Bringing Geography Back in: Buffer Thinking in Chinese Foreign Policy

Abstract

One fundamental assumption widely accepted by a majority of International Relations (IR) scholars is that state behavior will change in accordance with variances of polarity in the international system. History provides countless cases confirming the validity of that assumption. However, it is not the case in how contemporary China interacts with Taiwan, North Korea, and Mongolia. For decades, China has pursued policies of annexing Taiwan, maintaining the existence of North Korea, and neutralizing Mongolia, despite frequent changes in the power distribution in Northeast Asia over the past sixty years. What explains this strong behavioral consistency in China's policies toward North Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia? This thesis offers a geopolitical argument to this question. Aiming at "bringing geography back in" to the fields of China Studies and IR, this thesis will demonstrate how China's behavior toward the three states has been driven by "buffer thinking." This is characterized by the logic of "secure this territory now, otherwise my rival may launch a military attack from it on me in the future once the rival has occupied the territory." This thinking appears when Chinese leaders are conceiving of ways to fend off potential military threats from a specific neighboring territory. Historical memory of foreign rivals invading China via such territories, has served to strengthen this mentality in the minds of Chinese leaders. Once Chinese leaders have established buffer thinking toward a specific state on China's periphery, it is very difficult for them to relinquish this mentality. In this way, it is like "glue," firmly sticking a part of China onto an old polarity while the power configuration of the international system enters into new power patterns. This thesis argues that buffer thinking is an intervening variable that mediates the effect of variation of the power distribution in the system. This is the reason why China's behavior toward Taiwan, Mongolia, and North Korea is less responsive to changes in polarity.