The Chinese attitude towards sovereignty is closely related to the old Confucian concept of ‘harmony with difference’, which has been revived under the present Chinese leader, Hu Jintao. Some Chinese scholars, in fact, have interpreted ‘one country, two systems’ as an example of ‘harmony with difference’. Whereas in Western discourse, harmony implies identity and a close affinity, this is not the case in Chinese tradition, which regards difference as an essential characteristic of harmony. According to Confucius, ‘the exemplary person harmonizes with others, but does not necessarily agree with them; the small person agrees with others but is not harmonious with them.’ [951] Agreeing with people means that you are uncritically the same as them: the opposite of harmony is not chaos but rather uniformity and homogeneity. Interestingly, in China the latter are often associated with the term ‘hegemony’, which is used pejoratively to describe big power behaviour — once the Soviet Union, now the United States — in contrast to ‘harmony’ which is seen as enabling and embracing difference.
In considering the future relationship between China and its East Asian neighbours, it is pertinent to take into account not only the historical legacy of the tributary system but also what might be described as the realpolitik of size. This was clearly a significant aspect of the tributary system, but it is an even more powerful factor in the era of globalization and the modern nation-state. China is anxious to emphasize its desire to exercise self-restraint and respect for the interests of other states, but in the longer run, on the assumption that China continues its economic rise, the disparity between China and the other nations in the region is likely to become ever more pronounced over time. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the inequality between the power of China and that of neighbouring states will be rather greater than that to be found in any other region of the world. Such overweening power will be expressed in a gamut of ways, from economic and cultural to political and military. This is the major factor that lies behind the suspicions latent in the region towards China: the fear not so much of what China is now — especially as it has gone out of its way to reassure its neighbours — but what it might be like in the future. [952] The chief of the Malaysian navy put it like this in 1996: ‘as the years progress, there exist[s]… uncertainty in the form of China ’s behaviour once she attained her great power status. Will she conform to international or regional rules or will she be a new military power which acts in whatever way she sees fit?’ [953] Imagine the relationship, fifty years hence, between a hugely powerful and advanced China, with a population well in excess of 1.5 billion, and Laos and Cambodia, with populations by then of perhaps around 10 million and 20 million respectively; or, for that matter, Malaysia, with perhaps rather more than 30 million people. On grounds of size — let alone the tributary legacy — the relationship between China and its region is bound to be fundamentally different from that between the dominant country and its neighbours in any other region.
What will China be like? How will it act? It is clear that China ’s behaviour towards, and conception of, the region is bound to be heavily influenced by the legacy of the tributary system and its character as a civilization-state. The influence of this way of thinking is already apparent in China ’s attitude towards the Spratly and Paracel islands, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In its own region at least, one can categorically say that China will not simply be a Westphalian nation-state. But even if that is the case, how assertive is China likely to be? Is one to judge China’s future behaviour by the restraint and relative magnanimity that is characteristic of the present regime, or will that be superseded by something altogether more Sinocentric? Could China slowly abandon its present extreme caution and become more forceful in its relations with other countries, for example those, such as India, Japan and the South- East Asian countries, with whom it has territorial disputes which for the time being it has agreed to shelve? [954] As China grows more powerful, it would hardly be surprising if it did become more Sinocentric: in fact, at least in the longer run, that is what one might expect. After all, with the present overwhelming emphasis on economic development and the desire to ensure that there are no distractions, restraint is at least partly a function of priorities: in the reform era, China ’s self-discipline has been huge and impressive. But casting our minds into the future to a time when living standards are much higher and China has established itself as the dominant power in East Asia, how might a more Sinocentric outlook express itself?
Perhaps the best way of answering this question is to look for pointers in the present, however isolated and scattered they might be. There are three examples. The first concerns the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in February 1979, which China described as a ‘punitive war to teach Vietnam a lesson’ about the proximity of Chinese power and its belief that the Vietnamese had not been sufficiently grateful for the assistance they had received from China during the Vietnam War. [955] The language of this war, the tone of imperial condescension, the desire to assert a hierarchical relationship, the need for big brother to teach younger brother a lesson, were a throwback to the days of the pre-modern Chinese world order and the tributary system. [956] In not dissimilar vein, China has used military force in the disputes over the islands in the South China Sea, against the Philippines in 1995 and most notably against Vietnam in 1956, 1974, and again in 1988, when China took six islands in the Spratly area, three Vietnamese ships were sunk and seventy-two Vietnamese seamen killed. [957] These actions all bear the imprint of the tributary system, the need to assert the natural hierarchical order of things, and, if necessary, punish those who dared step out of line. It should be noted, however, that relations between China and Vietnam have improved considerably over recent years, although the enmity between them, which stretches back many centuries, is deeply rooted. [958]
The second example concerns the relationship between China and Chinese citizens abroad. In autumn 2005 it was alleged that a Chinese female tourist in Malaysia had been strip-searched and subjected to violent assault by Malaysian officials. The issue was first reported by the China Press, a Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper, and was subsequently taken up with such vehemence by the Chinese media that the Malaysian prime minister ordered an independent investigation, as well as instructing his home affairs minister to make a special trip to Beijing in order to explain and apologize. [959] An editorial in the China Daily, the official government newspaper, exclaimed: ‘All sensible minds cannot but be shocked by the images showing a female compatriot of ours being forced to perform “ear-squats” naked by a Malaysian policewoman in uniform. No excuse can justify brutality of such magnitude.’ [960] The editorial exercised little restraint or circumspection. Yet soon afterwards it was discovered that the woman in question was not a Chinese citizen, or even Chinese for that matter, but a Malay. [961] The Chinese response to the incident was, from the outset, both disproportionate and belligerent, and based on false information culled from the Chinese-Malaysian press. It would be wrong to draw too many conclusions from one isolated incident, but the Chinese reaction, under the circumstances, was overbearing and intemperate. The Chinese treated the Malaysian government with scant respect. They didn’t even have the courtesy to check the facts first. They behaved in an imperial fashion towards what they seemed to regard, in tone at least, as a lesser state. Meanwhile, the Malaysian government, for its part, acted in the manner of a suitably humble and deferential tributary state. As Chinese tourism in the region grows apace, the incident suggests that the protection afforded to Chinese citizens abroad will be attentive and proactive at best, invasive and aggressive at worst.
[951] Cited in ibid., pp. 158- 9; also p. 143.
[952] Michael D. Swaine, ‘ China ’s Regional Military Posture’, in Shambaugh,
[953] Quoted in Amitav Acharya, ‘Containment, Engagement, or Counter-dominace? Malaysia’s Response to the Rise of China’, in Johnston and Ross,
[954] Christopher R. Hughes,
[955] Alexander Vuving, ‘Traditional and Modern Sino-Vietnamese Relations’, in Reid and Zheng,
[956] Zhao,
[957] Li, ‘Security Challenge of an Ascendant China ’, p. 28; Callahan,
[958] Shambaugh, ‘ China Engages Asia’, p. 81; Kang, ‘Getting Asia Wrong’, p. 81.
[959] ‘Abuse Claims Spark Uproar’,