Since The Reform And Opening Up, China's Strategic Culture,

The review of the traditional Chinese strategic culture shows that most of the Chinese scholars maintain that it is a peaceful culture and base on the defensive strategy, while the foreign scholars hold different point of views. Most of the scholars argue the modern Chinese strategic culture in the period of transition. During the transition, the culture should involve the good point of the tradition and some new development. But the scholars still have made insufficient efforts to study the strategic culture after the reform and opening-up period which is still lack of systemic demonstration.Through constructing the core pattern of strategic culture which include two dimensions: strategic environment (possibility of the war, the properties of the international conflict and the attitude to the arms), strategic behaviors (strategic policy, the use of arms and nuclear strategy), and making use of history case study, literature study and cognitive mapping as methods, I argue that Chinese strategic culture after reform and opening up is defensive, reserved and cautious non-offensive culture.The second generation leading group of the China Communist Party led by Deng Xiaoping strategically stipulated the strategic culture's direction and still affects the policy today. From the strategic environment perspective, since the 1980s, the Chinese leader's understanding of the domestic and international environment has changed greatly. They believe the war is avoidable, peace and development is the main topic of the time, rather than the war and revolution. The use of arm to solve the conflict is no longer the main mean, and the contradictions and conflicts can be alleviated and reach a win-win result through cooperation. From the behavior perspective, basing on the positive defensive policy, China's policy turns to more cautious. The army should serve for the nation construction first, no longer develop in the war-preparing pattern, and cut the army, hide the light and keep a low profile, commit not to take the lead to use the nuclear weapon in war. In conclusion, after the reform and opening up, China pursues non-offensive, reserved and cautious strategic culture which solid the strategic base for the 30 years'glorious achievement and make a peaceful and stable domestic and international environment.But with the change of the situation of home and abroad, Chinese strategic culture need to develop and be modified in the following 4 dimensions:Firstly, deepen the understanding of the epoch theme of peace and development, adding the factors of globalization. Secondly, enlarge the concept of security. Not only focus on the traditional security fields, also pay attention to the non-traditional security fields and set up a new security concept. Thirdly, re-examine the concept of force use, we not only need to keep a low profile, but to use the force in the proper time, transparently and take the international responsibility and maintain the peace. Fourthly, we need to find a new and peaceful way to deal with the controversial territory issue with other countries to protect the key national interest. Consequently, Chinese strategic culture needs to move toward a peaceful, cooperative and active strategic culture with keeping a low profile.