Congressional China Caucus

The False Promise of Chinese Integration Into the Liberal International Order. “Three weeks ago, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit concluded with a diplomatic bang. On November 12, President Obama and President Xi announced a “historic” climate-change pledge, as well as deals on military-to-military encounters, visas and tariffs. But for some, the real prize lay beneath the surface. By cooperating with China in multiple areas, Washington was able to draw Beijing further into the folds of the U.S.-designed and -backed liberal international order. Accordingly, these agreements represented more than isolated policy choices on China’s part. They suggested that even if global primacy passes from the United States to China, the latter will still uphold the rules and institutions of the international system it inherits. Though seductive, the promise of Chinese integration into the liberal international order is ultimately hollow. “Integrationists” resist this conclusion only by resting their arguments on conceptually uninteresting definitions of what it means for China to reinforce the Western order. To show that China will integrate fully, they set up a false, all-or-nothing choice between rejecting the liberal international order and upholding it. This strawman is easy to knock down, but it has little to say about the question that matters most: if China clinches primacy in the international system, how will it manage aspects of the inherited international order that do not suit it? Although experts will continue to debate which aspects of the order Beijing is likely to alter, the larger point is that like every other nation, China will support certain features of the system while opposing others. There is no reason to believe that Beijing will preserve every pro-American element of the bequeathed order; indeed, China and the United States clash frequently over such basic pillars of the international system as human rights and regional security arrangements, and Beijing will have little incentive to preserve these institutions—as well as many others—if and when it has the power to abandon them. For that reason alone, a Chinese world order is likely to be less favorable to American interests than the current Pax Americana, and Washington has cause for concern about China’s increasing influence.” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-false-promise-chinese-integration-the-liberal-11776

The Ghost That Haunts the Chinese Navy: When China and Japan Went to War. “Even as Western strategists spill gobs of ink recalling the Great War that convulsed Europe a century ago, Chinese military thinkers are actually fixated on another anniversary.  120 years ago, Japan shocked the world with a lightning campaign that not only reduced the faltering Qing dynasty to its knees in a matter of months, but more to the point:  put the pride of China’s then ascendant fleet on the bottom of the Yellow Sea. The war was primarily fought over the Korean Peninsula and featured two sizable naval engagements:  the first near the Yalu and the second near the tip of the Shandong Peninsula at Weihai, where an enormous Chinese museum has quite recently been completed to commemorate the war.  The conflict ended with Japan’s conquest of the Liaodong Peninsula, but this was not permitted by the jealous European Powers, which intervened collectively in the so-called “Triple Intervention.”   Tokyo had to be satisfied with China’s recognition of an independent Korea, the not insignificant prize of Taiwan, a huge indemnity paid in silver, the right to navigate the Yangtze, as well as the opening of more treaty ports to Japanese merchants.   This edition of Dragon Eye will not dwell on recent China-Japan tensions, which are presently experiencing a thaw albeit a tepid one.  Instead, this brief analysis endeavors to sample a few of the innumerable Chinese military writings published during 2014 on the subject of that pivotal conflict. Reflections on the war during this anniversary year have appeared in just about every military and quasi-military publication in China, for example a piece by the popular and rather hawkish professor-general Luo Yuan that appeared in a special September 2014 issue of 军事文摘 [Military Digest] devoted to the war.  However, for the purposes of this discussion, I will concentrate exclusively on several articles that appeared in the more authoritative 中国军事科学 [China Military Science] in mid-2014.  The lead article in this valuable clutch of writings is by General He Lei, director of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Military Sciences.   General He’s piece does not particularly focus on Japan’s aggressive intent, though he does observe that the war was “not accidental.”  Nor does he dwell on strictly political factors, but he also credits Marx with the idea that “war is the continuation of politics” and suggests that the war illustrated the corruption and decline of the Qing regime.” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-ghost-haunts-the-chinese-navy-when-china-japan-went-war-11775

Taiwan’s Ruling Party in Crisis As China Factor Looms Large. “Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party is struggling to convince voters of the benefits of the deeper ties with China it has championed, senior party figures said, after a poll drubbing left it facing its biggest crisis in more than a decade. President Ma Ying-jeou formally resigned as chairman of the KMT on Wednesday to take responsibility for the poor showing in local elections, which took place against the backdrop of protests in Hong Kong against China's interference in the territory's political system. "We failed to meet people's expectations," Ma, who will remain president until the end of his second and final four-year term in 2016, told KMT members, bowing in apology. The party later named Vice President Wu Den-yi as acting party chief until it elects a new chairman around January. The bout of soul-searching within the Kuomintang in the wake of the defeat has left the self-governing island's government and parliament in disarray, and raised concerns that trade ties with China will stall. The KMT, whose leaders fled to Taiwan in 1949 after defeat to Mao's Communists in China's civil war, suffered worse-than-expected electoral losses at the weekend, including in its traditional strongholds Taipei and Taichung, in central Taiwan. "It is impossible that the elections were not affected by cross-strait ties and the Hong Kong Occupy Central protest," said KMT spokesperson Charles Chen. "One message voters were sending loud and clear was their fears about the economic ties across the Taiwan Strait." For the KMT, or Nationalist party, it was the worst setback since 2000, when it lost power for the first time to the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors formal independence for the island Beijing considers a renegade province.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/03/us-taiwan-kmt-idUSKCN0JH0K420141203

Hong Kong Protests Divide Along Generations. “A day after urging student protesters to abandon their street occupation, to no avail, the founders of the prodemocracy group Occupy Central With Love and Peace attempted to surrender to police, who declined to arrest them. Occupy co-founders Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-Ming tried to turn themselves in at a police station on Wednesday afternoon, along with several other pro-democracy figures, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former head of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, and some lawmakers. Police said 65 people attempted to surrender, claiming to have committed the offense of “unauthorized assembly.” None was detained or arrested. Meanwhile, student protesters, who have been at the forefront of the demonstrations, showed no signs of retreating from their occupation or surrendering to authorities, underscoring the growing split between the younger demonstrators on the streets and the veteran activists who inspired the city’s pro-democracy movement. Three student leaders entered the second day of a hunger strike on Wednesday in an effort to ratchet up pressure on the government to restart dialogue over the two-month-old standoff over how the city will conduct elections for its leader. “We are on a hunger strike until the chief executive will agree to talks with students,” said 18-year-old Joshua Wong, leader of the student protest group Scholarism. Mr. Wong and two other hunger-striking students presented an open letter to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, asking him to hold talks with protesters. Government officials and student representatives held one round of talks in October but the dialogue produced no concessions that met the students’ demands.” http://online.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-protests-divide-along-generations-1417610873?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj

The Caucus Brief is a daily publication for Members of Congress and Hill Staffers on China news and information compiled by the office of Congressman Randy Forbes, Founder of the Congressional China Caucus.  Email alex.gray@mail.house.gov with tips, comments, or to subscribe/unsubscribe.