Every two years, Beijing issues a defense white paper assessing its national security environment and describing the ongoing modernization of China's military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). And every two years, U.S. defense analysts are disappointed by just how little useful information it contains.
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The latest offering, "The Diversified Employment of China's Armed Forces," released in mid-April, does provide some new details on the roles, organization, and size of the PLA and its paramilitary force, the People's Armed Police. Building on the previous seven editions, the report also describes the widening scope of Chinese military missions as well as China's growing ability to protect those interests overseas. But mostly the paper regurgitates propagandistic platitudes and pre-existing material.
What the 2013 white paper does show is a China deeply concerned about the "pivot" to Asia by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. China is facing a "volatile security situation," it reads, in part because U.S. rebalancing is sabotaging regional stability. Although the document innocuously notes that the United States is "adjusting its Asia-Pacific security strategy," it goes on to suggest: "Some country [read: the United States] has strengthened its Asia-Pacific military alliances, expanded its military presence in the region, and frequently makes the situation there tenser."
This argument is frequently heard in China and regularly devolves into conspiracy theories about how Washington has been pushing and prodding its allies to challenge Beijing. Senior Chinese officials claim, even in private, that the United States masterminded a number of actions against China in the region, including Burma's September 2011 suspension of the corruption-ridden Chinese-sponsored Myitsone Dam project; the Philippines' April 2012 decision to detain illegal Chinese fishermen near Scarborough Shoal, which both countries claim; and the former Tokyo governor's April 2012 announcement that he intended to purchase three Senkaku Islands, which the Chinese claim as their own and call the Diaoyu Islands, from a private Japanese citizen.
In October, Chen Jian, a former Chinese ambassador to Japan, told a Hong Kong audience that many Chinese viewed the Senkaku dispute as "a time bomb planted by the U.S. between China and Japan." The purpose of this "bomb," or so the narrative goes, is to draw the U.S. military deeper into the region's security affairs, preserving U.S. preeminence by constraining China's rise.
Alas, this argument runs counter to both reality and U.S. strategy. The United States has de-escalated tensions by responding to crises in the South China and East China seas with intense, high-level U.S. diplomacy. U.S. policymakers know that it is counterproductive for the United States to ignite regional crises, which are bad for business and unnecessarily complicate relations with Beijing. Most components of the U.S. rebalancing -- from enhanced security cooperation to increased trade ties to greater engagement with regional institutions -- would suffer from a more fractured Asia. This is one of the main reasons that ensuring stable U.S.-China relations is central to the overall strategy.
For the sake of argument, let's assume the white paper's accusations reflect a more nuanced Chinese position that renewed U.S. engagement in Asia emboldens U.S. allies to take actions they would not do otherwise. As Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University's School of International Studies in Beijing, said in September 2012, "Japan would not have been so aggressive without the support and actions of the U.S."
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