SECURITY & DEFENCE
Europe must get inside the mind of the dragon
Summer 2010
Europe has long resisted American pressure and co-operated with China on technology, military and trade projects. Yet the EU still has little understanding of Beijing’s security aims, warns May-Britt Stumbaum. It must engage China at a much deeper level if it is to match the sophistication of the U.S. relationship with Beijing
Security issues are at long last gaining a more prominent place in relations between the European Union and China. The EU-China communiqué of late last year set out a raft of security challenges the two sides acknowledge they face, so has the relationship – long labelled as one of “primacy of trade and tyranny of distance”– finally become as strategic and comprehensive as the two sides claim? The EU and China find themselves face-to-face in militarised areas from Afghanistan to the Gulf of Aden, yet EU expertise on China’s strategic intentions and security policies remains fragmented and limited. The EU has joined the U.S. in calling on China to become a “responsible stakeholder”, yet it has little to show for recent attempts to influence China – last December is Copenhagen climate change summit being a case in point. We still know far too little about the motivations and processes that shape Chinese decision-making, let alone about Chinese security strategies, aims and capabilities. By contrast, the U.S. National Security Strategy is hotly debated in Europe, yet discussions about China’s security policy are confined to a small circle of experts.
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Why African countries like working with China
China has had an extraordinary growth story to tell the world. Its economy has grown at an average of 10% for the past 30 years, confirms the International Monetary Fund, with peaks in the years leading to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and again in the run-up to this year’s world expo in Shanghai. But with large regions of China still lacking basic infrastructure, and with an urban explosion taking place, the dragon is as hungry as ever for resources.
China became a net oil importer back in 1993, and now receives more oil from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, than the U.S., with demand that grew by 28% in February of this year, according to the International Energy Agency.
To secure its resources supplies from across the world, China has been seeking deals with Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, Australia and Africa. It has met some resistance from developed nations like Australia in its quest to buy up mining and iron ore assets, but has been largely successful in Africa.
The multi-billion dollar China Africa Development fund was set up by the China Development Bank in 2007 mainly to buy stakes in Chinese companies expanding in Africa. Other recent Chinese investments include $700m in a special economic zone in Mauritius to service Beijing’s expansion on the continent; China Railway Materials has signed a deal to fund development of an iron ore project in Sierra Leone, taking a 12.5% stake in African Minerals; and Sinopec bought Addax Petroleum last August for $7.3bn. In November last year, China pledged $10bn in low-cost loans to Africa over three years.
Many African governments have been attracted to the Chinese development model, even though China has been accused of acting in a neo-colonialist manner and plundering Africa's natural resources. “This allegation in my view is totally untenable,” commented China's premier Wen Jiabao at a China- Africa summit held in Egypt last November.
Some Western experts have explained China's welcome in some parts of Africa by noting that corrupt or authoritarian governments have found China's aid, trade and infrastructural support makes it easier to shrug off Western development assistance that has often had strings attached. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has gone on record saying: “China's approach to our needs is simply better adapted than the slow and sometimes patronising post-colonial approach of European investors.”
| So what exactly are China’s security aims, and why should we care? Security policy in China is closely linked to regime security – meaning the survival of the state and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With communist ideology losing its appeal, the CCP’s claim to power rests on its promise to deliver continuous economic development and national unity so China can recapture its rightful place among the great powers after what the Chinese call “a century of humiliation”. Chinese leaders have long followed Deng Xiaoping’s advice to lay low and bide their time, while focusing on development, internal stability and national unity.
Territorial issues concerning Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, as well as increasing dissatisfaction with inept and corrupt governance in local areas, are potential powder kegs, but solving border issues through mechanisms like the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and promoting regional integration through initiatives such as the East Asia Summit have reduced the potential sources of regional instability. There is nevertheless growing concern about instability spreading from troubled North Korea, Myanmar or Afghanistan. Access to energy resources and raw materials in Africa and the Middle East, as well as open maritime trade routes have been key to China’s economic development, so Beijing naturally seeks a stable external environment and ready access to trade, technology, commodities and capital.
China’s economic development for the last decade has been accompanied by an overhaul of its armed forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In 2004, three months after President Hu Jintao became commander-in-chief of the PLA, he announced the “Historic Missions of Our Military in the New Period of the New Century”. He announced that these four missions of the military are to safeguard CCP rule and China’s historic window of opportunity to develop economically, to provide a powerful strategic tool to protect national interests; to contribute to world peace and to promote mutual development. And after conducting its own study of U.S.-led wars ranging from the Gulf War of 1991 to Iraq and Afghanistan, the PLA is itself becoming a smaller, more flexible and “informationised” force. It is being shaped by a doctrine called the “Revolution in Military Affairs with Chinese Characteristics”, and up until this year it has been funded by annual double-digit increases in the defence budget. In 2010 China’s defence budget growth rate slowed because of the impact of the financial crisis. But last year China is reckoned to have increased its military budget last year by almost 15% to $30.7bn, making it the second-largest military spender in the world after the U.S.
Emphasis has also been placed on improving the Chinese space programme along with its communicating, surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities as a response to American dominance of modern warfare. Being short of raw materials and energy other than coal and wary of its dependence on the U.S. Navy as the ultimate guarantor of open sea lanes, China is also making substantial investments to develop a more effective blue-water navy while maintaining its relationships with key countries along the Indian ocean like Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These investments include the complete financing and construction of the new deep-sea port of Gwadar in Pakistan.
Faced with both the U.S. and EU arms embargoes, China has developed a strong indigenous defence industry. At the same time it has acquired a considerable arsenal of weapons and technologies, primarily from Russia, together with dual-use technologies from countries that include a number of EU member states.
China’s increasing participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions as well as its involvement in the anti-piracy coalition in the Gulf of Aden serves several aims. First, it helps to integrate China into the international system where it can accumulate influence as a “responsible stakeholder”, safeguarding Chinese interests in key parts of the world such as Africa. It also provides China with insights into other countries’ military practices, while offering experience in naval re-supply and combined operations.
China’s global influence is therefore growing rapidly. The global financial crisis has also been a catalyst for China’s more influential position in world affairs because its sustained economic performance is making it an even more attractive partner in terms of trade and finance. As Western countries struggle to revitalise their economies, the global balance is shifting towards Asia’s emerging economies where China occupies the lead position. When China took over at the beginning of this year as chair of the UN Security Council it was clearer than ever that it has become a key partner in any international response to challenges that range from climate change to pandemics and to nuclear non-proliferation. The European Union has put “effective multilateralism” at the core of its foreign and security policies, and China is one of the first countries that the EU needs to address on multilateral initiatives regarding any global challenge – even if the Chinese notion of multilateralism may differ from the European one.
The impact of China’s rise has been plain to see in all parts of the world; European peacekeepers, for instance, meet their Chinese counterparts in countries as far apart as Congo, Sudan and Lebanon and the Chinese have just signed an agreement to provide military training in Afghanistan. Something like 90% of Europe’s international trade is seaborne, with the lion’s share crossing the Indian Ocean, where China is substantially extending its influence. And Europe has itself been a major source of the dual-use high technologies that are contributing to China’s military modernisation – something that has led to heated debates with the U.S. it is a debate that is likely to intensify, because for reasons of geography and its interests in East Asia, the U.S. has developed a more sophisticated strategic view than Europe of its relations with China. Europe will need to deepen its strategic thinking about China – and it must do so sooner rather than later. A comprehensive EU debate on China’s rise and its implications for European security is still sorely lacking, even though the strategic matters to address include
• climate change
• nuclear weapons non-proliferation
• energy security
• trade and investment
• disease pandemics
• dual-use trade and PLA modernisation
• China’s role in Africa and Central Asia.
Co-operation on counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden have provided a valuable opportunity to learn more about Chinese military developments and to establish exchanges of information. Greater knowledge of the strategic implications of China’s policies on Europe could be gained by mapping national exchange programmes with China and compiling an overview of transferred defence-relevant technologies. So far, though, the creation of a European security strategy on China has been made sensitive by the EU’s pillar structure and the jealously guarded competences of different European institutions. But there are plans inside the European Commission to support greater capacity in Europe to examine and assess contemporary China and its impact on European interests, and these would be a welcome development.
A sound understanding of the goals of Chinese policy will be essential if the EU, whose influence is declining in today’s multi-polar world, is intent on promoting the goals of the European Security Strategy. The deepening interdependence of the United States and China – in train for a long time, but being accelerated now by the fact that China is America’s largest foreign creditor – means their strategic destinies will be intertwined. So far, the “G2” concept seems more fanciful than real, but the storyline for the new international order will in all likelihood have the U.S. and China in the starring roles. If Europeans want to shape the narrative and where they fit into it, they will need to know the story’s main characters far better, starting with China.
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The Summer 2010 issue of Europe's World looks at a number of policy areas where that lesson must be borne firmly in mind by today's decisionmakers. The global economic recession has laid bare a range of issues that need to be addressed very promptly before they develop further and become difficulties of a very different magnitude. It has also accentuated long-term trends to which Europe has so far failed to respond.
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