Empire within the Shell: China's Strategy in the Era of Regional Powers

Author: Wu Jiaxiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The Duality of Sovereignty
In fact, territorial sovereignty shares similarities with love in that both are exclusive; however, they also differ: the exclusivity of love is unconditional, whereas the exclusivity of territorial sovereignty is conditional. In a love relationship, a third party is undoubtedly a rival to at least one of the parties involved; in international relations, other countries are not necessarily potential aggressors.
Territorial sovereignty exhibits strong exclusivity under three conditions: First, two or more adjacent countries are either all or at least one is a top-tier global power; second, among adjacent countries, none are, or at least one is not a democratic nation; third, in adjacent countries, each is inhabited by a dominant ethnic group, and historical conflicts between nations have evolved into ethnic hatreds in modern times, thus fueling strong nationalism within the relevant countries. The first condition can be termed the "Strong Neighbor Condition," the second the "Non-Democratic Condition," and the third the "Ethnic Condition."
Chinese thinkers during the Warring States period had extensive political experience with the Strong Neighbor Condition, proposing the international strategy of "alliance with distant states and attack neighboring ones." This strategy was based on the premise that top-tier powers compete with each other, weakening each other as their national policy, making it impossible for them to open up territorial space to one another—just as Russia today guards against Chinese immigration more than against that from Sichuan.
The Non-Democratic Condition involves issues of national sovereignty's ownership. For monarchies with clear sovereignty, territorial sovereignty is one of the private properties of the monarch, naturally possessing strong exclusivity. For modern and contemporary authoritarian regimes with unclear sovereignty, where power is monopolized by one person or group, if the country is a major power, neighboring countries or regions dare not open up territorial space to it, fearing subjugation; if the country is small, it dares not open up territorial space to neighboring countries, fearing loss of its own power. The Taiwan Strait situation resembles the first case, while the Korean Peninsula resembles the second. Japan's tense relations with most Asian countries stem from the Ethnic Condition.
However, in post-WWII Western Europe and today's Europe (excluding Russia), these three conditions no longer exist. First, none of the European countries are top-tier global powers anymore. Although Germany ranks third in economic output worldwide, it continues to struggle for the complete sovereignty of its nation, as Brzezinski puts it, "Europe is increasingly becoming an object of global power politics rather than its subject." Second, all European countries have moved beyond monarchies, authoritarian, and totalitarian regimes. The ethnic reconciliation between France and Germany has also greatly depleted the fertile ground for nationalism within Europe.
Where the exclusivity of territorial sovereignty diminishes, its other attribute—complementarity and openness—becomes evident. Many international political observers and researchers have already noted this point. U.S. strategist Brzezinski observed that the traditional concept of the sovereign nation-state in Europe is being replaced by the "European concept," with France being the primary driving force behind this process. German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, in an essay titled "Beyond the Nation-State," pointed out this phenomenon in a more philosophical manner,