Yue Jianyong's Perspective: A More Important Issue Than 'Rise' - China's Behavior Logic of Seeking Stability Internally and 'Cold Peace' Externally

A country's external behavior, is it derived from the growth of strength, institutional structure, or ideology and the will of the leader? Facing China's rise, this has almost become one of the most heated debates in the international community. Some believe that 'strong country must dominate' is an irresistible historical rule, some see China's strength as a result of the expansion of nationalism, and some believe that the hardline against China itself is constantly shaping a more dangerous China. However, these explanations mostly stay at the phenomenon and do not touch the root of China's behavior. Understanding China, the key is not to judge how strong it is, but to understand how it has developed along the road to today. What truly shapes a great power's strategic behavior is not just economic volume, military strength, or nationalist sentiment, but the institutional structure, interest pattern, and security perception formed by its development approach. Different development paths shape different great power behaviors. This article believes that today's China is neither a mature economic power like post-war Germany and Japan that has completed autonomous industrial catching-up, nor has it become a global power that can fully compete with the United States. It is more like a 'semi-peripheral rise' (semi-peripheral rise) that has achieved but has not yet completed autonomous development, a quasi-superpower (quasi-superpower). It is this 'semi-peripheral' development path that has shaped its profound structural insecurity and also determined its strategic logic of pursuing absolute stability internally and seeking 'cold peace' externally. Understanding this development logic is the real starting point for understanding China's behavior and avoiding strategic misjudgment. The rise of dependent development To understand China's behavior, we must first answer a more important question than 'whether China has risen': how exactly has China risen? Over the past forty years, China has created the largest-scale economic growth miracle in human history. The international community is more concerned with the miracle itself, but less with the development path on which it is based. A country's development approach not only determines the source of wealth accumulation, but also the nature of national capabilities; not only shapes economic structure, but also shapes strategic behavior. Globalization has provided China with unprecedented development opportunities, and its rapid growth is mainly based on the international division of labor shaped by globalization. Relying on exports, foreign investment, and cross-border industrial chains, China has quickly grown into one of the world's largest manufacturing countries. However, growth does not equal development. The third wave of globalization that emerged in the early 1980s encouraged export-oriented growth but rejected industrial policies and import substitution. Its institutional logic is more conducive to growth but not to catching up economically through autonomous development for latecomer countries. Therefore, China's development strategy of deeply integrating into globalization is different from that of post-war Germany and Japan, and also different from the autonomous development model adopted by East Asian developing countries; it is not a development path based on autonomous industrialization, autonomous innovation, and domestic capital accumulation. This difference determines the nature of China's rise. Today's China is not a mature economic power that has completed autonomous development, but is still in the stage of 'semi-peripheral rise' shaped by dependent development. Its power comes from globalization, and its constraints also come from globalization. It is this development path that has shaped China's structural insecurity and also constitutes the real starting point for understanding its strategic behavior. The structural insecurity behind the rise The biggest paradox of dependent development is that it not only achieves China's power but also breeds China's sense of insecurity. A country's true strength depends not only on economic scale but also on whether it can independently grasp the key resources that determine national development. When growth becomes increasingly dependent on external markets, key technologies, international finance, and global supply chains, the larger the economy, the deeper the external dependence may be. Power and constraints are not opposed to each other but are jointly produced in the same development process. For China, dependent development not only causes deep dependence on the external system but also reshapes the domestic interest structure. The wealth brought by growth has not been simultaneously transformed into social integration but has instead intensified the polarization of wealth, the formation of interest groups, and the rise of governance costs. For a system that places regime security at the top, this internal fragility is more worthy of vigilance than any external pressure because political stability is always the top priority for rulers. This insecurity stems not from national power but from dependent development itself. On the one hand, it creates deep dependence on the international system, and on the other hand, it continuously accumulates internal governance pressure, making external constraints and internal anxieties two manifestations of the same development path. When this development model becomes increasingly difficult to sustain itself, China is facing not only the slowdown of economic growth but also the original development path gradually approaching its institutional boundary. For a great power that cannot get rid of dependent development, the biggest security challenge comes not only from external competition but also from the structural risk formed by the mutual reinforcement of external constraints and internal pressures. For this reason, structural insecurity is no longer a potential risk but has become a reality that China's development and national security must face. Security anxiety and national behavior The strategic dilemma China faces today is not how to replace the existing international order but how to avoid drastic turbulence in this order. As Odd Arne Westad pointed out, there is no sufficient evidence to show that China intends to destroy the existing international system; on the contrary, it hopes to gain more benefits from this system. The real question is: why is this the case? The answer lies in China's development path. A great power that has risen through dependent development has its power deeply embedded in the existing international system. International markets, global supply chains, international finance, and maritime trade networks not only constitute its external environment for development but are also important sources of its power. Therefore, the more China relies on globalization to achieve growth, the harder it is to bear drastic turbulence in the international system. Thus, a seemingly contradictory phenomenon appears: diplomatic rhetoric is becoming more intense, but strategic goals always avoid losing control; competition is intensifying, but risks are always controlled. The tough stance it takes is more of a selective strategic pressure rather than an all-out escalation without considering the consequences; when facing strategic pressure that can change its external development environment, China usually tends to control risks rather than break through risks. Regime security is always prioritized over geopolitical expansion, so what Beijing really wants is not all-out war or all-out confrontation, but a long-term external environment where competition continues to exist but is always controllable—not 'Weltpolitik' but 'Cold Peace'. This strategic choice does not mean that China lacks nationalism or will not take a hardline diplomacy. Nationalism constitutes an important resource for maintaining the legitimacy of the regime, and a tough stance often serves the realistic needs of regime security. But both are more of governance tools for maintaining regime security rather than an expansionist ideology for establishing a new world order. For a great power that has long been in a state of structural insecurity, the biggest goal is not to conquer the world but to ensure that it will not lose stability in continuous competition. Therefore, a more accurate positioning of contemporary China is not an expansionist empire ready to launch a major war, but an empire that regards 'stabilizing the country' as the top priority and is restless and inward-looking (an inward-looking restless empire). The 'semi-peripheral rise' (semi-peripheral rise) of dependent development has achieved China's power and also defined the boundary of this power: it must participate in international competition but cannot tolerate competition evolving into uncontrolled conflict. Understanding China and avoiding misjudgment Today's China is neither a revolutionary power ready to completely overturn the existing international order nor a great power that is destined to rise peacefully and is content with the status quo. It is more like a quasi-superpower that is constrained by 'semi-peripheral rise' and has always failed to complete the transformation of autonomous development. For a developing great power that places regime security at the top and is deeply dependent on the global system, maintaining competition without losing control is far more in line with its national rationality (raison d'état) than reshaping the world order through war. 'Cold peace' is not a temporary expedient but a strategic destination under the joint action of its development path and national structure. For the international community, the real danger is not overestimating China or underestimating China, but misjudging it detached from its development logic—overestimating creates fear, underestimating breeds arrogance, and both ultimately point to the same result: a misreading of the nature of China's rise. Understanding the real path of China's rise is the key to understanding the logic of China's behavior. Understanding does not mean agreeing; explaining does not mean defending. Any strategic judgment based on correct cognition is closer to reality and closer to peace than judgment based on historical analogy, ideology, or emotional reaction. *The author is a scholar based in the UK, a PhD in political science from the London School of Economics and Political Science.