Sino-US Ties Aren’t That Bad

February 10, 2010

By The Diplomat

So I think that these reports that China snubbed Obama are incorrect and that the Chinese decided to send their vice foreign minister to some of these multilateral meetings for other reasons that had nothing to do with the United States. In fact, the outcome of the climate change conference in Copenhagen was a positive story for US-China relations. Others may see it as a mixed outcome for climate change, but I think for US-China relations it was positive. China had agreed to some carbon intensity numerical targets before it came to Copenhagen, and I think although most countries were hoping that we could get China to agree to more, it turned out that was their bottom line. The discussions were really not going anywhere on the issue of international monitoring and verification because the Chinese were staunchly opposed and I think close to the end of the meeting we were really close to an outcome that would have had China and the US blaming each other for the failure to reach any agreement. But at the end of the day, President Obama and Premier Wen, along with the other members of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries really hammered out at least a political commitment that they could use as a basis for going forward. And I think that President Obama and Premier Wen felt that they both worked well together, and they reached a compromise that was a function of having engaged with each other in a serious manner.

One of the ongoing concerns — and frustrations — with China in the West seems to be an apparent reluctance by Beijing to assume what Western powers see as responsibility commensurate with its new economic and political strength. Do you see China taking on a more constructive leadership role?

I certainly see China as reluctant to take on international responsibilities, and the Chinese themselves admit to this. They say China is a developing country, that it has huge problems at home; that they have to deal with vast environmental problems; they have to deal with huge disparities in income between urban and rural areas; that they have lots of people who are unemployed – all sorts of challenges. And I think the Chinese therefore want to select very carefully where they get involved and how they get involved. They don’t want to get overstretched in their commitments overseas and get distracted from what they see as their major task, which is domestic construction. And this goes beyond economic construction, and really is about building China’s comprehensive national power, science and technology and basis for greater soft power and its military power.

The Chinese are willing to get more involved in areas that they see as closely connected to the country’s national interests, and I would cite North Korea as perhaps the best example — a country on its border that now has nuclear weapons. Here, China is working diplomatically with other countries to try and get North Korea back to the Six-Party talks process and back to their commitments to denuclearize, and this is an area where China has felt it is worth putting in time and energy.

There has been a guideline in China’s foreign policy that was actually developed in the late 1980s when Deng Xiaoping was in office. And at that time, he developed this idea that China should essentially keep a low profile — not stick its neck out in the international community. So although China wants to make a difference and be SEEN as responsible — they certainly want a reputation as a responsible player — they don’t want to get overextended. And there are a couple of good examples where China is already playing a positive role internationally, for example there are a very large number of peacekeepers through the UN peace keeping operations, and they have also joined the antipiracy operation off the Gulf of Aden.

I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interests for China to be developing power projection capabilities or to start sending combat troops to UN operations and I would also argue that we should not be encouraging China to be sending combat troops to Afghanistan – I don’t think we should be encouraging China at this point to be sending forces overseas and really reconsidering its long standing position that it doesn’t.

Basically, I believe our interests will be better served if China’s process of becoming a bigger regional and global player happens in an evolutionary way and is done gradually. So, it suits China to keep this low profile and to work assiduously to assuage the concerns of the countries, not only in the region but also elsewhere in the world.