Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Project Air Force Report,) [Paperback]

Michael D. Swaine (Author), Ashley J. Tellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0833027670 | ISBN-13: 978-0833027672 | Edition: 1ST

RAND Asian experts Swaine and Tellis have chosen one of the most significant, controversial, and timely subjects, breaking new ground conceptually as well as analytically.

Editorial Reviews

Review

By going beyond the narrow contemporary perspective and locating their discussions of China's grand strategy in a meta-historical analytical context, Swaine and Tellis undoubtedly make a major contribution to our understanding of China's current strategic behavior...particularly at a time when China's international relations community and policy establishment are in search of China's grand strategy in the post-Cold War international context. Even more importantly, Swaine and Tellis have opened a wider space for discussion of the idea of history in strategic and security studies, and more broadly in international relations.
Yongjin Zhang


This is an impressive work. It sets out China's grand strategy as manifest in the entire sweep of history, from the Han Dynasty to fifty years of the People's Republic...This is an excellent introduction to China's past as precedent to present and prospective foreign policies.
Allen S. Whiting


Michael Swaine, author of the outstanding The Military & Political Succession in China (1992), and his fellow RAND analyst Ashley Tellis have written a very good book about Chinese security in both historical and future perspective. It will certainly be of interest to the policy community, as it should be to all who work on Asian security...an impressive study of China's grand strategy, and it is worthy of serious examination.
Naval War College Review


A sober and useful review of Chinese strategy.
Foreign Affairs


Swaine and Tellis have written a well-balanced book which merits reading well beyond the circle of those interested in US-China security policies.
New Delhi World Affairs

From the Publisher

This study identifies and analyzes the major factors determiningChina's grand strategy past, present, and future to better understandthe motivations behind Chinese strategic behavior and to assesshow such behavior might evolve in the future, over both the nearand long term. The ultimate purpose of such analysis is to moreclearly understand whether, and in what manner, China's grandstrategy might pose fundamental challenges to U.S. strategic interests.The study was conducted as part of a larger, multiyear project onChinese Defense Modernization and Its Implications for the U.S. AirForce. Other RAND reports from this project include:Mark Burles, Chinese Policy Toward Russia and the Central AsianRepublics, MR-1045-AF, 1999.Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Abram N. Shulsky, Daniel L. Byman, RogerCliff, David T. Orletsky, David Shlapak, and Ashley J. Tellis, TheUnited States and a Rising China: Strategic and MilitaryImplications, MR-1082-AF, 1999.Mark Burles and Abram N. Shulsky, Patterns in China's Use ofForce: Evidence from History and Doctrinal Writings, MR-1160-AF, 2000.This project is conducted in the Strategy and Doctrine Program ofProject AIR FORCE and was sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Stafffor Air and Space Operations, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force (AF/XO),and the Director, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force (AF/XOI). Comments are welcome and may be directed to the authors or to the project leader, Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Rand Publishing; 1ST edition (March 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0833027670
• ISBN-13: 978-0833027672
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,536,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Conservative, Repetitive, and Narrow but Informative, December 2, 2003

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This review is from: Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Project Air Force Report,) (Paperback)

Interpreting China's Grand Strategy is a book about both the history and future of Chinese economic, political and territorial security. Historically, Chinese security seems to be predicated upon cycles of expansion and contraction of Chinese territory as a causal result of the administrative strength or weakness of the presiding imperial bureaucracy. The future of Chinese security, however, relies more heavily upon a variety of factors including a continued expansion of economic growth, military refinement and technological advances, continued foreign/external infrastructure investment, accelerated involvement in international political affairs and economic activities, and finally, the general acceptance of China as an emerging world power. While these conditions present a relatively unambiguous foundation for China's ascent to global preponderance, the venues by which China will utilize these probable resources remains unclear. Will there be a re-emergence of the historical "weak-strong" strategy? Might a continuation of the "calculative" strategy outlined by the authors prevail? Or will China eventually pursue the "assertive" strategy historically adopted by rising powers seeking global hegemony?

The central question of China's security strategy mentioned above represents the core issue confronting U.S. policy makers. The authors assert clearly that regardless of the strategy eventually employed by China, the emergence of the PRC as a global power directly threatens U.S. strategic objectives to remain the world's only superpower. In this sense, the U.S. has a critical interest in influencing the means by which China seeks to achieve its economic, political, and security-related ends. The authors offer a "cooperative" strategy for China that should be encouraged by the U.S. both to facilitate yet also limit China's strategic goals.

Considering the historical, cultural, and economic evidence presented in the text, there seemed to be a lack of attention to the significance of resource limitations in determining the future strategies, and subsequent outcomes of China's pursuit of national interests. China's large population, increasing environmental degradation, decreasing availability of arable land and growing dependence on both energy and raw material imports constitute a basic yet immense hindrance to China's goal of achieving the type of industrial and economic development necessary for its emergence as a world power. The "cooperative" strategy fails to address this underlying problem of actual resources available to facilitate the development of China towards an affluent, powerful, and fully modernized society to which it aspires. Can the Earth sustain yet another industrialized and consumption-based economy in a country with a population nearly four times that of the U.S.? Are Americans and other Westernized countries willing to relinquish some of the standard of living increases made in the past few decades to meet the growing resource demands of such international development? These types of conflicts of interests combined with the reality of finite resources threaten to undermine the fundamental premises of the "cooperative" strategy of shared economic prosperity. Ultimately, it is this type of international resource inequality and probable related conflicts that will eventually undermine the goals of all nations with an interest in peace and security.