Inside China's Grand Strategy: The Perspective from the People's Republic

Introduction: Understanding a View from Beijing

Introduction Understanding a View from Beijing Guoli Liu and Steven I. Levine China’s rapid rise as a global economic power has resulted in its growing political influence and military capability. Scholars in the United States, Europe, and Japan have engaged in serious debates about China’s grand strategy and its implications.1 Apart from some China scholars and international relations experts, however, the outside world has not paid close attention to the academic analysis and policy debate about China’s emerging grand strategy inside China itself. There is little systematic scholarly analysis by Chinese scholars available in English.2 In order to answer the question “What does China think?”3 we need to pay close attention to what Chinese scholars have been arguing about China’s grand strategy. It is time to introduce to the English-speaking world important writings by Chinese scholars about China’s grand strategy. It is in this connection that we strongly recommend serious consideration of the key arguments in Inside China’s Grand Strategy. This is the first original, systematic, book-length analysis of China’s grand strategy by a leading Chinese scholar of international relations. The author, Ye Zicheng, is a professor of international politics in the School of International Studies of Peking University. He has written numerous influential books, including Opening to the Outside World and China’s Modernization (1997), Geopolitics and Chinese Diplomacy (1998), New China’s Diplomatic Thought (2001), China’s Diplomatic Thought during the Spring, 2 Guoli Liu and Steven I. Levine Autumn, and Warring States Periods (2003), and The Development of Land Rights and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers (2007).4 He is among the first Chinese scholars to advocate that China assume growing responsibility as an emerging great power.5 Among Chinese scholars, Ye Zicheng stands out as an original thinker and a rational analyst. He is among the first group of Chinese international relations scholars to emerge during the era of reform and opening. He entered the Department of International Politics at Peking University in 1978. At that time, Peking University was one of only three universities in China with a department of international relations.6 After completing his undergraduate and graduate studies, Ye joined the faculty of Peking University in 1985. When the Department of International Politics became the School of International Studies in 1996, he became the founding chair of the Department of Diplomacy. He is a leading scholar on international politics with an emphasis on Chinese foreign relations and diplomatic thought. This English edition of Inside China’s Grand Strategy is the result of long-term cooperation among several Chinese and U.S. scholars. In 2005, He Lin, Huang Mei, and Cao Hua completed the first-draft translation at Peking University. Guoli Liu did the preliminary editing of the manuscript . Then Steven I. Levine and Ronald N. Montaperto, U.S. scholars of Chinese foreign policy and international politics, assumed responsibility for editing the entire manuscript, including retranslating certain portions of the book to achieve greater clarity. The translation and editing process took five years. As coeditors, we were determined to be faithful to the original. We did not add anything to the manuscript. Keeping the interest of our readers in mind, and with Professor Ye’s consent, we deleted some less important or redundant parts of the Chinese version. It is our sincere hope that our editing will enhance the book’s readability without changing any key argument of the original. Our purpose is not to present our own views on China’s grand strategy or to take issue with any of Professor Ye’s arguments, facts, and analyses. This is his book and his voice. Our job as editors and translators has been to transmit that voice to English readers as faithfully as possible, no more and no less. We hope that readers will discover many thoughtful and interesting ideas in this important book. We would like to highlight a few of these ideas that we as editors found particularly interesting. In contrast to the popular notion in the West that China is an emerging superpower,7 Ye Introduction 3 argues that, while China has the potential to become a world power, it is not yet such a power. In his view, China suffers from the following shortcomings . First, it has not achieved complete national reunification. The issue of Taiwan is still a big drag on China’s...