Research On The Transformation Of China's Security Strategy: 1978-1985

After the reform and opening up,China's internal and foreign affairs have undergone tremendous changes and adjustments.Among them,the most critical one is the transformation of national security strategy.To meet the needs of national security under the new situation,China has completely abandoned the revolution-based security strategy implemented since the 1960 s and adjusted it to a development-oriented security strategy that is conducive to the modernization drive.The endogenous driving force of domestic political change,the change of national leaders' security values on the external environment and the theme of the times,as well as a series of adjustments to foreign strategies contribute to the transformation of national security strategy.Marked by the reform and opening up,China has solved its previous domestic political problems and embarked on the road of internal reform and opening up to the outside world.Chinese leaders no longer believe that China is in an era of revolution and war,but that peace and development have become the theme of the times.Therefore,China began to establish diplomatic relations with the United States,signed a peace and friendship treaty with Japan,improved relations with neighboring countries represented by Southeast Asian countries,punished Vietnam for its threat to China's border areas,and normalized the relations with the Soviet Union.These three factors are the fundamental driving force,direct driving force and measures of China's security strategy transformation in the 1980 s.After these adjustments,China has completed its own national security strategy transformation.This adjustment process,starting from 1978 until 1985,is indeed a long and complicated one.This process has gone through three stages: the preparation stage from 1978 to 1979,the adjustment stage from 1979 to 1982 and the finalization stage from 1982 to 1985.In 1987,with the proposal of a three-step national development strategy,together with the national security strategy,a grand development-oriented security strategy was finally established.This security strategy transformation has not only created an excellent external environment for China's reform and opening up,but also become the origin of the development-oriented security strategy that guides China's rise.This paper attempts to make a systematic exposition of the transformation process of the national security strategy,while compares the security values and foreign strategies before the security strategy transformation with those during the transformation.