China and Blue-water Dreams: Toward a Sino-Russian Alliance?

Abstract

Before the Chinese government crackdown on Tiananmen Square and throughout the country, a controversial film entitled River Elegy was aired that argued that a “benevolent” authoritarianism could ultimately lead China out of its contemporary crisis.¹ Such a “new authority” could do so by transforming China into a sea-trading mercantile nation, with naval and military power equal to its global competitors. The film asserted China’s right to engage in a “peaceful rise” to regional and world power status from a democratic-nationalist perspective.