According to Indian strategist and writer
Brahma Chellaney, "salami slicing" rather than overt aggression is China's favored strategy because none of its series of small actions serves as a casus belli by itself. China slices very thinly, camouflaging offense as defense, and eventually gains a larger strategic advantage. This throws its targets off balance by presenting a
Hobson’s choice: either silently suffer or risk an expensive and dangerous war with China. This can also place the blame and burden of starting a war on the targets.[2]
Dimensions of Chinese salami slicing
Proponents of the salami slicing strategy allege that China has used this in political, economic, and military realms.
India
Indian authors accuse China of using piecemeal claims to expand its territory at India's expense. Brahma Chellaney has cited China's incorporation of
Aksai Chin in a step-by-step process between 1952 and 1964, its
2020-2021 border skirmishes with India, and Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains as examples.[5][6][2][7] The
Five Fingers of Tibet involving Nepal and Bhutan as well as the
String of Pearls in the
Indian Ocean have also been described as manifestations of China's salami slicing.[8][9]
Some critics have claimed that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has pushed
Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia and other nations have forced these countries, unable to pay their debts, to handover their infrastructure and resources to China.[12] According to Chellaney, this is "clearly part of China's geostrategic vision".[13] China's overseas development policy has been called debt-trap diplomacy because once indebted economies fail to service their loans, they are said to be pressured to support China's geostrategic interests.[14][15] However, other analysts such as the
Lowy Institute argue that the BRI is not the main cause of failed projects,[16] while the
Rhodium Group found that "asset seizures are a very rare occurrence", while debt write-off is the most common outcome.[17]
Some governments have accused the Belt and Road Initiative of being "
neocolonial" due to what they allege is China's practice of
debt trap diplomacy to fund the initiative's infrastructure projects in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.[18] China contends that the initiative has provided markets for commodities, improved prices of resources and thereby reduced inequalities in exchange, improved infrastructure, created employment, stimulated
industrialization, and expanded
technology transfer, thereby benefiting host countries.[19]
The German
Federal Ministry of the Interior estimates that Chinese economic espionage could be costing Germany between 20 and 50 billion euros annually. Spies are reportedly targeting mid- and small-scale companies that do not have as strong security regimens as larger corporations.[24]
China is accused of nominating persons to various organizations with the view of influencing the organizational culture and values to the advantage of China's national interests. Examples cited include the promotion of Chinese officials to the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, which critics have claimed advances Chinese national interests.[25] The
Confucius Institutes have also been claimed to advance Chinese state interests.[26] China is alleged to have attempted
foreign electoral intervention in the domestic political elections of other nations, including in the
United States, although these claims have not been supported by evidence.,[27][28][29][30][31] China has been accused of interference in elections on
Taiwan,[32][33][34] and has been accused of influencing
Australian members of Parliament.[35][36][37]
Relations between China and Australia deteriorated after 2018 due to growing concerns of Chinese political influence in various sectors of Australian society including in
the Government, universities and
media as well as China's stance on the South China Sea dispute.[38][39] Consequently, Australian Coalition Government announced plans to ban foreign donations to Australian political parties and activist groups.[40] Australia has empowered the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation,
Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Attorney-General’s Department to target the China-linked entities and people under new legislation to combat Chinese influence operations, including the alleged deployment of the
United Front Work Department of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP).[citation needed]
The United Work Front department is accused of lobbying policy makers outside of China to enact pro-CCP policies,[41] targeting people or entities that are outside the CCP, especially in the
overseas Chinese community, who hold social, commercial, or academic influence, or who represent interest groups.[42][43] Through its efforts, the UFWD seeks to ensure that these individuals and groups are supportive of or useful to CCP interests and potential critics remain divided.[44][45][46]
In 2005, a pair of Chinese dissidents claimed that China may have up to 1,000 intelligence agents in Canada.[47][48] The head of the
Canadian Security Intelligence ServiceRichard Fadden in a television interview implied that various
Canadian politicians at provincial and municipal levels had ties to Chinese intelligence, a statement which he withdrew few days later.[49]
Usage of the phrase
In 1996, a
United States Institute of Peace report on the South China Sea dispute writes "[…] analysts point to Chinese “salami tactics,” in which China tests the other claimants through aggressive actions, then backs off when it meets significant resistance."[50]
In 2001,
Jasjit Singh,
ISDA, wrote "Salami-slicing of the adversary's territory where each slice does not attract a major response, and yet the process over a time would result in gains of territory. China's strategy of salami slicing during the 1950s on our northern frontiers [...]".[51]
In 2012, Robbert Haddick described "salami-slicing," as "the slow accumulation of small actions, none of which is a casus belli, but which add up over time to a major strategic change [...] The goal of Beijing’s salami-slicing would be to gradually accumulate, through small but persistent acts, evidence of China’s enduring presence in its claimed territory [...]."[52]
In December 2013,
Erik Voeten wrote in a
Washington Post article concerning China's salami-tactics with reference to "extension of its
air defense zone over the
East China Sea" – "The key to salami tactics’ effectiveness is that the individual transgressions are small enough not to evoke a response"– going on to ask, "So how should the United States respond in this case?"[53]
In March 2014, Darshana M. Baruah, a Junior Fellow at
ORF and a nonresident scholar at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote "As Beijing's 'salami slicing' strategy is gathering speed it is more important than ever for ASEAN to show it solidarity and stand up to its bigger neighbour, China."[55]
In India in 2017, the
Indian Chief of the Army Staff General
Bipin Rawat used the phrase in a statement, "As far as northern adversary is concerned, the flexing of muscle has started. The salami slicing, taking over territory in a very gradual manner, testing our limits of threshold is something we have to be wary about and remain prepared for situations emerging which could gradually emerge into conflict."[56][57][58]
Critique
In 2019, retired Indian
Lieutenant GeneralH. S. Panag wrote that the phrase 'salami slicing' as used "by military scholars as well as Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in relation to the Line of Actual Control — is a misnomer". He argues that whatever territory China needed to annex was done
prior to 1962. While there have been territorial claims by China after 1962, they are done more to "embarrass" India rather than a form of "permanent salami slicing".[59]
Linda Jakobson, a political scientist, has argued that rather than salami slicing based territorial expansion and decision making, "China's decision-making can be explained by bureaucratic competition between China's various maritime agencies."[60][61] Bonnie S. Glaser argues against this view point, saying "bureaucratic competition among numerous maritime actors [...] is probably not the biggest source of instability. Rather, China's determination to advance its sovereignty claims and expand its control over the South China Sea is the primary challenge."[62]
^Burgers, Tobias; Romaniuk, Scott N. (10 September 2019).
"Why Isn't China Salami-Slicing in Cyberspace?". The Diplomat.
Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2020-11-23. This tactic of incrementally advancing interests and challenging existing dominances and norms, resulting in increased pressure and geopolitical tensions, has taken place across many domains. From the economic to military and political, salami-slicing tactics [...]
^Garnaut, Ross; Song, Ligang; Fang, Cai (2018). China's 40 Years of Reform and Development: 1978–2018. Acton: Australian National University Press. p. 639.
ISBN9781760462246.