China's Hidden Claws: 'Tao Guang Yang Hui' Differs from Germany Post-WWI

German troops crossing the river to enter the Rhineland in 1936. At the time, the Allied powers

had the power to retaliate but responded passively, sowing the seeds for World War II. [JoongAng Photo]

As the U.S.-led liberal international order declines, debates surrounding China's rise have reignited. From the argument of whether a rising China is a revisionist state, questions are piling up about whether China will create and lead a new international order, and if so, what shocks and repercussions it will have on the international community.

At a time when the uncertainty and instability of international order transitions are escalating daily, the case of interwar Germany offers important insights into how dissatisfied great powers can shake existing orders and systems.

Interwar Germany experienced the dissatisfaction, humiliation, and constraints imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, but it did not immediately transform into a revisionist state. To emerge as a revisionist state, a power must first accumulate the strength to alter the status quo, and then, based on that accumulated strength, it attempts to test existing norms. As the experience of facing little resistance from established powers to challenges against norms accumulates, this leads to a process of gradually solidifying these changes into fait accompli. In short, revisionism is a political product that arises through a gradual process, combining the narrative of grievance, the accumulation of capabilities, and the fait accompli of norm challenges without punishment in sequential steps.

China Accumulated National Strength After Joining the WTO in 2001

In reality, revisionist states do not break all international norms at once. They begin with small, symbolic challenges that are difficult for the opponent to respond to immediately. Interwar Germany first shed the normative constraints on rearmament by withdrawing from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933, and then announced conscription in March 1935. In 1936, it attempted to rearm the Rhineland, and after empirically confirming that the enforcement mechanisms of the Treaty of Versailles were inoperable, it proceeded to a phase of fait accompli by undertaking a series of norm challenges. Revisionist states, while challenging norms, claim to be correctors of distorted norms, not norm breakers. Germany justified its dismantling of the Versailles order by framing it as a 'correction of an unjust order.'

An imagined painting depicting a conversation between Liu Bei (left) and Cao Cao. It tells the story behind 'Tao Guang Yang Hui,' meaning 'conceal one's strength and bide one's time.'

Liu Bei, with a look of fear, drops his chopsticks, and Cao Cao laughs heartily. [JoongAng Photo]

China, which is growing rapidly, is also following a similar pattern of a revisionist state. However, China's revisionist path has proceeded gradually and gently over a long period within the existing international order, and because it has been more constructive than destructive, it has become apparent in retrospect. China has accelerated its economic development by invoking the narrative of the 'Century of Humiliation' (from the Opium Wars to the founding of New China) since the 1990s. Following its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it has maximized the economic benefits of the international system under the principle of 'Tao Guang Yang Hui' (conceal one's strength and bide one's time), accumulating asymmetric national power. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, through strategies such as 'Made in China 2025' and 'Military-Civil Fusion,' it has pursued self-reliance in core technologies and concentrated on building asymmetric military capabilities of A2/AD (Anti-Access/Area Denial) targeting the United States.

Since the 2000s, as its rise has become more pronounced, China has progressively asserted that the existing U.S.-led international order is unreasonable and unfair, commensurate with its growing national strength. Particularly since President Xi Jinping took office, over the past 13 years, he has consistently advocated for 'reform of the global governance system' and has unleashed numerous 'Chinese-style' visions and discourses, such as the 'Community of Shared Future for Mankind,' thereby concretizing its intention to pursue 'reform of unjust norms and orders.' In practice, China has also attempted resistance that challenges existing norms, albeit in a limited way, by invoking the theory of 'core interests.' For example, China unilaterally declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea in 2013 and publicly challenged the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) system by rejecting the Permanent Court of Arbitration's (PCA) ruling against its territorial claims in the South China Sea in 2016. Regarding the Hong Kong issue, it has tested the limits of universal norms by rejecting Western human rights norms and asserting its own 'discourse power.' Subsequently, through the construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea, and recently by normalizing low-intensity military pressure in the Taiwan Strait, it has employed a salami-slicing tactic to solidify physical and administrative control on land and sea as a 'New Normal' before the U.S. can militarily intervene.

While China's revisionist path shares similarities with the pattern of interwar Germany, it also exhibits distinct characteristics influenced by different structures and environments. Firstly, China's rise has largely occurred by leveraging the existing international economic order, global trade structures, capital and technology flows, and maritime trade systems. In other words, China is a beneficiary of the existing order in terms of its engagement with the world market, trade, investment, global supply chains, and international institutions. Simultaneously, China can be considered revisionist in terms of security order, regional hierarchy, norm interpretation, and seeking partial changes in technological and institutional standards. China's approach is characterized by a selective revisionism of a rising power, seeking to gradually alter unfavorable rules and hierarchies within the existing order while maintaining its benefits, rather than attempting a wholesale destruction of the order as interwar Germany did.

Under the constraints of nuclear deterrence and high economic interdependence, China is pursuing gradual, limited reforms rather than comprehensive revisionism. Given China's continued high external dependence, concerns about disruptions to its economic recovery plans due to the repercussions of a U.S.-Iran conflict have led it to indirectly criticize the U.S. by invoking norms, stating that "the unilateral use of force against a sovereign state is a violation of international law and the UN Charter."

In particular, China, with its inherent structural vulnerability as a one-party communist state, prioritizes its economic development and regime security, and faces the task of creating and managing a stable international order that is suitable and advantageous for these goals. The Xi Jinping administration has designated the period of the '15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030)' as a crucial period for laying the foundation and fully exerting its strength to fundamentally achieve socialist modernization. The '15th Five-Year Plan' is not only a gauge for laying the foundation for the goal of becoming a modernized great power by 2035 but also a significant undertaking that requires tangible achievements, as it can serve as a crucial justification for President Xi Jinping to extend his tenure beyond a fourth term to a fifth term.

During the '15th Five-Year Plan' period, the Xi Jinping administration intends to prioritize and intensively support breakthroughs in core technologies for high-quality development and the recovery of the domestic economy through its diplomatic and economic policies. China is even promoting patriotism and nationalism to counter U.S. offensives and pressure, but rather than directly targeting the U.S., it is utilizing this energy for internal cohesion and regime support. Therefore, China is likely to pursue a long-term and sophisticated revisionist path by gradually accumulating fait accompli through the accumulation of power and limited norm challenges, while avoiding the extreme risk of total war.

China has accumulated the power to utilize market access, supply chains, investment, technological standards, rare earths, and manufacturing capabilities as sources of leverage, thus it has the potential to pursue a selective, gradual, and complex revisionism across various fields including economy, technology, institutions, and military. In practice, China is preparing its response to U.S. pressure by weaponizing rare earths and electric vehicle batteries, in which it holds a monopolistic position within global value chains (GVCs). Furthermore, China remains within existing international organizations such as the UN and WTO, attempting to reinterpret or reform norms from within to its advantage. Concurrently, it is building parallel multilateral organizations that can compete with U.S.-led international organizations, such as the 'Belt and Road Initiative' (BRI), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the expansion of BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), thereby laying the foundation for order transformation by drawing the 'Global South' into its normative orbit.

Remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936)=An event where Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. Britain and France's acquiescence signaled the start of Nazi expansionism.

Century of Humiliation=Refers to the history of exploitation by foreign powers from the Opium Wars in 1840 to the establishment of New China in 1949.

Tao Guang Yang Hui (韜光養晦)=Deng Xiaoping's diplomatic line, meaning 'conceal one's strength and bide one's time.' A strategy of not revealing oneself until strength is built, using the memory of humiliation as motivation.

Core Interests=Interests that China declares it cannot compromise on under any circumstances. The three main pillars are regime stability, territorial integrity, and development interests, encompassing Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the South China Sea, for which it threatens military action if challenged.

Salami-slicing Tactic=A strategy of gradually changing the status quo by repeatedly undertaking small-scale actions that are difficult for the opponent to react to individually, akin to thinly slicing salami.

Respond to the Situation with a Long-Term Perspective, Moving Beyond Anti-China Sentiment

In conclusion, despite its relative increase in national strength, China faces inherent systemic constraints such as low growth, regime instability, and the Taiwan issue, making it inevitably wary and burdened by the uncertainty and instability brought about by international order transitions. Therefore, China is expected to pursue a gradual and incremental transformation of norms and orders in a complex manner across various domains, including economy, technology, and institutions, over a long period, while prioritizing internal capacity building and regime stability. Consequently, predicting, checking, and responding to China's revisionism will be more difficult and require a more sophisticated, long-term perspective. It is therefore necessary to be vigilant against the error of overlooking China's sophisticated revisionist evolution by becoming engrossed in one-dimensional anti-China sentiment and political logic. This is a time to cultivate research and analytical capabilities that can continuously track and observe China's changing trends with a longer breath than ever before.

Lee Dong-ryul, Professor of Chinese Studies at Dongduk Women's University. He holds a Ph.D. from Peking University and served as president of the Association for Modern Chinese Studies. His research areas include China's foreign relations and Chinese nationalism, and he is the author of works such as 'China's Global Strategy' (co-authored).

[Source: JoongAng Ilbo, Reporter Ko Jeong-ae] https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25428765