SHANGHAI - The United States' relations with China during President Barack
Obama's first year in office climbed and plummeted like a rollercoaster ride.
Many in China will recall Obama's kind words and friendly gestures in a state
visit last November, when he told young people in a City Hall-style meeting in
Shanghai that America could learn from China because of its great history and
culture. While his words still echo in the ears of many, his actions since may
stick in others' throats.
The Obama administration has decided to sell updated and advanced weapons to
Taiwan, and the president will meet the Dalai Lama this spring, an about-turn
from last year when Beijing succeeded in dissuading him from meeting Tibet’s
spiritual leader
in exile. More measures to curb China’s imports will be introduced and,
according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House will press
Zhongnanhai to promote cyber freedom.
China reacted angrily to oppose the US arms sales to Taiwan, its major
political and military rival, and responded immediately by conducted a
successful anti-missile test. Although diplomatically the Chinese government
brushed aside any claim that the test was its reaction to the arms sales, its
timing spoke for itself.
Clinton’s stance on Internet freedom was highly public backing for US
search-engine giant Google's threat to pull out of China over alleged
Beijing-supported hacking of its clients' e-mail accounts. While many in China
see the company's move more as a business trick to gain favors for market
expansion, US-based groups on Sunday called on their government to challenge
China's "firewall" at the World Trade Organization.
Beijing that same day reiterated its rejection of claims the government was
involved. (See Echoes of ideologies clashing, Asia Times Online, January 25)
All this suggests that the "honeymoon" for Sino-US relations after Obama was
sworn in a year ago is over. The US now seems intent on reapplying the carrot
and stick of "engagement and containment" toward China. Under such a policy,
Sino-US relations will be both cooperative and confrontational.
Times have changed, however, and the issues that call for cooperation and cause
confrontation have changed with them.
In regard to international affairs, China and the US tend to be more
cooperative. As China rises as a world power, the US needs its cooperation to
deal with issues such as the fight against terrorism and transnational crimes,
stabilizing the global economy, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,
Iran's nuclear program, and climate change, to name but a few.
On the other hand, China wants to take its due responsibilities in
international affairs. As such, both need and intend to be more cooperative.
During the Cold War and even for a period afterward, dealing with such issues
would have caused confrontation. Today, confrontation is largely limited to
"traditional" bilateral issues such as Taiwan, Tibet, trade and human rights.
On these issues, the two have conflicts of interest and different values that
mean they cannot be easily resolved. China has a keen national interest to
defend, and thus always suspects the US wants to contain its rise by making use
of them whenever Washington thinks it convenient.
This feature of Sino-US relations has become more prominent under Obama’s
presidency. This makes the development of Sino-US ties easier to predict:
whether cooperation or confrontation is the menu du jour largely depends on whether the issue is
international or bilateral.
This shows
that China and the US have yet to find the means
to develop their relations in a strategic and
stable framework, although both, especially China,
like to characterize their current relationship as
strategic. Clearly, the US still lacks a clear-cut
and coherent policy toward China.
When
president Bill Clinton came to power in 1993, he
changed his predecessor George H W Bush's
containment policy toward China in lieu of
engagement. In its second term, the Clinton
administration announced a "constructive strategic
partnership" with China.
George W Bush’s
administration viewed China as a strategic
competitor, and then, after 9/11, in the words of
one of Bush's senior aides, as a stakeholder.
While Obama wants a "strategic partnership" with
Beijing, he decides to sell advanced weapons to
Taiwan and to meet the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing
considers a "separatist". For China, such a China
policy is confusing and somehow
self-contradictory.
Overall, China and the
US have no serious problems in cooperating in
global and multilateral affairs in which they
could even formulate an informal group of two
(G-2) to dominate the agenda. The main problem in
their relations is that they cannot properly deal
with bilateral issues. This has resulted from
their opposing views and interests over these
issues. For example, from a realistic perspective,
for America, Taiwan is an "unsinkable aircraft
carrier" in the Pacific, Yet for China, Taiwan is
a part of its inseparable territory to which US
arms sales are a hostile act.
In regard to
Google, Beijing sees its supervision of the search
engine's operations in China as being according to
the country's laws and therefore a domestic
affair. The White House is using the incident to
press China to relax cyber-controls and promote
human rights, which Beijing considers as
interference in its domestic affairs.
Incidentally, the US remained silent when India’s
government required Google to provide private
information on certain Indian citizens. Such
seemingly double standards by the US can only
cause distain in the Chinese government and among
its people.
If conflicts between the US
and China on bilateral issues continue, their
cooperation in international affairs will be
weakened. While different interests and values
mean conflicts can never be eliminated, the crux
of the matter is to reduce them through efforts
toward increasing mutual understanding.
From the Chinese perspective, to avoid
more and bigger confrontations and conflicts, the
Obama administration could gradually abandon its
hegemonic policy toward China and expand the
influence of "smart" and "soft" power.
For
instance, the Taiwan issue is one of China's core
interests - it touches on China's history,
culture, territorial sovereignty and reality, and
the US should appreciate this.
Two
official documents dictate US policy towards
Taiwan. One is the "817" Sino-US communique, the
other the US's Taiwan Relations Act. However,
nowadays, the US relies on the Taiwan Relations
Act, which is a domestic law of the US. That is,
the US prefers to use national law rather than an
international treaty to deal with Sino-US
bilateral relations, ignoring and often
challenging China's core interests. For China,
such a hegemonic approach is both unacceptable and
offensive.
Now would be an opportune time
for these two big powers to consider how to form a
more mature "strategic partnership" on a more
friendly and constructive basis. China has its own
resources, including traditional philosophy such
as Confucianism and socialism, to escape the rule
of power politics. Does the US and Obama have such
ideas, except for abstract platitudes such as
freedom, democracy and fraternity?
Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International
Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
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