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On China’s dreams of hegemony
By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
Saturday, Sep 11, 2010, Page 8
‘We see that China’s impractical dreams of becoming a rising superpower involve
it secretly using its somewhat hidden hegemonic attitude to test the waters in
the region. This is increasing tensions in the already jumpy East Asian region,
and this will definitely put increasing pressure on Taiwan.’
It is inevitable that new rising hegemons and older hegemons that are losing
their power will constantly have conflicts and may even wage war until a
definitive victory is achieved and a new unipolar order is established.
This idea can pretty much explain all the recent military exercises in East Asia
by China and the US, and why the two nations have been at loggerheads with each
other.
The fact that this idea is so widespread in China has of course emboldened
bellicose people in China. Members of China’s military have also been making
some astounding comments recently, increasing the size of the national defense
budget and the scale of military exercises to prove their point.
This idea has gained even wider acceptance after several Chinese academics
started to lend it their support. For example, Chu Shulong (楚樹龍), a professor in
international politics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said that China’s
military aircraft and ships would only keep increasing in number. He also said
that it is necessary for China to become a huge military power in Asia and that
its military must become the strongest in the West Pacific and surpass that of
the US to be able to deal with the US’ strong military presence in the region.
If this is the attitude China holds toward the US, then it is easy to imagine
what China thinks of Taiwan.
Chu said that after China’s economy took off, Taiwan lost its influence in East
Asia, and Japan and South Korea rely on China. Economic growth in the region, he
said, depends on Chinese exports and Taiwan should come to terms with the way
things really are.
Chu even went so far as to say that under these circumstances, China does not
have its missiles aimed at Taiwan. This implies that China views Taiwan as
something that already belongs to it and it’s therefore no wonder that some
members of the Chinese military want Taiwan to basically surrender. To this end,
they expect us to give up on the procurement of arms from the US, while also
establishing a cross-strait mutual confidence-building mechanism on military
matters in the South China Sea.
This overbearing attitude is certainly not unique to Chu, nor is it limited to
China’s military. According to reports, a closed-door meeting was held by
Chinese and Taiwanese academics at the scenic area of Jiuzhaigou, China, and the
Taiwanese guests noticed a very hard, militaristic tone from both Chinese
officials and academics. Another case in point is the way in which Association
for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Vice President Li Yafei (李亞飛) gave
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) a sermon in front of everyone when he visited
Taiwan.
So does China already believe it has reached the stage where it has the ability
to “conceal its capabilities and bide its time” — the principle of
taoguangyanghui (韜光養晦) adopted by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平)?
Will China keep its head down and plow away in the name of development?
Recently, a well-known Chinese academic, Chen Zhiwu (陳志武), now teaching
economics at Yale University, warned that China should not mistakenly believe
that the “China model” was some sort of secret formula responsible for the high
levels of economic growth China has experienced the last few years. Chen said
that there is no such thing as the China model.
In his new Chinese-language book, Chen says that he believes that the high
levels of growth experienced by China over the years has resulted from the US
being in charge of a unipolar global order that China has managed to benefit and
profit from. Therefore, while Chen does not approve of the US as a hegemonic
power, he does not believe that China should use its surreptitious hegemonic
status to challenge the current unipolar order either. Such behavior, he
believes, would result in total disaster.
Similar views to this are common within academic circles in China, and I have
met more than one person who has expressed such thoughts. Opinions like these
can be voiced at Yale, but they are never openly expressed in China.
We see that China’s impractical dreams of becoming a rising superpower involve
it secretly using its somewhat hidden hegemonic attitude to test the waters in
the region. This is increasing tensions in the already jumpy East Asian region,
and this will definitely put increasing pressure on Taiwan.
To be precise, China’s growth is not only based on the US-led unipolar order; it
is also inextricably linked to Taiwan.
Corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae has come up with many examples that prove
China is very dependent on Taiwan. For example, 14 of China’s biggest exporters
are Taiwanese companies. China also lacks people skilled in business
administration and Chinese companies rely heavily on Taiwanese businesspeople to
help them in this area. There are currently 2 million Taiwanese nationals
serving as senior business managers in China, and more than 90,000 Taiwanese
companies lying at the heart of China’s economy.
Therefore, with regard to China’s impractical attitude about becoming a
hegemonic power, Chen suggests that it is extremely important to revisit and
think about the diplomatic policy of “concealing its capabilities and biding its
time.”
However, if China really is confident it can do this, there should be no need
for all the talk from these well-known academics. The way things are developing
seems to be at odds with Beijing’s claims of a “peaceful rise.” One can only
wonder what is going on in Beijing.
Many people are excited about China’s moves toward becoming a hegemon, and the
strangest thing about this is that some people in Taiwan are echoing this view.
Furthermore, there are people coming out and trying to calm things down by
saying that it does not matter because things will not fall apart even if the
parties involved do struggle against each other.
However, the very idea of these struggles causes a lot of anxiety, and it is
hard to calculate just how many resources this anxiety wastes and how much this
gets in the way of development.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party
legislator.
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