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David Ronfeldt's avatar

I have long admired and learned from your posts, but this one is questionable.

The points you make about China’s grand strategy (foreign policy) are fine, esp. for China as a nation-state. They cover the standard political, economic, and military categories normally used for analyzing nation-states.

However, China’s leaders now regard China as a civilization-state too. They want China to be viewed and treated as such, and are developing policy and strategy fundamentals to advance as a civilization-state. I’m finding that nearly all U.S. experts on China have ignored or dismissed this turn. But if it’s for real (as I think it is), it will mean that U.S. analyses of China’s grand strategy (foreign policy) would benefit from adjustments.

Civilizations, more than empires and nations, are defined primarily by their cultural contents, broadly defined. From what I gather, adopting a civilization-state moniker means upholding one’s identity in terms of the cultural values and formative traditions that are said to define a people, thereby determining their ways of life and their beliefs in themselves as a collectivity, no matter where they reside.  Accordingly, collective identity trumps individual identity; spiritual values are more defining than ideology; and cultural heritage and tradition matter mightily.  

I’m no China expert, but Xi’s regime sure looks to be going in that direction. It’s even developing concepts about cultural sovereignty and cultural security. If so, adding a cultural fundamental to the your list of strategy/policy fundamentals would seem advisable. To some extent, my point is embedded in your allusions to glory, heritage, and ideology — but not clearly or strongly enough.

Accordingly, you write, “4. Chinese leaders imagine they will reshape the global order primarily through economic, not military, tools.” That’s a kind of point I typically see in U.S. analyses these days. But it overlooks seeing that, by thinking and acting as a civilization-state, China is using cultural tools too. It would be more accurate to write that “Chinese leaders imagine they will reshape the global order primarily through cultural and economic, not military, tools.”

I remain baffled that China’s civilizational thrust is so widely disregarded and shrugged-off by U.S. experts on China. It seems part of China’s long game, and might offer new angles for getting along (or not?).

One quibble: Your post is about “the fundamentals of Chinese grand strategy” but then lays out “the essentials of Chinese foreign policy.” Grand strategy and foreign policy are not the same, though they overlap. I’m sure you know this. Maybe keep in mind for next write-up.

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Dors's avatar

Wishing that you would present an argument about the military threat to Taiwan at some point in the foreseeable future. To my mind, as to many others, it's less than self-evident.

As for your first point, "the natural role of China being to be the center of human civilization", it is impressive how ambiguous it remains for all these years, even among scholars i.e. people who make a claim on rigor.

For example, you say the goal is to "restore China to a position of glory and influence commensurate with its ancestral heritage," which leads to the question of : What IS commensurate to its heritage in today's world?

Adding to it, even the historical role of China in its region remains a subject of controversy, with its symbolic as well as material domination being disputed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29WJ3sZup-U .

But let's leave that aside, as China's leadership of today has specific goals about what to dominate.

Those goals must be based on deeply seated symbolic reasoning, closely related to a sense of insecurity about one's place in the world. And, they must also be based on what we customarily call 'science,' where claims are rigorously checked against systematic observations. Then the question arises: How do these two components interact with each other?

...

My foremost suspicion is about the tendency of every observer, including Western observer, to project their own attitudes to the world onto China. But since that topic leads to handwaving easily. So, let's be specific :

You say China's leaders will see the West as an existential threat for as long as the West insists on certain values, including "democracy is being described as a universal good by Western leaders." Wait a minute: democracy is being described as a universal good by Chinese leaders, too. That's a weak point in what you say. As for liberal values, ... a good proportion of Western voices perceive liberal values as threatening to the West itself. As for Western protection of voices hostile to the Chinese leaders: well, let's look at China's protection of voices hostile to Western leaders. Perhaps a topic for another time.

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