5 Maps That Explain China's Strategy
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Transcript of 5 Maps That Explain China's Strategy
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5 Maps That Explain China’sStrategy
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The People’s Republic of China has always been portrayed as
an increasingly aggressive country prepared to challenge
the United States.
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At the same time, China has avoided significant involvement
in the troubles roiling in the rest of Eurasia.
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In other words, there is a gap between what is generally
expected of China and what China actually does.
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To understand what China’s actual national strategy is, let’s look at the following five maps.
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Half of China Is Inhabited by Ethnic Groups That Resisted Chinese Domination
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First, we need to make a distinction between two Chinas.
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There is the China—with its international borders—we see
on maps.
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But there is also the China inhabited by the Han Chinese,
the main Chinese ethnic group.
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Han China is surrounded within China by regions populated by other nations, including Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and
Manchuria.
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These four regions are a buffer around China, providing strategic depth to repel
invaders.
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All four, however, resisted Chinese domination, as Tibet
and Xinjiang still do today.
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The Rainfall Line Roughly Defines What We Think of as the Chinese
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A very similar geography emerges when we look at
rainfall patterns.
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The line, called the 15-inch Isohyet, separates the area in the east that receives enough
rainfall to maintain an agricultural economy.
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As a result, the majority of Chinese live in this area, while
non-Han Chinese regions in the west are lightly inhabited or
uninhabited.
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That means the Chinese population is crowded into a
much smaller area and is farther from its neighbors.
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Most Chinese Wealth Is Concentrated 200 Miles from the Coast
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The economic difference between China’s coastal region and the rest of China is striking.
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Economically, only the coast is above the median. Every other
area is below it.
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Over 650 million Chinese citizens live in households earning less than $4 a day,
according to World Bank data.
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Obviously, the overwhelming majority of these people live outside the coastal region.
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The China that most Westerners think about is the
thin strip along the coast.
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The rest (500–1,000 miles west), however, is a land of Han
Chinese living in Third World poverty.
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China’s Biggest Threat Is Itself
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China’s southern border consists of the Himalayas in the west and hilly jungle country in
the east.
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It is impossible to conduct major military operations in the Himalayas and a nightmare to
fight in hilly jungles of southeast Asia.
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To the north, China is bordered by Siberia, which no country has ever tried to invade or mount an invasion from.
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Except for the Pacific Coast, China is secure and contained.
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Therefore, China’s primary strategic interest is maintaining the territorial integrity of China
from internal threats.
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If it lost control of Tibet or Xinjiang, China’s borders would
move far east, the buffer for Han China would disappear, and then China would face a
strategic crisis.
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China Has Only One External Strategic Interest—the Seas to the East
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China has vital maritime interests built around global
trade, but the problem is the sea lanes are under American control.
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China’s coastal seas are surrounded by archipelagos of
island states with narrow passages between them.
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These passages could be easily closed at will by the US Navy.
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China currently lacks resources to build a navy that could
match the US, so the country is buying time by trying to appear
more capable than it is.
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The Chinese will maintain this posture until it has the time and
resources to close the gap.
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In summary, China has three strategic imperatives. Two internal and one external.
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First, it must maintain control over Xinjiang and Tibet. Second, it must preserve the regime and
prevent regionalism.
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And last, it must find a solution to its enclosure in the East and
South China Seas.
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China’s strategic priority now, however, is internal stability. And that defines everything
else China does.
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SUBSCRIBEGeorge Friedman provides unbiased assessment of the global outlook in his free publication, This Week in Geopolitics.
Subscribe now and get an in-depth view of the forces that will drive events and investors in the next year, decade, or even a century from now.
Subscribe here