US-China Crisis Management

1. US-China Crisis Management • Two dramatic recent clashes between the US and China – Hainan Island and Belgrade Embassy Bombing – make it imperative that these two very different systems get to know more about each other’s crisis management systems. CEIP project. The paper you have read for this week comes out of that conference, and as prep for a simulation. • Project Purpose • --To develop a set of policy-oriented guidelines that decision-makers can use to anticipate the emergence of political-military crises, and to facilitate the successful management of any crises. • --To deepen understanding of how decision-making elites in the U.S. and China view political-military crises and crisis management.

2. Issues in Crisis Management • Near Crises • Differing Perceptions of Crisis • Threat and Opportunity Crises • Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution • Joint Crises

3. Near Crisis - Definition • A near crisis is defined by James as a conflict that approaches the intensity of an international crisis in the following way: each involved actor perceives a threat to basic values and finite time for response, but not an increased probability of military hostilities (i.e., two of the three defining conditions for a foreign policy crisis, but not all three). In formal terms, possible escalation from near crisis to international crisis would be explained by the following factors • c=b0 + b1g1 + b2g2 + b3r1 + b4e1+ b5T1 + b6t2 + b7I1 + b8i2 + e • where c = likelihood of a near crisis escalating to an international crisis; g1 = proximity between states; g2 = contiguity between states; r1 = rivalry between states; e1 = ethnic dimension to the conflict; T1 = proportion of non-democratic states in system; t2 = authoritarian or mixed dyad; I1 = non-intervention by international organizations; i2 = non-intervention by great powers and superpowers.

4. China Crises, 1945-2001

5. Recent US-China Near Crises • May 7, 1999, US bombs Chinese Embassy in Belgrade • April 1, 2001, US EP-3 reconnaissance plane collides with Chinese fighter, emergency landing on Hainan Island

6. Differing perceptions of crisis • Many Western scholars believe that international crises are “unusual” situations, largely triggered by abrupt changes in the behavior of a foreign nation (or nations) or an external political movement. These observers hold that crises cause the disturbance of otherwise stable international relations and usually last for a short period of time • Many Chinese analysts use similar language to define a crisis (weiji in Chinese). They view a crisis as a “potential disaster or danger” that can also present an “opportunity” (the “ji”in weiji) for benefit, if handled correctly. Many Chinese analysts argue that crises are not qualitatively distinctive or relatively uncommon events. They believe that crises reflect the inherently competitive and unstable nature of international relations and differ from other situations only in the level and intensity of actions and signals.

7. Western Perceptions of Crisis

8. Chinese Perception of Crisis circa 1975

9. Threat and Opportunity Crises Maoz (1982) proposes that opportunity crises emerge as a result of a deliberate, conscious, and calculated initiative. As Ben-Yehuda (1999) notes, stress is the key element differentiating between these two situations. In the threat situation, all actors experience stress, while in the opportunity situation, there is an asymmetrical situation or stress gap between the adversaries. “The initiator of an opportunity crisis always anticipates gain as a result of the crisis it triggers. . . . If it perceives threat at all, it will be substantially lower than that perceived by the target state(s).” (Ben-Yehuda 1999: 76).

10. Crisis Management or Conflict Resolution

11. Crisis Management • Crisis management is most often thought of as “the attempt to control events during a crisis to prevent significant and systematic violence from occurring” (Evans and Newnham 1998). • The primary and distinct mission of crisis intervention aimed at managing a crisis is to terminate the immediate crisis before it escalates or spreads. As Zartman puts it, management involves “eliminating the violent and violence-related means of pursuing the conflict, leaving it to be worked out on the purely political level” (1997, 11). • Management implies a “temporary respite in an otherwise ongoing conflict” (Kolb and Babbitt 1995), a neutralization of the destructive consequences of a conflict (Kleiboer 1998). • Thought of in this way, crisis management can include any of the following activities: deterrence moves and reactions to them, arbitration, repression of the conflict, containment of the conflict, arms reductions, or any solution that involves the disputants simply arriving at a consensus based on compromise, with or without the assistance of a mediator (Burton 1990).

12. Conflict Resolution • Those engaging in conflict resolution are not simply concerned with controlling the negative, violent expressions and side effects of a conflictual relationship (Burton 1990). • The goal is to move beyond temporary settlements and toward eliminating the roots of the conflict between the parties (Burton 1972, 1987, 1990; Zartman 1988, 1997; Kolb and Babbitt 1995; Rupesinghe 1996; Kleiboer 1998), which is often an extremely difficult and labor- and time-intensive pursuit (Kleiboer 1998). • The challenge is to try and get the parties to redefine or restructure their relations in such a way that their goals no longer conflict or that they realize that they each can achieve their goals without conflict with each other (Susskind and Babbitt 1992; Kleiboer 1998). • If the elimination of conflict is not possible, conflict resolution initiatives may be aimed at getting the parties to view conflict in a constructive, rather than a zero-sum, manner (Kleiboer 1998).

13. Joint Crises • By diametrically opposed, we mean situations in which the interests of the two parties diverge completely. • A quasi-opposed situation occurs when one party is a crisis actor – that is, perceives threat, finite time for response, and heightened probability of military hostilities – while the other party is an involved but not a crisis actor. • The category of jointly opposed signifies a situation in which the US and China find themselves for the most part on the same “side” of the crisis. Most likely, they will both be involved actors. Or, they may both be crisis actors, but find themselves on roughly the same side of the issue.

14. Principles of US-China Crisis Management • Maintain direct channels of communication and send signals that are clear, specific, and detailed • Preserve limited objectives and limited means on behalf of such objectives; sacrifice unlimited goals • Preserve military flexibility, escalate slowly and respond symmetrically (in a “tit-for-tat” manner) • Avoid “ideological” or “principled” lock-in positions that encourage “zero-sum approaches to a crisis and limit options or bargaining room; do not confuse moral or principled positions with conflicts of interest • Exercise self-restraint, and do not respond to all provocative moves • Avoid extreme pressure, ultimatums, or threats to the adversary’s core values, and preserve the adversary’s option to back down • Divide large, integrated, hard-to-resolve disputes into smaller, more manageable issues, thereby building trust and facilitating trade-offs • Think ahead about the unintended consequences of one’s actions