Abstract
This article examines China’s approaches to nontraditional security in the Gulf of Aden and on the Mekong River and explores the extent to which its behavior reflects a broader trend toward increasing flexibility in Chinese foreign policy.
Main Argument
How China’s foreign policy is evolving in the 21st century remains strongly debated. The maritime component of these discussions often focuses on traditional security issues such as disputes in the Yellow, East, and South China seas. Yet the two major cases to date of Beijing’s involvement in international nontraditional waterborne security—the Gulf of Aden and the Mekong River—reveal broader context and important trends: China’s decision-making in these regions is based less on traditional ideologies and principles than on pragmatic calculations of its national interests. This shift has potentially positive implications for the future of security governance in the maritime commons. Although China’s approaches to nontraditional waterborne security represent a small sample of the country’s foreign policy behavior, they nevertheless offer indications of China’s incremental foreign policy evolution, particularly concerning its interests abroad.
Policy Implications
- As China’s stake in international maritime and riverine waterways grows, other states should convey that China will be recognized in ways commensurate with the means and scope of its provision of public goods in each region.
- Given that protracted ambiguity can generate uncertainty and suspicion, states should encourage China to reveal more specifics about its intentions and capabilities in various maritime regions abroad.
- In order to institutionalize coordination mechanisms in the maritime commons and other waters, China, the U.S., EU, and regional states can draw lessons from the Gulf of Aden and, to a lesser extent, the Mekong River.
