A long running debate in international politics has been whether or not the U.S. should or is performing the role of an international policeman. However, a new trend is starting to emerge in which the U.S. and China are beginning to collaborate on extinguishing some of the globe’s most urgent crises. While they do not necessary agree on every point, both countries have echoed one another in condemning the North Korean nuclear test which was carried out shortly after the calendar turned over. The two countries also participated together in the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group with Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to push the forward the Afghani peace process. Yet the possibility of a spark igniting between the two countries is still greater than anybody would want as the two continue to blame one another for the increasing tensions in the South China Sea. So while the two are working together to put out fires in various regions around the globe, effort is still needed to keep their own relationship from bursting into flames. The following summarizes key issues as highlighted by the U.S. and China in January 2016.   Agreement and Disagreement in Wake of NK Nuke Test   A great amount of attention was drawn to the Korean Peninsula following the North Korean nuclear test, which they claimed to be a hydrogen bomb, on January 6, 2016. The U.S. strongly condemned North Korea’s behavior which it considered a violation of Security Council resolutions and a breach of its international obligations. The U.S. Department of Defense and the Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed the urgent need for coordination with South Korea and the regional key players to pursue every possible option to deter North Korea and ensure the region’s stability. Additional sanctions are also being considered.   Although the two countries are united in their opposition to North Korea’s nuclear program, and agree on the imperative of achieving a denuclearized Korean peninsula, Washington regards China’s policy and approach to the DPRK as ineffective, and calls on China to end “business as usual” with Pyongyang. The U.S. and other western countries feel that China should play a greater role in mitigating the North Korean nuclear problem given the special connections and the nature of relations between the two countries. In response, China believes that dialogue and negotiations, within the framework of the six-party talks, remain the most effective and prominent way to realize denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.   Both Countries Seek to Stabilize Their Economic Future   The U.S. has focused its attention as of late on ratifying the TPP. The Obama administration claims the TPP will be key in breaking down barriers that American exports face in the Asia-Pacific by eliminating taxes in partner countries. Meanwhile, China is seeking to upgrade the Sino-ASEAN Free Trade Zone and finalize the negotiations on the Agreement on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as soon as possible. The two also exchanged barbs over with the U.S. continuing to urge reforms in China’s economy, while the Chinese government expressed its displeasure with not being recognized as a market economy. Furthermore China emphasized that the key advantage of China in foreign trade will be producing higher value-added products and gaining access to advanced technologies which are integral parts of the 13th Five-Year Plan.   You Say Militarization, I Say Disrupting Peace   While China is landing aircraft on territory in the South China Sea that Vietnam also claims, the U.S. is sailing military vessels through what China claims are its territorial waters. What the two can both agree on is that the other is responsible for increased military presence in an area full of overlapping territorial disputes. Whether the U.S. is “the most disruptive force” or China is “try[ing] to militarize” the region depends on perspective as both claim their actions are defensive reactions to one another’s aggressions. In the meantime, the U.S. has enlisted support for its “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea from its longtime ally Australia, while maintaining that it does not takes sides but will “continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows.” The Chinese side is comparatively isolated; it called out Vietnam’s protests as “unfounded accusations.” China also stated that legal decisions taken by the Hague in an arbitration case with the Philippines are “full of errors” and that Japan should consider its wartime history record rather than “poke its nose in the issue of the South China Sea.” Despite both China and the U.S. insisting that they have peaceful intentions, the reality is that both their actions and words have increased volatility in the region at large.   Cooperation Deepens on Middle East Issues   The U.S. and China participated in the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group in Islamabad, Pakistan in early January and the group issued a joint statement. The efforts of this group to speed forward the Afghani peace process come on the heels of the two countries successful collaboration to work out a deal with Iran over halting its nuclear program. Both countries made statements marking the day that sanctions were lifted from Iran as a part of the deal they negotiated last year. President Xi also visited the Middle East in an effort to drum up support for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The U.S. meanwhile continued its airstrikes against the terrorist group Daesh and continued to provide aid to Syrian refugees.   China Responds to International Criticism over Human Rights   The U.S. voiced strong support for a group of lawyers representing Chinese human rights activists that have been charged with “subversion.” The U.S. has also been critical of some aspects of the criminal justice process in China, which it says “run contrary China’s human rights commitments and hinder its attempts to build a more transparent and effective justice system.” China retorted that the Qvod case exemplified China’s progress on judicial transparency. Moreover, China emphasized that they know best the status of human rights in their own country, emphasizing that lawful rights are respected including the interests of foreign journalists. Internationally, head of state Xi Jinping’s Middle Eastern tour ended with China offering nearly 8 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians on top of another 35 million to other Arab states. To round things up, the state controlled media accused the Nobel Peace Prize winning Dalai Lama of genocidal intentions against the Han population in the Tibet region.               Time Period: January 1 - January 31, 2016     1. U.S. – China Bilateral Relations: U.S. Emphasizes Cooperation with China on Many Issues and Insists its Own Power is Not Declining; China Continues to Pursue the Chinese Dream and Reject Notion of One Type of Democracy 2. Economic Relations: Obama Administration Continues to Seek Ratification of TPP by Boasting About Tariff Reductions in Partner Countries; China Demands Recognition as a Market Economy and Looks to Smooth Transition to “New Normal” 3. Military and Security Relations: U.S. Does Not Address Cyber Security Issue; China Begins Construction on Second Aircraft Carrier 4. Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues: U.S. Express Concern about Crackdown on Lawyers in China and Coerced Confessions; China Insists it Values the Rule of Law 5. Climate Change and Environmental Issues: U.S. Boosts of Its Leadership on Climate Change and Cooperation with China; China Insists U.S. and Developed Countries Play Leading Role in Resolving Climate Change 6. Asia Pacific Issues: .S. Reaffirms its Commitment to the Asia-Pacific Region; China Remains Skeptical of ROK-Japan Agreement on Comfort Women Issue 7. Korean Peninsula: U.S. Reaffirms Commitment to the Defense of South Korea Following North Korean Nuclear Test, Seeks China’s Cooperation in Increasing Pressure on North Korea; China Condemns North Korean Nuclear Test, Seeks to Restart Six-Party Talks 8. Middle East and Africa Issue: U.S. Hails Implementation of Iranian Nuclear Deal, Continues to Struggle in Fight Against ISIL; China Participates in First Meeting of Quadrilateral Coordination Group and President Xi Visits Middle East 9. Sovereignty and Territorial Disputes: : U.S. Calls for Decreased Tensions in South China Sea Including Condemning Taiwanese President’s Planned Visit to a Disputed Island; China Reiterates “One China” Policy during Taiwanese Elections; Rejects Rulings in Territorial Dispute with the Philippines 

Byung Kwang Park is senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul, South Korea.         Introduction: Old Foes, New Friends   In recent years, China-India relations have shown a significant shift in terms of political, economic, social, and various other aspects. Nonetheless, our interest lies in whether China and India will indeed be able to build new partnerships with each other in the future. Seen as one step ahead of India, China’s rise could be viewed as a cause for concern for India. Historically, the rise of new emerging powers has always sparked tensions for neighboring countries. Typically, the emerging powers’ desire for expansion leads to a change in the existing international order and also causes conflicts with neighboring countries. Furthermore, China and India experienced a border conflict war in October 1962 and various elements of conflicts still remain today.   However, they restored diplomatic ties in 1976 and started seeking a new partnership. In 1996, China and India established “the 21st-century-oriented constructive partnership.” During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to South Asia in April 2005, China and India held a summit in New Delhi and agreed to establish a “strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity.” In December 2010, Wen Jiabao visited India to commemorate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and attended the “India-China Friendship Year” closing ceremony.   More recently, in May 2013, the current Premier Li Keqiang chose India for his first foreign visit since taking office, indicating the great importance of Delhi to Beijing. The fact that India was Li’s first choice suggests how significant China considers India to be. Why does China put this much effort into India? What are this rising major power’s perceptions of India and its strategic goals? In consideration of such questions, this article aims to examine China’s perceptions and policies toward India.   China’s Perceptions of India: Equals or Not?   China and India’s “good neighborly friendship”—until the early 1960s—started in the late 1940s, when both countries gained independence from colonial and imperial rule. The two nations jointly declared the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” in 1954 and continued a close cooperation as early key members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Nevertheless, they went to war in 1962 over a border issue and restored their diplomatic ties only as late as 1976. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century in the post–Cold War era that they earnestly started to improve their mutual relations. Historically, cooperation and confrontation between China and India have substantially affected China’s perception of India. How China views India today can be analyzed as follows:   First, in terms of international standings, China strictly sees India as more of a middle power than a major power. Even though India has traditionally held the standing of a leader state in South Asia, China does not consider it a major power that establishes its own “pole” at a global level. In this sense, China believes that today’s international order features a “multipolar” structure with five poles─the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and the European Union (EU). Regarding India, China deems that it holds the standing of South Asia’s regional power and relentlessly tries to join the ranks of global major powers.   Second, in military and security terms, China does not see India as a direct threat. This view contrasts with India’s prevailing view that the rise of China may pose a “potential threat” or a “challenge.” China’s view is based on the recognition that traditionally the Himalayas and the Kunlun Mountains located between the two nations have served as a natural buffer zone. In addition, China has confidence that since it defeated Indian military forces in their 1962 conflict and still today, its military capabilities are by far stronger than those of India. However, in another respect, China is worried if India forms a coalition with the United States and becomes a direct threat in the future.   Third, in economic terms, China regards India as a “chance” factor necessary for its own growth and prosperity. As the trade volume between them has surged recently, India is emerging as one of China’s most important trading partners. In 2000, India’s exports to and imports from China stood at merely $800 million and $1.2 billion, respectively. However, these figures have increased 22- and 48-fold to $18 billion and $57.5 billion as of 2011, respectively. In particular, China recorded a surplus of $40 billion in its trade with India in the same year. As such, India is emerging as a huge consumer market for Chinese products. Furthermore, the larger the Indian economy grows, the greater its consumption of Chinese products will become. In this regard, Li’s visit in May reflected not only diplomatic needs but also economic potential.   Fourth, in recent days the international community generally deems that China and India are in a “strategic competition.” However, China does not regard India as a serious rival. It pursues friendship with India not because it views its neighboring nation as a dangerous rival or an enemy but because it simply wants to avoid conflict with its neighbor. The Chinese take pride in their economic reforms and the dramatic growth they have produced, and even look down on the Indians for their slower growth and continuing economic problems. China also considers India’s pride, its democracy, an “immature democracy” with too many parties representing particular regions or languages, competing on the basis not of government policies but of communal interests that cannot help India catch up with China in economic efficiency.   Figure 1: India’s Main Trade Partners   Source: DGCI&S, http://www.dgciskol.nic.in (accessed March 9, 2013)   China’s Strategic Goals and Policies Toward India: Rivals vs. Partners   Why, then, in the 21st century has China established a “strategic and cooperative partnership” with India and tried to promote their friendship? Why did Li choose India for his first foreign visit? The answers to all of the questions can be found in China’s new and recent perception of India’s strategic importance and, especially, in the competition between the United States and China. In other words, because of India’s recent rapid economic growth and active pursuit of its international role as well as the United States’ strategic approach to India, China is changing its perception and policy.   All of the successive U.S. presidents in the 21st century have paid a visit to India. In particular, former President George W. Bush visited India in March 2006 and signed a “nuclear agreement” to recognize India as a nuclear state. China deems such actions by the United States as ways to ultimately check or contain China in relation to India. Therefore, China is strengthening its approach to India more preemptively and actively than the United States. By doing so, China aims to win India over and prevent it from joining those who want China contained. In other words, one of China’s major strategic goals regarding India is to break through the potential siege led by the United States by tightening its strategic cooperative relations with India.   Another goal is to keep the region stable and peaceful by tightening the ties with India. As a nation, China aims to achieve a “great renaissance of the Chinese nation” and rise as a global major power. To meet this target, it considers regional stability and peace crucial. In particular, China went through a border dispute with India in 1962, and the two nations are still in discord over the boundary line. Furthermore, unlike other neighboring nations, India is advancing rapidly in politics, economy, and military strength and expanding its influence in Asia through its close ties with Japan and Russia as well as the United States. In this regard, China has set a strategic goal of promoting regional stability and increasing its influence in South Asia through cooperation with Asia’s middle power, India.   To attain its strategic goals regarding India, China has been pursuing the so-called positive engagement policy, which consists of the following actions:   The first action is to establish a “strategic and cooperative partnership” with India and based on it, steadily to expand bilateral exchange and cooperation in diverse areas such as politics, economy, society, and culture. On April 11, 2005, in New Delhi, China established a “Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity” with India during Wen’s visit to the country. Based on this partnership, China has put an end to a confrontational atmosphere with India and actively sought new cooperation and development in various areas. In this course, China has consistently denied the argument that it views India as a “rival” and highlighted its neighboring nation solely as a partner. Such an approach not only deepens their mutual dependence but also helps achieve greater common interests and regional stability.   The second action is to prevent India from being absorbed into the United States’ sphere of influence by nurturing bilateral trust and cooperation in military and security matters. To this end, China has invited India every year as an observer to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is a China-led multilateral security organization. Also, in May 2006, Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan and Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee met in Beijing and agreed to hold a joint military exercise regularly. While considering India one of the states posing a real nuclear threat, China has sought to minimize a direct and conventional arms race with India. As a result, the one-time enemies have left their confrontational attitudes behind and pursued new cooperation and development. Furthermore, during Wen’s visit to India for the 60th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations in December 2010, the two countries agreed on a peaceful resolution of border issues. Also, in January 2012, China and India agreed to establish the “Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs” to resolve the border disputes.   The third action is to keep a balance between India and Pakistan. Except for the territorial dispute, the biggest wedge issue between the two nations is Pakistan. Recently, China is changing its course into a “balanced diplomacy” between India and Pakistan, and in particular it has begun paying attention to India’s security concerns over Pakistan, because China knows that India is particularly concerned about China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan. Still, China will never abruptly discontinue its support and assistance to another strategic and cooperative partner, Pakistan. However, China seeks to address India’s distrust by completely shifting its stance on India and Pakistan into a balanced one.   The fourth action is to increase its influence on South Asia. As Z. Brzezinski pointed out, the two countries are fundamentally among Eurasian “players” with the potential for geopolitical clashes. Aiming for a rise from East Asia into a global major power, China is focusing on expanding its influence in South Asia. Small South Asian states that have been traditionally under India’s influence (e.g., Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka) seem to welcome China’s engagement as a means of checking India. While promoting its partnership with India, China is also putting forth an effort to gain more influence in the region. For example, the Chinese navy is pursuing a “string of pearls” policy aimed at securing geopolitical extension and safety of energy transportation routes. A large part of the energy acquired by China is from the Middle East and Africa and it is transported through the Indian Ocean, the Strait of Malacca, and the South China Sea. As a result, China has connected the ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan as if it is wearing a “pearl necklace” that was under India’s sphere of influence and it is now trying to make it possible for Chinese warships to use these ports. However, this will be considered by India as blocking its maritime expansion and is likely to cause conflicts in China-India relations in the future.   Assessment and Prospects: Who Will Be Joining Forces?   China’s policies toward India have reflected its own domestic priorities and its reactions not just to India’s aspirations on the subcontinent but also to actions taken by the United States and Pakistan. Meanwhile, China’s perception of India has been dramatically changing in the 21st century. As Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized the “new type of major power relations” that are based on the current global trend of multi-polarization, China now regards India as one of the most normative “new type of major power relations.” While India is committed to greater diplomatic leadership and military capabilities for “great power” status, China is increasingly watching its neighboring nation closely. Also, when a new international order is expected to emerge amid competition and cooperation between China and the United States, China deems that India’s role will be a highly critical variable in the course of creating that order. Therefore, by trying to win over its neighbor, China seeks to prevent the United States and India from joining forces in Asia.   For this reason, China aims to step up its engagement policy for India and turn their relations into closely and mutually dependent ones. To this end, what it primarily pursues is lively economic exchange and cooperation with India. It believes that continued bilateral exchange and cooperation, mainly in the economic area, will help reestablish mutual trust and raise mutual dependence. In this process, it also hopes to overcome their distrust and long-pending discord.   In reality, of course, the relationship between China and India still remains on the rudimentary level and they have to overcome difficult challenges in the future. Decades of political hostility cannot be resolved in a short period of time, and conflicts in border disputes and military and security aspects still exist. In particular, India, on the surface, is pursuing strategic cooperation with China, but in reality, it keeps its distance from China due to security concerns. Furthermore, with the rise of the two countries, they face the geopolitical conflicts of regional supremacy. Yet, unlike in the past, their relations in the 21st century are generating more chances of exchange and cooperation in diverse areas, and China’s diplomacy toward India is assessed as relatively successful.   What should be pointed out here is that the “American factor” will be one of the most important variables in China’s future diplomacy toward India. In particular, the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” is perceived by China as a containment policy to counter China’s rise and its growing influence in the region. The United States has explicitly expressed its intent to use India to keep the rise of its strategic competitor, China, in check. In March 2000, President Bill Clinton visited India—the first U.S. president to do so—and in March 2006 President Bush also visited India to sign the “US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement”; and current President Barack Obama’s visit to India in November 2010 is seen as an effort to “embrace India.” The United States does not see India as a future threat but it does see China as a potential threat. Therefore, the United States takes a tough stance toward China while engaging a flexible foreign policy toward India.   India maintained strategic cooperation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War against the United States and today it holds a sense of rejection toward the US-led world peace in the international order, which is based on its power. Moreover, India is expressing different opinions from the United States regarding important international issues such as Iran and Pakistan, although it has a close relationship with the United States. Thus, it is unlikely that India will go along or agree with America’s intention. However, India is fully aware of US intentions and it is pursuing its own strategic objective of containing China while moderately meeting US needs. In this case, it is possible that the US factor will be one of the most important parameters in the progress of China-India relations and it will be highly likely to act as the most critical variable in the future success of China’s engagement policy toward India. ■         Acknowledgement The author appreciates Hankwon Kim and Dong Ryul Lee for helpful comments.

Throughout 2010 and into 2011, disputes in the South China Sea were at the forefront of regional tensions involving China, the United States, and neighboring countries. The focal point of such tensions was the 2010 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum where the United States along with ASEAN countries confronted China over its “assertive” behavior in the South China Sea. This episode demonstrated clearly the troubled situation in the South China Sea and the potential for conflict in East Asia. Robert D. Kaplan, writing on how the issue will be a major challenge for the future, states that “Just as German soil constituted the military front line of the Cold War, the waters of the South China Sea may constitute the military front line of the coming decades.” (Kaplan 2011)   Tensions though soon eased toward the end of 2010 and the mood at the 2011 ASEAN Regional Forum meeting was markedly different. It was more conciliatory as an agreement was struck between China and ASEAN countries to resolve their disputes. Even with tensions mounting again between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea during May and June of 2011, the two sides eventually came to an agreement to resolve differences.   What can be understood from these two divergent approaches by Beijing to the South China Sea issue? It is expected that from 2012, China will approach the South China Sea issue through a mixture of assertive and conciliatory approaches. With the emergence of a new leadership in the Communist Party, new policies will be framed and developed. In recognizing the limits of assertive policies, while also not wishing to ease too much on their territorial claims, the new leadership will pursue a policy that fuses the divergent approaches of 2010 and 2011. Crucial to interpreting the new policy for the future, this U.S.-China Relations Series Brief attempts to understand why China’s position shifted over the South China Sea issue. That is why Beijing went from an “assertive” stance to a more restrained or “constructive” one, seeking dialogue rather than further tensions. Power-transition theory can help to understand the direction in which China is going in terms of the limits rising powers face. This Brief shows that because of the way Beijing characterizes the dispute and its naval strategy, a more ambiguous approach can be expected when compared to other areas of dispute, such as Taiwan or even the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.   Conflicting Interests in the South China Sea   China shares its land border with 14 countries yet has relatively few ongoing territorial disputes with them. By contrast, China has multiple maritime disputes with its neighbors in the region, particularly in the South China Sea. The Spratly Islands are at the heart of this dispute. While China claims all the islands, it is disputed by Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam. Furthermore, to the north of the Spratlys are the Paracel Islands that China seized from Vietnam in 1974 and are hotly contested. Along with the island disputes, Beijing claims much of the South China Sea as its Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ). Based on historical and cultural arguments, China believes its claims to the South China Sea are solid. Although this dispute involves multiple countries, Beijing has refused to deal with the matter multilaterally. Rather the Chinese government prefers to resolve the dispute bilaterally and without the involvement of outside parties.   The United States has a number of concerns about the South China Sea dispute, not just for peace and stability in the region, but for the freedom of navigation in one of the world’s busiest and strategically-important waterways. It would seem that from 2010 the United States increased pressure on China over the South China Sea issue when it appeared to U.S. officials that Beijing was taking on a more assertive approach. (Pomfert 2010) In the past, China and the United States have had a number of conflicts over the South China Sea issue which has mainly related to the definition of the EEZ. For example, Washington challenges Beijing’s view that military vessels passing through its EEZ must give notice and that surveillance activities are illegal. (Swaine and Fravel 2011, p11) This has led to some notable clashes over the years, such as the EP-3 spy plane incident in 2001 and USNS Impeccable incident in 2009 where Chinese fishing trawlers harassed a navy surveillance ship. The Impeccable incident shows how China has been using coercive diplomacy in this regard to get its message across. That message was for the United States to halt its surveillance activities in waters around China that were viewed as highly provocative. (Mastro 2011)   The more active policies by the United States toward the South China Sea issue can also be understood as part of its “return” to Asia approach under the Obama administration. As wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, Washington is now shifting its focus back to East Asia, the region that it has identified as the most important for the twenty-first century. Some countries in the region have welcomed this reengagement, in particular Vietnam which has tried to internationalize the South China Sea dispute much to China’s opposition. The culmination of this was the ASEAN Regional Forum in July 2010. At that meeting Secretary of State Clinton took the lead in pressuring China over its assertive policy toward the South China Sea. (Landler 2010) At the meeting, Clinton stated that “the United States, like every nation, has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea.” Beijing interpreted this as U.S. intervention and characterized it as an “attack” on China. One year later, at the following ASEAN Regional Forum the mood was friendlier. China and ASEAN countries agreed on guidelines to implement the Declaration of Conduct, an agreement originally reached in 2002 that outlined measures to resolve the South China Sea dispute. Although a non-binding agreement, the move signaled a less “assertive” approach by China.   In some respects the issue of the South China Sea addresses the nature of China’s rise and power-transition theory in this regard provides us with an analytical framework. Power-transition theory tells us that a rising power will seek to challenge the established power as it become dissatisfied with the international system that it sees as favoring the hegemon. As a rising power in this regard, China would be expected to forcefully assert its claims in the South China Sea issue and seek to challenge the United States. However, its actions have been more restrained as it has sought dialogue and accommodation.   Is the South China Sea a “core interest”?   In order to understand China’s position, a close analysis is required of how the Chinese leadership characterizes the issue from the perspective of a “core interest.” Much has already been said about the importance of “core interests” in U.S.-China relations. Among the major issues in the bilateral relationship, Tibet, Taiwan, and human rights can be considered to be main areas of potential conflict. This is due to the way in which China has officially defined them as “core issues.” Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Dai Bingguo at the 2009 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue stated three areas which constitute China’s core interests; its “basic system” and national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and economic and social sustained development. These points were further clarified in a recent white paper on China’s peaceful development. “Core interests” were defined as including “state sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity, and national unification, China’s political system established by the Constitution and overall social stability, and the basic safeguards for ensuring sustainable economic and social development.” This broadly covers the basic elements of China’s economic development and rise as well as the country’s own unity. Currently, only Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and human rights have been officially stated as a “core interest.” Beijing’s general approach to these issues has been a nonnegotiable stance, to the extent that it would even be willing to consider the use of force if seriously challenged. (Swaine 2011a) The question is then whether the South China Sea dispute is also regarded by Beijing as a “core interest.” So far, Beijing has not publically declared the South China Sea as a “core interest.” However, it was reported in early 2010 that China had indeed labeled it as a “core interest.” Secretary of State Clinton herself confirmed this in an interview when she recalled her meeting with Dai Bingguo, “when China first told us at a meeting of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue that they viewed the South China Sea as a core interest, I immediately responded and said we don’t agree with that.” From this statement we can see that the 2nd Strategic and Economic Dialogue was the moment in 2010 where both sides tough stance clashed over the issue. Clinton’s comments would seem clear that China regards this dispute as a “core interest.” However, China expert Michael Swaine persuasively argues that the South China Sea dispute is not a “core interest” and believes Beijing is in fact being intentionally ambiguous on defining the issue as a “core interest.” (Swaine and Fravel 2011, p10) The Dean of Peking University’s School of International Studies Wang Jisi, writing in Foreign Affairs, also believes that “apart from the issue of Taiwan…the Chinese government has never officially identified any single foreign policy issue as one of the country’s core interests.” (Wang 2011, p71) This can be supported when assessing Dai Bingguo’s remarks during the previously mentioned 2010 Strategic and Economic Dialogue where he referred specifically to Taiwan and Tibet as “core interests.” Certainly if a “core interest” is an issue that China is not willing to negotiate over then its behavior with regard to the South China Sea dispute is certainly not in line with its approach to other issues such as Taiwan or Tibet. In its statements, Beijing has consistently offered to negotiate, albeit bilaterally, with countries that it has a dispute with. And as mentioned before, China reached an agreement on facilitating guidelines to implement the Declaration on Conduct. While not legally-binding agreement, this demonstrates that China has been willing to reach some arrangement with its neighbors...(Continued)

Jongpil Chung is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Kyung Hee University.         At the 2008 Chinese Internet Research Conference, Lokman Tsui, in his paper titled “The Great Firewall as Iron Curtain 2.0,” argued that the Great Firewall metaphor obscures and limits our understanding of Internet censorship in China. The term, combining “great wall” and “firewall,” is used to describe the Chinese government’s efforts to control the Internet while at the same time drawing on the Cold War term “iron curtain.” Yet the phrase “Great Firewall of China” gives outsiders the wrong impression, suggesting that in order to bring freedom of speech to the Chinese people, the wall should be pulled down to enable all good things, such as democracy, from the outside to get in.   The reality, however, is much more complicated. The Chinese Internet censorship system that filters or blocks external websites from internal view is only one part of a complex set of mechanisms. The Chinese government also uses cyber police and legal regulations to censor online content, and implements various types of surveillance and punitive actions to bring about self-censorship. Most entities in the private sector in China employ people to read and censor content manually, and can be warned or shut down by the Chinese government if they violate rules of acceptable content.   There are also Chinese blogs, emails, social networks, and text messaging services that have opened up new forums for exchanging ideas, and these have created new targets for censorship. Since China has never had mechanisms to accurately detect and reflect public opinion, blogs and BBS (bulletin board system) have become an effective route to form and communicate society’s public opinion. We should not underestimate the extensive consequences that the Internet has brought to every realm of global affairs. The Internet has enhanced the capabilities of traditional actors such as the state and firms, but these technologies have also empowered less privileged groups by providing information and facilitating participation in policy-making procedures.   The Internet and other networking technologies have facilitated change in the dynamic between the Beijing regime and the people in China. Who is winning the cat-and-mouse game? I argue that the Internet, more specifically Weibo (微博), the Chinese version of Twitter, and the microblogging system, have strengthened both the government and the people in China. Weibo has more functions than Twitter, such as commenting on others’ posts, turning a message into a conversation, and transmitting photographs and other files with posts. More recently, a great deal of politically sensitive material survives in the Chinese blogosphere provided by blog service providers such as Sina (新浪), Tencent (腾讯), Sohu (搜狐), and so on. The Chinese government is learning to adapt to these new circumstances, and becoming more responsive. Instead of strictly monitoring every posted comment on the Web, the Chinese government is selectively tolerating Internet expression “to provide a safety valve for the release of public anger” and improve its governance.   This article is organized into four sections: a debate concerning the political impact of the Internet in the context of Chinese state-society relations; an examination of how Chinese leaders censor the people’s use of the Internet and Weibo, and how their citizens use Weibo to gather information, exchange views, and organize protests and rallies; and a brief conclusion.   The Main Debate: Two Contending Perspectives   There are two opposing political views on the application of information technology in China: one sees the Internet and related technologies as allowing more opportunities for public participation, civic engagement, and strengthening the interaction between the people and government institutions in China, and the other views these technologies as allowing the Chinese government to control and regulate the Internet in whatever way it wants.   Guobin Yang has emphasized that the social uses of the Internet have fostered public debate and discussion of societal problems, and in the process have created a new associational form—the virtual community. The Internet has also introduced new elements into the dynamics of protest. Specifically, there is now a widespread belief in the policy world that advanced technology will pose an insurmountable threat to authoritarian regimes. Ronald Reagan’s speech at London’s Guildhall on June 14, 1989, was a good example of this view when he declared, “Technology will make it increasingly difficult for the state to control the information its people receive … The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.” Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were also staunch proponents of the idea that the Internet is inherently a force for democracy.   However, scholars like Lawrence Lessig argue that governments anywhere can most certainly regulate the Internet, both by controlling its underlying code and by shaping the legal environment in which it operates. According to Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor Boas, the Chinese state acts as a designer of Internet development and makes it less likely that non-state actors will have a political impact because Internet users “may back away from politically sensitive material on the web, and entrepreneurs may find it more profitable to cooperate with authorities than to challenge their censorship policies.”   Chinese Censorship 2.0   Several political bodies are in charge of Internet content in China, including most prominently the Central Propaganda Department, which ensures that media and cultural content follow the official line as mandated by the CPC and the State Council Information Office (SCIO), which oversees all websites that publish news, including the official sites of news organizations as well as independent sites that post news content. The Chinese government has adopted two main strategies to repress politically sensitive or “subversive” content online. First, the leaders use technical methods, cyber police, and legal regulations to screen online content. Second, the government implements various types of surveillance and punitive actions to boost self-censorship.   Using technology known as the “Great Firewall," the system blocks content by preventing Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from being routed through standard firewall and proxy servers at Internet gateways, blocks websites on an array of sensitive topics, while tens of thousands of government monitors and citizen volunteers regularly check blogs, chat forums, and even email to ensure nothing challenges the Party's propaganda. In China, Internet services are based on interconnecting networks, which are the national backbone networks that connect domestic Internet service providers (ISPs) to international networks. Since ISPs must obtain permission from one of the interconnecting networks to access global networks, they are under effective state control.   Chinese leaders have also been promoting self-censorship among the population as well as making the private sector, e.g. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and owners of Internet cafes (wangba, literally, Net bar) more accountable for monitoring their customers’ emails and messages. To avoid being held legally liable for any inappropriate conduct, most Internet service and content providers prohibit users from seeing politically sensitive websites. Business owners use a combination of their own judgment and direct instructions from propaganda officials to determine what content to ban. The Chinese government imposes long prison sentences on scholars, journalists, and dissidents for expressing opinions that challenge the Party’s views or for leaking state secrets across borders. The strong punishment is especially aimed at preventing large-scale distribution of information that may lead to further collective action, especially off-line actions such as mass demonstrations or signature campaigns.   Although the political and social implication of the Internet depends largely on decisions made by leaders and policy makers in China, the Internet has facilitated the diffusion of power over information from the central bureaucracy to dissidents, students, and members of groups. The Internet allows the dissemination of information, especially through Weibo, to coordinate, organize, motivate, and transmit information with greater ease and rapidity than ever before. The following section will introduce the most popular and powerful medium, Weibo, that people use in China, and analyze the Wenzhou train crash case, where Weibo helped to disseminate information and organize protest events.   Creating Alternative Space: Weibo   Although Twitter, the original microblog service, has been blocked in China, major websites have launched their own Twitter clones, and these have become important alternative channels for information. Microbloggers can publish messages, limited to 140 characters in length, conveying their thoughts, emotions, opinions, and what they see anytime, from any location, through cell phones or Web pages. Chinese mirobloggers show a strong interest in current affairs and form microblogger tribes through “follow” links, equivalent to a small-scale forum or platform of news and politics. These microbloggers, who are netizens, can cover sudden incidents live on the spot. In China, microblogging has been especially active since 2009, and users reached 194 million (see Figure 1) by July 2011.   Figure 1: Number of Weibo Users (Scale: 1,000)   Source: China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), July 2011. http://www.199it.com/archives/2011071913139.html   Like BBSs, anyone with Internet access can start a blog on a hosting service with a very low cost of entry. Although most posts are personal in nature, more and more microbloggers are writing about public affairs and criticizing local government officials, particularly in relation to social justice, corruption, or people’s daily experience. One of the crucial impacts of this new technology is that negative reports and criticism of governments’ misbehavior are now being exposed and disseminated online. Sometimes such a process is tolerated by central authorities to keep local government officials more accountable to the center and to allow “the public to let off steam before it erupts uncontrollably, perhaps resulting in public protests.”   These emerging patterns of online interaction and communication underline how the Internet, more specifically microblogs, has expanded freedom of expression and broadened public discourse under the authoritarian regime. Citizens’ rising demands for greater freedom of expression, combined with new technologies, are challenging government control of information and media. Some popular microbloggers have large numbers of loyal followers and mobilize protests and petitions through the Internet.   Wenzhou Train Crash and Weibo   On July 23, 2011, two high-speed trains collided on a viaduct in the suburbs of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Train number D3115 was struck by lightning near the town of Wenzhou on the Ningbo–Taizhou–Wenzhou rail line and then lost power and stopped while Train D301, running from Beijing south to Fuzhou on the same line, then rammed into the back of it. Six coaches derailed and four from D301 fell off the viaduct. Forty people were killed, and at least 200 were injured. Officials hastily pursued rescue operations, ordered the burial of the derailed cars and dead bodies, and issued directives to limit media and Internet coverage of this accident. The government’s reaction drew a great number of criticisms from online communities and media outlets, including defiance of officially sanctioned reporting rules on state-owned networks. Immediately after netizens’ criticism, China's State Council ordered a thorough investigation.   Since the accident, China’s two major Twitter-like microblogs, Sina (新浪微博) and Tencent Weibo (腾讯微博), have posted more than 26 million messages on the tragedy, including some that have forced embarrassed officials to change their previous decision to cover up what occurred. Although there were government censors assigned to monitor public opinion, most of the Weibo posts streaming onto the Web were unimpeded. The very nature of Weibo posts, which spread faster than censors can react, makes Weibo beyond easy control.   Within hours of the first report of the crash, comments and criticism were piling up, and over a week later, the flow of posts had barely slowed. There were more than ten million comments about the accident, nearly all of them extremely angry, and in user-created polls, netizens have again and again showed that they are angry with how the crash was handled by the government; in every poll, “very dissatisfied” has won with overwhelming numbers, and most of the polls have accrued tens and even hundreds of thousands of votes. According to a poll from Sina Weibo (see Figure 2), 94 percent of the respondents said they were “very dissatisfied since the government [was] not showing respect for human life,” and zero percent said they were “very satisfied.”   Figure 2: Are you satisfied with the government’s handling of the train accident in Wenzhou?     Source: Sina Weibo(新浪微博), July 24, 2011.   Like all domestic companies, Sina is required to censor content on its site, but the Wenzhou train crash incident has became too big for them to censor. Although deleting individual messages rarely works, it would be very dangerous and obvious to delete all messages about the accident, since by the time a censor finds the messages to delete, they have already been re-tweeted by dozens, hundreds, or thousands of others. In the case of the Wenzhou train crash, the Chinese government’s attempt to control reporting on the story was leaked onto Weibo, and provoked the already angered and dissatisfied Chinese people to ask for investigation of the case.   Conclusion   The Chinese government still imposes many restrictions on the Internet, both in terms of communication methods—for example, blogs or BBSs--and in terms of content--that is, what information is allowed on these open media. The recent “jasmine revolution” in China is one good example of what the party leaders are wondering about. On February 19, 2011, Chinese authorities suppressed online calls for a “jasmine revolution” and quickly dispersed small crowds that gathered in Beijing and Shanghai in an apparent attempt to spark an uprising similar to those roiling the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of activists were detained, mass text messages were jammed and searches for the word “jasmine” were blocked on Chinese micro-blogging websites.   These events, however, do not mean that the Chinese government is winning the cat-and-mouse game. As we have seen, the Internet, and more specifically Weibo, is opening China to ideas and debates that have not generally been available through traditional media such as television, radio, and daily newspapers. By using Weibo, China’s citizens are becoming better informed about domestic and international affairs and are more easily mobilized. When "sensitive" information appears on Weibo, many netizens help to quickly republish and distribute it, often one step ahead of government censorship. Chinese leaders have realized that they must allow citizens some freedom online in order to prevent unexpected challenges to the CCP.   Weibo is helping more citizens to participate in public affairs and to demand more from their government. As Xiao Qiang, media scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, has argued, the Chinese government is starting to adapt to these new demands, as long as the demands are not related to sensitive issues such as Falun Gong, the Tiananmen Crisis, Tibet and Taiwan independence, or Liu Xiaobo, thus leading toward “the possibility of better governance and citizen participation.” Since early 2010, more and more party and government officials are opening Weibo accounts, trying to reach the public and maintain legitimacy through this new channel. However, this does not imply that the government leaders are ready to include Chinese people into the final decision-making process or make the process more transparent. The central government relies on the supervisory role of citizens on the Internet to exercise pressure on local government and state-owned enterprises’ corruption. By punishing the corrupted local bureaucrats or entrepreneurs, the central authorities will gain more support from the people and hold local officials more accountable to the center and to the public.   The major target in Hillary Clinton’s speech on “Internet Freedom” in January 2010 was China and other authoritarian countries facing strict censorship of the Internet. The point of the speech was that if the United States or any freedom-loving Western country can tear down the censorship wall in China and other authoritarian countries, then political change, and transition to democracy, will be greatly accelerated. Therefore, the State Department will financially help individuals silenced by oppressive governments and support “the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship.”   As we have seen, the situation is much more complicated. In China, the Great Firewall is just one censoring system out of several, and most of the individuals are not silenced under the Chinese government. Chinese people are using the Internet and Weibo efficiently to deliver their complaints to the center or local officials and the government is gradually adapting to this new environment. Although there are certain limits in talking about sensitive issues, the development of the Internet and Weibo is mutually strengthening the state and society in China. Therefore, who is winning the cat-and-mouse game? Both are. ■         Acknowledgement The author thanks Chaesung Chun and Minja Lee for helpful comments.

Sook-Jong Lee is the President of the East Asia Institute and a Professor at the Department of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University.         States form images of each other based on assessments of each other’s material capabilities or on interpretations of each other’s intentions. Images matter in the foreign policy making process since they form popular public opinion on official policies and, in more basic ways, construct people’s identity toward other countries. Some images are more transient and therefore manageable. Remarks by foreign leaders, official documents, or media coverage tend to belong to this category. States try to make their images favorable in the minds of a foreign audience through their public diplomacy efforts. On the other hand, some images are more fundamental and hard to change, so that foreign policies are pressed to operate within their perimeter. Political ideology, religious orientation, and accumulated bilateral historical experiences tend to form these more durable images.   Today’s globalized world has witnessed the rise of the Internet as an important medium constructing popular images of a foreign country. As mass communication across countries becomes more open and instant, foreign policy makers face the increasing challenge of controlling information flows and separating foreign policy agendas from domestic interests. Citizens with less direct contact are more prone to embracing popular images mediated by mass media. Elites, in contrast, who have more direct contact and knowledge, tend to have more rationally interpreted images of foreign countries. Formerly, elites used to monopolize foreign policy inputs. In the porous world of today, however, it is difficult for elites to resist and persuade popular opinion, which is more emotionally driven. This challenge is felt in China, where the leadership is sometimes at odds with irrational populism.   In this respect, it is important to understand Chinese images of South Korea. How do elites and ordinary citizens of China hold South Korea in their political imagination? What are the implications of Chinese images of Korea for Seoul’s China policy?   The Transformative Bilateral History of the Last Century   For hundreds of years before modernization, Korea was a tribute country to imperial China. Except for two invasions by pre-Qing Manchu China in the seventeenth century, the Chosun Dynasty of Korea preserved peace and relative autonomy in its relationship with China. During this period, Korea for China was a more civilized country on the Eastern periphery of the Chinese order. The centuries’ old absolute power of imperial China was shattered quite suddenly. The late nineteenth century Chosun witnessed with great awe China’s struggle to preserve its sovereignty in the face of encroachment from the West. The Korean Peninsula became a testing ground of Chinese influence vis-a-vis Japan and Western powers. Once Korea was colonized by Japan, China, in the midst of revolution and civil war, provided breathing room for the Korean independence movement. However, following the communist revolution China became an enemy state to South Koreans by assisting North Korea during the Korean War and so contributing to the division of the Korean Peninsula. To China, South Korea reborn as the Republic of Korea in 1948 was a mere puppet pro-U.S. state while North Korea was a buffer zone to stop the encroachment by America. South Korea and China went through a dark age, with no official interaction until the Cold War ended and diplomatic relations were normalized in 1992. China, already in a high growth stage at the time of normalization, rapidly expanded its trade and investment relations with South Korea to become its number one trade partner in 2004. For China, South Korea became its most frequently visited country, with an image of affluence and an urbane culture.   Having passed through a transformative post-normalization period, South Korea faces China as a big power not only in dealing with North Korea but also in engaging the Asian region and the rest of the world. While South Korea is anchored in its alliance relationship with the United States, how to manage and develop the relationship with China is the foreign policy challenge for South Korean leaders. On the other hand, for China, keeping a prosperous and dynamic South Korea closer is an important strategic goal as well. Preventing South Korea from embracing Japan at the expense of China is strategically important in the tripartite relations in Northeast Asia. Of more importance would be for China to pursue closer economic ties with South Korea and to remain neutral were the roughly 28,000 U.S. soldiers there to become involved in any conflict outside of the Korean Peninsula. At the same time, China’s strategic concern is in helping North Korea to survive and remain stable. Accordingly, China has taken a neutral position toward recent North Korean provocations, such as the sinking of the South Korean vessel Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. China is now locked into a dilemma: its poor ally North Korea is emboldened to attack the South, only strengthening South Korea’s military ties with the United States against China’s wishes. In a nutshell, South Korea and China share overall interests in keeping Northeast Asia peaceful and prosperous but their vital security interests derived from their relationships with North Korea and the United States remain divisive.   Against the backdrop of the rapidly changing South Korea–China relationship of today, it is worthwhile to examine how the Chinese view South Korea. This view has not been examined sufficiently. The first ever cross-national soft power survey, carried out in 2008 by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the East Asia Institute (EAI), revealed that the Chinese viewed South Korea’s soft power as stronger than that of Japan’s. But there has been no effective survey done on Chinese images of South Korea and their views of South Korea–China relations. To address this dearth of data, the EAI launched a telephone survey from July 27 to August 2 of 2010 targeting 1,000 urban Chinese citizens from 10 major cities. In August 2010, an additional online survey was also carried out for 150 elites who were composed of 49 experts, 77 businessmen, and 24 bureaucrats. To the extent that elite views are important in foreign policy making, the survey was intended to explore differences between ordinary citizens and elites views in China in their views toward South Korea. The following are the major findings regarding South Korea’s image in the Chinese political imagination.   South Korea Favored but Not Much   Contrary to the expectation that elites would find information on South Korea more through books or textbooks, elites receive data mostly through the Internet (46%). On the other hand, ordinary citizens pick up information on South Korea via television/radio (30.6%) or newspapers/magazines (20.3%). This may be because elites check information more frequently through the Internet. Whatever the medium for getting information, most Chinese view South Korea through the cultural lens. When answers to open questions on South Korea’s images are categorized, 40.7% of images are culture related—primarily popular TV dramas, movies, and entertainment celebrities. Twenty-three percent of images concern business and industries ranging from plastic surgery/beauty businesses to IT/automobile industries; 17.3% of images concern Korean personalities and national characteristics. It is notable that half of the images in the personalities/national characteristics category describe Koreans as too nationalistic or patriotic. Lastly, 12.4% of images could be categorized as political ones.   One third of images in this category describe South Korea as a divided nation and 23.1% of images point out South Korea as a pro-U.S. country of its military ally or diplomatic partner. Images concerning South Korea’s president or democratic achievement tally 16.9%.. Images belonging to cultural or economic categories tend to be positive while those belonging to national characteristics or political categories tend to be critical. In cities where the exposure to South Koreans and Korean culture is relatively high, there seem to be more negative images related to cultural and historical issues. A significant number of Chinese believe that South Korea plagiarizes China’s own cultural heritage, such as Confucianism, and contradicts Chinese history.   The favorability score the Chinese have reported toward South Korea on a scale of 0 (very unfavorable) to 100 (very favorable) was 57.5. This score is slightly higher than the scores the Chinese report toward North Korea, Indonesia, India, or Japan. Only the United States is more favored than South Korea in this survey. In addition, Chinese elites view South Korea more favorably than do ordinary Chinese citizens by about 10%. However, compared to other previous surveys, the favorability ratings of South Korea have declined, as have North Korean ratings. For example, the Chinese favorability score toward South Korea on the same 0–100 scale was 73.0 in the July 2006 Survey and 64.5 in the January–February 2008 Survey, both conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In these two surveys, North Korea favorability also declined from 72.6 to 55.5. If these polls are viewed on a continuum, the Chinese favorability score toward South Korea has declined continuously from 73.0, 64.5, to 57.5 during the period of 2006–2010...(Continued)

Min Gyo Koo is an assistant professor at Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University.         The Troubled Waters of East Asia   East Asia is home to many of the world’s most vexing maritime disputes. The diplomatic spat in fall 2010 between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea proves the point that any mishandling of maritime issues can hijack the subtle balance of power and interests in the region. Equally divisive are matters in the South China Sea, where China’s growing assertiveness provokes not only its Southeast Asian neighbors but also the United States, which has thus far provided maritime stability for East Asia, but is increasingly challenged by China. Other examples of unresolved island disputes include competing sovereignty claims to the Dokdo Islands in the East Sea/Sea of Japan, the Northern Territories/Kurile Islands in the Northwest Pacific Ocean, and the islands of Sipadan, Sebatik, and Ligitan in the Celebes Sea, all of which have served as the most persistent and explosive bones of contention among littoral states in the region.   The complex balance of power and interests in this region does not allow for a single pacesetter. South Korea has longed for a balancer role among its giant neighbors with only limited success. Despite a certain degree of institutional resilience and adaptability, the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has shown structural limitations in dealing with maritime challenges. Japan has been seeking greater room for maneuver while relying on U.S. leaders to check China as a potential rival for regional hegemony. China’s increasingly assertive maritime policy has greatly alarmed many in the region. To make matters even more complicated, the United States has recently shown signs of reengagement in maritime Asia, departing from its earlier hands-off approach. As such, many analysts have warned that the volatile links between contested resource-rich maritime areas, high energy demand, and competing national identities could create a perfect storm for conflict in Asia.   China has feared being trapped in institutions not of its own making while seeking new terms of regional maritime order. China’s navy seems to be well prepared to go beyond its traditional role of coastal defense and engage in far-sea defense to protect its economic and strategic interests. After years of denials, Chinese officials have confirmed that they are close to deploying an aircraft carrier group within a few years. China is also developing a sophisticated submarine fleet that could be used to prevent foreign naval vessels from entering its strategic waters if a conflict took place in the region. Reportedly, the Chinese navy gets more than one-third of the overall Chinese military budget, reflecting the priority Beijing currently places on the navy as a backbone of national security.   Will the rise of China, combined with an altered U.S. engagement policy toward maritime Asia, further strain East Asian maritime stability, making any regional level of cooperation extremely difficult, if not impossible? To answer this question, recent maritime flare-ups can be analyzed in light of three major obstacles at sea. The rising maritime rivalry between the United States and China and its implications for the maritime stability of East Asia must also be considered. After that, a critical assessment of the future of the East Asian maritime order, which is currently caught between a rock and a hard place, will be possible.   Three Bones of Contention   East Asian maritime issue networks are multilayered and have stemmed from the three most prominent bones of contention: contested sovereignty over offshore islands, overlapping claims to exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and continental shelf boundaries, and resource development, particularly since the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) came into force in 1994.   First, sovereignty disputes raise questions of national identity and pride, thereby feeding territorial nationalism. The enduring sovereignty disputes in East Asia can be characterized in various ways, but four features are particularly important: (1) despite the frequent resort to the past to justify contemporary claims to contested territory, most disputes originated in colonial times during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often exacerbated by the arbitrary map-making of colonial powers and exploited by postcolonial nationalists; (2) in contrast to other parts of the world, few disputes have been formally resolved, and very few target states, whose territorial claim is challenged by revisionist states, recognize the existence of disputes at all, preventing claimant countries from engaging in negotiations; (3) a periodic pattern exists in the iteration of disputes, repeating between initiation, escalation, and de-escalation, if not termination; and (4) nevertheless, recurring crises have rarely increased the levels of escalation and hostility beyond control.   Turning to the second parallel, the already complex maritime space has become much more complicated as the claimant states began ratifying the UNCLOS in the mid-1990s. Along with the widespread adoption of the UNCLOS, East Asian coastal states recognized that disputes that had once been limited to the sovereignty of disputed islands now included overlapping maritime jurisdictional claims over EEZs and continental shelves. In addition, the adoption of straight baselines for territorial seas and other maritime zones has made the already daunting task of delimiting maritime boundaries much more difficult. On top of this, there has been a constant tension between the “equidistance” approach and the “equitable” principle in the history of the law of the sea. The UNCLOS chose to avoid any clear reference to either principle, thus providing insufficient guidance for delimiting maritime boundaries. Indeed, boundary delimitation disputes may become as intractable as sovereignty disputes, because state elites are equally constrained by domestic players who hold veto power if the state elites pursue cooperative approaches to the former issues.   Finally, the existence of islands in the disputed areas complicates not only the task of delimiting maritime boundaries but also the issue of marine resource development, because “sovereignty” over disputed islands, if granted to the challenger state, would possibly enable the challenger state to claim “sovereign rights” over the continental shelves and EEZs near disputed islands. The energy-hungry coastal states in the region all eye the high potential for oil and gas deposits near disputed islands. They also rely on contested offshore areas to provide a large portion of their marine diets. It is notable that East Asian countries have been able (albeit sometimes only occasionally) to cooperate on maritime jurisdictional issues as well as joint development of resources by overcoming nationalist pressures. Yet the danger of conflict escalation looms particularly large during a global shortage of energy and marine resources.   Against the backdrop of fluid geopolitics and geoeconomics, a confluence of issues, including sovereignty disputes, undelimited maritime zones, fisheries, and offshore gas development in the region, has caused and escalated the latest maritime confrontations between China and its neighbors, including the Unites States. As popular sentiment between China and Japan has become more hostile, mutual grievances have been aired not only with regard to the disputed islands, but also against the exercise of sovereign rights in EEZs and continental shelves including China’s unilateral development of the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea. China and Japan differ fundamentally on basic principles of boundary delimitation. Although there is no explicit mention of the Japanese median line concept in the UNCLOS, International Court of Justice delimitation decisions increasingly favor an equidistance line based on “relevant factors” such as the comparative lengths of the coastlines. In contrast, China points to the 1969 North Sea case, which argued that length of coastline and continental shelf are the most important factors in delimitation. Thus, in the Chinese view, in light of the UNCLOS’s emphasis on “justice,” delimitation should consider factors such as the length of the Chinese coastline and the natural prolongation of the continental shelf. China indeed views Japan’s median line as against the spirit of the UNCLOS because it was not only declared “unilaterally” but also divides the East China Sea in half.   In effect, the median line presented the most significant barrier to concluding the Consensus on Resource Development reached in June 2008 between China and Japan. Neither party could agree on where to locate the joint development zone (JDZ). From the Chinese perspective, it needed to be located beyond the median line, in the area of overlap. From the Japanese perspective, a JDZ should bisect the median line, since it represented the equidistance point between the two coastlines. In the end, China agreed to a JDZ that includes space on the Chinese side of the median line. While there is no doubt that this was integral to concluding the agreement, this concession drew severe criticism from hardliners within China and explains Beijing’s ambivalence in implementing the agreement...(Continued)     Acknowledgement I appreciate helpful comments from Chaesung Chun, Seong-Ho Sheen, Ha-Jeong Kim, and Jina Kim.

Jaewoo Choo is Chair and Associate Professor of Chinese foreign policy in the Department of Chinese Studies at Kyung Hee University, Korea. Prior to his teaching at Kyung Hee, Professor Choo worked as a researcher at a number of think tanks in Korea.         At least for the time being, China’s foreign policy goals are focused on the preservation of the status quo in its peripheries, including the Korean Peninsula. China sees its long absence of war or military conflict as evidence of the well-preserved peace and stability of its security environment. Conversely, it conceives that this status quo has been conducive to achieving its foremost national goal, economic modernization. It continues to strive to improve its security environment within the equilibrium.   There seems to be one growing exception, however, in the case of the Korean Peninsula, however. China’s support for the replacement of the Korean War Armistice with a peace agreement and a peace regime is in stark contrast to its status quo policy. Given China’s long advocacy as a peace-loving nation, it seems only logical that putting an end to Korea’s current technically-at-war status would make sense. Beijing has its own reasoning and logic behind its supportive call for a new peace arrangement on the peninsula. A confrontational international structure around the peninsula, for instance, can only be overcome by a peace agreement, a precondition necessitated by the Armistice. Hence, a peace agreement before normalization of this structure is perceived to be path-dependent.   However, serious challenges arise if a call for a peace agreement and regime is put forth without much thinking regarding the strategic implications. Chinese scholars and experts tend to overlook this factor in their appraisal. On the surface, theirs is a just and righteous call that a peace agreement must replace the Armistice. It is critical to the installment of “perpetual peace” on the peninsula. It is also logical that such peace can be guaranteed by forging a peace regime, an assurance mechanism that will supplement the “peace” endowed by the agreement.   If Chinese claims are correct, why are they not embraced by others? There must be something wrong in what the Chinese widely believe. Although their analysis of the imperatives for a peace agreement and regime is undeniable, as we shall see, their call for a peace agreement and regime still remains contradictory to the status quo orientation of their mother country’s foreign policy. Moreover, their work seems to lack insight regarding the strategic and structural implications of the full implementation of such a peace arrangement. Furthermore, Chinese pundits must define the meaning of a new peace in a more articulated way in the context of a new regional order to effectively defend their nation’s support for a peace agreement and regime.   Chinese Reading of a Peace Agreement and Peace Regime   The Chinese government and analysts highly value the idea of replacing the Armistice with a peace agreement and forging a peace regime as an operational framework for such an arrangement. China sees these two steps as an alternative choice to so-called cross-recognition of the two Koreas by their neighboring states. Since the latter has not materialized, China sees the call for a peace agreement and regime as a resultant development. A peace agreement and regime are viewed as a better alternative to North Korea and those who do not have formal ties to it, namely the United States and Japan. Chinese experts argue that a peace agreement between the United States and North Korea, for instance, would be a critical prerequisite to the normalization of their relationship and the further consolidation of peace and stability on the peninsula.   Chinese scholars and analysts (“Chinese” hereafter) are highly appreciative of their government’s longtime support for the ideas of replacing the Armistice with a peace agreement and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. China’s support can be traced as far back as 1973, when the two Koreas first mentioned a “peace agreement” in their joint statement, also known as the “July 4 Joint Statement.” Since then, the Chinese further highlight that regardless of who has initiated the discussions on a peace agreement and regime, the Chinese government has consistently conveyed strong support both in action and in words. During the first discourse of formal negotiations prompted by the so-called Four-Party Talks from 1997 to 1999, the Chinese further elaborate, China declared its desire to play a proactive role and make constructive contributions. As evidence of its stance, for instance, it delivered five principles for the reduction of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and four points for the establishment of a peace regime at the fourth plenary session of the Four-Party Talks in January 1999.   Most Chinese defend their government’s position on the basis of the following four imperatives.   1. A new trend in history   The Chinese claim that historical imperatives imply the need to overcome the prevalence of “Cold War thinking” held by the major powers and the two Koreas, which is still very much perpetuated by the Armistice. In other words, such thinking must transform into something more fit and suitable to the current phase of development in world history, that is, the “post–Cold War” world. In the post–Cold War era, the Chinese believe that economic security overrides traditional security on the priority list of the foreign policy agenda; prosperity and development are the key concerns of nations; sustainable development is the theme of the twenty-first century; and dialogue and cooperation, rather than confrontation and alliance, are the preferred means to solving international conflicts. In sum, new thinking is needed to serve the interests of the people and nations living in a new century.   The last time the Chinese government publicly expressed its concern over the remnants of Cold War thinking was in May 2008 during South Korean president Lee Myong-bak’s visit to Beijing. The spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when asked about the Korea-U.S. alliance, depicted it as “a product of a bygone era.” He further elaborated the reasoning behind his statement as based on a premise that the situation in Northeast Asia has changed and the regional issues should not be viewed through a Cold War lens. From Beijing’s perspective, Cold War thinking is strongly embedded in the South Korea-U.S. alliance.   Chinese scholars and experts hold a similar view on the issue. They are explicit in their argument in relating the South Korea–U.S. alliance as a factor in those allies’ Cold War way of handling North Korea and security on the Korean Peninsula. The Chinese still see the South Korea–U.S. alliance as a dominating factor in shaping the perception of the North in Washington and Seoul. In the Chinese assessment, Cold War thinking is one of the major obstacles to the realization of “perpetual peace” on the Korean Peninsula.   To substantiate their argument, the Chinese highlight those issues underscored by America’s outdated and outmoded strategic calculus and behavior. Although the Clinton administration once adopted an “engagement policy” toward the North, a “containment policy” eclipsed it. Strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance was vigorously pursued beginning in 1997 by expanding the scope and range of the Japanese military forces’ maneuverability to support U.S. military activities within their vicinity. Moreover, the U.S. push of Japan and South Korea to host the so-called Theatre Missile Defense system, the Chinese argue, is another controversial aspect of the U.S. engagement policy. The Chinese interpret it as American unwillingness to offer security assurance to the North and the adversarial perception upheld by the United States regarding the North.   The Chinese find a similar trait in measures adopted for the South Korea–U.S. alliance in 2003. While the United States justified its military presence for the sake of the “peace and stability” of the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese counterargue that the U.S. decision at the fifth U.S.-ROK Future Alliance Policy Planning meeting to transform the forces into one with greater flexibility and much greater forward deployment capability is a salient example of America’s Cold War thinking. To the Chinese, the U.S. factor is the critical variable for the realization of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.   Furthermore, the Chinese argue that the United States did not fare any better with a leadership change thereafter, as the new administration shifted its policy orientation on North Korea to containment. The Chinese find the cause of America’s refusal to continue the agreed framework with the North in the United States’ ever worsening perception of the North, once dubbed part of an “axis of evil” and a rogue state. In the eyes of the Chinese, the United States wanted to seek “peace and stability” in a rather hard fashion. The fact that the possibility of subverting the regime in Pyongyang received full consideration in Washington validates the Chinese argument. They further proclaim that America’s inconsistent, even contradictory, policy toward North Korea is a significant risk factor for the stability and peace supposedly guaranteed by the current Armistice.   2. Changes on diplomatic fronts   Observing the changes on the diplomatic fronts of North Korea, Chinese analysts attribute the obsoleteness of the Armistice to this factor. Although North Korea adamantly remained a hermit kingdom throughout much of the 1990s despite the demise of the bipolar system, it decided to come out of its isolation in diplomatic terms at the dawn of a new century. The Chinese argue that the changes on both North Korea’s diplomatic fronts and posture function as a requisite international condition to replace the Armistice by a peace agreement. Hence, such a peace agreement will be feasible because a peace mechanism will be effectively at work as a result of the North’s improved relations with the West.   Beginning in 2000, North Korea normalized relations with Italy, Australia, and Great Britain. It also joined the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) that year. In the first half of the following year, it established diplomatic relations with the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, Greece, Brazil, New Zealand, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Turkey. As of today, the North has diplomatic relationships with twenty-five of twenty-seven EU nations, and is also formally recognized by the European Union. North Korea’s successive normalization with the western European states is significant because most of them once fought against the North in the Korean War.   In addition, North Korea was also given a chance to normalize its relationship with the United States if it abided by all the requirements provided in the so-called 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework (the “Framework” hereafter). However, the North’s desire to improve relations with the United States failed to witness any progress other than symbolic, yet historic, visits by North Korean general Cho Myong-rok to New York in 1999 and then secretary Madeline Albright to Pyongyang in 2000...(Continued)

Sook-Jong Lee is the President of the East Asia Institute and a professor at the Department of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University.         I. Assessing China’s Soft Power into a Balance Sheet   China’s impressive rise is essentially China’s economic rise. With a real Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 9.8 percent from 1979 to 2007, China is expected to surpass Japan next year and become the second-largest economy in the world. China’s exports of US$1,218 billion surpassed United States exports of US$1,162 billion at the end of 2008, and it is already the world’s largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, valued at US$1.9 trillion. This phenomenal economic rise has generated a popular projection that China will surpass the United States as an economic power sometime in the mid-twenty-first century. Considering the fact that China’s economic size today is already a quarter of that of the United States, the contemporary perception of China’s economic influence reflects its future. In this sense, the popular confidence that China’s high performance will continue, which is usually thought of as hard power, actually constitutes China’s soft power. The Asian economy is becoming Sino-centric, with China emerging as the engine of regional growth as it builds up a multilayered export production network with dynamic foreign direct investment in many parts of the country. China’s neighbors increasingly look to Beijing for regional leadership, and China’s own diplomacy has become more confident, omnidirectional, and proactive (Ohashi 2005; Shambaugh 2005). Moreover, China can utilize the resources derived from its high performance to gain diplomatic influence. Rotberg (2008) writes that as China has become the largest investor, trader, buyer, and aid donor in a number of important African countries, it has replaced European, American, and Japanese diplomatic soft power in many nations of the sub-Sahara. The “sticky” economic strength (Mead 2004) of China has been more pronounced lately as the U.S.-led global financial crisis in 2008 has stripped Washington and European governments of the resources and credibility needed to maintain their roles in global affairs (Altman 2009; James 2009).   Despite all these positive signs and the potential of China’s soft power, soft power is the complex “ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payment” (Nye 2004, x). Payment, a primary channel of exercising a country’s resource power, is not likely to generate soft power if it is not viewed as being committed to mutually beneficial relations. Kurlantzick (2007a) termed China’s public diplomatic practice of transferring its trade, investment, and Official Development Assistance (ODA)–driven resource power to its aid recipients to gain soft power as its “charm offensive.” The effectiveness of this offensive, however, has not been empirically examined from the recipient country’s perspective.   The economic angle of Chinese soft power is better found in China’s developmental model. Characterized as socialist state guidance with flexible market adaptability, China’s model appeals more to many developing countries than the aggressive neo-liberal market reforms of the West. The “Beijing Consensus,” which stresses political stability and the flexibility of states to choose a development path, is attractive to many third world countries whose leadership is concerned with maintaining political control while pushing their weak economies (Wuthnow 2008; Zheng 2009). However, this consensus prompts two questions. One is that China’s ODA is not yet substantial enough to support the consensus in full practice. Brautigam (2008) estimates that China’s annual budget for foreign aid expanded from around US$450 million to US$1.4 billion in 2007. This amount is still much smaller than the average ODA of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee countries, which was US$4.7 billion in the same year and US$5.4 billion in 2008. The Japanese contributed US$7.7 billion (US$9.7 billion in 2008), while the United States gave away US$21.8 billion (US$26 billion in 2008). The other problem of the Beijing Consensus is that China’s indiscriminating aid to dictatorial countries is making democratic countries frown, reducing China’s soft power in these democracies. Despite these problems, China’s developmental leadership in the third world is an important source of China’s soft power.   Another dimension of China’s soft power is its increasing leadership in convening countries in multilateral forums. Since moving from its long preferred bilateral relations with periphery countries to multilateral ones, China has been active in various multilateral regional forums such as the Asian Regional Forum, the ASEAN Plus Three, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. China is also exercising convening powers in the Forum for East Asia–Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The first FOCAC summit was held in Beijing in 2006 as part of China’s “Year of Africa,” commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of China’s diplomatic relationship with Africa. Political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation, and cultural exchanges were called for at that time (Jiang 2007).   Chinese multilateral diplomacy has not been limited to regional or cross-regional forums; it has also been global. China sends more peacekeepers to various parts of the world than any other United Nations Security Council member except France. In particular, China is actively sending peacekeepers to Africa through United Nations peacekeeping missions. About 15,000 doctors were sent to more than 47 African countries and treated 180 million African patients (Zheng 2009). China has also gained a greater voice in global financial governance by enlarging its voting rights in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other financial institutions. Recognition of China as a responsible stake holder in the global financial system is ironically played out by the United States, whose financial stability depends on China’s cooperation in keeping U.S. Treasury bonds. While the United States has many reasons to hem in China’s growing influence, it is limited by its own lack of resources and ends up encouraging China to take on more global financial responsibilities. Inevitably, U.S. rhetoric that coaxes China to play such a role unintentionally builds up China’s soft power rather than that of the United States’ conventional allies, such as Japan. Simply put, the world, in recognizing China, follows the example of its effective hegemonic leader, the United States.   Challenges to China’s soft power come primarily from its domestic politics. Chinese oppression of some ethnic groups’ aspirations for independence, as in the case of Tibet, invites attacks from human right activists in developed countries. Harsh handling of Chinese nationals who are critical of the Chinese government also draws international criticism. These soft power demerits are counterbalanced by active multilateral political diplomacy. Yet, if such diplomacy mainly involves elites and government officials, individual citizens outside China, exposed to negative media, retain the images of China’s domestic blunders. China needs to guard its diplomatic soft power gains from being depleted by its oppressive domestic political actions.   One other way that China has aimed at enhancing its soft power is through culture. The Chinese government has consciously promoted academic training and cultural exchange programs. China has opened 260 Confucius Institutes in more than 70 countries—40 in the United States alone with the first one established at the University of Maryland in 2004—and plans to set up 500 institutes worldwide by 2010. In Africa, Confucius Institutes have opened in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, following the first one at the University of Nairobi (Li A. 2008). The number of international students studying in Chinese universities, often with support from the Chinese government, has also increased to 140,000 in mainland China as of 2006. China has held high-level leadership meetings and training for diplomatic corps from Africa and South Asia. The Chinese education ministry supports vocational education training programs as part of the Addis Ababa Action Plan of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Li A. 2008). Whether transmitting Confucian culture to foreign countries results in increased cultural soft power for China is questionable, however. There is no evidence of Chinese cultural soft power spreading across the Asian region. China is not a producer but a consumer of popular culture and information produced in other parts of the region (Shambaugh 2005; Kurlantzick 2007b).   In sum, it is fair to say that an assessment of China’s soft power primarily based on its economic influence as a trader and an investor is somewhat exaggerated. Chinese developmental leadership in the third world looks more promising in building up China’s soft power as an alternative development model and as a growing ODA provider. On the political front, China’s occasional undemocratic practices deplete its soft power. However, China’s increasingly proactive multilateral diplomacy and an expected visible role in financial global governance help China accumulate soft power. While the attractiveness of Chinese culture as a source of soft power is difficult to measure, it is certain that China lags behind Japan and Korea in integrating East Asia through popular culture at this point...(Continued)