China's Real Strategic Culture: A Great Wall of the Imagination

Abstract

The Great Wall is frequently held up as the most striking symbol of the potency of a persistent Chinese pacifist, non-expansionist, defence-minded strategic stance. But how accurate is this ‘Great Wall’ depiction of China's strategic culture? What is the impact of this depiction on China and the Asia-Pacific region? While the Great Wall is an apt symbol of a romanticized image of Chinese strategic culture, the reality behind the genesis of this impressive fortification and the accompanying pervasive belief in a monistic strategic tradition is that they are figments of the collective contemporary Chinese imagination. Nevertheless, these formidable myths exert real influence on two ‘faces’ of strategic culture. The first face refers to how leaders and society perceive the policies and actions of their own country. The second face, routinely neglected, refers to how leaders and society in one state perceive the policies and actions of an adversary or potential adversary state, which, like the first face, is constructed out of myth. The impact of these two faces on the Asia-Pacific region exacerbates the region's security dilemma, adversely impacting China's relations with other countries, notably Japan and the United States.

Notes

1. This article draws on themes first outlined in Andrew Scobell, ‘Strategic Culture and China: IR Theory Versus the Fortune Cookie?’, Strategic Insights, Vol. 4, No. 10 (2005), pp. 1–8.

2. See, for example, John K. Fairbank, ‘Introduction’, in John K. Fairbank and Frank Kierman (eds), Chinese Ways in Warfare (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 1–26; and Mark Mancall, China at the Center: 300 Years of Chinese Foreign Policy (New York: The Free Press, 1984).

3. See, for example, Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi (eds), The Science of Military Strategy (Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2005).

4. There are some notable exceptions. See, for example, Richard J. Smith, ‘Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850–1860’, Journal of Asian History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1974), pp. 122–141 and the volume co-edited by Fairbank and Kierman, Chinese Ways in Warfare (note 2).

5. Jonathan N. Lippman and Stevan Harrell, Violence in China: Essays in Culture and Counter Culture (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989); Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990); Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

6. Chong-Pin Lin, China's Nuclear Strategy: Evolution within Tradition (Lexington, MA: DC Heath, 1988).

7. Fairbank, ‘Introduction’ (note 2). For a similar type of argument which stresses the influence of Daoism, see Rosita Dellios, ‘“How May the World Be at Peace?” Idealism as Realism in China's Strategic Culture’, in Valerie M. Hudson (ed.), Culture and Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), pp. 201–230.

8. Jonathan R. Adelman and Chih-yu Shih, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force, 1840–1980 (Taipei: Institute for International Relations, 1993); Howard L. Boorman and Scott A. Boorman, ‘Strategy and National Psychology in China’, The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Sciences (1967), pp. 143–55; Edward S. Boylan, ‘The Chinese Cultural Style of Warfare’, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1982), pp. 341–64.

9. On what might be called the ‘stratagem school’ of Chinese strategic culture, see, for example, Boylan, ‘The Chinese Cultural Style of Warfare’ (note 8) and Adelman and Shih, Symbolic War (note 8), chapter 2. On what might be called the ‘pacifism school’ of Chinese strategic culture, see Zhang Tiejun, ‘Chinese Strategic Culture: Traditional and Presence Features’, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2002), pp. 73–90.

10. Johnston, Cultural Realism (note 5). Lowell Dittmer also labelled the book ‘pioneering’. See his review, ‘The Culture of Structural Realism’, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 59, No. 1 (1997), p. 194.

11. Andrew Scobell, China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

12. See, for example, Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations, 1949–1958 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); Paul H.B. Godwin, ‘Force and Diplomacy: China Prepares for the Twenty-First Century’, in Samuel S. Kim (ed.), China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millennium (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 171–92. Other works that focus on China and analyse strategic culture or utilize a strategic culture approach include: Dellios, ‘“How May the World Be at Peace?”’ (note 7); Shu Guang Zhang, ‘China: Traditional and Revolutionary Heritage’, in Ken Booth and Russell Trood (eds), Strategic Cultures in the Asia-Pacific Region (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1999), pp. 29–50; Mark Burles and Abraham N. Shulsky, Patterns in China's Use of Force: Evidence from History and Doctrinal Writings (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2000); Zhang, ‘Chinese Strategic Culture’ (note 9). For some key works in Chinese, see Gong Yuzhen, Zhongguo zhanlue wenhua jiexi [Analysing Chinese strategic culture] (Beijing: Junshe Kexue Chubanshe, 2002); Li Jijun, ‘Lun zhanlue wenhua’ [On strategic culture], Zhongguo junshi kexue [China Military Science], No. 1 (1997), p. 8. See also Li Jijun, Traditional Military Thinking and the Defense Strategy of China. An Address to the US Army War College, Letort Paper No. 1, with an introduction by Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 29 August 1997). For the Chinese language version, see Li Jijun, ‘Zhongguo junshi sixiang chuantong yu fangyu zhanlue’, Zhongguo junshi kexue [China Military Science], No. 4 (Winter 1997), pp. 62–64; Huiyun Feng, Chinese Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Confucianism, Leadership and War (New York: Routledge, 2007).

13. This is a slightly revised definition from Scobell, adapted from Iain Johnston's Cultural Realism (note 5). Johnston specifies the ‘what’ but omits the ‘who’.

14. On culture as context, see, for example, the discussion in Jeffrey S. Lantis, ‘Strategic Culture and National Security Policy’, International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (December 2002), pp. 87–113. On culture as perception/misperception, see, for example, Christopher P. Twomey, The Military Lens: Doctrinal Difference and Deterrence Failure in Sino-American Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).

15. See Johnston, Cultural Realism (note 5), pp. 15–18 and Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

16. Waldron, The Great Wall of China (note 5), chapter 6.

17. Johnston, Cultural Realism (note 5), p. 173.

18. Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), pp. 19–23. See also Lewis, Sanctioned Violence (note 5).

19. Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), chapter 2, especially pp. 26–39.

20. Ibid., pp. 32–8.

21. Andrew Scobell, ‘Is There a Chinese Way of War?’, Parameters, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring 2005), p. 119.

22. Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), p. 193.

23. Laurie Burkitt, Andrew Scobell, and Larry Wortzel, ‘Introduction’, in Burkitt, Scobell, and Wortzel (eds), The Lessons of History: The PLA at 75 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, July 2003), pp. 6–7.

24. Scobell, ‘Is There a Chinese Way of War?’ (note 21), p. 118; Ron Christman, ‘How Beijing Evaluates Military Campaigns: An Initial Assessment’, in Burkitt, Scobell, and Wortzel, The Lessons of History (note 23), pp. 253–92.

25. Thomas J. Christensen, ‘Windows and War: Trend Analysis and Beijing's Use of Force’, in Alastair I. Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds), New Directions in the Study of Chinese Foreign Policy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 50–85.

26. See, for example, Zhang, ‘Chinese Strategic Culture’ (note 9), pp. 79–80.

27. For an overview of the revival of Confucianism, see Daniel A. Bell, China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). On Confucius Institutes, see James F. Paradise, ‘China and International Harmony: The Role of Confucius Institutes in Bolstering Beijing's Soft Power’, Asian Survey, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2009), pp. 647–69.

28. Johnston, Cultural Realism (note 5), p. 46. All seven works are summarized in ibid., pp. 40–44.

29. Johnston, Cultural Realism (note 5); Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘Cultural Realism and Grand Strategy in Maoist China’, in Peter Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 216–68.

30. See, for example, Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi's readily accessible The Science of Military Strategy (Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2005), which was translated into English from Chinese.

31. Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), p. 23.

32. See, for example, one two volume translation by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor: Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. I (Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2002) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. II (Silk Pagoda, 2005).

33. Ibid., pp. 19, 23–5.

34. On these two episodes, see Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), chapters 5 and 7.

35. Harold M. Tanner, ‘The People's Liberation Army and China's Internal Security Challenges’, in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell (eds), The PLA at Home and Abroad: Assessing the Operational Capabilities of China's Military (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2010), pp. 64–6.

36. Andrew Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, May 2002), p. 17.

37. Paul Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

38. For an overview of Chinese thinking about Japanese strategic culture, informed by China's strategic cultural narrative, see Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35), pp. 14–16.

39. For an overview of the contemporary propaganda apparatus, see Ann-Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).

40. Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35), p. 2.

41. On Chinese perceptions of American and Japanese strategic culture images, see Andrew Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35). On Chinese perceptions of Indian strategic culture images, see Andrew Scobell, ‘“Cult of Defense” and “Great Power Dreams”: The Influence of Strategic Culture on China's Relationship with India’, in Michael R. Chambers (ed.), South Asia 2020: Future Strategic Balances and Alliances (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, November 2002), pp. 329–59.

42. Zheng Bijian, China's Peaceful Rise: Speeches of Zheng Bijian, 1997–2005 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2005).

43. See, for example, the analysis in Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), pp. 34–5. These two quotes appear on p. 35.

44. Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), p. 32. The sources referenced are publications of the PLA's Academy of Military Sciences.

45. Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35), p. 17.

46. Andrew Scobell and Andrew J. Nathan, China's Search for Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 91.

47. Ibid., pp. 92–3.

48. Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35), p. 16; Andrew Scobell and Andrew J. Nathan, ‘How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijing's Fears’, Foreign Affairs (September/October 2012), pp. 32–47; Scobell and Nathan, China's Search for Security (note 45), pp. 99–105.

49. See Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 127, 196.

50. Scobell, China and Strategic Culture (note 35), p. 15.

51. ‘Riben paichu “zhunhangmu” shoufei ling Yazhou geguo jingjue’ [Japan's dispatch of a ‘quasi-aircraft carrier’ to aid the Philippines should put Asian countries on alert], Renmin Wang, 15 November 2013.

52. For more perspective on this, see Scobell, China's Use of Military Force, chapter 2.

53. General Li Jijun cited in Scobell, China's Use of Military Force (note 11), p. 33.

54. Scobell and Nathan, China's Search for Security (note 45), chapter 4; Scobell and Nathan, ‘How China Sees America’ (note 47).

55. For two assessments, see Andrew Scobell and Scott W. Harold, ‘A More “Assertive” China: Insights from Interviews’, Asian Security, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2013), pp. 111–31; and Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘How New and How Assertive is China's New Assertiveness?’, International Security, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2013), pp. 7–48.

56. For an analysis of the episode and the lessons learned, see Ely Ratner, ‘Learning the Lessons of Scarborough Reef’, 21 November 2013, at http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/learning-the-lessons-scarborough-reef-9442?page=4.

57. Scobell and Harold, ‘A More “Assertive” China’ (note 54).

58. See, for example, Andrew Scobell and Andrew J. Nathan, ‘China's Overstretched Military’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2012), p. 141.

59. See, for example, the discussion by Scobell in China and Strategic Culture (note 35) and Scobell, ‘“Cult of Defense”’ (note 40).

60. Author interviews with civilian and military analysts in Beijing and Shanghai, 2002–2011 and Andrew Scobell, ‘The View from China’, in Gilbert Rozman (ed.), Asia at a Tipping Point: Korea, the Rise of China, and the Impact of Leadership Transitions (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute, 2012), p. 74.

61. Ibid.

62. See, for example, Michael J. Green and Bates Gill (eds), Asia's New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); and Andrew Scobell and Samuel Berkowitz, The Outlook for Northeast Asia in 2015: A US Perspective (Washington, DC: RAND Corporation, February 2013).

63. Men Honghua, ‘East Asian Order Formation and Sino-Japanese Relations’, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2010), p. 49.

64. See, for example, Andrew Scobell, ‘Learning to Rise Peacefully: China and the Security Dilemma’, Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 21, No. 76 (2012), pp. 713–21.