ABSTRACT
This chapter examines China’s behaviors as one of the key determinants of Northeast Asian geo-politics. The piece argues that China’s geo-politics in Northeast Asia has gone through four distinct stages. Initially, during the early 1950s, China participated in Northeast Asian geo-politics as a regional socialist power. China’s Northeast became a testing ground of China’s construction of socialism and a base for both the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War. The second stage began in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping visited Japan and the United States. Deng meant business and made the necessary “adjustments” in foreign policy. China started making policy choices based on their potential economic benefits. However, Northeast Asia was pushed to the margin of China’s diplomatic initiative until 1985, when Gorbachev showed up. The third stage was dominated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Northeast Asia became the starting point for China’s pursuit of economic prosperity. Japan and South Korea became partners in China’s economic ventures. Expanding out from this Northeast Asian base, China looked south towards Southeast Asia. In the fourth stage, the United States began to perceive China’s global reach as a threat. Xi Jinping’s declaration of a grand design of economic expansion, the Belt and Road Initiative, demonstrated that China’s reach now extended through Central and South Asia to the Near East and Europe. China had become a global power. China’s rational policy choices have pushed Northeast Asia to the margins in pursuit of its ultimate goal, projecting itself as a global superpower. However, the region remains important to China’s economic development and security in the present.
