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Program Brief, vol. 7, #7
© The Nixon Center 2001

"The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy:  Implications for the United States"
A Panel Discussion with Bates Gill, Lu Ning, and Margaret Pearson

The Nixon Center, Washington, DC
March 14, 2001

At a recent Nixon Center seminar, three experts on US-China relations agreed that the United States must adapt its policies to changes in China’s leadership and its policy-making processes. Bates Gill, Lu Ning, and Margaret Pearson addressed these issues in chapters in a recent book, The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform: 1978-2000, edited by David M. Lampton. Dr. Gill is the Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies as well as Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Mr. Lu is a freelance writer and journalist; and Dr. Pearson is a professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Lampton, Director of The Nixon Center’s Chinese Studies Program, moderated the discussion.

Bates Gill

Mr. Gill argued that there are massive changes underway in China’s decision-making process on arms control and non-proliferation. Most significant, he said, is the rapid professionalization of Chinese officials working in these areas. This has significantly empowered middle-level officials, who are now increasingly able to hold substantive discussions on arms control matters with their foreign counterparts. Gill characterized the evolution of these processes as "two steps forward, one step back" from an American perspective as some Chinese officials have become quite adept at integrating international negotiating language and tactics into their positions. Today, he said, they sometimes outperform their counterparts in the West. Nevertheless, Gill argued that it would serve broader U.S. interests to assist China in enhancing its bureaucratic capabilities on foreign policy matters.

More generally, Gill suggested that while the United States should be confident of Chinese observance of multilateral agreements, Washington should be prepared for disappointments in its bilateral relations with China. For example, he explained, informal bilateral understandings with Beijing should be considered contingent on the ever-changing international situation. The United States. should therefore be ready for frequent ups and downs in its ties with China.

Lu Ning

The content and character of the Chinese leadership is shifting, according to Mr. Lu, and the United States must pay close attention. He identified shifts in real authority, occurring first in the mid 1980s, when agreement among a "nuclear circle" of two or three people was required to make decisions, and then in the early 1990s, when power shifted to the Standing Committee of the Communist Party. Today, he said, top Chinese leaders’ tight control over foreign policy, military affairs, and high-level personnel affairs is yielding to growing input from the bureaucracy. Citing the impact of Falun Gong, Lu also argued that public opinion has increasing influence over policymaking. Responding to a question on this point, Lampton suggested that public opinion is much more important when the elite itself is divided; that is, the lack of a consensus among the Chinese leadership on a particular issue creates an opportunity for public opinion to influence the decision.

Lu also urged greater attention to the new generation of Chinese leaders. In the early 1980s, he said, the government created a special task force to search for and identify potential leaders. They were carefully cultivated and given experience within the Communist Party bureaucracy as well as at the local level, and usually in the poorest regions of China. They are more cosmopolitan and more technocratic than their predecessors; also, many have engineering backgrounds. Unfortunately, there is little else known about China’s emerging leaders. Lu urged the United States to follow the future leadership more closely in order to better understand China.

Margaret Pearson

Pearson argued that trade policy formulation is becoming more pluralized, more interest-based, and more transparent. For instance, policy-makers are talking directly with business leaders more frequently rather than working strictly within the government bureaucracy. As a result, decision-making in China at the intermediate level is more efficient and more reflective of business realities. She added that China has begun to allow a limited internal debate on trade policy matters.

In this context, Pearson identified the agriculture and manufacturing sectors as areas of the Chinese economy with a significant stake in the outcome of China’s efforts to join the WTO. In many ways, these sectors have gradually transformed into interest groups as they lobby for their collective interests. For example, the manufacturing sector has worked behind the scenes to obtain protection as the Chinese market gradually opened. Attitudes in the agricultural sector, for example, have also changed—from passivity and dependence to proactive expression of concern over China’s accession to the WTO. Pearson argued that these developments will also affect decision-making.

This Program Brief was prepared by Nixon Center staff member Catherine L. Corliss.