China's Threat Environment

1 Jin Dexiang, `The World in [the] 1990s: More Unrest, More Turmoil Ahead?', Contemporary International Relations, no. 6 (February 1991), p. 1.

2 A good summary of these is `China's Territorial Disputes', Current History, September 1993, p. 248.

3 Interviews in Beijing, October 1995. Some Chinese strategists take the view that Russia represents the most serious threat to China, but this is a minority position.

4 Qimao Chen, `New Approaches to Chinese Foreign Policy', Asian Survey, vol. 33, no. 3 (March 1993), p. 238.

5 A common phrase lately is that the USA's' abilities very often fall short of its ambitions', as in `Ren Jianxin's Speech at the National Conference on Political-Legal Work (December 21, 1993)', Issues & Studies, vol. 31, no. 1 (January 1995), p. 104.

6 This summary of Chinese views on Japan is based on a synthesis of interviews I conducted in Beijing in October 1995. My findings are consistent with those of other China-watchers. See, for example, Harlan W. Jencks, `The PRC's Military and Security Policy in the Post-Cold War Era', Issues & Studies, vol. 30, no. 11 (November 1994), p. 67; and Bonnie S. Glaser, `China's Security Perceptions: Interests and Ambitions', Asian Survey, vol. 33, no. 3 (March 1993), pp. 257-258.

7 Shi Ze, `Changes in Russia's Strategic Position in the Asia-Pacific Region and Their Impact', International Studies, no. 2 (1995), p. 1.

8 J. Mohan Malik, `China-India Relations in the Post-Soviet Era: The Continuing Rivalry', China Quarterly, no. 142 (June 1995), p. 330.

9 Jun Zhan, `China Goes to the Blue Waters: The Navy, Seapower Mentality and the South China Sea', The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1994), p. 197.

10 Members of the Chinese media have called ROC President Lee Teng-hui `a marionette' and `a pawn' of the United States. Hua Ji, 'A Marionette in U.S. Double-Faced Policy', Renmin Ribao, 11 June 1995, p. 2; FBIS, China, 95-114, 14 June, 1995, p. 6.

11 Yan Xuetong, a senior scholar at the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations, writes, `activities of the separatists in Taiwan have provided excuses to the separatists of the ethnic minority groups in the mainland, and would thus possibly bring about a domino effect'. See `China's Post-Cold War Security Strategy', Contemporary International Relations, vol. 5, no. 5 (May 1995), p. 3.

12 Gerald Segal, `China Changes Shape: Regionalism and Foreign Policy', Adelphi Paper No. 287, International Institute for Strategic Studies, March 1994, pp. 4, 43.

13 See also David Shambaugh, `Growing Strong: China's Challenge to East Asian Security', Survival, vol. 36, no. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 46.

14 For an example of this argument, see Wang Renzhi, `Opposition to Bourgeois Liberalization', Beijing Review, 23-29 April 1990, pp. 19-20.

15 This is a common theme, but this particular quotation is from Chen Yeping, `Understand the Macroclimate and Nurture the Microclimate', Sixiang Zhengzhi Gongzuo Yanjiu, no. 11, 8 November 1991, pp. 6-7; JPRS-CAR, 92-015, 18 March 1992, p. 4.

16 Gao Qixiang, `Intensify Party Construction to Resist Peaceful Evolution', Xuexi Yu Yanjiu, no. 11, 5 November 1991, pp. 6-8; JPRS-CAR, 92-015, 18 March 1992, p. 9.

17 Zhou Bo, `Opening Up to the Outside World and Patriotism', Wen Hui Bao (Shanghai), 19 February 1993, p. 6; JPRS-CAR, 93-029, 6 May 1993, p. 4.