Rising Star: China¿s New Security Diplomacy

China's diplomatic strategy has changed dramatically since the mid-1990s, creating both challenges and opportunities for the United States. U.S. policymakers have only just begun to comprehend these critical changes, however, and all too often their China policy has been incoherent. In Rising Star, Bates Gill points the way out of this morass. Based on a comprehensive and far-reaching analysis of the transformation in China's security diplomacy, he persuasively makes the case for a more nuanced and focused policy toward Beijing.

Over the past decade, China's approach to regional and global security affairs has become more proactive, practical, and constructive. This trend favors U.S. interests in many ways. Yet China's new strategy has also bolstered its international influence and may enhance its ability to resolve

thorny issues —such as Taiwan's future —on its own terms. In exploring these dynamics, s ing Star fofocuses on Chinese policy in three areas — regional security mechanisms, nonproliferation and arms control, and questions of sovereignty and intervention. The concluding chapter analyzes

U.S.-China relations and offers specific recommendations toward a framework that emphasizes what the two countries have in common, rather than what divides them.

Today, China's rise presents the international community with a tremendous challenge. Successfully managing this transition will require informed realism, astute management, and nimble diplomacy. Timely and vital, ng Star off offers essential guidance to policymakers approaching this task, and provides insightful understanding for all those interested in Chinese foreign policy both in the United States and around the world.

China's diplomatic strategy has changed dramatically since the mid-1990s, creating both challenges and opportunities for other world powers. Through a combination of pragmatic security policies, growing economic clout, and increasingly deft diplomacy, China has established productive and increasingly solid relationships throughout Asia and around the globe. Yet U.S. policymakers have only just begun to comprehend these critical changes. Here, noted China analyst Bates Gill provides a coherent framework for understanding China's new security diplomacy and guiding America's China policy forward. Gill offers a comprehensive and far-reaching analysis of the transformation in China's security diplomacy, persuasively making the case for a more nuanced and focused policy toward Beijing.

Over the past decade, China's approach to regional and global security affairs has become more proactive, practical, and constructive, a trend favoring U.S. interests in many ways. At the same time, China's new strategy has also bolstered its international influence and may enhance its ability to resolve thorny issues--such as Taiwan's future--on its own terms. In exploring these dynamics, Gill focuses on Chinese policy in three areas: regional security mechanisms, nonproliferation and arms control, and questions of sovereignty and intervention. Looking to the future, he offers specific recommendations for a balanced and realistic approach that emphasizes what the two countries have in common, rather than what divides them.

As a rising star in the constellation of great powers, China and its new security diplomacy present the international community with a tremendous challenge. Successfully managingthis transition will require informed realism, astute management, and nimble diplomacy. Timely and vital, Rising Star offers thoughtful guidance on how to approach these tasks and provides valuable insights for understanding Chinese foreign policy.

Foreign Affairs

Most current writing on China concentrates on its economic achievements,but this study focuses on Beijing's strategic thinking. Gill is convinced that China has fundamentally changed its global and regional security diplomacy, abandoning ideology and revolution in an effort to gain acceptance as a responsible member of the international system. He takes seriously Beijing's statements that it is time to discard the Cold War mentality and build a new international system, based on mutual trust, shared benefits, and equality; he also examines in some detail Beijing's record of working with its neighbors in various security arrangements and in various United Nations peacekeeping missions. If the United States takes a sympathetic approach, Gill argues, it can win over China; after all, both countries have a strong interest in avoiding war and expanding trade. Such optimism about the possibilities for constructive U.S.-Chinese relations will prompt some to denounce Gill as a "panda hugger," but that would be grossly unfair. His analysis is based on solid research and deep knowledge of Chinese thought and behavior, and when the Chinese fail to meet his standards for constructive behavior, he does not hesitate to take them to task for it.

Bates Gill is the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as inaugural director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. A former holder of the Fei Yiming Chair in Comparative Politics at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China, Gill has also directed East Asia programs at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute. He is a coauthor of China the Balance Sheet: What the World Needs to Know about the Emerging Superpower (PublicAffairs, 2006).