Q&A to "Is Taiwan only the first step for China's expansionist ambition?"

There is a comment for my last article “Is Taiwan only the first step for China’s expansionist ambition?” which has reminded me that I haven’t provided enough context in the original series, and I should address it in a full article.

I already foresaw the challenge of explaining something which I can take for granted to people who have otherwise not experienced the same cultural and social setting, and who can only try to understand through words the ideas I wish to convey. However, it is impossible to fully replicate the experience through writing and reading. So, I need to be extra careful about wrapping my words with enough context and caveats.

A general disclaimer about “probability” and “relative probability”

The goal of the previous two installments in the “Noah Smith is clueless about China” series is an attempt to make a case that China does not like war. And, apart from the case of Taiwan, which does carry some risk of war (but not as high as imagined by many), the likelihood in modern times for China to go on an expansionist war is extremely small.

Now, did I say there is zero chance? No, I can’t guarantee that. Anything can happen. You can always make an argument that there is still a chance that one day, China want to expand beyond its stated borders.

All I can say is that the probability for that to happen is very, very small. Moreover, in relative terms, the chance for China to go to war over something is substantially smaller than, say, America in the same circumstances.

I think this large relative difference in how each side views war is crucial and is generally unrecognized, and the potential misreading of each other’s “war probability” may be the most dangerous problem we are facing.

For instance, there will be circumstances when the US side will believe China is preparing for war (while China is not), and the US could start triggering a war when, in fact, they don’t have to.

Likewise, there will be a time when the Chinese side will think certain events would not trigger a war response from the US, by simply assuming from China’s standpoint that China would not be triggered into a war in similar circumstances. But in fact, the US war machine is already triggered.

And this is what I am trying to do here. It’s not about that China is such a peace-loving dove, but that there are real differences in culture and historical reflexes that both US and China need to fully recognize in order to avoid a tragic, unnecessary misfire.

The comment

Now let’s read the comment first:

There are some really compelling points here Robert, and it's possible that you're right ... but I think some of your claims deserve a little more scrutiny.

"No Chinese leader would ever be able to explain to their people why the Iraq War was remotely necessary. No Chinese parents would ever allow their children to sacrifice for this unnecessary war." - Yet Chinese parents were powerless to stop the Cultural Revolution. Frankly, the record of 20th century China does not inspire confidence in the ability of the Chinese people to rein in a clearly crazy government.

"Come and spend a day, a week, or a month here and tell yourself: is there any trace of public messaging about Chinese people requiring some Lebensraum?" - Lebensraum? No. But the messaging that Taiwan is a renegade province, that Taiwan is an economically failing state or an American military base that must be "merged" with China, is everywhere. Just as Hitler telegraphed his plans for the Jews, the Chinese government has made little secret of its plans to absorb Taiwan, voluntarily or otherwise.

"Could it be that Xi Jinping is only hiding his true intentions, which he would only reveal at the last minute? This is utter nonsense, unattached to how politics operate." - And yet even now, it is a crime in Russia to claim that they are at "war" with Ukraine, rather than fighting a special military operation to de-Nazify Ukraine and defend ethnic Russians from persecution. Stalin did not give rousing speeches about the need to partition Poland. Japan did not warn the US about its plan to attack Pearl Harbour; Britain did not conduct referendums before allowing the East India Company to colonize India. History is absolutely full of wars with little public buy-in.

"When we choose war, it is when we absolutely have to, not because we believe war-making itself can lead to some morally righteous end in itself." - Was the occupation of Tibet a matter of crucial nation defence, something "you had to do?" Because many Chinese certainly see it in moral terms, a righteous campaign to liberate the Tibetans from feudalism. Were the invasion of Vietnam and the defence of North Korea issues of critical national defence, or ideological operations?

I think you lean a little heavily on ancient history, and gloss over the pretty shocking modern stuff. China has certainly advanced since the 60s, but it is not a democracy or a champion of human rights, and I don't think it's unreasonable to be wary of a clearly expansionist regime.

This comment has two big parts, and I will address them first.

#1 Taiwan

The first one is easier to argue. The commentator challenged my idea that before any military action, there will be ideological prep work for it. However, my essay was solely about whether China would have ambitions beyond Taiwan, which was the key argument that Noah Smith used to make the case that the US should defend Taiwan, because if China’s action is not thwarted, more will be at risk. Yet, I remind my readers that there isn’t any ideological conditioning for that, and it’s one of the reasons that China would not go beyond Taiwan.

The case of Taiwan itself, though, is a different matter. There is, as the commentator said, ample ideological preparation for the eventual reunification of Taiwan. In fact, there has been such preparation ever since 1949, the founding of the PRC. The PRC has never been ambiguous about this matter. This proves rather than disapproves my thesis: you should pay attention to what’s being said, rather than what’s imagined out of your own fears.

#2 The link between China’s domestic affairs and foreign ambitions

At the beginning and end of the comment, you can find the often-cited idea that because China does not have an inspiring social and political system, because that system is alien to the West, because that system is authoritarian, that lack of confidence in China’s internal politics leads many people to worry that China may be expansionist.

This automatic linkage between authoritarianism and expansionism can be seen everywhere in Western discourses. In many of Noah Smith’s writings, too, I can find this kind of argument that because China may not be very nice to its own citizens, it must be quite unkind to outsiders.

But I think this linkage is just imaginary.

A nation can well be authoritarian internally but peace-loving externally, just as a liberal democracy can be very aggressive militarily and engaged in military action almost every few years.

After all, authoritarianism is an internal way of organizing oneself. It looks inward, not necessarily outward. Of course, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin happened to be both authoritarian and expansionist. Expansionism is written into their agendas from the very beginning. But Francisco Franco and Pinochet were authoritarian but not expansionist.

In the case of China, our system is authoritarian (or patriarchal), but decidedly not expansionist. Sometimes, I think the Western intellgentsia has often projected their own worst fear - the fear total loss of liberty under an authoritarian system - onto China to extrapolate that China will extend its not-so-inspiring governance model to other people. In fact, we worry too much about internal disorders to care about others, and we are not interested in converting others into our way of life at all. (There was projection of another kind of fear, a fear of other people repeating the same crimes Western predecessors did. They assumed that since the West rose through colonialism and plunder, then China probably will repeat the same path.)

The commentator mentioned the Cultural Revolution in the comments. I actually do have a real fear that the Cultural Revolution or variants of it may happen again and again in our history. Our national memory has a very strong anti-establishment strain that may be awakened every now and then. What happened to China’s richest man last year was a stark reminder of it.

But even if I have such fears, I don’t doubt China’s lack of expansionism. Look, even during the worst nightmare of the Cultural Revolution, China never invaded others, did we? We inflict too much pain onto ourselves, but seldom are we interested in other people.

#3 The rest for history nerds

For the rest of the article, you may stop reading now if you do not nerd about history as much as I do. I will just respond to some small details mentioned in that comment.

Was the occupation of Tibet a matter of crucial nation defence, something "you had to do?" Because many Chinese certainly see it in moral terms, a righteous campaign to liberate the Tibetans from feudalism.

As I explained, absorbing Tibet was seen by China as inheriting something that China thought it was legally bestowed with. That “China” was at first the Republic of China, which later fled to Taiwan, and then later the People’s Republic of China, the current government in Beijing.

There was also a national security aspect there too. The outer limits of the Qing Dynasty marked the farthest geographical extent that China could expand to, but also marked a natural line of defense to protect against foreign invasions. Had China not taken a firm position in Tibet, it would fall under the influence of the British Empire and, later, India. Likewise, had China not taken a firm position in Xinjiang, that region would fall under the control of Russia/the Soviet Union. Because China did fail to take a firm stance in Mongolia, that country indeed became a vassal state to the Soviet Union.

These landlocked regions, sandwiched between great powers, have no real chance to be independent. It’s an us or them situation.

Were the invasion of Vietnam and the defence of North Korea issues of critical national defence, or ideological operations?

The 1979 Sino-Vietnam war, as I explained, was a highly strategic move to send a warning to the Soviet Union-Vietnam alliance and also Deng’s way to show our support (loyalty?) to America.

The defense of North Korea (which was a very controversial decision in China) was a highly critical national security matter.

At some point in my life, I also didn’t think it was necessary for China to join the Korean War. But later, I realized it’s not just about safeguarding national security against the US, but also (and even more so) against the Soviet Union: had the Chinese not fought bravely in the Korean Penninsula, the Soviets would not have withdrawn their military bases from Northeast China, and China risked forever becoming a vassal to the Soviet Union, which was a very dangerous proposition.

Also, please note that China didn’t join that war in the beginning. In fact, Kim Il Sung didn’t even tell China beforehand about this war. (He did tell Stalin, Kim’s real boss, about it, though.) The reason he didn’t tell Mao was because he knew he would be rejected right away.

It was only until the North Koreans were all but defeated and Americans pushed to the border that Mao decided on a war. In the fog of war, the judgment was made that if North Korea had been totally out of the picture, it would be a nightmare. Maybe the Taiwan-based KMT could use that same border to launch an invasion later. After all, the civil war on the Chinese mainland ended barely 1 year before, and Chiang Kai-shek was clamoring to retake the Mainland, this time with the full backing of the American military. China could have been on the verge of an even bloodier civil war.

Still, when the Korean War ended, no Chinese troops were stationed in North Korea, unlike the US troops in South Korea.

We just don’t like fighting wars for other people.

History is absolutely full of wars with little public buy-in.

And yet even now, it is a crime in Russia to claim that they are at "war" with Ukraine, rather than fighting a special military operation to de-Nazify Ukraine and defend ethnic Russians from persecution.

The Ukraine war is stupid. But the Russians were never equivocal about their intentions. They took back Crimea in 2014 and sponsored fighting in Donbas ever since then. I don’t read Russian, but I don’t think it’s plausible that pre-2022, people in Russia didn’t openly talk about absorbing Donetsk and Luhansk, traditionally Russian-speaking regions that were given to Ukraine by Khrushchev during Soviet time. It’s just that instead of formulating a strategy to take these regions, Putin made a bigger gamble to launch an all-out war, and he failed in that gamble.

Stalin did not give rousing speeches about the need to partition Poland.

Poland was part of the Russian Empire, too. Poland and the Soviets had a war between 1919 and 1921. I doubt there was “little public buy-in” when the partition happened.

Japan did not warn the US about its plan to attack Pearl Harbour;

Not for Pearl Harbour, for sure, as nobody then would dare to think that Japan had the guts to attack the USA (classic underestimation of Asians). But, no one at the time doubted Japan was a real expansionist monster. In 1931 they took Manchuria, by the time of the Pearl Harbour they already occupied all of China’s coastal regions and more than half of China Proper. They were loud about wars and were only radio silent on Pearl Harbour for the sake of stealth.

Britain did not conduct referendums before allowing the East India Company to colonize India.

They don’t need a referendum. The interests of the merchant-capitalist class is the core of Britain’s parliament.