Wang Jisi,
director of the Institute of American Studies, is
known in the West as China's foremost expert on
the United States, called a major "America
handler" who is "always giving guest
lectures in the US and very,
very plugged-in with the senior leadership".
Wang reportedly spent a whole day briefing
Chinese President Hu Jintao for his April 2006 US
visit, which turned out to be a perfunctory summit
with no milestone diplomatic breakthroughs. It was
obvious that Hu had not been adequately warned by
his expert about not-so-latent US hostility. The
most memorable moment of the summit was a
televised heckling by a Falungong fanatic during
the official welcoming ceremony on the White House
lawn. Many Chinese think that the heckling was
deliberately staged by anti-China forces to
embarrass publicly the leader of the world's most
populous nation, Wang Jisi's well-known upbeat
views of US friendship notwithstanding.
Wang, dean of the School of International
Studies at Peking University and director of the
Institute of International Strategic Studies at
the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist
Party, also had an article published in the
September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs to
set a positive tone for Hu's US visit, with the
title "China's search for stability with America".
The article is an expanded and revised
version of one originally published in Zhongguo
Dangzheng Ganbu Luntan, a journal of the Central
Party School. Thus its views are not merely
diplomatic spin designed to persuade a skeptical
US audience before a difficult summit.
In
his article, Wang argues for the need of China to
maintain friendly relations with the United
States, as the US is expected to remain a
superpower for a long time. Wang reasons that
"only a US economic decline would reduce
Washington's strength (including its military
muscle) and ease the strategic pressure on
Beijing. Such a slide, however, would also harm
China's economy. In addition, the increased US
sense of insecurity that might result could have
other consequences that would not necessarily
benefit China. If, for example, Washington's
influence in the Middle East diminished, this
could lead to instability there that might
threaten China's oil supplies. Similarly,
increased religious fundamentalism and terrorism
in Central and South Asia could threaten China's
own security, especially along its western
borders, where ethnic relations have become tense
and separatist tendencies remain a danger."
This view of power geopolitics is
deficient in analytical clarity, even simple
logic, let alone ideological correctness, and is
contradictory to China's long-standing policy of
rejecting power geopolitics. The need for friendly
relations with another country is not based on
that country's economic and military strength, but
on its peaceful attitude and just policies.
US-China friendship cannot be based on US power.
It can only be based on a relationship of mutual
respect and equality, and a commitment to peaceful
co-existence.
Because of the already
massive foreign-exchange reserves held by China, a
slowdown of the US economy would not cause an
unmanageable financial crisis for China. If it
shifts its economy toward domestic development
rather than continuing to rely excessively on
export for US dollars, an economic decline in the
United States would have only minor effect on the
Chinese economy. In fact, it may well be the
necessary medicine to force China to shift toward
domestic development over obstinate
special-interest objections from the now
excessively influential export sector.
Further, it is pure self-deception to
think that Chinese economic policy can exert any
fundamental effect on the US economy, which in
2006 was still 10 times as large in gross domestic
product (US$13 trillion) than the Chinese economy
($1.3 trillion). Total US-China trade in 2006 was
$323 billion, behind US-Canada trade of $533
billion and almost the same as US-Mexico trade of
$332 billion.
Recurring financial crises
are structural for financial globalization under a
dysfunctional finance architecture based on dollar
hegemony. Such financial crises allow the printer
of dollars regularly to rob exporting nations of
their financial gains earned with low wages. China
can only be a victim, never the instigator, of
such crises because it cannot print US dollars. US
economic decline will be the result of flawed US
policy and nothing else.
China's need for
Middle Eastern oil is not threatened by US
withdrawal from the region, as big producers such
as Saudi Arabia and small Persian Gulf states as
well as Iran are independently shifting the oil
trade to China away from the United States. It's a
toss-up between continuing US presence and
withdrawal as to which would cause more stability
in the Middle East.
While China has no
incentive or even the power to force a US
withdrawal from the Middle East, it can add its
voice and influence to urge the US to adopt a more
balanced Middle East policy. It is not necessary
for Beijing blindly to support US policy in the
region because of China's need for oil. In fact
the reverse is true: China will put its oil supply
in jeopardy by aligning too closely with flawed US
policy on the Middle East.
As for threats
from terrorism, China faces terrorist threats from
separatist political grievances, quite different
from the US, which faces terrorist threats from
Islamic extremism out of religious conflicts and
anti-imperialist grievances. In fact, China cannot
possibly hope to solve its own unique terrorism
problem by siding
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