Peter Connolly
In October 2014 the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held its 17th International Symposium Course, which was attended by 48 international representatives in Beijing, including the author.1 At this conference, PLA officers employed the Chinese concept “strategic space” in reference to their perceived strategic disadvantage, which they blamed on their containment within the “first island chain.” They sought to rectify the position of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with the possession of Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan and through “counter-encirclement” by projecting power beyond the “second island chain.”2 Parallels were drawn between contemporary challenges to Russian and Chinese strategic space involving “color revolutions” (Kyiv’s Euromaidan protests and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement), and sympathy was expressed for Russia’s need to annex Crimea for “the strategic space it needed to survive.”3
However, PRC diplomats awkwardly clung to the narrative of “peaceful rise,” denounced hegemony and proclaimed noninterference.”4 One strategist pledged China would “never” have bases overseas, a claim previously made by PRC defense white papers.5 This narrative reinforced academic arguments that the Pacific Islands were a “low strategic priority” or residing on the “greater periphery” of China’s grand strategy.6 Others argued the Pacific Islands were of no strategic interest to China at all,7 an idea supported by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of Solomon Islands in 2023.8
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