MVZ-207
Chinese Foreign Policy
since 1949
Mgr. Jan Polišenský
Spring 2011
Week 9: Domestic Determinants and
Foreign Policy Making
North Korea’s nuclear program
and traditional security issues
• Heightened tensions over the Korean nuclear
issue, and the first round of Six-Party talks took
place in August 2003 North Korea
• An Uneasy relationship with Pyongyang: political,
geostrategic, economic, border, ethnic
• Considerations over China’s priorities
• Will North Korea ever give up nuclear capabilities?
• Will China ultimately have to accept this reality?
The Korea Trap
• Why does China’s attitude toward the DPRK seem
to have changed?
• Pyongyang’s succession puzzle and speculation
• North-South relations soured
North Korea needs China
• China – most important ally (food, energy, arms)
• China – Sustaining regime
• Trade between N. Korea and China – 90 % of
energy imports
• N. Korea imports - 80% of consumer goods
• N. Korea imports - 45% of food
• 1961 – Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship,
cooperation and Mutual Assistance – obligated to
defend N. Korea
Evolution of relations
• Pre 1989 – close ally
• 2006 October – Nuclear test - China included
pressure and inducements to the Foreign policy.
Signed UN SC sanctions
• April 2009 – Failed Satellite launch
• May 2009 – Nuclear test - complicated its
relationship. Stricter sanctions.
• March 2010 – president Hu Jintao – to restrain
future provocations and insisted market reforms
• March 2010 – Sinking of Cheonan
Six Party Talks
• Started in August 2003
• North Korea, USA, South Korea, China, Japan,
Russia
• Aim to prevent N. Korea from developing nuclear
weapons
• N.Korea committed itself to the goal of
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula
• SPT – major issue of Chinese FP
• Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao
• Chinese gov't commitment to the SPT
Chinese determinants in SPT
• Neighboring areas - (1300-1900)
• Chinese rise and “International responsibility”
• Improve Sino-US relations
• Chinese security
• Northeast Asia security
• Six party talks
Role of USA
• Tends to overestimate Chinese influence
• Reluctant to the six party talks (Russia)
• N. Korea – supporting terrorists
• N. Korea needs – break the isolation, trade, foreign
aid, formal diplomatic relations, regime security
• “Axis of Evil” - preventive strike – Iraq
• Reluctance to negotiate
• US-ROK joint military drills in the Yellow Sea.
• US criticism of China
• Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang, bringing back two
U.S. correspondents
• Policy analyses of the six parties over the
nuclear issue
Sinking of Cheonan
• 26 March 2010 – sinking of Cheonan
• "no indication of North Korean involvement"
• 15 April 2010 – Recovery
• Investigations - international experts from
Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the
United States
• West vs. East
South Korea’s strategy
• Sunshine policy - 2000, Kim Dae Jung - Nobel
Peace Prize
• No armed provocation by the North will be
tolerated.
• The South will not attempt to absorb the North
in any way.
• The South actively seeks cooperation.
New Crisis in early 2010 –
unprecedented since 2001
• Hot debates on climate change in Copenhagen,
December
• Arms sales to Taiwan and China’s punishment
• The Google Crisis in January 2010
• Iran Issue
• Dalai Lama visit to the White House
• Renminbi Exchange Rate and trade frictions
China-US Relations
• Hu went to Washington on April 12 for the nuclear
security summit meeting
• Barack Obama’s approach to China
• Faced with financial crisis
• Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner visited
China in February and June 2009
• London G20 Summit in April 2009
• China-US Joint Statement
• China thought the most significant phrase is
“respect each other’s core interests”
• Positive, cooperative, and comprehensive
relationship
• Many specific issues of cooperation are included,
especially finance, energy and climate change
USS Kitty Hawk and USS
Nimitz Visits
• Angered by Bush’s treatment of
the Dalai Lama and US arms
sales to Taiwan
• China blocked a long-planned
Thanksgiving visit to Hong
Kong in November 2007 by a
U.S. aircraft carrier group
• Kitty Hawk then refused to
dock and instead sailed
through the Taiwan Strait.
• In Feb. 2010, USS Nimitz
visited Hong Kong.
The USNS Impeccable
Incident
• China accused a U.S. Navy
ship of violating
international law during a
tense confrontation near a
secret Chinese submarine
base on March 10, 2009
• The Pentagon said five
Chinese vessels blocked
and surrounded a U.S.
surveillance ship, the
Impeccable. One of the
ships came 8 meters, of
the U.S. boat
•US and other countries
consider most of the South
China Sea to be
International waters
•China claims an economic
exclusion zone extending
200 nautical miles, or 230
miles, from its coastlines
What does “Peaceful
Development” mean?
• President Hu Jintao stated in Sweden on June
10, 2007:
• "The message that I wish to send to you is this:
China is firmly committed to peaceful
development. …It concentrates its efforts on
development at home and endeavors to uphold
world peace and common development
internationally."
“peaceful development”
China’s path of peaceful development is assured
because of
1.A generally favorable international environment
2.China’s good intentions and policies to maintain
peace
3.preoccupation with domestic issues and little
energy left for outward expansion
4.China’s cultural traits
5.Limitations to its capabilities of expansion
6.Its development strategy that will insure peaceful
means to procure resources
Domestic determinants
• Consistent Sense of insecurity, vigilance
against foreign interference
• fan-hua (anti-China), xihua (Westernize) and
fenhua (split off or divide), “peaceful
evolution,” alleged Western support of
dissidents, Tibetan and Uigur separatists
1. Formal Ideology
•Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought,
“Three Represents,” and Scientific Outlook on
Development, Four Cardinal Principles
Domestic determinants
2. Informal Ideology – Thoughts that influence
foreign policy thinking
• Nationalism/patriotism and collective
memories, with newly gained pride
• West’s schemes of demonizing China,
containment, keeping China down
• Expectations among some elites for
democracy
• The China Model and Beijing Consensus
Domestic determinants
3. Leadership
• Paramount leaders, their charisma, and
authority
• Individual leaders’ propensities and policy
preferences
• Party factions and internal tensions
Domestic determinants
4. General trend of domestic policies
• Mao: internal-external enemies, class
struggle, anti-revisionism
• Deng: reform within and opening to the
outside
• Jiang: economics as the central task - WTO
accession
• Hu: scientific outlook on development;
people-first, and harmonious society/world;
transformation of the mode of economic
development
Domestic determinants
5. Issues related to national unity and cultural
identity
• Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau
• National minority issues, especially those in
Tibet and Xinjiang
• Religious issues (Vatican and other foreign
religious groups)
Domestic determinants
6. Specific political and economic
circumstances that dictated adjustments
• Domestic crises like the Great Leap Forward
and Tiananmen
• Drastic international events like the collapse
of the USSR, 9/11, and global financial crisis
Domestic determinants
• Different claims
over the South
China Sea
• A standard PRC
official map