CONTRASTING VISIONS:

UNITED STATES, CHINA AND WORLD ORDER

Remarks presented before the

U.S.-China Security Review Commission
Session on U.S.-China Relationship and Strategic Perceptions
August 3, 2001

Dr. Bates Gill

Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies
Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies
The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

I. Introduction

Allow me to begin by thanking the co-chairmen of today’s session for the opportunity to
present my thoughts again before the U.S.-China Security Review Commission. I laud the
Commission’s efforts to better understand the complex divergence and convergence in strategic
perceptions which characterizes and complicates the U.S.-China security relationship. In an
effort to respond to the eight sets of questions you asked me to consider, my remarks this
afternoon will be divided three parts, and will draw from the lengthier written testimony I have
submitted for the record. The three areas of focus for the presentation today will be:

• An overview of the fundamental sources which shape the differences in strategic

perceptions and worldview between the United States and China.

• An analysis of how these fundamental views combine with contemporary

developments to shape China’s current strategic perceptions of the United States.

• An assessment of the principal ways these differences in strategic perceptions will

play out in U.S.-China security relations.

II. Fundamentally different perceptions

A nuanced and sensible understanding of the differences in U.S. and Chinese strategic
perceptions must quickly move beyond the headline-grabbing analyses that so often follow in the
wake of crises between our two countries, such as the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade, and the mid-air collision of the U.S. EP-3 and the Chinese F-8 in April this

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year. Is anyone really surprised that such events unmask the many fundamentally different
strategic views and understandings between our country and China?
It should surprise no one that strategic outlooks and perceptions of the United States and
China often fundamentally differ. How could it be otherwise? The long list of readily
identifiable differences between the two countries reveals stark contrasts: China, a country with
one of the world’s largest homogenous cultures and the lengthiest histories, is today the world’s
largest developing country, with a population of about 1.3 billion and a per capita GDP of about
$6,900 at the end of 2000. The United States emerged on the world scene just 225 years ago, but
has grown to become today the world’s sole superpower, with a population of about 275 million
(one-fourth that of China), and enjoying a per capita GDP of about five times that of China at
around $35,000.
But the differences go well beyond such statistics, and they fundamentally shape the two
countries’ strategic perceptions in different ways. Indeed, a rich literature by specialists of the
U.S-China relationship identifies and explains the deep cultural, philosophical, and historical
differences between Western and Chinese worldviews, illustrates the dramatic fluctuations in
attitudes between the two countries which have resulted, and offers specific analyses of these
differences as they pertain to the United States and China. But as today’s panels illustrate, a far
deeper and consistent understanding of these differences is needed to deal with China policy
today. Several basic differences in historical experience, culture and position are worth noting
for their profound and complex impact on U.S.-China relations today.
Philosophical differences: Chinese worldviews tend to see an ever-evolving, ever-
changing nature, without a set beginning and with no “end” to which the world is inexorably
evolving; Chinese “analogical” or “correlative” thinking “accepts the priority of change or
process over rest and permanence” and “presumes no ultimate agency responsible for the general
order of things.”1 This philosophical approach sees history more as a dialectical or cyclical,
rather than linear, process. Worldviews in the United States, based on Western/Judeo-Christian
philosophies and Enlightenment values, tend to presume a philosophical “beginning” and “end”
point, that history moves linearly from an initial chaos, anarchy or “law of the jungle” toward a
desirable, universalistic end, and that man can shape that destiny through concrete action. In its
approach to foreign policy questions, U.S. views would then tend to favor action over
acquiescence, regularized, formal, transparent, and predictably ordered relationships, and to

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mark progress by the steady and timely achievement of binding instruments and arrangements.
Chinese philosophical views spill over into the country’s international relations, and affect
understandings of time, relationships and agreements: Chinese interlocutors will tend to take a
politically pragmatic, even cynical, “long-term view”, and prefer personal, informal relationships
forged on trust and mutually recognized codes of conduct rather than formal, institutionalized
relationships based on legally-derived, concrete covenants.
Clash of ideological missions: Interestingly, while the two sides bring profoundly
different philosophical approaches to the bilateral relationship, they share an important self-
perception: Chinese and Americans alike harbor strong views of their country’s moral rectitude,
accompanied by an assuredness about the “rightness” of their history and destiny as Great
Powers. From its founding, for example, U.S. foreign policy has been motivated by a quasi-
moral mission, what was termed in earlier periods a “manifest destiny”, to extend its political
and economic values beyond its immediate national borders. With the United States emerging
victorious from the Cold War, the march toward what some termed the “end of history” and the
“triumph of liberalism” became all the more compelling in the 1990s, and U.S. national interests
benefit from expanding the international community of like-minded, market democracies.
However, the expansion of U.S. universalist tendencies and the spread of “American values” and
“soft power” – often termed “cultural pollution” or “peaceful evolution” in China – has inspired
renewed efforts to resist U.S. influences and insist on national progress based on “Chinese
characteristics”, internal stability, and noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries.
Differing contemporary histories: The past 200 years have seen the two countries’
trajectories and national experience move in radically different directions. The 19th century saw
the United States rise from post-colonial status to one of the world’s Great Powers; by the end of
the 20th century, the United States had become the world’s sole superpower. On the other hand,
the same 200 years saw the collapse of the Chinese dynastic and imperial order and imposition of
extraterritorial and colonial rights upon China by foreign powers; from the mid-19th to the mid-
20th century, China experienced some 100 years of foreign occupation and war, massive and
bloody civil wars and insurrections, violent ideological struggles and revolutionary ferment,
threats of nuclear attack, and, according to the Chinese view, unresolved national partition in the
form of Taiwan’s continued de facto political separation from the mainland. It has only been
relatively recently –just 25 years ago with the end of the Cultural Revolution in China – that the

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country finally emerged from more than a century of dislocation, internal division, and chaos,
and set itself firmly on a pragmatic path of national development. These differences in
experience obviously affect how the two countries view the world and how it should or should
not change.
Global vs. regional power: As a global power with expansive security concerns and
regional interests, the United States has, particularly since the end of World War II, pursued
strong alliances, overwhelming military superiority, and an activist, often unilateral, foreign
policy. As a regional power with limited global influence, China has no formal military
alliances, stations no troops permanently abroad, and has an ambitious but still modest military
modernization effort underway. Generally skeptical of American global primacy, Beijing seeks
a more balanced multipolarity to equalize its relations with powerful potential competitors in its
neighborhood, such as the United States, Japan and India. Seeking to right this balance translates
directly into Chinese negative attitudes on such matters as theater and national missile defense,
the role of U.S. alliances and forward military presence in East Asia, and U.S. laws providing for
the defense of Taiwan. It also accounts for Beijing’s efforts to establish “partnerships” with
major countries the world over – most prominently with Russia – and its rejuvenated interest in
multilateral security-related dialogues.
Hegemonist/status quo vs. revisionist: As the sole superpower enjoying a period of
unprecedented domestic prosperity and global economic and political-military advantages, the
United States generally supports the international status quo. China is more concerned with the
negative implications of the U.S.-led “new world order” and the possibility that the United States
might turn its overwhelming military, diplomatic, and economic might against it. In the Chinese
official view, “[o]nly by developing a new security concept and establishing a fair and
reasonable new international order, can world peace and security be fundamentally established.”
Having had little role in shaping the system, China must ambivalently pose its desire to be
accepted by an international community it did not create against the fear of being overwhelmed
by the international norms and practices designed, in their view, primarily to sustain U.S. global
preeminence.
Highly advanced versus developing economy: The United States enjoys clear global
leadership in the “information revolution,” its military-technological capabilities are
unsurpassed, and the flow of the world’s intellectual and financial capital is attracted to United

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States’ markets. China, while having experienced remarkable economic growth over the past 20
years, remains an overwhelmingly backward, developing country, where some three-quarters of
its people live at or near internationally-recognized poverty levels. While Chinese leaders rightly
understand national socioeconomic development to be their greatest challenge, and greatly fear
being left behind in the global economic revolution, so too they fear the country’s growing
dependence upon the United States and the West more generally for access to the much-needed
tools of development: technology, capital, markets. In the end, the current Chinese leadership
remains ambivalent about globalization and Western-style economic development. As recently
as late 2000, the Chinese government issued its criticism on the world economic situation: “No
fundamental change has been made in the old, unfair and irrational international political and
economic order.” According to this view, “neo-economic colonialism” is ascendant, damaging
the “sovereignty, independence, and development interests of many countries ….”2
Renzhi versus fazhi: Another core distinction differentiating the United States and China
concerns their respective approach toward domestic political systems and the relationship
between the state and its citizens. In China, the traditional Chinese system of “rule by man”
(renzhi) dominates, versus the “rule of law” (fazhi) heritage in the United States. Rooted in a
natural law approach, the American political and legal heritage locates inalienable rights of self-
determination and political and social freedoms in the individual. For both historical and cultural
reasons, the Chinese tradition vests rights in the larger community or nation, and they are defined
according to the ruler’s determination of the society’s greater good. This has obvious
implications for how the two sides view such questions as religious and political freedoms,
human rights, and even humanitarian intervention.
Recurring historical pattern: These deeply-rooted differences in outlook mutually
generate both fear and admiration, superiority and inadequacy, trust and suspicion between the
two countries. The resulting “love-hate” relationship is best illustrated by a persistent cyclical
pattern of “boom and bust” in U.S.-China relations which dates back more than 200 years to the
earliest days of regularized contact between the two countries. See Figure 1.

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 Figure 1: RECURRING PATTERN IN U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
1800-PRESENT

Punishment/sanctions Contempt/suspicion/hostility
(1950-78, 1989-present) (1840-1905, 1949-72,
1998-present)

Disillusionment/ Reassessment/reopening
disenchantment (1904-05, 1971-72, 1994,
(1840s, 1944-49, 1989-present) present?)

Unrealistic hopes Benevolence/admiration

(1937-1944, 1980s, 1997-98) (early 1800s, 1905-1937, 1972-89)

Note: Adapted and revised from Harold R. Isaacs, Scratches On Our Minds: American Views of China and India
(New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1980) and Susan Puska, “United States-China: Perceptual Differences”, Foreign Area
Officers Association Journal (November 1999), http://www.faoa.org/journal/china.html.

III. Contemporary Chinese views

From this review of both historical and contemporary differences between Chinese and
American understandings of world order, it may be understandable that, on the whole, China’s
current strategic view of the international system is not at all sanguine, and often stands in stark
contrast to American views. This is true though formally the official Chinese worldview retains
the generally upbeat outlook that overall, “peace and development remain the two major themes
in today’s world”, that “the trend toward multipolarity and economic globalization is gaining
momentum”, and, “the international security situation, in general, continues toward relaxation.”3
Increasingly gloomy outlook But this overarching positive perspective belies the
steady accretion of increasingly pessimistic views in China about the world situation and China’s
place in it. Importantly, at the core of this gloomier outlook is a more openly-expressed concern
with the policies and practices of the United States. The easiest identifiable starting point of

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present-day concern with the United States can be traced to the tragic events around Beijing and
Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989. The subsequent deterioration of the U.S.-China
relationship coincided with the collapse of other Communist dictatorships in Europe in the latter
half of 1989, with their successors embracing democracy and markets, all of which hardened
U.S. attitudes toward China. The 1991 American-led victory in Desert Storm presaged the
emergence of a militarily, technically, and economically dominant United States, a process
bolstered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Russia as a pale shadow of
its former superpower self.
These dramatic changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s rattled the framework for U.S.-
China ties, and significantly weakened the relationship in spite of efforts by the two sides to
revive it. But even as late as 1994 and 1995, Chinese writings on the international situation
continued, on the whole, to favorably view the global situation and America’s role in it. In
particular, Chinese analysts and official government views expected to see the post-Cold War
world move favorably in the direction of greater multipolarity, balance among the Great Powers,
a resistance to “Western values” and a resurgence of “Oriental” or “Confucian” culture in Asia,
and a worldwide emphasis on economic and diplomatic approaches, rather than military might,
to enhance national security.4
However this proved a weak and overly hopeful framework upon which Chinese
worldviews could stand. Beginning in 1995 and increasing over the remainder of the 1990s and
early 2000s, the U.S.-China relationship steadily declined – punctuated by the unrealistically
high expectations of U.S.-China summitry in 1997 and 1998. This decline mirrored a souring on
the overall world situation among Chinese leaders and analysts in their public pronouncements
and writings. The principal difficulties along this decline can be quickly enumerated:
• the beginning of NATO enlargement and the creation of “Partnership for Peace” in
1994 (with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrghyzstan, and Uzbekistan all
joining in 1994, and, most recently, Tajikistan in 2001, Partnership for Peace extends
to the western- and northernmost borders of China);
• the visit by Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui to Cornell University, in May 1995;
• Chinese “missile diplomacy” against Taiwan in 1995-96, and the U.S. deployment of
aircraft carrier battle groups to the Taiwan Strait as a warning to Beijing;
• strengthening of U.S.-Japan alliance under new Defense Guidelines, 1996-1999;
• Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in May 1998;
• the North Korean Taepodong missile test over Japan in August 1998;
• the U.S.-Japan agreement in December 1998 to conduct joint research and
development on upper-tier missile defenses;

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 • U.S.-led NATO action against Yugoslavia in early 1999, including the inadvertent
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and China’s furious reaction to it;
• issuance of the Cox Committee Report in May 1999;
• pronouncement of Lee Teng-hui’s “two state theory” in July 1999 and the election of
a lifelong pro-independence candidate to the Taiwan leadership in March 2000;
• Characterization of China as a “strategic competitor” by incoming president George
W. Bush;
• mid-air collision of U.S. and Chinese naval aircraft in April 2001;
• robust arms sales package to Taiwan, April 2001;
• visits of Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian and former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui
to the United States in May and June 2001;
• steady progress in U.S. missile defense plans, 1998-2001.

The Chinese defense white paper in 2000 illustrates China’s increasingly troubled view
of the international security situation, and its focus on the United States as a source of problems.
More broadly, certain high-profile events of 1999-2001 – especially the NATO campaign against
Yugoslavia, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and the EP-3 accident over the
South China Sea – opened the floodgates of criticism against the United States which had been
building steadily over the course of the 1990s. The 2000 white paper, completed about one year
after the war against Yugoslavia, represented a important turning point in a fractious Chinese
debate which called into question whether “peace and development” were the continued trends
of the times.5 The white paper settled that debate, at least officially, in saying that these trends
do continue to represent the overall situation for international security. However, the document
notes that factors for instability in the world have “markedly increased” and that the world is “far
from peaceful.” “Hegemonism” and “power politics” are pointedly singled out: “Certain big
powers are pursuing ‘neo-interventionism’, new ‘gunboat policy’, and neo-economic
colonialism, which are seriously damaging the sovereignty, independence, and development
interests of many countries, and threatening world peace.” Local wars are increasing, according
to this assessment, and “some countries” have purposely undermined the authority of the United
Nations under the “pretexts of ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘human rights.’”6
The United States, named by name or in obvious indirect references, came in for special
criticism in the 2000 Chinese defense white paper. The United States is attacked as a “certain
country” which continues to develop and introduce national and theater missile defense (TMD);
as a country which seeks to enlarge military blocs, strengthen military alliances, and seeks
greater military superiority; as a country trying to strengthen its military presence in East Asia;

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as the “root cause” for the tension across the Taiwan Strait through its arms sales, including
possible TMD systems, Congressional legislation such as the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act,
and by strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance in ways that could pull it into a Taiwan Strait
contingency.7 The preparation and publication of the 2000 defense white paper, combined with
the extremely harsh rhetoric to emerge from China’s think tanks and national media during the
NATO intervention against Yugoslavia (and especially after the bombing of the Chinese
embassy in early May 1999), and Chinese public reaction to the naval aircraft collision in April
2001, represent important steps along the path of steadily hardening views in China on the
direction of global security trends and the role America plays in the world.
Squaring the circle: The “New Security Concept” Interestingly, however, and in spite
of these specific and increasing concerns – especially with the United States – Chinese leaders
are not yet in a position to abandon publicly what remains of an overall hopeful outlook that
officially sees a world of peace and development, increased multipolarity, and a general easing
of tensions. In the first place, to do so would require a reversal of the verdict determined by
Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese paramount leader, who concluded in 1982 that the world was
tending toward peace and development, the possibility of a world war was remote, and China
could expect a long-term stable international environment in which it could carry out its much-
needed development. Deng’s pronouncement was itself a major reversal of the Maoist lines of
“war and revolution” and “prepare for an early war, a major war, and nuclear war”, which during
the first several decades of the People’s Republic resulted in disastrous economic hardship and
ideological struggle. To undertake a significant change in Deng’s assessment would mark a
major transformation in Chinese worldviews.
To deal with the increasingly contradictory and complicated world situation that evolved
over the late 1990s, the Chinese government, beginning as early as 1995, not surprisingly fell
back on some old ideas, repackaged in 1996-97 under the title “New Security Concept”. The
New Security Concept is largely based on principles the Chinese government have formally
advocated since the 1950s, in particular the so-called “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence”8
dating back to the Bandung Conference of developing world nations in 1955. However, under
the current rubric, China calls for the establishment of a “new” system for international order.
According to a major foreign policy speech given by Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in
March 1999 in Geneva, the New Security Concept consists of four parts. First, “the core of such

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a new concept of security should be mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation.”
Second, the “political foundation underpinning world peace” should be the Five Principles of
Peaceful Coexistence and other “universally recognized norms governing international
relations.” Third, according to Jiang, the economic guarantee for peace is founded on “mutually
beneficial cooperation and common prosperity.” Fourth, the New Security Concept envisions
that “dialogues, consultations and negotiations by parties concerned on an equal footing are the
correct approach to resolving disputes and safeguarding peace.”9 See figure 2.
In addition, Chinese strategists have put forward the notion of “the three no changes, and
the three new changes” (sange bu bian, sange xinde bianhua). According to David Finkelstein,
Chinese analysts continue to toe the line in support of the “three no changes”: peace and
development remain the core trend in international relations; the movement toward a multipolar
world continues and economic globalization continues to increase; the world still tends toward a
relaxation of international tensions. However, the “three new changes” reflect their steadily
increased concern with world order, and particularly with the United States: increased
hegemonism and power politics; increased tendencies toward military interventionism; increased
gap between developed and developing countries. 10

Figure 2: China’s “New Security Concept”11

The world is undergoing profound changes which require the abandonment of the Cold War
mentality and the development of a new security concept and a new international political,
economic, and security order responsive to the needs of our times.

The core of the new security concept should be mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and
cooperation. The UN Charter, the five principles of peaceful coexistence and other universal
recognized principles governing international relations should serve as the political basis for
safeguarding peace while mutually beneficial cooperation and common prosperity its economic
guarantee. Conducting dialogue, consultation, and negotiations on an equal footing is the right
way to solve disputes and safeguard peace.

Only by developing a new security concept and establishing a fair and reasonable new
international order, can world peace and security be fundamentally guaranteed.

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 In sum, the New Security Concept calls for significant changes in the way the world
works, a reflection of China’s view that “equality” (read: multipolarity, the relative decline of the
United States, and the rise of China to a more prominent position on the world stage) is not
proceeding as fast as they would hope. Indeed, many Chinese analysts are increasingly coming
to the conclusion that China’s hopes for a larger voice in world affairs is a long way off, that
American “soft power” has far more to offer the world than any concepts China can muster, and
the technological gap (including especially the military-technical advantage) between China and
the United States is widening, not closing.12 For Chinese leaders, these trends are discouraging,
disturbing, and deeply frustrating. On the one hand, they recognize the need to be internationally
engaged, especially to achieve continued economic progress through foreign direct investment
and trade. On the other hand, they must engage a world system they did not create, which they
have difficulty accepting and changing, and which is led by a sole superpower which may
threaten their interests. The answer? The Chinese defense white paper puts it succinctly: “[A]
new security concept and new international political, economic, and security order responsive to
our times. … China’s fundamental interests lie in … the establishment and maintenance of a
new regional security order ….”13 While one can argue over the likelihood of China’s success
in this quest, one can be certain this approach will remain central to China’s approach to world
order, and to its relations with the United States in particular.

IV. Implications for U.S.-China Relations

For the near- to medium term, the combination of traditional worldviews and the
increasingly troubled assessment of the international situation will lead to an overall effort in
Beijing to stabilize and improve the strategically critical relationship with the United States,
while at the same time seeking to strengthen Chinese interests through the application of the so-
called “New Security Concept.” This strategy will be felt most strongly in Washington in three
areas: Taiwan and the U.S. presence in the Western Pacific; views toward proliferation and
missile defenses; China’s relations with third parties.
Taiwan and U.S. presence in the Western Pacific China is not in a position at present
to sustain a direct military confrontation with the United States (or Taiwan) in a conflict across
the Taiwan Straits. If such a conflict were to break out, the risk of failure for China -- which

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would be anything less than total victory -- is so high as to serve as a deterrent against overt
military action in the absence of a full-fledged declaration of independence by Taiwan.
Moreover, Chinese concerns with Taiwan and American intervention in the Taiwan Strait are
linked to the broader issue of American forward military presence in the Western Pacific,
especially the U.S.-Japan alliance because the United States will need to rely on those assets
should conflict break out in the Taiwan Strait.
China considers its relationship with Taiwan (and to the degree it is linked to Taiwan, the
U.S. military presence in the Western Pacific) as a strategic problem, and its response is
increasingly nuanced and multifaceted. Most prominently, we recognize an ongoing and
intensifying effort by the Chinese military to steadily improve its military capabilities in
preparation for a Taiwan contingency in the future. China’s missile buildup opposite Taiwan is
only the most high-profile manifestation of this effort. However, we cannot ignore what is
arguably a more important “political warfare” campaign waged by the Chinese leadership to
address the Taiwan issue. This political effort includes fostering an unprecedented degree of
economic, academic and cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, the cultivation of
opposition political leaders on Taiwan, and continuing attempts to cast doubt in Japan and in the
region on the wisdom of a militarily stronger Japan and a bolstered U.S.-Japan security alliance.
The United States can affect these efforts in positive ways by discouraging the Chinese
military buildup across from Taiwan, while at the same time encouraging various forms of
political and economic interaction across the Strait. At the same time, the United States needs to
firmly move ahead with improved U.S.-Japan alliance relations, while reminding China of the
enormous benefits it gains through the maintenance of continued regional stability and avoidance
of political-military tensions, and that the U.S.-led alliance system is not “aimed” at China.
Proliferation and missile defense Slow, but steady progress has been made with
China over the past 15 years on proliferation issues. We have not achieved all that is desirable,
but we stand in a better position today on a range of proliferation issues than we between the
mid-1980s and early-1990s. At a political level, Chinese leaders have apparently steadily
accepted the argument that proliferation not only undermines improved U.S.-China relations, but
negatively affects China’s own security in a number of important ways. This strategic outlook
probably crystallized for China in the wake of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests in

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May 1998, and the North Korean Taepodong missile test in August 1998, all developments in
which China had a hand in shaping.
Yet, given continuing Chinese concerns with U.S. policies and a lingering reluctance
(and even inability) to fully comply with nonproliferation commitments, we should expect
further problems on this aspect of U.S.-China relations. China will continue to see U.S. arms
sales to Taiwan as a proliferation problem and will want to link such sales to compliance on
nonproliferation issues which concern the United States. Looking ahead, it is likely Beijing will
also seek to link U.S. missile defense plans to Chinese nonproliferation policies, as one of
China’s principal concerns with missile defense is the view that it will drive countries to pursue
more robust strategic offensive capacities. Even worse from a U.S. perspective would be
Chinese decisions to return to more hardline proliferation practices as a means to undermine U.S.
missile defense plans it sees as explicitly aimed at China. Chinese strategists appear reassured
for the moment about U.S. intentions on this score, have toned down their anti-missile defense
rhetoric in recent months, and seem prepared to have a more productive discussion with U.S.
interlocutors on issues of strategic defense and strategic offense. But Chinese proliferation
practices, and how U.S. policies can best foster continued positive nonproliferation steps , bear
continued close scrutiny in the United States.
China’s relations with third parties Finally, and more broadly, China’s evolving
strategic perceptions toward the United States have increasingly affected China’s relations with
third parties. On the one hand, China has sought to compare its “new security concept” approach
of developing a range of bilateral “partnerships” in a favorable light as opposed to the U.S.-led
web of security alliances and other military relationships. China’s assiduous efforts to court
Moscow and establish a firmer partnership with Russia, culminating most recently in the new
bilateral friendship treaty between the two sides, is the most important development in this
regard (an unofficial translation of the treaty is attached to this testimony). Casting U.S.
alliances as vestiges of “Cold War thinking”, Beijing promotes its approach of “cooperative
security.”. A well-known security analyst in Beijing, Yan Xuetong, has drawn up a table
comparing the two approaches, which is shown below as Figure 4. The list of various bilateral
partnerships which Beijing has sought to establish over the past decade are shown in Figure 5.

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 Figure 4:
Chinese Comparison of Military Alliances vs. Cooperative Security
Military Alliance Cooperative Security

Goal Winning war and deterrence Preventing military conflicts

Nature Gaining military superiority Reducing intention of using force
System Closed Open
Content Military support Comprehensive
Core Preparation for war Non-military settlement
Foundation Common enemy Uncertain threat
Target External threats Internal conflicts
Method Joint military action Confidence building measures
Efficiency Strong Weak

Source: Yan Xuetong, “Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific: Bilateralism vs.

Multilateralism,” Conference paper presented at Georgia Tech’s Center for International
Strategy, Technology and Policy (1999), accessed at
http://www.gatech.edu/cistp/rpt99/Yan.html

Secondly, China has shown itself increasingly open to working within multilateral
organizations as a way of countering or diluting American influence on the global and regional
scene. China’s increasingly strong support for the role of the United Nations as the world’s
legitimate arbiter of inter-state disputes is a good example of this trend. But more prominently,
China’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the salience and impact of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (formerly known as the Shanghai Forum or the Shanghai Five), is clearly an
attempt by Beijing to more effectively establish an alternative regional security approach in Asia.
China has similarly turned to the ASEAN Regional Forum as another instrument through which
it tries to moderate American policies in East Asia, while also promoting Beijing’s interests
among its neighbors. On the economic front as well, China’s work in such forums as the
ASEAN + 3 discussions, hosting the all-Asia Boao Economic Forum, and proposing a China-
ASEAN free trade zone, illustrate Beijing’s appreciation for building stronger ties with its
neighbors in the absence of U.S. participation. We should expect continued Chinese efforts to
expand its diplomatic influence through such channels as a means to create some balance in its
relations with the United States.

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 Figure 5:
China’s Bilateral Partnerships

Year Partner Event Name of Partnership

1993 Brazil Jiang visit to Brazil Long-term and Stable Strategic

Partnership
1996 Russia Yeltsin-Jiang Strategic Cooperative
Summit Partnership
1996 Pakistan Jiang visit to Comprehensive and
Pakistan Cooperative Partnership
Oriented toward the 21st
Century
1996 India Jiang visit to India Constructive Partnership of
Cooperation Oriented toward
the 21st Century
1996 Nepal Jiang visit to Nepal Good-neighborly and Friendly
Partnership Oriented Toward
the 21st Century
1997 France Chirac-Jiang Long-term Comprehensive
Summit Partnership
1997 U.S. Clinton-Jiang Building toward a Constructive
Summit Strategic Partnership
1997 ASEAN ASEAN’s 30th Good-neighboring, Mutual
anniversary Trust Partnership
1997 Canada Jiang visit to Trans-Century Comprehensive
Canada Partnership
1997 Mexico Jiang visit to Trans-Century Partnership
Mexico
1998 European Asia-Europe Long-term and Stable
Union meeting Constructive Partnership
1998 U.K. Blair-Jiang Summit Comprehensive Partnership
1998 Republic Kim-Jiang Summit Cooperative Partnership
of Korea
1998 Japan Obuchi-Jiang Friendly Cooperative
Summit Partnership
2000 South Jiang visit to Pretoria Declaration on the
Africa South Africa Partnership between PRC and
Republic of South Africa

V. Conclusions

The foregoing discussion makes it clear that differences between the United States and
China about the proper approach to world order are deeply-rooted and readily apparent to those
who choose to look. But it is not enough to simply point them out and expect that basic
understanding to serve U.S. policy toward China. If anything, it is all the more important today

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to not only recognize and understand recurring patterns and fundamental differences, but to act
on them all the more intelligently and carefully.
This is true for three major reasons. First, understanding recurring patterns and
fundamental differences will allow U.S. policymakers and analysts to more clearly identify,
gauge, and differentiate entrenched ideas as well as new flexibility and change. Second, current
U.S. policymakers lack an adequate framework or “institutional memory” upon which to craft an
effective policy toward China. Briefly put, neither of the most intellectually accessible models –
engagement or containment – will work in and of themselves. A new framework of “limited,
smart engagement” is needed. Third, China, the United States, and the post-Cold War
international system have dramatically changed in ways to make the Sino-U.S. extraordinarily
dynamic and complex, calling for a far more carefully and cautiously calibrated American China
policy. In particular, U.S. policymakers need to be exceedingly attentive to the opportunities for
positive change in China fostered by the new international environment in which China finds
itself. Such a reevaluation combines informed realism, astute management, and focused
leverage, and would seek to dispel illusions, manage differences, and exploit new opportunities.
This kind of approach would downplay marginal breakthroughs, symbolic summitry, or
exaggerated expectations of becoming “strategic partners” or “strategic competitors.” In the end,
the United States and China are highly unlikely to be close friends, but the statesmen in both
countries recognize the unacceptable costs of becoming sworn enemies. But it is possible to
work within identifiable constraints to moderate the worst outcomes while taking advantage of
evolutionary changes in China to move the U.S.-China relationship toward a footing which is
more stable and more favorable to both U.S. and Chinese interests.

1
David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western
Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. xvii-xviii, 183-84. See also the work of Richard
H. Solomon, Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests through “Old Friends” (Washington, D.C.: United
States Institute of Peace Press, 1999); Warren I. Cohen, America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American
Relations, 4th ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Susan Puska, “United States-China: Perceptual
Differences”, Foreign Area Officers Association Journal (November 1999), accessible at
http://www.faoa.org/journal/china.html; Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment
(National Defense University Press, 2000), especially pp. xxxv-xlvi.
2
China’s National Defense in 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000).
3
China’s National Defense in 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000).
4
An exemplary set of interpretations along this line by prominent strategic and security thinkers in China during this
period include: Yu Qifen, “The International Security Situation in the 1990s”, China Military Science (Spring
1995); Gao Heng, “Future Military Trends”, World Economics and Politics, no. 2 (1995); Yao Youzhi and Liu

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Hongsong, “Future Security Trends in the Asian-Pacific Region”, China Military Science (Spring 1994). These
articles, originally published in Chinese, appear in English translation in Michael Pillsbury, ed., Chinese Views of
Future Warfare, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, September 1998), pp. 69-104.
5
See the excellent study on this debate in China Reconsiders Its National Security: “The Great Peace and
Development Debate of 1999”, Project Asia Regional Assessment (Alexandria, Virginia: CNA Corporation,
December 2000).
6
China’s National Defense 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000).
7
China’s National Defense 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000).
8
These are: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference
in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
9
See “Chinese President Calls for New Security Concept”, summary of a March 26, 1999 speech by Jiang Zemin
before the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, accessible at http://www.china-embassy.org.
These principles are reiterated in the Chinese white paper entitled, China’s National Defense 2000 (Beijing:
Information Office of the State Council, October 2000). See also an early presentation of the New Security Concept
in China’s National Defense (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, July 1998), pp. 6-7. David M.
Finkelstein provides an excellent analysis of the New Security Concept in his “China’s New Security Concept:
Reading Between the Lines”, Washington Journal of Modern China, vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 37-49.
10
Discussion of this concept draws from Finkelstein, China Reconsiders Its National Security, op. cit., pp. 21-23.
11
China’s National Defense 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000)(emphasis
added).
12
Interviews with Chinese scholars and officials, August 1999, January 2000, and September 2000. See also Yang
Dezhou, “Dui lengzhan hou shijie geju zhi wo jian” [A Personal View on the Structure of the Post-Cold War
World”], Heping yu Fazhan [Peace and Development], vol. 60, no. 2 (June 1997), pp. 40-45. Michael Pillsbury
identifies this article as a sign that some “heresy” was permitted, but shows how it was then vigorously challenged.
See his China Debates the Future Security Environment (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press,
2000), pp. 13-21.
13
China’s National Defense 2000 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, October 2000)(emphasis
added).

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