China Beyond Beijing
Study the fundamentals of the behavioral & cultural aspects of China’s government & military forces.
Over ten years after Xi Jinping ascended to China’s most powerful post, the country is in crisis. Economic stagnation, the fallout from “Zero COVID” policies, internal dissent, and hardening global opposition have all weakened China and made it more dangerous to the international order.
China has faced crises before—and emerged stronger. In 1969, China was in ruins, devastated by the excesses of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and on the brink of war with its erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. Yet Mao and his deputy Zhou Enlai would manage to co-opt an American gambit to open relations with China, emerging from deep isolation to become a rising global power, and fight a war with Vietnam to re-establish its hegemony in Southeast Asia.
Then, in 1989, after a decade of rapid economic growth, China confronted the twin shocks of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the mass protests culminating in the massacre of protesters at Tiananmen Square. Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his successor Jiang Zemin reversed Chinese fortunes once again, returning China to the path of reform and ascension into the World Trade Organization, while ensnaring the U.S. in an engagement rather than containment policy.
Led by Asia expert and former defense official Dan Blumenthal, this weeklong seminar will examine three major geostrategic hinge-points in China’s history and how Chinese leadership responds to crisis.
Dan Blumenthal on America’s Role in the Pacific
This course is part of our residential Security Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 16 fellows will be selected.
Faculty
Daniel Blumenthal
Daniel Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
Dan Blumenthal
Dan Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense. Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and held the position of vice chairman in 2007. He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the coauthor of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century (AEI Press, November 2012).
He holds a B.A. from Washington University, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a J.D. from Duke Law School.
Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Chinese Grand Strategy & Theory of Crisis Management
Readings:
- Dan Blumenthal, Ch. 1, “Big Ambitions” and Ch. 2, “Why Global Centrality?,” The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (2020)
- Daniel Tobin, “How Xi Jinping’s ‘New Era’ Should Have Ended U.S. Debates on Beijing’s Ambitions,” CSIS, May 2020
- David Santoro, Ch. 1, “How China Approaches Military Crises and the Implications for Crisis Management,” China’s Military Decision-Making in Times of Crisis and Conflict, National Bureau of Asian Research
- Austin Ramzy, “China’s Cultural Revolution, Explained,” The New York Times, May 14, 2016
- Chen Jian, Ch. 9, “The Sino-American Rapprochement, 1969–1972,” Mao’s China and the Cold War (2001)
Supplemental Readings:
- Amanda Hsiao, Sungmin Cho, and Joel Wuthnow, “How Beijing Approaches Crisis Management,” CSIS Interpret: China, November 22, 2022
- Andrew Scobell, Ch. 5 “Support the Left: PLA Intervention in the Cultural Revolution,” China’s Use of Military Force (2003)
Discussion Questions:
- How would you define China’s grand strategy? What steps remain before they can achieve “the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation?”
- How does China think of crisis management in the context of grand strategy?
- What were the internal and external conditions for China at the end of the Mao era?
Crisis & National Rejuvenation
Readings:
- Dan Blumenthal, Ch. 3, “Deng’s National Rejuvenation,” The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (2020)
- Ezra Vogel, Ch. 9, “The Soviet-Vietnamese Threat,” Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2013)
- Xiaoming Zhang, Ch. 2, “Deng Xiaoping and China’s War Decision,” Deng Xiaoping’s Long War: The Military Conflict Between China and Vietnam, 1979–1991 (2015)
- Henry Kissinger, Ch. 13, “‘Touching the Tiger’s Buttocks’: The Third Vietnam War,” On China (2011)
- Ezra Vogel, Ch. 11, “Opening to the United States,” Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2013)
Supplemental Reading:
Discussion Questions:
- What are some of the economic and foreign policies Deng enacted to change China’s fortunes?
- This fundamental change in Chinese economic policy could have resulted in serious elite backlash from those aligned with Maoist ideology. How did Deng prevent such a crisis from arising?
- What factors led Deng to decide to invade Vietnam? Do you think any of these decision-making factors might influence a future Chinese invasion scenario?
The 1989 Crisis & “The Trifecta”
Readings:
- Rush Doshi, Ch. 3, “New Cold Wars Have Begun: The Trifecta and the New American Threat,” The Long Game (2021)
- Doshi, Ch. 4, “Grasping the Assassin’s Mace: Implementing Military Building,” The Long Game (2021)
- Andrew Scobell, Ch. 7, “Why the People’s Army Fired on the People: Beijing, 1989,” China’s Use of Military Force (2003)
- Frank Dikotter, Ch. 5, “The Massacre (1989),” China After Mao (2022)
- Julian Gerwirtz, “China’s Road Not Taken: How the Chinese Communist Party Rewrites History,” Foreign Affairs, September 29, 2022
Supplemental Readings:
- Michael Dahm, “China’s Desert Storm Education,” US Naval Institute, March 2021
- Zuo Fengrong, “A Review of Chinese Scholarship on the Collapse of the Soviet Union,” CSIS Interpret: China, February 2022
Discussion Questions:
- Why did Deng believe that China should “hide its capabilities and bide its time?” How do you evaluate this strategy of non-assertiveness?
- How did China view the United States in the 1980s and 1990s? How did this threat calculation effect their strategic decision-making?
- How effective were Chinese efforts at political and military building under Deng and Jiang? Did this strategy move China closer to achieving their grand strategic objectives?
- Was the CCP right that they were facing a “near death experience?”
The 2012 Political Crisis
Readings:
- Amy Gadsden, “What Happened to Democracy in China?”
- Evan Osnos, “Born Red,” The New Yorker, March 30, 2015
- John Garnaut, “The Great Irony of Bo Xilai’s Downfall,” The Atlantic, September 23, 2013
- John Garnaut, “The East is Still Red,” Foreign Policy, August 2013
- Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor
- Michael Swaine, “Perceptions of an Assertive China,” China Leadership Monitor, May 2010
- Ross Anderson, “The Panopticon in Already Here,” The Atlantic, September 2020
Supplemental Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Describe why Xi perceived China to be in crisis by his ascension in What steps did Xi take to “manage the crisis?”
- Do you believe Xi’s anti-corruption campaign and “Comprehensive National Security Strategy” has made the CCP (and his position within it) more or less secure?
- What was the impact of China’s internal centralization and peripheral assertiveness under Xi? Why did he choose these domestic and foreign strategies?
Grand Strategy & Crisis Management Under Xi
Readings:
- Andrea Chloe Wong, “The 2012 Scarborough Shoal Standoff: Analyzing China in Crisis with the Philippines,” National Bureau of Asian Research, May 2024
- Jude Blanchette, “Xi’s Gamble,” Foreign Affairs, June 22, 2021
- Minxin Pei, “A Death Long Feared: How China Decided to Impose its National Security Law in Hong Kong,” China Leadership Monitor, September 2020
- Yuen Yuen Ang, “The Problem with Zero,” Foreign Affairs, December 2, 2022
- Samantha Hoffman, “How Firm is Xi Jinping’s Grip on Power?” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, December 2022
- Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan, “China’s Three Roads to Controlling Taiwan,” AEI, March 13, 2023
- Kim Fassler, “After China’s Party Congress, Steeling for Competition with the West,” Pacific Forum, February 13, 2023
- Evan Osnos, “China’s Age of Malaise,” The New Yorker, October 23, 2023
Discussion Questions:
- How would you evaluate Xi’s handling of foreign policy crises since he came into power? What factors lead Xi to escalate/de-escalate scenarios? What conclusions might we be able to draw about how Xi would respond in a Taiwan scenario?
- Why did China fail to effectively manage the COVID-19 crisis? What might explain such an uncharacteristic shift in policy?
- Is China today in the same state of crisis that occupied in 1969 or 1989?
