BOOK REVIEWS

The Strategic Challenges Facing China in the Wake of September 11th

The September 11th attacks on the United States have led to a crescendo of official meetings and assessments in Peking, which have contrasted sharply with the apparent indifference shown in early media reactions and with the initially rather muted indications of support to the US from President Jiang Zemin (1). Moreover, these meetings and assessments underline the significance that Peking attaches to this event or, more precisely, to its geostrategic consequences for the region (2). Behind the official condemnation, the qualified support for Americaís military action and an apparent optimism as to the strategic consequences for China and for Sino-American relations, one can perceive in reality that Chinaís leaders are deeply anxious about their strategic direction in view of the reconstruction within the Asian theatre that the attacks may bring about. Thus, according to Ye Zicheng, Director of the Department of International Studies at the University of Peking, if the United States were to station troops in Afghanistan or Pakistan, it could only cause damage to the favourable development of relations between Peking and Washington and complicate the situation in Central Asia (3).

Indeed, for China the consequences of the September 11th attacks are twofold: a brutal reconstruction of the strategic landscape in Asia, particularly on its own continental flank, and the concomitant risk that its margin for manoeuvre will be greatly reduced and that the more favourable positions it thought it had occupied since the end of the Cold War will be weakened.

In effect, Asia lies today at the heart of Americaís strategic concerns, and the crimes of September 11th, contrary to what Chinese strategists might have hoped, have done nothing to change that analysis. It is Americaís reinvestment in this areaóIslamís world centre in population termsóthat alters so sharply the strategic balance there: for the Peopleís Republic of China (PRC) above all, the fallout could prove to be severe. Peking is today the linchpin of Asian security by virtue of its geographically central position and its world aspirations. But its strategy of non-interference, the corollary of its ambitions, is now in ruins. Moreover, if the crimes of September 11th were able so critically to alter the strategic balance in Asia, then they must have crystallised tendencies and developments that were already in evidence. Rather than triggers, they have acted in Asia as pointers to the changing balance of power.

Qualified support for Americaís arguments

Chinaís official response to the attacks, when compared with those of Western countries and also with that of President Putin (who might have been expected to share with Peking a measure of reserve), appears very half-hearted. Indeed, the official Chinese press treated the story for several days with remarkable hesitancy, as though it sought to deny the uniqueness of an event whose overall strategic impact became quickly evident to Chinese leaders and their entourage of experts.

What is more, for almost ten days, with no restrictions being imposed by the authorities, the numerous Internet discussion sites controlled by organs of the Communist Party expressed an embarrassing satisfaction over the humiliation inflicted upon the American superpoweróan unwelcome by-product of the nationalistic propaganda the government had been using as a tool of its foreign policy (4).

Having hesitated for a while, the government laid down a discourse emphasising its all-out condemnation of terrorism. But in reality, the ambiguousness and the reservations that colour the Chinese response reflect the contradictions behind Chinaís official position: while China lays claim to the status of a world power, it is still utterly indifferent to anything that does not constitute a direct encroachment upon its sphere of interest. The attacks of September 11th set Peking a challenge on two levels: firstly, the situation made necessary a real international commitment alongside the American superpower; and secondly, the massive intervention took place into an area that Peking considers part of its own sphere, if not of influence, then at least of interest.

Yet the PRC gradually softened its tone, seeming to consider that the attacks might offer a means to improve its international image and, above all, to garner some advantages in its own domestic anti-terrorist campaign. On September 18th, government spokesman Zhu Bangzao declared: The United States has asked us to help it fight against terrorism. Equally, we have reasons for asking the United States to lend us its support and understanding in our struggle against terrorism and separatism. There can be no double standards. We are not suggesting any horse trading; but China and the United States have a common interest in opposing the Taiwanese independence movement which constitutes the main threat to stability in the Strait (5). In Pekingís very codified vocabulary, separatism is applied not just to Xinjiangówhere, in the light of the more violent and Islamic character of certain groups, the connection might be madeóbut also to Tibet, Inner Mongolia and, of course, Taiwan, which Peking regards as part of Chinese territory. Chinaís Foreign Affairs Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, may have been conscious of the narrow self-interest underlying his governmentís demands for comprehension and was warned off perhaps by the US administrationís cool reception. He remarked later, during his talks with Colin Powell, that there had been no suggestion of any bargaining over Taiwan (6).

The confusion surrounding Chinaís official reaction is a sign not merely of a difficulty in taking quick decisions and in defining the consensual response within a Chinese leadership that is now more many-headed than in the time of Mao or even Deng. It is also a sign, more certainly, of the Chinese leadersí anxiety when confronted by their reduced margin for manoeuvre in relations with their neighbours and with Washington.

Thus, while Jiang Zemin expressed to the US his condolences and his condemnation of terrorism, he set three conditions for his support for American actionóand this even before the start of the raids on Afghanistan. The three conditions were the need to establish concrete proof of Osama Bin Ladenís guilt, consultation with the UN Security Council and respect for innocent lives. These three principles were later formalised by Chinaís Foreign Affairs Minister in two versions. In the second version, which reinforces the terms of the first, China declares that it is firmly opposed to terrorism and insists right from the start that international co-operation is imperative and urgent. According to the terms of the second communiquÈ, any strikes must be in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and those unanimously recognised principles governing international relations. This last point is particularly telling: it refers apparently to the five principles of peaceful coexistence invariably invoked to condemn any interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Lastly, the communiquÈ states that any action must be taken in the long-term interest of world peace and development, as though to point out in advance that any long stay by the Americans in the region would be contrary to this principle (7).

Despite these declarations of support, Chinaís official reservations have stiffened following the strikes against Afghanistan. Thus, President Jiang Zemin is understood to have summoned the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, along with a number of experts, in whose presence he publicly queried the real objective of the US and spoke of the risk that American hegemony in the region would be strengthened by the installation in Kabul and Islamabad of regimes controlled by Washington (8).

A negative assessment of the situation

The key to this Chinese unease, perceptible at the highest level, is to be found in the many commentaries that were published in the national press or in Hong Kongís pro-Peking media during the weeks following the attacks. In general, this discourse takes up the conspiracy theory that was forcefully enunciated following the intervention of NATO forces in Kosovo. The war on terrorism declared by the US is thus assessed as the mere extension of a policy launched at the time of the Gulf War, one that takes the form of advancing American forces across the world in a progressive encirclement of Chinese power. Ye Zicheng, the specialist quoted above, is thus expressing a widely shared opinion when he wonders about the ulterior motive of the United States. Concerned to understand, he establishes a subtle distinction between the subjective motives of the Americans, who think they are fighting against terrorism, and their objective desire for hegemony (9). Similarly, a group of Chinese experts on international relations concludes: In the name of the struggle against terrorism, the US wants to accomplish a strategic leap forwards, moving from a multipolar world to a unipolar world and, by the same act, to give legitimacy to the principle of military interference (10). Wang Fuchun, Director of the Institute of International Strategy of Peking University, traces the roots of terrorism to the arrogant policy of the US, concluding that, to tackle the causes of terrorism, the leaders of certain great powers must re-examine their domestic and foreign policies in order to build a new economic and international order (11).

There is on the part of these experts, therefore, a generally shared refusal to make common cause with the United States and the desire on the contrary to detect within American policy itself the root cause of the terrorist attacks. Similarly, doubts have sometimes been raised as to Bin Ladenís guilt. According to the Peopleís Daily, The only reason for the US intervention lay in its wish to establish a long-term military presence, co-ordinated with NATOís expansion eastwards into Central Asia (12).

Peking might have hoped to draw some short-term advantages by declaring its commitment to the US side; in the long term, however, developments since the September 11th attacks are generally assessed as very unfavourable for Chinaís strategic interests. China fears that America, by reinvesting in the area in response to the attacks, will upset the balance of power. Indeed, the very foundations of Chinese strategy in the regionófaced with the American superpoweróare now under threat.

Significant geostrategic consequences from Chinaís viewpoint

The main fear expressed in Peking is over the riskóthe real riskóthat the Americans will settle in for the long term, or at least that American influence will grow, in a region that represents for China a vital interest on several levels. China is afraid that the US will penetrate central and southern Asia, particularly Pakistan, Chinaís closest ally in the region (13). A sign of this anxietyóone that cannot be explained merely by the improbable risk of a flood of refugees coming in from Afghanistanóis that the Peopleís Liberation Army (PLA) is understood to have strengthened its frontier forces in western Xinjiang, according to some sources by between 5,000 and 15,000 men. Some observers explain this deployment more by Chinaís desire to confront the consequences of American intervention at its gates than by its eagerness to fight against terrorism (14). Moreover, the relations between China and Afghanistan lie at the heart of the ambiguities of Chinese strategy towards lawless areas or rogue states.

The ambiguities of the Sino-Afghan relationship

The relationship that Peking maintained with the Kabul regime are a defining example of Chinese strategy: never ignore any opportunity to promote the destabilisation of oneís adversaries while taking every possible care to protect oneís own interests. In Chinaís classical literature on strategy, backed up here by Leninist realism, the aim is to make use of a close enemy in order to fight a distant enemy. In accordance with this principle, China has thus maintained with the Taliban regime (whose radical nature hardly troubled Peking as long as Xinjiang was excluded from the immediate objectives of the holy war) relations that, for a non-Islamic country, were particularly cordial. Indeed, the presence of Uighur fighters in Afghanistan is still very marginal, even though Peking today makes a big thing of it, the better to establish a link between Xinjiang and international terrorism (15). Legalistic as Peking always is, it never established diplomatic relations with the Kabul regime because the latter was not recognised by the UN. On the other hand, Chinaís ambassador to Pakistan was the only foreign and non-Islamic person to have been received by Mullah Omar in 2000 (16). Furthermore, the PRC has always refused to associate itself with UN votes for sanctions against Afghanistan and has put in place a considerable programme of economic and technical co-operation with the Taliban regime. In 1999, judging by reports of sightings, a direct air route between Kabul and Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, was opened (17), which puts into perspective any fears Peking may then have had about proselytising by Kabul. Agreements on economic and technical co-operation, particularly in the areas of hydraulics and mining, have also been concluded between China and Afghanistan, the most recent of which was announcedórather inopportunelyóon the eve of the attacks against the US (18).

More embarrassingly for Peking, two Chinese enterprises had been working since 1999 to provide a communications network in Kabul built on a system of international cable and fibre optics that, in a country like Afghanistan, would have been rather more sophisticated than might be expected for strictly civilian use. Yet, as the Taliban regimeís financial difficulties had led to a suspension of the contract, the Chinese government spokesman was able to deny any current co-operation (19).

Chinaís unease about its relations with Afghanistan can readily be detected behind the governmentís official declarations following the September 11th attacks. Spokesman Zhu Bangzao asserted that China has no selfish interest in the Afghan question and that, while contacts had taken place on several occasions, it had no official relationship with the Taliban (20). Even so, according to some sources, co-operation between China and the Taliban also extended to the military sphere (21). Thus, in December 1998, an agreement on military co-operation is understood to have been signed between Kabul and Peking after the visit to Afghanistan by a Chinese delegation of military experts on Americaís missile launch sites (22).

One can identify several motives behind this odd relationship with the Taliban regime. There is no doubting Chinaís wish to assure the goodwill of a potentially destabilising regime and prevent the autonomous region of Xinjiang from becoming the target of a full-scale holy war. There was also the lure of profit and the desire to establish itself in an Afghan market free of competition (because of the widespread ostracism of the Taliban). But neither can one exclude the obvious ambition, on the part of the Chinese government, to develop close relationsóeven in the most sensitive fieldsówith any and all of the rogue states condemned by Washington. By this means, China acquired for itself a private clientele andóin the context of its still difficult relations with Washingtonóit added to its armoury the ever serviceable weapon of the risk of destabilisation.

Challenging the Sino-Pakistani alliance and stirring things up in southern Asia

While Pakistan is not Afghanistan, Pekingís relations with Islamabad have been marked by a similar range of ambiguities, particularly in the area of military co-operation. In this regard, a possible revision of Chinaís friendship with Pakistanóor, more precisely, of the benefits that China could draw from itóis today the first upset that Chinese strategists must confront. Not only the Sino-Pakistani relationship but also the three-cornered relations between Peking, Islamabad and New Delhiórelations that played to Pekingís advantageóare now placed in doubt by the likelihood of Pakistan being pushed back into the American camp (23). Despite Pekingís recent worries about the Islamabad regime being unstable and the risks of fundamentalist agitation, China has never queried its alliance with Pakistan, even refraining from any public denunciation of the regimeís relapses into destabilising postures. Yet the Pakistani ace in Pekingís hand is now revealed to be rather weak. Pakistan, the only real supporter of the Taliban regime, has not been able to hold out against any of the demands made by the United States, and, according to some sources, Pakistanís nuclear capability is today under the controlóor, at least, the ever vigilant eyeóof Washington (24).

In consequence, while Pakistanís switch of allegiance has brought it into closer partnership with the Westóincluding in the field of economicsóthe support from China, always stingy outside the military sphere, might also appear less necessary, which reduces by that much Pekingís capacity to exert pressure. Of equal weight is the fact that, beyond any strategic consideration, in those less developed countries in the same region as Pakistan China is much more of a competitor in export markets for goods of little added value than it is a real element of economic complementarity. Moreover, any reinvestment by the Americans in the area could also lead to stabilisation at the regional levelówhich also means Kashmiróamounting to a big reduction in the margin for manoeuvre of Islamabad and Peking. So China risks losing its closest ally in the region while American power moves in unchallengedóquite the opposite of the situation that obtained during the Cold War.

Moreover, fears were quickly raised in Peking that Indian positions might be strengthened, while at the same time the eternal balancing role played by Pakistan was losing its nuisance value. Americaís seizure of control over Pakistan lessened the possibilities for China and India to come into indirect conflict (through Pakistan), and China thus risked losing in the long term one of its principal means of exerting pressure on New Delhi. Indiaís nuclear capability, against which China had tried to build a coalition of responsible powers so as to preserve its privileges as the only Asian member of the N5 (the original five nuclear powers), is confirmed by the raising of sanctions. And unlike Pakistan, India would be subject to no real control. So this is another trouble spot removed from Chinese influence. Lastly, in more practical terms, the catastrophic scenarios envisaged by Chinaís strategists, fearing that the US will directly or indirectly take a hand in Tibet, now turn out to be more realistic.

The future of the Shanghai Group

The Shanghai Group brings together China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as partners (25). Today, in the regional aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the weakness of the Groupís foundations has been clearly exposed. If China held the organisation up as a model of harmonious relations between states, it was mainly because it was based on a barely disavowed client relationship. On one side there was China, developing rapidly, relatively powerful and increasingly sure of its place on the international stage, and on the other Russian and Central Asian partners neglected by the West and faced with serious development problems. For Peking, two essential motives dictated the need for this partnership. It had to be sure of the support or, more precisely, of the neutrality of neighbouring states during Pekingís battle against Uighur separatism in Xinjiang, and it wanted to fend off the United States. The first motive is still very real and, indeed, is reinforced by the demands of the war against international terrorism. But, despite Pekingís present discourse, this was not its main motive, bearing in mind that the unrest in Xinjiang is under tight control by Chinese forces of repression and is of a much reduced intensity since the last big flare-ups in the late 1990s (26). The condemnation of separatism expressed by the member states of the Shanghai Group in the region reflected, as with the Taiwan question, a symbolic recognition of the Chinese regimeís power, expressed in the form of unconditional support for its arguments.

On the other hand, the aim of controlling American influence in the region was essential for Peking, which was already becoming very worried over the manoeuvres that NATOís Partnership for Peace had organised with Kazakhstan in 1998. This is where the Shanghai Groupís foundations were revealed after September 11th to be weakest. China may make much of the common pledge by the six nations of the Shanghai Group to support the international community in fighting terrorism, but, in reality, without consulting their Chinese partner, all the member states have in effect agreed to offer the United States facilities that allow American forces a real presence in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and they have opened the way to longer term collaboration with the US, as in the case of Uzbekistan (27).

Faced with this, from Chinaís point of view, particularly unfavourable development, some experts in Peking have ventured to ask whether China risks being thrown out of the Shanghai Group; prior to September 11th the Group was presented as one of the crown jewels of Chinese diplomacy. So for Peking the strategic firewall of the Shanghai Group, like that of Pakistan, is well on the way to collapse (28).

Furthermore, the economic consequences of reinvestment in the area by the US and the Western camp are far from being wholly negligible for Peking. These countries of the Shanghai Group, like all those most vulnerable states around the Chinese perimeter, are a relatively important market for the consumer goods produced by Chinaís state enterprises: these are low quality products that cannot be re-exported to Western markets, are sometimes pirated as in the case of medicines, and are available in massive stocks that hardly move on the Chinese market. A more developed and better controlled environment would probably interfere with the practice of these unequal exchanges between China and its poorest and most isolated neighbours.

The reinvestment of American military power in Asia

An article in the Peopleís Daily of September 20th expressed a concern widely shared among Chinese strategists, for whom the deployment of American troops around Afghanistan presents the US with a rare opportunity to establish a long-term military presence in the region (29). Whatever the motive, whether it be the Chinese threat before September 11th or the subsequent fight against international terrorism, it comes to the same thing for China: the risk of seeing the Americans establishing themselves as a greater influence in Asiaóand, as Peking sees it, a negative one. For Chinese analysts, Americaís capacity directly or indirectly to control the whole continental massówhether China likes it or notóis the more worrying since it obliges China to reconsider the priorities it has set for itself since the end of the Cold War (30). Whereas Chinaís forces still have very limited resources, its leaders, in developing their military capacity, had arrived at their choices according to strategic priorities; since the collapse of the USSR, these did not include defending the continental perimeter to the north and northwest (31). The strengthening of the American presence, or of American military, economic or diplomatic influence, along an arc stretching from Russia to India has completely overturned this assumption. According to Peking, China is now confronted by a real risk of encirclement that it must take into strategic account. This fear of two fronts is supported by the fact that, even dismissing the hypothesis of a direct engagement, Washington could not accept leaving such a very unstable area outside its surveillance. China will thus presumably be obliged to devote its limited resources to objectives other than strengthening its capacity for naval deployment and controlówhich had been the great priority for the Chinese military in the very favourable circumstances following the end of the Cold War. For many of these analysts, the implications for Chinaís national and strategic interests are therefore considerable (32).

The consequences of this encirclement are all the more considerable since they arise in a context of bitter rivalry between Peking and Washington. To put it plainly, the Americans have far from forgotten how Peking treated the affair of their EP3 surveillance aircraft in April 2001. What is more, despite Chinaís tactical discourse on the need for renewed co-operation with Washington, for which the common fight against terrorism could in theory serve as a basis, Peking and Washington have no real strategic interest in common, beyond vague appeals for stability. As the Peopleís Daily pointed out, The United States and China can have no agreement of a political nature on any other subject (apart from that of Taiwan) because China has no interest in committing itself to a process of confrontation or co-operation with the United States in any other region of the globe. Now here is a perfect definition of the strategy of double non-intervention that Peking would like to see recognised by Washington: non-intervention by China outside its enlarged area of interest and non-intervention by the US in Asia (33).

Moreover, according to Peking, the threat of Chinaís encirclement extends not only right along the continental arc but also on the southern and eastern flanks. While Peking has for many years condemned the survival of alliance systems inherited from the Cold War, and in particular has expressed fears about the strengthening of military co-operation between the US and Japan, the logic is now renewed for maintaining American bases in the archipelago: they offer essential logistical support for any system for deploying forces from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean. The same applies to American military installations in South Korea. What is more, the logic of a war against terrorism, being based on a different motivation than that of responding to the Chinese threat, evades in large part the means of pressure applied by Peking.

Chinese leaders are also worried about the possible strengthening of co-operation and the American presence in Southeast Asia, from the Philippines to Singapore by way of Cambodia and Indonesiaóeven though in the latter case the stabilising role of the US appears to be better understood (34). Indeed, Washington might find a direct interest in investing more into sorting out the problems of the Muslim community in Malaya, which is threatened by destabilisation, particularly if the Islamic tensions in the area were to develop and if links with terrorist organisations were to appear more clearly. This is already the case in the Philippines, where military co-operation between the two countries in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf group has been considerably stepped up. A minimal demand for good government could be accompanied by political and economic support for still fragile governments in Indonesia and the Philippines, making this intrusion by America more acceptable at the regional level. Thus, in the words of a Chinese specialist of the United States, G. W. Bush is prepared for a long-term presence in the whole region aimed at imposing order (35). The world policeman returning to Chinaís western gates after years of relative withdrawal, sure of his moral rights and backed by wide international supportóthat is what Peking dreads today.

The squeezing of Chinaís margin for manoeuvre

One of the consequences in Asia of the September 11th attacks has been to demonstrate the great fragility of the united front strategies that Peking had deployed to combat American hegemony. The concomitant development, with consequences no less troubling for China, has been the strengthening of regional or extra-regional powers which the first objective of Chinese strategy had been to keep in a subordinate or remote position.

The weakness of the Sino-Russian partnership

The weakness of the Sino-Russian partnership, revealed by the September 11th attacks, is typical of the reconstructions that China must now face up to. For Peking, the whole point of its new friendship with Moscow, reflected in the signing last July of a new friendship pact, was to erect a new front against the American superpower and to reactivate, in a different format, the old Peking-Moscow-Washington three-cornered game that was played out during the Cold War. Taking advantage of the weakening of Russian power, China had put in place a relationship for which opposition to the USóthough denied in the official discourseówas the principal, if not the only, motive. At the bilateral level, it was obvious that the Sino-Russian friendship was precarious. Their relations had been shown to be deceptive in economic matters, apart from the sale of Russian arms to China. They were strategically limited if one considers Russian links with India or Russian positions on the Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) projects which were confirmed following September 11th. They were unsatisfying at the human rights level in view of the exploitation in some Russian circles of the difficult question of Chinese immigrants in Russiaís far-eastern regions. And, lastly, they were politically outmoded in Moscow, where only the most conservative circles defended the alliance with Peking. The basic weakness of that alliance was cruelly exposed in the days following the September 11th attacks when President Putin, first among all foreign leaders, telephoned President Bush to assure him of his total support and imposed upon less enthusiastic currents of thoughtópresent in particular within the Defence Ministryóthis very pro-American attitude. Even more meaningfully for Peking, President Putin also redoubled his approaches to NATO. Set alongside the opportunity for Russia to resume a privileged connection with the United States, as of one world leader with another, the partnership with China assumed the appearance it had probably had all along in the minds of Russian leaders: a partnership by default.

Confronted by the danger of isolation, Peking attempted to draw Russia into condemning the risks brought on by the American stance in the region, denouncing the desire to control Afghanistan, which will give the US the possibility of encircling Russia from the south and China from the west (36). But other assessments are far less indulgent towards Moscow, criticising Russiaís strategy which, following the attacks, has profited by them in order to draw closer to the US and NATO (37). Whatever future developments may bring, Peking will not easily forget Russiaís desertion, nor will it lose its new awareness of the very great limitations of this alliance.

The bitterness seems all the greater since, whereas Jiang telephoned Vladimir Putin to inform him of Chinaís concerns about NATOís role, Moscow did not consider it a good idea to consult its Chinese ally before making this spectacular U-turn in favour of the United States. It is recognised in Peking in other, less official assessments that the strategic realignment that followed September 11th may have put Russia well aheadóand that would include in the Chechnya question. Moscow succeeded in forcing Washington into concessions, whereas China is having difficulty in gaining acceptance for its arguments on the question of separatismóIslamic, Tibetan or Taiwanese (38).

The prospects for legitimising Japanese power

While the strategic situation on Chinaís western flank has been of great concern in Peking since September 11th, the unashamed emergence of Japanese power (which, by its own standard, is agreeing to play a military role far beyond its own frontiers) is enough to concern China just as much. Indeed, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi immediately affirmed the necessity for Japan to give clear support to its American ally, including a military commitment within the limits imposed by its constitution. At the end of October, the Diet adopted a provisional and renewable law to widen the regional security perimeter of its islands to the point at which the Japanese-American alliance could be applied. It is true that Japan is in an entirely new situationóas NATO had been on the European sideóin having to participate in defending the US after an attack on American soil, whereas all the strategic thinking arising out of the Cold War had envisaged the opposite situation. In practical terms, Japan decided to authorise the dispatch of patrols into the Indian Ocean and the use of a C130 transport plane. Soon after the attacks, the American carrier USS Kitty Hawk, as it left the US base at Yokosuka, was given a symbolic escort of four patrol boats of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF). Still more significantly, this show of military support was given full and positive media coverage.

So Japan might find its sphere of activity and the level of intervention by its SDF extended well beyond anything previously undertaken by Tokyo in the framework of UN peacekeeping operations. A still greater concern for Peking is that the usual argument condemning Japanese militarism is turning out harder to justify in the present circumstances. Some criticisms have been levelled at Japanís extreme right-wing militarists who have seized upon the pretext of the September 11th attacks in order to change the laws, or to assert that giving Japan a more important role will cause endless difficulties for China and Asia, but these censures have not been picked up with any enthusiasm by the official Chinese press (39). On the other hand, Jiang Zemin has stressed Chinaís vigilance in the matter, declaring to Koizumi that while an enhanced role for the SDF might be understood in the present circumstances, Japan should show moderation and take account of the sensitivities of its Asian neighbours (40).

Moreover, going beyond its traditional stance of offering economic support (41), Japan has also played a considerable political role in the process of putting together the anti-terrorist coalition, particularly by influencing the Arab countries and Iran, thus initiating an enhancement of its stature on the international stageómuch resented by Peking. To judge by appearances, while the Chinese Presidentís only direct international contact (before the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit, set up despite the circumstances as a mass to the greater glory of rising Chinese power) was as host to a Pakistani delegation, the Japanese Prime Minister promptly had talks with President Bush in Washington, to whom he reaffirmed Japanís wish to fulfil its responsibilities as an ally and as a member of the international community. Thus, Japan re-established the priority status of its partnership with the US, a relationship that might for a period have appeared threatened by the attentions shown to Peking (42).

The powerful shock delivered by the September 11th attacks largely swept away in Japanese public opinion the reservations usually expressed about any danger of Japan being implicated in an external conflict. According to a poll published in the Nikei newspaper, more than 70% of those asked said they were in favour of mobilising the SDF in support of the US in its fight against terrorism. Lastly, the military basis of the Japanese-American alliance has been strengthened, particularly in view of the contribution that the US bases in the Japanese islands have madeójust as they did during the Gulf Waróto the deployment of Americaís forces. The reinforcement of the alliance is an important element in Americaís growing military role in the area. China regularly condemns the Cold War logic that it says governs the bilateral security accords that link the US with its allies in Asia. Thus, it is bound to consider the latest developments as prejudicial to its interests.

The challenge to Chinaís nuclear proliferation strategy

Another important consequence of the September 11th attacks is that China could have greater problems in usingóin its negotiations with the USóthe more or less veiled threats of nuclear proliferation to which it used to have recourse. The very close military co-operation that China had established with Pakistan, especially in the field of missiles and nuclear warheads, helped it to threaten the US with the weapon of a potentially destabilising nuclear proliferation (43). This argument will be far more difficult to maintain with a Pakistan under US influence or with states suspected of harbouring terrorists as were some of Pekingís partnersófrom Iraq to North Koreaówithout the danger that China may find itself ostracised by the international community.

One sign of the persistent mistrust of the US towards China in this regard is that Washington has refused, despite Chinaís demands, to lift the sanctions imposed last August following Chinaís transfers of missile technology to Pakistan (44). Peking is accused of having created the nuclear capability of a particularly vulnerable regime and of ignoring the potentially perverse effects of this nuclear proliferation strategy. Answering these criticisms, some Chinese commentators close to defence circles quickly declared after September 11th, when the risks of nuclear terrorism were raised, that Pakistanís nuclear weaponófor which Peking presumably does feel partly responsibleówas perfectly controlled (45).

The nuclear proliferation argument was also one of the elements of Chinaís response to the risk that the US would go ahead with its plans for nuclear missile defence. The September 11th attacks offered Chinese analysts a new approach in their condemnation of the American plans. In effect, Chinese discourse now emphasises the necessity for the US to reconsider its priorities and to switch its attention from these plans to the struggle against terrorism. Peking also takes up the accusation of arrogance, saying that the nuclear missile defence project is the manifestation of an arrogance that is itself the source of the resentment andóas a direct consequenceóof the attacks directed against the US. This kind of argument offers the additional advantage of moving the debate about anti-missile defence away from a regional logic that China particularly dreads.

Yet the argument that the US will be obliged to abandon its project for anti-missile defence to win support from China and Russia in the anti-terrorism coalition has appeared misplaced. The stance taken by Vladimir Putin over the ABM treaty, following his talks with President Bush and his National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, demonstrated that Russia would be unwilling to go in for any bargaining. On the contrary, China, having little to offer, is not in a position to impose the smallest condition on its participation in the anti-terrorist coalition (46). It seems that China, having begun by showing some optimism over the question of US missile defence (and thus confirming its powerlessness), has fallen back to a more scepticalóand more realisticóposition on whether the US is likely to abandon the project (47). But the impact of September 11th on Chinaís strategic orientation is apparently more peripheral at other levels, such as that of energy security.

Taking into account the problems over energy security

Unlike the position some years ago, the economic development that China has witnessed makes it much more vulnerable to external crises owing to its growing dependence on foreign investments and exports and also on energy supplies. The economic risk of a massive increase in oil prices seems, in Pekingís view, to have now been removed. On the other hand, because of the present conflict, there is a threat to the security of supplies by sea; and the dangers arising from American control in central Asiaówhere Chinese enterprises have a fast growing stake, particularly in Kazakhstanóare considered by most Chinese analysts as especially worrying. Thus, according to Zhu Xingshan of the Institute of Energy Research in Peking, the development of US influence in central Asia will affect Chinaís energy security. And according to Yang Jijian, a government expert on trade links, China could reconsider the routing of its external supply lines and take measures to assure the security of the pipeline from Lunnan in Xinjiang to Shanghai (48). Furthermore, beyond the strictly regional context, China had reached advantageous oil agreements by favouring its connections with marginalised states and those cut off from US support, such as Sudan, Iran and Libya, these agreements being occasionally subject to exchanges in the field of sensitive weaponry. The present realignments and the growing vigilance of the United States in the matter of non-proliferation might also weaken Chinaís position in this area (49).

China: the sickness of marginalisation and the beginnings of a cure

Chinese leaders are aware that their international standing is being marginalised and they are anxious to repair the worst of the damage. With characteristic pragmatism, they have redoubled their appeals to the United States for a new partnership, one that would give China full recognition as a member of the coalition against terrorism. The problem lies in the fact that Pekingís initial hesitation over whether to commit itself and the limited action that it took were signs of a deeper reluctance that is the root cause of the marginalisation itself. While China has lost its status as Americaís main threat, it has also lost that of Washingtonís first partner in Asia. China is thusóprovisionally, perhapsórelegated to the rank of a secondary power, without any real capacity to help or hinder the advance of the Americans and their allies in the region. As is demonstrated by the confused declarations surrounding the drawing up of an agenda for the APEC conference in Shanghai (where China tried at first, then later changed its mind, to forbid any discussion of the present situation in the framework of a forum for non-state participants such as Taiwan or Hong Kong, and where China found its power diluted alongside other regional powers such as Japan), China today has apparently lost full mastery of questions affecting what it considers its direct interests, and the attitudes it adopts are basically wait-and-see reactions (50). Whereas Chinese strategists have always been able to turn periods of inaction to their own advantage, they are confronted today by an absence of choice, or more precisely by a choice imposed from outsideóa particularly uncomfortable situation for a regime that bases its legitimacy on its capacity to resist any interference in its internal affairs. Thus, in the words of an observer defined as close to defence circles in China: Today we must place ourselves alongside the United States; even though they are our enemy in the long term, it is impossible to say no (51).

Under pain of being shunned by the international community, China must now shun the terrorism camp. This is not for moral reasons. Joining the terrorists would put at risk the very survival of a regime that is becoming aware of Chinaís growing state of economic dependence upon the outside world. By imposing a system of reference based on extremely simplified values (Good against Evil), the very disproportion of the terrorist attacks of September 11th has in effect prohibited China from employing (as it might hitherto have done in its multipolar strategy) the argument of specific or relative values set against universal values. China is one of the states that have most employed this kind of rhetoric, but today it is the one with the most to lose by it.

Contrary to some Chinese assessments, which conclude that the US had a duty to win Chinaís supportóimplying that concessions might have been won in exchange for itósuch support is far less vital in the fight against international terrorism than that of other powers. Russia, India and Pakistan, the republics of central Asia have far more to offer than China when it comes to information and military support and can see their bargaining power suddenly increased. From a logistical and economic point of view, Japanís role is equally essential. Similarly, the backing, or at least the neutrality, of leading Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, whose spiritual endorsement is very valuable to the coalition, can command many concessions. Americaís relative indifference is attested to by the fact that while the President did attend the APEC summit in Shanghai, Washington seems to have yielded to none of Pekingís demands, least of all its wish to include separatism in China under the general heading of international terrorism. Even more worrying for Peking is that some experts in the US maintain that in view of Chinaís vacillating loyalties it can be considered to have one foot in the terroristsí camp (52). What was required of Peking, even beyond making a free commitment to an international coalition, was that it should clarify a strategy that has always preferred to play on ambiguity.

What is more, in the longer term, the internal consequences for the Chinese regime cannot be wholly ignored. President Jiang, whose theory of three represents (san ge daibiao) has already attracted criticism for not being sufficiently communist, is under threat of being overwhelmed by the very nationalism that, by ancient tradition, successive governments in China have encouraged among the people since imperial times. Critics are understood to have spoken out already against the strategy of alliance with the US and to be pointing to the possible impact on Pekingís allies in the Muslim world (53). Some analysts seek to deny the present marginalisation of China while recognising the difficulties with which it is confronted. They assert, for example, that despite its apparently limited activity the Peopleís Republic has increased its secret negotiations with the United States, to avoid offence to the anti-American feelings of the people (54).

Most of the official assessments by Chinaís leaders of the consequences of September 11th, behind the would-be optimistic declarations about China joining up with the international community in its fight against terrorism, are therefore extremely negative and even alarmist. For Peking, the first practical consequence of the September 11th attacks is that they put the Americans into a dominant position in Asia for a long time ahead and accordingly strengthen the positions of Chinaís regional rivals. Confronted by this danger, China will presumably attempt to rebuild the networks now in disarray and to win back its place as a valid partner of the United States, which would include, in the negative sense, issuing threats about destabilisation.

To this end, some repair work has been put in place. We may already perceive in Chinaís reactions some elements that convey above all the wish to bring politics back into the fight against terrorism and to make a commensurate reduction in any warlike action that might exclude China. Further, China would hope to restore an element of multipolarity to the present unilateral intervention of the US which, to the extent that it takes place in Chinaís area of influence, is the main threat to its strategic interests. This ambition is reflected by a head-on attempt at reconstruction on its own front-line, bringing in the European countries and the Arab-Islamic world in particular. This approach is expressed more or less diplomatically. Thus Ye Zicheng , the University of Pekingís specialist, says, The causes of terrorism are complex and cannot only be resolved by military means. The United States must take into account regional stability and world peace (55). Yan Xuetong puts it more bluntly: The United States must stop making arbitrary and unilateral attacks on its enemies and taking action by military means (56).

In accordance with this view, China will attempt to rejoin the world community by taking advantages of fault lines that will doubtless reappear, particularly if Americaís presence in Afghanistan were to be prolonged and if the war aims were to be excessively diluted. Pekingís task, faced with the pervasive unanimity created by the shock of September 11th, is to reactivate the multipolar strategies that suit it best. In this analysis, the role of the UN and the Security Council (in the present context the only significant arena for action left open to China) is constantly asserted. This argument has the double advantage of being politically correct and directly serving the interests of China. So one can expect Peking to uphold all proposals aimed at strengthening the role of the Security Council, particularly in the post-military management of the Afghan question and provided that such proposals lead to the reinstatement of China as an involved party and to the exclusion of partners such as India or Japan who do not enjoy Chinaís status as a permanent member of the Security Council or as Afghanistanís immediate neighbour. The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry says the Security Council must resume a leading role. Moreover, China succeeded in forcing home the same point during the APEC summit in Shanghai and including it in the joint communiquÈ put out at the end of it (57). Similarly, the theme of the powerlessness of the United States is constantly harped on. Thus, according to Ye Zicheng, However powerful the United States may be, it will need the co-operation of the most important powers in the international community. Indeed, it is this status as an important power that China seeks to recover by attempting to assert its capacity for greater control over present developments.

So China has to demonstrate that it has an important role to play. This is what lay behind Jiang Zeminís appeal to G.W. Bush on October 8th reaffirming that China desired to develop exchanges with the United States to ensure peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world. This offer serves to boost the image of the power of China, the partner of the United States in promoting world peace. But the threat of destabilisation would still be held in reserve if it should turn out that the exchanges with the United States to ensure peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific regionówhich in coded terms refers generally to the question of Taiwanódid not develop in a positive direction (58). At another level, when a US$1.6 billion agreement was signed with Boeing at the start of October the Vice-President of the State Planning Commission used the occasion to declare that China desired to help the United States economy and did not forget its friends when they were in difficulty (59).

Following another line of reaction, China also seeks to turn US attention away from an area where it does not want to see a foreign power re-established. To this end, Chinese commentators play on the threats posed by Middle East countries, some going so far as to declare, ignoring Pekingís links with Baghdad, that Iraq might be a better target than Afghanistan (60). Going even further, Yan Xuetong wonders why Washington needs to maintain so many troops in Asia when the danger lies elsewhere (61). Others hope that the US will soon move on to redeploying its military resources against the terrorism on its domestic front, while winding down the less useful deployment abroad (62). Lastly, China is also developing a strategy for diluting US aims, which would help to minimise the military role and turn the focus for action away from the geographic heart of central Asia, by stressing the idea that the war against terrorism should be transformed into a war against all the new non-conventional threats, financial, ecological or separatist (63).

Like the child crying wolf , ever since the early 1990s China has justified the regular development of its military capacities in terms of the threats by which it claimed to be surrounded. While railing at these threats had the essential function of self-justification, it is undeniable that the events of September 11th have profoundly altered, in the medium term at least, the strategic balance that Peking must take into accountótipping the balance very much against Chinaís interests. But other factors are in play. Chinaís margin for manoeuvre has been restricted. At the heart of Chinese power there is doubtless a more realistic appreciation of the United Statesí capacity for military mobilisation and of its willingness to engage with the Asia-Pacific region and to strengthen the strategic positions of Pekingís neighbours. Paradoxically, all these factors could contribute towards a better balance and therefore to an overall reduction in the risks of confrontation in the region.

Translation from the French original by Philip Liddell