A New China Strategy: The Challenge

The People's Republic of China has been in the news this year for a number of disturbing reasons. It has mounted muscular military actions to back its diplomacy regarding Taiwan and the South China Sea, allegedly transferred m-11 missile technology to Pakistan, sold nuclear technology to Iran, conducted nuclear weapons tests, and augmented its military budget when most other countries have been cutting back in the wake of the Cold War. It has continued the repression of political dissidents, displayed gross insensitivity in its handling of the U.N.-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women and Nongovernmental Organization Forum, and become a prickly interlocutor at many international negotiations. One of the most important issues now confronting Asia is how an increasingly strong China will act in the region.

Beijing recognizes the importance of expanding its economic links with the rest of the world. The People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) has sustained very rapid economic growth: since 1978, the per capita GDP of more than one-fifth of the globe's population has roughly quadrupled. China's foreign trade grew more than 16 percent per year from 1978 to 1994, with imports exceeding exports for all but six of those years. Concurrently, it has overseen huge changes in its economy, social development, and political dynamics.

These domestic changes, generally welcomed abroad, have nurtured many of the problems that now cause concern. They have vastly reduced the compliance of the country's officials with Beijing's directives, making it difficult for China's leaders to implement international agreements they have signed on such issues as intellectual property rights, and they have made the military a far stronger domestic player, with potentially worrisome consequences abroad. They have undermined faith in communism, and China's leaders have turned to nationalism to tighten discipline and maintain support. Most important, these changes have strengthened the P.R.C. to such an extent that it is becoming a major regional and global actor.