The US should be more ready to stand its ground with China. It won’t get any respect in Beijing for trying to appease it.
Confucius said ‘The superior man is firm in the right way, and not merely firm.’ From a Chinese perspective, the same can probably be said about other nations.
When Hillary Clinton was running for the US presidency, she encouraged then President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to signal US frustration over China’s treatment of Tibet and lack of cooperation on Sudan.
Her posture, reversed since she became Secretary of State, was remarkably un-presidential as any serious geopolitical analyst would have noted that the United States needed China’s support on virtually every one of its major international objectives—from redirecting Iran’s nuclear aspirations to climate change to stabilizing a global financial system near meltdown.
Indeed, gratuitous gut punches simply raise the cost of China’s support, underscoring the fact that Clinton’s approach in the summer of 2008 was simply the wrong way to be ‘firm.’
But there’s also another side to China, and it’s one that doesn’t respect ‘desperate’ friendship, grovelling or appeasement. It’s this element to Chinese foreign policymaking that means the United States can’t simply acquiesce to all of China’s demands and expect China to respond in kind.
After just a short time in Beijing recently, with an unscripted schedule and no government handlers, the most significant gap in attitudes that I’ve found between average Chinese up to senior state officials on the one hand, and Washington’s Mandarins on the other, is a different calculation about political firmness and resolve.
Those leading the Chinese government, for the most part, put a premium on opaqueness and disdain transparency. Cautiousness is rewarded; risk-taking often punished. But perhaps most importantly, while these architects of China’s rise respect and respond to power, they view solicitousness and vacillation as weakness.
The implications of this power dynamic in Chinese calculations are vital for US-China relations. In other words, a United States that dithers on the release of a report on currency manipulation, or that offers a US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that buries all controversial issues and offers only what China wants to hear (as happened in July 2009), or that allows China to repeatedly veto key military exercises in the seas of Northeast Asia is, put simply, a weak United States.
Indeed, China has watched Israel—a client state of the United States—discipline the White House. No matter what the realities are behind the scenes, the publics in the US, Israel and around the world see an Obama presidency that seems to need positive relations with Israel more than Israel needs or wants US presidential affection. Meanwhile, China sees America’s military capacity overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq and notes US allies behaving as if they can’t count on the United States for the same level of support they once could. This has contributed to a situation whereby many of these same allies are now courting China for support, investment and strategic dialogue as they perceive a United States in decline.
Photo Credit: World Economic Forum
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kkb
Not only Taiwan, but also Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia Interor and Manchuria have been belong to China.
R FC
Does China have defense commitments with Cuba, Mexico, or Panama that date back to the American revolution? If so I would expect to see the Chinese navy sailing about in the Gulf of Mexico. This especially if the USA was continually threatening to invade and adsorb these countries. America has every right to show its support, and defend its free world allies and friends in Asia. Its time Washington changed policy and stopped allowing the economic conquest of the free world by the PRC, and destruction of American industry by “free trade” thus allowing Chinese military advances.
Don
Interesting comment above about Taoism and its possible influence on modern Chinese geostrategy — but marred by boilerplate propaganda that is the telltale sign of the Chinese Communist Party’s paid Internet operatives.
The country that calls itself China only began doing so in 1912. It inherited the territory and cultures of a chain of empires and national coalitions whose written records go back about 3,000 years and begin with a little nub of a kingdom about the size of Connecticut. The most recent empire was that of the Manchus who ruled for nearly three centuries until the Republican revolution that created modern China. Though assimilated into Chinese history as the “Qing Dynasty” the Manchus were loathed in their time by the Chinese as foreign invaders and usurpers. They were non-Chinese and their empire was far larger than anything that could be considered part of historical China, whether in terms of culture, people, language or political identity: it incorporated the vast territories north of the Great Wall that we know as Mongolia and Manchuria, expanded westwards to gobble up massive new acquisitions in Central Asia (renamed as Xinjiang) and of course it tried to seize the equally large territory of Tibet (but settled in the end for a face-saving arrangement under which the Manchu court stationed a tiny representative office in Lhasa but had no administrative or military authority).
The Manchus also made a grab for Taiwan, which had never been ruled or occupied by any of the previous empires — but in the end they found it too much trouble and voluntarily traded it to Japan at the end of the 19th century after failing to exclude the Japanese from Korea.
None of these places — Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan — had ever been part of “China” and their description as provinces of the modern Chinese state is mostly a legacy of that state’s 20th century efforts to seize as much territory for itself as the shutters of internationally defined sovereignty came down around the globe.
Have another look at this story. “China” is as much an imagined entity as any other state in the world. But it is still an empire, incorporating vast colonial acquisitions that can only be maintained through fear and oppression. This is reason enough for the unsteady combination of insecurity and swagger that characterizes that country’s diplomatic style. Then factor in the paranoia and weakness (yes, really) of China’s ruling Communist Party, which lacks the legitimacy of having ever once been selected to govern by the Chinese public.
I think Steve Clemons is right. The CCP regime in Beijing fears its own subjects more than anything else, and is covertly desperate for the US to act with resolve and authority. If US power melts away — as a Taoist might advise — then Chinese ultranationalism will surge and everyone, starting with the CCP, will pay the price.
Don Bacon
Steve has spent some time in China now, but has unfortunately failed to absorb much of its history or culture, and is in this piece merely stating some obvious conventional wisdom.
Yes, the US is having trouble accepting China as a new world (or certainly Asia) hegemon. Yes, the US is still trapped by bi-polar cold war thinking, with its reliance on military power. Yes, China “provokes” the US with its weak resistance to US moves into its sphere (Tibet, Taiwan, China Seas).
The biggest CW proclamation: The only thing China respects is force. “while these architects of China’s rise respect and respond to power, they view solicitousness and vacillation as weakness.” Where have we heard that before? And with respect to China it’s flat wrong.
Historically, China (a 5,000 year old nation) has been occupied and harassed by western powers, including the US. The US Marines have been there, several times. The US naval fleet has sailed between China and its province of Taiwan. Currently, a US naval thinks that sailing around in the East China Sea is a cool move.
Just recently the US SecState has proclaimed that China’s claims in the South China Sea are a matter of US concern. China has said : “Yes, we will talk about the South China Sea.” Note that China will not sent its naval fleet into the Gulf of Mexico in retaliation, it will talk about the South China Sea. Why?
Culturally, one cannot understand China without understanding Taoism. Tao, The Way. It has been described as the course of a stream as it proceeds downward, taking the best path between obstacles. Patience and politeness, not power, pays.
The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, is one of the most influential books in history, and it has a different take on power. Chapter 69: Winning a fight by giving in–
*********************
Military strategists have a saying:
“Rather than act like the lord of the manor,
I would rather behave like a guest.
Rather than advance an inch,
I would rather retreat a foot.”
The point of the saying is that you should:
Advance upon them without going forward
Seize their property without even bearing arms.
Attack where there is no enemy.
Prevail upon them without weapons.
There is no greater disaster than to underestimate your enemy.
If I did that, I would lose my 3 treasures (benevolence, frugality, never trying to be number one)
In combat, the most reticent side will win.
***************
China will act in its own way (tao), based on its history and culture. That’s why China doesn’t interfere in other nations’ internal affairs, why it doesn’t sail its naval fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, and why it will talk to Secretary Clinton about the South China Sea.
Spratlys
Perhaps, it would serve to rebuke what you wrote about China “doesn’t interfere in other nations’ internal affairs” by reminding you of China’s historical aggression agaìnst its neighbors. Take Vietnam, for example, throughout its millenias existing besides China, the latter constantly meddled in its affairs, from manipulating local politics to outright invasion. China doesn’t sail a naval fleet into the Gulf of Mexico or perform air patrols like the Soviets/Russians, but that’s simply because it can’t do that yet. Not because it won’t.
FrontAndCenter
Taiwan is not a province of the PRC. How can Taiwan be a province of the PRC?
It never was and doubtful it ever will be. Taiwan was a territory of the Qing for about 200 years until the Qing lost Taiwan in 1895 to the Japanese who in turn were forced to surrender the Island after WWII, yet there was no receiver for the Island and it was never given to the ROC or the PRC. Due to communist aggression in Korea, it was purposely made neutral in a treaty with Japan in 1952 and has been unsettled since.
Also, Taiwan is a democracy, the PRC is not. How can that be? Beijing has no authority over Taipei, so, again, how can that be a province?
FrontAndCenter
I would also add that Taiwan does meet all the points outlined in the Montevideo Convention for an independent nation.
Since the ROC did not exist until 1911 or 1912, and the PRC did not exist until 1949 and since until 1945 Taiwan was a part of Japan. After the war, Japan was ordered to surrender the Island with no recipient mentioned until 1952 when it was made neutral.
Another argument I have heard tossed around is that the majority of Taiwan’s population in Han, and that carries no more weight than the majority of US citizens are British, French, German or whatever. Does that mean most nations of Western Europe can claim the US as theirs?
Since the PRC claims that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China, why doesn’t the PRC just make a land-grab and solve it once and for all? Why don’t they block US warships from patrolling the Straits? Why didn’t the PRC make any attempt to take Taiwan in the 1940′s and 1950′s? Oh, they did and they failed. Why doesn’t the PRC just accept that Taiwan is not, never has been and most likely never will be a part of them?
paul
Americans want to be loved especially Democratic Presidents.
“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
oil
as Bill Clinton once said, we have more to fear from a weak China than a strong China. China has more to fear from a Weak US than a strong US.