4. Chinese Foreign and
Security Policies:
Dream at Home,
Nightmare Abroad?
Axel Berkofsky (ISPI Senior Associate Research
Fellow)
This Chapter is included in ISPI REPORT, China Dream: Still
coming true , A l e s s i a A m i g h i n i (Ed.), June 2016.
*
4.
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
Axel Berkofsky
After the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in November 2012, President Xi Jinping for the
first time put forward the idea of the “China Dream” (Zhongguo
meng) on a visit to the exhibition “The Road towards Renewal”
at the National Museum of China. During the visit, Xi announced
that the “Great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is a dream of the
whole nation, as well as of every individual.” While the contents
of the “China Dream” continue to remain fairly vague1, details on
what Xi means when he talks about “resurrecting” Chinese power
continue to emerge every once in a while. The conceptual and linguistic origins of the “China Dream” (or “Chinese Dream”2), however, go back to the year 2010 and a book published by Liu Mingfu,
senior colonel of China’s armed forces: The China Dream: Great
Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era.
The book argues that China should regain its position as the most
powerful nation in the world, a position it had held for a thousand
years before its humiliation by Western powers.
In December 2012, during an inspection tour of the navy in
southern China, Mr Xi then announced what he called a “Strong
Army Dream”, emphasising that the army will continue to remain
under exclusive control of the Party, i.e. under control of himself3.
See chapter 1 in this volume.
The literature uses the terms “China Dream” and “Chinese Dream” simultaneously.
3
Also see “An Uneasy Friendship”, The Economist, 9 May 2015, http://www.
economist.com/news/china/21650566-crisis-ukraine-drawing-russia-closer-china1
2
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China Dream: Still Coming True?
In Xi’s view, Chinese foreign policy should help realise two goals
for the country: the doubling of China’s gross domestic product
(GDP) from 2010 levels and achieving what he refers to as the “renewal” of the nation by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party takeover of power in China. While the first objective
is clear and tangible, the second is not, at least not yet. Then again,
China’s currently very assertive policies related to territorial claims
in the South China Sea are somehow hinting at what Xi means
when he speaks of “renewal”: the unilateral “renewal” of China’s
territorial borders. Indeed, over the last three years – at least so it
seems – China’s (very) assertive and at times aggressive policies
related to territorial claims in the East and South China Seas have
been an instrument to help “resurrect” Chinese power as declared
in the “China Dream”. Unilateral territorial expansion in the South
China Sea, accompanied by the construction of civilian and military facilities on islands claimed also by other countries must indeed be interpreted as a demonstration of Chinese (military) power
and the ability to reclaim and occupy what – at least in Beijing’s
view – has belonged to China since “ancient times”. Given that the
“China Dream” aims at re-building the power and influence China
had in the past (before its clash with Western powers and Western
colonialism and imperialism in China and elsewhere in Asia), reclaiming and occupying territories China claims to have possessed
in the past is hence only logical – at least and arguably only from
a Chinese point of view. However, that China is no longer – at
least formally – an empire and Southeast Asia no longer a group of
Chinese vassal states, seems to be completely irrelevant in Chinese
policymaking circles.
For those in Asia who are feeling the results of Chinese dreaming of returning to a “glorious past” and an undisputed “Middle
Kingdom” status, the overall quality and level of Chinese peacefulness and/or belligerency will also have to be measured by China’s
regional foreign policies and their impact. As it turns out, unilaterally reclaiming islands in the South China Sea and building civrelationship-far-equal
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
67
il and military facilities on them is in Southeast Asia (and pretty
much elsewhere too) perceived to be the very opposite of the kind
of “peaceful development” and “Sharing the China Dream” Xi Jinping has been promising since 2012.
“Hide and bide no more”?
The “China Dream” seems to replace Deng Xiaoping’s “Hide and
Bide” approach to international affairs. When Deng came to power in
China in the late 1970s, he wanted China to put a focus on economic
development and growth and therefore wanted the country to take a
very low profile in international politics. This was not least decided
in view of the country’s very limited resources and expertise after 30
years of Maoism, China’s international isolation and foreign policies
that were driven by ill-fated ideology and resistance to alleged U.S.
global imperialism. After the events on Tiananmen Square in June
1989 Deng is cited as having “invented” the slogan “Bide its time,
hide its brightness, not seek leadership, but do some things”4. However, there is no evidence, as U.S. China scholar David Shambaugh
writes, that it was Deng who invented and propagated that slogan in
19895. Either way, “Hide and Bide” became the mantra of Chinese
foreign and security policies and it was, as Shambaugh writes, former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who picked up the slogan and
officially attributed it to his predecessor Deng. The “Hide and Bide”
policy is a policy that has kept China from getting politically or militarily involved in international conflicts and was accompanied by
China deciding to make neither allies nor enemies.
This policy approach, however, has been transformed over the
last three years and this is where the “China Dream” and a new
In Chinese: Taoguang yanghui, bu dang tou, yousuo zuoweo.
Shambaugh argues that the slogan neither featured in Deng’s speeches nor was
published in Deng’s book Selected Works. Instead, Deng only once during his so-called
‘Southern Tour’ in 1992 announced that “We will only become a big political power
if we keep a low profile and work hard for some years, and then we will have more
weight in international affairs.” See D. Shambaugh, China Goes Global, The Partial
Power; Oxford University Press New York 2013, p. 18-19.
4
5
68
China Dream: Still Coming True?
approach to regional and global Chinese foreign policies becomes
relevant. China’s ever deeper integration into the world economy
– accompanied by its global trade ties with and foreign direct investments (FDI) in many politically unstable countries – makes it
much more difficult (i.e. impossible) to passively stick to Deng’s
“Hide and Bide” paradigm. This also means that it has become increasingly difficult for Beijing to adhere to its sacred “Principle of
Non-Interference”6. China denying others the right to “interfere” in
any of what China refers to as its “internal affairs” is (very) deeply
embedded in Chinese foreign and security policy thinking and making and Beijing will continue to take on board only the kind of advice on its foreign and security policies that comes nowhere near to
resembling “interference”. Chinese policymakers have over recent
years insisted that no outside party in general and the U.S. in particular has the right to take a position on, i.e. “interfere in”, China’s
domestic and foreign policies, in and beyond Asia7.
What’s more, the kind of foreign and foreign economic policy
initiatives Beijing is proposing today obviously exclude the U.S.
Xi has repeatedly proposed creating a new regional security architecture that would exclude the United States, and Beijing has been
very active in regional security forums of which the U.S. is not a
member: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN
plus 1, ASEAN plus 3, and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). For Southeast Asian
countries8, however, a new Asian security architecture under Chinese leadership remains very problematic. Indeed, against the background of Asian territorial and maritime disputes involving China,
a Chinese leadership role is from a Southeast Asian perspective curSee e.g. M. Duchâtel, O. Bräuner, Hang Zhou, Protecting China’s Overseas Interests-The
Slow Shift from Non-Interference, SIPRI Policy Paper 41, International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Stockholm, June 2014, http://books.sipri.org/files/PP/SIPRIPP41.
pdf
7
See e.g. F. Godement, “The End of Non-Interference?”, China Analysis, The
European Council on Foreign Relations/Asia Centre, October 2013, http://
www.ecfr.eu/page/-/China_Analysis_The_End_of_Non_interference_
October2013.pdf; See also M. Duchâtel, O. Bräuner, Hang Zhou, op. cit.
8
Not to mention East Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea.
6
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
69
rently all but inconceivable. And not only from a Southeast Asian
perspective as it turns out. Closer to home, too, China’s tactics and
policies hardly correspond to the kind of regional “win-win” realities, which according to Xi Jinping would result from the “China
Dream”. When Taiwan’s newly-elected president Tsai Ing-wen took
office at the end of this May she was reminded several times to
stick to the so-called “1992 consensus” acknowledging that there is
only one China9. Tsai has so far chosen not to do so and she and her
country might sooner or later become subject to some of the “Moving earth and shaking mountains” policies Xi threatened Taipei with
in case it opted for policies aimed at turning Taiwan’s de facto independence into a formal one.
Sweet dream versus bitter reality
State Councillor and former Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs10
Yang Jiechi wrote in an American newspaper in September 2013
that “The Chinese dream requires a peaceful and stable international and neighbouring environment, and China is committed to realizing the dream through peaceful development. Since the “China
Dream” is closely linked with the dreams of other peoples around
the world, China is committed to helping other countries, developing countries and neighbouring countries in particular, with their
development while achieving development of its own”11. That
sounds good on paper, but the reality of Chinese regional foreign
and security policies arguably does not get reflected in that explanation of the “China Dream”. Unilaterally occupying disputed islands in the South China Sea is – at least from the perspective of
those countries also claiming the islands China is already building
civilian and military facilities on – the very opposite of the kind
See “Rocking Boats, Shaking Mountains”, The Economist, 28 May 2016.
Between 2007 and 2013.
See Yang, Jiechi, “Implementing the Chinese Dream”, The National Interest, 10 September 2013, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/implementing-the-chinesedream-9026?page=3
9
10
11
70
China Dream: Still Coming True?
of “peaceful development” Yang Jiechi mentioned at the time. To
be sure, officially, the “China Dream” is a continuation of China’s
so-called “Peaceful Development Strategy” announced and propagated by Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao. The origin of Hu’s “Peaceful
Development Strategy” was the “Peaceful Rise Strategy” (heping
jueqi) as proposed by Zheng Bijian, from the Central Party School
in 2003. “Peaceful Rise” became “Peaceful Development”, which
in turn was complemented by the “Harmonious World” (hexie shijie) slogan to calm Western anxiety about China’s rise, be it “peacefully” or “harmoniously”.
Today, however, the concept of a “harmonious world” is no longer part of the official Chinese foreign policy rhetoric and seemingly not a concept belonging to the “China Dream” either. When
Chinese policymakers, journalists and scholars talk about the
“China Dream” and the return to the “Glory of the Middle Kingdom” in the same sentence, the alarm-bells go off immediately in
Southeast Asia. Indeed, the return of the concept/strategy of China
as the “Middle Kingdom” in Southeast Asia recalls the bad old days
of the Ming and Qing dynasties, during which the “Middle Kingdom” dominated much of Southeast Asia, treating states as “vassals” on the “periphery” of the Chinese Empire12. In January 2014
Liu Zhenyu, journalist of the Chinese People’s Daily Online newspaper13 wrote an article in the online newspaper The Diplomat, in
which he explicitly linked the “China Dream” to the term “Middle
Kingdom”: “I dream that the Chinese people will one day fully recover from the trauma of the “Century of National Humiliation”,
when China was bullied at the hands of Western and Japanese invaders, and the Middle Kingdom will restore its former glory”14.
12
Indeed, long before Xi’s “China Dream” became part of the official Chinese
foreign policy rhetoric, Beijing’s decision to again use the term “Middle Kingdom”
created anxiety among Southeast Asian policymakers and scholars. The concept of
China as the Middle Kingdom today implies for Southeast Asian countries that China
is the political, economic centre of the region, while Southeast Asia finds itself again
existing at the “periphery” of the Chinese Empire, confined to a “vassal state” status.
13
Generally referred to as the ‘mouthpiece’ of China’s Communist Party; the newspaper is run and owned by the Communist Party.
14
Liu, Zhenyu, “I have a Dream, a Chinese Dream”, The Diplomat, 12 January 2014,
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
71
Indeed, there is little doubt that there is in Chinese policymaking
circles a conceptual connection between the “China Dream” and
the Middle Kingdom15. That connection becomes evident in Xi’s
project to revive the ancient Silk Road trading route from China to
Europe: indeed, the very same version of the Silk Road when China
was the “Middle Kingdom”16.
Dream interpretation
Given that the “China Dream” is a slogan as opposed to a welldefined concept explaining in detail the allegedly new qualities
of Chinese foreign policies, it is obviously difficult to qualify and
quantify which, how and to what extent China’s foreign and security policies are in Beijing’s view designed to help achieve that
“dream”. That said, however, if strengthening and expanding China’s regional and global foreign and security policy profile and
positioning is part of that “dream”, then it can be concluded that
Beijing’s (very) assertive policies related to territorial claims in the
South China Sea serve that purpose. In other words, reclaiming and
occupying islands in the South China Sea which are also claimed
by other countries is – from a Chinese perspective – an instrument
to help the Chinese government convince the Chinese people that it
is able and indeed very prepared to make the de facto expansion of
Chinese territory a part of the “China Dream”.
And China is arguably getting fairly good at this. Large parts
of the territorial waters in the South China Sea are disputed and
China is the country that acts on these disputes by in essence declaring that there are no disputes: the disputed territories all belong
to China as far as China is concerned. In the South China Sea that
includes the Paracel Islands (also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam),
http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/i-have-a-dream-a-chinese-dream/
15
Various interviews this author conducted with Chinese ministry officials and policymakers in 2014 and 2015 confirm this.
16
See Shi, Ting, D. Tweed, “Xi Jinping Outlines ‘Big Country Diplomacy’ for China”,
The Sydney Moring Herald, 2 December 2014, http://www.smh.com.au/world/xijinping-outlines-big-country-diplomacy-for-china-20141202-11yaj5.html
72
China Dream: Still Coming True?
the Spratly Islands (claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines,
Malaysia and Brunei) and the Scarborough Shoal (claimed also by
both Taiwan and the Philippines). To put all of this on paper, Beijing
took the so-called “Nine-Dash Line” (a line marking the borders of
Chinese territorial waters as viewed from China dating back to the
1940s) out of the drawer, providing alleged “evidence” that more
than 90 per cent of the South China Sea is part of Chinese sovereign
territory. Over the last three years, China has in the South China
Sea pursued a rather effective approach that is also referred to as
a ‘”combination of punches”. Firstly, deploying law enforcement
units on the sea to assert its power while at the same time avoiding direct military clashes with other claimant countries. Secondly,
using economic power to divide ASEAN countries’ stances on territorial disputes with China. This dual tactic, however, has in 2014,
2015 and 2016 been complemented by something more concrete:
unilaterally declaring that what is disputed really belongs to China.
In 2015, for example Beijing increased the construction of facilities on and around disputed islands, including military facilities.
After declaring in June 2015 that the process of building seven new
islands by moving sediment from the seafloor to reefs was close
to completion, Beijing in the second half of the year undertook efforts to build ports, airstrips and radar facilities on disputed islands
in the South China Sea. In April 2015 China built an airstrip on
reclaimed land on the Spratly Islands and unless there is a dramatic
shift in Chinese territorial policies – which is as unlikely as it gets
– we have not yet seen the end of China re-claiming and building
facilities (including military bases) on disputed islands in the South
China Sea. To be sure, Beijing does not get tired of pointing out
that that it is merely reclaiming land and islands that have always –
since ancient history – belonged to China17.
Panda Ankit, “Vietnam Slams Chinese Naval Drill in South China Sea”, The Diplomat, 27 July 2015, http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/vietnam-slams-chinese-navaldrill-in-south-china-sea/; also D. Watkins, “What China has been Building in the South
China Sea”, The New York Times, 29 February 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-china-has-been-building-in-the-south-chinasea-2016.html?_r=0; “Who Rules the Waves”, The Economist, 17 October 2015, http://
www.economist.com/news/international/21674648-china-no-longer-accepts-ameri-
17
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
73
In sum, the “China Dream” suggests that China is bound to
become more proactive in international politics and security and
could, as some analysts point out, begin to seek military alliances.
Up until today, however, Beijing insists that it does maintain military alliances with any country, including North Korea and Russia. The literature suggests that Moscow and Beijing will maintain
what is also referred to as an “axis of convenience” as opposed to
anything resembling a military partnership that goes beyond joint
opposition to U.S. and Western policies18.
Dream for some, nightmare for others?
Chinese state-controlled media warn on a regular basis that while
Beijing has nothing against U.S. economic involvement in East
Asia per se, the expansion of U.S. security and defence ties in Asia
through its “Asia pivot” is aimed at keeping China from pursuing
the “China Dream” of “National Rejuvenation”19. While that does
arguably sound a bit alien and overly dramatic to Western ears, it is
very serious business for China as China’s most well-known scholar of international relations Yan Xuetong20 argued in 2013 during
a debate with U.S. scholar John Mearsheimer21. China under Xi’s
leadership, Yan argued at the time, will be able to tell friends from
enemies, allowing those who – as he put it – “Play a constructive
role in China’s rise to profit from it”. This is arguably a Chinese
version of a “carrot and stick policy”, “rewarding” those who play
by China’s rules and “punishing” those who are daring enough not
ca-should-be-asia-pacifics-dominant-naval-power-who-rules
18
See Yun Sun, “China-Russia Relations: Alignment without Alliance”, PacNet, no.
67; CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7 October 2015, https://
www.csis.org/analysis/pacnet-67-china-russia-relations-alignment-without-alliance
19
“Chasing the Chinese Dream”, The Economist, 4 May 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21577063-chinas-new-leader-has-been-quick-consolidate-his-power-what-does-he-now-want-his
20
From Tsinghua University of Beijing. Yan is known for being an outspoken scholar
and commentator with nationalist and anti-West/anti-U.S. tendencies.
21
The full debate can be accessed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=wBrA2TDcNto
74
China Dream: Still Coming True?
to. While that might sound plausible from a very confident and
arguably nationalist point of view (somehow smelling of plans to
install “hegemony” and Chinese “supremacy”), one may wonder
where the “China Dream” ends and the nightmare for the rest of
the world begins. But not so fast. The basis and fundament of rising
Chinese global influence and power over the last 10 years has been
an economy producing double-digit growth rates. Double-digit
Chinese economic growth rates, however, are a thing of the past
and today the country is confronted with enormous economic and
financial difficulties, which need to be addressed very urgently and
very profoundly. China’s debt – public and private debt combined –
could, according to The Economist, already amount to close to 300
per cent of the country’s GDP22 – not exactly the strongest position
from which to “reward” or “punish” those who are and who are not
playing by China’s rules. To be sure, there are Chinese policymakers and scholars also warning of a Chinese “imperial overstretch”
and arguing that Beijing is already overplaying its foreign policies
hand23. China is indeed faced with enormous economic and social
problems and tough foreign policy talk and action is probably also
meant to distract from the country’s economic ills. Xi Jinping’s
“strong-man” behaviour, his grandiose rhetoric associated with the
“China Dream” and his very assertive at times belligerent warnings
to the West and anybody else about not interfering in any of the
country’s domestic and foreign policies are arguably not necessarily
a sign of self-confidence and strength but rather the opposite: insecurity and deep-seated concerns that the Chinese people could, as in
1989, turn against the government and the state should the state not
be able to provide the people with the public goods – in this case,
strong economic growth accompanied by prosperity – that it promised to do. Following that logic, the more Xi and like-minded policymakers talk tough and conduct megaphone diplomacy warning
22
“The Coming Debt Bust”, The Economist, 7 May 2016, http://www.economist.com/
news/leaders/21698240-it-question-when-not-if-real-trouble-will-hit-china-comingdebt-bust
23
This author’s off the record interviews with Chinese scholars in Beijing in 2015
confirm that.
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
75
others not to meddle with the country’s internal and external affairs,
the more insecure the leadership seems to feel. Chinese policymakers and scholars do obviously disagree and typically react very
defensively when confronted with Western assessments of how unstable and insecure the Chinese leadership and/or the Communist
Party is24. Indeed, Beijing usually refers to such critical analyses
of the state and the Chinese leadership’s control over China and
the Chinese people as unfounded and “malicious” speculations and
Western attempts to drive a “wedge” between the leadership and the
Chinese people.
The west got it all wrong, of course
China itself cannot find anything aggressive about any of its regional foreign and security policies. It is – at least from its own
perspective – merely reclaiming what has belonged to China since
“ancient times”. In fact, there is very little (if any) room for negotiations with China about whom disputed territories in Asia belong
to, even if Beijing continues to insist that it is – at least in principle and strictly on a bilateral basis – prepared to talk to other
claimant countries about conflicting territorial claims. However,
this is arguably only in principle and theory because there are no
indications whatsoever that Beijing is prepared to seriously negotiate any ownership of islands in the South China Sea. And with
good reason, according to the Chinese (U.S.-based) scholar Zheng
Wang, who – like many other Chinese scholars too – talks about
“misperceptions” between China and some of its neighbours over
sovereignty issues25. “Misperceptions”, however, is arguably only
one way of putting it. Unilateral territorial expansion at the exA case in point is the American China scholar David Shambaugh, who in 2015
made himself rather unpopular among Chinese colleagues and indeed also policymakers when he concluded (in, among others, the Wall Street Journal) that Beijing’s
very assertive domestic and foreign policies are also a result of an insecure leadership.
25
Zheng, Wang, “Not Rising, But Rejuvenating: The ‘Chinese Dream’”, The Diplomat,
5 February 2013, http://thediplomat.com/2013/02/chinese-dream-draft/
24
76
China Dream: Still Coming True?
pense of militarily weaker Southeast Asian countries is the way
that Southeast Asia and pretty much everyone else sees it. Zheng
Wang’s explaining that the West and Southeast Asia have it all
wrong is telling and stands for much of what is wrong with the
“China Dream”, at least for those who are faced with the dream’s
not-so-dreamlike consequences. “Although outsiders almost always speak of China’s ‘rise’, the Chinese like to refer to their impressive recent achievements and future planned development as
‘rejuvenation’ (‘fuxing’)”. The use of that word underscores an important point: the Chinese view their fortunes as a return to greatness and not a rise from nothing. In fact, rejuvenation is deeply
rooted in Chinese history and the national experience, especially
with regard to the so-called “century of national humiliation” that
began with the First Opium War (1839-1842) and lasted through
the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1945. It seems inconceivable
to the Philippines and Vietnam that China’s historical evidence of
sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea should take precedence over modern international law. Consequently, these countries and others perceive China’s claims and efforts to defend them
as inherently aggressive, and in turn demonstrate that China is a
revisionist power, Zheng Wang writes. The trouble, however, is
that China cites “evidence” that is Chinese evidence and Chinese
only. The maps China today refers to were drafted by China and
are not acknowledged as “evidence” of Chinese territorial claims
anywhere else outside of China. Or put differently: Chinese territorial claims in Asia have been “dreamt up” in China – as part
of the “China Dream”. Either way, while a number of Southeast
Asian countries would beg to differ (very strongly), the “China
Dream” is about getting back what has always belonged to China.
China, Zheng Wang therefore concludes (erroneously) is a status
quo power. “The Chinese see their country as a status quo power
whose actions are inherently defensive. From this perspective, the
Chinese are merely trying to protect their ancestral rights – as laid
out in historical documents – from the encroachment of others”.
Xi Jinping’s ambitions, the Chinese scholar Feng Zhang argues, do
not stop there. “Xi isn’t content with making China a great power
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
77
in the region and beyond. He also wants to make China the dominant power in key areas of Asia-Pacific regional relations. Indeed,
as a keen student of history, Xi may be trying to restore the role
of China in the contemporary East Asian system to its historical
height during the era of the Chinese empire (221 BC–1911 AD)”26
– arguably the worst-case scenario for the rest of Asia.
The answer to U.S. containment?
From a Chinese perspective, the U.S. military presence in East
Asia in general and the U.S. “Pivot to Asia” announced in 2011
in particular is standing in the way of China achieving regional
political and military supremacy, which – as we have established
above – seems to be part of the “China Dream”. If China perceives
itself to be the subject of U.S. containment policies accompanied
by the strengthening of Washington’s security and military with
traditional decades-old allies (such as Japan and South Korea) and
the development of new defence ties with countries such as the
Philippines, Vietnam, Australia and India 27, then the realization
of the “China Dream” is also a response to U.S. containment. And
that would be the part of the dream which, as mentioned above,
seeks to re-configure China’s current to past territorial boundaries.
In turn, the strengthening of U.S. defence and military ties with
Southeast Asian countries is aimed at helping Southeast Asia to
keep China from controlling the territories it did when it was the
“Middle Kingdom”. Hence, it all makes sense, albeit potentially
in very destabilizing way.
26
See Feng Zhang, “Xi Jinping’s Real Chinese Dream: An ‘Imperial’ China?”, The
National Interest, 18 September 2015, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/xijinpings-real-chinese-dream-imperial-china-13875
27
For details on the contents and objectives see e.g. K. Campbell, B. Andrews, Explaining the U.S. Pivot to Asia, Chatham House, August 2013, https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Americas/0813pp_pivottoasia.pdf
78
China Dream: Still Coming True?
Conclusions
The jury is still out on whether the “China Dream” is the conceptual
basis for China to become a revisionist power aiming to remodel the
global order or whether Beijing will content itself with remaining a
status quo power28. Indeed, much of what the “China Dream” will
and will not entail will have to emerge and become (much) clearer
in the years ahead. For now, however, it is fair to conclude that the
‘China Dream’ – a “peaceful” concept according to Beijing’s aforesaid explanation – does not stand in the way of Chinese not-sopeaceful policies related to territorial claims in the East and South
China Seas. Whatever the “China Dream” turns out to be and “instructs” Chinese policymakers to do, China’s foreign and security
policies will have to be measured by their quality and results rather
than by high-sounding and nice-sounding “China Dream” rhetoric.
To Western ears, the “China Dream” concept sounds – like many
other slogans of Chinese domestic and external policies over the
decades – alien. A slogan meant mostly for domestic consumption.
In turn, Western scholars and policymakers often find themselves
confronted with Chinese accusations of not being able to “understand” China, its history, culture and everything else about China if
and when Western scholars and policymakers point out that slogans
like the “China Dream” mean less or indeed very little in a Western context. Indeed, accusing non-Chinese scholars and policymakers of criticizing China out of ignorance or inability to understand
China continues to remain an important “defence mechanism”
against Western criticism, finger-pointing and more generally Western “interference” in China’s internal affairs. However, China’s
“non-interference” policy has gradually been transformed over the
past years, due to China’s ever deeper involvement in the global
economy, making it more difficult for Beijing to stick to Deng’s
above-mentioned “Hide and Bide” paradigm29. Consequently, it is
See Li Xing, “Interpreting and Understanding ‘The Chinese Dream’ in a Holistic
Nexus”, Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 8, no. 4, 2015, pp. 515-520,
http://vbn.aau.dk/files/218980898/Fudan_Journal_2015.pdf
29
See e.g. Qin Liwen, “Securing the ‘China Dream’: What Xi Jinping Wants to Achieve
28
Chinese Foreign and Security Policies: Dream at Home, Nightmare Abroad?
79
probably secondary whether the “China Dream” entails “instructions” to modify, adjust or indeed overcome the “principle of noninterference” in view of the fact that China’s increasingly global
economic and political interests demand that already and anyway.
While China under Xi Jinping has not – at least not yet – officially
replaced the “Hide and Bide” strategy, China’s current foreign and
security policies in general and those in the region in particular have
very little in common with how Deng intended to conduct foreign
and security policies. To be sure, Deng’s China did not have the
resources and economic power and influence to conduct the kind of
foreign and security policies Xi is conducting today.
with the National Security Commission (NSC)”, China Monitor, no. 4, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) Berlin, Germany, 28 February 2014, http://www.
merics.org/fileadmin/templates/download/china-monitor/China_Monitor_No_4.
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