China's Territorial Disputes (44 page)

Exactly because relations between China and Japan cannot be defined according to socialist principles, unlike China’s past relations with the Soviet Union, they tend to take on a statist and even nationalistic norm. Indeed, the development of state patriotism in China was itself a product of conflict with Japan, which may have left a permanent scar on Sino-Japanese relations. Suppose we agree that China does not desire a reversion to its previous hegemonic role in East Asian diplomatic discourse with its associated expectations of ritual obeisance from the surrounding countries, and is instead willing to share leadership in East Asia with Japan. The Chinese must still worry that such equal status and friendly relations between the two countries would be undermined if China were to show signs of being vulnerable to economic pressure from Japan on national policies and priorities. While China’s need to assert an equal leadership role with the USSR of the socialist camp aggravated a minor territorial issue into a near-incident of war between the two countries, China’s abandonment of any aspirations to ideological influence with the end of world socialism helped settle the boundary dispute. Presently, by reclaiming its role as an East

Asian regional power, China will be extremely sensitive to real or perceived slights to its national dignity, sovereignty or interests. There is a danger that Sino-Japanese relations will fall into a trap of the Chinese trying to exercise power as best as they can while preaching morality, as they are wont to do. Nationalism directed against Japan as a worthy opponent itself or as part of the West may also be increasingly used to shift attention from any domestic economic troubles or the existing ideological vacuum.

“A problem left over by history”

China’s territorial dispute with India is neither an outgrowth of ideological quarrel nor a manifestation of aggrieved nationalism, although it was considered by China, like the other cases, as a “problem left over by history.” Nonetheless, to reveal the absurdity of the Soviet peace approach toward the United States, the Chinese blamed the Sino-Indian War of 1962 on American manipulation of India to provoke China. This was of course untrue, but by so doing, the Chinese tried to throw a coat of ideological paint on what was essentially a dispute over tracts of lands around the Sino-Indian frontier. If the border dispute between the two countries did subsequently take on opposing ideological dimensions, then it might have been resolved rather quickly towards the end of the 1980s with the waning of ideology as a discourse of inter-state relations. However, that was not to be the case. In the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, when China and Pakistan evolved a strategic partnership in response to India’s growing military alliance with the Soviet Union, what was hitherto a border dispute took on, not the form of an ideological quarrel, but a security stand-off between China and India. In the logic of the enemy of one’s enemy being one’s friend, the strategic understanding adopted by Communist China and non-Communist Pakistan against that of Communist Russia and non-Communist India was the direct outgrowth of the bitter enmity between Pakistan and India on the one hand, and the Sino-Soviet schism on the other.

Although the Sino-Soviet ideological quarrel is now history, China still maintains excellent civil and military relations with Pakistan, and intends to reserve a role for itself in mediating the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir, if not a naval presence in the Indian Ocean at some time in the future. China and India have historically not been part of one another’s world or regional order, so India feels that China’s continuing involvement in subcontinental affairs is not compatible with India’s own self-image as the pre-eminent power in South Asia. Furthermore, national security and state sovereignty are still salient issues in inter-state conduct, nowhere more so than if there are outstanding issues of boundary disputes between both countries, which could be exploited by the respective governments as populist or diversionary measures to deal with heightened Hindu nationalism in India, or economic difficulties such as the restructuring of state-owned banks and enterprises or massive unemployment facing China.

The confidence-building and disarmament measures that are now in place at the borders of China and India went a long way toward resolving the security threat posed against both countries by each other, or at least greatly reducing the perception of such a threat. However, the chances of resolving this border question will remain as they have been for the last thirty-five years, neither increasing nor decreasing, because it is not a symptom or reflection of larger ideological arguments, or a contest for regional supremacy, or even a historical legacy of distrust. The border dispute has always been a disagreement involving national claims over territory, pure and simple, in which both countries are dissatisfied with the position they have found themselves in, but where there is no incentive for either to move on settling the issue. Of course, that is not to say that the disputed borders between China and India may not serve as a
casus belli
for a future contest between them for hegemony in South Asia or even Southeast Asia.

Barbarians in the backyard?

If the Chinese still possess some lingering respect for Russia’s military might, and grudgingly concede some measure of equality to the Japanese due to their economic strength, their deep-seated “middle kingdom” mentality makes them condescending toward their darker-skinned Southeast Asian neighbors, former tributaries who dwell in China’s maritime “South Seas” backyard. Forecasts of cooperation and compromise eventually replacing distrust and suspicion between China and its neighbors in East Asia are not widely shared by observers.
⁸
Unlike the disputes over ideology and realities of power that underlay the threat constructions of the Soviet Union and India with China during the Cold War, China’s present difficulties with Japan, Taiwan and the countries of Southeast Asia have to do with conflicting ideas and competing claims concerning historical perceptions, national identities, and territorial completeness over contested space. China’s self-prescribed notion of “centrality” and traditional desire for diplomatic freedom of maneuver in dealing with countries bilaterally makes it reluctant to subscribe to the norms of any multilateral regional forum or regime. This is especially true when it comes to Chinese distrust of third party mediation in disputes over territorial sovereignty. Unless there is a strengthened Japanese and American commitment to offset Chinese military and economic growth, the pattern of assertive military strategy manifest in past centuries of Chinese hegemony will likely recur.

All this is not to say that ASEAN cannot accommodate the idea of China as the East Asian superpower. All that ASEAN asks, as a Filipino commentator opined, is that “China remembers that demographic magnitude, economic weight and military power by themselves do not command respect ... [for] respect must be earned, [which] can only be if a superpower’s attributes include moral authority.”
⁹
The problem with this statement is that China may be infinitely more of a place to trade and invest than a paragon to emulate, and that China’s moral paradigm may not include conducting its relationships with Southeast Asian countries with equality. Southeast Asian countries also worry that they may have trouble competing with the PRC for markets and investments, given the generally competitive nature of their foreign trade pattern. Still, ASEAN states will continue to emphasize the goal of drawing Beijing into the outside world. Indeed, as a scholar of China observed,

the overriding goal is to reduce Beijing’s sense that it must retain autonomy, manoeuvrability and secrecy in its dealings with other states, and instead allow it to develop a world view that embraces a belief in the value of coordinated strategies based on a commitment to transparency in its international dealings.
¹⁰

The ritual and symbolism of China，s negotiating behavior on territorial issues

Looking at the ways in which China has proceeded to resolve its border problems, with its attendant successes, partial successes and failures over four decades, a pattern of negotiating behavior beyond the specifics of each case begins to take shape. In all cases, it was a neighboring country, desiring to affirm its current boundary with China, that first took up the issue of an unsettled border. China would then deny the legality of “unequal” boundary treaties “foisted” upon it before 1949, and seek to obtain the acknowledgment of the other side that the border problem was the result of an “imperialist” legacy awaiting rectification. If this acknowledgment was forthcoming, and this step was crucial, China would then press for the conclusion of a new bilateral comprehensive boundary treaty to replace the one it had repudiated. Such territorial settlements as were concluded would reveal that China had made very few demands for border changes or concessions, and was usually prepared to agree to the existing boundary alignment.

The heart of China’s border resolution strategy called for the public acknowledgment and affirmation by a neighboring state desiring to settle an outstanding border issue that a border problem with China did indeed exist. The injustice of China’s previous interaction with the colonial imperialists and the rightness of China’s diplomatic stance on boundary issues must be recognized before they could be resolved through “mutual understanding and accommodation.” China successfully resolved the boundary dispute with Burma because, while Burma understood that China would not recognize the past accords establishing their current frontier, it also knew that China would not upset the territorial divisions they had brought into being as long as Burma were to affirm their illegitimate nature and ask the Chinese for a new boundary treaty. In contrast, Nehru took the position in 1954 that India’s northern frontier “should be considered a firm and definite one, which is not open to discussion with anybody,” and in 1964, the Soviet Union made known that it considered that “no territorial questions exist between the USSR and the PRC and that the Soviet-Chinese frontier has taken shape historically.” Perhaps, unlike the smaller countries around China’s borders, neither India nor the Soviet Union felt it had to entertain Chinese historical sensibilities or play by China’s diplomatic rhetoric. However, not doing so also meant that China was prevented from displaying its generosity or magnanimity, as befitting its own politically constructed self-image as a major power, by offering concessions on the border issues.

Playing to China’s “morality” script thus points to one path which countries having territorial disagreement with the PRC can perhaps still take. We have reason to believe that the issue of resolving the land border dispute between Vietnam and China, which was finally settled at the end of 1999, was first brought up by then Vietnam Communist Party secretary-general Do Muoi and Vietnamese premier Vo Van Kiet on a visit to Beijing in November 1991, and while talks on the land border were carrying on, the Vietnamese allowed the Chinese to manage the stretch of railway in the disputed area.
¹¹

As anyone acquainted with Chinese history will know, in the Chinese diplomatic universe of yore, princes and emissaries from the surrounding “barbarian” countries were so moved by the martial prowess and virtuous prestige of the universal ruler of China that they felt obliged to come forth and acknowledge his majestic presence. This they did by performing the ceremonial kowtow, paying tribute, and receiving the right to trade with China, or some other imperial largesse, in return. We are of course no longer in the era of the “kowtow tributary” relations between the Middle Kingdom and lesser “barbarian” entities. Still, in the minds of many Chinese today, there should be nothing to prevent neighboring countries from paying proper respect to China as a re-emergent big and powerful state, settling boundary questions on its own terms, and receiving trading rights, minor territorial concessions, confirmation of the existing common boundary, or other special dispensations in return. Those border settlements that came about were made possible by the acceptance of the Chinese self-image of their place in the world and their concept of right conduct in interstate relations by Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Perhaps there is after all not so much of a disjunction in China’s diplomatic discourse with its neighboring countries between now and a century or two ago.

On the question of boundary definition, the difficulty of “ignoring” or “freezing” those disputes, a favorite recipe of the Chinese leadership in dealing with unresolved border issues, has grown immeasurably. This is because, aside from the fact that the relevance of treaties underlying the on-going maritime disputes are themselves disputed, for China and elsewhere around the region, territorial claims are part of a developing populist political discourse. The promotion of state-nationalism by the political elite to ward off pressure from countries and groups advocating humanitarian intervention, human rights, democracy, and globalization, has infused territorial issues with greater significance, sensitivity and publicity, and has resulted in those governments concerned being less able to control the terms of the debate. In these times of discovery or rediscovery of national self-definition and self-identification, territories and their associated myths and symbols take on real power in politics and cannot simply be dropped, retrieved or conceded to suit the immediate priorities of the government of the day. Greater political participation and nationalistic activism, led by students, fishermen or opposition politicians, may sharpen policy debates and force political leaders to increase their criticisms of neighbors and take provocative action on disputed claims, thus raising regional tension in the process. The handling or mishandling of territorial issues may also become a proxy for attacking the perceived incompetence or unfairness of government policies. For modern China and the new states of the Southeast Asia especially, territoriality has lain at the very heart of the notion of the integrity of the state and central government control. Regional distribution of power is still expressed through territorial size and control, and the right to rule is still founded in part at least on a government’s ability to protect or extend the territory of a state. Even if issues of territorial sovereignty are the consequences of other concerns, or “historically-contingent socially-constructed realities,” a dispute over a piece of territory - no matter how tiny or insignificant - once it begins, almost always takes on a life of its own.