Is China a Cautious Bully?

To the Editors (Tongfi Kim writes):

Ketian Zhang’s article is an important contribution to the literature on Chinese foreign policy and coercive diplomacy. Her research design, however, is not best suited to demonstrate the key findings of her study: China is a cautious bully; it employs coercion only infrequently; and as it grows stronger, it uses military coercion less often.¹ For reasons discussed below, it is premature to conclude that China’s “decisions about when to pursue coercion and which tools to use cannot be explained by focusing on material capabilities” (p. 119).

First, Zhang’s decision to develop “a theory of coercion. . . in response to national security threats” means that every instance of coercion discussed in the article is a result of China’s failed deterrence against a challenge from another state (p. 119). Zhang mentions but does not analyze cases of proactive coercion; therefore, her findings about Chinese coercion apply only to China’s reactions to what Beijing considers to be provocations. A bully can get what it wants by using brute force or proactive coercion, but Zhang chooses to exclude these aspects from her analysis—for example, China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea (pp. 133–134). If, without provocation, China were to occupy disputed maritime features or to threaten a military attack to expel other disputants, Zhang’s operationalization would exclude this action from her analysis because it would be considered brute force or proactive coercion.

Second, Zhang argues that “China has not used brute force in any of its territorial disputes in the South China Sea” since the 1990s, but I disagree with her use of the term “brute force” (p. 134). Indeed, China has refrained from using military violence since the 1990s in the South China Sea, whereas it fought against South Vietnam in 1974 and against Vietnam in 1988. Nevertheless, I argue that China has continued to use brute force, because scholars who study the use of coercion should distinguish brute force from coercion according to its purpose; in Thomas Schelling’s words, whose work Zhang extensively cites, there “is a difference between taking what you want and making someone give it to you.”² China took control of the Scarborough Shoal in 2012 and has been engaged in island-building and base-construction activities in the South China Sea, not so much to threaten or inflict punishment (coercion), but to get its way (brute force).³

Third, Zhang claims that “when... [China] . . . becomes stronger, it uses military coercion less often, instead resorting to mostly nonmilitarized tools,” but this finding seems to be a product of her operationalization of key variables (p. 119). Other things being equal, a state is less likely to engage in reactive coercion as it becomes stronger and its general deterrence increases in effectiveness. Moreover, because Zhang distinguishes military coercion from gray-zone coercion by focusing on which instruments of physical violence China employs (pp. 121–122), she places similar maritime activities by the Chinese navy in the 1990s and by nonmilitary Chinese government agencies since 2007 in starker contrast than is warranted.⁴ A simple explanation for the trend Zhang observes is that China no longer needs to rely on its navy to repel other claimants’ vessels because China’s nonmilitary government agencies have increased their maritime capacity.⁵

Finally, Zhang overlooks a consequence of China’s increasing economic power for disputes in the South China Sea. ASEAN’s trade dependence on China was low in the period when China used military coercion. The improved efficacy of China’s diplomatic and economic sanctions resulting from its increased material capability explains the government’s recent inclination to use nonmilitarized coercion. Thus, China’s rising material capabilities have played an important role in its use of coercion and brute force in the South China Sea.

—Tongfi Kim
Brussels, Belgium

To the Editors (Andrew Taffer writes):

In “Cautious Bully,” Ketian Zhang argues that China is “more likely to use coercion when the need to establish a reputation for resolve is high and the economic cost is low.”¹ While...