Has China the will to become a Big Power?

Lau Guan Kim  Updated: 2004-06-23 09:06

The will to aspire to Big Power status can only come with a decisive China.

A country the size of China, third largest in the world, has to be a Big Power whether she desires to be one. Its behemoth size alone is a cause of concern for neighbours and other established big powers.

This is not to say China is itself belligerent, recalcitrant or expansionist.

Big may be great, but it also elicits fear from smaller neighbours. Concomitantly, other big powers would not sit idly by to see China on the rise and great again. At the same time, for China to be a great power and forestall designs of wary big powers or aspirants to big powers is to become a Big Power itself.

A definition of Big Power status is not necessarily size. If that is the pre-eminent requirement, than Canada, Australia and Brazil would have been big powers. A big Power is one that can defend its territorial integrity and deter others from embarking a destabilizing effect on it and other neighbours near and not necessarily far.

To be a Big Power is to have the wherewithal to frustrate other big powers insofar as their designs are not advantageous or beneficial to China. In that direction, China must have deterrents to discourage other smaller powers or acquiescent states to other big powers from bandwaggoning against its national interests.

Hence, a Big Power status is one where China can maintain or even impose a Chinese Peace. A good precedent to this was the great naval presence of Ming China (1368 - 1644). Under Zhenghe, in the early 15th Century (1421 -1433), the world's biggest navy was able to maintain equilibrium in surrounding regions, so much a mindset of China then and now to have peace and tranquility (anding and anling).

Once a Big Power, then what is there for China to chart a path of greatness with its benevolent and humanistic culture to bring peace and order to this troubled world?

Look at how small nations, and significantly such tiny islands as Britain and Japan, call themselves great? Hence we ponder how these two nations could add the superlative "Great" to their nations?

What is so great about Great Britain or Dai Nippon?

They were once big powers and imposed upon the world their diktats. Hence they felt great and expressed their chauvinism and imperialism by attaching the "Great" to their nations.

Does that mean for China to be great, it must be imperialistic? To be great is to exert a beneficial and benevolent influence over other powers, great or not so great. For China to be great is never first to resort to big stick syndrome but rather to cajole or offer the carrot to recalcitrant miscreants to her national interests.

For China, once she achieves big power status, is to bring about a world order without resorting to war or violence. A peaceful world is one where there is no coercion but patient persuasion.

To rid this world of turmoil, China must be decisive and willing to be a Big Power. Without Big Power status, how can China bring about a peaceful and tranquil world?

Yet superficially, China is seen as a reluctant Big Power, careful not to get involved.

That China never believes itself to become one of the most powerful nations in the next century are based on a pragmatic and humble assessment of its own capability. Most importantly, it needs at least another thirty to fifty years to catch up with other advanced nations.

Military spending is last on the four modernizations list. Deng Xiaoping convinced the army that economic reforms must come first. The logic behind this is that China since 1972 is more secured after rapprochement with the US. Its size and population make big powers think many times before getting bogged down. If the US is defeated in Vietnam, and frustrated in Iraq, it is sheer insanity for big powers to pick on China.

And China is nuclear.

America's obsession with human rights is matched by China's desire to protect its territorial integrity and national security. The US is protected by two oceanic moats: the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is impossible to attack it from the sea. To its north and south it has weaker neighbours that are mostly friendly. A ratio of the population it has on its sides against its enemies is 6:1.

On the other hand, China has over 6000 Km borders with Russia. It also shared borders with 13 other countries that are either suspicious or hostile. Exacerbating its security problems, there is a long coastline that exposes its belly to attacks from powerful maritime powers. A ratio of the enemies ranged against China is 2:1.

The US fought wars outside its own territory. To date it was never attacked from the sea or bombed from the air. Hence its territory is never ravaged as that of China. In all the wars fought since World War 2, China had to fight on its own soil to defend its territorial integrity, with the exception of the Korean War because its then archenemy crossed North Korea's 38th Parallel and marched close to the border of China.

Another exception is China's attack on Vietnam in 1979 when the latter encroached on Cambodia and aligned with the then USSR to encircle China from the flank. All these were the reactions of a beleaguered China. In "New Hopes of A Changing World," the philosopher mathematician Bertrand Russia drew the line between those with impulses of aggression and positive pleasure in combat, and those who became annoyed if you pulled their noses but easily placated by the simple technique of not pulling their noses.

Gregory Clark's "In Fear of China" stated that China's relation with other countries might not necessarily be the result of any aggressive impulses on her part. He felt that they might be the result of nose pulling by other countries.

Immanuel Hsu's observation that Washington's policy of 'soft containment' is a guise of 'constructive engagement' and 'strategic partnership' strikes a concordant note with many. It is indeed a sophisticated form of containment as distinct from its raw encirclement and blockade of China in the period 1950-1972. China is not a threatening power if you measure its inability to project powers beyond its borders. It is easy to invade its borders, but hard for it to defend.

Now the current military thinking is to fight wars with enemies in their territories before they have the opportunity to cause border problems. We have here a concept of rapid deployment force before small trouble becomes big trouble.

The problems China faces are different from that of America's. China, not in the foreseeable future, can ever be a threat to its neighbours or the world. It is a regional power with global reach. Its preoccupation, as in the past, is keeping peace and tranquility along its long borders with 14 other countries.

Alas, this is not for China to sit placidly by and wish for the apple to fall down.

She has to be responsibly involved to maintain world order in pursuit of her national interests.

Any complacency on that is to invite others to carve up China.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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