The characteristics of China’s military negotiation strategy

Abstract

It was observed from the Korean War ceasefire talks, China-Soviet border disputes, India-China border disputes, Hong Kong return negotiations, and South China Sea conflicts that China adopted distributed negotiation strategy. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper is to derive an effective approach by identifying the types of military negotiation strategies used by China in conflicts with neighboring countries. Such research can contribute to the expansion of research topics on security-political-military relations owing to recent changes in the regional security environment (North Korea, the United States, Japan, and China) surrounding the Republic of Korea. Through the literature of various case studies, it was observed that China’s negotiation strategy differed depending on the attitude or response demonstrated by the target country. Thus, it could be confirmed that China's hostile negotiations alter and reach an agreement if the negotiator acquires military victories, exercises tough measures that threaten the negotiations themselves, or exerts diplomatic all-out pressure. This cannot be achieved by military methods alone. For instance, in the case of the South China Sea dispute, strong diplomatic pressure transformed China's negotiation strategy into an integrated negotiation strategy.