China’s intentions, of course, reflect its strategic goals. Two goals
closely linked to that of reunification are the preservation of national
security across all frontiers, and international status enhancement.
Traditionally, China adopted a dual policy to protect the Chinese
heartland combining the carrot of economic opportunity with the
stick of forward defence. Central Asian kingdoms were alternatively
bribed by gifts and access to trade under cover of the tribute system,
and subjected to punishing raids and military occupation. Southeast
Asian rulers were coopted into acting as ‘pacification commissioners’
to keep the peace along ill-defined frontiers. Mao’s defence policy
combined the protection of friendly (North Korea, North Vietnam)
or neutral (Burma, Laos) buffer states to keep imperialist powers at a
distance, combined with forward defence when necessary (as in
Korea). More recently, the PRC has adopted a defence strategy aimed
at maintaining China’s security through a combination of frontier
defence and limited force projection by smaller, more professional
armed forces. Though Beijing works hard to ensure a ring of friendly
powers along its frontiers through diplomatic overtures and economic
incentives, forward defence still remains an option. The Yongle em-
peror reminded certain vassals of the fate of the Vietnamese emperor,
Ho Quy Ly, but Beijing hardly needs to remind the Lao or Burmese
of the ‘punishment’ meted out to Vietnam in 1979. As yet China
does not have the means to project military power into those countries
in Southeast Asia with which it does not share a common border, but
both air and naval forces are developing force projection capabilities.
In the future, therefore, China will have these means, if it wants to
use them.
A constant in China’s foreign policy, from the Qing to the PRC,
has been the determination to enhance the country’s international
standing in order to wipe out the shame of the ‘century of humiliation’,
and so restore China to its ‘rightful’ place in the world. The drive for
status enhancement, fuelled, in the words of one Chinese political
analyst, by a ‘strong sense of status discrepancy’, has motivated much of
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia