Hu Jintao will be in Washington next week. But improved ties with the US won’t change Chinese discomfort with Washington’s hedging in Asia.
Last year saw an unusually tense period in US-China relations.
First there was the large US arms sale to Taiwan in January. Then came US President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama in February. Meanwhile, there were ongoing differences over alleged currency manipulation, protectionist trade practices, the two countries’ divergent climate change approaches, China’s Internet censorship and cyber espionage activities and mutual concerns about each other’s Korean policies (the United States has been frustrated by China’s refusal to condemn North Korean behavior, while Chinese policymakers worry the US might provoke Pyongyang with its military drills in the region).
All this has meant that China has so far failed to become the regional and global partner the Obama administration was hoping for, while Chinese policymakers for their part have expressed confusion over why the administration would confront Beijing on so many issues in 2010 after being so accommodating just a year earlier.
It’s true of course that the tone of Sino-US ties has improved in recent weeks. But the fact is that this is probably more about the Chinese wanting President Hu Jintao to have a good legacy trip in Washington on what will likely be his last state visit to the United States. Indeed, the decision to finally invite US Defence Robert Gates to China this past weekend can be interpreted as less connected to ending the freeze Beijing imposed on high-level military contacts following the Taiwan arms sale, and more as an attempt by China to ease tensions over bilateral military relations ahead of Hu’s arrival.
So how does China really view its ties with the US? Late last year, the official Xinhua News Agency ran several commentaries assessing the bilateral relationship that likely reflect the views of many Chinese leaders. One that ran at the end of December complained that the ‘return’ of the United States to the Asia-Pacific region had complicated regional relations, especially with Washington’s ‘new-found’ penchant for intervening in bilateral disputes between Asian countries. The writer(s) presumably had in mind Washington’s diplomatic and military support for South Korea, Vietnam, Japan and other countries, many of which have territorial or other conflicts with Beijing.
Another commentary, published in the People’s Daily in November under the name of Li Hongmei, was even more explicit about Chinese grievances. It expressed, for example, irritation at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for having ‘waded into the China-Japan dispute over (the) Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea by calling for trilateral talks’ that would include the United States as well as China and Japan. Li also denounced ‘the irresponsible remarks made by some American high-profile officials over the South China Sea issue’ in addition to their support for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, US arms sales to Taiwan and Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama.
Photo Credit: White House
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Bill
It seems impossible for the foreign observer to full catch the complexities of Chinese political landscape.
Sanket Telang
Asia in general and East and South East asia in particular needs the US as a security gurantor against potential Chinese hegemony.China’s recent assertiveness in the south China sea against Japan and Vietnam is worrying for the stability of the region as a whole.China considers South east asia and the south China sea as its backyard and wants to exert its dominance in the region.Here it sees the US as a potential threat and a challenger to its rise as a middle kingdom.South east asia has been looking towards India as a security gurantor against China but India lacks the military muscle as well as the political will to take on China.But US has both and hence fits the role perfectly.However US must not act unilaterally and but in concert with its allies and partners like Japan and India to balance China in Asia.
Kat W.
Did you know that the Dalai Lama requested ARMS from the CIA for the Tibetan Freedom Fighters? There are CIA documents released on this website that show that the Dalai Lama had a secret army going. I guess he isn’t a nonviolent monk. Visit http://www.westernshugdensociety.org to see the proof and read more.
Bharateeya
Seems to be yet another puppet-front for the Chinese communist party…
slope_head
did you know that china has illegally occupied Tibet and Tibetans have every right to self defence for it’s existence?
China and Tibet are “two” different races just as japan and china are two diff races.
Michael
America as the guarantor of peace in East Asia??? It seems to me everything was good and stable until America returned to Asia! American’s export instability, war, and revolutions…so the notion of them being the guarantor of peace in East Asia is nothing but a bad joke!
slope_head
china has tied up with every rogue and terrorist country as its allies.
china’s friends
Pakistan
North Korea
Burma
Iran
Sudan
Somalia
Libya
Yungzi
China have way weaker influence to North Korea than the West expect. China view North Korea as a Sovereignty Nation and would take a No as a No. China apparently failed to influence the choice of the next N.Korea’s leader. North Korea dare to shoot Chinese citizen that was close to its broader. China also have to pay for everything just to build a bridge across the broader.
Remember that China is a low trust society, same for N.Korea. The US can tell its ally to do everything, and decide their leaders with foreign policy and FBI, China can’t.
In fact China can’t do anything at all without having western countries flame on it. If a medium sized nation have a broader dispute over an island and have 1.4% of its GDP as national defense no one would give a fart. China lacks ideology and the ability to dream give it opponent a chance to flame on issues that has no substances.
Leonard L.
The US should announce a doctrine that any attack by North Korea will be considered an attack by China and the US will retaliate.
North Korea is not a ‘sovereignty’ nation as Yungzi maintains. It is a midget stalking pony for the PRC.
If North Korea launches an ICBM against America, would the US give China the
benefit of plausible deniability?
North Korea is a military arm of China. They should be viewed as a common enemy of the United States.
FirstAdvisor
There is precedent for the American attitude of Mafia thugs. The USA certainly has never had any better relations with Russia. On the other hand, acting like typical rude Americans in China is a witless mistake. The central trouble is the highly visible difference between the relations the USA has with other Western nations it calls partners, and the behavior of the Americans towards the Chinese it calls partners. The Americans clearly believe that they mean farm animals, or slaves, when they call the Chinese partners, an attitude they don’t display towards other white, Western people. The apparent assumption of the Americans that the rest of the world doesn’t see this flagrant difference is yet another crucial, extremely dangerous error.
The contempt the Americans reveal in their diplomacy with China is shocking in its blatancy. They give the Chinese commands and orders, not negotiation. Acting like Mafia thugs may have worked in Russia, but it is a sad, foolish failure of diplomatic relations in China. The method of threatening thuggery will not work, and will ultimately result in severely self-destructive consequences for the Americans and their Western ‘partners’.
Grant
If you’re going to make comments like that you had better be able to back them up. Can you provide even a single example of Americans treating the Chinese as ‘animals’? We’ve certainly gotten along fairly well with South Koreans, Japanese, Indians, Filipinos and the people of many other states.
Sanjay Taher
Wow; that was one vitriolic, hate filled, and blatantly racist post. Dude, you have a massive chip on your shoulder..huh?
Leongkidlat
Japan is re arming because there is cause to defend it self if ever North Korea posed any threat in the region. South Korea needs to arm itself because of the constant threats and skirmishes perpetrated by North Korea. Taiwan needs to re arm itself because of the constant threats by Chinese Generals of invasion. The U.S. is in Asia because the bulk of it’s businesses are in Asia or doing business with Asia. Asia is not only China but a collective of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, The Middle east(Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Oman) Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, etc. Let me repeat myself China is NOT ASIA, it is just one of the countries of ASIA Nobody is picking on China to be the villain. I think nobody here hates any Chinese on a personal basis or based on their race or origin. So please let us not play the race hate here.
guest
America promised not to expand NATO. It was that promise that let Gorbachev dismantle the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. You broke that promise. Americans are provened to be untrustable.
During the attack on Yugoslavia, NATO forces supported Al Qaeda backed terrorists to murder Christian Serbs. German backed Croats ethnically cleansed Krajina of Serbs. NATO did nothing. It was a war on Russian and Russian allies. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are only excuses. Like human rights and democracy are excuses to use against China. If the Chinese are stupid to back an inch, America will take a mile, finish off North korea and station troops right next to Chinese borders.
Thomas McCaffrey
What? The U.S. should fight a war over Taiwan? Forget it. Both the mainlanders and Taiwanese are mostly all Chinese and Taiwan will eventually slip back under Mainland control. The businessmen from both countries will see to that. I say withdraw our troops from Korea and Japan and let the Asians figure out who’s on first. Our foreign policy should be America, Inc. and let the world go to hell.
John Chan
I couldn’t agree more, I couldn’t understand why the US is meddling in the Asian affairs that are as intriguing as those affairs in the Middle East, while back home there are full of unemployed people lining up for food with food coupons. If there is any killing in Asia, it’s Asian’s lives, why the US has put the lives of their sons and daughters in the firing line that has nothing to do with them.
If the US cut its defence and state department spending by half which is at least $500 billions and use the saving for tax cuts, I guarantee the US economy would recover in no time, then there is no need those toxic QEs that is causing damages all over the world including the US itself. After cutting the defence spending by half there are still 6 carriers around, it is way more than enough to defend the US and show flag around the world.
Leongkidlat
Can Communist China do the same, cut it’s military budget and spend the money in helping poor farmers, improving the lives of Chinese people in the mainland? Help the starving North Koreans. Keep the peace in Angola and African states. Join the United Nations contingent in disaster stricken countries? Let’s not go that far. Can Communist China reduce it’s military spending (period) to help it’s citizens to better themselves. I am sure that Japan, South Korea and the U.S. spends more for their citizens welfare.
Carrieann
Fell out of bed feeling down. This has brihtgeend my day!
Mishmael
It seems to me that while the author gives many arguments for the continuation of US hegemony in Asia, he does not address the issue from a Chinese perspective at all. If it makes sense for the US to maintain its hegemony, and for smaller Asian countries to help it do the same, it does not make sense for China to accept it. For instance, it leaves China’s oil supply completely vulnerable to military blockade.
Since this current situation is not in China’s favor, China will natrually become revisionist. If the US were truly wise and interested in maintaining peace in the Asia Pacific, it would build a structure that gradually enables China to secure its interests while protecting the core interests of affected neighbors. To contain a country as big as China with alliances, with a large number of countries, is just asking for conflict.
Grant
It seems to me that there is also a clear disconnect between Americans and Chinese on how to view events of the past two years. I can’t say how it was viewed by leaders but among the post-grads and professors I knew many had the opinion that the U.S in 2008 and part of 2009 had gotten past Bush’s confrontational policies and we expected China to meet us by pushing North Korea to a more neutral path. I have no idea how China viewed it but to us China’s lack of help on two North Korean attacks seems like a sign that the U.S eased its rhetoric for no good reason.
John Chan
Both China and Korea suffered badly under the imperial powers, particular in the hands of Japan and Tsar Russia. Both countries’ revolution founders are nationalist first and communist second. If the West can view the behaviour of these two nations in that light they will see things a lot more logical instead of viewing through ideological prism only.
Following that logic, you can see that North Korea is not really China’s buddy. Their relationship exits on the basis of needs only. The force used by Kim Il-sung to establish North Korea were the PLA’s Korean unit fighting against Japanese. China paid heavily in the Korean war to back up Kim Il-sung, but the minute the Armistice was signed, Kim turned his back on China and sided with USSR until the USSR collapsed. NK only warmed up with China after it was abandoned by the new Russia.
NK simply will not jump because China says so because its nationalist pride. So the US expecting China can control NK as the ways it can control SK and Japan is either naïve or it has hidden agenda.
The NK’s attacks on SK is SK’s own asking, and it’s all Lee Myung-bak’s fault. SK has so much wealth and he does not show any compassion to its poor northern cousins. Lee cancelled all aids to the NK in order to show he is a tough guy or a pure lackey to the US. None of his predecessors did what Lee has done. NK is rather naïve if it expects to get its aids back from Lee by only doing that small scale attacks on SK. On the other hand NK is rather weak, it probably can’t do much too.
If SK is smart, all they have to do is to copy how China improves relationship with Taiwan, sooner or later, the two Koreas can come up a way to unit peacefully, meanwhile there will be no shooting and bombing at all.
Grant
Look at the case of East Germany when it reunited with West Germany. The economy and human resources were so poor that Germany is still trying to modernize its eastern half even today. By comparison North Korea is far worse. It has a near-ruined economy with the exception of arms deals, corruption and propaganda are apparently present at every level of North Korean society, the military is so large that demobilizing it could lead to civil strife for decades if not done correctly and as we’ve seen with North Koreans in South Korea the people will have a great deal of trouble adjusting. In other words, if I were a South Korean I wouldn’t want to reunite with North Korea. South Korea is honestly better off without its northern counterpart.
Laowai
China has a massive influence over North Korea. More so than the U.S. has over Korea or Japan. These comments seem to ignore the fact that the North Korean population is fed with Chinese food aid. The economy is propped up by China. If they withdrew economic aid North Korea would completely collapse. If North Korea collapsed they would have 10′s of millions of refugees flooding their borders. They have the will, but not the desire to make North Korea do what they want. Aside from that, they still don’t want another government power that sides with the U.S. at their border. The Chinese are currently trying to rewrite history by claiming one of the three ancient kingdoms of Korea was in fact Chinese. This has angered nationalist North and South Korea more than most people realize. They have terrible relations with North Korea, but it serves their purposes better to have North Korea there. If they change there mind, North Korea will be gone in a month.
For everyone that hates the U.S., I see the point. Maybe a balance of power won’t be the worst thing for smaller countries that large countries tend to bully (the U.S. AND EVERY OTHER WORLD POWER EVER). Whoever is on top will bully the weak. The U.S. will probably be infinitely more humane about it than the Chinese will ever be.
Absolute power corrupts absolutly, the powerful will always be a-holes, no matter who it is. In the end, it’s probably better for more people if it’s the U.S. There you have it, the lesser of two evils.
John Chan
@Laowai, the imminent collapse of NK without China’s help is a myth, it is simple made up by the US propaganda machinery. You probably never know what hunger feels like, but if the people of a nation has set their minds on defending their independence, they can go through a lot, China is the example. Unless you can see things through other side point of view, you will be always bias and prejudice. Your love of peace sounds hollow and your impartial assessment is skewed.
Korea was a part of China twice in the history; the three ancient Korean kingdoms were based on the three prefectures when China administrated the Korea peninsular. The whole Korean civilization is based on Chinese. The current Korean Hangul replaces Chinese only after WWII due to nationalism, therefore Korean have trouble distinguish words that have similar sound but different meaning. Japanese is a lot more practical; they rather keep the Chinese instead of reducing their capability of expression. Therefore the majority Korean nowadays can’t understand their ancient history, which was written in Chinese. It is same for the Vietnamese who can’t understand their ancient culture, which is written in Chinese with some special Vietnamese characters. It is the Korean who are rewriting history for their blinding nationalistic emotions. China has ancient records to prove it. England was ruled by Romans once upon a time, but the Brits never feel ashamed of it, its part of their heritage. Only insecure people will take such drastic action to rewrite history in order to hide something there is nothing to be ashamed of.
I guess whatever you are, you used your specious knowledge of Korea to sow discords everywhere to cause hatred between people so you and your nation can profit from other people’s misfortune.
@Grant, based on cold fact calculation you are right, SK is way better off without its poor northern cousins, obviously you are not Korean, so you won’t understand why Roh Moo-hyun would kill himself when he saw his sun-shine policy was dismantled by Lee. I believed West Germans won’t hesitate a minute if they need to reunite East Germany again. Blood is always thicker than water.
Nathan
Grant
Do a little research into ‘TONKIN INCIDENT’ and you’ll know why China and the entire UN headed by a Korean did not condemn North Korea!!!
Grant
Yes, an affair over almost fifty years ago where it has since been confirmed that at least one of those incidents actually happened which has nothing to do this. Not to mention the fact that the Cheognan investigatory team also included Sweden, a state not given to bending to pressure. Also you have managed to misrepresent the stance of the U.N which condemned the attack but stopped short of directly naming of North Korea due to Chinese objections.
Lastly, you apparently have managed to miss one vital fact. The United States had no reason to want it to be a North Korean torpedo. In fact we had every reason to want it to be an old mine. If it was a torpedo that meant that North Korean submarines were more dangerous than thought, it meant that North Koreans could strike at South Korea without the U.S and/or South Korea able to retaliate and it meant that Obama’s outreach had failed. If it simply been a mine it could have been written off as an unfortunate accident. In other words, because it was a torpedo, the U.S lost that round.