SUN
WUKONG US
and China: a mutual mistrust
endures By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - China and the United
States have become increasingly economically
interdependent. This, however, seems to be of
little help in removing mutual suspicion between
the two countries.
As evident by a spate
of recent diplomatic rows, there seems still to be
a very long way to go before the two nations will
be able to build mutual political and military
trust, the lack of which prevents them from
fostering some kind of strategic partnership.
Thus, the so-called Group of Two or G-2
(that United States and China work out solutions
to global problems together) remains a pipe dream.
This is largely decided by the nature of
Sino-US relationship, which has been built and
developed on the basis of pragmatic
approaches to serve each
other's national interests and geopolitical
strategic goals. When their interests or goals
collide, there will inevitably be frictions and
tensions.
A brief historical review may
cast some new insights into the current status of
Sino-US relations.
After the Korean War
(1950-1953), communist China and the US became
diehard enemies until the late 1960s, when they
both began to make efforts to try to improve
relations because they were then facing a common
enemy - the Soviet Union. The so-called "ping pong
diplomacy" in 1971 eventually paved the way for US
President Richard Nixon to make his groundbreaking
visit to Beijing in 1972.
In late December
of 1978, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
formally endorsed Deng Xiaoping's economic reform
and opening up policy. Days later, on January 1,
1979, the United States switched diplomatic
recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The Taiwan
issue, a core national interest of China, was
shelved.
Deng paid a visit to Washington
in January 1979, which marked the start of a
"honeymoon" decade for relations between China and
US. During that time, the US and China completed a
bilateral trade agreement and initiated hundreds
of joint research projects and cooperative
programs including the Agreement on Cooperation in
Science and Technology, the largest bilateral
program. There were reportedly even some military
cooperation projects between the two countries.
On their flight to US, Li Shenzhi, then
vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS), asked the paramount leader: "Why
should we attach such great importance to
relations with the US?" Deng's answer: "Looking
back at the past decades, all countries which have
good relations with the US have become
prosperous." [1] Apparently, in the mind of the
pragmatic Chinese leader, economic benefits were
the major concern for China to develop closer
ties.
The "honeymoon" decade in Sino-US
relations came to a bitter end with China's
violent crackdown on protesting students at
Tiananmen on June 4, 1989. To express its
condemnation of Beijing's violation of human
rights, Washington suspended high-level official
exchanges and imposed economic sanctions,
including the banning of weapons exports to China.
American investors' interest in China also dropped
dramatically.
In meeting with visiting
Nixon in Beijing on October 31, 1989, Deng talked
about the other side of the same coin of Sino-US
relationship.
Frankly speaking, the turmoil and
counter-revolutionary rebellion that occurred in
Beijing not long ago was, in the first place,
instigated by international anti-communist and
anti-socialist ideological trend. Regretfully,
the US has involved too deeply in this issue and
incessantly condemned China. China has not done
any disservice to US. We can have our different
views, but you cannot force us to accept any
wrong accusation by others…
I won't say
it about Western governments, but at least some
people in the West want to overthrow China's
socialist system, which can only arouse the
disgust of the Chinese people… People support
human rights, but don't forget there are also
national rights. People talk about personal
dignity, but don't forget there is also national
dignity. Especially for a developing country
like us, without national self-esteem to
treasure national independence, it can hardly
stand up.
You please tell President
[George HW] Bush that to put an end to the past,
the US should take the initiative, and the
initiative can only be taken by the US … China
cannot take the initiative. Because the US is
strong, China is weak and China is the victim.
China will never beg. Even for 100 years, China
won't beg [the US] to lift sanctions ... Any
Chinese leader will be finished if he makes a
mistake on this issue, because Chinese people
will not forgive him. This is the truth I speak
out …
International relations must
follow a principle, that is, not to intervene in
another country's internal affairs. The People's
Republic of China will never allow any other
country to intervene in its internal affairs.
[2]
After such toughly-worded remarks,
Deng did not forget to stress on the importance of
economic ties with US:
Sino-US relations have a good
foundation, that is, the two countries can help
each other in economic development and
safeguarding each other's economic interests.
After all, the Chinese market is not fully
developed, so the US can do a lot in terms of
making use of the Chinese market. We welcome
American business people to continue their
commercial activities in China.
All in
all, Deng laid down the very policy principle
toward US which the current Chinese leadership
still upholds. In short, China treasures economic
ties with the US but will never allow any
intervention in what is deemed as its internal
affairs.
On the US part, its trade and
foreign economic relations policy could be said as
"value-added" in that, when doing business with
another country, Washington also wants to spread
its values such as democracy, liberty and human
rights. In China's case, Washington always hopes
doing business may help bring changes to its
political and social system. So as long as China
keeps its door open, the US won't give up its
engagement with it.
As a result, there
will inevitably be more friction between China and
US as their economic ties become more intimate.
The Sino-US relationship dropped to a low
ebb in the 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991 removed a common enemy. The US became the
sole superpower to dominate international affairs,
but China turned to advocate for a "multi-polar"
world. The two countries' ties were severely
strained by a spate of incidents in that decade.
In 1996, China conducted military exercises in the
Taiwan Strait to intimidate Taiwan's presidential
elections.
Alarmed by the tensions, the US
dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to
the region. Then, there was the US-led North
Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Later in
April 2001, a Chinese J-8 fighter jet collided
with a US EP-3 spy aircraft in skies near China's
Hainan Island. But the two governments managed to
prevent the incidents from ruining their ties.
Sino-US relations changed radically
following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Beijing lent its support to Washington's
anti-terrorism war. Anti-terrorism became a common
goal for the two countries to warm to each other
again. It was also important for China that the US
had to focus on the Middle East and divert its
attention to East Asia.
Thus, in the first
decade of the 21st century, while the US was
occupied with its wars against terrorism in
Afghanistan and Iraq, China took the time to
concentrate on its economic development. Hit by a
financial crisis in 2008, the US economy has
remained sluggish while China has kept high-speed
economic growth.
Thus when the second
decade of this century opened, China already
replaced Japan to become the world's second
largest economy, next only to the US. Today, China
and the US are the largest mutual trading
partners, after the European Union. China is also
the US's largest foreign creditor.
Having
become a major economic power, China has also
found more common interests with the US in
international affairs. Apart from anti-terrorism,
China is also willing to cooperate with the US to
deal with issues such as nuclear proliferation and
greenhouse gas emissions.
All this has not
helped remove, and in a sense has even increased,
mutual suspicion between the two powers.
Frustrated by the little progress China has made
in political liberalization, Washington has become
concerned that with its growing economic and
military muscle China may want to challenge its
status as the world single superpower. On the
other hand, China is suspicious that the US wants
to contain its rise, especially after the Obama
administration announced its strategic shift to
"return to Asia".
With growing
self-confidence boosted by its economic
achievements, and under domestic pressure of
growing nationalistic sentiments, Beijing has
become more eager to take tit-for-tat action in
regard to what it considers as US "intervention"
in its domestic affairs.
Under such
circumstances, this means that diplomatic rows
between China and the US inevitably will become
more frequent. Recently we have seen Beijing
condemn the US Embassy in Beijing for taking in
blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, furiously
reject a demand by US Department of State to
release more details about the June 4 Tiananmen
crackdown, and demand the US Embassy in Beijing's
data about local air quality. Not to mention
potential tensions between China and the US over
bigger and more sensitive issues such as Taiwan
and South China Sea.
It thus can be
expected that cooperation and confrontation will
be the norm in Sino-US relations for years to
come. It can also be said that cooperation is the
mainstream in Sino-US relations because of their
economic interdependence. As many have said, the
relationship between the world's two largest
economies is the most important bilateral
relationship in this century. Hopes hence can be
placed that Chinese and American leaders will have
the political wisdom to handle their conflicts and
not let them jeopardize their cooperation.
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