By Chen Zhou
The Chinese Government issued a White Paper on the
country's national defense on December 29, the fifth since
1998.
The paper primarily deals with changes taking place in the
international security field over the last couple of years, offers
new content to China's national defense policy, and gives an
account of the new developments in the defense sector.
It has three salient features. First, it mirrors the principles
by which China's national defense is purported to serve the
country's peaceful development. Second, it underlines the guiding
role played by the scientific outlook of development in the defense
policy in the new century. Third, it tries to increase the
transparency of the country's defense policy and strategic
objectives.
There are also some new highlights in the paper such as the
chapters dealing with the national defense administration system,
the People's Liberation Army, the People's Armed Police Forces and
border and coastal defense. In addition, the defense budget is
fleshed out in an independent chapter. In previous White
Papers, the budget was merely a part of a chapter. The White
Paper states that China is pursuing a self-defensive nuclear
strategy and that it remains firmly committed to the policy of no
first use of nuclear weapons at any time or under any
circumstances.
Apart from the principle of self-defense, the country also
sticks to the principle of limited development of its nuclear
arsenal, in an effort to maintain a nuclear deterrent force that
meets the country's national security needs.
The paper also unveils the three-phase development strategy for
the country's defense and armed forces. Much spade work in this
respect is supposed to be done by 2010. By the year 2020,
significant progress should be made in this regard. The strategic
objectives of bringing about an information-age army to win wars in
this era should be basically fulfilled by mid-century.
The White Paper contains many new ideas and concepts.
For example, the Chinese armed forces are supposed to heighten
their capabilities of handling crises, safeguarding peace, holding
war in check and winning the wars if necessary. The military
strategy is orientated to forestalling crises, defusing crises and
preventing conflicts and wars from breaking out as well as winning
local wars, if necessary, in the information age.
The paper displays the Chinese Government's judgment on global
and Asian-Pacific security. For example, the document states that
world peace and security are facing larger opportunities than
challenges; that the international community is presented with
security threats that are increasingly connected to one another,
becoming more diverse in form and more complicated; that the
world's military competition, characterized by the extensive
application of information technology, is becoming intensified. All
this best mirrors the Chinese Government's basic outlook on the
international security situation.
Also, the document analyzes China's own security situation. On
the one hand, it makes clear that the overall security environment
is good, which finds expression in the country's steady
development, the rise of its overall national strength, progress in
its relations with other countries and the positive changes taking
place in the across-the-Taiwan Straits situation. On the other
hand, it points out that national security is still confronted with
challenges. For example, domestic and external factors are becoming
more closely connected; traditional and non-traditional security
factors are becoming increasingly intertwined; the struggle against
the "Taiwan-independence" elements and their secessionist
activities is facing tasks of extreme gravity.
For the first time, the White Paper outlines the
national security strategy in which development and national
security are integrated into an organic whole.
The strategy stresses the importance of bringing about a
harmonious society in China and a harmonious world outside, seeking
overall security for the country and lasting peace for the world.
It also advocates orchestrating the relationships between
development and security, between internal and external security
and between traditional and non-traditional security, and
safeguarding the country's sovereignty, unification and territorial
integrity.
The document also presses for defending the nation's development
interests and safe-guarding important strategic opportunities for
national development. The White Paper advocates that
mutually beneficial co-operative ties be forged with other
countries to promote common security.
The document describes the role of China's defense policy as
helping foster a security climate favorable to the country's
peaceful development, different from the descriptions in previous
White Papers.
In the 2002 paper, for instance, the defense policy's role was
defined as safeguarding world peace and opposing aggression and
expansion, and in 2004 as striving to secure a fairly long-lasting
favorable international and peripheral environments. Underlying the
changes in the descriptions are profound connotations.
In view of the fact that threats to the international
community's security are becoming increasingly complicated and
becoming more and more diverse in form, China's national interests
have, therefore, taken on some new aspects. This boils down to
creating a security environment favorable to the country's peaceful
development and playing an active part in defending world peace and
regional stability.
China's defense policy is defensive by nature because it is
geared to safeguarding the country's security and unification and
assuring the smooth undertaking in bringing about a moderately
prosperous society, instead of being orientated to external
expansion or seeking hegemony. As a result, the country's military
might does not go beyond the needs of protecting its sovereignty
and security and, therefore, does not pose a threat to the peace
and stability in peripheral areas. The country's military strategy
takes on the character of active defense, which is best illustrated
by the late Chairman Mao's words: "We will not attack unless we are
attacked; if we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack."
The author is a researcher with the Academy of Military
Sciences of the People's Liberation Army.
(China Daily January 4, 2007)
