Zbigniew brzezinski

1. "Official Document Anticipates Disorder During the Post-Deng Period," Cheng Ming (Hong Kong), 
February 1, 1995, provides a detailed summary of two analyses prepared for the Party leadership concerning 
various forms of potential unrest. A Western perspective on the same topic is contained in Richard Bfunn, 
"China After Deng: Ten Scenarios in Search of Reality," China Quarterly (March 1996). 
There is, finally, a third reason for skepticism regarding the prospects of China's emergence in the course of 
the next twenty or so years as a truly major—and to some Americans, already menacing—global power. Even 
if China avoids serious political disruptions and even if it somehow manages to sustain its extraordinarily high 
rates of economic growth over a quarter of a century—which are both rather big "ifs"—China would still be 
relatively very poor. Even a tripling of GDP would leave China's population in the lower ranks of the world's 
nations in per capita income, not to mention the actual poverty of a significant portion of its people.2 Its 
comparative standing in per capita access to telephones, cars, and computers, let alone consumer goods, would 
be very low. 
2. In the somewhat optimistic report titled "China's Economy Toward the 21st Century" (Zou xiang 21 shi ji de 
Zhongguo jinji), issued in 1996 by the Chinese Institute for Quantitative Economic and Technological Studies, 
it was estimated that the per capita income in China in 2010 will be approximately $735, or less than $30 
higher than the World Rank definition of a low-income country. 
To sum up: even by the year 2020, it is quite unlikely even under the best of circumstances that China could 
become truly competitive in the key dimensions of global power. Even so, however, China is well on the way to 
becoming the preponderant regional power in East Asia. It is already geopolitically dominant on the mainland. 
Its military and economic power dwarfs its immediate neighbors, with the exception of India. It is, therefore, 
only natural that China will increasingly assert itself regionally, in keeping with the dictates of its history, 
geography, and economics. 
Chinese students of their country's history know that as recently as 1840, China's imperial sway extended 
throughout Southeast Asia, all the way down to the Strait of Malacca, including Burma, parts of today's 
Bangladesh as well as Nepal, portions of today's Kazakstan, all of Mongolia, and the region that today is called 
the Russian Far Eastern Province, north of where the Amur River flows into the ocean (see map on page 14 in 
chapter 1). These areas were either under some form of Chinese control or paid tribute to China. Franco-British 
colonial expansion ejected Chinese influence from Southeast Asia during the years 1885-95, while two treaties 
imposed by Russia in 1858 and 1864 resulted in territorial losses in the Northeast and Northwest. In 1895, 
following the Sino-Japanese War, China also lost Taiwan. 
It is almost certain that history and geography will make the Chinese increasingly insistent—even 
emotionally charged—regarding the necessity of the eventual reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. It is 
also reasonable to assume that China, as its power grows, will make that goal its principal objective during the 
first decade of the next century, following the economic absorption and political digestion of Hong Kong. 
Perhaps a peaceful reunification—maybe under a formula of "one nation, several systems" (a variant of Deng 
Xiaoping's 1984 slogan "one country, two systems")—might become appealing to Taiwan and would not be 
resisted by America, but only if China has been successful in sustaining its economic progress and adopting 
significant democratizing reforms. Otherwise, even a regionally dominant China is still likely to lack the 
military means to impose its will, especially in the face of American opposition, in which case the issue is 
bound to continue galvanizing Chinese nationalism while souring American-Chinese relations. 
Geography is also an important factor driving the Chinese interest in making an alliance with Pakistan and 
establishing a military presence in Burma. In both cases, India is the geostrategic target. Close military 
cooperation with Pakistan increases India's security dilemmas and limits India's ability to establish itself as the 
regional hegemon in South Asia and as a geopolitical rival to China. Military cooperation with Burma gains 
China access to naval facilities on several Burmese offshore islands in the Indian Ocean, thereby also providing 
some further strategic leverage in Southeast Asia generally and in the Strait of Malacca particularly. And if 

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China were to control the Strait of Malacca and the geostrategic choke point at Singapore, it would control 
Japan's access to Middle Eastern oil and European markets. 
Geography, reinforced by history, also dictates China's interest in Korea. At one time a tributary state, a 
reunited Korea as an extension of American (and indirectly also of Japanese) influence would be intolerable to 
China. At the very minimum, China would insist that a reunited Korea be a nonaligned buffer between China 
and Japan and would also expect that the historically rooted Korean animosity toward Japan would of itself 
draw Korea into the Chinese sphere of influence. For the time being, however, a divided Korea suits China best, 
and thus China is likely to favor the continued existence of the North Korean regime. 
Economic considerations are also bound to influence the thrust of China's regional ambitions. In that regard, 
the rapidly growing demand for new energy sources has already made China insistent on a dominant role in any 
regional exploitation of the seabed deposits of the South China Sea. For the same reason, China is beginning to 
display an increasing interest in the independence of llu- energy-rich Central Asian states. In April 1996, China, 
Russia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan signed a joint border and security agreement; and during 
President Jiang Zemin's visit to Kazakstan in July of the same year, the Chinese side was quoted as having 
provided assurances of China's support for "the efforts made by Kazakstan to defend its independence, 
sovereignty, and territorial integrity." The foregoing clearly signaled China's growing involvement in the 
geopolitics of Central Asia. 
History and economics also conspire to increase the interest of a regionally more powerful China in Russia's 
Far East. For the first time since China and Russia have come to share a formal border, China is the 
economically more dynamic and politically stronger party. Seepage into the Russian area by Chinese 
immigrants and traders has already assumed significant proportions, and China is becoming more active in 
promoting Northeast Asian economic cooperation that also engages Japan and Korea. In that cooperation, 
Russia now holds a much weaker card, while the Russian Far East increasingly becomes economically 
dependent on closer links with China's Manchuria. Similar economic forces are also at work in China's relations 
with Mongolia, which is no longer a Russian satellite and whose formal independence China has reluctantly 
recognized. 
A Chinese sphere of regional influence is thus in the making. A sphere of influence, however, should not be 
confused with a zone of exclusive political domination, such as the Soviet Union exercised in Eastern Europe. 
It is socioeconomically more porous and politically less monopolistic. Nonetheless, it entails a geographic 
space in which its various states, when formulating their own policies, pay special deference to the interests, 
views, and anticipated reactions of the regionally predominant power. In brief, a Chinese sphere of influence—
perhaps a sphere of deference would be a 
more 
accurate 
formulation—can 
be 
defined as one in which the very first 
question asked in the various capitals 
regarding any given issue is "What is 
Beijing's view on this?" 
The map that follows traces out the 
potential range over the next quarter of a 
century of a regionally dominant China 
and also of China as a global power, in the 
event that—despite the internal and 
external obstacles already noted—China 
should actually become one. A regionally 
dominant Greater China, which would 
mobilize the political support of its 
enormously 
rich 
and 
economically 
powerful diaspora in Singapore, Bangkok, 
Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Jakarta, not to 

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speak of Taiwan and Hong Kong (see footnote below for some startling data)3 and which would penetrate into 
both Central Asia and the Russian Far East, would thus approximate in its radius the scope of the Chinese 
Empire before the onset of its decline some 150 years ago, even expanding its geopolitical range through the 
alliance with Pakistan. As China rises in power and prestige, the wealthy overseas Chinese are likely to identify 
themselves more and more with China's aspirations and will thus become a powerful vanguard of China's 
imperial momentum. The Southeast Asian states may find it prudent to defer to China's political sensitivities 
and economic interests—and they are increasingly doing so.4 Similarly, the new Central Asian states 
increasingly view China as a power that has a stake in their independence and in their role as buffers between 
China and Russia.