00:00This is the Public Domain Channel, where we delve into academic articles published in the Public Domain.
00:11Today, we're diving into the turbulent waters of the South China Sea.
00:21But we're not talking about reefs or battleships.
00:25We're talking about something less visible, yet more powerful.
00:37Identity.
00:41Why has China, under Xi Jinping, adopted a dramatically more coercive strategy in the South China Sea?
00:55And what does it have to do with how a country sees itself, and how it believes others see it?
01:08Today's episode draws from the article by scholars Minran Liu and Edward Xing Yue-Chan, titled
01:20Imagined Weakness, the Peaceful Riser Identity, and Beijing's Policy Overcorrection in the South China Sea.
01:35They argue that China's aggression in the South China Sea isn't just about oil, islands, or rival claimants.
01:50It's also about an imagined weakness, a disconnect between how China wanted to be seen
02:02and how it feared it actually appeared.
02:08In 2013, the world began to notice a sharp shift in Beijing's South China Sea policies.
02:25China intensified its island building.
02:28It ramped up patrols by maritime militias and the Coast Guard.
02:39It flatly rejected international rulings, like the 2016 Hague arbitration that went against it.
02:51This wasn't the old playbook.
02:54The charm offensive of the 2000s.
02:58Peaceful rise, joint development, mutual benefit, was giving way to a much harder edge.
03:09But here's the twist.
03:12According to Liu and Chan, this wasn't a break from the past.
03:18It was a reaction to it.
03:21They argue that China's assertiveness under Xi is a kind of overcorrection.
03:32A policy whiplash triggered by a mismatch between the identity China projected during Hu Jintao's era
03:43and the actual assertive actions it took at the time.
03:49This mismatch, they call it an identity policy discrepancy, created what they term an imagined weakness.
04:02It's perception that China had been too soft, too naive.
04:12The peaceful riser identity trope.
04:16Back in the early 2000s, Hu Jintao's China embraced the phrase,
04:22Peaceful rise, it was a carefully crafted identity meant to reassure the world that China's growing power posed no threat.
04:37But peaceful rise didn't just live on paper.
04:46It became internalised by Chinese elites and the public.
04:52There's a strong cultural current in China that views the country as inherently peaceful,
05:06even morally superior in its restraint.
05:10This idea that China doesn't seek hegemony, that it never has, became a strategic narrative.
05:27And yet, at the very same time, China was growing more assertive in practice,
05:35whose administration wasn't exactly passive.
05:38By the late 2000s, Beijing had begun fortifying its claims,
05:48expanding patrols, and even seizing features like Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines.
06:01So you had this paradox.
06:03A China that told the world and itself it was peaceful while acting increasingly assertive.
06:16This, Leo and Chan argue,
06:22created a kind of strategic schizophrenia and set the stage for an identity crisis,
06:32which resulted in a feedback loop and elite discontent.
06:39And as this identity policy gap widened,
06:44criticisms began to emerge,
06:47not just abroad, but at home.
06:50Chinese scholars,
06:53generals,
06:55and policy elites
06:57began to argue
07:00that the peaceful rise narrative
07:03was being exploited by others.
07:07that it had made China appear weak,
07:13indecisive,
07:15vulnerable.
07:19Some even mocked the strategy.
07:24One general compared it
07:26to playing the zither
07:27to a cow.
07:32Music wasted on those
07:34who wouldn't appreciate it.
07:37So by the time Xi Jinping came to power,
07:40there was a growing elite consensus
07:45that the Hu-era approach
07:49had failed.
07:54That it had allowed China to be encircled,
07:58mocked,
07:59and challenged.
08:00And though Xi was not seen as a hardliner
08:05before taking office,
08:08he quickly positioned himself
08:11as the man
08:13to correct
08:14course.
08:16Not because Hu's policies
08:18had failed in substance,
08:21but because they had failed
08:23in
08:24appearance.
08:25So what did that overcorrection look like?
08:44Four main shifts.
08:45One.
08:46Rejection of international law.
08:55Aging doubled down
08:57on the idea
08:59that its sovereign rights
09:01predated
09:04modern legal frameworks
09:06like United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS.
09:162. Domestication of the South China Sea using law enforcement vessels like the China Coast
09:30Guard. China turned contested waters into de facto controlled zones.
09:443. Island militarisation. Building runways, radars and missile systems on artificial islands.
10:004. Military-civil fusion. Expanding the role of fishing militias as unofficial enforcers
10:11of maritime claims. All of this marked a shift from assertiveness to coercion, from ambiguity
10:24to clarity. From singling restraint to singling dominance.
10:35And it wasn't random.
10:365. It was driven by a desire to erase the perception of weakness.
10:466. To make sure no one ever again mistook China's soft words for soft resolve.
11:01What followed was temporal othering and identity repair. Here's one of the most fascinating insights
11:13from Leo and Chan. They argue that Xi's administration didn't just reject the Hu-era identity.
11:28It allered it.
11:31That is, it treated the previous China, not some foreign country, as the mistaken one.
11:46And by distancing itself from that past, it built a new identity.
11:537. Confident.
12:007. Unapologetic.
12:047. Coercive when necessary.
12:068. This is what scholars call temporal differentiation.
12:118. A strategy where states define who they are,
12:219. In Xi's narrative, the old peaceful riser identity had been naive.
12:409. The new China, strong, smart and in control.
12:489. But there is a danger here.
12:519. It created the new discrepancy.
12:5610. The irony, Leo and Chan suggest.
13:0110. Is that in trying to resolve the old identity.
13:0910. Policy gap.
13:1210. China may have created a new one.
13:1611. Today, official rhetoric still talks of peaceful development, joint cooperation,
13:27and maritime harmony.
13:2911. But actions tell a different story.
13:3311. Of ramming fishing vessels, blocking resupply missions,
13:3911. And rejecting legal rulings.
13:4611. This could again create friction.
13:4911. Not just with neighbours, but within China's own strategic identity.
13:5812. Will the world believe the peaceful rhetoric?
14:0312. Will China itself?
14:0612. In conclusion, what does it mean?
14:0912. So what have we learned?
14:1212. This isn't just a story of China getting stronger.
14:1613. It's a story of China trying to align who it says it is
14:2513. With what it actually does.
14:3013. It's all about the power of narratives.
14:3413. How they can comfort, constrain,
14:4313. And ultimately reshape foreign policy.
14:4814. And it's a warning.
14:5314. That when a state feels it must correct
14:5514. For how it is seen.
14:5814. It may swing harder than it needs to.
15:0414. In the South China Sea,
15:1114. That overcorrection has left us
15:1714. With a region on edge.
15:1814. Where every reef, every fishing boat could become a flashpoint.
15:3214. All because of an identity that was meant to signal peace.
15:3915. Will Xi Jinping himself fall victim to yet another further overcorrection?
16:1015. In the back hours?!
16:1214. In the permanent,
16:1314. In theen
16:2514. First of text,
16:2715. First of note,
16:2815. Been telling you about this rule.
16:3215. Were Balkika
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