The Chinese are drawing lessons from the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895):
To commemorate the 120th anniversary of the war, Xinhua published a special supplement to its Reference News newspaper. The supplement consisted of 30 articles by members of the People’s Liberation Army “analyzing what China can learn from its defeat” in the Sino-Japanese war. Summing up the articles, Xinhua said that “the roots of China’s defeat lay not on military reasons, but the outdated and corrupt state system, as well as the ignorance of maritime strategy.” This conclusion has obvious modern-day applications, as China’s leadership is currently emphasizing both reform and a new focus on China’s navy.
The PLA authors laid the bulk of the blame for China’s defeat on the Qing dynasty’s failure to effectively modernize. “Japan’s victory proved that its westernization drive, the Meiji Restoration, was the right path, despite its militarist tendency,” Xinhua summarized. Political commissar of China’s National Defense University Liu Yazhou compared Japan’s reforms to China’s: “One made reforms from its mind, while another only made changes on the surface.”
The Chinese have increased their power greatly over the last 20 years. Back then, China could hardly even find American ships operating off of the coast of China let alone keep us away with anti-access weapons.
But China's military is not as strong as it appears. They may be able to pick off smaller targets by achieving surprise while potential allies of the victim are too far away to help, but China should not count on defeating Japan even if we don't directly intervene.
Japan is modern to the core while China is modern on the surface while less so in the mind. That could be a fatal weakness if China wants to wage a short and glorious war to regain the title of "big brother" in the Japan-China rivalry.
Meanwhile, China continues their effort to define threats to the Chinese Communist Party as a continuum of threats from internal to external:
Beijing recently issued its broadest definition of “national security” — including virtually all aspects of the communist state’s daily routine and giving new meaning to China as a “national security state.”
Billed as the “National Security Path with Chinese Characteristics,” the new definition was announced by Supreme Leader Xi Jinping on April 15 at the first plenary meeting of the newly created, all-powerful National Security Commission.
It is significantly different from other conventional definitions of “national security” around the world in its comprehensive coverage and its dual emphasis on external and internal security.
I wrote about this new body earlier:
China is not America. Foreign policy does not stop at the water's edge in China. No, everything is about politics in China--in particular the continued absolute control of China by the Chinese Communist Party.
Trying to determine whether the new NSC will focus on domestic or foreign policy is projecting a Western governmental model of separate domestic and foreign policies on to what is simply a Chinese communist model of how internal security is protected[.] ...
The focus of this new body is clearly the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party and the consolidation of Xi Jinping's power over the party. Some threats to party control may be more equal than others, but they are all threats whether they come from Chinese or foreigners.
There is no water's edge when it comes to this ultimate core interest.
Lacking ideological legitimacy, the Chinese Communist Party increasingly relies on xenophobic nationalism to justify their monopoly on power. This merging of domestic and foreign policy areas of policy runs the risk that a crisis in one area can quickly become a threat in the other area.
While other countries can fall prey to the allure of suppressing internal unrest with foreign threats, China has institutionalized this way of thinking. This is a dangerous way for China to look at the world. It will be even more dangerous if we try to think that Chines politics stops at the water's edge.
