Is China a Threat in Asia-Pacific Region?

It appears that the peaceful rise of China is calculated by other countries as a potential threat in the international system. In essence, China is not a threat as perceived. China indeed is just another ordinary state making waves to restore her lost pride after being materially defeated, humiliated and shammed by the West and Imperial Japan in pre-modern East Asia. China accepted Western norms and aggressively integrated into a U.S-led liberal order. Her peaceful rise to global prominence is paradoxically a hybrid balance between socialism and capitalism, which many scholars are still struggling to explain. I attempt to explain China’s peaceful rise and its threat perception in Asia-Pacific region employing two levels of analysis –regional and national.

Regional Level:

China’s national interest is to attain a “Peaceful Great Power status” through economic development in the international system without upsetting the “rules of the great power game”. Her foreign policy is premised on the philosophy of national strength driven by economic power and strong leadership. The main objective is to project and build soft power diplomacy with more concentration in developing countries to share its wealth and promote peaceful and harmonious society. China does not intend to become neither a hegemon nor pursue an expansionist approach in the region or globally.
There are four reasons why China is not a threat in the Pacific region. First, China is a developing country with huge internal problems to solve. Poverty and corruption are the greatest challenges. In December 2010, President Hu Jintao when launching the new 5 year National Strategic Plan clearly announced more focus on sustaining domestic development and soft power diplomacy.
Second, geo-strategically, China is still no-match for U.S as the great power. Although China is rapidly building its strategic capability it does not necessarily predicate as a challenger. China is building a defensive military power to safeguard its sovereignty and economic interest in the neighboring maritime theater. It would take more than a decade for China to be a regional threat. History shows that rising powers and great powers collapse, Japan, Germany Britain are classical cases. The U.S, although declining in economic power still, poses unchallenged capacity and capability as a global leader. The future still remains gloomy for China; whether she will sustain her current economic growth is still unknown to us, let alone time, distance and space be foretold.
Third, China is only a rising regional power and not a global or great power. The U.S is still the great power and regional power in Asia-Pacific region. The U.S has maritime superior capability than China. China has continental capability but lacks maritime capability, which is why she depends highly on U.S blue-water shield to protect her oil shipping route in the Indian Ocean. China currently has no plan in her grand strategy to build superior maritime capability, perhaps in the future should the demand arise. More so, the multipolar system of balance of power in the region suggest otherwise. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are U.S allies which makes it more difficult for China to challenge the status quo. India, another rising power in South Asia, South East Asians Vietnam as conventional enemy and Indonesia may rise to balance against China.
Fourth and final, interdependence facilitates cooperation and precludes war. This can be best explained in Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye scholarly work entitled "Complex Interdependence”. Both argued that today, with globalization, the complex web of interdependence makes war unthinkable and cooperation as a diplomatic means to maximize absolute gains and resolve conflicts. International institutions remove cheating and tie down rogue states through issue linkage. China needs U.S and other smaller neighboring states to drive her modernization agenda in order to co-exist in the international system. She cannot afford to lose which of them. The recent visit to U.S by Hu Jintao may reduce security dilemma or uncertainty between the two rivals in the region. The China Daily of 22nd January, 2011 reported that "The state visit is staged as a celebration of China's rise - a message from Obama to both the American people and the Chinese that the United States does not consider China a 'strategic competitor', that is, a military threat. Instead, China is now a major power that the US will treat as such."
In projecting future implications, the Chinese expansion and influence in Asia-Pacific region may perhaps be calculated as a potential threat to U.S conventional sphere of influence, and thus may most likely cause friction leading to conflict, however, war is unthinkable. In strategic terms, relative gains matters in U.S national security as China continues to strategically wield her soft power diplomacy in the region. The more China gains in the region; it will be a threat to U.S. Consequently, miscalculation of Taiwan issue may lead China to war at all cost. China firmly maintains that Taiwan-Tibet issues are internal affairs and strongly condemns Taiwan’s bid for independence. China may most likely use force should and when Taiwan and Tibet backed by allies declare independence.

National Level:

Is China a threat to PNG? There are a lot of biased opinions about China. In order to make a logical value judgment about China, one must first study Chinese history, culture and diplomacy rather than be argumentative through the lens of objective perception.
Today, China is attempting to build a good image in the international community through soft diplomacy. China aims to share her development experiences with developing countries like PNG, which is still struggling to develop with 'boomerang aid' and other issues for the last 30 donkey years.
The recent crises in PNG and Solomon Islands may have been used as a political agenda or tool to tarnish China’s good image. Beijing cannot be accused of others' actions. What had transpired may be an international organized syndicate which may not necessarily be linked to the Central Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing, which condemns such incidents and punishes perpetrators who tarnish her good image internationally.
More so, the territorial disputes between China and Japan and Vietnam are highly controversial in nature and may not necessarily be employed as a strategic calculation for China to use coercive force (military intervention) in PNG. To further cement that argument, it is almost impossible for China to use coercive force in PNG with the presence of U.S and her allies – Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the region. Strategically speaking, any country in Pacific is not a credible threat to China.
Premised on this projection, PNG has to shift her foreign policy with the current shift in global power. PNG cannot isolate herself from China, now the second global economic power. Even big powers such as U.S and Japan are investing heavily in China. Although others calculate China as a threat, PNG stands a chance to maximize absolute gains if she strategically maneuvers the game. PNG has the potential to play smart diplomacy. In sum, China’s peaceful rise is an economic advantage for PNG as a Small Island Developing Economy to play the right card to ensure a win-win situation.