China’s rise is a fact. The only way for the United States and others to deal with it is to encourage consistent and creative engagement.
US Vice President Joe Biden’s recent four-day trip to China ended on a high note. He assured Chinese leaders that the United States is committed to honouring all of its debts, despite its recent credit downgrade; he talked enthusiastically about US-China interdependence; and he showcased his granddaughter, who has studied Chinese for several years, as a future bridge between the two countries.
But behind all the smiles and banquet toasts, serious issues and perception gaps continue to divide the world’s two great powers.
For a start, there’s always an attitude problem. To those who view China’s rise in a negative light, the country is simply becoming ever more arrogant. It is getting tough in its territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea; it’s becoming assertive in the South China Sea with its neighbours, also over disputed islands; it put its own stealth fighter on display during US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to China; it’s sending its first aircraft carrier out to sea for trials, indicating the possibility of establishing naval bases in the Indian Ocean. Even a brawl between the Chinese and a visiting American basketball team is viewed as evidence of China’s aggressive behaviour.
Many Chinese, on the other hand, tend to think that the United States is suffering from a severe case of conceited superpower syndrome. As these Chinese see it, the United States has a rather dysfunctional government, but still insists that its political and economic system is the best in the world, and that everyone should emulate it. It’s heavily in debt, but can’t stop spending and borrowing. It is no longer competitive in manufacturing, but blames others for its huge trade deficit. And the world’s only military superpower is often seen within China as trigger-happy when intervening in other countries’ internal affairs.
Then there’s the issue of trust. China’s critics argue that its claims to a peaceful rise aren’t credible, given the country’s non-democratic, one-party system. Coupled with this is a zero-sum view of the world, in which any Chinese gain in the share of the global economy, or any increased presence in many parts of the world, must be at the expense of the United States or other powers. Any Chinese military move is portrayed as an expansionary and aggressive act that must be contained. Any attempts at engagement by Western politicians, such as Biden’s recent trip, are automatically met with doubt and criticism for cozying up to dictators.
Likewise, for those Chinese who are suspicious of US intentions, conspiracy is always in play. They see a declining superpower using economic, military, and diplomatic means in an unrelenting effort to prevent China’s rise. Talk of human rights and democracy is nothing but a smoke screen for demonizing China. Arms sales to Taiwan, Tibetan activism, and ‘colour revolutions’ of various kinds are all sponsored by the United States and other Western powers, and are aimed at weakening China.
Despite decades of close interaction, with millions of Americans, Europeans, and Japanese visiting China every year and similar numbers of Chinese now visiting the US and other advanced countries, both sides see each other through a glass darkly. Increased interdependence hasn’t led to better understandings on even some of the most basic issues.
China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying expressed her country’s anxiety about this state of affairs in a recent interview. ‘The most important thing is the question of whether China and the US are enemies. Are we going to be in a war? Are we preparing for a war against each other?’ Biden, while reaffirming that the United States doesn’t view China as an enemy, implied that Fu’s worries are not fanciful, saying that the worst scenario is a misunderstanding that leads to an unintended conflict.
So the key issue for China, its neighbours, the United States and rest of the world isn’t how many aircraft carriers, missiles, submarines, and next-generation fighters China may produce and deploy in the coming years and decades. Rather, it’s how China intends to use its newly acquired economic and military strength in pursuing its domestic and foreign-policy goals – and how the world’s leading powers can ensure that they do not end up harming each other by accident or misunderstanding.
To meet these challenges successfully, there is no viable alternative to a positive, continuous, and frank engagement between China and the rest of the world. The Chinese economy will continue to grow; the Chinese military will continue to modernize; and the Chinese people will remain united in their great power aspirations. A Cold War-style confrontation and containment policy from the West will be met with strong resistance from the Chinese, whose global leverage, particularly in finance, cannot be ignored.
Only a patient, creative, and consistent engagement strategy will mitigate fears on both sides. China’s rise is a fact; the enduring peacefulness of that rise must be a priority for China, its neighbours, the West, and, most importantly, the United States.
Wenran Jiang is Chair of the China Institute at the University of Alberta and Senior Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. This article is an edited version of a piece that appeared with Project Syndicate that has been reproduced with the permission of the author.
Photo Credit: White House
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Henry Lee
Quote “He assured Chinese leaders that the United States is committed to honouring all of its debts, despite its recent credit downgrade”.In my opinion, tis is a rubbish statement. In my opinion:How is USA going to? Except by way printing/ reating more money USD in bits and bytes in US banking system. At USD15 trillion aint no way USA will be able to do so, except by way of monetising/printing more worth less USD. The world has to accept that if the rest of the world want to continue to use USD as reserve currency
aaron
The U.S. has been trying to work with (shape) China’s rise for the last two decades. Joseph Nye’s recent article shows evidence of this as far back as the early 1990s when the Pentagon specifically avoided labeling China as an enemy. It’s easy to say that the U.S. should work with China, the hard part is actually doing it. This article says nothing new. A good article would offer some insights into how the U.S. and China can improve cooperation.
Bernard Christian
The article was fairly wishy-washy and pointless, I thought. It was just a rehash of known facts without any great analysis. But having taught English in China, this is typical of the Chinese style. This can also be seen in some of the comments. These mostly are from Chinese respondents: again from looking at the obtuse style of writing and poor English. Perhaps it is correct that the author is a Beijing apologist and that most of the respondents are Communist Party stooges. I think it is a bit pointless for The Diplomat to publish articles like this. I’m a native-born Australian in case anyone is interested, not a patriotic Middle Kingdom subject.
fort
@Bernard Christian
Native-born Australian Ostrich with its head buried in sand, whining. I’m more than interested. Amused actually.
Frank
A real native-born Australian is aboriginal.
You are white man who steal the real native-born Australian’s land.
China should kick this type of people out. They should not be allowed to work in China.
aaron
You Mainland Chinese are a bunch of racist hypocrites. You constantly demonize white people for moving into North America and Australia but ignore your own sins. If you really cared about aboriginal rights then you would remove all Han people from Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet. The PRC actively promotes resettlement of Han people to Tibet and Xinjiang so that the local people are marginalized. The West admits its own faults, China just lies and covers up their own injustices.
fort
@aaron
Do you really want to debate about sins?
Or do you know that in China the proportion of minorities is on upward trend, and advantageous policies they enjoy while many Han people have only the right to envy?
Hypocrites are those who had done irredeemable sins, taking no compensating measures to redress what the minorities suffered, making them still marginalized with delusional apologies, yet still assume themselves so morally advantaged as to accuse China of her minority policies, which have given minorities equal (if not favored) status and enabled peoples to coexist peacefully, don’t you agree?
Racists are those stereotyping Chinese as Frank, who is, I have to say like many westerners on the internet, contaminated with racism. So you can see who is the racist now?
chimak
I completely agree: White are not making significance compensation to those minority with just delusional apologies. Simply just look at the world map. 55% of world land are occupied by White. We Asian (half of world population) only have 20%. The rise of China and India in 21th century are the chance for Asian to kick out some White back to Europe.
Huang
“Teaching in China”,(if true and not full of bulls)the experience and expectations must have been terrible to end with these comments commonly made by individuals with limited knowlegde of the actual China and not the China they wished or accustomed to as portrayed to them by their government managed medias.
When the dots do not connect,more than likely they don’t belong in the context.
In case some wishy cracky commenters still not aware of,we are living in the year 2011 and changes of revolutionary proportions have taken place in China in particular and the whole global environment in general where changes are measured by the days and weeks not months or years as normally the case during the Cold War era.
Bruce Chung
Wenran Jiang: “Coupled with this is a zero-sum view of the world, in which any Chinese gain in the share of the global economy, or any increased presence in many parts of the world, must be at the expense of the United States or other powers.”….”The Chinese economy will continue to grow; the Chinese military will continue to modernize; and the Chinese people will remain united in their great power aspirations.”
Mr. Jiang is very well aware that in a world of dwindling energy supplies economic growth is indeed a zero-sum-game, the man is not ecologically inept. The only way China’s economy can continue to grow is at the expense of the U.S. and other western powers. Internationalizing the RMB and plunging the U.S. into poverty is part of this game.
The author, Wenran Jiang, is a Beijing apologist and most likely a C.C.P. “plant”. Alberta is home to approximately 170 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen reserves. Reserves that will serve to bolster U.S. energy security and help curb reliance on oil from the Middle East (see: Report of the U.S. National Energy Policy Development Group). There is a bit of a US-China pipeline battle raging (Keystone-XL vs. Northern Gateway; see: Keystone XL Assessment) and Mr. Jiang has been lobbying for the oil to go to China (see: The Dragon Returns: Canada in China’s Quest for Energy Security). Fortunately the C.I.A. has hog-tied efforts to build Northern Gateway via clever use of environmental front organizations.