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Master’s Thesis of Ewon Baik

Understanding China's

Regional Usage of Non-combatant

Evacuation Operations (NEOs)

August 2019

Graduate School of Seoul National University

Department of Political Science

Ewon Baik

Understanding China's

Regional Usage of Non-combatant

Evacuation Operations (NEOs)

Thesis Advisor: Injoo Sohn

Submitting a master’s thesis of Political Science July 2019

Graduate School of Seoul National University

Department of Political Science

Ewon Baik

Confirming the master’s thesis written by

Ewon Baik

August 2019

Chair Chang Jae Baik (Seal)

Vice Chair Injoo Sohn (Seal)

Examiner Eui-Young Kim (Seal)

i

Abstract

How do we interpret China’s regional usage of Non-Combatant

Evacuation Operations (NEOs)? Capturing the political motivations behind

NEOs are especially important for understanding how a rising China adapts

its adherence to the “non-intervention principle” in foreign policy. The main

strands of research on China’s intervention behavior have focused on its

participation in UN sanctioned multilateral operations, suggesting that

Beijing is averse to intervening in neighboring countries. The central

argument of this thesis is that contrary to these findings, China’s 2014 NEO

from Vietnam reveals that it is willing to intervene in bordering countries in

the form of an evacuation operation, especially when territorial disputes,

such as the South China Sea, are at stake. Analysis of circumstantial

evidence, comparative cases, and literature suggests that rather than external

pressures from the urgency of the need to recue citizens, or internal

pressures from domestic nationalism, the NEO was at least partially

motivated by China’s intention to impose its presence on Vietnam and send

a message that it would not back down in the South China Sea dispute. This

study aims to broaden the discourse surrounding China’s foreign

interventions by examining a case of unilateral action in the form of an

evacuation operation, and seeks to contribute to the debate surrounding the

rising power’s positioning in the global order.

Keyword : Chinese foreign policy, foreign intervention, non-combatant

evacuation operations, protection of nationals, regional governance.

Student Number : 2017-29914

ii

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................ 1

Chapter 2. Overview of (Chinese) NEOs ................................ 4

2.1. General discourse on NEOs

2.2. The recent history of Chinese NEOs

Chapter 3. Existing explanations for intervention (including

NEOs) and their limitations ................................................... 12

3.1. The ambiguous nature of NEOs

3.2. China’s non-intervention in neighboring countries

Chapter 4. China’s 2014 NEO in Vietnam .............................. 22

4.1. Rationale for case selection

4.2. Timeline of events

4.3. Understanding the logic behind China’s NEO in

Vietnam

4.4. The involvement of the South China Sea disputes

as a factor for the Vietnam NEO

Chapter 5. Implications and further considerations ............... 37

Chapter 6. Conclusion ............................................................ 40

Bibliography ........................................................................... 42

Abstract in Korean ................................................................ 53

１

Understanding China’s Regional Usage of

Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEOs)

I. Introduction

In China, the two highest-grossing movies in 2017 and 2018 were

called “Wolf Warrior 2 (战狼2)” and “Operation Red Sea (红海行动),”①

respectively. Both movies tell stories of Chinese troops who are sent to the

Middle East or Africa to rescue Chinese citizens in distress. It is a well-

known fact that “Wolf Warrior 2” is based on China’s evacuations of its

citizens from Libya in 2011; “Operation Red Sea” is based on the

evacuations from Yemen in 2015.

The domestic popularity of Chinese evacuation narratives at least

partially underscores the importance of understanding China’s employment

of Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEOs). As China grows in

① Connolly, Peter. “Chinese Evacuations and Power Projection (Part 2): a Movie Genre Is

Born.” The Strategist, (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) 13 Dec. 2018, and Davis,

Nathaniel. “A Tale of Two Dragons: Chinese Power Projection on the Silver Screen.”

Modern War Institute, 9 Aug. 2018

２

power, its shifting attitudes toward foreign intervention and the long-

standing “non-intervention principle” is a major puzzle in the study of

international relations, with important implications for China’s role in global

governance. NEOs can be useful in attempting to answer the questions, as

they are a form of intervention China has used increasingly in the last

decade.

Most writings on Chinese interventions focus on multilateral

missions sanctioned by the United Nations, such as China’s participation in

UN peacekeeping operations. Ideational and materialist theories are

employed to describe Beijing’s decision to participate in interventions.

There is less research on the country’s unilateral interventions, because

modern day China has yet to perform unilateral military invasions in other

countries. NEOs, as unilateral actions, require independent analysis from

participation in multilateral operations, because depending on how they are

implemented, they can be interpreted as aggressive or non-aggressive.

Noting this ambiguousness, scholars have gone so far as to call NEOs a

form of “amphibious warfare.”②

Research also indicates that while Beijing has participated in

multilateral interventions in the Middle East or Africa, it remains loath to

intervene in its own neighborhood, for the sake of preserving stability and

order in the region. Contrary to this example, China has performed

unilateral interventions in the form of evacuation operations from

neighboring countries. This study attempts to better understand the

anomalous phenomenon of China’s regional intervention by analyzing the

motivating factors behind China’s NEO from Vietnam in 2014.

The central argument of this study is that contrary to previous

② Massimo Annati, “The renaissance of amphibious warfare” Naval Forces (May1999) p.8

３

research on China’s (non)intervention, China’s 2014 NEO from Vietnam

reveals that it is willing to intervene in bordering countries in the form of an

NEO, especially when territorial core interests, such as the South China Sea,

are at stake. China is not willing to back down when it comes to the South

China Sea dispute, and an intervention in the form of an evacuation

operation is part of this message. In fact, while NEOs may seem less

interventionist than other forms of intervention, their ambiguousness allows

for bolder moves, such as intervening in a neighboring country, living up to

the moniker of “amphibious warfare.”

In the first section, I briefly overview the general discourse on

NEOs, which focuses on their legal justification and logistical challenges,

with less attention on their political motivations. I then provide an overview

of China’s recent history of conducting NEOs. In the second section, I

review existing literature on motivations for intervention by dividing them

into two groups; interventions that are favored by international norms, and

interventions that are frowned upon by the global society. This allows an

examination of the materialist and ideational theories regarding intervention,

but because NEOs are by nature ambiguous and straddle both types, they

cannot be fully explained by one school or another. Thus, in the following

section, I examine China’s NEO in Vietnam in 2014 to highlight an

overlooked logic behind Chinese NEOs. While previous research on

intervention show that China will not intervene in neighboring countries, I

argue that the involvement of territorial core interests such as the South

China Sea can motivate China to intervene even in neighboring countries

with tense relationships. The last section suggests the implications of this

finding and considerations for further research.

４

II. Overview of (Chinese) NEOs

General discourse on NEOs

What are Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEOs)? The

general definition is the ordered (mandatory) or authorized (voluntary)

departure of civilian noncombatants and nonessential military personnel

from danger in an overseas country, including civil unrest, military uprisings,

environmental concerns, and natural disasters.③ For the purposes of this

paper, the term can be used interchangeably with evacuation operations or

civilian rescue missions. Although the official terminology may sound new,

the concept and image of a government attempting to rescue its own citizens

from foreign land is widely familiar.

A major tenet in the discussions surrounding NEOs is their legal

justification. As with other forms of intervention, scholars have debated the

legality of using coercion for the doctrine of protecting nationals abroad.

Since World War II and the adoption of the U.N. Charter, western developed

countries have developed guidelines for and performed modern evacuation

operations for their citizens. Various countries have argued for its

justification in the years since④; for example, Sam Dudin notes that the UK

has conducted approximately 20 NEOs between World War II and 2011.⑤

③ “Ready Marine Corps: Emergency Preparedness Program” U.S. Marine Corps website ④ “[Along with] the United Kingdom in the Suez crisis in 1956; the United States

consistently asserted this right from 1958 until 1989 during its incursion into Lebanon and

Panama, respectively; Belgium in Congo in 1960 and 1964; France in Mauritania in 1977;

and Russia in regard to its conflict with Georgia in 2008.” Andrew W.R. Thomson,

"Doctrine of the Protection of Nationals Abroad: Rise of the Non-combatant Evacuation

Operation." Washington University Global Studies Law Review 11, no. 3 (2012): 62 ⑤ Sam Dudin, “The Historical Characteristics of Non-combatant Evacuation Operations,”

Paper presented at the 28th International Symposium on Military Operations Research

(2011)

５

The concept of a government’s duty to protect citizens is taken as a

given in the modern day. After all, the basis of Rousseau’s Social Contract

claims citizens forfeit freedoms and take on duties, yielding power to a

government who will offer protection. Regarding citizens as an extension of

the state, the right for a government to intervene on behalf of their citizens is

based on the roots of the self-defense principle, which has been articulated

and refined by Claud Humphrey Waldock’s “The Regulation of the Use of

Force by Individual States in International Law.” (1953) Scholars such as

Steven Day (1992), Tom Ruys (2008) and Andrew Thomson (2012)

generally agree that while NEOs are not explicitly sanctioned in written law,

there are legal and normative agreements among states to permit NEOs as a

valid form of intervention. According to Thomson, the two legal bases cited

for the protection of nationals is that it does not constitute a use of force

prohibited by Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, or it is a legitimate exercise

of a state’s right of self-defense.⑥ In more layman terms, this means that

states are allowed to intervene for the protection of their nationals abroad,

subject to the following (cumulative) conditions⑦:

(i) There is an imminent threat of injury to nationals

(ii) A failure or inability on the part of the territorial sovereign to

protect them, and

(iii) The action of the intervening state is strictly confined to the

objective of protecting its nationals.

Both Thomson and Ruys point out that there is a tendency of

tolerance and acceptance on behalf of the international community

regarding unauthorized evacuation operations. Thomson states that even

⑥ Thomson, p630 ⑦ Tom Ruys, “The Protection of Nationals’ Doctrine Revisited”, 13 Oxford J. Conflict &

Security (2008) p233

６

when military incursions did not satisfy the doctrine’s criteria, criticism

from other states was directed at the use of force itself, and not the

doctrine.⑧ They both conclude that through its application and third state

acquiescence to the practice, protection of nationals abroad is generally

acceptable as an exercise of the right of self-defense.

Thus, more recent articles regarding NEOs center around their

operational logistics rather than theoretical justifications. The defense

departments of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and

Brazil have published military guidelines on NEOs that are accessible to the

public.⑨ These guidelines describe specific responsibilities by relevant

organizations in command, as well as the various considerations (political,

operational, health, logistical) during the planning stages, and detailed

instructions throughout the preparation-control – evacuation – withdrawal

phases.

Aside from official guidelines, articles on NEOs, mostly written by

ex or current military academics, tend to focus on the operational challenges

of NEOs on the field and how to better address them. Examples include the

optimization of transportation logistics for a NEO,⑩ weighing the use of

non-lethal weapons during a NEO ⑪ , and the possibilities for joint

evacuation operations among allied countries.⑫

Indeed, operational logistics are important because NEOs are

⑧ Ruys, p233, and Thomson, p666 ⑨ US Military Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Paper 3-68 “Non-combatant Evacuation

Operations” (2010), UK Ministry of Defence, Joint Doctrine Publication 3-51 “Non-

combatant Evacuation Operations” (2013)

Australian Defence Force, “Non-combatant Evacuation Operations” (2011) ⑩ Bohdan Kaluzny and Jean-Denis Caron, “Optimizing non-combatant evacuation

operation transportation logistics,” Lecture Notes in Management Science (2015), Vol7,p21 ⑪ Jerry J. Kung, “Nonlethal weapons in Noncombatant Evacuation Operations” Naval

Postgraduate School Thesis (1992) ⑫ Craig Sutherland , “Operation Deference”, The RUSI Journal, 157:3 (2012), p15

７

inherently risky. For one, there is always room for unintentional mistakes

that can embroil the government in a security conflict. Though they are

usually limited, rapid, and small-scale relative to full blown military assaults,

the main characteristic of an NEO is urgency, which can result in hasty

planning and execution with the possibility to go awry.⑬ Furthermore, as

Thomson points out in his legal discourse, there is always the possibility of

states knowingly abusing the protection of nationals doctrine to intervene in

foreign territory. He describes the case of Russia’s intervention in South

Ossetia in 2008 as an example.⑭ NEOs, therefore, are definitely a form of

intervention and should be categorized as such. However, evacuation

operations are also unique because they are not always fully operated by the

military, and may not be regarded as aggressive as other forms of

intervention, because their stated purpose is to rescue their citizens and

leave. Hence, scholars have gone so far as to describe NEOs as a form of

“amphibious warfare.” ⑮

Because NEOs are ambiguous and have the potential to develop into

a bigger security conflict, it is important to understand, from a political

perspective, the motivations behind states’ decisions to pursue an operation.

Yet, existing literature does not comprehensively explain how and when

states decide to conduct NEOs, often neglecting to differentiate between

NEOs and other forms of intervention. I argue that understanding the

motivation behind NEOs is especially important for understanding China,

because the rise of China raises questions on the country’s adherence to its

⑬ UK Ministry of Defence, Allied Joint Publication (AJP)-3.4.2: “Allied joint doctrine for

non-combatant evacuation operations” (July 2017) ⑭ Russia invocated the doctrine of the protection of nationals as justification for its

military intervention and use of violence in semi-autonomous South Ossetia amid conflict

with an increasingly western-oriented Georgia. ⑮ Annati, p.6

８

“non-intervention(不干涉) principle” in foreign policy, and ultimately its

degree of engagement with the world.

The recent history of Chinese NEOs

The rise of China is inevitably tied with discussions on its actions of

intervention abroad. China first subscribed to the “non-intervention

principle” in the 1950s, when Mao Zedong put forward the Five Principles

of Peaceful Co-existence following the establishment of the People’s

Republic of China. 16 Since then, non-interference in the affairs of other

states has served as the underlying foundation of China’s foreign policy.

Simply put, non-intervention means refusing to take proactive action to

interfere with the domestic affairs of other governments, particularly

through means of coercion.17

As can be expected, however, China’s growth has forced both its

governing party and outside observers to re-evaluate China’s foreign policy

stance. China is now economically and politically invested in many parts

around the world, and it is becoming more difficult to maintain an

isolationist principle. This is where noncombatant evacuation operations

enter the conversation.

With its growing economic reach and international stature, China

sends millions of people abroad every year. More people abroad, whether

they be tourists, students, peacekeepers, or workers in Chinese state-led

development projects, means a higher probability of more of them facing

risk and danger away from home. As a result, the Chinese government now

16 “China’s Initiation of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence”, Ministry of Foreign

Affairs of the People’s Republic of China website. 17 “Rethinking China’s Non-intervention Policy,” Synergy Journal post (September 2016)

９

faces a dilemma it did not face before; how and when to intervene on their

distressed citizens’ behalf.

China is a relative newcomer to the NEO operating states’ club. In

2004, 14 Chinese citizens were attacked and killed in Afghanistan and

Pakistan, sending shockwaves through the Chinese media. Duchatel and

Hang claim that this was a turning point for the CCP, as the government

realized that its citizens could be targets of terrorist attacks abroad, and the

importance of protecting nationals abroad began to be highlighted.18 In

2006, China first conducted its modern evacuation operations in four

locations; Solomon Islands, East Timor, Tonga, and Lebanon.19 While small

in scale, the operations signified that China had decided it would no longer

just be a bystander in overseas distress situations.

Following 2006, China has conducted 15 evacuation operations in

ten years.20 Of note are the two missions mentioned at the very beginning

of this paper, which have become the subjects of blockbuster hits. First, the

2011 evacuations from the Middle East, most notably from Libya, were the

largest operations to date. Amid the toil and tension of the Arab Spring

uprisings, China repatriated over 35,000 citizens from Libya. It was the first

Chinese NEO to significantly involve the People’s Liberation Army (PLA),

and afterwards led the Chinese government to purchase more planes with

amphibious capability, which would be needed for situations in which

civilian charter planes could not access, such as remote locations or high-

18 Mathieu Duchâtel, Oliver Bräuner and Zhou Hang. “Protecting China’s Overseas

Interests – The Slow Shift away from Non-interference.” Policy Paper No.41, Stockholm

International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), June 2014. 19 Prior to 2006, the only evacuations of note had been from Indonesia in the 1960s and

Kuwait in 1990. Peter Connolly, "Chinese Evacuations and Power Projection: Part 1 –

Overseas Citizen Protection” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Dec. 2018. 20 See Table 1

１０

threat environments.21 Observers of the Chinese military noticed this move,

as the purchased equipment could be important not only for future NEOs,

but also for China’s projection of force.22

Four years later, the Chinese government swooped in to rescue over

600 Chinese citizens from Aden, Yemen, which had turned into a war zone

following the advance of the Houthi rebels. While not the biggest

evacuation in terms of scale, the NEO received focused coverage because it

was the first time that the Chinese navy evacuated foreign nationals along

with their own. The NEO, carried out exclusively by the PLA, evacuated

629 Chinese nationals and 279 citizens from 15 other countries to a safe

haven in Djibouti.23 The Chinese navy’s successful maneuvering of the

situation was not lost on both the domestic audience and international

observers, leading to claims that China was starting to test the waters in a

new arena.24 For a military with little to no combat experience, these

operations

Apart from rescue missions from man-made situations, China has

also conducted NEOs from natural disasters as well, including an NEO from

the earthquake site in Haiti in 2010, and volcanic eruption site in Bali in

2017. From numbers alone, it appears that in the last decade, China has not

shied away from conducting NEOs when necessary.

Figure 1. Chinese Noncombatant Evacuation Operations (NEOs), 2006-201825

21 Connolly, 12 Dec. 2018. 22 Ibid 23 Jane Perlez, “Rescue Mission in Yemen Proves to Be Boon for Chinese Military's

Image.” The New York Times, 8 April 2015 24 Kevin Wang, “Yemen Evacuation a Strategic Step Forward for China.” The Diplomat, 10

April 2015 25 Based on Parello-Plesner and Duchatel’s compilation(2015), with author contributions

１１

Date Event Location Evacuees

2006/4 Violent anti-Chinese riots Sol. Islands 310

2006/4 Riots in Dili, the capital E. Timor 243

2006/7 War with Israel Lebanon 167

2006/11 Violent pro-democracy protests Tonga 193

2008/1 Civil war Chad 411

2008/11 Airport closed due to Bangkok riots Thailand 3346

2010/1 Earthquake Haiti 48

2010/6 Ethnic fighting in the Osh region Kyrgyzstan 1321

2011/1 Violence due to Arab Spring Egypt 1800

2011/3 Anti-Gaddhafi uprising and

int'l military operation Libya 35860

2011/3 Tsunami and Fukushima Incident Japan 9300

2012/12 Civil war C.A.R 300

2013/9 Civil war Syria 2000

2014/5 Anti-Chinese riots over South China Sea

dispute Vietnam 3553

2014/6 Violence by and against ISIS Iraq 1300

2014/7 Continued civil unrest Libya 900

2015/3 Advance by Houthi rebels Yemen 629

2016/7 Escalation in local conflict S. Sudan 330

2017/11 Volcanic eruption and

airport shutdown Bali 2700

１２

III. Existing explanations for Chinese “intervention26” (including

NEOs) and their limitations

The challenge, then, in studying China’s NEOs and foreign

intervention in general, is understanding when China deems a situation

necessary to intervene. After all, an important question in Chinese foreign

policy studies today is as China grows, how is it adapting its principle of

non-intervention? What factors affect Beijing’s decision to intervene?

Much of the academic discourse on Chinese NEOs are grouped as

part (or sub-categories) of discussions on “intervention.”27 This section

suggests that NEOs require separate analysis, because NEOs present

empirical anomalies from other forms of intervention.

First, because post-Deng China has espoused the non-intervention

policy and has yet to unilaterally invade other countries, research on

Chinese intervention has focused on China’s participation in UN sanctioned

multilateral interventions, such as the UN Peacekeeping Operations. This

means Chinese interventions are often analyzed through an ideational, rather

than materialist, lens. The materialist lens is also employed, but mostly

focused on China’s decision to participate in multilateral operations. NEOs

26For the purposes of discussion, the definition of “intervention” in this study is limited to

physical intervention (through the presence of the military, personnel, water, and/or air

vessels). Cyber-intervention via hacking, or economic intervention, while important topics

in their own right, are to be excluded. 27 Examples where NEOs are mentioned in passing as a sub-category of intervention

include Hirono, Miwa, Yang Jiang, and Marc Lanteigne. "China's New Roles and

Behaviour in Conflict-Affected Regions: Reconsidering Non-Interference and Non-

Intervention." China Quarterly, 2019, 1-21., Chiung-chiu Huang and Chih-Yu Shih,

Harmonious Intervention : China's Quest for Relational Security / By Chiung-Chiu Huang

and Chih-yu Shih. Farnham, Surrey, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014., Sørensen,

Camilla T. N. T. "That Is Not Intervention; That Is Interference with Chinese

Characteristics: New Concepts, Distinctions and Approaches Developing in the Chinese

Debate and Foreign and Security Policy Practice." China Quarterly, 2019, 1-20., and James

Meernik, "Military Interventions Short of War in the Post 1975 Era." In A Companion to

American Military History, 584-92. Vol. 2. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

１３

are mostly unilaterally implemented, however, and while they should also

be examined through ideational and materialist theories, they may provide

different rationales from multilateral operations.

Second, existing research supports the idea that China does not

intervene in neighboring countries. China has encountered the most

critiques and challenges in the calls for intervention in Asia.28 Despite its

increasing willingness to participate in UN interventions in more faraway

regions such as the Middle East or Africa, China has refrained from

participating in interventions in North Korea or Myanmar. Contrary to these

findings, China has shown that it is willing to intervene to perform NEOs in

neighboring countries, requiring further examination.

The ambiguous nature of NEOs

For conceptual clarification, it is possible to divide intervention into

two types:

i) intervention favored by the UN, including UN sanctioned

multilateral peacekeeping operations.

ii) intervention frowned upon by the UN, such as unilateral

invasions of one state on another.

As shown in Figure 2 below, the ambiguous nature of NEOs locate it

in the overlap between intervention that is considered hostile and non-

hostile by the international society. NEOs, depending on how they are

implemented and perceived, can be both intended and interpreted as

legitimate intervention to protect civilians, or acts of aggression on foreign

soil.

28 Huang and Shih, p6

１４

Figure 2. Types of intervention and their supporting theories

Most research on Chinese intervention focuses on the first camp

(intervention favored by the UN 29 ). This camp represents cases of

multilateral humanitarian intervention and UN Peacekeeping missions that

uphold the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), which asserts that the

international society holds a responsibility to protect civilians when they are

unable to receive protection from their sovereign government. These

instances are supported by normative theories, which suggest that states

internalize international norms and institutions such as human rights to

justify intervening on civilians’ behalf.

The second camp (intervention frowned upon by the UN) is

29 To clarify, one could argue that the delineation between the first and second group is not

always clear. For example, China could argue that the Security Council’s decision in

support of humanitarian intervention is actually a decision violating state sovereignty and to

be frowned upon by the UN. However, because this paper centers on China, and China is

usually at odds with the Western powers in the Security Council, it is assumed that China’s

decision on intervention is the subject to be welcomed or frowned upon by the majority of

the UN powers who uphold the post-World War II liberal world order.

NEOs

１５

composed of cases of hostile interventions. These instances are supported by

materialist theories, which suggest that states act solely to ensure their

survival and expand their power and influence, regarding the international

arena as a zero-sum playing field. Materialist explanations for China’s

intervention behavior have been focused on China’s decision to participate

(or not) in multilateral operations, because China in the modern era has yet

to perform unilateral invasions on other nations.

i) Intervention favored by the UN: Ideational theories

Cases of intervention that are welcomed by the UN (because they

uphold the R2P principle and humanitarian intervention) are supported by

normative theories. While such normative theories support certain aspects

behind China’s decision to conduct NEOs, they do not completely explain

China’s motivations for pursuing civilian rescue missions.

Ideational theses claim that China’s response to international crises

often depends on the degree to which China has opted to comply with

international norms and institutions.30 This reasoning asserts that China’s

internalization of international norms decides its self-image, which affects

the type of role China will assume among other nations in global

governance. Alastair Iain Johnston claims that states’ preferences and their

corresponding behaviors are shaped by a process of socialization in three

steps: mimicking, social influence, and persuasion. 31 According to this

logic, China will mimic prevailing Western norms, internalize them and

eventually become more engaged and compliant with the existing order.

This implies that China will eventually fully adopt the concept of R2P and

30 Huang and Shi, p36 31 Alastair I Johnston, “Social States : China in International Institutions, 1980-2000”

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey (2008)

１６

humanitarian intervention as a justifiable means to intervene in order to

uphold human rights.32 China’s current position on NEOs, however, seem

to only partially support this claim.

a. R2P (Responsibility 2 Protect) doctrine

To start with, China’s embrace of NEOs seems to be motivated

more by the wish to protect its own citizens, rather than internalizing the

universal “Responsibility 2 Protect (R2P)” principle. Lanteigne and Hirono

(2012), Huang and Shih (2014), Coning, Aoi, and Karlsrud (2017), among

others, have shown that Chinese support of the R2P principle is tentative at

best. Shesterinina (2016) goes on to claim that in the 2011 Libya NEO,

“Protection of Nationals Abroad” was the main doctrine which influenced

China’s decision to mass evacuate its own citizens, rather than the R2P

doctrine. Evacuation of its own citizens may be motivated more by

materialist intentions of protecting a state’s human assets, rather than an

international responsibility to protect civilians from unconscionable regimes.

b. International reputation

Next, China does seem to consider international duty, responsibility,

and reputation when it comes to conducting NEOs, as the international

community expects China to act as a “responsible great power.” During

natural disasters or drawn out wars, where multiple nations are performing

NEOs, terms such as “duty” and “responsibility” to protect civilians are

used to justify a foreign entity’s right to intervene.33 In these multilateral

32 Dingding Chen (2009) claims that constructive socialization norm shaping can begin

with China as the agent influencing the rest of the world. However, it can be assumed that

when it comes to humanitarian intervention, China is the clear minority, more likely to be

persuaded than to persuade. 33 Tyra Ruth Saechao,“Natural Disasters and the Responsibility to Protect: from Chaos to

１７

cases, international norms and entailing reputation may be a motivating

factor for China to conduct an evacuation operation. Following evacuations

from Yemen in 2015 (in which China evacuated foreigners), foreign

minister Wang Yi claimed that China was on the “same boat with the rest of

the world.”34 Larson and Shevchenko explain how China seeks status as a

“responsible great power” in the face of US primacy.35 The fact that China

made a show of rescuing not only Chinese citizens but also foreigners from

Yemen shows that evacuation can be symbolically important in portraying

itself as a responsible great power.36

However, most evacuation operations are conducted on a unilateral,

national basis. There is no international outcry for China to evacuate its own

citizens when they are specifically targeted abroad. If anything, there is a

domestic outcry for the government to step in, but domestic pressure in the

form of nationalism cannot be explained by international norms.

Furthermore, ideational theories cannot fully explain

Thus, while normative theories are persuasive for explaining China’s

evacuation of multi-nationals from war-torn zones or natural disasters (such

as its NEO from Yemen in 2015), they cannot fully account for China’s

decision to rescue its own citizens from targeted attacks.

ii) Intervention frowned upon by the UN : Materialist theories

On the other hand, cases of intervention that are frowned upon by

Clarity.” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, vol. 32, no. 2, 2007, p663 and Terry

Nardin, “From Right to Intervene to Duty to Protect: Michael Walzer on Humanitarian

Intervention”,European Journal of International Law, Volume 24, Issue 1, Feb 2013, p68 34 Perlez, The New York Times, 8 April 2015 35 Deborah Larson and Alexei Shevchenko, . “Status Seekers.” International Security, vol.

34, no. 4, 2010, p83 36 David Lague, “Analysis: China Security Blanket for Citizens Abroad Has

Limits.” Reuters, 3 Feb. 2012.

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the UN are supported by materialist propositions. Similar to ideational

theories, materialist theories are persuasive explainers of NEOs in certain

aspects, but fail to fully account for China’s motivations in pursuing NEOs.

From the neorealist perspective of Waltzian theory, states’ behavior

is determined by structural factors, such as the survival and expansion of

state power, the polarization of the international system, and the gap

between strong and weaker countries. Accordingly, states decide whether to

intervene or not based on the calculation of national interests, especially

material interests, such as territorial or financial gain, and the expansion of

(military) power and influence.37 Most notably, Mearsheimer predicts that

as a rising hegemon, China’s national interests will always clash with those

of the current hegemon (United States), creating conflict and challenging the

current world order.38

According to such materialist theories, NEOs can be pursued

because the Chinese government hopes to protect its human and economic

assets, whilst flexing its military capabilities.

a. Protection of human and economic assets

For one thing, Chinese citizens are material assets for the

government to protect.39 Articles have pointed out that China is destined to

become more embroiled in danger in regions where it has a heavy economic

presence, because 1) the Belt and Road Initiative has put them in already

dangerous places that other investors may shun (such as Pakistan, Sudan,

37 Huang and Shih, p35 38 John J. Mearsheimer (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton, Ch

1. See also, Organski AFK and Kugler J (1980) The War Ledger. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Press, Modelski G (1978) The long cycle of global politics and the nation-state.

Comparative Studies in Society and History 20(2) p214–235. 39 Hirono, Jiang, and Lanteigne, p.15

１９

and Egypt)40, and 2) Chinese workers may be targeted by locals who are

negatively impacted by Chinese economic activity. 41 While this is a

plausible argument, the Chinese government has empirically shown (as will

be described in the next section) that it will not always intervene based on

the degree of human loss.

Cho (2018) has shown that the protection of economic investment in

a region is a factor when China decides whether to participate in US

peacekeeping operations.42 However, it is difficult for the protection of

economic assets to be a rationale for an evacuation operation. The

evacuation operation may occur in a region where China is heavily

economically invested, but most evacuation operations will occur after

economic damage has been done, and will not necessarily help secure

Chinese investments abroad.

b. Military capacity building

China’s increasing participation in multilateral military operations

has been supported by the materialist argument that China aims to build its

military capacity. According to the 2008 Chinese Defense White Paper,

Chinese participation in UN peacekeeping operations have provided

practical experiences for Chinese security forces and have helped improve

their responsiveness.43

40 Brian Spegele et al. “China's Workers Are Targeted as Its Overseas Reach

Grows.(Column).” The Wall Street Journal Eastern Edition, 2012 p. A8. 41 Abdul Basit, “Why Attacks on Chinese Interests in Pakistan Will Continue.” South

China Morning Post, 27 Nov. 2018, and David Hutt, “Are Chinese Nationals Being

Targeted in Laos?” Asia Times Online 42 Sunghee Cho, “China’s Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations since the 2000s”,

Journal of Contemporary China, 03 November 2018, p2 43 Bates Gill and Chin-Hao Huang. “China’s Expanding Peacekeeping Role: Its

Significance and the Policy Implications.” Policy Brief, Stockholm International Peace

Research Institute (SIPRI), Feb. 2009

２０

In some ways, NEOs can also be seen as a way for the Chinese

government to build its military capabilities and project force. Many media

outlets perceived China’s purchase of military planes following the Libya

evacuation (2011), and the military coordination of the Yemen evacuation

(2015) to support this notion.44 However, apart from the Libya and Yemen

evacuation, Chinese NEOS have rarely employed military vessels, relying

on commercial charter planes and ships instead. Thus, unlike other forms of

hostile military interventions, it is difficult to claim that a central purpose of

NEOs are to improve military practice and expertise.

Non-intervention in neighboring countries

It is important to note that current research shows that China is very

reluctant to intervene in border-sharing countries. Courtney Fung and

Chiung-Chiu Huang and Chih-yu Shih, among others, have shown that even

if China is increasingly intervening in foreign countries, it steadfastly

refuses to intervene in neighboring countries like North Korea and

Myanmar.45 This finding goes against the logic that whether or not the

target state is a neighbor should be irrelevant. From a realist perspective,

China should be open to intervention within its own region, in order to take

advantage of the interests that come with intervention.46 From an ideational

point of view, China should consider its international reputation and

conform with other UN powers to intervene if necessary.

Fung describes this as akin to a “NIMBY (Not in my backyard)”

policy; China wishes to separate “intervention” from “regime change,” and

44 Perlez, The New York Times, 08 April 2015 45 Courtney Fung, lecture slides and Huang and Shih p25 46 Ibid, p45

２１

the prospect of multilateral interventions that risk regime change in its

neighboring countries can feel threatening to the Chinese government.47

Huang and Shih argue that for Chinese foreign policy, long-term

calculations rely on the conviction that in the long run, stable relationships

should always pay off. When it comes to places like North Korea or

Myanmar, China values stability above all else (稳定压倒一切), and

chooses not to intervene rather than risk upsetting its relationships or the

border region.48

This is where NEOs differ from other forms of intervention. While

China generally refrains from intervention in its region, it has been willing

to perform evacuation operations in neighboring countries.

In short, a review of competing theories shows that NEOs should be

examined independently from other forms of intervention. NEOs by nature

are uniquely ambiguous between hostile and non-hostile forms of

intervention. They are mostly unilateral operations, as opposed to the

multilateral operations that have been the main focus of intervention

research. They also present an anomaly in that China shows a willingness to

perform evacuation operations in neighboring countries, contrary to findings

that China will not intervene in its surrounding region. Thus, an in-depth

analysis of an empirical case which represents NEO’s uniqueness can

illuminate logic behind NEOs that may be different from the logic behind

other forms of intervention.

47 Fung, lecture slides 48 Huang and Shih, p17

２２

IV. Case for Consideration: China’s NEO in Vietnam, 2014

China’s evacuation operation from Vietnam in 2014 is an empirical

case which highlights the differences of NEOs from other forms of

intervention, allowing for an

i. Example of intervention against short-term targeted attacks on

Chinese citizens

ii. Example of intervention in a neighboring country

Rationale for case selection

i. Example of intervention against short-term targeted attacks on

Chinese citizens

It is possible to categorize NEO occurrences into three types of

situations. The first category is (long-term) war zones, such as Libya in

2011 and Yemen in 2015. The second category is environmental disasters,

which include NEOs from Japan’s Fukushima explosion in 2011 and Bali’s

volcanic eruption in 2017. The last category can be labeled (short-term) riots

and targeted attacks on Chinese people.

Of these three categories, it would not be a stretch to argue that

drawn out wars and environmental disasters are more widely accepted by

the international community as locations to save civilians from. Normative

theories suggest that states perform interventions because they have

socialized norms regarding their duty and responsibility to save citizens

from such situations. In these situations, it seems that China does consider

its international stature and reputation. War zones and natural disasters are

also more suitably explained by multilateral interventions, as opposed to

２３

short-term targeted attacks on Chinese people, which require a unilateral

response.

More interesting, therefore, is the rationale behind evacuation

operations in locations where such norms do not hold much weight.

Although protection of civilians and citizens are doctrines that most states

uphold, there is no international expectation that a country rescue every

citizen in distress. Thus, in places where short-term riots or targeted attacks

have occurred, there is more room for discussion; when will China pursue

NEOs, and when will it not? Will China perform NEOs as a veiled form of

retribution? China’s evacuation from Vietnam, which followed riots and

attacks on Chinese people, is an example which allows examination of these

questions.

ii. Example of intervention in a neighboring country

Research on intervention (that is non-specific to NEOs) shows that

even while becoming more open to accepting parts of the R2P principle,

China has stubbornly refrained from intervening in neighboring countries

such as North Korea and Myanmar, despite calls from the UN for

international action.49 This runs contrary to the materialist perspective that

control and power over neighboring states is necessary for a state’s security.

On the other hand, China’s NEO from Vietnam in 2014 is an

example that China is willing to intervene in neighboring countries in the

form of a NEO. This hints at the possibility that NEOs are able to follow

more of a materialist logic because they can cloak their intentions in their

ambiguous form. It is an example which shows that the logic behind NEOs

may be different from other forms of intervention, and encourages case

49 Fung, lecture slides and Huang and Shih, p25

２４

analyses.

Timeline of events50

The background of China’s NEO in Vietnam was anti-Chinese riots

that flared up in Vietnam over China’s planting an oil rig in a disputed area

of the South China Sea.

- May 2nd, 2014 (Friday): China announces that its HD-981 oil rig would

be parked at a disputed region in the South China Sea for exploratory

work until mid-August.

- May 7th, 2014 (Wednesday): Vietnam warns China that it will take all

necessary measures to defend its interests in the South China Sea if

China does not remove the oil rig from disputed waters.

- May 8th, 2014 (Thursday): Tensions rise as Vietnamese naval vessels

confront Chinese ships working to place an oil rig off Vietnam’s coast.

Vietnamese officials claim that their ships were rammed by Chinese

vessels three days earlier, amid other provocations.

50 Compiled by the author from various sources:

Tseng, Katherine Hui-Yi. "The China-Vietnam Clashes in the South China Sea: An

Assessment." East Asian Policy 6.03 (2014): 81-89.,Mike Ives and Thomas Fuller. “Anger

Grows in Vietnam Over Dispute With China.” The New York Times, 14 May 2014., Chris

Buckley, et al. “China Targeted by Vietnamese in Fiery Riots.” The New York Times, 14

May 2014., Chris Buckley and Chau Doan. “Anti-Chinese Violence Convulses Vietnam,

Pitting Laborers Against Laborers.” The New York Times, 15 May 2014., Kate Hodal and

Jonathan Kaiman. “At Least 21 Dead in Vietnam Anti-China Protests over Oil Rig.” The

Guardian, 15 May 2014., Martin Petty, “Vietnam Stops Anti-China Protests after Riots,

China Evacuates Workers.” Reuters, 18 May 2014., He Huifeng, “Chinese Rescue Ships

Arrive in Vietnam to Evacuate Thousands of Workers.” South China Morning Post, 19 May

2014, Flannery, Russell. “Vietnam Minister Apologizes For Taiwan Losses During Anti-

China Riots.” Forbes, 27 May 2014., 卢文刚,黄小珍. 中国海外突发事件撤侨应急管理

研究——以“5·13”越南打砸中资企业事件为例[J]. 东南亚研究,2014(05):79-88., 卢文

刚,黄小珍. 中国海外突发事件撤侨应急管理研究——以“5·13”越南打砸中资企业事件

为例[J]. 东南亚研究,2014(05):79-88

２５

- May 9th, 2014 (Friday): China demands the withdrawal of Vietnamese

ships near its oil rig. For the first time, China acknowledges that its

vessels had blasted the Vietnamese flotilla with canons.

- May 12th, 2014 (Monday): Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan

Dung accuses China of “dangerous and serious violations” in territorial

dispute. These comments represent Vietnam’s strongest statement since

China’s parking of the oil rig.

- May 13th, 2014 (Tuesday): Protests in Binh Duong (near Ho Chi Minh

City) escalate to a violent riot. Factories with Chinese (then Korean and

American and German) characters are attacked and vandalized. 1 death

reported in a Taiwanese bike factory. Over1000 arrested. Relative calm

restored by Wednesday afternoon.

- May 14th, 2014 (Wednesday): Escalated riots in Formosa Steel Mill

(Taiwan-owned) in central Ha Tinh Province, in response to a rumor of

a Vietnamese worker killed there. 4 Chinese killed. Rioting calms down

early Thursday afternoon. Riots mark a rare outpouring of popular

outrage over China’s increasingly insistent claims to strategically

important, resource-rich seas. In their rage, however, Vietnamese

workers appear to have misdirected their anger, as the greatest toll was

taken on Taiwanese and South Korean factories.

- May 15th-18th: Vietnamese government signals that further violence

over the dispute with China will not be tolerated, arresting hundreds

involved in attacks and repressing further uprisings across the nation

with massive police forces.

- May 18th, 2014 (Sunday): China evacuates around 3,000 Chinese

nationals by ships and planes. 5 vessels (capacity 1000 each),

emergency vessel, medical plane, and chartered flights.

２６

- May 24th, 2014 (Saturday): Chinese fishing vessel rams and sinks

Vietnamese fishing boat near disputed Chinese deep water oil rig.

- June 4th, 2014 (Wednesday): A UNCLOS (UN Convention on Laws of

the Sea) Tribunal orders China to respond before December 15th, 2014.

- June 18th, 2014 (Wednesday): China’s State Councillor Yang Jie Chi

met Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham

Binh Minh in Hanoi. Both China and Vietnam show a willingness to

end the stalemate.

Understanding the logic behind China’s NEO in Vietnam

It is hard to know for certain the exact discussion that happened

among the CCP elite to decide for a NEO in Vietnam. Publicly, Foreign

Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei spoke out on May 19th, 2014 to say that

“After the severe violent acts in Vietnam took place, Chinese party and

government leaders are gravely concerned about the safety of Chinese

personnel in Vietnam.”51

To understand the rationale behind China’s decision to conduct a

NEO in Vietnam, I employ variables discussed in literature focusing

exclusively on Chinese NEOs.52

51 Foreign Minister Hong Lei’s Regular Press Conference on May 19, 2014. Foreign

Ministry website. 52 Here, I purposefully exclude variables of intervention that are not applicable to China’s

NEO in Vietnam.

To recap:

1) R2P (Protection of civilians): R2P, with its emphasis on human rights and

justification of humanitarian intervention, is a less convincing explanation for

China’s actions than the Protection of Citizens (protection of human assets)

principle.

2) International reputation: International reputation is more relevant to NEOs

performed multilaterally, such as environmental disasters or long-term war zones.

２７

While such works are relatively limited, they generally agree that

two factors affect the likelihood of a NEO; namely, i) the responsibility to

protect citizens, and ii) domestic pressure in the form of nationalism.53

Shaio Zerba (2014), in her descriptive overview of the 2011 Libya

evacuation, suggests that a rising China now faces a diplomatic imperative

to protect its citizens where the government has planted them, partly

because the government faced great pressure to act from the domestic

audience. 54 Parello-Plesner and Duchatel have written the most

comprehensive work on China’s evacuation operations. Their main

argument, similar to Zerba, is that instead of the proverbial “trade following

the flag,” in the case of China, “the Chinese flag follows the trade.”

Beijing’s gradual acceptance of the responsibility to defend China’s assets

overseas came not as part of a great-power strategy, but because of China’s

commercial presence in weak and fragile states.55 It is important to note that

the domestic pressure variable is also often overlooked in general

discussions of intervention, reinforcing the need for a NEO-specific

discourse.

In all, these works agree that China would prefer to adhere to the

non-intervention principle, but has reluctantly risen to the plate because of

external (citizens’ presence in dangerous areas) and internal (domestic

3) Protection of economic assets: Protection of economic assets is a relevant factor

for China deciding to join a UN PKO mission, but NEOs generally do not

function to protect economic assets.

4) Military capacity building: While this may be relevant for large-scale, military

coordinated NEOs (Libya 2011, Yemen 2015), China’s evacuation operation from

Vietnam, like many others, were operated via non-military vessels. 53Jonas Parello-Plesner, Jonas Mathieu Duchatel. China's Strong Arm: Protecting Citizens

and Assets Abroad. Routledge, 2015., and Shaio H. Zerba, "China's Libya Evacuation

Operation: A New Diplomatic Imperative—overseas Citizen Protection." Journal of

Contemporary China 23.90, 2014, p1100 54 Zerba, p.1100 55 Parello-Plesner and Duchatel, p145.

２８

nationalism) pressures. This paints a picture of the Chinese government as a

rather passive reactor whose hands are tied, rather than an assertive actor

who would initiate intervention operations.

Here, I test the two variables (the responsibility to protect citizens

from danger, and domestic pressure in the form of nationalism) to see

whether the authors’ assessment of China’s attitude on NEOs applies to the

Vietnam case as well. I find that that both variables do not hold up in the

Vietnam case, and suggest the involvement of China’s territorial “core

interests” as an influential factor in China’s decision.

i. Protecting citizens from danger

First, I employ China’s NEOs from the Solomon Islands and East

Timor in the 2006 as control cases; namely, (relatively short-term) riots or

attacks on Chinese people with a similar degree of intensity and Chinese

casualties. Because the control cases are not prepared in a lab but are

naturally occurring real world events, it is difficult to procure a

quantitatively accurate comparison. Still, considering that the data set of

NEOs is small to begin with, I believe that this method provides a

perceptive framework for judging whether a variable was likely to influence

China’s decision to intervene in Vietnam.

Assuming that the Chinese citizens in Vietnam and Chinese citizens

in the Solomon Islands or East Timor can demand the same degree of

responsibility of protection from Beijing, the keyword here becomes

“danger.” In other words, was the situation in Vietnam really dangerous

enough to warrant a government intervention?

China performed evacuation operations from the Solomon Islands

２９

in 2006 following anti-Chinese riots, evacuating over 300 people. In April

of that year, over 60 restaurants and shops in the local Chinatown were

burned down during riots.56 Riots and looting were sparked by people’s

rage towards a corrupt election. The Solomon Islands were caught between

Beijing and Taipei, who were competing for diplomatic recognition by

pouring financial aid into the region. Although the Solomon Islands

officially recognized Taiwan, Beijing was trying to lure it away. Ethnic

Solomon Islanders that the bidding war had corrupted their government.57

Because homes were burned down, families would jump from razing

buildings, and over thousands of Chinese people were left homeless, either

living as refugees on the streets or seeking shelter at police stations. Because

the Solomon Islands did not have enough security forces to control the

situation, Australian and New Zealand troops had to be sent in days later.58

The situation in East Timor was similarly dire. In the same month,

an army rebellion of sacked soldiers spilled over into gang violence and

ethnic unrest in the capital, Dili. The UNHCR reported at least 27,000

people were seeking shelter from the unrest, and the national police and

military forces had collapsed. 59 At the Chinese government evacuated

around 150 Chinese people who were caught in the unrest.60

In comparison, the “danger” in Vietnam around the time of

evacuation appears less urgent. This is not to downplay the intense rioting

that occurred, of course; there were fatal casualties and people injured.

However, because the rioters targeted businesses and factories, there were

56 “246 Chinese Back from E. Timor” China Daily, ,May 30 2006 57 “Chinese flee Solomon Islands” Al Jazeera, April 23 2006 58 Ibid 59 David Fickling, “Violence Spreads in Dili as Gangs Join Uprising.” The Guardian, 28

May 2006 60 Letian Pan, “246 Evacuated from East Timor” Xinhua, accessed via State Council

website, May 29 2006

３０

no refugees. Additionally, the rioters could not differentiate between PRC,

Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even South Koreans, who were all subject to

attack. In Ha Tinh Province, most of the casualties were Taiwanese and

Korean businesses.61 Yet, no other country rushed in to evacuate their

citizens. At most, Taiwan offered to put additional commercial flights on

standby if more residents wished to leave the country.62 It was also less

difficult for Chinese people to leave Vietnam, as opposed to those stranded

in Solomon Islands or East Timor, both islands. By the time China arrived to

evacuate nationals on the 18th of May, the violence had been subdued since

the 15th, with the Vietnamese police and military capable of controlling the

situation.63 Some factories were reopened by Monday, the 20th.64

There are enough circumstantial gaps in the degree of danger to

claim that the situation in Vietnam was neither as dire nor urgent as the

situation in the Solomon Islands or East Timor. In fact, the degree and

duration of damage, the quick return to Vietnamese police control, the

absence of other Asian nations performing evacuations, and the delay of the

evacuation operation seem to suggest that a mass evacuation was not

essential. This decreases the validity of the “responsibility to protect

nationals from danger” factor in explaining China’s logic in pursuing a NEO

in Vietnam, and demands an explanation of why China still chose to pursue

a NEO.

ii. Domestic pressure (Nationalism)

61 Chris Buckley et al.,The New York Times, 14 May 2014 62 Martin Peety, Reuters, 18 May 2014 63 Chris Buckley and Chau Doan, The New York Times, 15 May 2014 64 Shannon Tiezzi, “China, Taiwan Evacuate Citizens as Vietnam Tightens Security.” The

Diplomat, 20 May 2014

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A domestic framework is often overlooked in international relations

debates that tend to focus on structural (material and normative)

explanations.65 Public opinion and nationalism are important factors in

foreign policy. For authoritarian governments, and especially China, there

are important discussions on how nationalism can influence government’s

decision-making and negotiation abilities (see Johnston, 2013, Weiss 2014,

2018, Quek and Johnston 2017, Chubb 2019).

As mentioned at the very beginning of this study, successful NEOs

are a point of pride for the Chinese public. The movie “Operation Red Sea,”

(2018) based on the Yemen evacuations in 2015, was not only the biggest

blockbuster hit of the year, but it also served as a gift to the PLA’s 90th

Anniversary and was screened at the 19th Congress. 66 Nationalism,

therefore, is definitely a factor which influences the government’s decision

to pursue NEOs. Wang Yizhou, professor of International Relations at

Peking University, asserts that the Libya evacuation in 2011 was spurred

partly due to “social pressure from the traditional media and Internet users

forcing mainland leaders to respond.”67 As Shaio Zerba explains it, an

employee for a Chinese railway company in Libya posted pictures of attacks

on the company’s compound on Webo, garnering widespread attention.68

Microbloggers then retweeted furiously, building media frenzy and public

focus, pressuring the government to act.

However, there is little evidence to show that nationalism was a

decisive factor in China’s decision to conduct a NEO in Vietnam, or that the

Chinese government’s hands were tied by an overwhelming domestic outcry.

65 Hirono, Jiang, and Lanteigne, p16 66 Katsuya Yamamoto and Terence Roehrig. “China's Military and Evacuation Plans from

South Korea.” The National Interest, 6 Apr. 2018 67 Zerba, p1099 68 Ibid

３２

To the contrary, research shows that Chinese public nationalism regarding

this event was weaker compared to outrage regarding territorial disputes

with Japan, and that the government also made a conscious effort to contain

nationalism at a low level.

Cotillon (2017) differentiates between nationalism versus a weaker

state and a stronger state; in the case of China, Vietnam versus Japan. She

shows that disputes with a traditionally weaker rival displays less to no

violence, and no presence of protests, and are generally weaker in their

magnitude.69 Even when Vietnam was engulfed in anti-Chinese protests,

there were no counter-protests to be seen in China.

This may also be because the Chinese government was adept at

downplaying the dispute to the public. Chubb (2014) explains that it took

China’s propaganda authorities nearly two days to work out how the story

should be handled publicly.70 The 48 hour gap between the start of the riots

and Chinese media reports exemplified the CCP’s techniques on managing

information. Rather than emphasizing China’s strength to a domestic

audience, the official propaganda downplayed China’s assertive actions and

focused on Vietnamese efforts to stop the riots.71 Tseng (2014) supports this

argument, claiming that the Chinese government censored foreign media

and online forums following the outbreak of riots in Vietnam, and lagged

internet publications hours behind print, aiming for a measured public

response. 72 Why would the government try to contain nationalism?

According to Quek and Johnston (2017), decreasing public nationalism

gives leaders more flexibility in territorial disputes, which the leaders prefer. 69 Hannah Cotillon, “Territorial Disputes and Nationalism: A Comparative Case Study of

China and Vietnam,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 36, 1, 2017, p52 70 Andrew Chubb, “China’s Information Management in the Sino-Vietnamese

Confrontation: Caution and Sophistication in the Internet Era”. China Brief 14(11), 2014,15 71 Ibid 72 Katherine Tseng, p83.

３３

Public opinion creates pressure on Chinese leaders to act coercively in

territorial disputes, limiting their options to de-escalate once crises have

broken out.73

In short, whether the relatively low level of nationalism was due to

the public’s less hostile attitudes toward weaker countries or the

government’s concerted effort to contain public fervor, it seems clear that

heightened domestic pressure was not a key factor in China’s decision to

conduct a NEO in Vietnam.

By process of elimination, existing theories about NEOs do not seem

to be convincing in explaining China’s NEO in Vietnam. Focusing on the

specific event where the NEO occurred, and noting the original cause of the

conflict suggests that territorial “core interests” may be a factor influencing

the Chinese government’s decision to intervene in Vietnam.

The involvement of the South China Sea dispute as a factor for the

Vietnam NEO

Since 2014, the year of the Vietnamese NEO, China started creating

land on its Spratly Island outposts, which were then topped with military

facilities. By June 2015, China had claimed 90% of all the reclaimed land in

the Spratlys, 17 times the combined total of what neighboring countries had

taken.74 Such aggressive action was later rejected by an international

tribunal in 2016, but it was clear that China’s actions in and around the

South China Sea were increasingly assertive, which proved alarming to

nearby Southeast Asian countries.

73 Kai Quek, and Johnston, A. "Can China Back Down? Crisis De-escalation in the Shadow

of Popular Opposition." International Security 42.3 (2017) p7 74 Routledge, (2016) China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, Strategic

Comments, 22:9, iii-iv

３４

China has continuously proven to be assertive when it comes to the

South China Sea. In the May 2014 incident, China planted an oil rig into a

disputed part of the ocean without any plans to remove it; it was there to

stay and China would not back down, whether the Vietnamese people

retaliated or not. As far back as 1988, China and Vietnam clashed at the

Johnson Reef in the South China Sea, when Chinese naval frigates sank two

Vietnamese ships, leaving 64 sailors dead, and allowed China to secure its

first six holdings in the Spratly Islands.75 As recently as July 2019, there

has been a large scale stand-off between the two nations, as Vietnam

demands China withdraw its oil exploration vessel from disputed waters.76

Thus, the involvement of the South China Sea dispute seems a

plausible factor which motivated Beijing to intervene in a neighboring

country with a NEO (despite the relative lack of urgency or pressure to do

so.) When the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei spoke out on May

19th, 2014, he claimed that China, having begun evacuations at this point,

would consider taking further steps depending on how the situation played

out.77 Although the Vietnamese police and military had the situation under

control by then, China made it known that even if the situation worsened, it

had no intention of backing down in the South China Sea dispute. In other

words, China could both scare and signal its firm stance vis-à-vis an

evacuation operation. Even if there were no military vessels involved, the

sight of large emergency vessels78 may have been enough for China to

75 Greg Torode, “Spratly Islands Dispute Defines China-Vietnam Relations 25 Years after

Naval Clash.” South China Morning Post, 16 Mar. 2013 76 “Vietnam Demands China Withdraw Vessel from South China Sea.” Al Jazeera, 19 July

2019 77 Foreign Minister Hong Lei’s Regular Press Conference on May 19, 2014. Foreign

Ministry website. 78 Between May 18th and 19th, China deployed the government’s largest medical special

plane, the Golden Deer Aviation Rescue (金鹿航空救援, nicknamed “空中 ICU”), as well

３５

reinforce that it was capable of actual intervention if the Vietnamese people

were to step out of line. As if to send this message, China reinforced its

evacuation vessels by moving military troops southward to the Vietnamese

border.79

Chinese scholars such as Wengang Lu and Xiaozhen Huang have

supported this view, suggesting that Vietnam’s attempt to put pressure on

China to make concessions in the South China Sea dispute and gain

economic advantages suffered a setback as China responded seriously with

an evacuation operation.80 They assert that China’s NEO contributed as a

deterrent to the Vietnamese government in making stronger claims in the

South China Sea, as the Vietnamese government has begun to realize the

seriousness of the situation.8182

It is interesting to note that attacks on Chinese people due to

economic grievances do not seem to trigger China’s NEOs. In fact, China’s as multiple ships, such as the “Wuzhishan.” “Nanhai Rescue 199,” to evacuate thousands,

and had emergency helicopters on standby. (Lu and Huang, 2014) 79 Sterling Kerr. “The Future of China : the Challenges of Its Asian Neighbors.” Kingston,

New York : Educator's International Press, 2016. p117 80 Wengang Lu(卢文刚) and Xiaozhen Huang(黄小珍), “中国海外突发事件撤侨应急管

理研究——以’5·13’越南打砸中资企业事件为例.” 东南亚研究,2014(05): p83 81 Ibid, p84 82 It is difficult to find official written records from the Chinese government regarding the

rationale and decision process behind pursuing NEOs. Since the CCP began performing

NEOs, it has issued guidelines such as the “Overall Emergency Response Plan for National

Emergencies (国家突发事件总体应急预案)” in January 2006. Based on these documents

and official proclamations about NEOs, Chinese scholars such as Lu Wengang have

attempted to categorize and quantify dangerous situations to determine when China will

decide to perform an evacuation. (Lu, 6/2014) However, China has shown that it will

intervene in some situations and not others (despite them displaying similar degrees of

danger), meaning there is more to the decision to intervene than, for example, the number

of slain Chinese citizens. Understandably, the Chinese Communist Party carefully controls

what it puts out in official writing, especially when regional power politics are concerned.

Both Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping have emphasized the “community of common destiny

(命运共同体)” in the Asia Pacific region, and would be hard pressed to publicly

acknowledge in writing that China’s intervention in Vietnam was at least partly aimed at

bullying the smaller country in a territorial dispute. In the future, field research and

interviews with experts, which were not available for the scope of this study, may yield

further evidence to substantiate this claim,

３６

willingness to push through with a NEO in 2014 stands in contrast to 2018,

when Vietnam once again was roiled with anti-Chinese protests. This time,

the cause of the riots was economic imbalances. In June of 2018, a law

submitted to Vietnam’s legislature proposed that foreign investors (including

those from China) could lease land in Vietnam’s three special economic

zone for up to 99 years, as opposed to the 70 years previously allowed under

Vietnamese law. Protests broke out in several cities across the country, with

demonstrators carrying anti-Chinese banners such as “No leasing land to

China, not even for one day.”83

One reason China may not have intervened is that the degree of

riots was less severe (there were no fatal casualties), as the Vietnamese

government was quick to crack down on protestors, arresting more than a

hundred protestors and drawing criticism from human rights groups for the

mass arrests and mistreatment by the police.84 It is plausible that Vietnam

did not want to experience a repeat of 2014, when protests turned more

violent and led to China’s intervention.

However, even when the situation was equally if not more dire,

China has shown that it may not intervene when riots occur due to economic

grievances. In April of 2007, Ethiopian rebels raided a Chinese-run oil field

in what was called Ethiopia’s worst rebel attacks in years, leaving 9 Chinese

workers killed and 7 kidnapped, with warnings of future attacks. The rebels

were protesting Chinese economic practices that went hand in hand with a

repressive ruling regime, with articles claiming that Chinese workers were

“paying for Beijing’s policy.”85 Despite the severity of the situation, China

83 Parameswaran, Prashanth. “What's Behind Vietnam's Anti-China Protests?” World

Politics Review, 13 July 2018 84 Ibid 85 “Chinese Workers in Ethiopia Paying for Beijing's Africa Policy.” Asia News Italy, 26

Apr. 2007,

３７

did not step in to evacuate its workers, which lies in contrast to its 2014

intervention in Vietnam.

These examples illustrate that the involvement of the South China

Sea dispute may have been a decisive factor in Beijing’s decision to pursue

a NEO in Vietnam in 2014. This seems to be in line with the assertive

behavior surrounding the disputed region. In fact, NEOs in this case are

especially significant, because while military scuffles between ships in a

disputed ocean area are one thing, it is quite another to bring the conflict so

close to home by physically landing on another country’s soil.

V. Implications and Further Considerations

Territorial “core interests” as a factor for Chinese NEOs in neighboring

countries

Tensions in the South China Sea are not the only territorial dispute

China is willing to act aggressively in. As China has grown stronger, some

observers have identified an assertive turn in Chinese foreign policy.

Evidence to support this argument includes the increasingly frequent

evocation of China's ‘core interests’—a set of interests that represents the

non-negotiable bottom lines of Chinese foreign policy.86 The Chinese media

first started using the term “core interests” sometime around 2004, referring

to China’s sovereignty issues, including Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.87

Since then, the scope of China’s core interests has broadened to currently

include seven aspects: (i) maintaining the ruling party position and the

86 Jinghan Zeng, Yuefan Xiao, and Shaun Breslin, “Securing China’s Core Interests: The

State of the Debate in China,” International Affairs, 91-2 (2015), p245 87 Prakash Nanda, “China’s Demand to Respect Its ‘Core Interests’ Is an Ugly

Manifestation of Its Newly Acquired Power,” First Post, 21 May 2017.

３８

socialist system; (ii) keeping national unity of mainland China and Tibet,

Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Taiwan; (iii) promoting sustainable economic

development; (iv) developing stable relations with 14 neighboring countries;

(v) expanding China’s sea power, including the South China Sea and the

East China Sea; (vi) deepening the win– win cooperation with developing

countries; and (vii) continuing to play roles in reforming the current Western

liberal order led by the United States.88

Of this list, some territorial disputes are considered to be the core of

core interests. The South China Sea was first mentioned as a core interest in

2010.89 While it may have not been as unambiguously asserted as Xinjiang

or Taiwan90, experts agree that South China Sea has remained on the list,

coinciding with increasingly assertive policies from Beijing surrounding the

disputed waters.91

This implies that China’s decision to pursue a NEO in Vietnam can

be replicated in other disputed territories of the region as well. Unlike

previous research which paints China as a rather passive reactor that does

not intervene in neighboring countries, this study suggests China can also be

a regional actor with a firm stance on territorial (or other) issues ready to see

it through. This means there is a possibility that China may impose its

physical presence, in the form of a NEO, on its neighbors, including other

Southeast Asian countries, its neighbors along its Western border, the

Korean peninsula, and of course, Taiwan. As an example, observers have

88 Kevin Rudd, “How Xi Jinping Views the World: The Core Interests That Shape China’s

Behavior,” Foreign Affairs, 10 May 2018. 89 Toshi Yoshihara, and R. Holmes, James. Can China Defend a “Core Interest” in the

South China Sea?. The Washington Quarterly, Issue 34, 2011. p45 90 Swaine, Michael D. “China’s Assertive Behavior-Part One: On Core Interests” China

Leadership Monitor, No.34, 2010. 91 Ermito, Daniele. “Beijing Retains South China Sea as Core Interest.” Global Risk

Insights, 1 Mar. 2016.

３９

already noted that in the midst of a crisis on the Korean peninsula,

noncombatant evacuation operations will be extremely difficult to conduct,

no matter the level of confidence or capability.92 In other words, unlike its

reluctance to intervene in the region as part of R2P missions, China may be

willing to intervene in neighboring countries in the form of an NEO when

territorial disputes, especially ones considered “core interests” to ensuring

China’s sovereignty, are involved.

The issue of Overseas Chinese (华侨) in NEOs from neighboring countries

Relatedly, China’s NEOs in its neighboring region carry the

additional risk involving Overseas Chinese (华侨) populations. Euan

Graham describes a ‘black swan’ scenario for Asian security in 2020,

involving a Southeast Asian country with a long-established, sizable ethnic

Chinese minority. In this scenario, politicians play the race card, turning the

locals against the ethnic Chinese, ensuing in riots that spread to PRC

expatriate communities. If China arrives and faces hordes of ethnic Chinese

who are also looking to be evacuated, and the host government declares this

a violation of sovereignty, the conflict could deepen and spread out of

control.93 Indian scholars have begun discussions on whether and how far

to extend protection to ethnic Indian populations in the case of evacuation

operations.94 There are no clear answers, but China’s delineation between

citizens and ethnic nationals when offering protection would be good

starting point for further research.

92 Yamamoto and Roehrig. The National Interest, 6 Apr. 2018 93 Euan Graham, “Black Swan 2020: China's NEO That Goes Geo.” The Interpreter, 27

Feb. 2017, 94 Constantino Xavier, “India’s Expatriate Evacuation Operations: Bringing the Diaspora

Home.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report, Dec 1 2016., and Raina,

Himanil. "The Forcible Protection of Nationals and Non-combatant Evacuation

Operations." Journal of the National Maritime Foundation of India 14.2 (2019), p2.

４０

VI. Conclusion

Why did China perform evacuation operations (NEOs) from

Vietnam in 2014 when it has explicitly refrained from intervening in

neighboring countries? What does this entail about China’s usage of NEOs,

and its attitude toward the foreign policy principle of non-intervention?

The forms, methods, execution, and goals of NEOs are unique from other

forms of intervention. They are not identical to interventions in the form of

hostile military invasions, nor multilateral humanitarian interventions.

NEOs are ambiguously interventionist, because while their stated goal of

rescuing citizens is seemingly non-threatening, the act still intrudes on

another state’s soil, and there is always the possibility of an accidental or

intentional flare-up of conflict.

Existing literature focusing specifically on Chinese evacuation

operations suggest that as China grows and more of its people and assets are

situated abroad, the CCP faces both external pressures (citizens in danger)

and internal pressures (domestic nationalist outcry) to perform NEOs.

China’s 2014 NEO from Vietnam, however, shows that the danger Chinese

citizens faced was not as dire as citizens who were evacuated from the

Solomon Islands and East Timor following anti-Chinese riots in 2006, as

riots were quickly put under control. Furthermore, there were no domestic

counter-protests or overt nationalist outcries demanding their fellow citizens

be rescued from Vietnam.

This study suggests that the involvement of the South China Sea

territorial dispute may have been a factor in the CCP’s decision to impose

itself on Vietnam’s borders. In 2014, anti-Chinese riots spread throughout

Vietnam due to Beijing’s aggressive behavior in the South China. There is

４１

circumstantial evidence to suggest that China’s moving troops to the border

and sending emergency ships and planes to evacuate citizens from Vietnam

may have been at least partially aimed at sending Hanoi a message; Beijing

will not back down when it comes to the South China Sea dispute, and it is

capable of intervention if Vietnam steps too far out of line. Because NEOs

are amphibious in nature, Beijing may have been able to cloak this ulterior

message under the stated goal of rescuing its citizens from danger.

Ultimately, this thesis challenges the idea that China is only

reluctantly becoming more interventionist when bound by external and

internal pressures to act, adhering to the non-intervention principle in its

region. On the contrary, when core territorial disputes like the South China

Sea are involved, China is willing to behave assertively, going so far as to

intervene in neighboring countries. This entails implications for further

research on China’s degree of assertiveness in the region, considering its

ongoing territorial tensions with other neighbors. Hopefully, this study can

contribute to the growing body of research on China’s evolving attitudes

towards intervention and regional governance.

４２

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５３

Abstract in Korean

초 록

중국이 아시아 지역에서 행하는 해외 자국민 구출작전(Non-combatant

Evacuation Operation, NEO)을 어떻게 해석할 것인가? 이는 중국이

부상함에 따라 스스로 내세우고 있는 “해외 불간섭 원칙”을 어떻게

변화시켜 나가는지 이해하는 데 중요하다. 중국의 대외 개입 행태에

대한 주요 연구는 유엔 산하 다자주의 작전에 대한 참여 여부에 중점을

두고 있으며, 이러한 기존 연구들은 중국이 인접국에는 불간섭 원칙을

고수하고 있음을 주장한다. 본 논문의 핵심 논거는 앞선 연구결과에

반하여, 중국은 - 특히 남중국해와 같이 영토분쟁이 관련되어 있을

경우 - 자국민 구출작전을 통해 이웃국에 개입할 여지가 존재한다는

것이다. 당시 상황적 증거와 관련 자료, 기타 사례와의 비교 및 분석을

통해, 중국의 베트남 NEO는 자국민을 구출해야만 하는 외부적 긴박함,

혹은 국내 민족주의로부터 발생하는 내부적 압력에서 비롯되었기보다,

베트남 국경에서 대국(大国)의 존재감을 각인시키고, 남중국해

분쟁에서 물러서지 않겠다는 메시지를 전달하고 있음을 보여주었다. 본

연구는 중국의 일방주의적 개입 사례의 분석을 통해 중국의 대외 개입을

둘러싼 담론을 확장시키고, 국제 질서에서 떠오르는 권력인 중국의 지역

거버넌스에 관한 토론에 기여하고자 한다.

주제어: 중국 정치외교, 대외 개입, 자국민 구출 작전, 지역 거버넌스

학 번: 2017-29914