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China's Strategic Culture

Q: I have read (in Iain Johnston's Cultural Realism, p30) that the strategic culture of China is based on a parabellum or "hard Realpolitik" worldview, which sees violence as efficacious, and regards all conflicts as zero-sum games. This conclusion comes out of a seemingly very thorough analysis of the Seven Military Classics. Is it sound?

A: It's a useful corrective to some romantic notions of intrinsic Chinese pacifism, but no, it's not strictly sound either for the Classical period or for later.

Johnston's analysis of the Military Classics (several of them dating from the Classical period) has its interest. But it forces the point. It leaves the Sundz until last, in order to establish the views of the later and tougher military texts as the norm for China. It then tries to argue away the Sundz. That should make the reader wonder, since the Sundz is the oldest of these texts, and it is also the most esteemed in later military tradition. It seems that there are different stretegic doctrines, and that the Sundz represents the most commonly preferred of those doctrines.

The Sundz (04c) shows a strong sense of tactical frugality. It prefers winning without battle to actually engaging in battle. It is the military doctrine of a resource-poor state. But as time passed, moving closer to the final Chin conquest and the beginning of the Empire (03c), and as the resources available to the Warring States became greater, the emphasis was indeed placed on winning at all costs; war became more absolute. The same escalation can be seen in the defensive war treatises written in this period by the Mician anti-war group. By steps, the defenders go to extreme lengths just like the attackers. Each battle becomes the last battle, without regard for the more distant future.

After 0221, however, theory makes another turnabout, and conciliation rather than conflict comes to be emphasized by at least some political philosophers. In Han, there were two parties at court, one favoring amicable terms of coexistence with the Syungnu peoples of the steppe, and the other favoring aggressive war against them. So also in Tang and Sung, there were war factions and peace factions. The bottom line is that any statement about "China" is bound to be too simple. China at all periods is more complex than one sentence can describe.

Whether emphasizing battles or diplomacy, Chinese political theory over the years does have a certain character. In that character is the real answer to the question. One of its features is strategic patience. Waiting for the right moment, waiting for situations to develop. A year, twenty years, the next generation, it doesn't matter. The other feature is that the Chinese worldview doesn't readily tolerate the idea of more than one way of life "under the sky." Aliens who adopt Chinese ways are accepted in China. China can tolerate other people, provided they become Chinese. This was a problem for early diplomacy: the British expected negotiations among equals; the Chinese demanded gestures of recognition that they were the central authority.

And the other constant is that China does consider that it is the only country in the world, the natural source of cultural and political authority "everywhere Under Heaven." Add that to nuclear capability and the largest army on the planet, and what have you got?

These constants certainly justify a posture of concern about Chinese strategic capabilities in the present world. In the end, then, we come down to agreeing with the general thrust of Iain's conclusion, even if we find that it is overargued in the Classical period, and that it ignores internal policy differences then and later.

14 Mar 2004 / Contact The Project / Exit to Implications Page