Insights into China's place in the world
By Benjamin A Shobert
WASHINGTON - Last Thursday's congressional hearings by the United States-China
Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) provided an insightful
perspective on Washington's understanding of how China understands its own
global role and responsibilities, or as the hearing notice advised, "greater
insight into policy debates inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regarding
China's relations with other countries, and on China's future role in the
world".
The hearing managed not only to shed light on the internal conversation within
China regarding these topics, but equally
important, Washington's understanding and perspective on these same debates.
As the hearings indicated, Washington senses that Beijing is beginning to
distance itself from the global rule set that those in the West had largely
assumed could be taken for granted. As China's power has grown, so too has its
awareness that certain parts of becoming a "responsible stakeholder" did not
function well for their national interests.
USCC commissioner Dennis Shea commented that " ... many questions remain
surrounding China's rise to great power status. It is not yet entirely clear
how the Chinese state will choose to make use of its dramatically increased
economic and diplomatic clout." An important internal conversation is evolving
within China as to whether it must continue to embrace these global standards,
or whether it can create new ones characterized by what it believes are more
Eastern sensibilities.
During the hearings, the March/April 2011 article in Foreign Affairs by
Professor Wang Jisi, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking
University, was referenced on several occasions. This article spoke with
surprising candor when Wang asked, "After arguably 20-plus years of generally
deft foreign policy in which China's comprehensive national power has grown
much faster than the perceived threat posed by Beijing's growing strength, what
accounts for the last two years' periodically counterproductive, less deft
Chinese foreign and security policy?"
These are powerful words given they come from a well-respected Chinese academic
deeply ensconced within the Chinese system. In many ways, this remains the
fundamental question for which neither Beijing nor Washington has a politically
acceptable answer.
For Beijing, the answer to Wang's question may be simply growing pains - the
uncomfortable reality that China is being forced to play a global role it is
not yet ready to play, but one that the economic troubles of its major trading
partners has forced it to play. And, like any self-respecting country, it has
determined that it should greet this newfound power not with trepidation, but
with greater confidence in seeking out those things that would make it feel
stronger both regionally and globally.
The country's leaders are also beginning to grasp that its relationship with
the world is at an inflection point, and now may be the best opportunity in a
decade to reshape the conversation about global rule sets into standards that
better fit China's developmental, cultural and economic needs. While such a
response may be perfectly reasonable, Washington's deep insecurities make
interpreting China's newly found global footing that much more difficult to
interpret and accept.
Dr David Lampton, professor and director of Johns Hopkins' China Studies
Program, spoke to Washington's own need in these areas forcefully in his
statement: "The best thing the United States could do ... is to put its own
national house in order, to be seen on a trajectory of growth, comprehensive
national strength, and good governance. The Chinese look at power and
determination, not rhetoric. If America changes in positive directions in these
respects, we will see a positive response from the PRC [People's Republic of
China]."
Where does Lampton believe these changes need to be made? He went on, "By power
I do not have in mind principally military power - I mean the economic and
intellectual foundations of state power. Indeed, over expenditure on military
capacity, while ignoring the need to educate our children adequately, is the
biggest security risk we face - bar none."
What Lampton's testimony touches on is a critical insight into Washington's
grasp of what is going on within China: not so much Beijing's growing sense of
power, but of Washington's sense of loss of the same. And, as Lampton's
comments suggest, the narratives shaping domestic politics within an aging
superpower are equally important to those occurring within a rising one.
As last Thursday's testimony unfolded, other voices more critical of China's
internal debate raised what they believe are important facts about Beijing's
mindset that can and should be understood outside of Washington's own misplaced
footing.
Dr Gilbert Rozman, professor at Princeton University, noted that China's
internal conversation had changed for the worse in 2010, stating. "The
[current] narrative demonizes the United States. Compared to earlier Chinese
writings, it places the entire responsibility on Washington for wrecking the
six-party talks [on North Korea's nuclear program] and taking a cold war,
ideological approach to North Korea." Rozman believes that some of this
criticism can be understood as frustrations on the part of Beijing with what
they hoped would be a gradually decreasing regional role for the United States.
According to Rozman's testimony, "... we must recognize the expectations that
somehow had been growing about the United States pulling back from East Asia.
Many writers treated ASEAN+3 [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] as if it
was firmly on course to establish a true East Asian community, economically
integrated while marginalizing outsider states and, in stages, adding political
and cultural ties that draw ASEAN ever closer to China if not Japan and South
Korea."
These frustrations perfectly illustrate the two narrative arcs driving the US
and China: the US believing it still needs to play a regional role in East
Asia, and China believing doing so will not always be in China's best interests
and that it should be able to replace much of the regional influence currently
held by America. Opportunities for partnering together versus seeing these two
narratives as diametrically opposed to one another remains an area much in need
of expansion in future hearings.
Rozman believes that China's internal narrative is being significantly shaped
by three factors: "First ... alarm over China's rising power, which has grown
sharply since the financial crisis as the 'China model' casts doubt on the
future of capitalism and the West's venerated trio of democracy, freedom, and
human rights ... Second, Western psychology is programmed through a history of
colonialism to predicate the rise of a new power on wars, assuming that China
will prove expansionist too. Third, China's relative weakness and passivity has
emboldened Western states to press their warnings, which they soon will not
dare to do."
Rozman's point is not necessarily to argue for or against any of these as being
factors which should shape the narrative, but rather as he testified, "If most
outside observers are focused on the clash between Chinese and US hard power as
a natural dispute over a rising power, they miss the clash centered on an
identity gap."
What is this identity gap that Rozman believes needs to be understood? It is
China's fixation on reshaping the regional role not only for China, but for the
US as well: "Delegitimizing the US role undermines the international system and
creates a vacuum for China to fill as sources argue that the United States not
only is not essential for security, it is now a source of instability. Many
argue that U.S. financial leadership and the dollar are no longer necessary
after their negative effect in the world financial crisis."
The net of this is, as Rozman stated, "East Asian states are pressed to choose
between two poles [the US or China]."
This perspective carries with it heavy implications: if correct, then American
policymakers must determine if they can accommodate a rising China, or if
America's own national security needs require that it seek to strategically
push back against China's aims. But do meaningful voices of dissent exist
within China who might soften Beijing's intransigence?
According to testimony by Dr Christopher Ford, senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute, the US must be careful to make too many sweeping generalizations
about the nature of China's internal narratives: "... even the Chinese
themselves seem to be in the middle of an ongoing and sharply contested process
of imagining and reimagining themselves."
And, where too many American policymakers believe China can be viewed as a
collective ideological monolith, Ford urges caution, "It is possible, in fact,
that Chinese leaders do not themselves have or agree upon answers to these
questions ... There seem to be, in other words, many narratives of China and
its rise, and much hangs upon which of them ends up approximating its evolving
reality."
This is not to say that criticism of China's internal dialogue is entirely
unfounded. Ford's testimony acknowledged that "Beijing ... still remains
resolutely uninterested in arms control or in strategic dialogue or
transparency of the sort that could help allay concerns if indeed China's
intentions are indeed good, and its emerging role as benign, as its leaders
have claimed."
This remains an unsatisfactory perspective by many in Washington who worry
that, as Dr Alison Kaufman, a research analyst with CAN testified, China now
sees "the current international system [as] harmful to China, and therefore
China should keep its participation in that system cautious and minimal".
Kaufman points towards some within China's policy community who believe that
"... the US's desire for China to become a 'responsible stakeholder' as a
'colonialist' viewpoint that is aimed at having weaker countries shoulder the
burdens of stronger ones. They express concern that taking on such burdens
could weaken China rather than strengthen it, and that such is perhaps the US'
intent."
The hope of many in Washington is that these harsher words will ultimately be
relaxed as China comes to understand that its growing power provides it with an
opportunity not to discard the international order, but to influence it, to
"transform [it] to one that is more equitable and non-competitive."
Ford's testimony offered an important perspective on how Americans need to view
China's rise: " ... it is our challenge to make it clear that we have no
particular problem with growing Chinese power per se, but that we care greatly
about its behavior and its role in the region and the world, its relationships
with its neighbors, and its commitment to global norms such as freedom of the
seas, freedom of access to outer space, nuclear non-proliferation, and respect
for human rights and democracy."
This is both a critical distinction and a very fine line, one so narrow that it
remains unclear whether the American political system or its people have the
patience to understand it.
Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc
(www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Asian businesses
bring innovative technologies into the North American market.
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