The aim of this paper is to analyze the interrelation of Chinese foreign policy and military strategy, in order to clarify the characteristics of Chinese national security perception. Through this process, we can find several factors inherent in Chinese national security perception which would generate so-called “China Threat” thesis in East Asian countries.
Under Deng Xiaoping's rule since 1978, China has started the reform and open-up policy for its economic construction, and has seeked for economically prosperous and militarily strong China. For this purpose, China set up the independent diplomacy in 1982 to realize peaceful international envilonment necessary for its economic development and equidistant relations with superpowers. That is to say, China abandoned its long-kept policy of so-called “main enemy” thesis which put either or both the United States or/and the Soviet Union as a main enemy. Under these circumstances China has started its military modernization program.
In 1985 China declared one million force reduction, which marked the virtual start of its military modernization aiming at restructuring military power matching for limited wars under modern conditions. This military modernization reflectrd the strategic conversion in China; the old thesis of the inevitability of next world war was abandoned. Deng stated that such kind of war could be avoidable because of the nuclear stalemate between the superpowers and the growth of peace oriented power among people in the world. But Deng's military modernization program has been in fact seeking for strengthening both conventional forces and nuclear arsenal, putting special stress on building up naval power.
As for diplomacy, based on Deng's judgement on war, China has added the word “peace” in its independent diplomacy since 1985. This diplomatic development was to prepare for China to join rising economic circle in East Asian countries. For this purpose, China adopted the strategy of economic development in coastal area in 1987. At the same period, there appeared the concept of “total national power” in Chinese journalism and described international politics as the struggle to enhance total national power. This concept indicates China's belief in power politics, and it actually promoted China for asserting maritime sovereignty over its territorial waters, especially the South China Sea where believed to have abundant natural resources, but in complicated condition over the possession of islands with Southeast Asian countries.
In the spring of 1988, after the small scale sea battle with the Vietnamese navy in the Spratly area in the South China Sea, China successfully started the effective control over several islands there. In the fall of the year, China officially proposed to set up the “New International Political and Economic Order” based on the Chinese invented “five principles of peaceful coexistence.” This new Chinese proposal was the development of its independent peace diplomacy, but with the exaggeration of the five principles of peaceful coexistence, this proposal put more stress on national sovereignty as the supreme right in traditional nation-state system.
1989 was an extraordinary year for China. In May, after the thirty years' confrontation, China attained the rapprochement with the Soviet Union. But soon after that, there occured the “Tiananmen Incident” which forced China into international isolation because of the military oppression against student movement for democracy. Against Western countries' economic sanctions, China made a counterattack to them blaming that they tried so-called “Peaceful Evolution” to China, but it never gave up its reform and open-up policy.
Since the beginning of 1990's, China has made efforts to set up good relations with Southeast Asian countries and joined

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