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October 13, 2001
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China
China's long march to world leader By Wu Zichen Part 1: China's twisted road to coexistence Peaceful transformation "Peaceful transformation" should be understood as the combination of peaceful transition and evolution, the convergence of systems, the integration of civilizations and the demise of leadership. With hindsight, the 1950s were the heyday of the communists, who were bursting with confidence. Soviet leader Nikita Chruschev announced in a grandiose program that the Soviet Union would run ahead of the United States, while Mao Zedong, whose ambition was much greater, not only wanted to move ahead of Britain and overtake the US, but also wanted to rush into the stage of communism earlier than the Soviet Union. Correspondingly, the leaders of Western countries put forth the view of peaceful evolution. John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State at the time, said, "To give up the use of military force does not mean to maintain the status quo, but means peaceful transformation ... we hope that the internal evolution inside the Soviet world would be encouraged." He also declared confidently, "There are some indications that there is a force inside the Soviet Union demanding a greater liberty ... if this force continues to develop inside the Soviet Union and becomes stronger day after day, then we may say, and have reasons to hope ... that there will emerge such a Russia, which is ruled by some who represent the wishes of the Russian people, have given up the ambition to reign the world and would like to keep to the principles of civilized countries and the principles embodied in the United Nations Charter." Both the "peaceful transition" thesis espoused by the communists and the "peaceful evolution" thesis espoused by the anti-communists were in a peaceful "I subjugate you" mode, which has proved to be an unrealistic vision. The more realistic theory was one of the "convergence of systems", which was put forth by neutral statesmen and scholars who had independent views. If Queen Victoria or President Lincoln came to life again, they would exclaim that the present Britain and US had become socialist countries. The political programs of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels in their Communist Manifesto have been realized in developed countries, and some even better than anywhere else, such as national social security and social welfare. Even the "concentration of all transport in the control of the state" and "the increase of the state-owned factories and production tools" were practiced in Britain for some time. The tendency toward systemic convergence from socialism to capitalism is becoming increasingly obvious. Deng Xiaoping argued in the 1980s that the criteria to evaluate economic policies was to see if they were favorable for the development of socialist productivity, conducive to strengthening the comprehensive power of the nation, and helpful to improve people's living standards. More plan or more market, this was not the essential demarcation between socialism and capitalism. The planned economy did not mean socialism, as the capitalist countries also had plans; the market economy did not mean capitalism, as socialism also had markets. All in all, to win over capitalism, socialism has to bravely assimilate and borrow all civilized achievements created by human society, and the advanced management approaches of advanced capitalist countries. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been two popular theories in the field of international relations: the theory of globalization and that of conflict between civilizations. As evidenced by the attacks against Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory in China, the mainstream of Chinese academia seems to favor the former theory. In their view, globalization "is an irresistible historical trend", and the main trend in the future development of the world is integration instead of conflict. That is to say, the conflicts between civilizations will not be the main threat to China's peaceful development. The idea of globalization has been adopted by the official media, popular readings and the literature of the government and the ruling party. Though not officially, the essence of the convergence theory has been embodied in popular sayings such as "to bring us in line with international practice". Now two groups of people in China are loudly claiming that "international conflicts" and wars are inevitable. In one group we find the advocates of the traditional dogmatic ideology, whose typical representatives are the science undergraduates and postgraduates who have obtained high grades in their politics courses. They have read many political textbooks, but know nothing about diplomatic practices. They hold the theory of "imperialism" and "wars and revolutions" by Vladimir Lenin as their point of reference, but know nothing about the actual application and transformation of the theories of "peaceful coexistence" and "peace and development" by Lenin, Josef Stalin, Chruschev, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. In another group are the followers of the realist political school who maintain a certain status and influence in the academic fields. Consequently, they will be dealt with in more depth. Chinese expert Ding Xueliang noted that it was not difficult to become the enemy of the US, while it is much harder to become its principal enemy, because one has to satisfy some "qualifications" and "conditions", which can be classified into three types: first, what kind of political system? Democratic or despotic? Authoritarian or totalitarian? If totalitarian, rightist or leftist? Second, what kind of ethnicity and culture? White or colored? Christian or non-Christian culture? Third, what is the level of national power? In evaluating the strength of a country, of course the US will take in the static elements, such as territory, population, natural resources, etc., but even more attention will be paid to the dynamic elements, such as economic growth rate. The higher the growth rate of a country, the more easily it will become a force to reshuffle the international pecking order and a challenger to the main beneficiary of the present international order. If a country meets any of three, it will become an enemy of the US. But only if one meets all three can it be qualified to become the principal enemy of the US. In the present world, China is the only "three-in-one" country: it is a leftwing totalitarian country, the camp of yellow ethnicity and Confucian culture, and also a potential power with a rapid economic growth rate. Thus, unfortunately, it has been chosen as the principal enemy. Another analyst, Ni Lexiong, has remarked that the enmity between China and the US is due to two aspects: one is ideological opposition; the other is the opposition between a growing power and the extant power. Both aspects are incompatible, like water and fire. As history indicates, if the country-to-country relations meet only one of the two, enmity and conflict will be very difficult to dissolve. Unfortunately, Sino-US relations meet both. Considering the views of the two experts, the origin of conflict and enmity between China and the US lies in two aspects: the ideologies and political systems, and their national power and position in the world. It is easier to evoke "suspicion and enmity" between countries of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds - almost like pouring oil on the fire of the contentions between systems and powers. Yet we know that countries with different systems may well coexist, which has been proved by the history of the past half century. Second, countries with different systems can achieve systemic convergence through peaceful means and may in the end become countries with the same system, which has also been widely accepted as a common understanding in the academic field. The more difficult conflict to settle is that between powers. It is of course a good thing if a unitary system were realized in the world. Not a few in our country believe that only a war can settle the contention for world leadership, and divergence between them lies in when to have the war. The advantage of an earlier war is that less will be destroyed at a stage when we do not have much. The barefooted one is not afraid of the one with shoes. The poorer one is, the higher his fighting spirits. The advantage of a later war is that we can hide our capacities and ambitions now, and focus on internal construction: just as the saying goes, it is not late for a gentleman to take revenge in 10 years. Precedents can be found for the peaceful demise of the world's leading position between countries with the same civilization, and a good example is the transition of hegemony in the 20th Century from Britain to the US. Peaceful transition of the number one position in the world between countries from different civilizations has also occurred. When approaching the turn of the 19th Century and the 20th Century, China lost the number one position of GDP in the world and was surpassed by the US, which was a rising star among the capitalist countries. But nothing had happened between China and the US. The steady increase of the US economy in the 19th Century was mainly endogenous, relying on the substantial increase in population and the innovation in technologies and social organization modes. The main causes of economic stagnation and recession in 19th Century China were not the invasive oppression from the US, but rather the internal rebellions, disastrous civil wars and the extraordinary drought in northern China in the 1870s and 1880s. In fact, the Chinese in the early 20th Century had a special liking for the US. In the foreword to the Weekly Review at the end of 1918, Chen Duxiu said, "Several speeches given by [Woodrow] Wilson, the American president, are frank and righteous. He may well be counted as the number one good person in the world. He had said much, in which two doctrines are the most important: first the level of equality and freedom of a country should not be violated by other strong powers; second, the equality and freedom among the common people should not be violated by each country's own government. The two doctrines are expounding right instead of might." An editorial in Xinhua Daily during World War II said ebulliently, "From as early as in childhood, we found that America was a genial nation. We believe that the reason is not only that America has never encroached on Chinese land and started wars against China, but more essentially, the favorable impression of the Chinese to America originated from the democratic style and the magnanimous generosity that emanated from the American nation." China's hostility towards the US began in the 1950s. From the early 1970s to the end of the 1980s, a pro-American attitude again replaced hostility towards America. These years have been the golden age of China's modernization in the 20th Century as well as of the Sino-US relations. Thus, over the past 100 years, the unpleasant years in Sino-US relations were less than 30 in total. From 2010 to 2020 China's economic aggregate will again leap to become number one in the world in terms of GDP. During this critical period when the world's economic ranking order is reshuffled and the force structure reframed, how to set the keynote for Sino-US relations will be a severe historical test for China's rulers. It is agonizing to lose the world's number one position, whoever it is that will gain a such position. In the face of the historical trend that China's economy is growing up, will the US check it through its military superiority? Looking back, in the 1980s when Japan's economy was full of impetus and poised to overtake the US, Washington adopted no military action against Japan. Looking into the future, the American statesmen and the mainstream media indicate that what they are against is the existing political system in China rather than its prosperity, stability and big-power status. Even if they do not mean what they say, the US is incapable of starting a war in haste, because there are many obstacles on such a path. The first obstacle is the world's moral principles. At the end of the 19th Century, when Darwinism was prevalent, might was right, the big powers did as they wished and even the social democrats were not against colonial policy for they were expecting that merciful colonial ruling would help improve the living standards of the local people and get rid of their ignorance. Colonialism and imperialism had come to an end by the middle of the 20th Century. According to the UN Charter and a series of other international stipulations, all nations enjoy the right to self-determination; all nations, big or small, are equal in sovereignty, which should be respected alongside their territorial integrity, while force and the threat of force should be forbidden. To varying degrees, Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao all contributed to the formation of the world's moral principle. It is obviously unfair to disregard the role that the US has played in establishing the world's new rules by making use of its leadership in the world. The second obstacle to the use of force is American political culture. As a saying goes, killing ten thousand enemies costs three thousand soldiers. With the evolution of the concept of human rights and democracy in American society, such high a cost has become unacceptable. Today more than ever, the US is seeking a "zero-loss" policy. For instance, if trade sanctions were exercised by the US, China's losses would be about five times to 10 times those of the US, and the difficulty that China would meet in exploiting new markets would be much more serious than for the US to find new sources of imports. But even in the years after the June 4 "incident" in 1989 when Sino-US relations had been steeply deteriorating, the US did not dare to play the card of trade sanctions. In the 1990s, several American multinational corporations came come to invest in China, so now the China policy of the US government would be even more cautious. The third obstacle is the change in the American population structure. As a Chinese scholar has noted, current demographic trends in the US "are exercising an increasingly obvious influence on American culture, national mentality and politics", which in turn affects America's treatment of China, a non-Western big power. According to the data of the 2000 census published by the US Census Bureau, the population of Asian-Americans had exceeded 10 million with a drastic increase by 52 percent in the past 10 years and has become one of the most vigorous ethnic groups. Some Chinese-Americans have assumed government positions, and many more have achieved success in academic fields and business circles. The development of this trend is obviously conducive to friendship rather than hostility between China and the US. The final obstacle is nuclear deterrence. The history of the Cold War proved that there will be essentially no war between the nuclear powers. The ongoing revolution in military technologies is not only providing more effective weapons in wars, but also the ultimate means to eradicate wars. It is not necessary for China to seek a nuclear balance with the US. If we have the capacity to launch a nuclear counterattack, there will be no difference between 10 and 10,000 nuclear warheads. Nonetheless, besides war, the US could also employ political, economic, scientific, cultural and diplomatic means to check the rise of China. In the meantime, Chinese advocates of a hard line toward the US are the "strategic partners" of the American hardliners. In any case, the 21st Century will be one of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. During the first half of this century, by modernizing itself, China is to develop from a regional power into a world power, which will transform itself into a match for the US in economic, military and foreign affairs. By the second half of the century, China is to involve itself increasingly in global affairs and in laying down global rules and regulations, taking the lead in proposing new ideas and creating new mechanisms, and even becoming a new leader of the world. For the benefit of "peace and development", and in order to make this transition smoother, China must steadily adhere to three key principles in its foreign strategies: to develop, make more friends and take the initiative. To develop means to take the construction of a stronger economy as the core goal, avoiding unintentional international conflicts, alleviating and adjusting various domestic social contradictions to maintain long-term social stability and implement active and steady reforms in the economy and politics. As has been noted, "the Meiji Reform in Japan has offered an appropriate model ... in the light of the principle of 'foreign policy coming first' in Western terms, all the existing problems in the fields of domestic politics, economy, society and culture, which pose an obstacle to the pursuit of the fundamental goal, must be overcome ... China must accept and abide by the international practices established by the West". Furthermore, to develop means to fully understand Deng Xiaoping's strategic thought of "hiding our capacities and ambitions" at least in the medium term, by not taking the lead internationally. China should not volunteer to challenge the US's leadership in world affairs. In this respect, China should take as its example the US before World War II. Although it had sprung to be world's number one concerning economic strength and become the creditor and loaner of Britain and other European countries after World War I, it did not act in haste as the leader of the world. It is not until World War II when its total industrial output value surpassed the sum total of all the other countries in the world combined that it began to carry out its Marshall Plan, constructing the global system and acting as the world's policeman. As George W Bush put it, China and the US certainly are strategic competitors. Although the adoption of a soft or hard foreign policy by China is not to change this basic fact, the adoption of a hard line by both sides is likely to turn the Sino-US relationship into a hostile one. In addition to maintaining a quiet Sino-US relationship, the emphasis of China's foreign policy should be put on the "intermediate belt" between the two countries: to make more friends does not imply helping others generously with money, as in Chairman Mao's day when China exerted itself to aid others beyond its national power. The point is to make more friends instead of having enemies, offending no-one. The status of a world leader depends not only on hard power but also on soft power, the ability to realize one's aim by attracting rather than using coercive means in international affairs, namely a "gathering-together" ability of "persuading others to follow and imitate". The basic target of American global strategy in the new century is to build, together with its democratic partners, an international system composed of powerful alliances and organizations to meet the challenge of world globalization. In the new century, it is not so difficult for China to catch up with the US concerning overall national power as to make more allies and build new international norms. The problem of how China handles its relations with the US is far from being solved; but it is certain that it will be a completely irrational move to advocate ultranationalism, to intensify the contradictions with neighbors and to pose an aggressive air, but with no corresponding practicable measures. In the eye of many people, China lacks an innovative diplomacy and a clear strategic vision. According to some, the approach of "hiding one's capacities and ambitions and never acting as a leader" is of a too low-key and negative type of policy. But as a matter of fact, even though China opposes hegemony openly and sharply in its diplomacy, a Chinese hegemony would have no widespread compelling power or "gathering-together ability". Therefore, China must turn to "international democratization" for its fight against American hegemony. On the other hand, to become the banner of international democracy, China must first of all become a model of domestic democratization. Only when it has fulfilled its promise of franchise to its own citizens can China achieve more franchise in the international community. All in all, the prerequisite of China's reforming the world is to reform itself. Thus, the most critical and effective move for China to shape the international state of affairs is probably to start active and steady political reforms on the basis of farsightedness. Part 1: China's twisted road to coexistence Wu Zichen is a researcher and an expert in Chinese-American relations Translated by Yao Ximing and Lu Weizhong Previous article in this series China and the Americans, a love-hate affair ((c) Heartland. This version has been edited by Asia Times Online.) To subscribe to Heartland, please email cassanpress@sina.com |
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