|
China: Its geostrategy and energy needs |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by Le Duc
|
|
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 01:09 |
By Constantine C. Menges
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
30 October 2003
Testimony presented to: The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission
China’s geostrategy
Beginning in 1950, the communist government of China said that its goal in international politics is to promote peaceful relations with other states. Therefore, its international conduct would always be governed by the “five principles of peaceful coexistence” which China defined to include: mutual nonaggression and mutual noninterference.[1] .
Yet, during the 1950s China committed many acts of aggression including: sending nearly a million troops to battle the United Nations forces in support of North Korea; threatening invasion and attacking island territories controlled by Taiwan; and, supporting armed communist insurgent movements seeking to overthrow regional governments. Nevertheless, as the historian Hsu put it, “Peking succeeded to a large extent in preventing [most Asian] states from aligning with the West”[2] , even India despite China’s surprise attack in 1962 and continuing occupation of part of its territory.
In the post-Mao years, with China’s economic opening to the industrial democracies and other countries, there have been major changes in the methods of Chinese action in the world. While China continues to say that it seeks to promote peace and the principles of peaceful coexistence, it has now added the major purpose of promoting its own economic development. Also during the 1990s China increasingly repeated, as officially stated in its October 2000 Report on National Defense, that it seeks “a new international political, economic, and security order, responsive to the needs of our times”[3] .
While the content and structure of this “new international order” has not been made clear, obstacles to its realization that China often mentions are the alleged intention of the United States to dominate the world by what China calls “unipolarism” or “hegemonism”. Also, impeding the Chinese “new world order” are the alliances maintained by the United States in Asia, Europe and the world, all of which China condemns as contrary to peace and relics of “the cold war mentality”. China also opposes the plans of the United States for national missile defense and for Asian missile defense involving Japan, South Korea, and potentially other countries.
To read complete article please click on this link
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 June 2008 01:12 |
This article is quite long, but it has some very important information. If you don't have time to read all, at least look at the short section on the South China Sea.