Inter-ethnic conflict appears on the rise across the mainland, with levels of violence not seen since the Cultural Revolution. The brutal pogrom of nearly two hundred (some claim a thousand) residents of Ürümqi in July 2009 shocked the nation. To many, the Ürümqi incident and the previous year’s unrest in Tibet were powerful signs of a systemic policy failure. And while there’s still no consensus on how best to fix the problem, government officials are now joining academics (and the wider public) in calling for a major policy rethink.

Ethnic relations in China are governed by a complex patchwork of policies, laws and institutions aimed at both preserving the autonomy of each of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, or minzu 民族 in Chinese parlance, while upholding national unity.

The legal equality of each minzu is enshrined in Article 4 of the Chinese Constitution, with the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy outlining specific provisions to protect and promote the cultural, economic and political development of each minority group, including a series of controversial preferential benefits in the areas of judicial law, education, employment, and procreation. These policies, first initiated during the 1950s and then strengthened during the 1980s, were heavily influenced by the former Soviet Union.

Western commentators have long decried the limitations of this regime of ethnic self-rule, highlighting the continued political and cultural marginalization of ethnic minorities like the Tibetans and Uyghurs. Against this criticism of “sham” or “circumscribed” autonomy, it may come as a surprise that there is a growing chorus of discontent in the opposite direction in China, with suggestions that there is too much focus on ethnic autonomy and not enough on national cohesion.

Majority nationalism is a global phenomenon, but in China, where the Han officially comprise 91 percent of the population, minority protections are a particularly weighty problem. For many in China, the Han are China, and Han nationalism is no different from Chinese nationalism. Where does this leave the over 100 million non-Han minorities?

For more than a decade, Prof. Ma Rong of Peking University has warned that the lack of an inclusive, shared national consciousness – one that can literally “fuse” (融合) the Han majority together with the minorities – will see China follow the USSR and Yugoslavia in ethnic disintegration.

In recent years, Ma Rong has become increasingly strident in his calls for the scrapping of ethnic autonomy and preferential policies, suggesting that the systematic segregation of ethnic groups and institutions in China has rendered the Chinese nation (中华民族) an empty concept, and that the assimilation, or literally Hanification (汉化) of minorities, is an inevitable process of modernization. Without urgent and renewed emphasis on collective, national identity, it’s hard to imagine, Ma Rong argues, a Uyghur or Tibetan president of China let alone China’s continued peaceful rise.

A protégé of the late Fei Xiaotong and a Hui ethnic minority himself, Ma Rong advances a forceful argument rooted in an eclectic mix of classic liberalism and Confucian culturalism. His once eccentric views now carry great weight in certain segments of the academy, state and Party. Moreover, one can find supporters of reform across the ethnic and ideological divides in China, and their influence appears to be spreading. Take two recent examples.

Late last year, one of China’s leading public intellectuals, Tsinghua University’s Hu Angang, called for a “second generation of ethnic policies”: one that would remove barriers to “ethnic contact, exchange and blending” and bring China in line with global standards. And when this visionary of reform speaks, the Chinese government tends to listen: with over ten of his policy suggestions, ranging from tax to ecological initiatives, enacted by the government over the last couple of decades.

Repeating many of Ma Rong’s concerns, Hu Angang and his Tsinghua colleague Hu Lianhe contends there are two major approaches to ethnic relations across the globe: the “melting pot” (大熔炉模式) and the “hors d’oeuvres plate” (大拼盘模式), and China would do best to following America, Brazil and India in strengthening the ethnic fusion of its peoples to avoid the fate of those countries like the USSR that attempted to preserve a delicate mix of different ethnic communities and territories.

The two Hus urge the government should adopt an “apolitical” approach to ethnic relations and implement a range of urgent and radical reforms: the abolition of ethnic autonomous units; a shift from ethnic to regional-based preferential policies; the removal of ethnic status from identification cards and other official documents; the eliminations of barriers to ethnic migration, intermarriage and market flows; and the strengthening of Putonghua and bilingual education.

For the moment, Party policy remains unchanged with a recent White Paper stating: “Sixty years of experiences have proved that China's ethnic policies are correct and effective, and are in keeping with China's actual conditions and the common interests of all ethnic groups, winning the support of the people of all ethnic groups.”

Yet, there are signs that this could be changing. In a February front-page article in the Party School’s Study Times (学习时报), one of the CCP’s leading spokesmen on ethnic policy echoed many of the same sentiments as Ma Rong and Hu Angang.

Zhu Weiqun, a Central Committee member and long time Executive Director of its United Front Department, made a rare admission of serious problems in the Party’s ethnic and religious work. Suggesting that the current focus on state-guided development won’t solve these problems on its own, he called for more emphasis on voluntary, self-initiated ethnic fusion, arguing that inter-ethnic blending and mixing is not the same as Hanification. The Party shouldn’t allow administrative measures to hinder the free flow of people and allow ethnic differences to harden.

As a concrete example of what the Party could do along these lines, he personally recommended the removal of ethnic status from identification cards; a freeze on the creation of autonomous regions; and the strengthening of Putonghua and ethnically mixed schooling.

Any policy change is unlikely in the short term – especially given the current focus on Party unity and a smooth political succession ahead of the 18^th Party Congress later this year. Yet the dramatic fall of Bo Xilai and his quasi-Maoist/leftist “Chongqing model” has emboldened those calling for another round of market-lead reforms.

And the once sensitive, largely closed-door debate about ethnic policy has become increasingly public. Including most recently, a special website created byChina Ethnic News(中国民族报), the official mouthpiece of The State Ethnic Affairs Commission, where this “battle of opinions” (观点交锋) concerning a second generation of ethnic policies is laid bare for all to see: including more than 20 articles for and against change.

The fact that the website was created on the eve of Bo’s formal suspension from the Politburo is surely mere coincidence. But Guangdong party boss Wang Yang, the architect of the rival “Guangdong model,” is on the public record supporting a re-adjustment of China’s ethnic policies, and those calling for change are looking expectantly toward this next generation of CCP leaders. Wang’s approach, one focused on “baking-the-cake” rather than dividing it up, suggests the sort of market fundamentalism that his supporters believe will solve everything from housing to ethnic conflict.

It isn’t hard to imagine the results of a billion pound “Han elephant” let loose amongst the “ethnic China.”

James Leibold is a Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University in Australia and co-editor of Critical Han Studies (University of California Press). He is currently based in Beijing, China.

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China and Japan agreed to establish this high-level consultative mechanism on maritime affairs in December 2011 during Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s first trip to Beijing. These talks, which will be held twice a year, are designed to enhance crisis management by increasing communication among related government agencies in both countries. As a press release from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) noted, the talks will serve a “platform” for increasing dialogue and communication, promoting cooperation, and managing disputes at sea.

Such a consultative mechanism is sorely needed. As the September 2010 crisis over the detention of a Chinese fishing captain near the Senkakus demonstrated, maritime disputes can escalate into a crisis.  In addition to the dispute over the sovereignty of the Senkakus, China and Japan have other maritime conflicts: the demarcation of their Exclusive Economic Zones in the East China Sea, China’s development of the Chunxiao natural gas field near the median line that Japan claims, fishing operations, and survey activities, among others.

The first round of talks was held at the departmental level, led by Yi Xianliang, Deputy Director of the MFA’s Department of Boundary and Maritime Affairs, on the Chinese side.  Importantly, the participants didn’t just include diplomats but also representatives from key Chinese bureaucracies involved in maritime affairs and their counterparts from Japan, including the Ministry of National Defense (PLAN), Ministry of Public Security (the Coast Guard), Ministry of Transportation (the Maritime Safety Agency), Ministry of Agriculture (the Bureau of Fisheries Administration), the State Energy Administration, and the State Oceanic Administration (the Marine Surveillance Force).

Details of the talks weren’t disclosed. The MFA press release simply noted that the two sides had exchanged views on maritime issues and cooperation, including the Senkaku Islands. Nevertheless, the creation of such a high-level mechanism on maritime affairs may represent a significant development in Chinese foreign policy for several reasons:

To start, the talks constitute the first comprehensive and institutionalized mechanism on maritime issues between China and Japan.  Previous talks over a 1997 bilateral fisheries agreement or the 2008 agreement on gas exploration in the East China Sea were conducted on an ad hoc basis and included only those actors directly involved in the issue being negotiated. Given the potential for any one maritime dispute to escalate and create a crisis, these talks may help stabilize Chinese-Japanese relations.

The present standoff with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal notwithstanding, these talks with Japan reflect a pattern of Chinese moves to manage its territorial and maritime disputes with its neighbors. Examples of such efforts include a July 2011 agreement with ASEAN over guiding principles for implementing the 2002 code of conduct declaration in the South China Sea, an October 2011 agreement with Vietnam on basic principles for resolving maritime issues, and a January 2012 agreement with India for managing border incidents along their disputed frontier.

In addition, the talks suggest that China is strengthening interagency coordination in maritime affairs under the leadership of the MFA. A recent report from the International Crisis Group highlighted the lack of coordination among maritime actors as a source of Chinese assertiveness between 2009 and 2011 in the South China Sea. These talks bring together each of the “five dragons” of civil maritime law enforcement agencies that can influence China’s relations with its neighbors at sea, and may help increase coordination among them.  Moreover, by including the Defense Ministry, the talks may also strengthen coordination and communication between the MFA and the PLA.

Finally, the talks provide a model that might be used to address other maritime issues elsewhere, including in the Yellow Sea with South Korea and even perhaps in the South China Sea. Clashes between Chinese fishermen and South Korean authorities have reached a new peak in recent years, with almost 500 Chinese vessels having been fishing illegally in Korean waters. Likewise, despite a joint fishing agreement, the two sides haven’t demarcated their maritime jurisdiction under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

To be sure, this new mechanism that China and Japan have created hasn’t yet been put to the test. Still, it suggests that China can pursue more flexible and collaborative approaches in its maritime disputes with neighboring states – and that Beijing acknowledges the importance of such flexibility.

M. Taylor Fravel is an Associate Professor of Political Science and member of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He can be followed on Twitter @fravel.

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Beijing denied Chan a renewal of her journalist’s visa.  As a result, she was forced to leave the country.  Since she is the network’s sole correspondent within China, and Beijing has stated it can’t send a replacement, this development has shuttered Al Jazeera’s operations in the country.  While most Americans may not be especially concerned about either Chan or her employer’s fate in China, they should take particular note of what this development reveals about the degree of insecurity that has begun to take root in Beijing.  In other words, more is at stake here than simply the issue of press freedom and censorship.

The general motives behind Chan’s expulsion are quite clear. She recently became well known in China watching circles for filing a series of reports that have been quite critical of China’s handling of a variety of domestic issues. Her own network aired a documentary last year that criticized China for the ongoing use of prison labor within its borders.  In other words, it’s not surprising that Chan and Al Jazeera were not especially popular with the Chinese leadership. 

What is unexpected is the fact that Beijing chose to act against them in such a blunt and public manner. It’s true that the Chinese have in the past taken similar actions against foreign reporters who were deemed to be too critical of China. Yet, it has been over a decade since China’s leaders took such an action. For this reason alone, the development is worthy of attention.

More broadly, Chan’s forced exit from China is indicative that the Chinese leadership is deeply uncertain of itself both at home and abroad. Moreover, it’s more revealing of such a state than the Bo and Chen stories. Both those episodes, while raising wide-ranging questions about the stability of China, can also be interpreted as containing positive signs about the direction in which Chinese politics are headed.

Bo’s spectacular fall from grace uncovered the extent to which there are incipient cracks within the Chinese political establishment. This event may, in the long run, rein in rampant levels of corruption within China and possibly strengthen the hand of more moderate voices within the Chinese leadership. 

In a parallel sense, Chen’s escape from house arrest, stay at the U.S. embassy in Beijing and his future, revealed a gap between the central leadership and local authorities within China, and brought Sino-American relations to a standstill. Yet, the apparent agreement that was eventually reached between Beijing and Washington to eventually allow Chen to leave China to study law in the U.S. may be read as innovative and forward looking. 

Both Bo’s spectacular collapse and Chen’s daring escape hint at weaknesses within China, but also contain signs of a willingness to pursue new strategies for coping with such challenges.  In contrast, Melissa Chan’s plight illustrates only one thing:

China’s willingness to look forward is limited.

Chan was pushed out of China because her writing, and her network, was viewed as threatening to some Chinese leaders. That a single reporter could elicit such a reaction is poignantly suggestive that unease may run more deeply, and be more prevalent, in Beijing than many outside observers have so far realized. 

Only weak, unsure, states feel compelled to silence their international critics in the manner that Beijing has recently done. This doesn’t mean that political upheaval similar to that which has recently unfolded in the Middle East is imminent in China, but it does imply that these are indeed interesting, and possibly transformative, times in the Middle Kingdom. 

Allen Carlson is an Associate Professor of Government in Cornell University’s Government Department.

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But with all of this effort, what have they really achieved? No doubt those whose job it is to block and stop have a lot of resources at their disposal – chief among them is an internal security budget that exceeds the country’s defense budget. When they tell China’s Internet providers to shut down a micro-blog or two, the servers do it. One popular micro-blogger, whose account was blocked in recent weeks, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post [paywall], “The closure was not carried out by Sina.com voluntarily…but I am not shocked by the decision, given that anything can happen in the country.” Whatever the intention behind closing down his blog, clearly he hasn’t been deterred from speaking out.

The security apparatus also helped take care of one foreign journalist, Melissa Chan, by blocking the renewal of her visa; it’s not clear whether this came as a result of her work or the reporting by some of her Al-Jazeera colleagues. Whatever the case, China pays a stiff price for this kind of behavior. It’s tough to promote your soft power when you don’t let people into your country to write about you.

The toughest nut, however, has yet to be cracked: how to be transparent about the extraordinary situation surrounding Bo and his family, to contain the situation so there isn’t further fallout within the leadership, and to persuade everyone in and outside China that the transition to the next generation is proceeding as planned. So far, the only whisper of a strategy is proclaiming the Bo case a triumph of the rule of law in China and rumors that the Party Congress is going to be delayed by several months. (These rumors, themselves, however, have been proclaimed by Chinese news outlets to be without merit and the work of “overseas hostile elements” with “ulterior motives” who want “publicity.”)

A job maintaining control in China isn’t for the faint of heart. And it seems that even with all the time, money, and effort they expend to keep the dam from breaking, they are like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. The pressure behind the Great Wall just keeps mounting. All those people, all their interests, and all their voices just won’t stop coming.

Elizabeth C. Economy is C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy and U.S.-China relations and author of the award-winning book, 'The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future.'  She blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

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To be fair, sensationalist Chinese reporting is nothing new, nor exclusively Chinese. Yet, as events in the recent spat between China and the Philippines have unfolded, Chinese reporting has becoming increasingly aggressive.

Nothing demonstrates the recent tilt towards jingoism more than the example of a journalist from Dragon TV who decided to plant his nation’s flag on the Scarborough Shoal/Huangyan Island/Panatag Shoal. Such symbolism couldn’t be any stronger, short of taking up defiant residence.  There was, however, a strange oddity to the footage, namely that the rock both sides are squabbling over was barely large enough for the journalist to stand on. In fact, part of the shoal submerges during high tide.  Yet with large deposits of natural resources, fisheries, and important trade routes close by, it’s no wonder both parties are so interested. The issue is complicated by the fact that the South China Sea is claimed in some part by not just China and the Philippines, but Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and others as well.

To make matters worse is what can be described as one of the worst timed slips of the tongue in modern journalism.  Chinese journalist He Jia of mainstream CCTV declared during a news broadcast that “We all know that the Philippines is China’s inherent territory and the Philippines belongs to Chinese sovereignty; this is an indisputable fact.” While the broadcast has disappeared from the CCTV website, to make the gaff not once but twice in the same sentence seems odd to say the least. While He did apologize on Weibo for the slip, the comments below her apology speak volumes to the nationalistic sentiment that has built up around the issue.

Social media is also ablaze with nationalistic and fire-spitting commentary. While Chinese censors are quick to repress any of the latest news or rumors concerning Bo or Chen, matters in the South China Sea seem like fair game. One microblogger named kongdehua declared, “the Philippines have basically been making irrational trouble, if they want to start a war then we will strike, no one fears them.” He went on to say in a widely quoted remark that, “If every Chinese spat once, we could drown (the Philippines).”

To be fair, Chinese media is also capable of creating discourse that prefers compromise and diplomacy when conflict between nations is possible. The Global Times, for example, has published content with a less harsh tone. Jeffrey Bader, U.S. President Barack Obama’s senior advisor on China and Asia at the National Security Council from 2009 to 2011, described in an article the U.S.-China relationship  as being “in reasonably good shape. The Chinese are working well with us on North Korea and Iran. Taiwan has not been a source of tension, and does not promise to be for years. Since that is the one issue on which we theoretically could have a conflict, the positive state and trend of cross-Straits relations is very important, and gets undeservedly little attention.” 

The Chinese Communist Party has a great deal of influence over what is said in its mainstream media in print, over the radio, on TV and in social media. If Chinese authorities were so inclined, they could rein in jingoism. Yet there seems little inclination so far to do so. Chinese editors and leaders should be wary.

Harry Kazianis is assistant editor of The Diplomat.

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Last week, twenty students and I traveled to Israel for six days to study what makes Israel “a start-up nation,” as Dan Senor and Saul Singer call it in their New York Times bestseller.  With a diverse population of eight million, Israel lacks water, oil, and land, is encircled by hostile neighbors, and is a terrorist target. (Not to mention the international condemnations it gets for its treatment of the Palestinians.)  

Yet, despite all this, it has become arguably the world’s most dynamic economy.  It has 4,000 start-up companies, attracts almost one-third of the world’s venture capital, and more Israeli companies are listed on the NASDAQ exchange than companies from Europe.  Start-Up Nation tells us that Israel is so innovative because of its culture of “tenacity, of insatiable questioning of authority, of determined informality, combine with a unique attitude toward failure, teamwork, mission, risk, and cross-disciplinary creativity.” 

And that’s what we experienced as we traveled from the sun-soaked stone city of Jerusalem to the rolling hills of Haifa to the Mediterranean coast of Tel Aviv.

In Jerusalem, we learned that Judaism has survived several millennia of persecution because it dares to innovate.  Walking around the ruins of the Second Temple, our guide, himself a former rabbi from California, explained to us how Judaism was once a stagnant and hierarchical religion based on animal sacrifice.  After the Romans burned down the Second Temple, Judaism’s heart and soul, in the year 70 in retaliation against Jewish revolt, Jews no longer had a place to make their sacrifice to God.  Faced with the possible extinction of their religion, Judaism responded by re-inventing itself into the modern rabbinical tradition, one based on interpretation and on prayer. 

“Each generation now has the right to re-define Judaism for itself,” our guide told us. 

And this tradition has helped Israel today to re-imagine its most pressing problems into its most lucrative opportunities. 

Take, for instance, Israel’s water problem.  Nature provides barely enough water for Israel, and that’s why in 1993 the Technion, Israel’s institute of technology and de facto laboratory, created the Water Research Institute.  The Institute brings together the university’s top engineers, chemists, biologists, and physicists, who collaborate together to solve Israel’s water problem.

Right now, the Water Research Institute is building a new “water-wise” building, which aims to meet 80 percent of its water needs by harvesting rainwater on its roof, and recycling “gray” water from showers and sinks.  It’s also helping the Israeli government desalinate the Sea of Galilee in an eco-friendly and energy-efficient way.

These are technologies and management systems that once developed can be profitably exported to countries that have severe water shortages.  (For example, China.)  If China is the world’s sweatshop then Israel is the world’s laboratory.          

China needs to learn to become a laboratory if it is to survive the environmental pollution, financial mismanagement, and social inequity that derive from being the world’s sweatshop.  So how can our Chinese students become the creative talent that China needs?  And what makes Israel so innovative?  

Israel’s answer is, as always, short and simple:  Ask questions. 

These two words in fact represent the cultural chasm that divides Israel and China.  As Start-Up Nation mentions, Israel lacks hierarchy and formality so that when we visited a public high school in Tel Aviv, we saw teachers interrupt the principal, and learned that Israelis consider “shyness” a learning disability.  When I asked an Israeli 14-year-old girl how much homework she does at night, she responded with “Why are you asking me this question?”

Israel is a radically different world for my students, many of whom have already been on school trips to the United States and Botswana.  In these two countries, our students discovered it was encouraged to ask questions, and to stand out.  In Israel, they were told it was rude not to ask questions, and if you don’t stand out then you’re a loser.  

To ask questions is not simply to raise your hand and open your mouth, which are difficult enough for many a Chinese student.  It entails a radical re-ordering of how you relate to yourself, and to the world around you – it requires a flattening of the world, the centering of the world around yourself, and ultimately a willingness to overturn the world if need be.  That’s what makes Israel such an innovative culture, yet also why so many other cultures find Israelis difficult to deal with. 

If China is to be creative, it simply can’t declare it a national priority, or just send Chinese students overseas. It needs to re-imagine its society from one that is hierarchal and stagnant to one that is free and open, just as Judaism did two thousand years ago.   

While it was hard for our students to speak out, to challenge authority, and to ask questions, they in fact did learn to do so.  And they discovered they like it. 

While we were at the Technion, our students peppered a Technion biology professor with so many questions that he couldn’t finish his presentation on genetically modified foods even after he stayed half an hour longer than he had planned.  Instead of walking away angry, he did so impressed, like a true Israeli. 

If Chinese must ask a question they often ask “why.”  For example, why visit Israel?  If China is to be truly creative, it needs to learn from the Israelis, and start asking “why not?”          

To learn more about our trips to Israel and Botswana please visit our student blog at blog.sina.com.cn/ourvoices2011.

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Many on the left believe that the United States is becoming increasingly active in Chinese politics, especially since Wang Lijun’s meeting at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. Wang was head of Chongqing’s Public Security Bureau, and met with U.S. officials in early February. They also see Bo’s fall and the Chen Guangcheng case as opportunities seized by the United States to try to influence Chinese thought.

How?

Commentators on the left note that the Wang incident occurred shortly before a visit to Washington by Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as president. The Chen incident occurred as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was visiting China for a dialogue. If the Wang timing was coincidental, in their minds, the Bo case affirmed to them the U.S. intention to try to influence Chinese thought.

It’s true of course that the U.S. media, especially the New York Times, has given a great deal of space to the Bo story, including breaking the wiretapping allegations. It has also been claimed that the United States assisted Chen’s escape to the U.S. embassy. The Americans, it’s argued, wanted to use the case to put pressure on the Chinese government to reform, especially in light of the brutal political taking down of Bo.

One flaw in this line of reasoning, though, is that the vast majority of Chinese simply have no part in these discussions, and those that have heard about the Bo case will likely gradually lose interest; even fewer will have heard about developments in the Chen case. The reason is simple – most Chinese are still unable to either read or get access to English-language media to find out about outsiders’ views. Chinese officials have said little publicly about the Bo and Chen cases, with discussion confined to a relatively small number of intellectuals, political watchers and microblogs.

The fact is that even microblogs, especially Weibo, are faced with increasingly tight controls and censorship, forcing users to use a variety of code words to trick the censors. Indeed, the Chinese internet has become something of a codeword wonderland.

A foreign friend told me that on the day news of Bo’s sacking appeared, messages containing “Bo Xilai” (in Chinese characters) couldn’t be sent out. Regular text message service resumed the next day.

Tight control by the Chinese government is meant to maintain social stability. And with only about five more months until the 18^th Chinese Communist Party Congress, where the transition to the fifth generation of leaders will take place, there’s a need to maintain stability.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s official media, including Beijing Daily, has been critical of the U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke. It appears that Locke is in the government’s bad books, meaning that it will be more difficult for the U.S. to work with the Chinese government moving forward.

My feeling, though, is that although many Americans have been concerned over the way events have unfolded in the Bo and Chen cases, the U.S. is wary about sounding as if it’s lecturing China even as it hopes that the Chinese people will gain a better awareness of democracy and the outside world.

Tara D. Sonenshine, the new U.S. Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs who took up her new post last month, made China the first country she visited. While here, she steered clear of politics and instead visited the Education Ministry and several universities. About 20 young Chinese, including myself, were invited for a dialogue session.

During the session, which lasted about an hour, I got the sense that the U.S. is very concerned about its image among Chinese young people. Chinese youths raised the Bo and Chen incidents, but she avoided commenting. Instead she talked about culture and other “soft” topics. It was smart of her to do so, but left Chinese with many questions as well as answers.

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Chen’s plight is an extreme manifestation of a basic disjuncture between the Chinese government’s increasingly heavy handed approach to internal governance and the United States’ democratic culture. The zero-sum Chinese attitudes about U.S.-China relations depicted by Party insider Wang Jiaso in the Brookings Institution report are fundamentally at odds with American desires to promote liberalism abroad. This basic disconnect spills over into the economic and military arena, as U.S. advocacy for greater economic liberalization in China conflicts with Beijing’s neo-mercantilist economic strategy, and a suspicious Washington seeks greater transparency on Chinese military modernization and cyber operations.

Chen’s case illustrates the most basic problem in U.S.-China relations: what the Chinese government considers rightful measures taken to preserve social stability seem brutal and alien to most American observers, just as American political philosophy baffles Beijing. The idea that a state could inflict judicial and extrajudicial punishment on someone for political speech simply seems wrong in the American political system. Beijing might protest that the United States doesn’t always live up to its own ideals, but such complaints will fall on deaf ears. Violations of liberal norms in U.S. history are cast as excesses to be corrected, and hypocrisy is seen as the tribute vice pays to virtue.

Moreover, it’s generally accepted within the U.S. that America has a duty to protect the vulnerable abroad. Policymakers who shrink from such a mission, as the Clinton administration initially did in Rwanda and Bosnia, suffer reputational costs among the politicians, journalists, and academics that drive political discourse at home. It’s certainly true that American policymakers have done business with their fair share of dictators to further U.S. strategic interests, but Washington can’t be seen by the American people as doing so for the same reasons Beijing props up authoritarian regimes. Accordingly, U.S. officials often portray their clients as aspiring democrats and benign modernizers to domestic audiences, and sometimes are forced by political pressure to abandon particularly unsavory figures altogether.

American political elites also largely share a belief that autocracies are inherently untrustworthy. If an autocracy is willing to propagandize and abuse its own people, how can it be trusted to behave responsibly abroad? Even the realist George Kennan argued that the totalitarian heart of the Soviet system drove its expansionary tendencies and thus legitimated a policy of containment. American suspicion of Soviet military policy was also fueled by a lack of Soviet transparency, a (sometimes justified) fear of Soviet strategic deception, and a belief that authoritarian states are inherently suited to the dark arts of propaganda, covert espionage, and asymmetric warfare. It’s not hard to see how American beliefs about autocracies, deception, and military operations play into the rising suspicion of Chinese conventional military expansion and cyber espionage. The gap between Beijing’s rhetoric and its empirical record of military development, as well as the often inflammatory writings and statements of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officials, play into American analysts’ existing ideas.

There’s also an inherent clash between an America’s liberal-democratic political economy and China’s top-down political-economic system pursuing a mercantilist economic strategy. Beijing’s desire to use its economy to shore up the Party’s political power makes it unresponsive to U.S. demands for greater economic openness. While Chinese espionage is often analyzed from a national security perspective, its spying is also a product of its economic system’s unique demands. Like France, China pursues a national policy of using technical espionage to bolster key industries. But Beijing also lacks the political cover that Paris’ relationship with the United States provides.

Whether or not American beliefs about autocracies are correct is beside the point. As long as American domestic policymakers believe them, they will strongly impact U.S.-China relations. It’s true that U.S. policymakers have traditionally touted important strategic and economic interests to justify prioritizing a healthy U.S.-China relationship, but they have also hoped that economic development would liberalize China. A more liberal China, some reasoned, would be hitherto more favorable to American interests. Unfortunately, political liberties haven’t kept pace with China’s rapid economic growth.

American-Chinese political distrust has been manageable in the past. Henry Kissinger recounts in his book On China how he managed to convince the Chinese leadership to let dissident Fang Lizhi, who had similarly taken refuge in the U.S. embassy after Tiananmen Square broke out, depart the country in 1990 to seek exile in Britain and later the United States. But if U.S.-Chinese strategic and economic interests continue to diverge, there’s no guarantee such arrangements will be reachable in the future.  

Michael Swaine and other analysts have cautioned against the U.S. embroiling itself in Chinese domestic politics, which they argue threatens more allegedly substantive political goals. But few have warned Beijing of the potential domestic costs American politicians face during U.S.-China normative diplomatic crises. Loss of face isn’t just a Chinese cultural issue. American presidents that are perceived to give into autocracies risk political embarrassment.

A case in point is Bill Clinton, who sharply criticized President George H.W. Bush’s handling of Tiananmen Square during the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign. Criticism of China is also a staple of recent American electoral rhetoric, with Barack Obama’s likely challenger in the 2012 election, Mitt Romney, being only the most prominent Republican to attack the administration’s handling of Chen Guangcheng’s case.

Whatever the resolution of Chen’s case is, he’s unlikely to be the last major trigger of a U.S.-China dispute. China faces significant challenges to social stability in an age of unprecedented economic and informational connectivity, and Beijing’s leadership transition, concern over economic inequality, and significant corruption challenges will drive Chinese policies for dealing with political dissidents like Chen. The Bo Xilai affair has exposed the degree of insecurity the Communist Party feels about its own legitimacy, and the uproar over Chen’s treatment is likely to make the Party double down rather than give in to external criticism.

Swaine and others are correct that the United States should avoid high-level interventions into China’s domestic politics. They err, however, in assuming that U.S. policymakers will be able to neatly separate human rights issues from strategic and economic dialogue. After all, Chen’s case has significantly overshadowed a U.S.-Chinese dialogue that was meant to address the very maritime, cyber, economic, and military issues that China hands judge to be more critical.  Chinese decision makers must understand the magnitude by which Chen’s case may increase existing U.S. distrust of China. Simultaneously, future U.S. policy, whether for strategic cooperation or competition with Beijing, must also factor in the degree to which American political culture will complicate carefully devised technocratic plans.

Should either side fail to grasp the lessons of the most recent incident, the real trust gap between Washington and Beijing will only grow larger.

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security studies. He is currently Associate Editor at Red Team Journal and a contributor to the ThreatsWatch project.

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North Korea’s proximity to some of China’s booming regions mean any problems in the Hermit Kingdom risk having repercussions in China. North Korea defied international (including Chinese) opinion last month in going ahead with its bid to launch a satellite, and the outside world has since been speculating that North Korea is planning a third nuclear test. China for its part has expressed concern through the United Nations about the possibility of another North Korean nuclear test, and joined other Security Council members in urging Pyongyang to refrain from such a move.

The reason is obvious. Any military-related action by the North will lead to some sort of response from the United States, Japan and South Korea. These countries will have a perfectly legitimate reason to expand their military presence in the region, or else in the case of South Korea and Japan, work to develop even more sophisticated military responses.

Although all three nations would frame their response as a reaction to North Korean moves, this would still be seen as a growing threat to China as well. China is fast developing its economy and has no room for potentially disruptive activities such as these. Yet North Korea risks hijacking China’s development, a reality that is causing considerable consternation among both China’s leadership and its public.

The close relationship between North Korea and China risks undermining Beijing’s international standing and growing responsibilities as a major nation that’s increasingly opening up to the outside world.  China doesn’t want to see North Korea being pressured by the United States or Japan, yet it also doesn’t want to be dragged into the North’s confrontation with the West.

The response of the ordinary citizens toward the possibility of a North Korean nuclear test has been even more pronounced. Many netizens are calling on the government not to support North Korea, and the Chinese public’s view of Pyongyang has deteriorated significantly.

Some netizens, though, question whether North Korea is even able to conduct a nuclear test, arguing that any claims to the contrary are simply propaganda aimed at rallying its people. They point to previous claims, arguing that while the 2006 test left traces of radiation picked up by international monitors, no such traces were discovered in 2009. In their minds, there are only two possibilities: North Korea has remarkably advanced nuclear technology, or the test that took place wasn’t nuclear.

The latter is of course more likely. But whatever happened, North Korea-China ties have continued to slide since then.

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On Wednesday, the Chen case had China’s Foreign Ministry at its most fire breathingly infuriated. In an official statement (Chinese link): “It is clear what America must do – and it must not continue to muddy the waters.  America must cease its extraordinary exertions to conceal its role in this matter, and absolutely must not continue to meddle in China's internal affairs.”

Five days later, the issue has subsided enough that high-level bilateral talks were able to proceed without the pro forma punishments – most commonly suspensions of military-to-military relations – that usually accompany disputes between China and the United States, or the years of mistrust which followed the Tiananmen Square massacre. Relations have returned to a local maximum, with both sides praising the other’s cooperation and goodwill.

In retrospect, the agreement was an easy one – but only because both sides understood the other’s constraints and realized that, as Chinese leaders tend to put it, they weren’t playing a zero-sum game.  For China, the fate of Chen Guangcheng is a trivial issue – an activist who has focused on winning small victories within the Chinese legal system, he earned the enmity of the party by experimenting with a kind of legal action that has become relatively common in recent years. By 2007, an Oxford PhD candidate estimates, some 25 percent of Chinese lawyers had participated in a lawsuit against a government body.  Chen deserves accolades as a legal pioneer. But as yet another of the pro-democracy gadflies who regularly criticize the Communist Party overseas, he’s hardly a threat to the stability of the Chinese system.

For China’s leaders, the real issue in the Chen Guangcheng crisis was foreign intervention in Chinese affairs.  If the U.S. embassy had forced the issue by holding Chen, it would have suggested that the United States can pluck citizens out of China at will and overturn the Chinese state’s rulings on them.  Foreign rejudgment of local cases is a particularly troublesome issue to history-conscious Party leaders.  It’s reminiscent of the extraterritoriality provisions of the 19th Century unequal treaties, by which foreign governments rendered their citizens immune to judgment by Chinese courts.

For the U.S., in contrast, the issue of principle was secondary. While many rights activists would prefer the American government to assert a right to rejudge Chinese cases, all Obama had to accomplish to avoid a media debacle was to save the sympathetic protagonist of the story. By putting Chen back in Chinese custody as quickly as possible, the United States was able to give China the assurance it needed that it was in control of its own affairs – a deal they were able to accept even if the price was promising America the resolution it wanted.  But by ceding authority to China, the United States was able to get Chen Guangcheng as a favor.

The resolution has satisfied observers on neither side, with U.S. and European newspapers calling the administration's reaction weak and confused, and Chinese newspapers still struggling to figure out whether to describe the deal as a sudden liberalization or a capitulation to foreigners.

The Chen Guangcheng case ended in a messy compromise, and it’s certainly not a great day for the international human rights movement. But it is a striking demonstration that the Obama and Hu administrations have built up enough trust to find good enough solutions to diplomatic crises – and to be willing to take heat from the domestic press of both nations in the interests of getting along. It’s about time.

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