Question: Which of these statements most accurately characterizes China's perspective on transparency, negotiations, and the rule of law?

1. China likes to build direct communication links to minimize tensions and avoid miscalculations.
2. China favors transparency when it comes to revealing its military capabilities.
3. China prefers to operate in a multilateral, rather than bilateral, negotiating framework and does not seek to gain leverage over smaller nations.
4. China plays strictly within the rules of international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization.
5. China has a strong track record in abiding by the agreements that it negotiates.
6. None of the above.

One of the big reasons nuclear bombs never fell during the Cold War is that the United States and Soviet Union were willing to talk with one another. At the highest level, the American president and Soviet premier shared a hotline. At the front lines and on the open seas, naval commanders would regularly engage in bridge–to-bridge communications.

In addition, the Americans and Soviets had a tacit agreement not to disrupt each other's satellite networks so as to preserve each other's second-strike capabilities and therefore the nuclear deterrence that comes from “mutually assured destruction.” Toward the end of the Cold War, the two sides even engaged in treaty negotiations that led to a truly astonishing transparency with regards to their nuclear arsenals—and ultimately to a revolutionary breakthrough in nuclear disarmament. Of equal importance, when the two sides entered into agreements, they generally kept them, thus making future agreements possible.

Unfortunately, none of these “circuit breakers” exists today in any meaningful way between China and the United States, and that “none of the above” is likely the correct answer to our lead question hardly bodes well for the use of negotiations as a pathway to peace. It is therefore important that we probe more deeply into this area to see if there is any way to cut through this particular Gordian knot.

To begin, it is important to understand that China's perspective on the communications and negotiations process represents not just a clash of cultures but also a quite-different strategic calculus. To see this, consider the contrasting perspectives of China and the United States on the role of transparency in deterrence within the context of what might aptly be described as a global game of poker.

At one end of the strategic gaming table is the superpower of America. As former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Kurt Campbell has described it:

The United States is all about showing what we've got. Look how powerful we are. You don't want to screw with us.1

From the American view, such transparency is not based on egotism or bravado. Rather, it is a rational strategy based on the presumption that if it lays all of its military cards on the table and shows it is holding four aces, everyone else will fold. In this way, a completely transparent US military force will keep the peace—or so much of the thinking at the Pentagon and White House typically goes.

At the other end of this high-stakes global poker table, however, there is a rising China pursuing an exact opposite strategy of nontransparency. As Campbell notes:

China seeks deterrence often through uncertainty leaving potential adversaries with questions as to just how capable they are.²

Of course, from the perspective of China—the historical “folder” over issues like Taiwan in America's great power game—this is an equally rational strategy. Indeed, when China refuses to disclose how many nuclear warheads it may have beneath its Underground Great Wall or what weapons it might be launching into space or whether its antiship ballistic missiles can really hit an American aircraft carrier at sea, it raises uncertainty in the minds of its rivals. Such uncertainty, in turn, is apt to create doubts and hesitation in times of conflict. In this completely nontransparent world, America in particular thus must ultimately worry that a Chinese “straight flush” of asymmetric weapons might actually trump America's four aces—so an opaque China would be a fool to ever show its hand.

Here's how Professor David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University has aptly summed up the situation—which looks more like a stalemate and a stare down than a viable pathway to peace:

So we have us believing clarity leads to deterrence, and China thinking that obscurity and non-transparency will.3

Of course, China's posture toward nontransparency might change as its military might grows and it reaches a point where it believes that it has equaled or surpassed the United States. Past that threshold, it may well want to “strut its stuff” for the same reason the United States does now—to overtly intimidate would-be rivals. However, there is no guarantee of any such future transparency. For now, we are stuck in a polarized world in which a transparent America faces an opaque China without any real prospects of negotiating meaningful treaties in such important areas as arms control and the nonweaponization of space.

There is also a similar clash of cultures and strategies when it comes to direct communications between China and the United States on more rubber-meets-the-military-road matters. Particularly troublesome here is the lack of adequate bridge-to-bridge communications when Chinese and US military ships cross each other's bows in the East and South China Seas—as they are increasingly wont to do.

From the American point of view, such forms of communication are critical to prevent any miscalculations that might trigger a war. China, however, has a very different strategic perspective. As Kurt Campbell has described it:

It is American forces that are deployed very close to the Chinese homeland; and they don't want those American forces to have a degree of confidence that in a crisis, there are communication procedures worked out in advance and the Americans will have a “get out of jail free card.”4

As both Campbell and Institute of Peace expert Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt have explained it, to China, such communications are simply “seatbelts for the speeders.”⁵

From this perspective, Chinese military commanders believe it is far better for their American counterparts to worry about what a Chinese response might be as this will breed more caution. If the price of that lack of direct communication is a possible miscalculation and things escalate, then so be it. As Campbell notes, however, the problem with China's refusal for more communication channels is that “things can get out of hand” and “lead to really unprecedented challenges.”⁶

As for the negotiating process itself, one major problem in the area of resolving the myriad of territorial disputes it has in the East and South China Seas is China's predilection for bilateral, rather than multilateral negotiations and a concomitant aversion to using international bodies for any type of binding arbitration. There certainly is no mystery as to why China prefers such an approach; it will obviously have far more leverage going head-to-head with smaller countries like the Philippines and Vietnam than allowing these countries to band together in an effort to seek common ground.

A case in point is offered by the perennial “code of conduct” dance between China and the ten nations that have banded together in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. These ten ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Over a decade ago, China and ASEAN signed a declaration designed to be the first step in adopting a rules-based code of conduct for relations between all of the nations in Southeast Asia.

According to Asia experts like Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, if such a code of conduct were actually adopted and adhered to by China and ASEAN, it would virtually eliminate military friction over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. This is because the cornerstone of any such code would be a proviso that no country would unilaterally attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion, and that any disputes over land features or maritime issues would be arbitrated in international courts.7

In these ways, a code of conduct would prevent the kinds of takings that China has already engineered in both the Paracel and Spratly Islands as well as at Scarborough Shoal. More broadly, such a code of conduct would ensure that all disputes be resolved through peaceful means.

The problem here, however, is that since signing the original declaration of intent, China has done nothing but drag its heels on getting to a final deal. One likely explanation for this delay tactic is that China believes it is only a matter of time before its growing military capabilities will allow it to dictate terms to its lesser rivals. Accordingly, there is no real reason to actually sign a binding treaty—and every reason to drag the process out until such time as it reaches critical military mass in the region. At such a point, all other nations in the region—as well as perhaps the United States—will be forced to negotiate on China's terms.

In fact, China's gaming of the ASEAN negotiating framework is symptomatic of a broader pattern of abuse of key international institutions in the global order that are committed by charter to the rule of law and the cause of peace. For example, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has the power to veto any UN resolution. Unfortunately, over the last several decades, China has earned a very well-deserved “rug merchant” reputation for using that veto simply as a bargaining chip to acquire a wide range of natural resources in war-torn or troubled areas of the world. Here, perhaps the most glaring example is that of China's efforts to block UN sanctions against the Sudan for its Darfur genocide in exchange for Sudanese oil rights.⁸

As a final, and perhaps fatal, impediment to using the negotiation process as a pathway to peace, there is this vexing issue: China is prone to breaking agreements outright that it has entered into.

The poster child of this problem is the previously discussed US–brokered pact in 2012 between China and the Philippines. Recall that both parties agreed to withdraw from Scarborough Shoal and negotiate a solution. However, after the Philippines honored its commitment, China simply moved in and consolidated its hold on the shoal. It is a fair question as to how anyone would ever trust China to keep its word after this kind of charade.

The bottom line? It is unlikely that China, at least in the near future, will play either the “transparency game” or “negotiations game” fairly—if at all. Because this may be true, we are likely going to have to seek other pathways to peace.

This is not to say that the rest of the world should not continue to reach out to China. As Professor David Lampton has opined:

I think we need to avoid a polarized discussion—that you either can talk to the Chinese or you can't. I would say you can but it's difficult…therefore we've got to persist.9

To American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Auslin, however, any such persistence must be matched with a much needed, and long overdue, dose of realism. As Auslin reflects:

In the west, we have this idea of how international relations are supposed to work. First of all, everyone respects everyone else's sovereignty, we all deal with each other as equals, and the best way to resolve all these problems and deepen understanding is with dialogue. So we get into a dialogue dependency trap, and I think that's where we are with China. The goal is simply to talk. It's not to solve the problems. It's not really to articulate our own interests or, I would argue quite honestly, understand theirs. [Instead], it is “We just have to talk. What's the next meeting? What are we going to do the next time?” And that's why I think it's a little bit of a Potemkin village. We're very happy to look at the facade of all of these talks; and then we say “look how pretty these houses are. They've got wonderful shutters and doors.” [But] you walk through them, and it's a howling desert beyond.¹⁰