{"id":46375,"date":"2019-03-21T15:09:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T04:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=46375"},"modified":"2019-03-21T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T04:09:21","slug":"the-regime-security-dilemma-in-us-china-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-regime-security-dilemma-in-us-china-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018regime security dilemma\u2019 in US\u2013China relations"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s debates on whether US\u2013China relations are deteriorating towards a \u2018new cold war\u2019<\/a> often involve disagreement over the extent to which there\u2019s an ideological dimension to this competition. By some accounts, it\u2019s purely about power and security, resulting from the historical inevitability of rivalry, if not outright conflict, between rising and ruling powers near a moment of transition.<\/p>\n

In The tragedy of great power politics, <\/em>John J. Mearsheimer claimed<\/a>, \u2018Whether China is democratic and deeply enmeshed in the global economy or autocratic and autarkic will have little effect on its behavior, because democracies care about security as much as non-democracies do, and hegemony is the best way for any state to guarantee its own survival.\u2019 This tendency of realism to dismiss the relevance of regime type and ideational considerations is particularly problematic in the case of US\u2013China relations.<\/p>\n

American strategy has consistently involved a commitment to founding principles and freedoms. Even in its call for a shift to \u2018principled realism\u2019, the latest US national security strategy characterises today\u2019s competitions<\/a> as struggles between \u2018those who value human freedom and dignity and those who oppress individuals and enforce uniformity\u2019. Implicitly, the notion of a liberal or \u2018rules-based\u2019 global order implies a dedication to democracy and to international institutions that restrain pure power and coercion through rules that are intended to be impartially implemented.<\/p>\n

This reality of American strategy and democracy is often perceived to pose an existential challenge to the political and regime security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under such an order, China\u2019s party-state has been seen at times as a historical anachronism. The CCP has continued to defy expectations of failure or collapse, demonstrating a combination of resilience and brittleness along the way, and reaping the benefits of selectively embracing the world, while preoccupied with maintaining control at any cost.<\/p>\n

In recent history, there has been a fundamental asymmetry between American and Chinese perspectives on US policy towards China. While an approach of engagement is often characterised as primarily cooperative from an American perspective, the very notion has been seen by Beijing as a Trojan horse from the start. This asymmetry has created what might be characterised as a \u2018regime security dilemma\u2019 between China and the United States.<\/p>\n

Although the notion of a security dilemma (that is, the dynamic<\/a> in which measures that one state takes to enhance its own security threaten the security of another) is conventionally conceptualised in terms of military security, the focus of Chinese leaders on political security and regime survival has introduced a distinct ideological dimension to this relationship: American engagement with China, which has been (implicitly and often explicitly) predicated on the hope and expectation of its transformation, has often been seen as inherently threatening by the CCP.<\/p>\n

When the threat perceptions of the CCP are taken into account, the realist argument that differences in regime type and ideology are all but irrelevant to the US\u2013China relationship appears to represent an assessment that is limited at best. As Peter Mattis has argued<\/a>, a failure to understand and concentrate on the party itself has contributed to misperception and misunderstanding on the part of American policymakers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the CCP\u2019s concepts of security and its priorities are distinctive in ways that increase the likelihood of miscalculation, insofar as concerns of political security appear to have intensified the overall US\u2013China security dilemma even at a time when US policy was notionally oriented towards cooperation. As Samantha Hoffman has noted<\/a>, the CCP\u2019s notion of state security (\u56fd\u5bb6\u5b89\u5168) is uniquely expansive relative to American concepts of national security, including concerns of cultural, political and ideological security. Specifically, according to China\u2019s National Security Law<\/a>, state\/national security involves the capability of the state to \u2018maintain its ideological domination\u2019, taking \u2018political security as the fundamental\u2019 requirement.<\/p>\n

Considering these perceptions, US policies\u2014and even civil-society activities that are seen from an American perspective as either entirely innocuous or under the rubric of a cooperative approach\u2014have apparently reinforced CCP perceptions of US hostile intentions. The discussions about mitigating the US\u2013China security dilemma often neglect to consider the extent to which alleviating CCP concerns about security would require compromises that are incompatible with the nature of American democracy.<\/p>\n

In this regard, contrary to Mearsheimer\u2019s contention, it does matter deeply that China is autocratic, because China, as a non-democracy, cares about its security differently<\/em> from the way democracies do. For instance, employees of NGOs that concentrate on human rights and workers\u2019 rights have been accused of and charged with \u2018endangering China\u2019s state security\u2019. Moreover, core aspects of the global order today, including the notion of the universality of certain values and freedoms, pose direct threats to political security from Beijing\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

Infamously, as \u2018Document 9<\/a>\u2019, a communiqu\u00e9 leaked from the CCP Central Committee\u2019s General Office highlighted, the \u2018ideological situation\u2019 is \u2018a complicated, intense struggle\u2019. Any effort to promote \u2018Western constitutional democracy\u2019 is seen as an attempt to undermine China\u2019s system of governance, while the promulgation of \u2018universal values\u2019 is believed to reflect an effort to \u2018weaken the theoretical foundations of the Party\u2019s leadership\u2019.<\/p>\n

In response to these threats, the party must \u2018conscientiously strengthen its management of the ideological battlefield\u2019. From the CCP\u2019s perspective, \u2018Western anti-China forces\u2019 are \u2018actively trying to infiltrate China\u2019s ideological sphere\u2019, threatening China with \u2018the spearhead of Westernizing, splitting, and \u201cColor Revolutions\u201d.\u2019 So, too, the party sees the internet as a battlefield that could jeopardise<\/a> the regime\u2019s survival and its prospects for remaining in power for the long term, such that the US commitment to internet freedom is believed to be a direct threat.<\/p>\n

Pursuant to this regime security dilemma, American principles inherently exacerbate CCP insecurities, while measures that the CCP has taken to ensure its security and interests have posed new threats to US values and democracy. For instance, CCP attempts to limit the free speech of overseas Chinese students and dissidents, including those living in the US, have also threatened our system of governance.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, China\u2019s core interests\u2014often characterised as \u2018sovereignty, security, and development interests\u2019\u2014are also starting to involve and require<\/a> the global expansion of Chinese influence and \u2018internationalisation\u2019 of military power. China\u2019s notion of sovereignty has extended to incorporate new domains with the new emphasis on cyber sovereignty (\u7f51\u7edc\u4e3b\u6743), which requires control and domination of online discourse within and beyond China.<\/p>\n

The US\u2013China relationship is not inherently adversarial, but managing constructive competition will require a clear-eyed recognition of the characteristics of this rivalry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s debates on whether US\u2013China relations are deteriorating towards a \u2018new cold war\u2019 often involve disagreement over the extent to which there\u2019s an ideological dimension to this competition. By some accounts, it\u2019s purely about power …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":772,"featured_media":46378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,772,31,2380],"class_list":["post-46375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-geopolitics","tag-united-states","tag-us-china-relations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe \u2018regime security dilemma\u2019 in US\u2013China relations | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-regime-security-dilemma-in-us-china-relations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The \u2018regime security dilemma\u2019 in US\u2013China relations | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today\u2019s debates on whether US\u2013China relations are deteriorating towards a \u2018new cold war\u2019 often involve disagreement over the extent to which there\u2019s an ideological dimension to this competition. 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