ABSTRACT
The People’s Liberation Army as a foreign policy actor The past two decades have seen rapid change in China’s strategic thinking, for two significant reasons. First, the end of the Cold War decreased the possibility of direct state-to-state conflict with Beijing’s then-rivals including the Soviet Union, with which it had cut all political ties in the 1960s. Beijing suddenly found itself the beneficiary of a “peace dividend”, permitting it to focus on mending relations with many of its neighbours in the former Soviet regions as well as East, Southeast and South Asia. At the same time, by the late 1970s China had lost interest in exporting its revolutionary thinking, a policy frequently attempted under Mao Zedong, to other developing states. Second, China’s security concerns have become much more multifaceted and now include issues which are well beyond traditional security concerns, such as border and maritime security. They now include terrorism, protection of economic goods, trade security, access to resources and energy, and trans-national crime. At the same time, the Taiwan question, despite being treated as a domestic issue, retains many international dimensions. Therefore, Beijing needed to review its grand strategy development to better fit a post Cold War security system.
