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June 5, 2006

The Idea of New International Order China Is
Seeking and An East Asia Community (2)By AMAKO Satoshi
2. China’s National Strategy and Asia-Oriented Foreign Policy
Crucial changes in China’s national strategy and foreign policy strategy were articulated at the16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in November 2002. The nationalstrategy adopted at the party congress first called for the “great restoration of the Chinesenation” and put forth the goal of realizing an all-round “well-off society” by quadrupling grossdomestic product (GDP) between 2000 and 2020 to more than $4 trillion. This goal meant that
China would seek to rank with Japan in terms of the overall size of its economy and bring its
per-capita GDP up to the level of a middle-income country. When China, already a “politicalpower” and a “military power,” announces the intention to rank with the world’s No. 2
economically as well, it is tantamount to declaring the intent of seeking to become the world’s
second power, next only to the United States, both in name and reality.
What, then, are the characteristics of the external strategy China intends to pursue under theabove-described grand strategy? The changes in China’s foreign policy made at the 16th Party
Congress can be summarized as follows. First, compared with the 15th Party Congress, greater
emphasis was laid on the advocacy of world peace and the promotion of co-prosperity. This islinked to the idea of the so-called “peaceful rising,” proposed in 2003 by Zheng Bijian, vicepresident of the Central Party School (described in more detail below). Second, it gained agreater sense of participation in the international society as a “responsible power,” and became
more enthusiastic about participating in international affairs, in order to seek harmonious
coexistence between countries with a varied degree of strength without seeking the status of asingle dominant nation. Third, it sought to expand and enrich the scope of areas of cooperationin order to enhance the effects of cooperation. This third point indeed is directly linked to thepromotion of regional cooperation in East Asia, and will be considered more thoroughly later.
It appears that an important change took place in China’s basic perception of the internationalstructure, a factor that needs to be taken into account in considering the shift in China’s external
strategy. As is well known, China essentially viewed the basic structure of international society
in the post-Cold War period as a “period of transition to a multipolarized world.” The “poles,”needless to say, mean “powerful nations,” and China believed that the basic way for stabilizing1the international order would be a process of adjustment and balancing between the plural poles.
This was China’s “perception” but at the same time was a “strategy of multipolarization” in thesense that China wanted to avoid the United States becoming the “single power” and sought tobuild a new international order through harmony among three or more powers (poles) that wererelatively close in strength.
At present, China does not reject the idea of the multipolarization itself, but it appears that it isbeginning to change the meaning of the term significantly. For example, Wang Yi, former viceforeign minister and currently ambassador to Japan, characterizes the shift in the “perception ofmultipolarization” as follows. Instead of viewing multipolarization as a system of adjustments
among powerful nations, China now: (1) embraces the idea of harmonious coexistence ofcountries with varying degrees of strength, (2) regards developing countries as importantelements of the multipolarized structure, and (3) considers multipolarization as an objective
trend but seeks “equality and cooperation, and harmonious coexistence” among countries. Prof.
Yie Zicheng of Peking University also points out that “the idea of multipolarization includes
opposition to hegemonism and unilateralism by the United States.”
What brought about these changes in China’s perception of the international structure and its
strategy? Needless to say, the first factor behind these changes was the shift in China’sperception of its own strength following the significant increase in its “comprehensive nationalstrength” with economic background that has shown sustained growth for over a quarter of acentury. In the era of former strongman Deng Xiaoping, China indeed was “still a small country
with little strength” and its basic approach was, “defense is the main strategy.” Today, however,China, as it grows out of this “passive” approach, has come to view itself as having acquired thestrength to participate in international society “at its own initiative and more actively.”
Secondly, however, the increased awareness of its own strength has tended to increase China’s
awareness of the threat from the United States. After seeing the dramatic advances in the UnitedStates’ high-tech military capability in the Gulf War, the Afghan War and the Iraq War, and in
the wake of the afore-mentioned bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the April
2001 incident where a U.S. reconnaissance plane was forced to land on Hainan Island, China
became keenly aware that the United States is the only nation capable of mounting a serious
strike against it. In the United States, there is a persistent view, particularly among hardliners,that China remains a “potential enemy.” Shi Yinghong underscores China’s apprehensions about
the United States by pointing out that “in the last two or three years, particularly after the 9/11
terrorist attacks, the supremacy and hegemonistic posture of the United States have reachedunprecedented levels. Also, the U.S. tendency to seek to prevent China from acquiring strong
military power and international political power is unprecedented.
Further, the third factor is the steady spread of a way of thinking toward international
cooperation among China’s policymakers, advisers and academic circles. They increasingly2

argue for a structure of multilateral and regional interdependence and mutual development toreplace the power politics approach that forms the basis of the “polar structure.” The reasons forthese developments are: (1) With China itself integrated into the structure of international
interdependence, mainly economically, as well as into the framework of international“dependent coprosperity,” China has come to the strong realization that international economiccooperation provides the foundation for its development and the expansion of its overall nationalstrength; (2) liberalism has emerged and gained growing influence among researchers in China’s
think-tanks, policy advisers and scholars in international relations, particularly among thosewith experience studying in Western countries; (3) China is taking initiatives as a “responsiblepower” with the principle of respect for international cooperation, and (4) at least over the shortand medium term, China is sticking to a cooperative approach as its strategy toward the UnitedStates, considering that its current policy priority is to convey the importance of China-U.S.
cooperation in the fight against terrorism and the six-party consultations on the Korean
Peninsula, not to give an excuse to the United States to take a hard-line stance toward itself, andto draw the United States into its strategy toward Taiwan as a means to isolate Taiwan.
China began to question the effectiveness of the idea of multipolarization, and is now sticking tothe cooperative approach toward the Untied States while feeling increasingly threatened by it. In
this context, China’s policymakers began to move toward the idea of turning East Asia into aregional space as a sort of an entity with common interests that reflects China’s intentions andinterests. This led to the birth of the concept of an “East Asia Community” in line with theChinese thinking. This issue is discussed in detail below.
(This is the text of an article by Prof. AMAKO Satoshi, Professor of Waseda University andMember of the Council on East Asian Community, which was originally posted on thewebsite of “Amako Ajia-ron” (http://eac.cocolog-nifty.com/amako/).)3