국제분쟁 간 중국의 무력사용 정도 결정요인 분석(1949~2007)

Abstract

Since its foundation, the People``s Republic of China has undergone numerous disputes, many of which are still in progress today. Some of them ended in a low-level hostility with military non-actions and/or threats to use military forces, whereas others resulted in the highest-level hostility, i.e., a war. What then have been the crucial factors that decided the level of hostility of China``s militarized interstate disputes? Previous studies have failed to explain how the level in the use of military forces lower than the war-level hostility was decided, by generally applying the dichotomy of war or no-war and generating findings accordingly. Considering that only an extremely small portion of disputes led to war and that wars broke out as a result of low-level hostility through the escalating process of hostile interactions, this study which focuses on the low level hostility short of war seems to be significant. The primary purpose of this study is to analyze what factors have influence on the degree of the use of military forces by means of conducting 162 cases of interstate disputes in which China has been involved from the foundation of PRC (People``s Republic of China) till the year 2007. Correlations and influences were tested in ordered logit analysis with such independent variables as whether China started a dispute or not, the hostility level of opponent nations in disputes, geographical accessibility, and differences in national power. The results show that whether China started a dispute or not had the biggest impacts on its hostility level, followed by the hostility level of opponent nations in disputes and geographical accessibility in the order of significance. These findings have the following policy implications: China``s military intervention can be deterred through strengtheing ROK-US alliance and establishment of buffer zones along the border between Korea and China in time of emergency on the Korean Peninsula. The ROK-US alliance has the effect of leading China to negative predictions about the results of Chinese intervention and thereby preventing the nation from plunging into disputes. Buffer zones are likely to prevent accidental military collisions and thus induce China to opt activities of low-level hostility, thereby deterring Chinese military intervention accordingly.