Pinning the tail on the dragon: how China is seducing the world

China also seems to be leading the world in scientific research, as a plethora of English-language journals publish scholarly articles and reports written by Chinese authors. Increasingly a major player in global-domestic telecommunications industries, Chinese Huawei technologies are challenging established industry players such as Cisco Systems.

China also operates a peacekeeping training academy incorporating disaster relief management, and is training other nations' security and military personnel in rescue operations. In some instances their nationals have also been serving on Chinese warships, or have been afforded preferred observer status to joint and combined military exercises across air, land and maritime battle scenarios, with Russia and India among others.

When all of these components are combined, they facilitate China's understandings of others' intentions and threat perceptions, giving China what is known in military-speak, as a second-track capability. It is a means of filling in the knowledge gaps that the West on the other hand, does not have. The sticking point remains as to what China's past and current directions are working towards achieving in the future, most of which is unknown. So perhaps it is better to focus on some of that which is known.

China's 21st century?

China's international participation in a wide variety of areas including peacekeeping, aid and development and post-disaster relief, have all earned western praise, but China already knows that influential consensus-building is no longer being determined solely via economic links or ideologies. Emotive arguments surrounding human rights are already an early casualty. Many in the West publicly support Tibetan freedom but ignore the plight of West Papua. A duplicity that has not gone unnoticed by China as it raises questions about the validity of western moral argument.

While western nations continue to focus on regions having intrinsic strategic value to immediate individual national security concerns, China appears to have been doing the opposite, often establishing ad hoc bilateral relationships that on the surface at least, seem to have little relevance to China's security. At the same time, the social effects of adopting western-stylised modernisations, have not put a dent in China’s political structure, nor changed its regulatory behaviours, although it has expanded China’s social controls not the least of which includes what constitutes Chinese citizenship as the 2006 relocation of some Timorese-Chinese to Macao proved.

(After the 2006 unrest in Dili, China deployed commercial Chinese airliners to extract Chinese citizens from what it perceived was a burgeoning civil war. Some of those relocated included Timorese-Chinese who did not speak Chinese, nor had previously identified themselves as culturally Chinese, but who had some form of Chinese ancestry. The end result was several families - particularly those with profitable business interests - were given Chinese citizenship, and relocated lock, stock and barrel to Portuguese speaking Macao.)

Since China's readmission to the UN Security Council in 1971, more than 80 per cent of individual nations throughout the globe now recognise China's One-Nation Policy. The fact that most fall within either 20 degrees north-south of the equator provides a clue to China's holistic, longer-term strategic viewpoint. Most of these nations are geographically situated along prime orbital tracking routes, along which all of the world's space technologies and satellites must traverse.

In terms of sustained economic growth, after three successful decades there is little argument that China's modernisation program is second to none, and China's capable reputation for reverse engineering anything remains intact. However China remains focused on pursuing self-reliance, and this also suggests building up infrastructure support in any way, shape or means, is being borne out by shifts in China's foreign investment strategies.

Now purchasing vast offshore resource companies rather than just the resources themselves, actively hollowing-out various other world sectors continues, whether through direct investment, bailing out international mining giants and minnows alike, executive headhunting practices, wiping out other nations manufacturing industries, or offering cheap outsourcing services. China has learned how the West does business and more to the point, learned how to exploit weaknesses therein. Take for example, best Western trade practices that send manufacturing prototypes to the manufacturing country in question. In China's case however, often the market is already flooded with similar Chinese-made products before that particle Western market has even got off the ground. The Chinese can potentially argue they are merely following the good graft of capitalism meaning gaining competitive advantage.

So what does this mean for Australia's future international relations with China?

Australia-China international or transregional relations?

As cracks appear in high-level bureaucratic disputes among Australian political, business, defence and intelligence interests over China assessments, the rise-of-China threat thesis appears less about direct threat scenarios against Australia, and more about China's competitive influential edge. While sheer geography as home to one-fifth of the world's population, underlies its potential to become a great power in military terms, China's geopolitical savvy is proving more effective than anything else.

To many in South-East Asia it might appear that the Rudd Government's 2009 White Paper (PDF 1.84MB), singling out China as a potential future threat while reinforcing the outdated Australian-American alliance, is a strategic viewpoint descending into a back-to-the-Cold-War-future strategy. Indonesia was already publicly commenting that it would remain neutral if there were any Chinese-related clashes. China on the other hand, immediately went on the public relations offensive.