How to play with China?

America’s China policy

Harold Sunoo

 

President Obama stated in Tokyo on Nov. 2009 that the United States is a Pacific Power.  Secretary of State Clinton in Hawaii on Oct. 2010, emphasized that the U. S. must play a strong role in Asia.

 

After his re-election in 2012, President Obama’s first trip was to visit Myanmar (Burma) and Cambodia which was to underscore that the “Pivot” policy in Asia is a real policy of the U. S.

 

The U. S. has declared that the American naval forces in the Atlantic Ocean will move to the Pacific to build 60% of the Naval force there and 500 American marines to Australia.

 

During the annual war games in South Korea last March, America deployed 3 nuclear equipped planes to join the exercise.  This show of force was intended as a clear demonstration of American Air Power to China.  America also keeps 30,000 troops in South Korea and 50,000 troops in Japan. 

 

America is pushing forward the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional free trade association that is viewed by Beijing as an American-led policy to contain China.

 

President Obama, however, declared that the US has no intention to “contain China” even as America is strengthening its relations with her allies in the Pacific Region.

 

President Obama’s China Policy has been mainly a hedge against China’s rise.  America’s “Pivot” policy in Asia has convinced many in Beijing that Washington intends to try to stunt China’s growth.  America sought to halt the spread of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, China is not like the Soviet Union. The idea of containment started for the purpose of economic isolation of the Soviet Union. But, China is a major trade partner of the US. America and China are the two largest economy and the two largest trade nations in the world.

 

How can America contain China? Is it possible or even desirable to contain China?

 

What is happening in China today?

 

China’s population is 1.3 billion, 4 times that of America’s population.  When the Communists took over China in 1949, half of the population was starving.

 

In 1979, after Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping took over the leadership.  Under Deng’s economic reform,  China has been reshaping itself  and the results have been astonishing.

 

China has grown over 9-10% a year for the last 30 years.  It has broken records not only in China, but in world history.  The average Chinese personal income has increased 7 fold and 400 million people have risen out of poverty.  China reduced ¼ of the world’s poverty population in the last 10 years.

 

The size of the economy has doubled every 8 years in China.  China is now the world largest producer of coal, steel, cement.  China manufactures 2/3 of the world’s micro ovens, DVD players, shoes and photo copiers.  China exports to the U. S. have grown by 1,600 % over the 15 years, and imports from the U. S. increased 7 times in same year.  Wal-Mart imports $18 billion worth of goods from China a year.  Many hundred American companies are doing business in China, such as Procter and Gamble which earns $2.5 billion in a year.

 

China holds over one trillion dollars in reserves in the U.S.  China is building 21 nuclear reactors. 

 

One of China’s many large companies,  Alibaba is the world’s largest e-commercial company.  Last year the company handled $170 billion in sales.  By comparison, this is more than e-Bay and Amazon combined.  Alibaba has the potential to become the world’s largest company to help build China’s financial power.  The company will handle $1 trillion a year in transactions.  By 2020 Chinese e-commercial market is forecasted to become bigger than the existing markets in America, Britain, Germany, France and Japan combined.  It is a private company.  The company is doing more for China’s economy than state owned companies.  China’s foreign reserve is $3.5 trillion now.  China has more cash than any other single country in the world. 

 

China encourages investing in foreign countries.  Yet, China’s ambitions are largely pragmatic.  It seeks regional and global access to markets and minerals.  China’s foreign investments in coming years will reach as much as to $2 trillion by 2020.

 

The Chinese government now controls oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to China and from South Sudan to the Red Sea.  China is currently involved in the building of more than 200 projects across the planet.

 

Recently, China invested in Greenland who passed special legislation to accommodate China’s terms.  Similar actions took place in Canada and Australia’s legislature.  They realized that China has a lot of money to invest there. 

 

China’s companies enjoy red carpet treatment in Europe and other places.  According to a recent public opinion, China is welcome in Africa by 75%, in Asia and Latin America by 53%, in Britain 45%, but only by 35 in the United State. 

 

Although the U. S. Congress rejected Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s bid to contract with American companies, Chinese recently bought the Smithfield Food Co, the largest American pork producer, paying $4.76 billion.  Mr. Pope, executive of the company, told the Senate that the benefit of the transaction “will increase jobs in processing and more American exports to China.”

 

China buys foreign companies and invest all over the world.  China loans money without political or ethical strings attached.  China offers loans without lectures on human rights.  Between 2009 and 2010, China was the largest lender, $110 billion, more than the World Bank.

 

During the recent U.S.-China summit meeting it became clear to both sides that they were willing to cooperate on many issues.  The meeting was the most important between two countries since President Nixon and Chairman Mao’s meeting in Beijing 40 years ago.

 

 President Obama said in his first trip to China that the U. S. was willing to make room for a new super power and was not pursuing a containment policy with China.  He seemed to realize the history of the Roman Empires which lasted 700 years, the British Empire last 300 years, but America’s time as sole super power could be shorter, given the economic challenges currently being faced.

 

The war in Iraq had demonstrated the limits of American military strength.  Conventional military power is rapidly becoming an anachronistic measure of a country’s strength. 

 

What should America do with China?  How to play with China?  I have the following three suggestions. 

 

1.      America’s 1^st step should be for Mr. Obama and his associates to stop trying to negotiate with China over issues that they know that China would not accept.  China sees itself as a developing country and does not believe it can take on huge new global responsibilities.  China does continue to open domestic markets to American companies, and is willing to play by the rules by enforcing intellectual property protections and maintaining competitive policies. 

 

Mr. Xi will be happy to engage the U.S. in mutually profitable projects, e. g. issues on clean energy technique, cooperation on scientific research and by coordinating strategies to handle conflict in the developing world.

 

Mr. Obama should not expect too much of a favorable response on issues like Tibet or territorial disputes between China and its neighbors.

 

Mr. Obama should not expect Mr. Xi to act like Mr. Gorbachev.

 

2.               The second step is to recognize that Asia is not monolithic and its internal balance of

power should be the key to American strategy.   Japan, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and other countries do not want to be dominated by China and welcome an American presence in the region.  American presence will help the balance of power.  However, American presence should not be an aggressive one.  It should not make China feel encircled or endangered.  Containment is not a relevant policy tool for dealing with a rising China.

 

      Since the humiliation of the 19^thCentury,  Chinese goals have been wealth and strength.  From Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Jang Jemin, Hu Jintao, all have followed the same line, “Road to revival”.   

Mr. Xi commented that from “the Century of humiliation, the Chinese dream is an ideal communism, which should have higher ideals under the Communist Party”.  China remembers too well the national humiliation of the 19^thCentury opium war and the Boxer Rebellion.  These wars produced the treaty of extra territoriality which allowed foreign law to govern China.  Now they are anxious to prove themselves in 21^st Century.  China demands equal terms.

 

China’s dream was the main subject of Mr. Xi’s acceptance speech to the National People’s Congress in March of 2013 when he became the President.

           

      By 2021, the party’s 100^thbirthday celebration, the nation expect to be rich, strong, democratic modern country.  China will claim that she has a rightful place at top of the world.

 

3.                                                                                                                                                           The 3^rd step is to recognize that the world has changed.

 

The new role of the super power is different from traditional super power role.  It involves consultation, cooperation, even compromises.  It is not a top down hierarchy in which decisions are made and then handed down to others.

 President Bush insisted  on a unipolar mind-set where America was the only super power.  He refused to recognize the new reality of a multipolar world. 

 

He was wrong.  His priority was to invade Iraq which resulted in spending a trillion dollars at the expense of cutting the education budget dismissing thousands of the teachers, and cutting 5 million people from receiving food stamps and reducing many more programs aimed at helping poor people.  What is happening in Iraq now?  The civil war is continuing and 3,000 have been killed and 7,000 injured in the past two years.  The Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon of the U. N. reported that there is an “alarming renewal of violence” in Iraq.

 

In contrast to American priorities, China’s priority was to help their own poor.  They moved 400 million people to the middle class from the poverty, and they are continuing to help the rest of the poor. 

 

President Hu Jintao said at the U. N. Assembly that the important role of the U. N. is to continue our joint endeavor to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.”

 

The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of era of 200 years of western domination of the world.  The west has always bullied the others into submission.  But that era of the imperialism has ended.  Now the world has became a multipolar world.  Beside the United States, there are other super powers including China, India, Brazil and Russia.

 

At the recent summit meeting, the two Presidents of America and China were more about getting a feel for the other and figuring out how they could work constructively with each other.  They made some headway.  They have shown us a “new model” for relationship building. They pledged to build on an equal base.  That was a significant move for both nations.  In order for the 21^stCentury to be peaceful, America and China must learn to cooperate.  Instead of containment, cooperation is the only answer. 

 

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The author is distinguished professor emeritus of Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri.  He has published 25 books that have been published in English, French, Japanese and Korean.  He is the founder of Korea Peace Foundation.  United Methodist Lay Preacher.      

 

 

[이 게시물은 편집실님에 의해 2013-08-23 14:19:43 종합소식에서 복사 됨]

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