A STRATEGIC DECISION: UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S NON-ALLIANCE POLICY IN THE CONTEXT OF ALLIANCE FORMATION

Abstract

China’s non-alliance policy since 1982 is explained mostly from two perspectives. One is the official view from the Chinese government alleging the need to create a sound environment to China’s development. The second perspective posits that China’s non-alliance yields from Sino-soviet split and the US mismanagement of the Taiwan issue. Although both perspectives are parts of the explanation, they ignore to some extent the geopolitical factors that prompted China to adopt the non-alliance policy. Even though balancing and bandwagoning behaviors are sources to explain how and why states form, sustain and eliminate alliances, they cannot explain non-alliance choice since it is not just the elimination of alliance. In order to understand China’s non-alliance decision, this article builds a hypothesis on non-alliance policy in the context of threats. Our hypothesis informs why China employed non-alliance policy even facing some threats, instead of balance or bandwagon. In order to do so, this article capture a wider range of geopolitical factors covering China’s lean to one side decision, Sino-Soviet Alliance, Sino-Soviet Split, China’s quest for alliance in the Third World and with the US, and China’s sense of encirclement. Only by gathering all these factors in a wider perspective, we can explain China’s non alliance decision. Non-alliance policy can be an alternative to deal with a threat instead of balancing and bandwagoning.