4. Methods
4.3. Analyzing the documents
Working with this body of empirical material raises some more specific questions that need to be addressed.
First, as already explained above, I will reconstruct the discursive constructions of security regarding China by means of the ideal-types of security. I will present detailed quotes of the constructions of security and China that fit into the frameworks of the ideal-types in order to give the reader the possibility to draw the same or different conclusions from the quotations.55 I will furthermore not try to overly structure and arrange the material as this would already be an interpretation of the material that might be biased. The overall structure will be chronologic, taking the issuing of policy papers and major strategies as landmarks from which one might determine whether the constructions have remained stable or not. For the reasons of clarity and readability, I will nevertheless structure according to different issues of concern within the different periods.
And second, as we are dealing with documents with a largely diplomatic language, the question arises, what sort of statements do we expect? For example, do we expect to find statements of the sort that ‘China is a hostile nation which we have to deter’? How do we know whether in these diplomatically formulated documents and speeches it is really expressed what the policy makers mean? This last question has been already responded to in the previous section 4.1. in the way that it is not a weakness, but a strength of poststructuralist discourse analysis to stay at the level of the discourse and the discursive constructions rather than to dive into the universe of ‘what they really mean’ (cf. Wæver 2002). Basically, it is not about which statements are made, but how
55 Extensive quotations may remind more of a dissertation in history than in political science. It is, however, indispensable to provide a solid textual basis for the reconstruction of the constructions of security.
‘security regarding China’ is constructed.
The question, however, what we expect to find, how we expect the constructions of security to be presented, remains. It is therefore worth to take a quick look at a security discourse on China in which we most certainly expect to find a construction of security that does – at least partly – construct China as a potential threat: The US security discourse regarding China.
The official US discursive construction of security regarding China is characterized by a basic dichotomy. On the one hand, China is constructed as a power with which cooperation and good relations are vital. On the other hand, there is a basic uncertainty about China’s intentions and thus, basically, China is constructed as constituting a – potential or probable – threat to the US.
To take the example of the 2009 Joint Communiqué: Both sides underline
that regular exchanges between leaders of the two countries are essential to the long-term, sound, and steady growth of U.S.-China relations. [...] The two sides reiterated that they are committed to building a positive, cooperative and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century, and will take concrete actions to steadily build a partnership to address common challenges.
(Government of the United States of America/Government of the People’s Republic of China 2009)
In its National Security Strategy (2010), too, the US underlines the necessity to cooperate with China “in areas of mutual interest” and to pursue “a positive, constructive, and comprehensive relationship with China” (The President of the United States 2010: 43). However, parallel to these statements of the necessity of a positive and constructive relationship, there are clear constructions of distance and of a basic uncertainty about China’s intentions.56 The Joint Communiqué of 2009 states: “The goal of these efforts is to improve their capabilities for practical cooperation and foster greater understanding of each other’s intentions and of the international security environment” (Government of the United States of America/Government of the People’s Republic of China 2009). A great deal of uncertainty about the motives and intentions of ‘the other’ speaks out of this statement. A few lines later, it becomes clear,
56 This is the basis of the so-called approach of ‘congagement’: A combination of engagement and
what dimension this uncertainty has: “They reaffirmed their commitment made on 27 June 1998 not to target at each other the strategic nuclear weapons under their respective control” (ibid.). The uncertainty about the intentions is in fact about the projection of existential threats to one another.
The potential threat that China poses to the US (and its interests) is also visible when it is not explicitly spelled out. In a speech at Tsinghua University and being asked about the US-China relations and Taiwan, President Bush did not explicitly state that China poses a threat, but strongly and unmistakably referred to the Taiwan Relations Act: “[...]
And, secondly, when my country makes an agreement, we stick with it. And there is called the Taiwan Relations Act, and I honor that act, which says we will help Taiwan defend herself if provoked. But we've also sent the same message that there should be no provocation by either party for a peaceful dialogue” (Bush 2002). The Taiwan Relations Act states that the US considers “any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States”;
therefore it is essential “ to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan” (Government of the United States of America 1979). The unspoken source of such a threat is naturally not Japan nor the Philippines but of course the People’s Republic of China. Potentially – and even probably – China is perceived as a serious threat to the US security and interests.
That is to say, the official security discourse regarding China by the construction of uncertainty about China’s future behaviour opens a ‘discursive space’ which then can be filled by other constructions.
The National Security Strategies and strategy papers from the defence department are more explicit in this respect and fill in this ‘discursive space’ opened by the construction of uncertainty. The National Security Strategy of 2002 states that “our strategy seeks to encourage China to make the right strategic choices for its people, while we hedge against other possibilities” (The President of the United States 2002: 36). And the 2010 Security Strategy reiterates that the US “will monitor China’s military modernization program and prepare accordingly to ensure that U.S. interests and allies, regionally and globally, are not negatively affected” (The President of the United States 2010: 43). In defence-related terms (and military-thinking is undoubtedly an influential strand in the US political arena, as – among others – the presence of high ranking military personal
in high public offices indicates) this sounds like this:
China is one ascendant state with the potential for competing with the United States. For the foreseeable future, we will need to hedge against China’s growing military modernization and the impact of its strategic choices upon international security. It is likely that China will continue to expand its conventional military capabilities, emphasizing anti-access and area denial assets including developing a full range of long-range strike, space, and information warfare capabilities. Our interaction with China will be long-term and multi-dimensional and will involve peacetime engagement between defense establishments as much as fielded combat capabilities. The objective of this effort is to mitigate near term challenges while preserving and enhancing U.S. national advantages over time. (United States Department of Defense 2008: 3)
The distance and uncertainty about China’s motives and intentions which is expressed in the Joint Communiqué is amended by the statements of the respective security and strategy papers which ‘fill’ this distance and uncertainty with the need to prepare for an aggressive China and therefore to pursue a policy of hedging against China.
This construction of security policy regarding China is in its core an understanding of security which comes closest to the neorealist ideal-type of security. Security in this understanding is the attribute of the United States and threats emerge from potentially hostile actors which need to be addressed accordingly. Although it is acknowledged that national securities are interdependent and impact upon each other (which is basically the concept of ‘international security’), the possibility of achieving security in a relationship is excluded. Security can ultimately only be achieved by preparing the nation against external threats and averting potentially hostile actors from projecting threats to the nation.
Therefore, the construction of an uncertainty about China’s motives and future actions is an indicator for a possible construction of China as a threat. Hence, if instances of uncertainty about China and its motives are found in the analyzed discourses, the search has to be expanded in order to look for constructions which fill in this uncertainty. For example, in the case of the UK’s discourse, one might expect in this context that the role
of the Five Power Defence Agreements57 is underlined (cf. Bersick 2009a, 2009b).
However, this can be said at this point, neither the Five Power Defence Agreements play any role in the UK’s security discourse on China, nor are there any constructions of uncertainty about China’s future behaviour in the analysed discourses.
I will now turn to the analysis of the EU’s security discourse regarding China.
57 The Five Power Defence Agreements are a series of agreements between the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, cf. Thayer 2007.