By The Diplomat
China’s leadership seems divided, United States Institute of Peace President Richard Solomon tells The Diplomat. If it's to rise peacefully it will have to rethink its recent assertiveness.
There seems to have been a distinct shift in China's regional engagement over the past 12 months to a more assertive posture. What do you think is behind it?
I think there’s been a very intense debate within the Chinese leadership over their approach to the world, and specifically their dealings with the United States. It’s probably highlighted most by the difference between an article by Dai Bingguo, who’s the senior counselor for international affairs, calling for sustaining Deng Xiaoping’s so-called ‘low posture’ approach to the world, and the assertiveness of the PLA as dramatized when US Defence Secretary Robert Gates met with Chinese President Hu Jintao this month. Indeed, the Chinese military seems to have surprised its own political leadership by testing this new stealth fighter a few hours before their meeting, with Hu appearing not to have known that the test had occurred.
In fact, there are a whole series of developments going back to the crash of the Chinese fighter aircraft and one of our surveillance flights back at the start of the George W. Bush administration that indicate the Chinese military seems to operate on its own, not under civilian discipline. And there are other examples where elements on the civilian side of the Chinese system resist the kind of co-operative actions that the senior leadership may want with its developing relationship with the United States.
So we’re dealing with what seems to be a divided leadership—there seem to be hawks, those who are distrustful or who want to take a more confrontational approach with the United States—making it a more complex situation. And frankly, in terms of China’s dealings not only with the US but with East Asia more generally, I think it’s a very dangerous and critical period. If China continues this much more assertive posture as they’ve demonstrated in the territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, or in the support they seem to be giving the North Koreans, the Chinese are in danger of polarizing East Asia. I don’t know how significant these issues are in the Chinese leadership’s debates, but it can’t be good for China.
What have you made of the US response to this growing assertiveness, particularly considering the more conciliatory tone that Barack Obama adopted when taking office?
I think there’s been real disappointment within the leadership in Washington. The Obama administration distinguished itself from earlier administrations in that it began its tenure with a positive orientation towards developing relations with China. Almost every predecessor administration had started out with uncertainty or distrust of China. Take the George W. Bush administration. It came in concerned about China as a so-called ‘peer competitor,’ and there was the incident of the crash of the two aircraft. So things were on a very bad track until after 9/11. But the Bush administration switched gears in the fall of 2001 and ended up having a positive relationship with China over the remainder of the President’s tenure. It’s a pattern we’ve seen with earlier administrations.
Photo Credit: The White House
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Keesha
What an aeoswme way to explain this-now I know everything!
Cleo
Is this the same Chinese agenda that invested in the Forbes railway scheme in the United States that was the foundation for the Forbes fortune?
Carl
I don’t understand these vague “hawks” comments. Who are these hawks? Where do they fit into the government? Are the on the Central Committee? The Politburo SC? The CMC? Small group heads?
The Chinese government isnt’ that big at the top, why can’t anybody come up with some names and positions?
Michael
America and its Neoconservative Hawks controling the Military Industrial Complex would love nothing more than to trick the Chinese into a military conflict with Taiwan. America is once again back to its old tricks of exporting war, revolution, and instability! Freedom and democracy…LOL!!!
John Chan
Richard H. Solomon displayed the arrogance of hegemony. Instead of feeling ashamed that the US is interfering China’s internal affair on reunification between Taiwan and China like an old imperial power, he said the US will accommodate the political workouts between the two sides, then under the grace of the US, Taiwan and China can proceed to reunite.
In the article, it reflected the mainstream thinking in the US, that is only the US is allowed to have opinion, when China has its own opinion regarding its surrounding geopolitical environment, Solomon derided China operating in a 19th century agenda. In Solomon point of view, anything China does that is not to the satisfaction of the US, or more precisely to his satisfaction, then China is carrying the baggage of 5000 years of backward history. What a hubris Richard Solomon has.
The head of a Peace Institute in the US, Richard Solomon, talks no different from the neo-con war merchants, no wonder Obama couldn’t get anyway with his “Change”, he is surrounded by the hawks. Obama promised to change the warring path of his predecessor, but instead of promoting peace, war chants are being pumping out of the US non stop nowadays. The US military is setting fire everywhere in Asia, it is the US military out of the civilian control, not the PLA.
Valbonne
It is irony that in the height of “China Bashing” in America and when America is brandishing their massive naval power in China’s doorstep that President Hu of China started his State Visit to America. This does not match China’s 19th Century Agenda at all.
In fact President Hu of China is walking right into a lion’s den. This is not a reflection of China’s rise at all. It gives an impression that America has every intention to downgrade of China as an irrelevant power at all.
Mikhail
Realistically, America will always need an enemy. If not China then someone else. The military industrial complex is a half trillion dollar industry. It isn’t going to go quietly. Even after the collapse of the USSR, military spending was maintained. The so called “peace dividend” was in fact an upgrade of capabilities making the US military an even more lethal machine.
IMHO, the real surprise is the rather passive posture that China maintains. A dozen or two silent Kilo SSKs running out of a sub base in Cuba would give the Pentagon something to think about. Especially since USN ASW capabilities have greatly atrophied while Kilos are extremely difficult to detect. Given that Castro has been looking for a new sugar daddy for a while, I can only surmise the reason lies with Beijing’s passivity.
So we have the amusing comedy where the Chinamen are signalling strategic weakness while the Americans are reading aggressive intent.
megakids
To: Mikhail
“Chinamen”? Your statement is rude and offensive. Nothing humble at all (IMHO).
What’s the equivalent of Russian calling? “Losers”? Or something stronger?
Chiang Kai-shek
To: megakids
LOL, no it isn’t! It’s more akin to calling English “Englishmen”, Dutch “Dutchmen” or French “Frenchmen”..etc. There’s nothing rude or offensive about it at all. Get over it and don’t be so insecure. ;-)
Chiang Kai-shek
To:Mikhail
I’m not even sure that would even things out; the bathymetry of the entire South China Sea has been mapped at a 10cm pixel resolution. Now there are a least a dozen or so U-32′s (S182) “Edenkoben” with cavitation-free screws running out of Formosa.
John Chan
@Chiang Kai-shek, don’t be fooled by commercial, there is no such thing called cavitation-free screw, it’s against the law of nature, all human can do is to reduce the amount of cavitations the propeller creates when it moves through water at high speed. It is same as F-117 and F-22, they cannot be invisible, all human can do is to reduce their visible signatures. After running a while the micro corrosion on the blade surface will increase the amount of cavitations, which increase the noise it made. It is particular damaging to the propeller surface when they run on the surface of the sea.
Do you know that sonar is not the only way to detect submarine? When submarine moves through water it disturbs earth magnetic field, it is same to the F-22. People can catch them by analysing the disturbance of earth magnetic field.
John Chan
To the editor:
According to Wikipedia, Taiwan is in possession of only four submarines. Two are Dutch Zwaardvis, and two are former US WWII vintage GUPPY-class boats. Chiang Kai-shek provided inflated faulty figures implying that there are more than a dozen U-32’s (S182) “Edenkoben” advanced submarines in Taiwan.
The editor continues to suppress my comments since he feels the information is not precise, but it is closer to reality than the comments from Chiang Kai-shek. The editor seems to have no problems publishing false comments made by Chiang Kai-shek. It seems the editor releases comments at his discretion, and does not follow an impartial standard to assess statement objectivity. The practise is against the principles of freedom of speech, and it’s similar to the practised by the propaganda department in China we all despise.
Sun_Tzu
Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.
Grant
I have trouble taking his argument seriously if he makes references to ’5000 years of history’, especially when a good deal of China was very different positions for those five thousand years. It seems more likely that Chinese strategic views would be more determined by the past few centuries as well as China’s geographic position.
On the other hand, if we do treat his argument that the past five thousand years of history are all valid then we should remember that the geopolitical situation in Asia isn’t that unusual and it’s a mistake to think of the power in Japan, China, India, South Korea, Russia and the U.S as anything unusual.
megakids
To: Grant
Go back to school’s library and learn some Chinese history so that you are no longer “troubled”. Maybe 5000 years is a stretch. But 3000 years is realistic. Sun Zi formulated his thoughts in 500 BC, from a bunch of earlier thinkers. Don’t under-estimate these influence. They are still taught in West Point.
Grant
Yes they are. West Point also uses the Peloponnesian Wars. More importantly, they use far more sources from the past five hundred years. Just because someone wrote a good work* doesn’t mean that five thousand years is really that more important than five hundred years.
Besides that, virtually every place on this planet has a long history. Why don’t we argue that the Egyptians or Italians should be great powers since their respective histories go back prior to Jesus?
Carl
Korea has 5000 years of history too. Shouldn’t they get some slice of Manchuria? I mean, if we’re just going to use years settled as some sort of barometer for legitimacy.
Janman
Korea with 5,000 years of history? Maybe that’s true but half of its century is probably under neolitic period, and the other half as a vassal state of Ancient China. At this moment, it’s a vassal state of imperialist U.S.
Nothing to be proud of.