XIAMEN, China - Since he was sworn in as United States president earlier this
year, Barack Obama has kept his campaign promise of "change" in many areas of
domestic and foreign policy. At the same time, observers say that when it comes
to China, Obama has maintained the core of his predecessor's approach -
communication and cooperation.
However, careful observation of Obama's first official visit to the Middle
Kingdom this week reveals some subtle changes, if not in his policy principles
then at least in the way Obama approaches China and the Chinese people.
Many Chinese feel flattered with what they saw as a more modest and friendly
attitude by Obama towards China in his four-day visit. During his "town-hall"
meeting with Chinese youths in Shanghai
on Monday, Obama said America had much to learn from China and that "the notion
we must be adversaries is not predestined".
When commenting on Chinese government restrictions on access to the Internet,
Obama sidestepped direct criticism of Beijing, simply saying that he is a
strong supporter of the free flow of information since it can help make
governments more accountable.
The climax of Obama's China visit was his summit with his Chinese counterpart,
Hu Jintao, on Wednesday. A joint statement issued after the meeting shows the
two leaders as very pragmatic in handling relations between their countries.
While their predecessors were fond of finding labels to describe Sino-US ties,
such as a "constructive strategic partnership" or "responsible stakeholders",
Obama and Hu seemed to concentrate on more substantive issues.
According to the joint statement, both sides reached consensus on a number of
issues such as cooperation in economic recovery, climate change, science and
innovation, education, health and disease control, outer-space exploration and
security, and nuclear non-proliferation. They also agreed on advancing military
exchanges and on issues concerning North Korea and Iran. China agreed to open a
new round of talks on human rights and religious freedoms.
Upon the release of the joint statement, some Western analysts quickly
dismissed it as an exercise in diplomatic lip-service. But consensus reached at
such a high level must first address policy principles before these can be
elaborated on when it comes to actual implementation. Besides, there were areas
of substantial progress in the joint statement.
For example, it stated that the US and China "will take concrete steps to
advance sustained and reliable military-to-military relations in the future".
Bilateral military exchanges have been the weakest link in Sino-US ties since
the two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1979. Less than
two months after Obama was sworn in, Chinese vessels harassed a US surveillance
ship in waters off the Chinese coast. Tensions have since eased, and this month
General Xu Caihou, a People's Liberation Army leader, visited the United
States, with Washington opening its highly classified US Strategic Command to
him. "We [China] will never seek hegemony, military expansion or an arms race,"
Xu said during his visit.
Another area of cooperation Obama and Hu agreed to boost was student-exchange
programs, with the US planning to send 100,000 students to China over the
coming four years. There are currently some 600,000 Chinese students in the US
and around 20,000 Americans studying in China.
New emphasis on China
China was just one stop on Obama's Asia tour, but his meeting with Hu seems to
have garnered the most global attention. Obama spent less than 24 hours in
Japan, the US's longtime military ally in Asia; he chose to spend four days in
China. He will on Thursday leave Seoul after a two-day visit to South Korea,
another US ally in the region.
Obama's tour may signal a US "comeback" in Asia, after the George W Bush
administration policy seemed to neglect the continent due to its focus on the
"war on terror" and the Middle East. But the US also appears to be giving China
much more prominence, perhaps in recognition of its rapidly growing influence
in the regional and in international affairs.
In an interview with Reuters before his visit, Obama described China as a
"vital partner, as well as a competitor" and from this perspective, Obama's
China visit can hardly be seen as a milestone of significant change in US
policy towards China. It appears more a hint that the cooperative, friendly and
pragmatic policies of the US towards China over the last decade can be
inherited, maintained and continued by new US administrations. This should
create an environment for substantial bilateral collaboration and progress on a
number of issues of mutual interest.
No one can expect the many issues facing the two countries to be resolved
within a single presidential visit, and no one can say that new fissures will
not occur.
The most pressing issue in US-China relations is trade relations. As two big
economies, the US and China are not only interdependent, but also come into
conflict with each other. The US government considers US-China trade
imbalanced, since China's exports to the US exceed US exports to China. America
believes its foreign trade deficit stems from China's economic policy and that
China's export of cheap goods to the US has led to increased unemployment.
Washington has said that an undervalued yuan disadvantages US manufacturers and
is stoking global economic imbalances. Obama said movement by China on its
exchange rate would "make an essential contribution to the global rebalancing
effort".
Obama will likely continue to press Chinese leaders on human rights,
particularly those of ethnic minorities in the Tibet and Xinjiang autonomous
regions. The White House has already announced that Obama will meet the Dalai
Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, after his China visit. Both in
Obama's town-hall speech to Shanghai students and in his meetings with Chinese
leaders, he stated that human rights, as a universal value, should be respected
by all countries.
Thirdly, Taiwan remains an issue, though cross-strait relations have improved
since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwanese president in 2008. Ma has continued a
dialogue between leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan's Kuomintang
that started in 2005. However, Taipei still relies on US support not only
politically but also militarily, and this issue still has the potential to
flare up and affect US-China relations.
Expectations should not be too high over one visit by Obama to China, since
existing tensions remain and new conflicts will likely emerge between these two
big powers. However Sino-US ties seem to have stabilized and matured as the
nations' deepen in interdependence. China's rapid rise, and the implications of
this for the stability and geopolitical structure of East Asia, will pose a
challenges to Sino-US relations, but Obama's visit seems to indicate that the
ensuing competition will likely be benign.
Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International
Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
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