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01/12/2006
China Today, continued
I’ve been meaning to go through some articles on China I read a
while back. Following are a few excerpts, from different sides of
the debate on China’s growing power.
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David M. Lampton, director of China studies at Johns Hopkins
University and director of Chinese studies at the Nixon Center.
“The contours of the ‘weak-China paradigm’ (China as a weak,
developing, politically fragile and transitional economy) were
established in contemporary America’s first glimpses of China in
the final stages of the Cultural Revolution, when President
Richard Nixon went there in 1972. At that point, China had only
a shade greater share of global GDP than France, a nation with
only about 6 percent of China’s population. There was virtually
no private sector in the Chinese economy. The face of leadership
in China was an infirm, eighty-plus-year-old Mao Zedong.
China was widely understood in terms similar to those in which
we now understand North Korea .
“The core reason for viewing China as weak lay in the correct
assessment that the country had an enormous institution-building
effort ahead (constructing legal, market and regulatory
institutions, and cultivating human and social capital) .It
seemed self-evident that changing all this would take a long time,
even without considering the disabilities of the one-party state
(corruption) and the natural-resource, environmental and
population constraints .
“It is hard to say when the paradigm shifted toward that of a
strong China (a modernizing, highly competitive, rising
power) .
[ed., the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, Zhu Rongji’s proposed
free trade zone, the steadily increasing military budget, the
smooth transition in power to Hu Jintao, China’s becoming the
third nation to put a man in space, China’s role in attempting to
denuclearize North Korea, or when Americans realized China
held more U.S. debt instruments than any other foreign country
except Japan.]
“China’s trade with the world has grown eight times as fast as
world trade. China accounted for 68 percent of global growth in
demand for oil in the 1995-2003 period.
“One of the things that most worry Chinese leaders is that the
strong-China paradigm makes it easy for foreigners to lose sight
of China’s genuine problems .One of China’s most thoughtful
public intellectuals, Zheng Bijian, talks about China’s ‘division
and multiplication problems.’ The division problem is that even
large aggregate resources become small per capital resources
when divided by 1.3 billion people. The multiplication problem
is that even small problems become incredibly large when
multiplied by 1.3 billion. Chinese leaders look at foreign policy
from the perspective of how it can facilitate resolution of these
domestic challenges .
“As the debate proceeds it is important to keep one overriding
reality in mind: China can be weak and strong simultaneously. A
population of 1.3 billion, with a middle class perhaps numbering
250 million-300 million, can simultaneously be an enormous
competitive force, a global economic engine and also have one
billion less-fortunate people who are a huge developmental and
humanitarian challenge.
“For seven administrations, U.S. policy toward China has been
remarkably stable and could be called ‘hedged integration.’”
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The debate between “confrontationalists” and “integrationists”
“Confrontationalists see history as an unfolding, ever-changing
contest for power – with power most often thought of as hard
power (military strength and other forms of coercion, from
sanctions to isolation). Confrontationalists suspect that the
currently weaker party will observe the strictures of international
institutions, norms and regimes only so long as that actor gains
an advantage by so doing. When the weaker becomes strong, its
adherence to institutions, norms and regimes will diminish in
favor of unilateralism. [As one expert notes] (The) international
system is characterized by the struggle between aspiring, rising
powers and the current hegemon bent on maintaining dominance.
“Integrationists see technological and economic interdependence
creating ever more delicate international systems that function
best with increasing levels of cooperation. They emphasize the
utility of soft power as an often more effective means to win
compliance than coercion and believe that a hegemonic system is
inherently unstable because it fosters bandwagoning against the
dominant power. They are strong believers in the evolutionary
nature of history. To take one example, they would take the
view that economic development creates a middle class; middle
classes tend to provide a foundation for democracy; and a world
comprised of democracies would be less prone to war .
“The shift from the weak-China paradigm toward the strong-
China paradigm empowers the confrontationalists. This
threatens to change the appropriately balanced U.S. policy
toward China of the last seven administrations. And this
concerns many in Asia; one senior former diplomat in Singapore
told me recently: ‘Rising China is better than a crashing China,
one that collapses around us. You [America] are going to screw
up the rise of China. We want America to stay in the region, of
course, but to play a constructive role.’ .
The U.S. must first recognize China is a competitor. “The reality
is that China is an increasingly able competitor on the global
playing field that America did so much to build. For its part,
Beijing should not view this candid recognition of China’s
impact as simply a continuation of a past history of
‘containment’ and ‘victimization.’ The things that unsettle
people are those phenomena that are big, rapidly changing and
non-transparent – China is all three.”
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“Washington should avoid overmilitarizing its response (to
China’s increasing power) since, Taiwan aside, China’s true
medium- and long-term competitive challenges are in the realms
of economics and ideas, not armed force. Overconcentration on
defense will lead to a misallocation of resources that will weaken
America .
“China and the United States both need to adopt a policy of
reassurance. Beijing needs to continually reassure the region, the
world and Washington that its growing power will be used
constructively. And America needs to adopt policies that
reassure China that China’s rising influence and status will be
accepted, even as both nations are competitors in significant
ways. It is not well advised for a secretary of state to go to Japan
and add fuel to Beijing’s suspicion that Washington is pursuing
an encirclement strategy by saying: ‘I really do believe that the
U.S.-Japan relationship, the U.S.-South Korean relationship, the
U.S.-Indian relationship, all are important in creating an
environment in which China is more likely to play a positive role
than a negative role.”
In conclusion, David Lampton quotes a senior Australian
business executive who had this advice:
“Will China compete with America for world leadership? As far
as I can imagine, it will never be a competitor for that global
leadership and the reason being is that the Americans have
unique abilities-[you Americans] are innovative and [have] the
ability to make quick decisions. You have the power of politics,
and you have a geographical platform from which to operate that
is unique. Innovation and fast decision-making you have, but not
China. If America focuses on your strength; they can focus on
their strength.”
Source: The National Interest, Fall 2005
Note: I’m going to have other opinions on China in the coming
weeks, though next time I may turn to Iran.
Brian Trumbore
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