China won't emulate the 'Crimea pattern' in territorial issues

Many observers ponder Russia's international isolation after the Ukraine crisis and its increasing cooperation with China – and are puzzled over not only Russia's behavior but also about how close Russia and China could become. Will China continue to assist Russia? Could China follow Russia's path in Crimea to handle Taiwan and other territorial issues?

China does not have to pick a side in the Ukraine crisis. But China should take such questions and comparisons seriously – making it clear through public diplomacy that the country is not like Russia.

Just as the Russian involvement was intensifying, European countries worried about China's historic territorial claims. During his first visit to Berlin in March 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping received a special gift from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first precise map of China made by esteemed French cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville in 1735. That year was the height of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when the Emperor Qianlong ascended the throne. The map of China includes the Island of Sakhalin to the northeast, now Russia; Taiwan to the southeast, separated from the Chinese mainland since 1950; Ili River to the west, shared by China and Kazakhstan; Lake Baikal to the north in Siberia; and Hainan to the south.

Perhaps Russia's annexation of Crimea gave rise to Merkel's concern about the possible consequences of China's rejuvenation or recall China the Russian expansion threat. She conveyed complicated information by presenting an antique map depicting ancient China with all its inseparable parts in ancient times.

Merkel's concern is understandable as once war-ravaged European nations remain sensitive toward boundary-related issues. Border changes have always been a worry in Europe, posing a lethal threat to its peace and stability and dragging regional stakeholders into frequent battles.

Europeans could not have missed the allusion to historical claims in official Chinese pronouncements. Soon after receiving the gift from Merkel, Xi delivered a keynote speech at the College of Europe in Bruges on April. 1, 2014: "For any country in the world, the past always holds the key to the present and the present is always rooted in the past. Only when we know where a country has come from, could we possibly understand why the country is what it is today, and only then could we realize in which direction it is heading."

Three factors show the differences between Russia and China on territorial issues:

First, consider their respective cultural conditioning – the culture shaped during the development of the two nations distinguishes China from Russia. Russia began in the medieval state of Kievan Rus and then expanded from Europe to Asia to Siberia in the Far East, stretching across Eurasia, making it the world's largest country in terms of territory.

In contrast, the vast grassland to the north, tributary states to the south, boundless sea to the east and the cloud-kissing Himalayas to the west have endowed China with a mentality of being a "Middle Kingdom." As Xi noted in his address for the College of Europe, "Of the world's ancient civilizations, the Chinese civilization has spanned over 5,000 years and continued uninterrupted to this day."

Therefore, it is temporal logic, not spatial, that has dominated China's culture. The nation values the natural appeal of its own culture, rather than geographical expansion, and this has historically suggested that China will not follow Russia's path.