Geostrategic Construct
Geostrategic Construct
Chinese Perspectives on the “Indo-Pacific”, From Mao to Xi Jing Ping, A reflection on U.S. and China-U.S. ties.
Chinese Perspectives on the “Indo-Pacific” as a Geostrategic Construct
By Elliot S. Ji (Mapping China’s Strategic Space)
The geopolitical significance of the Pacific and Indian Oceans has been a prominent issue in the Chinese political and diplomatic discourse. In 2013, Xi Jinping called on leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting to “firmly move toward the goal of constructing a common destiny of the Asia-Pacific,” a vision he has since advocated for repeatedly during diplomatic engagements with APEC state leaders.
With the concept of the “Indo-Pacific,” the geopolitical chessboard of Asia is expanded to highlight the connection between the two oceans, fusing the region into a single geopolitical framework that encompasses multilateral security partnerships, economic and trade integration, and a structure of strategic competition for regional players to balance each other’s influence.
China’s strategic community of policy experts, including those closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) foreign policy organs and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have extensively analyzed the significance of the Indo-Pacific. Many leading Chinese experts at the time suspected that this concept of Indo-Pacific, which shifted from “Asia-Pacific” to highlight the geostrategic value of the Indian Ocean, would quickly gain traction in the foreign policy of its geopolitical rivals and their close allies, creating new security challenges for China. Over the past decade, the Chinese strategic community has perceived this concept as a geostrategic response to China’s rise—a foreign policy instrument through which the United States, its allies, and partners can shape the security environment around China in their favor. Given the security and economic importance of the region, examining how Chinese strategists understand the Indo-Pacific as a geopolitically competitive space lends essential insight into how China perceives its strategic priorities in the context of security competition with regional countries.
Drivers of the Shift: The Geopolitical Significance of the Indian Ocean
Following then prime minister Shinzo Abe’s speech to the Indian parliament in 2007, the concept of Indo-Pacific gradually gained significance in Japanese and Australian strategic discourse. After Abe’s speech, Chinese strategic thinkers occasionally referred to the new “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept. Still, they did not immediately consider Japan’s goal to bring about the Indo-Pacific concept.2 The geopolitical assessment of connecting the Indian Ocean to Asia’s political landscape came a few years later when the United States began referring to the same concept in the early 2010s. Four drivers stood out in several oft-cited papers by well-connected Chinese scholars: (1) the shifting strategic center of gravity to the East, (2) the growing military and economic importance of the Indian Ocean, (3) the United States’ strategic demand to maintain influence in the Pacific, and (4) regional countries’ pursuit of elevated status through U.S. support.
In a 2013 article, Zhao Qinghai of the China Institute of International Studies, a research institute directly governed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the “strategic center of gravity” (shijie zhanlue zhongxin) is moving to the East because of the vital economic importance of the Indo-Pacific region, which serves as the “powerhouse of the global economy.” Zhao further noted that in terms of geopolitics, the Indo-Pacific has nine of the ten largest ports and seven of the ten largest militaries, making it an unusually dynamic and intricate security environment. The geography would allow a rising India to project its military power to the region by collaborating with Western countries that seek to use India to balance against China’s maritime expansion.
Liu Zongyi of another state-sponsored think tank, the Shanghai Institute of Imnternational Studies, similarly noted that India is in a naturally advantaged position to leverage the vital geopolitical importance of the Indian Ocean. Two-thirds of the world’s maritime oil transport flows through the Indian Ocean, which holds several maritime chokepoints, including the Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, and the Bab al-Mandab.
Wu Zhaoli at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences also argued that the Indian Ocean “has already been incorporated in the grand strategic thinking of the traditional East Asian states,” citing their dependence on imported oil.6 As a result, the growth of Chinese and Indian naval power and the expansion of the two countries’ maritime interests resulted in an “intensifying strategic competition that drives the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as a connected body.”
Given the geostrategic importance of the Indian Ocean, Chinese strategists are concerned that the emergence of the concept would reinforce U.S. power in the region. They believe that this construct would enhance the U.S. strategic position in the region through minilateral security cooperation and regional economic integration with liberal economies, particularly India and Australia. By boosting India’s prominence in the western Pacific through security cooperation like the Quad (comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States), the United States could fulfill the need to create its “strategic space” and defend against China.
Furthermore, Chinese experts pointed out that the shift to the Indo-Pacific framework serves the interests of regional U.S. partners. By highlighting their geopolitical positions to the United States, these countries can “elevate their status” in the region and “tie the United States down” in the Indo-Pacific for a long-term security guarantee. Australia, for instance, actively promoted the Indo-Pacific framework to signal its geostrategic importance to U.S. interests in exchange for continued U.S. security assistance to counter Chinese influence.
Therefore, from the Chinese point of view, the “Indo-Pacific project” is partly driven by individual state interests that can be advanced by locking in U.S. involvement in the region. Note that the “individual state interests” do not necessarily align with the United States’ strategic priorities and could change over time. This could be the perceptual underpinning of China’s confidence in employing a “wedging” strategy to separate U.S. allies and partners.
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NB: Elliot S. Ji is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.
From Mao to Xi Jing Ping
By Ling LI (University of Vienna)
It was more than six decades ago that the term ‘organisational weapon’ was first coined, by the late professor Phillip Selznick, and presented in the book title of his study of Bolshevik strategy and tactics. Considered as a ‘weapon’ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was its modus operandi, driven by the desires of power-seizure and societal transformation.
Labelling it as a ‘combat party’, Selznick asserted that the communist party, guided by its ideology, set out to seize power not through a traditional revolutionary approach, such as overthrowing a ruler through a popular uprising or a military coup, but through institutional subversion. The instrument to accomplish this was the organisation of the communist party, an organisation comprising an elite of reliable agents who were skilfully trained, thoroughly indoctrinated and rigidly disciplined to carry out whatever mission given to them. Through the activities of these agents, the communist party could progressively develop a network of power in a targeted society from the bottom up, by infiltrating established institutions and groups, neutralising oppositions and gaining control over positions of power in these establishments, and to ready itself to displace the constitutional authority of the state when the time came to do so.
Although written in 1952, long after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the image of communist party conveyed by Selznick in his book is static and incomplete. Relying on Leninist literature and reports of activities from underground communist parties in the United States, Great Britain, China and Germany in the first-half of the 20th century, Selznick’s focus was limited to the very early phase of developments of communist parties, i.e. prior to their successful seizure of power. This narrow focus produced an incisive explanation of the mode of operation (or modus operandi) of the revolutionary communist parties at their inceptive stage but not of the established communist parties when their power has been secured.
This gap prevents a more complete understanding of the operation of the community party because the party’s goals are diametrically opposite at these two stages: one is to subvert power (at the inceptive stage) and the other is to retain power (at the established stage). In this chapter, I focus on the ‘organisational weapon’ of the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) and analyse how the Party uses administrative arrangements and manipulations to preserve its political monopoly and control over the Chinese state. To this end, I use the evolvement of the Party’s disciplinary regime from the Mao to the Xi as an example and the empirical basis for my analysis. Moreover, with this exercise, I also intend to draw attention to the distinctions between one type of single-party state and another, not based on the substances of their policies and programs but on how they operate.
The rest of this chapter is organised in two parts. Part I discusses the conceptual qualities of the mode of operation of China’s Party-state from a comparative perspective. Part II involves two tasks. The first is to conduct a historical analysis of the evolution, in terms of its mode of operation, of the Party-state’s disciplinary regime from 1949 till present. The second task is to use this historical analysis to contextualise and highlight the significance of Xi Jinping’s institutional reform related to the National Supervision Commission.
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Da Wei's reflection on U.S. and China-U.S. ties
By Ziluan Zeng and Yuxuan Jia
On April 24, 2024, 达巍 Da Wei, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) and a Professor at the Department of International Relations, School of Social Science, Tsinghua University, gave a lecture at the Renmin University of China (RUC). He reflected on his recent visits to the U.S., emphasizing the importance of on-site research for scholars and students in Area Studies.
Since the easing of the China zero-COVID policy in early 2023, Da has made several trips to the U.S., including visits from late July to early August 2023. From early January to late March 2024, he served as a Visiting Scholar, China Policy Fellow, at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) of the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University
Da's main points include:
The United States and its allies have solidified their strategic competition with China, and a competitive dynamic now defines Sino-U.S. relations. The U.S. perception of China has become entrenched across its various sectors. There is a prevalent misconception in the United States about China's strategic intentions, but communication or clarifying misunderstandings is not going to fix it.
The current stability in Sino-U.S. relations is precarious and potentially unsustainable because of its weak foundation and the unpredictability of U.S. elections. Taiwan, Ukraine, overcapacity, and the South China Sea present significant risks.
American society and economy remain robust. Compared with China, the U.S. has a relatively high tolerance for social upheaval. The U.S. continues to lead in critical areas such as artificial intelligence and higher education.
American society is adjusting to "a life without China." Even though China has reopened its borders post-pandemic, the response from American companies and students has been tepid.
China must ensure that its policy-making is not overly influenced by the competitive dynamics with the U.S. China must recognize that it is almost impossible for the United States to "win a competition" against China if China avoids internal mistakes.
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