Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation: Explaining China's Compromises in
Territorial Disputes
Author(s): M. Taylor Fravel
Source: International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Fall, 2005), pp. 46-83
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137595
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Regime Insecurity and
International
Cooperation
Explaining China's Compromises
in Territorial Disputes
M. Taylor Fravel
Following the 1995-96
Taiwan Strait crisis, scholars and policymakers alike have become increasingly
concerned about the territorial ambitions of the People's Republic of China
(PRC). Gerald Segal, for example, described "an irredentist China with a boulder
rather than just a chip on its shoulder."' Most recently, a 2005 Pentagon report
on Chinese military power expressed concern that "conflicts to enforce
China's [territorial] claims could erupt in the future with wide regional repercussions."2
Yet China has also frequently used cooperative means to manage
its territorial conflicts, revealing a pattern of behavior far more complex than
many portray. Since 1949, China has settled seventeen of its twenty-three territorial
disputes. Moreover, it has offered substantial compromises in most of
these settlements, usually receiving less than 50 percent of the contested land.
China's pattern of compromise in its territorial disputes presents several
puzzles. For realists, China has not used its power advantages to bargain hard
over contested land, especially with its weaker neighbors. Nor has it become
M. Taylor Fravel is Assistant Professor of Political Science and a member of the Security Studies Program at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The author owes special thanks to Allen Carlson, Tanisha Fazal, George Gavrilis, Michael Glosny,
Hein Goemans, Lei Guang, Ron Hassner, Alastair lain Johnston, Andrew Kennedy, Alexander
Montgomery, Nikolay Marinov, Kevin Narizny, Robert Ross, Holger Schmidt, Benjamin Valentino,
Alan Wachman, Xu Xin, the anonymous reviewers, and especially Thomas Christensen, James
Fearon, Jean Oi, and Scott Sagan, for helpful comments and suggestions. Seminar participants at
the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Duke University, Harvard University,
the Institute on Qualitative Research Methods at Arizona State University, and Stanford
University also provided useful feedback. Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation
and Harvard's John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies offered valuable financial support
for which the author is grateful. All interviews for this project were conducted on a not-forattribution
basis.
1. Gerald Segal, "East Asia and the 'Constrainment' of China," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 4
(Spring 1996), p. 110. See also Richard K. Betts, "Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the
United States after the Cold War," International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 34-77;
Aaron L. Friedberg, "Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in Multipolar Asia," International Security,
Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 5-33; John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), p. 375; and Denny Roy, "Hegemon on the Horizon? China's
Threat to East Asian Security," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 149-168.
2. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: The Military Power of the People's Republic
of China, 2005, p. 9, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/d20050719china.pdf.
International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Fall 2005), pp. 46-83
? 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
46
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 147
less willing to offer concessions over disputed territory as its power has increased.
Instead, China compromised in eight separate disputes as its power
grew rapidly in the 1990s. For constructivists, the legacy of "unequal treaties"
that ceded land to foreign powers in the nineteenth century and the central
role of national unification in modern Chinese history suggest that conflicts
over territory should be highly salient for China's leaders and basically nonnegotiable.3
In its many compromises, however, China has accepted the general
boundaries that these treaties created except in the cases of Hong Kong and
Macao.
Analysis of China's dispute behavior bears directly on the future of pea
and stability in East Asia. Behavior in territorial disputes is a fundamenta
dicator of whether a state is pursuing status quo or revisionist foreign pol
an issue of increasing importance in light of China's rising power.4 In addi
China still has active territorial disputes, some of which have resulte
armed conflict in the past. Finally, although key to assessing its internat
relations since 1949, China's territorial disputes have not been studied sys
atically in the academic literature.5 The few comprehensive studies that d
ist examine only China's settlements in the 1960s, not the 1990s, and
unable to benefit from the flowering of new Chinese-language source ma
als in the last ten years.6
3. The "unequal treaties" refer to agreements that the Qing dynasty signed with foreign pow
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The agreements, often reached after a military de
contained one-sided terms requiring China to cede land, pay reparations, open treaty po
grant extraterritorial privileges to foreign citizens.
4. On China's status quo foreign policy in arenas other than territorial disputes, see Alastair
Johnston, "Is China a Status Quo Power?" International Security, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Spring 2003)
56.
5. Scholars usually examine China's disputes through analysis of bilateral relations or in
tional law. Examples include Luke T. Chang, China's Boundary Treaties and Frontier Dispute
York: Oceana, 1982); Pao-min Chang, The Sino-Vietnamese Territorial Dispute (New York: Pr
1986); George Ginsburgs and Carl F. Pinkele, The Sino-Soviet Territorial Dispute, 1949-64 (L
Routledge, 1978); Ting Tsz Kao, The Chinese Frontiers (Aurora, Ill.: Chinese Scholarly Publis
1980); Ying Cheng Kiang, China's Boundaries (Lincolnwood, Ill.: Institute of China Studies
Alastair Lamb, The Sino-Indian Border in Ladakh (Canberra: Australian National University
1973); Neville Maxwell, India's China War (New York: Pantheon, 1970); J.R.V. Prescott, Harold
Collier, and Dorothy F. Prescott, Frontiers of Asia and Southeast Asia (Carlton: Melbourne Uni
Press, 1977); Tsien-hua Tsui, The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute in the 1970's (New York: Mosaic
1983); and Byron N. Tzou, China and International Law: The Boundary Disputes (New York: Pr
1990).
6. Greg Austin, China's Ocean Frontier: International Law, Military Force, and National Development
(Canberra: Allen and Unwin, 1998); Harold C. Hinton, Communist China in World Politics (New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), pp. 273-336; Eric A. Hyer, "The Politics of China's Boundary DisThis
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International Security 30:2 148
Within the broader study of territory and war, the past decade has witnessed
increased study of the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes. Using mostly
quantitative analysis, scholars have identified important empirical regularities
in patterns of dispute settlement. Paul Huth's pathbreaking 1996 study, for example,
found that democracy, alliances, disputes over land with economic
value, the existence of multiple disputes, and prior defeat in armed conflict
over contested land significantly increased the odds of a settlement being
reached.' Other scholars have stressed the pacific effects of leadership tenure,
the salience of contested land, regime-type homogeneity, third-party intervention,
and international norms.8 More recent efforts examine separately the decisions
to open negotiations and offer concessions. In one of the most detailed
studies to date, Huth and Todd Allee demonstrate that democratic leaders are
less likely to threaten force and more likely to pursue negotiations in their territorial
disputes with other states, as well as more likely to offer concessions to
other democracies.9
Although major progress has been achieved in understanding the peaceful
resolution of territorial disputes, several important puzzles remain. While democracies
are more likely to pursue peaceful settlement efforts, they represent
a minority of participants in twentieth-century territorial disputes. Instead,
about two-thirds of the challengers in these conflicts are nondemocracies, such
putes and Settlements," Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1990; and Francis Watson, The
Frontiers of China (New York: Praeger, 1966). For an important exception, see Allen R. Carlson,
"Constructing the Dragon's Scales: China's Approach to Territorial Sovereignty and Border Relations
in the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 12, No. 37 (November 2003),
pp. 677-698.
7. Paul K. Huth, Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1996).
8. See, for example, Giacomo Chiozza and Ajin Choi, "Guess Who Did What: Political Leaders
and the Management of Territorial Disputes, 1950-1990," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 47, No.
3 (June 2003), pp. 251-278; Gary Goertz and Paul F. Diehl, Territorial Changes and International
Conflict (New York: Routledge, 1992); Paul R. Hensel, "Contentious Issues and World Politics: The
Management of Territorial Claims in the Americas, 1816-1992," International Studies Quarterly, Vol.
45, No. 1 (March 2001), pp. 81-109; Paul K. Huth and Todd L. Allee, The Democratic Peace and Territorial
Conflict in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 138-230;
Arie M. Kacowicz, Peaceful Territorial Change (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994);
and Beth A. Simmons, "Capacity, Commitment, and Compliance: International Institutions and
Territorial Disputes," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 46, No. 6 (December 2002), pp. 829-856. On
territorial norms, see Tanisha M. Fazal, "State Death in the International System," International Organization,
Vol. 58, No. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 311-344; and Mark W. Zacher, "The Territorial Integrity
Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force," International Organization, Vol. 55, No. 2
(Spring 2001), pp. 215-250.
9. Huth and Allee, The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century, pp. 138-230.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 149
as China.1o Although they are on average less likely to seek negotiations than
democracies, authoritarian states account for the majority of attempts to pursue
peaceful settlement. Moreover, their behavior is difficult to predict. As
they face fewer domestic constraints, authoritarian leaders can more easily
choose between escalation and cooperation."1 Precisely because such leaders
are more likely to use force than their democratic counterparts, explaining
and understanding their decisions to negotiate and compromise should yield
important theoretical insights in the study of territorial disputes.
The ambiguity of authoritarian behavior also suggests that the causal mechanisms
explaining why and when states might offer concessions require further
attention. Although democratic challengers are more willing to pursue
negotiations, they are just as likely as authoritarian ones to offer concessions
once negotiations begin.12 Other variables from previous studies that might
capture incentives to compromise are often situational, referring to the broader
context of the dispute, and do not necessarily reflect the initial motivation for
leaders to offer concessions. In addition, many of these variables, such as alliances
or the military balance, are relatively stable in any given case and offer
less leverage in understanding attempts to compromise over time in the same
dispute.
To explain why and when states might compromise in territorial disputes,
this article presents a counterintuitive argument about the effects of domestic
conflict on foreign policy. Diversionary war theory asserts that leaders facing
domestic strife provoke conflicts with other states just to improve their
position at home.'3 By contrast, I argue that internal conflict often creates conditions
for cooperation, producing a "diversionary peace" instead of war. Embattled
leaders are willing to cooperate with other states in exchange for
assistance in countering their domestic sources of insecurity. In territorial disputes,
leaders are more likely to compromise when confronting internal
10. In the Huth and Allee data set, democracies are those states with a POLITY net democracy
score equal to or greater than 6. Challengers are those states that seek to alter the status quo in a
dispute. See http://www.yale.edu/unsy/jcr/jcrdatadec02.htm.
11. Huth and Allee, The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century, pp. 77-78.
In this study, variables measuring the political security of authoritarian challengers did not produce
strong results. Ibid., pp. 164, 211.
12. Democratic targets, however, are more likely to offer concessions than authoritarian ones.
Ibid., pp. 199-201.
13. Jack S. Levy, "The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique," in Manus I. Midlarsky, ed., Handbook
of War Studies (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 259-288.
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International Security 30:2 150
threats to regime security, including rebellions and legitimacy crises. Facing
these types of internal threats, leaders are more likely to trade territorial concessions
for assistance from neighboring states, such as suppressing rebels or
increasing bilateral trade.
Regime insecurity best explains China's many attempts to compromise in its
territorial disputes. Most of China's disputes are located on its long land border
adjacent to frontier regions where the authority of the regime has been
weak. Ethnic minorities dominate these frontiers, which make up more than
half of the country and were never governed directly before 1949. During periods
of regime insecurity, especially in the event of ethnic unrest near its international
boundaries, China's leaders have been much more willing to offer
concessions in exchange for cooperation that strengthens their control of these
areas, such as denying external support to separatists or affirming recognition
of Chinese sovereignty over these regions.
China's willingness to compromise in territorial disputes carries several implications
for international relations theory. First, China's cooperative behavior
as an authoritarian state underscores the importance of moving beyond democracy
in the study of regime type and cooperation.14 Second, China's
compromises question the role of reputation building in explaining the intractability
of territorial disputes between states. China offered many concessions
despite clear incentives that its simultaneous involvement in multiple conflicts
created to signal toughness and resolve, not conciliation.15 Third, China's behavior
challenges existing arguments about the foreign policies of revolutionary
states.'6 In China, radical politics at home failed to produce assertive or
belligerent foreign policies in most of its territorial disputes.'7 Fourth, China's
cooperative response to regime insecurity helps to explain a key puzzle for the
diversionary war hypothesis: why many periods of domestic strife fail to pro-
14. For one such effort, see Mark Peceny and Caroline C. Beer with Shannon Sanchez-Terry, "Dictatorial
Peace?" American Political Science Review, Vol. 96, No. 1 (March 2002), pp. 15-26.
15. See, for example, Barbara F. Walter, "Explaining the Intractability of Territorial Conflict," International
Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2003), pp. 137-153, especially pp. 149-150.
16. See, for example, Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1996).
17. Perhaps the only clear-cut case of radical politics creating belligerence would be China's 1958
shelling of Taiwan. See Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization,
and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996),
pp. 194-241. On China's pattern of escalation in territorial disputes, see M. Taylor Fravel, "The
Long March to Peace: Explaining China's Settlement of Territorial Disputes," Ph.D. dissertation,
Stanford University, 2003.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 151
duce crisis escalation and the use of force.18 Violence is less common than diversionary
war theory predicts because, under certain conditions, leaders can
have strong incentives to pursue cooperation instead of war to strengthen their
domestic political security.
Although the initiation and escalation of China's many territorial disputes
are important topics, this article focuses only on China's territorial compromises.
I begin by discussing how regime insecurity creates incentives for cooperation
in territorial disputes. I then describe China's ethnic geography and
outline why regime insecurity is likely to create incentives for China to cooperate
in disputes adjacent to its frontier regions populated by ethnic minorities.
The next four sections trace China's efforts to compromise in periods when regime
insecurity was most acute: namely, the revolt in Tibet, the failure of the
Great Leap Forward, the upheaval following the Tiananmen crisis, and separatist
violence in Xinjiang. To demonstrate the link between regime insecurity
and cooperation, I tap a range of newly available Chinese-language source materials,
including party history documents, oral histories, memoirs, government
training manuals, and provincial gazetteers.
Regime Insecurity and Cooperation in Territorial Disputes
The notion of regime insecurity as a source of cooperation extends earlier
scholarship on the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy.
To explain alignment in the developing world, Steven David argues that leaders
"omnibalance," forming alliances to balance against the most pressing
threat that they face, foreign or domestic.19 For many state leaders, especially
in authoritarian regimes and new democracies, the most pressing threats to
their political survival emanate from internal political challenges such as rebellions
and coups.20 To maximize their tenure in office, leaders form alliances,
18. For a complementary explanation based on selection effects, see Giacomo Chiozza and H.E.
Goemans, "Avoiding Diversionary Targets," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 4 (July 2004),
pp. 423-443.
19. Steven R. David, "Explaining Third World Alignment," World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January
1991), pp. 233-256.
20. On internal insecurity and foreign policy, see Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament:
State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner,
1995); Edward Azar and Chung-In Moon, eds., National Security in the Third World: The Management
of Internal and External Threats (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1988); and Brian L. Job, ed., The Insecurity
Dilemma: National Security of Third World States (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1992).
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International Security 30:2 152
even with external adversaries, to balance against more immediate internal
foes.21
My argument about regime insecurity applies this insight of omnibalancing
to international cooperation more broadly. When leaders face internal threats
to their survival, they may use foreign policy in addition to domestic tools
such as repression to enhance their political security. They may cooperate to
achieve different types of support: (1) to gain direct assistance in countering
internal threats, such as denying material support to opposition groups; (2) to
marshal resources for domestic priorities, not defense; or (3) to bolster international
recognition of their regime, leveraging the status quo bias of the international
system to delegitimize domestic challengers.22 When leaders face
internal threats, they may also cooperate to enhance their external security and
preempt potential attempts by other states to profit from their domestic woes.
These effects of regime insecurity are paradoxical: efforts to consolidate political
power at home, often through repression, produce efforts to cooperate
abroad. While such behavior is peaceful, its source is not necessarily benign.
Regime insecurity offers one causal logic to explain why and when leaders
might pursue otherwise costly policies of compromise over disputed territory.
In active territorial disputes, leaders choose among three general strategies.23
A delaying strategy involves doing nothing except maintaining a state's claims
through public declarations.24 An escalation strategy involves the threat or use
of force over disputed territory. A cooperation strategy excludes the threat
or use of force and involves an offer to compromise by dividing control of
contested land or dropping outstanding claims. In most cases, such compromise
precedes the final settlement of a dispute in a bilateral treaty or
agreement.
21. For a similar explanation of Egypt's alliances, see Michael N. Barnett and Jack S. Levy, "Domestic
Sources of Alliances and Alignments: The Case of Egypt, 1962-1973," International Organization,
Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 369-395.
22. Recent historical and quantitative scholarship provides general support for this logic of regime
insecurity in the origins of detente and a finding that politically insecure leaders are less
likely to initiate an international crisis than politically secure ones. See Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest:
Global Revolution and the Rise of Ddtente (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003);
and Giacomo Chiozza and H.E. Goemans, "Peace through Insecurity: Tenure and International
Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 47, No. 4 (August 2003), pp. 443-467.
23. Huth, Standing Your Ground. These strategies represent ideal types, but they are not mutually
exclusive.
24. Leaders can delay by participating in negotiations without offering to compromise in the
dispute.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 153
The delaying strategy is usually the least costly alternative at any point in
time. Escalation contains many risks, including the uncertainty associated with
spirals of hostility or domestic political punishment for military defeat in addition
to the costs of war. Cooperation is risky because concessions over territory
can carry a high domestic political price, which may weaken a leader's position
or even result in political death. From a leader's perspective, continuing
the dispute through a delaying strategy is often better than offering concessions
or failing on the battlefield.25
Although delay is usually the least costly strategy for leaders to adopt,
maintaining a claim to another's land still carries a price. By fostering uncertainty
about the security of vital interests and mistrust of intentions more
broadly, a territorial claim creates poor diplomatic relations with the opposing
state. Poor bilateral ties, in turn, limit the potential for cooperation in security,
diplomatic, or economic arenas. When a conflict has been militarized, the defense
of contested land also diverts scarce resources from domestic priorities.
Regime insecurity generates incentives for compromise by increasing the
cost of poor bilateral relations created by the presence of disputed territory.
When regime survival is at stake, trading concessions for assistance to enhance
regime security often outweighs the benefits of maintaining a claim through
delay.26 State leaders are more likely to offer concessions to manage two types
of challenges to regime security: internal threats to territorial integrity and internal
threats to political stability.
Internal threats to territorial integrity usually occur as unrest or rebellions
that challenge the most basic indicator of a regime's authority-the control of
the territory claimed by the state. When a rebellion erupts near international
boundaries, territorial disputes adjacent to the area of unrest become much
more costly to pursue because neighboring states can provide a range of support
for rebels or even seek to intervene in the conflict. Leaders facing unrest
or rebellion near their borders will be more likely to trade territorial concessions
for direct assistance in crushing the uprising, such as (1) sealing borders;
(2) attacking rebel bases; (3) denying refuge or material support to rebels; (4)
25. Delaying may also carry specific benefits because it allows a state to buy time to strengthen its
tactical military position or maintain domestic support from key constituencies. Delaying is especially
useful for states that occupy a majority of disputed land because the passage of time consolidates
a favorable status quo.
26. Regime insecurity represents one pathway toward territorial compromise. External threats to a
state's security may also increase the cost of delay and create incentives for compromise.
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International Security 30:2 154
extraditing rebel leaders; (5) minimizing inadvertent escalation during hot
pursuit; (6) providing assurances not to intervene; or (7) affirming their state's
sovereignty over the region of unrest.27
Internal threats to political stability appear in the form of social unrest such
as large-scale protests that question the legitimacy of a regime. When such
threats arise, even when far from borders, territorial disputes become much
more costly to pursue because they distract leaders from adequately addressing
domestic unrest. Leaders facing political instability will be more likely to
trade territorial concessions for direct or indirect assistance in overcoming internal
unrest, such as (1) increasing trade and investment to stimulate economic
development; (2) minimizing external tensions to marshal resources
domestically; (3) delegitimizing domestic rivals; or (4) preempting attempts to
profit from a regime's internal weakness.
A key variable is the salience of the contested land. The greater the importance
of the territory at stake, the larger the magnitude of the internal threat
necessary to make compromise more attractive than delay. In most disputes,
some bargaining space exists for trading territorial concessions for assistance
in enhancing regime security. In some cases, however, one or more of the disputants
sees no possible trade, which endows the dispute with perceived indivisibility
and increases the cost of side payments necessary for a peaceful
settlement.28 Such bargaining space is greatly reduced, for example, in disputes
over areas populated by coethnics for one or more of the states, such as
Kashmir.29
Regime insecurity offers a plausible pathway for compromise in territorial
disputes for two reasons. First, the majority of twentieth-century territorial
disputes involved authoritarian regimes where internal threats to regime security
are likely to occur, including popular uprisings, coups, revolutions, and
secessions.30 Second, external cooperation may be particularly important for
authoritarian leaders, especially in the developing world, whose political insti-
27. In the absence of a territorial dispute with a neighboring state, one observable implication of
this argument is that leaders will offer concessions in other types of disputes for cooperation in addressing
regime insecurity.
28. On indivisibility and territory, see Ron E. Hassner, "To Halve and to Hold: Conflicts over Sacred
Space and the Problem of Indivisibility," Security Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 1-
33; Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003); and Walter, "The Intractability of Territorial
Conflict."
29. Huth, Standing Your Ground, pp. 141-180.
30. David, "Explaining Third World Alignment."
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 155
tutions often suffer from limited capacity or "broadcasting power."31 When the
state is weak, cooperation with neighbors will be more valuable because these
leaders have fewer resources with which to respond to their internal threats.
Explaining China's Compromises
China has offered substantial compromises in seventeen of its twenty-three
territorial disputes active since 1949. As Table 1 demonstrates, it has often
agreed to accept less than half of the territory being disputed. In fifteen of
these disputes, its willingness to compromise created the conditions for a
final territorial settlement through bilateral agreements. By contrast, China has
never offered to compromise in six of its twenty-three disputes, consistently
adopting delaying strategies instead.32 Regime insecurity best explains the
variation in China's use of cooperation and delaying strategies.
ETHNIC GEOGRAPHY AND REGIME INSECURITY
In China, ethnic geography has shaped the regime's vulne
threats. It refers to the density and distribution of ethnic
China's ethnic geography reflects an "empire state," with
core surrounded by a large periphery of minorities.33 Ha
more than 90 percent of China's population. They live mo
percent of the landmass along the coast, an area known as
the "inner land" (neidi).34 By contrast, ethnic minorities
Mongols make up less than 10 percent of China's popula
31. Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Aut
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000).
32. As discussed below, disputes over Hong Kong and Macao were set
when Britain and Portugal agreed to return these territories to C
respectively.
33. Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (New York: American Geographical Society,
1940); Mao Zhenfa, ed., Bianfang lun [On frontier defense] (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe, 1996);
Gerald Segal, "China Changes Shape: Regionalism and Foreign Policy," Adelphi Paper No. 287
(London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1994); Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis,
Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2000),
pp. 21-96; Joseph Witney, "China: Area, Administration, and Nation Building," Department of
Geography Research Paper No. 123 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970); and Zheng Shan, ed.,
Zhongguo bianfang shi [China's frontier defense history] (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian
chubanshe, 1995).
34. Bu He, ed., Minzu lilun yu minzu zhengce [Nationality theory and nationality policy]
(Huhehaote: Neimenggu daxue chubanshe, 1995), p. 27.
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Table 1. China's Territorial Disputes, 1949-2005
Disputed Area Km2 Talks Agreements Description of Settlement
Homeland Disputes
Hong Kong 1,042 1982-84 1984: JD Territory was returned to China
Macao 25 1986-87 1987: JD Territory was returned to China
Taiwan 32,260 - - Dispute is still active.
Frontier Disputes
Burma border 1,909 1956-57 - Talks were held after troops clashed o
1960 1960: BA China received 18% of the disput
1960: BT received a strategic highw
1961: BP preferred watershed boun
Nepal border 2,476* 1960 1960: BA China received 6% of the disputed la
1961: BT Mt. Everest; Nepal h
1963: BP passes.
India border 125,000 1960 - China offered to hold 26% of the dispu
is still active.
1981-present 1993: MTA
1996: CBMs
2005: PriA
North Korea border 1,165 1962 1962: BT China received 40% of the disputed
1964: BP Changbai Mt.; North
Mongolia border 16,808 1962 1962: BT China received 29% of the disput
1964: BP
Pakistan border 8,806** 1962 1963: BA China received 60% of the disputed la
1965: BP 1,942 square kilometers to Pak
Afghanistan border -7,381 1963 1963: BT China did not receive any of the di
1965: BP corridor.
Russia border (eastern)*** -1,000 1964 Consensus reached to divide islands
the thalweg principle.
1969-78
1987-91 1991: BA China received 52% of the river
1999: BP were divided evenly.
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Bhutan border 1,128 1984-present 1998: MTA China reportedly offered to hold 24
land; dispute is still activ
Laos border 18 1990-91 1991: BT China reportedly received 50% of the
1993: BP
Vietnam border 1977
227 1992-99 1993: PriA China received 50% of the dispu
1999: BT
Russia border (western)*** no data 1992-94 1994: BA Agreement affirmed the line of a
1999: BP
Kazakhstan border*** 2,420 1992-98 1994: BA China received approximately 22% o
1997: SA
1998: SA
2002: BP
Kyrgyzstan border*** 3,656 1992-99 1996: BA China received approximately 32%
1998: SA
2004: BP
Tajikistan border*** 28,430 1992-2002 1999: BA China received 4% of the disputed
2002: SA were divided evenly.
Strategic islands on 408 1964
Russian border*** 1990-2004 2004: SA Control of Abagaitu and Hexiazi islands
Offshore Island Disputes
White Dragon Tail Island -5 1957 No formal Island was transferred to North V
agreement
Paracel Islands -10 - - Dispute is still active.
Spratly Islands -5 - - Dispute is still active.
Senkaku Islands -7 - - Dispute is still active.
NOTE: BA (boundary agreement), BP (boundary
nance of tranquility agreement), JD (joint de
*Figure excludes the dispute over Mt. Everest
Union.
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International Security 30:2 158
the other 60 percent of the landmass enveloping China proper, regions known
as the "borderlands" (bianjiang) or "outer lands" (waidi).35
This ethnic geography highlights the varied challenges to maintaining territorial
integrity that China's leaders confronted when founding the PRC in
1949. The political institutions of the new state were strong in the core but
weak in the larger frontiers. China proper was relatively easy to govern because
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) inherited from the Ming dynasty a
provincial system of direct rule, which vertically integrated townships and
provinces with the central government.36 As the civil war was waged mainly
within China proper, the CCP also cultivated a large pool of Han cadres to staff
the new government.
By contrast, the institutions of the new state were weak in the frontiers, the
regions adjacent to China's land borders. Many ethnic groups in the borderlands
did not identify themselves as members of the PRC and previously
sought at various times to seek independence. Unlike China proper, the CCP
inherited no institutions of direct rule through which to govern these areas. As
strategic buffer zones, the frontiers had historically been governed indirectly
through arrangements that granted substantial autonomy to local leaders in
exchange for loyalty to the emperor." Indirect rule ensured the exclusion of
foreign influence without having to establish a costly system of direct rule, but
limited the rapid expansion of state authority in these regions when the PRC
was established.38 As the civil war was waged largely in China proper, the
35. On the frontier areas, see Ma Dazheng and Liu Ti, Ershi shiji de Zhongguo bianjiang yanjiu
[China's borderland research in the twentieth century] (Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe,
1998), pp. 1-60; and Niu Zhongxun, Zhongguo bianjiang dili [China's frontier geography] (Beijing:
Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), pp. 1-7.
36. Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1985), pp. 71-96.
37. Nicola Di Cosmo, "Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia," International History Review,
Vol. 20, No. 2 (June 1998), pp. 24-40; and Ma Dazheng, ed., Zhongguo bianjiang jinglue shi [A history
of China's frontier administration] (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 2000), pp. 240-434.
38. Many forms of indirect rule were adopted, including the local chieftain system in southwestern
tribal areas, military colonies in Xinjiang and parts of Mongolia, a protectorship in Tibet, and
vassalage relations in Manchuria and other parts of Mongolia. See Di Cosmo, "Qing Colonial Administration
in Inner Asia"; Joseph Fletcher, "The Heyday of the Ch'ing Order in Mongolia,
Sinkiang, and Tibet," in John K. Fairbank, ed., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10: Late Ch'ing,
1800-1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 58-90; James Millward, Beyond the
Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1998); Luciano Petech, China and Tibet in the Early Eighteenth Century: History of the Establishment
of the Chinese Protectorate in Tibet (Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1972); Morris Rossabi,
China and Inner Asia: From 1368 to the Present Day (New York: PICA Press, 1975); and Warren W.
Smith, Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview, 1996), pp. 115-150.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 159
Table 2. China's Compromises by Type of Dispute
Homeland Frontier Offshore Total
Compromise attempted 0 16(14) 1(1) 17(15)
No compromise attempted 3(2) 0 3 6(2)
Total 3(2) 16(14) 4 23(17)
NOTE: The figure in each
tempted. The figure in p
tlement was reached.
CCP also lacked ethnic minority cadres, which further limited its ability t
tend its authority in the frontiers.
China's territorial disputes reflect these different challenges to mainta
the territorial integrity of an empire state.
HOMELAND DISPUTES. China has disputed three areas linked to the Han
nese core. In these disputes, the main challenge to territorial integrity has
to regain those parts of China proper not under PRC control in 1949. The
clude China's contentious conflicts over Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Ma
China's leaders view these disputes as key to completing the mission o
tional unification that began with the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, a
intertwined with the very legitimacy of the CCP.
Concessions for any reason are unlikely in homeland disputes. The over
ing importance of completing national unification suggests that these conf
are basically nonnegotiable. Few threats, internal or external, would be g
enough to make any territorial compromise appear more attractive than
and the achievement of unification.
As Table 2 indicates, China has never attempted to compromise in a homeland
dispute. Disputes over Hong Kong and Macao were settled when Britain
and Portugal concluded that the costs of continuing them, especially after the
expiry of a ninety-nine-year lease for the New Territories in Hong Kong, far
exceeded whatever benefit they still derived from their possession. In a matter
of eighteen months of talks with China, Britain's negotiating position changed
from demanding an extension of British sovereignty after 1997 to bargaining
over the details of the territory's handover to China. Portugal followed Britain's
lead and agreed in 1987 to return Macao to China on similar terms.39 Al-
39. Robert Cottrell, The End of Hong Kong: The Secret Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat (London: John
Murray, 1993).
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International Security 30:2 160
though China did agree to maintain existing political institutions in both
territories, this did not represent much of a compromise because, since the late
1970s, China had indicated its desire to maintain the political status quo to facilitate
investment from these territories.
FRONTIER DISPUTES. China has disputed control over sixteen areas along its
land border adjacent to its borderlands. These disputes stem from the challenge
of consolidating control over vast frontiers through the implementation
of direct rule. Frontier disputes arose from the ambiguity surrounding China's
land borders when the PRC was established. While large portions of the border
had been delimited in the unequal treaties, many of the descriptions contained
in these agreements were vague, imprecise, and often not demarcated
on the ground. Neighboring states also feared that China might pursue claims
to the almost 2 million square kilometers of territory ceded in these agreements.
Nevertheless, China has pursued mostly status quo goals in these disputes
to secure the boundaries of the late Qing dynasty as defined by the
unequal treaties.
Internal threats are likely to create incentives to compromise in frontier disputes.
The weakness of the state increases the potential influence of neighbors
within these regions, creating an opportunity to trade territorial concessions
for support in governing the frontiers. Securing one of the longest land borders
in the world poses a logistical challenge for China's armed forces even under
optimal conditions. In addition, the presence of ethnic minorities, many of
whom aspire to secede, intertwines territorial integrity with political stability.411
Before the establishment of the PRC, many of these groups enjoyed much
stronger economic and cultural ties with neighboring states than with China
proper and did not see themselves as members of the new state.41 As Deng
Xiaoping explained presciently in 1950 when describing China's southwestern
frontier, "On a border this long ... if the issue of ethnic minorities is not resolved,
then the matter of national defense cannot be settled."42
40. Of the 135 counties adjacent to China's international frontiers, 107 are ethnic autonomous regions.
Bu He, Minzu lilun yu minzu zhengce, p. 27.
41. Parts of Xinjiang had been ruled or heavily influenced by the Soviet Union before 1949, while
India and Nepal maintained special trading privileges in Tibet and hill tribes moved freely across
China's southwestern borders in Yunnan and Guangxi. See Andrew D.W. Forbes, Warlords and
Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang, 1911-1949 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1986); Alastair Lamb, The McMahon Line: A Study in the Relations between
India, China, and Tibet, 1904-1914 (London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1966); and Herold J.
Wiens, China's March toward the Tropics (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1954).
42. Deng Xiaoping wenxuan [Deng Xiaoping's selected works] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994),
Vol. 2, p. 161.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 161
When internal threats arise, neighboring states can provide assistance to
help China's leaders maintain frontier stability. While separatist unrest near
borders poses a direct challenge to the integrity of frontiers, political instability
at the core also creates concerns about control of these regions, given the potential
for separatist movements and the need to focus state resources elsewhere.
With its relative military strength, however, China's territorial claims
create suspicion and mistrust among neighbors, which limits the development
of bilateral ties. Under these conditions, China's leaders can offer territorial
concessions to improve relations with its neighbors and strengthen frontier
control.
As Table 2 demonstrates, China has compromised at least once in each of its
frontier disputes since 1949. Chinese sources, especially doctrinal studies produced
by scholars from the People's Liberation Army (PLA), link the defense
of frontiers with internal political stability.43 These studies assert that insecure
borders promote ethnic unrest by increasing external influence within China
and reveal suspicions that neighbors may manipulate ethnic tensions to create
instability.44 Diplomatic relations with neighboring states are consistently
highlighted as a key tool for maintaining internal control over frontiers in addition
to border security, economic development, and political mobilization.
Benefits of cooperation with neighbors include policing rebel activity, limiting
the potential for miscalculation during pacification campaigns, and expanding
cross-border trade.45
OFFSHORE ISLAND DISPUTES. China has disputed four island groups. In these
disputes, China's leaders have sought to secure a maritime frontier that previous
governments lacked. Offshore island disputes arose from the ambiguity
of sovereignty over small islands, rocks, and reefs that had never been administered
by any of the claimants, including China. Today, the value of the islands
stems mostly from maritime rights to resources in adjacent waters and as
bases for the limited forward deployment of naval forces for surveillance and
securing sea-lanes.
Regime insecurity is unlikely to create incentives for cooperation in offshore
43. See especially Mao, Bianfang lun; and Li Xing, ed., Bianfang xue [The study of frontier defense]
(Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe, 2004). See also police training manuals for frontier defense, including
Cai Xiru, ed., Bianfang lilun [Frontier defense theory] (Beijing: Jingguan jiaoyu chubanshe,
1996); and Ping Qingfu, ed., Bianjing guanli xue [The study of border management] (Beijing:
Jingguan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999).
44. Mao, Bianfang lun, pp. 232-234, 256-261.
45. Ibid., pp. 241-255; and Wang Wenrong, ed., Zhanlue xue [The study of military strategy]
(Beijing: Guofang daxue chubanshe, 1999), p. 270.
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International Security 30:2 162
island disputes. Far from the mainland, these small, desolate, and unpopulated
islands have little influence on regime security. As they do not target vital
interests for similar reasons, China's claims to these islands have a limited impact
on bilateral ties. In addition, during periods of regime insecurity, the only
assistance that neighbors might offer in exchange for China's concessions
would be diplomatic support. As a result, external, not internal, factors are
most likely to produce efforts to compromise. Furthermore, as these islands
are cheap for the claimants to dispute, requiring few troops to maintain a
claim, states are most likely to adopt a delaying strategy to maximize the potential
economic or strategic benefits.
China has compromised in only one offshore island dispute since 1949,
White Dragon Tail, as discussed below. In its disputes over the Paracel (xisha),
Spratly (nansha), and Senkaku (diaoyu) island groups, China has consistently
adopted a delaying strategy and never offered to compromise.46 It has held
limited talks with individual states over the Spratlys, but these talks have
never touched upon sovereignty, emphasizing instead escalation control.47
In November 2002, China did sign a declaration with ASEAN states on a
code of conduct concerning the South China Sea, but the agreement focused
only on broad confidence-building measures, not sovereignty and dispute
settlement.48
REGIME INSECURITY AND TERRITORIAL COMPROMISE
Since 1949, China's pattern of compromise and delay has varied
ence or absence of threats to regime insecurity: China has atte
mise in response to these internal threats; otherwise, it has pu
Unrest among minorities near international boundaries has o
three distinct periods since 1949, each of which produced effo
leaders to compromise in its territorial disputes. When a revolt
in 1959, China moved to compromise in disputes with Burma,
dia. After ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in 1962, China pursued co
Mongolia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union. In the
separatist violence in Xinjiang produced compromises in d
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
46. Austin, China's Ocean Frontier.
47. Zhongguo waijiao [China's diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2
48. "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea," Novem
www.aseansec.org/ 13163.htm.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 163
Political instability has also occurred during three different periods, two of
which produced attempts to compromise. In the aftermath of the Great Leap
Forward in the early 1960s, concerns about bolstering political stability
throughout the country created additional incentives to compromise in disputes
with Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Soviet Union, as well as
North Korea. Following the 1989 Tiananmen crisis and worries about the viability
of its socialist system, China attempted compromise in disputes with its
socialist neighbors the Soviet Union, Laos, and Vietnam; in addition, it reached
confidence-building agreements with India and Bhutan. A third period of political
instability during the early phase of the Cultural Revolution (1966-69)
failed to produce efforts to compromise. China's senior leaders, however, created
this chaos deliberately, which did not initially reflect a threat to the regime's
security from society. Moreover, during the most acute phase, much of
the central government ceased to function, including the foreign ministry.
In the absence of internal threats to regime security, China's leaders have
adopted delaying strategies instead. China attempted to compromise only
twice in disputes before 1960. It did not offer new compromises in any territorial
dispute from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s.49
Nevertheless, regime insecurity leaves unexplained three attempts by China
to compromise. First, China and Burma held negotiations in 1956 after border
patrols clashed. Even though China offered to exchange some disputed areas,
the impetus for the talks was to reduce the potential for escalation, as Nationalist
troops from Taiwan had taken refugee in Burma and periodically raided
the border of Yunnan Province.50 Second, in 1957, China transferred White
Dragon Tail Island (bailongwei dao) in the Tonkin Gulf to North Vietnam.
Newly available sources indicate that Chairman Mao Zedong ordered this
compromise to aid Hanoi in its conflict with the United States.51 Third, in October
2004, China and Russia agreed to divide control of two disputed river islands:
Abagaitu in the Argun River and Heixiazi at the confluence of the Amur
and Ussuri rivers. As no internal threats to regime security preceded this
49. During this period, China held negotiations with the Soviet Union (1969-78), Vietnam (1977),
and India (1981-present).
50. Han Huaizhi and Tan Jingqiao, eds., Dangdai zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo (shang) [The
military work of contemporary China's armed forces] (Beijng: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe,
1989), Vol. 1, pp. 367-379.
51. Li Dechao, "Bailong weidao zhengming [Rectification of White Dragon Island's name],"
Zhongguo bianjiang shidi yanjiu baogo, Vols. 1-2, No. 3 (1988), pp. 21-23; and Mao, Bianfang lun,
p. 137.
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International Security 30:2 164
agreement, China's compromise most likely stemmed from external factors,
especially the need to deepen ties with Russia.52
In addition to regime insecurity, China's relative military power has
influenced its willingness to compromise in frontier disputes. With a large
standing army, China has more leverage in disputes on its land border where it
can most easily project its military power. While the authority of the state remains
weak in the frontiers, China's relative strength decreases the risk that
other states will perceive concessions in frontier disputes as a sign of weakness.
By contrast, China has faced real limits to projecting power in offshore island
disputes and faces greater risks that any concessions will be perceived as
signaling weakness. Nevertheless, while military power increases the likelihood
that China might compromise in a given frontier dispute, it cannot explain
the variation in the timing of China's efforts to compromise or the
motivation for compromise. On land, its relative power has been largely constant
since 1949, while attempts to compromise have varied widely over time.
The following sections examine the relationship between regime insecurity
and compromise in China's territorial disputes. The analysis demonstrates a
clear correlation between the onset of internal threats and efforts to compromise.
Where possible given limited access to archival material, the analysis
also demonstrates that China's leaders acted in accordance with the hypothesized
mechanisms of regime insecurity.
The Tibetan Revolt
In 1959, a revolt in Tibet against Chinese rule sparked the largest internal
threat to the PRC's territorial integrity. The outbreak of the revolt dramatically
increased the cost of maintaining territorial disputes with Burma, Nepal, and
India. China offered concessions in these disputes in exchange for cooperation
to crush the rebellion.
UNREST IN THE SOUTHWESTERN FRONTIER
After occupying Tibet in 1951, the PRC confronted severe ob
ing the region. Tibet maintained strong social, cultural, and e
52. "Russian Foreign Minister Gives TV Interview Focusing on Ties wit
NTV (in Russian), November 14, 2004, Foreign Broadcast Information Se
1114-000063.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 165
its Himalayan neighbors, while the central government lacked any legacy institutions
and ethnic cadres with which to integrate Tibet into the new state.
As a result, China's leaders chose to govern Tibet indirectly through the Dalai
Lama and existing Tibetan institutions. From the mid-1950s, however, a series
of armed uprisings against Chinese rule in the ethnic Tibetan Kham region of
Sichuan Province grew into a widespread revolt within Tibet proper.53 At its
height in late 1958 and early 1959, the revolt involved perhaps more than
50,000 rebels, who controlled most of Tibet apart from Lhasa, Shigatse, and the
main highways.54 The revolt was especially threatening because of the central
government's already weak position in the region and because Tibet's basically
undefended international border left it vulnerable to external influence.55
Before the Tibetan revolt erupted, China had rebuffed efforts by neighboring
states to open negotiations over disputed territory. In 1954, Chinese Premier
Zhou Enlai and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru touched on the border
in their talks, but agreed not to pursue it.56 In 1956, Nepal sought to open
talks with China over their border, but China demurred."7 The same year,
China and Burma held negotiations after a clash between border patrols, but
they stalled in early 1957 when China would not accede to Burma's demands
concerning four disputed areas.5s
53. Gompo Tashi Andrugstang, Four Rivers, Six Ranges: Reminiscences of the Resistance Movement in
Tibet (Dharamsala: Information and Publicity Office of H.H. The Dalai Lama, 1973); and Tsering
Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of the Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 (New York: Penguin
Compass, 1999), pp. 170-218.
54. Although A. Tom Grunfeld estimates that the number of rebels ranges from 50,000 to 200,000,
Chinese sources indicate that the number ranges from 23,000 to 87,000. See Grunfeld, The Making of
Modern Tibet, rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 134-135; Li Peisheng and Li Guozhen,
eds., Pingxi xizang panluan [Suppressing the Tibetan rebellion] (Lasa: Xizang renmin chubanshe,
1995), p. 17; Jamyang Norbu, "The Tibetan Resistance Movement and the Role of the CIA," in
Robert Barnett, ed., Resistance and Reform in Tibet (London: Hurst and Company, 1994), p. 189; and
Yang Qiliang, Wang Shangrong jiangjun [General Wang Shangrong] (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo
chubanshe, 2000), p. 403.
55. The PLA began to garrison the entire border only after the 1959 revolt. See Jiang Siyi and Li
Hui, eds., ZhongYin bianjing ziwei fanji zuozhan shi [History of China's war of self-defensive counterattack
against India] (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe, 1994), p. 86; and Wu Lengxi, Shinian
lunzhan: 1956-1966 ZhongSu guanxi huiyilu [Ten years of polemics: A recollection of Sino-Soviet relations
from 1956 to 1966] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999), p. 212. Author interview,
Beijing, February 2003.
56. Jin Chongji, ed., Zhou Enlai zhuan [Biography of Zhou Enlai] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian
chubanshe, 1998), Vol. 3, p. 1492.
57. S.D. Muni, Foreign Policy of Nepal (New Delhi: National Publishing House, 1973), p. 104.
58. Jin, Zhou Enlai zhuan, pp. 1229-1324; Dorothy Woodman, The Making of Burma (London:
Cresset Press, 1962), pp. 535-536; and Yao Zhongming, "Zhou Enlai zongli jiejue ZhongMian
bianjie wenti de guanghui yeji" [Premier Zhou Enlai's glorious achievement in settling the SinoThis
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International Security 30:2 166
The Tibetan revolt, however, increased the cost to China of maintaining disputes
with India, Nepal, and Burma. The main focus of the regime's response
to the rebellion was a brutal pacification campaign combined with political reform
designed to penetrate Tibetan society and implement direct rule.59 But
achievement of these domestic goals required peaceful borders and stable ties
with neighboring states. The presence of territorial disputes threatened to
complicate consolidation of central authority in Tibet because neighbors might
provide support for rebels or even seek to intervene in the conflict. As PLA
units pursued rebels fleeing to the south, they encountered Indian troops and
clashed violently on August 25, 1959, near Longju. At the time, Chinese leaders
believed that India was harboring rebel groups and allowing them to operate
from bases in India.60
CHINA COMPROMISES WITH BURMA, NEPAL, AND INDIA
In response to growing tensions on the border, China moved to compromi
its territorial disputes with Tibet's neighbors. Although India was the most
portant state, compromise was also pursued with Nepal and Burma to s
lize portions of Tibet's border and help to pressure India to reach
compromise agreement with China. Immediately following the Longju clas
Zhou ordered an investigation of the incident. On September 8, Mao conve
a Politburo meeting, whose participants agreed that China should prepare
seek a negotiated settlement to all aspects of its border dispute with India
After the meeting, China first approached Nepal and Burma to open negot
tions. On September 24, Zhou wrote to Burmese Prime Minister Ne Win, s
ing his interest in reopening talks based on earlier correspondence between
two sides.62 On October 9, Zhou met with a visiting Nepalese minister and
pressed China's willingness to enter into border talks.63 After a second ar
Burmese border problem], in Pei Jianzhang, ed., Yanjiu Zhou Enlai: Waijiao sixiang yu sh
[Studying Zhou Enlai: Diplomatic thought and practice] (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 19
pp. 94-111.
59. Li and Li, Pingxi xizang panluan; and Yang Chengwu, "Xizang panluan" [The Tibetan
lion], in Zongcan moubu: huiyi shiliao [General Staff Department: Recollections] (Beijing: Jiefa
chubanshe, 1997), pp. 532-548.
60. Maxwell, India's China War.
61. Wu, Shinian lunzhan, p. 212.
62. On Ne's June 4, 1959, letter and Zhou's last offer of June 1958, see Woodman, The Maki
Burma, p. 536.
63. Li Ping and Ma Zhisun, eds., Zhou Enlai nianpu (zhong) [A chronicle of Zhou Enlai's life]
(Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1997), Vol. 2, p. 260; and Leo E. Rose, Nepal: Strategy for
Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 223.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 67
clash occurred between Chinese and Indian forces in late October 1959, Zhou
offered to hold talks with Nehru. In December, Nehru still refused to meet
with Zhou.
In January 1960, the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) discussed the
Chine'se-Indian dispute during a ten-day working meeting in Hangzhou.
PBSC members agreed that the border with India should be settled swiftly
through negotiations based on the principle of "give and take" (huliang
hurang). According to one participant's recollection, the PBSC agreed that
"China should make some concessions [and] India should make some concessions."64
The PBSC also agreed to adopt a similar approach on China's other
disputed borders and decided that China should seek a quick settlement with
Burma and Nepal.
Official documents link these high-level decisions to the internal situation in
Tibet. Newly available General Staff Department regulations from May 1960
outlined the leadership's general policy direction for stabilizing Tibet: "To stabilize
our southwestern border region quickly, we must not only bring stability
to the interior (neibu) but also to the exterior (waibu)."65 An internal PLA bulletin
stressed the same theme: "The PLA must work hard to make our southwest
and northwest regional borders peaceful and secure. This is the best way to
settle the problem of our [frontier] regions."66
Although India remained its most important negotiating partner, China
sought first to reach agreements with Burma and Nepal. In early January 1960,
Zhou invited Prime Minister Ne Win to visit Beijing. On January 28, 1960, the
two sides signed a preliminary agreement, where China acceded to many of
Burma's demands from early 1957.67 In early February, perhaps persuaded
by China's agreement with Burma, Nehru agreed to meet with Zhou. In
early March, before Zhou traveled to New Delhi, Nepalese Prime Minister
Bishweshwar Koirala visited Beijing for negotiations in which China and
Nepal reached a preliminary agreement to settle their dispute based on the
customary line of control.68 During and after these talks, China also gained
64. Wu, Shinian lunzhan, p. 248.
65. Jiang and Li, ZhongYin bianjing ziwei fanji zuozhan shi, p. 458.
66. Quoted in J. Chester Cheng, ed., Politics of the Chinese Red Army (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution,
1966), p. 191.
67. Jin, Zhou Enlai zhuan, pp. 1929-1324; and Woodman, The Making of Burma, pp. 535-536.
68. Arthur Lall, How Communist China Negotiates (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968),
pp. 199-200; and Yang Gongsu, Zhongguo dui waiguo qinlue ganshe xizang difang douzheng shi [History
of China's struggle against foreign aggression and intervention in Tibet] (Beijing: Zangxue
chubanshe, 1992), pp. 322-325.
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International Security 30:2 168
other assistance in securing its southwestern frontier, including agreements
with Nepal to regulate the movement of people across the border and to increase
border trade, as well as permission to conduct limited military operations
on Nepalese territory against Tibetan rebels and in Burma against
remnant Nationalist troops.69
Before departing for New Delhi, Zhou personally drafted a plan for his talks
with Nehru. In his most optimistic scenario, Zhou hoped to reach an agreement
that was "the same as with Burma and Nepal," namely one based on
compromise.70 In those agreements, the acceptance of the McMahon Line with
Burma and affirmation of the implied direction of the line with Nepal clearly
suggested that China would also accept the line as the boundary in the eastern
sector with India, which would have addressed India's largest concern.71
Newly available sources indicate that, during the talks, Zhou proposed a territorial
swap with Nehru. In their sixth meeting, Zhou offered to recognize
India's position in the eastern sector if India accepted China's sovereignty over
the Aksai Chin area in the west.72
The April 1960 talks between Zhou and Nehru failed spectacularly. Nevertheless,
China's attempt to compromise in its dispute with India supports the
logic of regime insecurity. The outbreak of rebellion in Tibet dramatically increased
the cost of disputing territory with Burma, Nepal, and India. By seeking
to focus on the consolidation of authority in Tibet and securing its borders,
China dropped any large or inflexible claims it might have pressed against its
Himalayan neighbors. Domestic priorities for political stability in Tibet
trumped competition over disputed territory. Without the Tibetan rebellion in
1959, China would probably not have even entered into negotiations with
these states, much less offered significant territorial concessions.
External balancing offers the main alternative explanation for China's willingness
to compromise following the revolt in Tibet. Based on balance of threat
69. John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 2001), p. 148; Han and Tan, Dangdai zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo
(shang), pp. 369-379; and Yang Gongsu, Zhongguo dui waiguo qinlue ganshe xizang difang douzheng
shi, pp. 324-325.
70. Zhou Enlai quoted in Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (zhong), p. 302; and Shi Zhongquan, Zhou
Enlai de zhuoyue gongxian [Zhou Enlai's great contributions] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian
chubanshe, 1993), p. 393.
71. The McMahon Line serves as roughly the line of control between China and India in the eastern
sector. Britain drew the line during the Simla Conference on Tibet in 1913-14 attended by Chinese
and Tibetan representatives, but it was not ratified by the Chinese government. See Maxwell,
India's China War, pp. 46-56.
72. Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (zhong), pp. 304-314.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 69
theory, this explanation asserts that China settled not to consolidate its domestic
position within Tibet, but to balance against external threats from neighboring
states to its influence in the region.73 Despite the emerging Chinese-Soviet
split, China's compromise attempts in the early 1960s were not designed to improve
China's position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. China's initial offers to compromise
with Burma, Nepal, and India occurred in late 1959 and early 1960
when relations between China and the Soviet Union remained cordial despite
disagreement over policy toward the United States and other issues that surfaced
in 1958. Most important, China's efforts to compromise from January to
April 1960 occurred before the July 1960 decision to withdraw the remaining
Soviet experts working in China and the Soviet decision to provide India with
limited military assistance in the middle of 1961.74
Likewise, China's attempts to compromise with Burma and Nepal were not
part of an effort to balance against India. Although India was more threatening
to China after 1959, this was not due to increased Indian diplomatic activity in
the region or a rise in Indian power. Instead, China's leaders viewed India as
threatening because of their own insecurity in Tibet and their beliefs about
India's ambitions in the area. More generally, if China was seeking to counter
India's growing influence in the region, territorial compromise with India
probably would not have furthered this objective. If China and India were really
only competing for influence over buffer states such as Nepal and to a
lesser extent Burma, China probably would have adopted a much more assertive
policy in the territorial dispute. Instead, China's leaders were countering
internal threats to territorial integrity, which they believed that India could exacerbate
or exploit.
The Great Leap Forward
In the spring of 1962, China faced renewed unrest in the frontiers during a period
of intense regime instability following the failure of the Great Leap Forward
(1958-60).75 This combination of internal threats to territorial integrity
and political stability increased the cost of maintaining frontier disputes with
73. See, for example, Hyer, "The Politics of China's Boundary Disputes and Settlements"; and
Watson, The Frontiers of China.
74. Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1975), p. 73.
75. The Great Leap Forward was a campaign that used mass mobilization techniques, including
the collectivization of agriculture, to achieve rapid economic growth.
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International Security 30:2 170
its neighbors. China pursued compromise in disputes with North Korea, Mongolia,
India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union to recover from the
economic crisis by easing external tensions.
POLITICAL INSTABILITY IN CHINA PROPER
In early 1962, the dramatic failure of the Great Leap Forwa
ing famine that it unleashed posed a serious threat to China
A combination of misguided agricultural policies, natur
reaucratic incompetence led to the starvation of somewher
million people from 1959 to 1962. Grain production in 196
cent of that in 1958. Industrial output also decreased signi
gross domestic product declined by 27 percent in 1961 a
China's leaders focused on rebuilding the economy and c
gime.78 Retrenchment became official policy at the Ninth
1961 with the slogan "readjustment, consolidation, filling ou
dards." Mao Zedong withdrew from day-to-day policym
and Deng Xiaoping moved to oversee reconsolidation effort
sure in urban areas, and presumably to quell potential
Committee decided to reduce China's urban population by 2
rustication.79
At the same time, China also faced renewed internal threa
integrity. From April to May 1960, more than 60,000
Xinjiang to the Soviet Union, and violent protests erupted
near the border. At the time, China faced gaping vuln
Xinjiang's border was basically undefended-the PLA ma
frontier defense stations and a total of 110 soldiers on thi
over, recent archival research demonstrates that Chinese lead
Moscow was provoking ethnic unrest in the area by issuing
76. Kenneth Lieberthal, "The Great Leap Forward and the Split in the Yen
King Fairbank and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., The Cambridge History of
gence of Revolutionary China, 1949-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge Unive
p. 318.
77. World Development Indicators, various years, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline.
78. Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Vol. 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm,
1961-1966 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 1-121.
79. Personal communication with Lei Guang, May 2002.
80. Gongan budui: zongshu, dashiji, biaoce [Public security troops: Summary, chronology, statistics]
(Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1997), p. 78.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 71
tity papers to Uighurs and Kazakhs, broadcasting propaganda encouraging
them to flee, and facilitating the flow of people across the border.81
As the domestic situation deteriorated, external challenges to China's territorial
integrity exacerbated this regime insecurity. In early 1962, India executed
a "forward policy" of establishing posts in disputed areas to challenge China's
territorial claims. Although the outposts themselves were not especially threatening,
they were viewed as a renewed challenge to China's control of Tibet because
they occurred just as China's leaders had completed the pacification
campaign and consolidated control of the region. As Zhou explained in 1960,
the Indian leadership "want[s] Tibet... as a 'buffer state' under India's influence,
becoming its protectorate."82 In March and April 1962, Taiwan's leader,
Chiang Kai-shek, mobilized his forces for an assault on the mainland. China's
leaders correctly concluded that Chiang sought to profit from instability on the
mainland, which increased concerns about territorial integrity and frontier stability
more broadly.83
Taken together, these events greatly increased China's costs of maintaining
territorial disputes along the frontier. To support regime consolidation and
economic rebuilding, China pursued a moderate foreign policy and sought to
avoid territorial conflicts and tensions on three fronts. In addition, government
documents connect this foreign policy orientation with the domestic situation.
In January 1962, for example, three foreign policy advisers in a letter to Zhou
Enlai and other senior leaders linked the recovery from the economic crisis
with a relaxation of tensions abroad.84
CHINA COMPROMISES WITH NORTH KOREA, MONGOLIA, PAKISTAN,
AFGHANISTAN, AND THE SOVIET UNION
As regime insecurity grew in April and May, China moved to open talks w
North Korea, Mongolia, and Pakistan. Previously, in 1959 and 1961, it had d
clined Pakistani attempts to discuss their disputed border. But on February
81. Li Danhui, "Dui 1962 nian Xinjiang Yita shijian qiyin de lishi kaocha (xu) [Historical investi
tion of the origins of the 1962 Yita incident in Xinjiang (cont.)]," Dangshi yanjiu ziliao, No. 5 (1
pp. 1-8.
82. Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan [Zhou Enlai's selected works on diplomacy] (Beijing: Zhongyang
wenxian chubanshe, 1990), p. 270.
83. See, for example, Wang Shangrong, "Xin zhongguo jiansheng hou jici zhongda zhanzheng"
[Several significant wars after the emergence of new China], in Zhu Yuanshi, ed., Gongheguo yaoshi
koushushi [Oral histories of important events of the republic] (Changsha: Hunan renmin
chubanshe, 1999), pp. 277-278.
84. Xu Zehao, ed., Wang Jiaxiang nianpu [A chronicle of Wang Jiaxiang's life] (Beijing: Zhongyang
wenxian chubanshe, 2001), pp. 488-489.
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International Security 30:2 ] 72
1962, Beijing finally agreed to consider talks, which were announced in
May.85 Likewise, in 1957 and 1960, China had rebuffed Mongolian efforts to
open talks. On April 13, 1962, however, it moved to hold negotiations with
Mongolia and proposed measures to maintain peace on the border in light
of recent tensions.86 When Mongolia did not reply, Zhou Enlai met with the
Mongolian ambassador in early May to press for talks.87 During this same period,
interviews indicate that China also pushed for talks with North Korea,
which Beijing had refused to hold in the early 1950s and in 1960.88 In June
1962, Zhou met with the North Korean ambassador to discuss their border
dispute.89
Over the summer of 1962, tensions on the Chinese-Indian border continued
to escalate. As India expanded the scope of the forward policy, China resumed
patrolling in disputed areas. In late July, after a clash in the Chip Chap valley,
China used multiple diplomatic channels to open talks with India, repeating
these efforts in September and early October. When India would not agree to
unconditional talks, China launched a military campaign to bring it to the negotiating
table.9" During this same period, China began to hold talks with
North Korea, Mongolia, and Pakistan, reaching draft or final agreements by
the end of the year. In all cases, China offered significant concessions, giving
North Korea most of the disputed Changbai (Paekdu) mountain area, conceding
roughly 12,000 square kilometers to Mongolia, and transferring 1,942
square kilometers to Pakistan."
In the short term, the timing of these agreements was linked to China's
failed efforts to compel India to negotiate and the need to secure restive fron-
85. Mujtaba Razvi, The Frontiers of Pakistan: A Study of Frontier Problems in Pakistan's Foreign Policy
(Karachi-Dacca: National Publishing House, 1971), pp. 166-193; and Wang Taiping, ed., Zhonghua
renmin gongheguo waijiao shi, 1957-1969 [Diplomatic history of the People's Republic of China,
1957-1969] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 102-104.
86. Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao shi, 1957-1969, p. 101.
87. Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (zhong), p. 477. See also Cai, Bianfang lilun, p. 11; and Han
Nianlong, ed., Dangdai Zhongguo waijiao [The diplomacy of contemporary China] (Beijing:
Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1988), p. 154.
88. Author interview, Beijing, June 2002.
89. Li and Ma, Zhou Enlai nianpu (zhong), p. 486.
90. China wanted to hold unconditional talks on all disputed areas, whereas India only agreed to
hold talks on the western sector if China withdrew from all areas claimed by India. See Whiting,
The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence.
91. On Pakistan, see Razvi, The Frontiers of Pakistan, pp. 175-177. On North Korea, see Cai,
Bianfang lilun, p. 9. On Mongolia, see Henry S. Bradsher, "Sino-Soviet Rift Catches Mongolia,"
Christian Science Monitor, January 6, 1964; and Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao shi, 1957-
1969, p. 102.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 73
tiers during a period of regime instability. In addition, however, the successful
conclusion of these agreements helped China to prepare for talks with the
Soviets, which China's leaders had decided to pursue in the spring of 1962.92
Similar to China's agreements with Burma and Nepal in 1960, treaties with
North Korea and Mongolia, as "fraternal" socialist neighbors, were concluded
in part to persuade Moscow to reach a similar agreement with Beijing. In
December 1962, for example, the People's Daily opined that the ChineseMongolian
agreement "set a good example for socialist countries in handling
their mutual relations."93
In April 1963, after announcing negotiations with Afghanistan, China approached
the Soviet Union to hold talks. After several months of correspondence,
the two sides met in February 1964. Newly released sources indicate
that both sides achieved far more progress in settling their differences than
was previously known.94 In particular, the two sides reached a consensus concerning
the eastern sector of the border along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers that
was almost identical to the agreement signed in 1991, which gave China control
of 52 percent of the contested islands totaling roughly 1,000 square kilometers.9s
The two sides also began discussions on the western sector in Soviet
Central Asia. Negotiators adjourned in August 1964 and planned to resume
talks in Moscow on October 15, 1964, the day after Nikita Khrushchev was
sacked. Soviet leadership change and Mao's famous comments to members of
the Japanese Communist Party in July 1964 that China had "yet to settle [its]
account" for territories ceded to czarist Russia prevented the resumption of
talks. Although Mao quickly claimed that he was only "firing empty canons,"
Soviet leaders concluded that China harbored irredentist claims despite the
draft agreement and earlier statements in the 1964 talks that it would accept
the boundaries of these unequal treaties.96
Similar to compromise attempts after the Tibetan revolt, external balancing
92. China did not pursue talks immediately because it sought to undertake additional archival research
on the historical changes of the border and strengthen the PLA's frontier defense stations
before negotiations commenced. Author interview, Beijing, July 2001.
93. Renmin ribao [People's daily], December 27, 1962.
94. Li Lianqing, Lengnuan suiyue: yi bolan de ZhongSu guanxi [Hot and cold times: The twists and
turns of Chinese-Soviet relations] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1999), pp. 323-324; Tang
Jiaxuan, ed., Zhongguo waijiao cidian [Dictionary of China's diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi
chubanshe, 2000), p. 725; and Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao shi, 1959-1969, pp. 254-
256. Author interviews, Beijing, July 2001-June 2002.
95. Tang, Zhongguo waijiao cidian, p. 725.
96. Yang Kuisong, "The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American
Rapprochement," Cold War History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (August 2000), p. 23.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 74
offers a persuasive alternative explanation for China's behavior in 1962. This
explanation asserts that China's many compromises in 1962 reflected concerns
about the increasing threat posed by deteriorating relations with Moscow.
Nevertheless, China did not seek to settle with these same states during earlier
periods of tension with the Soviet Union, especially after the withdrawal of advisers
in 1960. Chinese-Soviet ties were relatively stable in 1961, as economic
cooperation continued and the sale of MiG fighter aircraft was broached.
Moreover, China also held substantive negotiations with the Soviet Union,
which is inconsistent with balancing behavior. If China were balancing against
the Soviet Union, its best strategy might have been to strengthen its border security,
while downplaying the presence of a dispute to bide time to improve its
military position. This is precisely what China did after the open split in 1964
with the rapid militarization of the Chinese-Soviet border. Finally, many of
these states offered little leverage to China in its dispute with the Soviet Union.
Pakistan was a member of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization, an anticommunist
alliance, while Afghanistan was not part of the Soviet orbit at
the time. Moreover, Chinese-Mongolian ties had deteriorated in the mid-
1950s, well before China had moved to settle the dispute, while North Korea
was firmly on China's side in its ideological competition with the Soviet
Union.
Tiananmen Upheaval
In 1989, the upheaval in Tiananmen Square posed an internal threat to the stability
of China's communist regime. This legitimacy crisis, exacerbated by the
weakening of other socialist governments worldwide, increased the cost of
maintaining territorial disputes with the Soviet Union, Laos, and Vietnam.
China offered concessions in these disputes in exchange for cooperation to
counter diplomatic isolation and ensure the continuation of Deng Xiaoping's
domestic reform agenda.
CRISIS AT THE CORE
The end of the Cold War had a paradoxical effect on how C
ceived their security. The decline and then disintegration o
greatly increased China's territorial security, removing any
northern border and eliminating potential encirclement by
in Vietnam. Moreover, this appeared to present an ideal mo
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation i75
regain territory it had long disputed with the Soviet Union and its republics,
which were in no position to resist Chinese pressure.
Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War ushered in a period of unprecedented
regime insecurity for China's leaders. The demonstrations in Tiananmen highlighted
popular dissatisfaction with the CCP's leadership and the state of reform,
while the violent crackdown and subsequent suppression further
alienated China's leaders from its people.97 External trends aggravated these
internal sources of insecurity.98 Sanctions and the rapid deterioration of relations
with the United States and other Western states threatened to undermine
China's opening and reform policy, which required access to foreign capital,
technology, and markets. The collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and then
the disintegration of the Soviet Union underscored China's vulnerability to internal
change and left China's leaders with few diplomatic sources of support
for their increasingly embattled regime.
In response, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping led an effort to consolidate
the position of the CCP through maintaining domestic stability and continuing
economic reform. To support these goals, Deng crafted a moderate foreign
policy based in part on improving ties with regional states to counter China's
diplomatic isolation and maintain access to markets and sources of investment."99
Deng instructed in September 1989 that China's leaders "should be
calm ... quietly immerse ourselves in practical work and to accomplish something,
something for China."'"o" In the months that followed, this became
known as the 20-character policy: "Observe things coolly, deal with things
calmly, keep a firm footing, hide our capacities and bide our time, get some
things done" [lengjing guancha, chenzhuo yingfu, wenzhu zhenjiao, taoguang
yanghui, yousuo zuowei].0o Improving ties with neighboring states through ter-
97. Chinese sources refer explicitly to the concept of political security in contrast to territorial security
and economic security. See, for instance, Yan Xuetong, "Shiyan Zhongguo de anquan
huanjing [Preliminary analysis of China's security environment]," Dangdai guoji wenti yanjiu, No. 4
(1994), pp. 35-41.
98. Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994), pp. 247-310.
99. See, for example, Zhang Baijia, "Jiushi niandai de zhongguo neizheng yu waijiao" [China's
domestic politics and diplomacy in the 1990s], Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, No. 6 (2001), pp. 29-34.
100. Deng Xiaoping wenxuan [Deng Xiaoping's selected works] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993),
Vol. 3, p. 321.
101. For an authoritative statement of these phrases, see Qian Qichen's entry in Wang Taiping, ed.,
Deng Xiaoping waijiao sixiang yanjiu lunwen ji [Collected papers on the study of Deng Xiaoping's
diplomatic thought] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1996).
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International Security 30:2 76
ritorial compromise, especially other socialist states, was part of this broader
strategy. As Foreign Minister Qian Qichen remarked in 1990, "Diplomacy is
the extension of internal affairs."102
CHINA COMPROMISES WITH THE SOVIET UNION, LAOS, AND VIETNAM
China's most important compromise during this period was with the S
Union. The impetus for the 1991 agreement, however, came not from Bei
but from Moscow. In 1986, President Mikhail Gorbachev stated that the Sov
Union would accept the thalweg principle along the eastern sector of the
der, thereby acceding to one of China's long-standing demands and signal
a return to the terms of the 1964 draft agreement.103 Before the Tiananme
sis, China insisted upon achieving a package deal that would settle disp
along the eastern and western sectors of the Chinese-Soviet border. After
however, China agreed to pursue separate agreements because improved re
tions with the Soviet Union had become much more important. In 1990, t
pace of talks quickened, with two meetings of the joint working group as
as meetings of a border survey group and an agreement drafting group.1
the 1991 eastern sector agreement, China received approximately 52 perce
the disputed areas.'5" China offered further concessions when disputes ar
during the demarcation process.'06
China also compromised in frontier disputes with its other socialist neig
bors, Laos and Vietnam. By compromising with these states, China sought
only to normalize relations and thus strengthen neighboring socialist reg
but also to facilitate the economic development of the frontiers. Chin
Laos opened talks in early 1990 and signed an agreement to divide eve
their disputed areas in 1991. China and Vietnam opened negotiations in 19
and reached a preliminary agreement in 1993 on principles for settling th
dispute. The animosity created by the 1979 China-Vietnam war and a d
102. Quoted in Beijing Review, October 15-21, 1990, p. 12.
103. The Soviet decision is consistent with the logic of regime insecurity because the growi
viet economic crisis prompting glasnost and perestroika increased the cost of strained re
with China.
104. Zhongguo waijiao gailan [Survey of China's diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe,
1991), p. 235.
105. Tang, Zhongguo waijiao cidian, p. 725.
106. Akihiro Iwashita, A 4,000 Kilometer Journey along the Sino-Russian Border (Sapporo: Slavic Research
Center, 2004). Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, China had considered dropping its
claim to the Pamir mountains in exchange for the return of Black Bear Island. Author interviews,
Beijing, June-July 2001.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation ? 77
of border clashes delayed reaching a final agreement evenly dividing the disputed
areas until 1999. Obstacles to a final settlement included the need for
massive mine-sweeping operations along the border as well as internal resistance
on both sides from those who opposed making concessions to a former
adversary.107 During this period, China signed agreements to increase development
of frontier regions through cross-border trade.
At the same time, China also moved to improve ties with India. In 1991, a
joint working group established in 1989 began substantive discussions, which
led to the signing of the confidence-building agreements in 1993 and 1996.108
Both agreements helped to stabilize the border, improving relations and reducing
potential for inadvertent escalation between the two sides. In 1996, China
reportedly again offered a compromise based on exchanging positions in the
eastern and western sectors.1'9 Similar to Vietnam, the legacy of war and internal
opposition posed serious obstacles to a final settlement. The 1993 and 1996
confidence-building measures, however, have established an effective boundary
along the Line of Actual Control, giving China most of what it soughtimproved
ties with an important neighbor to create breathing space for internal
consolidation and facilitate regional trade.
External balancing provides an unconvincing alternative explanation for
China's behavior during this period: that China sought to balance against increasing
U.S. power after the Cold War, not bolster the security of its socialist
regime. Two factors weigh against this interpretation. During this period,
China's security policy, including defense spending, military ties, and military
training, did not keep pace with the dramatic shift in the global balance of
power after 1991.110 If China's compromise attempts were the result of balancing
against the United States, they were exceptional from the perspective of
Chinese security policy at the time. Second, China's compromises with the
Soviet Union preceded its collapse by several years. Although the initiative for
107. For example, the PLA reportedly withdrew its members from the border joint working group
in protest for the concessions that were made. Author interview, Beijing, July 2002.
108. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu and Jing-dong Yuan, "Resolving the Sino-Indian Border Dispute:
Building Confidence through Cooperative Monitoring," Asian Survey, Vol. 41, No. 2 (March/April
2001), pp. 351-376.
109. "Opportunity to Resolve Border Dispute with China Missed," Telegraph (Calcutta), May 15,
1997, in FBIS FTS-1997-0515-001285.
110. Alastair lain Johnston, "Realism(s) and Chinese Security Policy in the Post-Cold War World,"
in Ethan B. Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies
after the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 261-318.
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International Security 30:2 178
these talks stemmed from Moscow, the pace quickened dramatically after the
Tiananmen crackdown but before the Soviet collapse. The 1991 Chinese-Soviet
draft agreement was concluded in 1990, before the full extent of Soviet weakness
was known, and signed in April 1991, before the August revolution that
set in motion the collapse of the Soviet Union. Likewise, China compromised
in its dispute with Laos and opened talks with Vietnam before the disintegration
of the Soviet Union.
Xinjiang Unrest
Soon after the Tiananmen upheaval, ethnic unrest in Xinjiang posed a new internal
threat to the PRC's territorial integrity. The demonstrations and armed
uprisings increased the cost of maintaining territorial disputes with Xinjiang's
neighbors, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. China moved to compromise
in these disputes in exchange for cooperation to reduce external support
for separatists.
INSTABILITY IN THE NORTHWESTERN FRONTIER
In the early 1990s, ethnic unrest erupted in Xinjiang, comp
macy crisis after Tiananmen. Mounting grievances among
ethnic minorities against the central government resulted i
number of demonstrations, bombings, assassinations, and ar
security forces throughout the 1990s.11" Although the scale
compared with the Tibetan revolt, it was nevertheless a sou
concern for China's leaders, especially after Tiananmen. The
Xinjiang underscored the breadth of dissatisfaction with the
areas at a time when it faced instability and disconten
constituents.
China's response to this unrest included a comprehensive effort to engage
the newly independent states in Central Asia. For China's leaders, territorial
disputes had become much more costly to maintain because they blocked as-
111. CCP Organization Department, ed., Zhongguo diaochao baogao: xin xingshi xia renmin neibu
maodun yanjiu [China investigative report: Research on internal contradictions of the people under
new circumstances] (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 2001), pp. 243-281; Man Zongzhou,
"Xinjiang minzu fenlie zhuyi de houdong ji fan minzu fenlie douzheng yingdang zhuyi de wenti
[Issues to note in Xinjiang's ethnic separatist activities and the antiseparatist struggle]," Xinjiang
sheke luntan, No. 3 (1996), pp. 43-45; and James Millward, "Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical
Assessment," Policy Studies No. 6 (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004).
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 79
sistance that China sought to maintain stability within Xinjiang. In particular,
China needed cooperation with its neighbors to prevent the spread of panIslamic
and pan-Turkic forces to the region, limit external support for separatists
within Xinjiang, and increase cross-border trade as part of a broader strategy
to reduce tensions among ethnic groups through development. Attempts
to settle outstanding territorial disputes were an important component of
China's engagement of the region. Facing renewed internal unrest, China's
leaders valued stable and secure borders more than ever before. For example, a
leaked document from the CCP's Central Committee on China's Xinjiang
policy instructed the government to secure the border and use diplomacy to
"urge these countries to limit and weaken the activities of separatist forces inside
their border."112
CHINA COMPROMISES WITH KAZAKHSTAN, KYRGYZSTAN, AND TAJIKISTAN
The collapse of the Soviet Union might have presented China with an ideal o
portunity to regain the more than 34,000 square kilometers of territory
claimed in Central Asia. In the context of ethnic unrest, however, China ch
to improve ties with the newly independent states to deny external support
separatist groups in Xinjiang. China first pursued compromise in its dispute
with Kazakhstan, Xinjiang's largest neighbor, starting talks less than a year a
ter the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1994, 1996, and 1997 agreements
China made significant concessions, holding roughly 22 percent of dispu
areas."3 In 1996 and 1999, China made similar concessions in agreements wit
Kyrgyzstan, where it received about 32 percent of the disputed land.'14 The
civil war that erupted after the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, stall
negotiations with Tajikistan. Talks resumed in 1997, leading to a preliminary
agreement in 1999 that divided one disputed sector evenly and a supplement
agreement in 2002. China made a large concession in this agreement, droppi
most of its 28,000-square-kilometer claim to the Pamir mountains, a claim i
had pressed since the late nineteenth century.'15
112. Central Committee, "Document No. 7 (1996)," in Human Rights Watch, China: State Control
Religion, Update No. 1 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998).
113. Aleksey Gulyayev, "China-Kazakhstan: The Border Dispute Continues," Izvestiya, April
1999, in FBIS FTS-1999-0504-001086; and Zhang Zhouxiang, Xinjiang bianfang gaiyao [Summary
Xinjiang's frontier defense] (Urmuchi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1999), p. 135.
114. Viktoriya Panfilova, "Is Kyrgyzstan Being Reduced in Size?" Nezavisimaya gazeta, May
2001, in FBIS CEP-2001-0516-000097; and Zhang, Xinjiang bianfang gaiyao, p. 135.
115. In the 2002 supplemental agreement, China received only 1,000 of the 28,000 square kilom
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International Security 30:2 180
In return, China received assistance in eliminating external support for separatists
within Xinjiang. In numerous public statements, Central Asian leaders
pledged their help to China. During the signing of the 1997 border agreement,
for example, President Askar Akayev stated that Kyrgyzstan "would not allow
any force to make use of its soil to conduct activities against China.""'116 Likewise,
Kazakhstan repatriated suspected separatists to China, dissolved political
parties, closed newspapers, and arrested suspected militants."7 China also
used the border negotiations as well as demilitarization talks to lead the establishment
of a new regional grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), which focuses partly on enhancing political stability of member
states through trade, counterterrorism cooperation, and confidence-building
measures.18
The timing of these compromises do not support arg
nal threats, particularly efforts to balance against U.S.
China signed many agreements well before the upsurg
pian oil in the mid-1990s. While China is wary of a U.S
the region, before the terrorist attacks in New York a
September 11, 2001, this presence was limited to train
keeping operations held in 1997 and 2000. China did be
cerned about the U.S. presence after the start of Oper
in Afghanistan in October 2001, but by this time Beijin
agreement resolving its territorial disputes with Xinji
wise, the joint statements issued at various summit me
SCO did not include many direct references to the Uni
instead problems associated with the "three forces" of
and extremism."9
ters of the Pamir mountain area. See "Tajikistan Transfers 1,000 km
2002, Interfax, in FBIS CEP-2002-0521-000161.
116. "Chinese, Kyrgyzstan Presidents Sign Supplementary Borde
Agency, August 26, 1999, from Lexis-Nexis.
117. See, for example, Jean-Christophe Peuch, "Central Asia: Uig
nese," Radio Free Europe, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/20
"Uighur Separatist Exiles See End to Help from Central Asia," Ag
1997, from Lexis-Nexis; and Human Rights Watch, China: Human Rig
York: Human Rights Watch, 2001).
118. Xu Tao and Li Zhiye, eds., Shanghai Hezuo Zuzhi: Xin anquan gua
eration Organization: New security concept and new mechanism]
2002).
119. Zhongguo waijiao [China's diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi ch
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 181
Conclusion
Regime insecurity best explains China's pattern of cooperation and delay in its
territorial disputes. China's leaders have compromised when faced with internal
threats to regime security-the revolt in Tibet, the instability following the
Great Leap Forward, the legitimacy crisis after the Tiananmen upheaval, and
separatist violence in Xinjiang. The timing of compromise efforts, official documents,
and statements by China's leaders demonstrate that internal threats,
not external ones, account for why and when China pursued cooperation.
While further research is necessary, support for the logic of regime insecurity
in China's many disputes serves as a plausibility probe for a more general
application of the argument. In territorial disputes, similar domestic sources of
compromise might arise under two sets of conditions. First, unrest near international
borders should create incentives for leaders to cooperate with adjacent
states, such as Iraq's 1975 decision to compromise in a dispute with Iran
to crush a Kurdish rebellion.'12 Second, state leaders, especially authoritarian
ones, should be more likely to compromise in their disputes when facing political
instability or legitimacy crises, such as Argentina's decision to compromise
in a dispute with Uruguay or Peru's attempts to settle its dispute with
Ecuador before the outbreak of the border war in February 1995.121
China's cooperation in territorial disputes reveals a pattern of behavior far
more complex than a singular view of China as a territorially ambitious state.
China's growing military and economic power has not yet translated into increased
territorial revisionism. In the past two decades, China has not issued
new territorial demands nor increased the scope of land claimed despite its rising
power. Since 1949, China has pursued revisionist claims in its homeland
disputes and in offshore island disputes over the Spratlys and Senkakus, but
these claims have remained constant despite increases in China's power. With
the exception of the Senkakus, the PRC claimed all homeland areas and other
offshore islands between 1949 and 1951. These claims reflect a vision of what
ought to constitute a modern Chinese state, not ambitions conditioned by
120. Jasim M. Abdulghani, Iraq and Iran: The Years of Crisis (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 155.
121. Beth A. Simmons, "Territorial Disputes and Their Resolution: The Case of Ecuador and
Peru," Peaceworks No. 27 (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1999), pp. 11-12
and Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States: A Conflicted Relationship (Boston: Twayne
1990), p. 137.
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International Security 30:2 182
China's position in the international system. China, weak or strong, has sought
to unify Taiwan with the mainland.
In its other territorial disputes, China has pursued mostly status quo goals.
The handling of the nineteenth-century unequal treaties that often ceded vast
tracts of land reflects this complex approach to territory.122 In negotiations with
neighbors since 1949, the PRC has accepted the general boundaries delimited
by these very agreements. Not coincidentally, most of these boundaries lie adjacent
to ethnic minority regions. The only past agreements that China has
sought to overturn are those linked to the territories of Hong Kong and Macao,
also not coincidentally the only Han Chinese areas that have been ceded. In
addition, by drafting new boundary agreements with neighbors when settling
territorial disputes, China has defined the precise location of most of its land
borders. These texts, some of them hundreds of pages in length, remove any
ambiguity about the extent of the PRC's sovereignty and raise the costs for
pursuing future claims that would breach these agreements.
The prognosis for the settlement of China's six remaining disputes is uncertain.
Despite the recent mainland visits of Taiwan's opposition leaders, the
PRC is unlikely to abandon its long-standing goal of unification. In addition,
the increasing strength of the state in the frontier regions suggests that regime
insecurity may be less likely to create incentives for compromise in China's
last two frontier disputes with India and Bhutan. As the April 2005 ChineseIndian
agreement on principles for settling their dispute demonstrates, external
factors are likely to play a stronger role in this conflict's final settlement,
even though the parameters of compromise were established decades ago. Offshore,
China and the other claimants have little incentive to compromise over
sovereignty because these island groups cost little to dispute and may yield
economic or strategic advantages. In addition, the role of nationalism in
Chinese foreign policy remains a wild card that might constrain the future
ability of China's leaders to pursue compromise.123
Nevertheless, the territorial settlements made possible by China's compromises
have had important strategic effects in East Asia. China's settlements are
linked to the absence of war with opposing states. China has not participated
122. On China's broader approach to sovereignty, see Allen R. Carlson, Unifying China, Integrating
with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 2005).
123. Nationalism, however, did not constrain China's ability to reach compromises in the 1990s
and beyond, including the important 2002 supplemental agreement with Tajikistan.
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Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation 183
in military conflict over contested areas with neighboring states with which it
has settled territorial disputes.124 China's compromises have also enabled the
active engagement of the region since the late 1990s that is the hallmark of
China's "new diplomacy."125 By settling disputes and eliminating ambiguity
about the location of its borders, China has reassured its neighbors about its intentions
and potential ambitions, lessening the security dilemma. Regional
diplomatic initiatives would have been much more difficult to pursue under
the shadow of hot territorial conflicts, especially in light of ongoing tensions
over Taiwan. China's continued need to engage East Asia also suggests that
these settlements will endure in the coming years.
124. The one exception concerns clashes on the border with Burma during the Cultural Revolution
involving Burmese communist insurgents. See "Burma Lists Toll at China's Border," New York
Times, November 8, 1969.
125. Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel, "China's New Diplomacy," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82,
No. 6 (November/December 2003), pp. 22-35; and David Shambaugh, "China Engages Asia: Reshaping
the International Order," International Security, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Winter 2004/05), p. 67.
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