Bates Gill

Sources and limits of Chinese ‘soft power’

In current analysis and debate concerning Chinas rise, the subject of soft power is either missing or misapplied. Since the 1990s, China has achieved impressive gains both in terms of soft power resources and the ability to convert the resources into desired foreign-policy outcomes. Unlike the former Soviet Union, China appears to be more successful in developing hard and soft power in tandem. Its steppedup endeavours in expanding its soft power nevertheless continue to be constrained by three factors: imbalance in resources, legitimacy concerns regarding its diplomacy, and a lack of coherent agenda. How Washington and its allies respond to this unique power pattern will shape the future strategic landscape of East Asia and beyond.

The Tenuous Hold of China Inc. in Africa

Although Chinas Africa strategy has yielded an impressive slate of successes recently, a closer inspection suggests a fundamental underlying problem: it depends on an increasing number of bureaucratic principals and corporate agents whose contradictions are likely to increase.

China's arms acquisitions from abroad : a quest for 'superb and secret weapons'

Chinas Arms Acquisitions from Abroad assesses current Chinese arms imports in the light of Chinas historical efforts to modernize its weapon-production capacity through foreign acquisitions. It considers the implications of these imports for future security developments in the East Asian region.

Foreign and Domestic Influences on China's Arms Control and Nonproliferation Policies

Over the course of the 1990s, Chinas arms control and nonproliferation policies have undergone a remarkable evolution. Since 1992, China has signed three major, international arms control treaties – the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which it had previously lambasted for years. In addition, Beijing has continued to improve on and clarify many of its previous nonproliferation commitments as well as to adopt a legally based export control system covering a variety of sensitive materials, equipment and technologies. These developments are mirrored by the expanding roles and growing influence of a number of new bureaucratic actors in China devoted to examining its participation in the international arms control and nonproliferation regime. Most notably, in 1997 Chinas Foreign Ministry established a department exclusively devoted to arms control and disarmament issues. Yet despite these broad trends, little is known about the actors and influences (external and internal) affecting Beijings arms control and nonproliferation decision-making. Chinese writings on arms control, while growing in number, tend to be descriptive rather than analytical and usually provide little insight into Chinas policy-making on arms control and nonproliferation.

Chinese Military-Related Think Tanks and Research Institutions

The national security research community in Beijing is dominated by think tanks and other research institutes affiliated with specific governmental institutions. The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) maintains its own set of internal and affiliated research institutions, performing a variety of intelligence, exchange and research functions. The growth and professionalization of the Chinese military think tank community, combined with the widening degree of interaction between PLA researchers and foreigners presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for scholarly research. On the one hand, the new environment complicates the task of outside scholars as they seek to understand the biases and reliability of new sources of information. At the same time, it offers foreign scholars an unprecedented opportunity to test theories, delve into new research and improve understanding of the PLA. This article examines the roles, missions and composition of the units in this system, assesses the influence, authoritativeness and utility of the output from these organs, and offers some preliminary implications for Western study of the Chinese military.

Current and Future Challenges Facing Chinese Defence Industries

The fundamental questions are simple. Can the Chinese defence industries make what the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) needs? Can they develop and produce systems to allow the PLA first to overcome its problem of “short arms and slow legs,” secondly to move from brownwater coastal defence to green-water offshore defence (and eventually blue-water power projection), and thirdly successfully to conduct “limited wars under high-tech conditions”? Indeed, in a larger sense, can the defence industry, under the conditions and pressures of economic reform, survive except by “converting”? The answers, however, are not as simple as might be thought.

Untapped Trilateralism: Common Economic and Security Interests of the European Union, the United States and China

In many respects, we live in a tripolar world. The European Union, the United States and the People’s Republic of China rank first, second and third respectively in gross domestic product (GDP) in the world, and together account for nearly 54 per cent of global GDP.1 They are the three largest traders in the world and their total imports and exports account for 36 per cent of all global merchandise trade.2 The members of the EU, China and the US account for more than 67 per cent of global military spending. In 2006–10, the US, China and just four EU countries (France, Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom) accounted for nearly 72 per cent of the global trade in major conventional weapons.3 The three parties’ combined populations make up about 30 per cent of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants. They are jointly the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases, with more than 56 per cent of total global emissions.4

Countering China’s “United Front”

Concerns are mounting in Washington and other capitals around the globe about the negative aspects of China’s growing power and reach. Beyond pursuing economic and military competition, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government also seek to contend in the realm of image and ideas by extending and intensifying its influence—some would say interference—abroad. For example, in June 2017, the head of one of Australia’s intelligence agencies warned of foreign interference on “an unprecedented scale,” obliquely referring to China. At the end of the year, Australian Federal Senator Sam Dastyari resigned from Parliament after evidence emerged that he had not only received political donations and personal financial support from Huang Xiangmo, a Chinese businessman with close ties to Chinese authorities, but had also expressed support for Chinese government positions on the contested South China Sea issue contrary to the positions of his own opposition party and the Australian government. Australia’s close neighbor New Zealand has also been subjected to objectionable influence activities from the Chinese Party-state despite a much more muted government response. Moreover, at the February 2018 Munich Security Conference, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that China was “constantly trying to test and undermine the unity of the European Union (EU) through a policy of ‘sticks and carrots.’” He also assessed that Beijing was using its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) specifically to promote a system of values different from the West’s, one which is “not founded on freedom, democracy and individual human rights.” Some analysts have even argued that greater access to and potentially greater

China's future under Xi Jinping: challenges ahead

ABSTRACT No development in international politics is attracting as much attention as the emergence of China as a great power. But many questions and uncertainties attend China’s rise. What are the long-term goals of Chinese power? Does Beijing view the international system as fundamentally beneficial to its goals or as an impediment to them? Will China emerge as a more open, prosperous, just and sustainable society or less so? As China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping is the single-most powerful individual shaping his country’s answers to those questions. It is therefore important to illuminate and understand the forces which are likely to affect his thinking and his responses to them. With that in mind, this essay will delve into Xi’s background, his stated vision for China’s future and the challenges which confront that vision. From there, the essay concludes with an assessment of how these factors are likely to play out in Chinese domestic and foreign policy in the years ahead.

Trade Versus Security: How Countries Balance Technology Transfers with China

Apart from a short period in the 1980s, the Peoples Republic of China has been almost completely excluded from access to military and sensitive dual-use civilian-military technologies from the United States and its allies. But in an era of globalization and convergence in the civilian and military technological domains, this compartmentalization of the economic and security arenas has become increasingly difficult to maintain and justify. Major trading countries are caught in the dilemma of balancing restrictions on high technology and other sensitive trade and investment with China against the benefits of deeper ties with the worlds second-largest economy. In examining the trade-offs between economics and national security for the United States, the European Union, Israel, and Japan, it becomes clear that Chinas rise and growing economic and strategic influence introduce new complexities and challenges for controlling militarily relevant technology and knowledge transfers.