[PDI Working Paper No.13] Future Prospects and Policy Implications of China’s Gray Area Strategy

Tae Jung Kim (Senior Researcher, Peace & Democracy Institute, Korea University)

 

 

 

 

Abstract:

China, which emerged as a powerful country through economic growth and strengthening military power based on it, was dissatisfied with the U.S.-centered world order. Therefore, China, a traditional continental power, sought to expand its territorial rights with a gray-zone strategy in the vicinity, and to reduce its relative power with the United States by securing influence through one-on-one in the farther regions.

his is because the U.S. has lured China into the global economy with a liberal internationalist view since the post-Cold War, assuming that if the world uses cheap Chinese products and hundreds of millions of Chinese people prosper economically, China will also be democratized. So China’s post-2010 gray zone strategy was successful. However, China’s coercive diplomacy, territorial disputes with neighboring countries, greedy market aggression, and infringement on high-tech and copyrights have caused opposition from many countries.

As President Trump responded to China with a different perspective, not only Republicans but also Democratic lawmakers changed their perception on China. Therefore, the U.S. now deviates from the liberal internationalist perspective and determines that China will not be included in the global economy or democratized, but rather seeks more centralization, authoritarianism, and hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. And as such, countries that challenged the United States in the past sought hegemony in each region, which was in conflict with the national interests pursued by the United States. Therefore, the United States responded with a check policy, and most of them resulted in war.

However, the U.S. is currently unable to actively pursue checks against China due to the economic downturn, social division, and Corona virus. Therefore, if the Biden administration uses Nixon’s defensive realism strategy, it will focus on overcoming the COVID-19 crisis while diplomatically alienating relations between China and Russia. In the short term, U.S. will focus on boosting the domestic economy and pursue limited decoupling with China. In the long run, U.S. will try to establish an organization to prevent the exploitation of high-tech. And in a military sector, they will focus on developing platforms and strategies to overcome China’s A2/AD strategy.

n addition, the United States is now weak in national power, facing a strong opponent for the first time since the Cold War, but unlike China, it has a global alliance network. And because of the crackdown in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and China’s lack of coping with COVID-19 have increased its negative assessment of China.

In order for China’s gray zone strategy to succeed, it must gain relative power without the outbreak of war. However, because the U.S.-China strategy was incompatible, the U.S. gave up its previous engagement policy and switched to a check policy. Therefore, China will not be able to gain relative power as before, because the United States will be sensitive to a little relative power over China. Moreover, the United States will not hesitate to use military force now, as China infringes on the important national interests of the United States in the process of gaining relative power. Therefore, China’s gray-zone strategy in the future will not be expected to be as successful as before.