Download Summary: Despite widespread fears about China`s growing

Summary: Despite widespread fears about China's growing economic clout and
political stature, Beijing remains committed to a "peaceful rise": bringing its people
out of poverty by embracing economic globalization and improving relations with the
rest of the world. As it emerges as a great power, China knows that its continued
development depends on world peace -- a peace that its development will in turn
reinforce.
Zheng Bijian is Chair of the China Reform Forum, a nongovernmental and nonprofit
academic organization that provides research on and analysis of domestic,
international, and development issues related to China. He has drafted key reports
for five Chinese national party congresses and held senior posts in academic and
party organizations in China.
GETTING THE FACTS RIGHT
China's rapid development has attracted worldwide
attention in recent years. The implications of various
aspects of China's rise, from its expanding influence
and military muscle to its growing demand for energy
supplies, are being heatedly debated in the
international community as well as within China.
Correctly understanding China's achievements and its
path toward greater development is thus crucial.
Topics:
Asia
Peace and Conflict
Economics
Trade and Finance
Since starting to open up and reform its economy in 1978, China has averaged 9.4
percent annual GDP growth, one of the highest growth rates in the world. In 1978, it
accounted for less than one percent of the world economy, and its total foreign trade
was worth $20.6 billion. Today, it accounts for four percent of the world economy
and has foreign trade worth $851 billion -- the third-largest national total in the
world. China has also attracted hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment
and more than a trillion dollars of domestic nonpublic investment. A dozen years
ago, China barely had mobile telecommunications services. Now it claims more than
300 million mobile-phone subscribers, more than any other nation. As of June 2004,
nearly 100 million people there had access to the Internet.
Indeed, China has achieved the goal it set for itself in 1978: it has significantly
improved the well-being of its people, although its development has often been
narrow and uneven. The last 27 years of reform and growth have also shown the
world the magnitude of China's labor force, creativity, and purchasing power; its
commitment to development; and its degree of national cohesion. Once all of its
potential is mobilized, its contribution to the world as an engine of growth will be
unprecedented.
One should not, however, lose sight of the other side of the coin. Economic growth
alone does not provide a full picture of a country's development. China has a
population of 1.3 billion. Any small difficulty in its economic or social development,
spread over this vast group, could become a huge problem. And China's population
has not yet peaked; it is not projected to decline until it reaches 1.5 billion in 2030.
Moreover, China's economy is still just one-seventh the size of the United States' and
one-third the size of Japan's. In per capita terms, China remains a low-income
developing country, ranked roughly 100th in the world. Its impact on the world
economy is still limited.
The formidable development challenges still facing China stem from the constraints
it faces in pulling its population out of poverty. The scarcity of natural resources
available to support such a huge population -- especially energy, raw materials, and
water -- is increasingly an obstacle, especially when the efficiency of use and the rate
of recycling of those materials are low. China's per capita water resources are onefourth of the amount of the world average, and its per capita area of cultivatable
farmland is 40 percent of the world average. China's oil, natural gas, copper, and
aluminum resources in per capita terms amount to 8.3 percent, 4.1 percent, 25.5
percent, ...
End of preview: first 500 of 2,067 words total.
China's Global Hunt for Energy
David Zweig and Bi Jianhai
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
Article preview: first 500 of 4,762 words total.
Summary: Chinese foreign policy is now driven by China's unprecendented need for
resources. In exchange for access to oil and other raw materials to fuel its booming
economy, Beijing has boosted its bilateral relations with resource-rich states,
sometimes striking deals with rogue governments or treading on U.S. turf. Beijing's
hunger may worry some in Washington, but it also creates new grounds for
cooperation.
DAVID ZWEIG is Director of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the author of Internationalizing
China: Domestic Interests and Global Linkages. BI JIANHAI is a Postdoctoral Fellow
at the center.
Topics:
A NEW FOREIGN POLICY
Asia
Energy
Resources and Environment
Economics
Trade and Finance
An unprecedented need for resources is now driving
China's foreign policy. A booming domestic economy,
rapid urbanization, increased export processing, and
the Chinese people's voracious appetite for cars are increasing the country's demand
for oil and natural gas, industrial and construction materials, foreign capital and
technology. Twenty years ago, China was East Asia's largest oil exporter. Now it is
the world's second-largest importer; last year, it alone accounted for 31 percent of
global growth in oil demand. Now that China is the workshop of the world, its hunger
for electricity and industrial resources has soared. China's combined share of the
world's consumption of aluminum, copper, nickel, and iron ore more than doubled
within only ten years, from 7 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2000; it has now
reached about 20 percent and is likely to double again by the end of the decade.
Despite calls by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and other politicians to cut consumption
of energy and other resources, there is little sign of this appetite abating. Justin Yifu
Lin, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, in
Beijing, says the country's economy could grow at 9 percent per year for the next 20
years.
These new needs already have serious implications for China's foreign policy.
Beijing's access to foreign resources is necessary both for continued economic growth
and, because growth is the cornerstone of China's social stability, for the survival of
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since China remains a relatively centralized,
government-driven economy, Beijing has been able to adapt its foreign policy to its
domestic development strategy. Traditional institutions, such as the Foreign Affairs
Leading Small Group of the CCP, are still making the key decisions, but a more
pluralistic environment is emerging and allowing business leaders to help shape
foreign policy. The China Institute for International Studies, a government think
tank, holds numerous conferences bringing together academics and leaders in
business, the military, and the government to devise strategies for the top rung of the
Communist Party.
Partly on these people's advice, Beijing has been encouraging representatives of
state-controlled companies to secure exploration and supply agreements with states
that produce oil, gas, and other resources. Meanwhile, it has been courting the
governments of these states aggressively, building goodwill by strengthening
bilateral trade relations, awarding aid, forgiving national debt, and helping build
roads, bridges, stadiums, and harbors. In return, China has won access to key
resources, from gold in Bolivia and coal in the Philippines to oil in Ecuador and
natural gas in Australia.
China's resources hunt has been a boon to some states, especially developing
countries, as it has allowed them to exploit as yet untapped resources or gain
leverage to negotiate better deals with older customers. But for other states,
particularly the United States and Japan, China's insatiability is causing concern.
Some governments worry as Beijing enters their spheres of influence or strikes deals
with states they have tried to marginalize. In some quarters in Washington, including
the ...
End of preview: first 500 of 4,762 words total.
China's Search for Stability With America
Wang Jisi
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
Summary: No country can affect China's fortunes more directly than the United
States. Many potential flashpoints -- such as Taiwan, Japan, and North Korea -remain, and true friendship between Washington and Beijing is unlikely. But their
interests have grown so intertwined that cooperation is the best way to serve both
countries.
WANG JISI is Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and
Director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Central Party School
of the Communist Party of China. This essay is an expanded and revised version of
an article originally published in Zhongguo Dangzheng Ganbu Luntan, a journal of
the Central Party School.
Topics:
Asia
U.S. Policy and Politics
Peace and Conflict
Will Kashmir Stop India's Rise?
By Sumit Ganguly
Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006
Dangerous Strait: The U.S.Taiwan-China Crisis
Edited by Nancy Bernkopf
Tucker. : Columbia University
Press, 2005.
Understanding China
By Kishore Mahbubani
Foreign Affairs,
September/October 2005
The Korean Conundrum:
America's Troubled Relations
With North and South Korea
Ted Galen and Doug Bandow.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004.
AFTER 9/11
Trouble in Taiwan
By Michael D. Swaine
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004
The United States is currently the only country with the
capacity and the ambition to exercise global primacy,
and it will remain so for a long time to come. This means that the United States is the
country that can exert the greatest strategic pressure on China. Although in recent
years Beijing has refrained from identifying Washington as an adversary or
criticizing its "hegemonism" -- a pejorative Chinese code word for U.S. dominance -many Chinese still view the United States as a major threat to their nation's security
and domestic stability.
Yet the United States is a global leader in economics, education, culture, technology,
and science. China, therefore, must maintain a close relationship with the United
States if its modernization efforts are to succeed. Indeed, a cooperative partnership
with Washington is of primary importance to Beijing, where economic prosperity
and social stability are now top concerns.
Fortunately, greater cooperation with China is also in the United States' interests -especially since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The United States now needs
China's help on issues such as counterterrorism, nonproliferation, the reconstruction
of Iraq, and the maintenance of stability in the Middle East. More and more,
Washington has also started to seek China's cooperation in fields such as trade and
finance, despite increased friction over currency exchange rates, intellectual property
rights, and the textile trade.
Although there is room for further improvement in the relationship, the framework
of basic stability established since September 11 should be sustainable. At least for
the next several years, Washington will not regard Beijing as its main security threat,
and China will avoid antagonizing the United States.
THE LONELY SUPERPOWER
To understand the forces that govern U.S.-Chinese relations, it helps first to
understand U.S. power and Washington's current global strategy. Here is a Chinese
view: in the long term, the decline of U.S. primacy and the subsequent transition to a
multipolar world are inevitable; but in the short term, Washington's power is
unlikely to decline, and its position in world affairs is unlikely to change.
Consider that the United States continues to lead other developed countries in
economic growth, technological innovation, productivity, research and development,
and the ability to cultivate human talent. Despite serious problems such as swelling
trade and fiscal deficits, illegal immigration, inadequate health care, violent crime,
major income disparities, a declining educational system, and a deeply divided
electorate, the U.S. economy is healthy: last year, U.S. GDP grew an estimated 4.4
percent, and this year the growth rate is expected to be 3.5 percent, much greater
than the corresponding figures for the eurozone (2.0 percent and 1.6 percent).
Barring an unexpected sharp economic downturn, the size of the U.S. economy as a
proportion of the global economy is likely to increase in the years to come.
Many other indexes of U.S. "hard power" are also on the rise. The U.S. defense
budget, for example, has increased considerably in recent years. In 2004, it hit $437
billion, or roughly half of all military spending around the world. Yet as a percentage
of U.S. GDP, the figure was lower than it was during the Cold War.
[continued...]
Further bolstering U.S. primacy is the fact that many of the country's potential
competitors, such as the European Union, Russia, and Japan, face internal problems
that will make it difficult for them to overtake the United States anytime soon. For a
long time to come, the United States is likely to remain dominant, with sufficient
hard power to back up aggressive diplomatic and military policies.
From a Chinese perspective, the United States' geopolitical superiority was
strengthened in 2001 by Washington's victory in the Afghan war. The United States
has now established political, military, and economic footholds in Central Asia and
strengthened its military presence in Southeast Asia, in the Persian Gulf, and on the
Arabian Peninsula. These moves have been part of a global security strategy that can
be understood as having one center, two emphases. Fighting terrorism is the center.
And the two emphases are securing the Middle East and preventing the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.
The greater Middle East, a region stretching from Kashmir to Morocco and from the
Red Sea to the Caucasus, is vital to U.S. interests. Rich in oil and natural gas, the
region is also beset by ethnic and religious conflicts and is a base for rampant
international terrorism. None of the countries in the area is politically stable, and
chaos there can affect the United States directly, as the country learned on
September 11.
On the nonproliferation front, the United States' main concerns are Iran and North
Korea, two states that are striving to develop nuclear technology and have long been
antagonistic toward Washington. In 2004, the United States carried out the largest
redeployment of its overseas forces since World War II in order to meet these
challenges.
NOT INVULNERABLE
Despite its many advantages, the United States is not invincible. The war in Iraq, for
example, resulted in international isolation of a sort that Washington had not faced
since the beginning of the Cold War. The invasion was strongly condemned by people
all over the world and explicitly opposed by the great majority of nations.
Washington split with many of its traditional allies, such as Paris and Berlin, which
refused to take part in the operation. And tensions with Islamic countries, especially
in the Arab world, increased dramatically.
Since then, the extent of armed resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq has
exceeded the Bush administration's expectations. Meanwhile, revelations of prisoner
abuse by U.S. personnel in Iraq and elsewhere have undermined the credibility of
U.S. rhetoric on human rights and further damaged the United States' image in the
world. U.S. "soft power" -- the country's ability to influence indirectly the actions of
other states -- has been weakened. The United States also faces serious competition
and disagreement from Europe, Japan, and Russia on many economic and
development-related issues, and there have been disputes on arms control, regional
policies, and the role of the United Nations and other international organizations.
Nonetheless, the points in common between these powers and the United States in
terms of ideology and strategic interests outweigh the differences. A pattern of
coordination and cooperation among the world's major powers, institutionalized
through the G-8 (the group of leading industrialized countries), has taken shape, and
no great change in this pattern is likely in the next five to ten years. To be sure, some
of the differences between the United States and the EU, Japan, Russia, and others
will deepen, and Washington will at times face coordinated French, German, and
Russian opposition, as it did during the war in Iraq. But no lasting united front
aimed at confronting Washington is likely to emerge.
Meanwhile, many developing countries now boast higher growth rates than those
found in the industrialized world, and they have enhanced their role in global affairs
by strengthening themselves and coordinating their stances on major international
issues. Rich countries, however -- especially the United States -- still occupy
dominant positions in the UN, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and other global institutions. Moreover, they continue
to maintain the contemporary international order and rules that serve their
economic and security interests.
[continued...]
All of the changes described above have provided China with new, albeit limited,
opportunities for maneuver. So long as the United States' image remains tainted,
China will have greater leverage in multilateral settings. It would be foolhardy,
however, for Beijing to challenge directly the international order and the institutions
favored by the Western world -- and, indeed, such a challenge is unlikely.
EYE ON ASIA
There is one region where the United States is most likely to come into close contact
with China, leading to either major conflicts of interest or real cooperation (or both):
in Asia and the Pacific. Divining the direction of relations between the two countries
therefore requires a comprehensive analysis of the forces in the region. Of all the
recent developments in Asia, China's rise is attracting the most attention at the
moment. But several other important developments are occurring simultaneously.
Thanks to a period of internal reform, Japan has recovered from the doldrums of the
1990s and is reinforcing its status as Northeast Asia's most powerful economy.
Meanwhile, India's economy is growing very rapidly, and New Delhi has sought
rapprochement with Islamabad and improved relations with Washington and
Beijing. The Russian economy is growing fast as well, due in large part to the surge in
world energy prices. As a result of these and other forces, most Asia-Pacific countries
are growing closer diplomatically, and economic cooperation in eastern Asia is
speeding up. Two worrisome security problems remain, however: the North Korean
nuclear program and the question of Taiwan.
Among all the nations in the region, Japan has the biggest effect on the Chinese-U.S.
relationship. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S.-Japanese security alliance has
strengthened, not weakened (as China once hoped it would). Unlike some other
traditional U.S. allies, Tokyo has sent troops to support the occupation of Iraq and
given substantive reconstruction assistance to Iraq and Afghanistan. In return,
Washington has praised Tokyo's international role and endorsed (at least
diplomatically) Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The
prospect of conflict between the two allies, which many in the media once predicted,
seems to have disappeared from the scene.
In sharp contrast, Tokyo's ties to Beijing have cooled significantly. A series of recent
irritants have exacerbated a relationship already strained by Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine (where Japan's
war dead, including a number of war criminals, are commemorated). These incidents
have included the accidental intrusion of a Chinese submarine into Japanese
territorial waters in November 2004; a visit by former Taiwanese leader and
independence activist Lee Teng-hui to Japan in December 2004; Japan's ongoing
publication of textbooks that downplay its World War II atrocities; and, this spring,
anti-Japan demonstrations in a number of major Chinese cities. As such cases show,
the historical conflicts between China and Japan and the mutual antagonism of their
peoples can easily become political problems. Unless the issues are handled with
care, they can evolve into serious crises.
Rather than play a helpful role, the United States has pushed China and Japan
further apart. Beijing fears that the consolidation of the U.S.-Japanese alliance is
coming at its expense and that the growing closeness is motivated by the allies'
common concern about the increase of China's power. As the "China threat" theory
gains followers in Japan, right-wing forces there are becoming more assertive by the
day and turning increasingly toward the United States as their protector. Japan has
also used the United States to exchange military intelligence with Taiwan; indeed,
Japanese right-wing forces no longer shrink from offending Beijing by making
overtures to pro-separation forces in Taipei.
Japan has also failed to respond warmly to China's sponsorship of more
institutionalized economic cooperation in eastern Asia. As its reluctance suggests,
Tokyo is wary of Beijing's growing role in the region and does not want to cooperate
with any attempts to create regional structures that would exclude the United States.
Hard-liners in Washington may think that the United States benefits from a souring
of the Chinese-Japanese relationship. In the long run, however, conflict between
Beijing and Tokyo helps no one, since it could destabilize Asia's existing economic
and security arrangements, many of which benefit the United States.
In the field of international security, the primary focal point in Chinese-U.S. relations
is the North Korean nuclear issue. On this question, the Bush administration has
little choice but to act cautiously, relying on the six-party talks to exert pressure on
Pyongyang and using various mechanisms (such as the U.S.-sponsored Proliferation
Security Initiative) to stop North Korea from exporting nuclear materials or
technology. China, in its own way, has tried to dissuade North Korea from developing
nuclear weapons but so far has declined to support multilateral blockades or
sanctions on Pyongyang. If North Korea ever publicly, explicitly, and unmistakably
demonstrates that it does possess nuclear weapons, the policies of the United States,
China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia -- all of which favor a nuclear-free Korean
Peninsula -- will have failed. The United States might then call for much tougher
actions against North Korea, which would increase tension and narrow China's
options. The result could be new friction between China and the United States and a
serious test of their relationship.
[continued...]
If, on the other hand, the six-party talks are resumed, tensions between the United
States and North Korea may ease, and China's role will then be more favorably
recognized. Should that occur, the countries involved in the process might even
consider expanding the six-party mechanism into a permanent Northeast Asian
security arrangement, a development that would serve the interests of all the
countries concerned and one that China should favor. Under the current
circumstances, however, such a possibility is slim. The more likely outcome is that
tensions between Washington and Pyongyang will persist, although without an
actual war breaking out.
Meanwhile, at a time when political relations between China and the United States
are basically stable and economic and trade links are expanding, Taiwan remains a
major source of unease. War between China and the United States over Taiwan
would be a nightmare, and both sides will try hard to avoid it. Despite their
differences, there is no reason the two sides should have to resort to force to resolve
the matter. Yet some people in Taiwan, looking out for their own interests and
supported by outsiders -- notably parts of the U.S. defense establishment and certain
members of the U.S. Congress -- continue stubbornly to push for independence,
ignoring the will of most Taiwanese. It is a mistake for Americans to support such
separatists. If a clash occurs, these parties will be responsible.
China views the status of Taiwan as an internal matter. But only by coordinating its
U.S. policy with its policy toward Taiwan can Beijing curb the separatist forces on the
island. Despite U.S. displeasure at China's passage of an antisecession law in March
2005, policymakers in Washington have reiterated their opposition to Taiwan's
independence and viewed favorably the spring 2005 visits by Taiwanese opposition
leaders to the mainland, which eased cross-strait relations. Nonetheless, Washington
has now asked Beijing to talk directly to Taipei's ruling party and its leader, Chen
Shui-bian. To improve matters, Chinese and U.S. government agencies and their
foreign policy think tanks should launch a sustained and thorough dialogue on the
issue and explore ways to prevent separatist forces from making a rash move,
dragging both countries toward a confrontation neither wants.
LONG-TERM INTERESTS
The Chinese-U.S. relationship remains beset by more profound differences than any
other bilateral relationship between major powers in the world today. It is an
extremely complex and highly paradoxical unity of opposites. It is not a relationship
of confrontation and rivalry for primacy, as the U.S.-Soviet relationship was during
the Cold War, but it does contain some of the same characteristics. In its pattern of
interactions, it is a relationship between equals. But the tremendous gap between the
two countries in national power and international status and the fundamental
differences between their political systems and ideology have prevented the United
States from viewing China as a peer. China's political, economic, social, and
diplomatic influences on the United States are far smaller than the United States'
influences on China. It is thus only natural that in their exchanges, the United States
should take the offensive role and China the defensive one.
In terms of state-to-state affairs, China and the United States cannot hope to
establish truly friendly relations. Yet the countries should be able to build friendly
ties on nongovernmental and individual levels. Like all relations between states, the
Chinese-U.S. relationship is fundamentally based on interests. But it also involves
more intense, love-hate feelings than do the majority of state-to-state ties. The
positive and negative factors in the links between China and the United States are
closely interwoven and often run into one another.
As this complex dynamic suggests, trying to view the Chinese-U.S. relationship in
traditional zero-sum terms is a mistake and will not guide policy well; indeed, such a
simplistic view may threaten both countries' national interests. Black-and-white
analyses inevitably fail to capture the nuances of the situation. If, for instance, the
United States really aimed to hamper China's economic modernization -- as the
University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer has argued should be done -- China would
not be the only one to suffer. Many U.S. enterprises in China would lose the returns
on their investments, and the American people would no longer be able to buy
inexpensive high-quality Chinese products. On the other hand, although Americans'
motives for developing economic and trade ties with China may be to help
themselves, these ties have also helped China, spurring its economic prosperity and
technological advancement.
This prosperity and advancement will naturally strengthen China's military power -something that worries the United States. Indeed, this issue represents a paradox at
the heart of Washington's long-term strategy toward Beijing. Unless China's
economy collapses, its defense spending will continue to rise. Washington should
recognize, however, that the important question is not how much China spends on its
national defense but where it aims its military machine, which is still only a fraction
of the size of the United States' own forces. The best way to reduce tensions is
through candid and comprehensive strategic conversations; for this reason, militaryto-military exchanges should be resumed.
China faces a similar paradox: only a U.S. economic decline would reduce
Washington's strength (including its military muscle) and ease the strategic pressure
on Beijing. Such a slide, however, would also harm China's economy. In addition, the
increased U.S. sense of insecurity that might result could have other consequences
that would not necessarily benefit China. If, for example, Washington's influence in
the Middle East diminished, this could lead to instability there that might threaten
China's oil supplies. Similarly, increased religious fundamentalism and terrorism in
Central and South Asia could threaten China's own security, especially along its
western borders, where ethnic relations have become tense and separatist tendencies
remain a danger.
continued...]
The potential Chinese-U.S. conflict over energy supplies can be seen in a similar
light. Each country should be sensitive to the other's energy needs and security
interests worldwide. China is currently purchasing oil from countries such as
Venezuela and Sudan, whose relations with the United States are far from amicable.
Washington, meanwhile, is now thought to be eying Central Asian oil fields near
China's border. Both Beijing and Washington should try to make sure that the other
side understands its intentions and should explore ways to cooperate on energy
issues through joint projects, such as building nuclear power plants in China.
History has already proved that the United States is not China's permanent enemy.
Nor does China want the United States to see it as a foe. Deng Xiaoping's prediction
that "things will be all right when Sino-U.S. relations eventually improve" was a cool
judgment based on China's long-term interests. To be sure, aspirations cannot
replace reality. The improvement of Chinese-U.S. relations will be slow, tortuous,
limited, and conditional, and could even be reversed in the case of certain
provocations (such as a Taiwanese declaration of independence). It is precisely for
this reason that the thorny problems in the bilateral relationship must be handled
delicately, and a stable new framework established to prevent troubles from
disrupting an international environment favorable for building prosperous societies.
China's leadership is set on achieving such prosperity by the middle of the twentyfirst century; with Washington's cooperation, there is little to stand in its way.
Understanding China
Kishore Mahbubani
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
Article preview: first 500 of 4,105 words total.
Summary: The United States has done much to enable China's recent growth, but it
has also sent mixed signals that have unnerved Beijing. More consistent engagement
is in order, because the course of the twenty-first century will be determined by the
relationship between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging
power.
KISHORE MAHBUBANI is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in
Singapore. This essay is adapted from his book Beyond the Age of Innocence:
Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World.
THE WAKING DRAGON
China today is like a dragon that, waking up after
centuries of slumber, suddenly realizes many nations
have been trampling on its tail. With all that has
happened to it over the past 200 years, China could be
forgiven for awakening as an angry nation, and yet
Beijing has declared that it will rise peacefully. This
good disposition stems partly from China's awareness
that it is relatively weak. But it is also a sign that Beijing
has endorsed the vision of progress that the United
States has extolled since World War II. States no longer
need to pursue military conquest to prosper, the theory
goes; trade and economic integration pave a surer path
to growth. And Beijing has noted how much adhering to
this philosophy helped Japan and Germany emerge
from the ruins of World War II.
Topics:
Asia
U.S. Policy and Politics
Peace and Conflict
Will Kashmir Stop India's Rise?
By Sumit Ganguly
Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006
Dangerous Strait: The U.S.Taiwan-China Crisis
Edited by Nancy Bernkopf
Tucker. : Columbia University
Press, 2005.
China's Search for Stability With
America
By Wang Jisi
Foreign Affairs,
September/October 2005
As the main architect of the world order today, the
The Korean Conundrum:
United States should be among the first to celebrate
America's Troubled Relations
China's progress. For if Beijing continues to abide by
With North and South Korea
Ted Galen and Doug Bandow.
Washington's rules, peace and stability could reign, and
New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
the United States, as both a society and an economy,
2004.
could benefit a great deal from the renaissance of
Trouble in Taiwan
Chinese civilization. Curiously, however, the United
By Michael D. Swaine
States is doing more to destabilize China than any other
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004
power. And no one in Washington seems to be
proposing, much less pursuing, a comprehensive new
strategy for U.S.-Chinese relations. The working assumption appears to be that with
a little tinkering here and there, the relationship will stay firmly on track. In fact,
however, nagging suspicions and mutual misunderstandings are already threatening
to derail it.
One key point needs to be emphasized at the outset: although there is almost nothing
China can do to disrupt the political stability of the United States, the United States
can do plenty to destabilize China. Hence, the signals that Washington sends to
Beijing matter a great deal. Unfortunately, Washington's current China policy lacks
coherence, and a conviction is growing among Chinese policymakers that the United
States is bent on curtailing China's rise. Unlike most Americans, for example, the
Chinese have not forgotten the 1999 missile attack on their embassy in Belgrade
during the war in the Balkans. U.S. officials have claimed that it was a mistake,
regretted it, and moved on, but many Chinese remain convinced that the bombing
was deliberate. Pointing to the sophistication of U.S. surveillance technology, they
hold on to the belief that the attack was intended as a message to China: beware of
U.S. power.
Such mistrust is dangerous, for the history of the twenty-first century will largely be
determined by the relationship that emerges between the world's greatest power and
the world's greatest emerging power. History teaches that such transitions are
inherently fraught with danger and that they are best managed with grand visions.
Thus, it would serve the interests of the United States and China to rethink their
relationship in terms as broad and bold as the 1972 understanding that then
President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger worked ...
End of preview: first 500 of 4,105 words