps of China,” 74.

42. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, p. 61.

43. Obviously conventional ground forces and strategic posture are also important aspects of Chinese development in the region. For instance, it is distinctly possible that Chinese ground forces are currently operating in Myanmar and Pakistan, and Beijing may be developing cooperative relations with Sri Lanka. Undoubtedly, Chinese nuclear strategy takes account of India and the prospects for Chinese nuclear involvement in South Asia. However, the geopolitical orientation of the region is maritime—hence the title Indian Ocean Region. An analysis of naval developments in the context of China's growing diplomatic and economic ties to the region likely will provide better insight into the PRC's expected regional strategy for both the near and long-term.

44. Kane, p. 111. The organization has also issued joint statements pledging solidarity with China's Taiwan policy and opposing U.S. missile defense plans.

45. Ziad Haider, “Baluchis, Beijing, and Pakistan's Gwadar Port,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (Winter/Spring 2005): 96–98.

46. Niazi, “Gwadar: China's Naval Outpost on the Indian Ocean,” China Brief, vol. 5, no. 4 (15 February 2005): 6. Niazi states that China is “now alarmed to see the U.S. extend its reach into Asian nations that ring western China. Having no blue water navy to speak of, China feels defenseless in the Persian Gulf against any hostile action to choke off its energy supplies. This vulnerability set Beijing scrambling for alternative safe supply routes for its energy shipments.”

47. Lee Jae-Hyung, “China's Expanding Maritime Ambitions in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 24, no. 3 (December 2002): 556–557.

48. Ibid.

49. Malik, “China-India Relations in the post-Soviet Era: The Continuing Rivalry,” The China Quarterly, no. 142 (June 1995): 337–338. Malik notes that there has been an extreme rise in Chinese naval activity in the Bay of Bengal since the end of the Cold War, as well as large increases in military assistance from China to Myanmar.

50. Jae-Hyung, 553–554.

51. Donald L. Berlin, “The Indian Ocean and the Second Nuclear Age,” Orbis (Winter 2004): 69.

52. Kane, p. 128.

53. Garver, p. 292–296.

54. Donald M. Seekins, “Burma-China Relations: Playing with Fire,” Asian Survey, vol. 27, no. 6 (June 1997): 535–536.

55. Sutter, p. 91–94; Berlin, p. 63–64.

56. James B. Zientek, “China and India: The Struggle for Regional Maritime Supremacy in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean” (Monterey, CA: Master's Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2000), pp. 51–52.

57. Ibid.

58. Shambaugh, “China's Military Views the World,” pp. 61–67, 76. Shambaugh also reports that the PLA leadership recently started to include India as a threatening state that is seeking regional hegemony in South Asia and dominance over the Indian Ocean. However, it is clear that the primary reason for the PLA's modernization push is, and will likely remain, the United States.

59. Paul H. B. Godwin, “From Continent to Periphery: PLA Doctrine, Strategy and Capabilities towards 2000,” The China Quarterly, no. 146 (June 1996): 478.

60. Hyung, p. 550; PLAN efforts to develop modern nuclear-powered submarines with SLBM capabilities have been especially notable. China is currently developing the “Type 094” submarine that will apparently represent a vast improvement over the current “Xia” (Type 092) model. However, a timetable for the new model's deployment for operations is unclear, as it has evidently been beset by production problems over the last several years of development.

61. Ibid.

62. Cole, “The Great Wall at Sea,” pp. 171–172.

63. Ross, p. 103.

64. Although China's presence in each location is extremely probable (and really inevitable near the Strait of Hormuz), this analysis is not intended to be alarmist. Seekins notes that, “Scary images of Chinese submarines gliding into bases along the Andaman Sea will not become reality soon, given Beijing's continued lack of a modern, blue-water fleet.” See Seekins, 535. Nevertheless, the combination of the PRC's ambitious military modernization plan, its need for energy resources and secure trade routes, and its close relations with strategically important states indicates that a fairly substantial Chinese strategic presence should be expected.

65. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is China a Status Quo Power?” International Security, vol. 27, no. 4 (Spring 2003): 8.

66. Ibid., 11.

67. Ibid., 12–22.

68. Ibid., 15. A notable example is China's enthusiastic embracement of the rules required to gain entry to the World Trade Organization, “the clearest signal yet that officially China embraces the extant free trade regime.”

69. Ibid., 30–31.

70. Ibid., 47, 56.

71. Ibid., 27, 48–49.

72. Brantly Womack, “Asymmetry Theory and China's Concept of Multipolarity,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 13, no. 39 (May 2004): 354.

73. Ibid., 357–358.

74. Ibid., 358–359.

75. As Colin Gray notes, “China's size and strategic geography, and especially the growing significance to her of seapower, when considered in the context of the geopolitical logic of alliance building, all point to the prospect of an extensive conflict.” See Colin S. Gray, “Deterrence and Regional Conflict: Hopes, Fallacies, and ‘Fixes,”’ Comparative Strategy, vol. 17, no. 1 (January–March 1998): 51.

76. To clarify, Johnston's exception to the identity of China as a status quo state relates specifically to Taiwan, while Womack's makes no reference to particular regional events at all. I do not wish to skew their arguments by indiscriminately reapplying them to the IOR. However, both Johnston and Womack repeatedly refer to China's desire to gain sufficient systemic power to operate with a degree of regional autonomy that cannot be easily overturned by the application of U.S. power to other ends. My criticism of their perspectives are two-fold: 1. That PRC actions in the region indicate that China does indeed show signs of a revisionist state that actively counters U.S. goals where possible, and 2. China's interest in the region is not simply a geo-economic necessity, but rather is stimulated by the fact that the PRC is revisionist. In other words, my argument is that the strengthening of Chinese ties in the region will fuel its continued rise as a great power, and one that will continue to actively oppose U.S. interests in order to facilitate a restructuring of the international system. As Chinese power grows, due in no small part to its encroachment in the IOR, its opposition to U.S. policy will continue to increase. Thus, Johnston and Womack's perspectives are applicable, because I disagree with their fundamental assumption that China is not a revisionist state.

77. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia: Its Effect Upon International Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 66–67.

78. Sutter, pp. 245, 250.

79. This is also aimed at preventing the United States from using India to balance against China in the exact manner that China has used Pakistan to balance against India.