BOOK REVIEWS

Elisabeth Fouquoire-Brillet, La Chine et le nucléaire; Solomon M. Karmel, China and the People's Liberation Army, Great Power or Struggling Developing State?; Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment; Susan Puska ed., People's Lib

A number of questions are raised by the increasing power of China, by its military development, and by the impenetrability of its strategic directions—an impenetrability that is highlighted by the dazzling apparent openness of its official declarations. These questions have given rise to a spate of works devoted to the essential problem of the nature of Chinese power, and especially its military capabilities. Yet, despite the large number of works in the field, the common factor in the majority is that they explore the issues by taking a stand within the debate over the Chinese threat, and limiting their analyses to a US-centred view, forgetting the main issue of strategic imbalance at the regional level.

Solomon Karmel sets out to emphasise that there is a dichotomy, which he applies to China, between great power ambitions and the limited capacities of any developing country. His main intention seems to be to combat what he calls the “China threat theories” and to put the “so-called rising power of China” into perspective. He argues that China is a developing state whose energies are totally absorbed in confronting the threats to its ill-defined frontiers. According to this view, the PRC is threatened in Xinjiang, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the Indian border region, all of which constitute “threats” as traditionally understood by Chinese strategic thinkers.

Solomon Karmel considers that China cannot constitute a threat, since it considers itself to be threatened. In taking this view, he forgets that it is the various forces in opposition to Peking's extension of its area of control that constitute the “threat” to which the regime always alludes. The PRC does not admit the legitimacy of the status quo, and therefore it defines such things as “Taiwanese separatism” as a “threat”. But for Karmel, the PRC's wish to establish its own control is merely “natural” from a historical viewpoint. Equally “natural” is the need for China to have full control over an expanded area of land and sea, this being a doctrine of Lebensraum, which the Chinese are the last among the great powers to formulate. Karmel also forgets that Peking's many references to the threats facing China are a regular form of self-justification, in defence of its quite substantial increase in military capability at a time when, following the fall of the Soviet Union, there is actually no real threat to its territory.

Karmel also reminds us that China does not belong to any alliance, that it has no military bases abroad, and that Peking is “not even” a member of the G8. But the PRC's motives for refusing to join the G8 are essentially to block the growth of a forum that includes Japan, and that, given an expanded role in world affairs, might enter into competition with the Security Council. The latter body is currently useful to the PRC as a mechanism for diminishing or obstructing rival power structures.

Karmel argues further, that, unlike the United States, the PRC is not a major power, insofar as it tends to react rather than initiate action. According to him, the “altruistic” American model of overseas intervention, with all the excessive missionary zeal that can go with it, is a long way from the “egocentric” Chinese model, which is governed essentially by the wish to prevent all “interference” in its internal affairs and to resist any real integration into the global system. So, from Peking's point of view, if the United States were to give up its interventionist intentions, relations between the two states would automatically improve. But this leaves the problem that such a renunciation by the United States would actually mean its acceptance of a deal recognising the whole of Asia as the PRC's legitimate sphere of influence. That is the meaning that nowadays must be seen to underlie China's constantly repeated demands for a withdrawal of US forces from Asia (1).

According to Karmel's view, the Chinese threat is “a Loch Ness monster”, i.e. not necessarily real, and the PRC should not be considered a danger to its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, apart perhaps from India, which he accuses of behaving “more like a regional superpower than China”. However, at this very moment the PRC is among the main concerns (and is perhaps even the main concern) dominating the development of strategic thinking in Japan, India, South-East Asia—where there is a clear desire for closer ties with the United States—, and even Russia to a certain extent. And these states' perception of a danger arises from the fact that, even if Peking's priority remains economic development, as Karmel affirms (echoing the Chinese leadership), many questions can legitimately be raised over the PRC's future use of the increased power arising from such development.

As far as the military strategy of the PRC is concerned, particularly its nuclear strategy, Karmel likewise stresses the “coherence” of China's no first strike policy, and the “purely deterrent” characteristics of China's nuclear strategy “in the face of potential aggression” from a superpower. Here too, the writer takes no account of the coercive threat represented by the Chinese nuclear arsenal, and the chosen direction of its development. Moreover, he plays down the pressure that China can put even on the United States, since the limited number of their Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) is not so small as to reduce their political impact to zero.

Although to a lesser extent, Elisabeth Fouquoire-Brillet's La China et le nucléaire suffers similarly from the writer's inability to distance herself from the Chinese theses that she offers for analysis. In line with Peking's constant assertions, Fouquoire-Brillet repeats that it is for “historical reasons” that “China attaches the deepest importance to the maintenance of her independence and sovereignty”, without noting that China is hardly alone in such a situation. In official Chinese parlance these “historical reasons” are the “past humiliations”, which were always the result of foreign exactions rather than the failures of successive Chinese governments. It is such a deep historical attachment to independence, it seems, that would explain China's opting to develop a nuclear ballistic arsenal, largely consisting of short and medium range weapons whose purely deterrent value is not immediately obvious to any of the neighbouring states. Paradoxically, it was with the American superpower that an agreement over detargeting was signed, when Bill Clinton visited Peking in 1998. Another weakness in Fouquoire-Brillet's book is the presence of generalisations like “millennial civilisations for whom time has a different value”. Any investigator, sinologist or otherwise, should avoid such formulae like the plague.

As a great nuclear power, present or future, China is said by Fouquoire-Brillet to have supported a non-proliferation policy, while it appears that Chinese technicians have been improving the Iraqi air defences. Furthermore, China is held to be “capable of challenging the United States' leading nuclear role in the world”... It remains to be seen whether that is such a good thing.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, more historical part, has the merit of introducing newcomers to the results of US studies that are doubtless relatively unknown in France. But it is dominated by a lack of critical interpretation, both at the level of its strategic analyses and at the level of its more technical data. Thus, there is no mention anywhere that there are serious grounds for doubting that the Xia submarine-launched missile is actually operational, although this is an essential element for assessing the nuclear capabilities of the PRC. As for nuclear strategy; it is not sufficient merely to reiterate Peking's statements to the effect that this strategy is based on the concept of deterrence. It might be more useful to mention coercion as well, although this is a less officially endorsed line, but arguably no less valid for all that.

The second part, dealing with disarmament and non-proliferation, suffers likewise from seeing nothing but sweetness and light, even though the section on Chinese diplomatic approaches to disarmament turns out to be more interesting. It seems more than problematic to simply adopt Chinese assertions that “the Chinese approach to non-proliferation is very different from the American one, in that it is not part of a strategy for nuclear dominance”, and that “this relationship of the weak to the strong explains why Peking partly espouses the position of non-nuclear countries”. Except, it should be added, in its own region, when it confronts the desire of some of its neighbours to acquire a nuclear capability in order to counter the PRC's policy of regional dominance. Once again, it would be better if the distorting lens of anti-Americanism were not allowed to interfere with her analysis of the strategic situation in Asia.

The last section, which deals with the civilian use of nuclear power, is less controversial, although, because of editorial constraints, it remains rather superficial in an area where the economic stakes are high.

The collection edited by Susan Puska, People's Liberation Army after Next, gives a wider range of perspectives. The introductory article by James Lilley, takes the familiar stand against the believers in the reality of a Chinese threat, by simply reasserting the weakness of the PLA's capabilities. This is a very US-centred reassurance to Americans, aimed at showing that China cannot project its power long distance and is in fact reduced to developing its capabilities for deploying its forces within China itself, or in its immediate surroundings. According to this view, since the United States is not part of these immediate surroundings, it is therefore not affected by the “Chinese threat”. This is particularly true if the United States should cease to maintain, by its presence or its actions, the security of its allies in Asia, as Peking proposes.

By way of contrast, other articles like those of William Triplett II and Martin Stokes, on the information war and Theater Missile Defense, are much more interesting insofar as they directly address the real issue of the Chinese threat, which is one of perception and a play of appearances. In the case of China, such appearances are based on real and far from negligible capabilities. In his contribution, Arthur Waldron asserts that China is isolated on questions of sovereignty, from which he concludes that any resort to armed force on its part would not be viable. This position is also intended as a reassurance, because it bypasses the considerable cost to the United States that would be incurred by a conflict with China over Taiwan. But its realism is doubtful, particularly in view of the fact that on several occasions since 1949, even in situations of extreme weakness, China has not hesitated to resort to military action. The main danger, moreover, arises from a Chinese misperception of US intentions. And it is this very misperception that can only be reinforced a contrario by the constantly reiterated denunciations in various publications, of those who hold the view that the “Chinese threat” is a reality.

It is useful to take a critical look at the concept of “normality”, because the analyses of the PRC in all the above works suffer from a shared illusion of “normality”, whereas in fact the PRC is characterised by its own irreducible political specificity, and its leaders' refusal to be integrated.

In this respect, the most useful work is Michael Pillsbury's China Debates the Future Security Environment. This is the only one of the works under review here which puts China's statements on strategic matters under critical scrutiny, and opens them up for interpretation. The introduction gives a very competent analytical account of the main issues of Chinese military power, and draws attention to the essential question of the nature—but also the limitations—of the debates within the Party on strategic matters. The work deals systematically with the major themes that recur in Chinese analyses. These turn on the decline of the United States, global multi-polarity, India and Japan, Russia and the nature of war. The Chinese strategists like to play with the concept of “asymmetrical warfare”, this being a modern means—also recommended by Sun Tse—of taking advantage of the “gaps” in the opponent's strength. The work also introduces the reader to a range of published materials that would be particularly enlightening for those who not only have eyes but wish to see with them. When it comes to looking at China, this is something which is rather rare.

Translated from the French original by Jonathan Hall