Imperialism with Chinese Characteristics. Reading and Re-Reading China's 2006 Defense White Paper

摘要

China s current Grand Strategy has been described as a transitional strategy designed to guide China through the coming years as the international system transitions from one of unipolarity to one of multipolarity. We cannot know with certainty to what new strategy China will transition at the end of that process. However, I believe we can infer that new strategy from China s new defense policy (designed to support China s foreign and economic policies in the future) revealed in China s 2006 Defense White Paper. The paper you are reading argues that China s 2006 Defense White Paper not only explains the importance of China s continuing military buildup but also lays the theoretical foundation of a new defense policy that seems to amount to nothing less than imperialism. It further argues that this change in policy has been brought about primarily by real changes in China s state interests. These changes have been brought about by China s having entered a new era/stage of development that entails a new relationship to the outside world. This explanation will resolve the seeming paradox that as China s comprehensive national strength continues to increase and as the military threat to China continues to decrease China feels such a powerful need not only to continue but to accelerate the world s largest and most comprehensive military modernization. This paradox is occurring as the international system accelerates toward real multipolarity, as the recent financial crisis in the United States has ordained an eventual decrease in its military budget and lessening of its global influence, and as China seems to skate through the recent international financial crisis.