This phenomenon, which manifested in Beijing's Taiwan policy during the 1990s, may explain why China has suddenly begun to soft-pedal in its approach to foreign relation. On April 9, the Chinese leader Hu Jintao averted a potential political disaster by arresting Bo Xilai, the former "lord" of Chongqing who harbored ambitions to defy the arranged political succession come the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress this fall.
To guarded optimism from Washington, Beijing has begun reducing its oil purchases from Iran in the last month, meanwhile joining other countries in condemning North Korea for its attempt to test a long-range missile, floating the hitherto tightly controlled renminbi exchange rate, and so far avoiding a clash with the Philippines in a maritime standoff in the South China Sea since mid-April.
Moreover, Beijing made "breakthrough" concessions to Washington — according to the New York Times — at the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue in early May by loosening controls on moving capital in and out of the country. And contrary to general speculations, Beijing quickly resolved the controversy surrounding Chen Guangcheng, which could have derailed the annual bilateral meeting, by agreeing that he could go the US with his family. Chen is the blind human-rights activist who entered the US.embassy in late April after having escaped from house arrest hundreds of miles away in a Shandong village.
How Beijing has recently handled foreign relations forms a stark contrast to its behavior from the middle of 2009.
By early 2009, there was almost no country in the world whose relationship with China was not either stable or improving. That state of affairs represented the painstaking diplomatic achievement on the part of Beijing by following the "peaceful rise" principle enunciated by Hu's adviser Zhen Bijian in late 2003. In April 2008, the US-China military hotline was introduced. In May 2008, China and Japan signed an agreement on 70 items of cooperation during a visit by Hu to Tokyo. After that month, the Taiwan Strait was no longer a flashpoint and the major three cross-strait links - on transport, postal service and commerce - were launched in December after Ma Ying-jeou took office in Taipei earlier in the year. In October 2008 and January 2009, Beijing settled its 4,000km disputed border with Russia and the 1,300km border with Vietnam respectively.
However, Beijing became curiously assertive from the middle of 2009 onward, creating hostilities around its peripheries. China's maritime conflicts with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines escalated. During most of 2010, tension between Beijing and Washington ran high. Consequently, Asian countries courted security cooperation with the US as if to hem in China's expansion. Such seemingly unwise behavior on the part of Beijing has puzzled observers.
Coincidentally, around the same time China's domestic conditions began to change, Bo Xilai began his high profile campaign in Chongqing to revive Maoist egalitarianism and crush organized crime - "singing the red and smashing the black." Bo's appeal to the common people frustrated by a widening income disparity obliquely challenged Hu's leadership for having led the country on the wrong path. Although Bo personally voiced no criticism of Hu's "meekness" in foreign policy, many of his supporters did. They were the hawkish elements in the army and perhaps the conservative faction in the top leadership.
Since then, Hu and his allies, notably Premier Wen Jiabao, came under mounting pressure to yield somewhat. Toughness abroad signified posturing at home. Fortunately, during the post-2009 Chinese assertiveness in Asia, Beijing fired no shot on its neighbors, thanks to Hu's intervention at the critical moment, according to one diplomatic source who was stationed in Beijing at the time who requested anonymity. Hu was abiding the guideline "struggle with your rivals but don't break the relationship" (dou er bu po) coined by Deng Xiaoping in 1982 on the eve of a visit to Beijing by the-then US vice president George HW Bush shortly after Washington had announced an arms sale package to Taiwan, which Beijing must protest as a matter of course.
In a similar vein, domestic conditions also shaped how Beijing dealt with Taiwan at the end of the last century. Before the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who had no military background and was still green in his position, was pushed by generals - who despised him - to get tough with Taipei and Washington, which resulted in China lobbing missiles in the direction of Taiwan's ports. Later in August 1999, Chinese fighter aircraft threatened to invade Taiwan's airspace after Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, in Beijing's view appeared to hint at Taiwanese independence in a public comment. But that episode of tension occurred amid serious domestic instability - deflationary economy, social unrest highlighted by Falun Gong's demonstration in Beijing and visible discord between Jiang and his premier, Zhu Rongji.
Conversely, two happy events across the Taiwan Strait occurred in the 1990s which were preceded by improved domestic conditions on the Chinese side. Representatives from Beijing and Taipei met in Singapore in April 1993 after Deng regained his command which had been tarnished by the Tiananmen massacre. He toured southern China in January 1992, reasserting his path of economic development over those who would have turned back his reforms. The cross-strait representatives met again in October 1998 in Shanghai after Jiang scored a personal victory during the October 1997 15th Party Congress by getting rid of his rivals and placing his followers in key positions.
If the now triumphant Hu succeeds in arranging a smooth transition of power to his heir and ally, Xi Jinping, we may see a China that is more skillful and less abrasive in its foreign policy in the years to come.
(Chong-Pin Lin, a former deputy defense minister of Taiwan, is professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City.)
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