China begins to define the rules
Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in Moscow recently: "The world has been changing dynamically, and threats have been changing with kaleidoscopic speed. The times of the Cold War when everything was predictable and measured were like a paradise in comparison with the present day."
Apparently, Ivanov was juxtaposing the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 with the "threatening trend" of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But he managed to "scare the hell out of us" and make things a little bit clearer than the truth, to borrow the
famous words of the late US secretary of state Dean Acheson to then-president Harry Truman. Ivanov held up a mirror noir of our own teetering times.
Despite the jostling for position, with wariness and friendliness alternating, accommodations and compromises were going on all the time between the two superpowers. In comparison, a massive gray aura lacking in transparency surrounds the multipolar chaos today. John Negroponte, one of America's ablest diplomats, also gently drew attention to this in his testimony before the US Senate Committee on Intelligence on January 11.
Negroponte made a startling revelation in his "Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence" - the United States doesn't worry about any "threat" from China, for Beijing "places priority on positive relations with the United States", and China is a factor of regional stability in Northeast Asia. China's embrace of globalization is "rapidly bringing the countries of the region closer together".
Chinese policy is emphasizing development of friendly relations with the states on its periphery and is "assuring peaceful borders", registering notable success lately in improving relations with Japan and in calming the waters across the Taiwan Strait, as also in establishing strong ties with the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations both bilaterally and multilaterally. Most important, Negroponte took note of China's rapid rate of military modernization as an understandable manifestation of its "aspirations for great-power status, threat perceptions and security strategy" rather than posing a threat as such to the US strategic assets.
Negroponte described a China that is almost entirely engrossed in its top priorities of domestic social stability, environmental protection, rule of law, balanced growth and development, and battling corruption, and thereby "strengthening the Communist Party's position" among the Chinese people. But this is a far cry from what former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld believed. What has changed?
Actually, very little. There was a remarkable consistency in what China professed - adherence to a foreign policy aimed at creating a friendly environment for domestic reforms. Yet something changed. The US defeat in Iraq solely cannot explain it. Nor is it indicative of any significant rollback of US global reach.
In essence, it is symptomatic of the US foreign-policy dilemma - unwilling to play by genuine multilateralism, yet having to abide by it. This is best evident from the so-called Princeton Project on National Security, the three-year bipartisan initiative of leading American thinkers from the government, academe and business that hogged the foreign-policy debate in the United States during the recent months.
The remarkably bipartisan initiative, co-chaired by ex-secretary of state George Shultz and former national security adviser Anthony Lake, was motivated by the realization that a strengthening of the intellectual underpinnings of US global strategy was called for. It aims at creating a "concert of democracies" that can help create a benign international environment for US global strategies. Its main finding is that the US doesn't have to rush into military means while facing the present dangers or long-term challenges or for seizing countless opportunities.
It openly draws inspiration from the late George Kennan's doctrine of containment in helping the US deal with the series of profound changes in the international landscape in the post-Cold War era, including rising new powers, a tightening energy market, increasing anti-Americanism, and a globalized economy. In a nostalgic tone, the Princeton Project notes, "In the end, Kennan was proved right; contained from without, the Soviet Union ultimately crumbled from within."
The Princeton Project identifies six criteria for an optimal US strategy in the 21st century. First, it must be "multidimensional", that is, it should operate "like a Swiss army knife, able to deploy different tools for different situations on a moment's notice". Second, it must be "integrated", that is, it must fuse coercive power with soft power.
Third, it must be "interest-based rather than "threat-based", giving the United States the flexibility to build cooperative frameworks with countries tactically rather than insisting that other countries must also share the US prioritization of threats.
Fourth, US strategy must endeavor to be based on "hope rather than fear", which means it must radiate the positive energy of a progressive world vision.
Fifth, it must be "pursued inside-out", which implies that the US should strengthen the "domestic capacity, integrity and accountability of other governments as a foundation of international order and capacity".
Finally, the strategy must be adapted to the information age, that is, it must enable the US "to be fast and flexible in a world where information moves instantly, actors respond to it instantly and specialized small units come together for only a limited time for a defined purpose - whether to make a deal, restructure a company, or plan and execute a terrorist attack".
In its application to Asia, the Princeton Project visualizes building a "trans-Pacific, rather than pan-Asian, regional order" in which the US "plays a full part", and in which " the US-Japan alliance remains the bedrock of American strategy in East Asia", and in which the US should also continue to strengthen ties with India ("Asia's other emerging power") on the basis of policies that calculate that "sustained economic growth in Asian countries other than China is the key to managing China's rise".
Thus we may see the impending departure in the very near future of a US-led caravan of Asian-Pacific nations (Japan, Australia and India) heading to engage the ancient Middle Kingdom in ways that "help it become a responsible stakeholder" in the regional and global systems.
Evidently, a lot of sophistry surrounds what Negroponte said and what the Princeton Project recommended as Washington's China policy. And Beijing cannot be unaware of such sophistry, though it almost never criticizes foreign states. Referring to the Princeton Project, Ruan Zongze, vice president of the China Institute of
International Studies, wrote in mid-December in People's Daily with biting sarcasm that the project suggested Washington is "not yet ready to cease and give up its efforts to graft its own brand of democracy onto the world".
"Will this 'concert of democracies' again stir up US ambition and greed? Will it increase or reduce the US's liability in foreign assets? What changes will the US make to its foreign policy? Perhaps the answer is, as the famous American singer Bob Dylan sang, 'blowing in the wind'."
Ruan poured scorn on the US pretensions of charioting the "concert of democracies" at a time when it is in such a mess in the Middle East. He said US foreign policy is "showing obvious signs of fatigue ... President George W Bush's Iraq policies have failed ... The smoke and gunpowder of the Iraqi streets seem to have derailed the Bush administration. Iraq has slid to the brink of civil war, and something small could trigger even greater chaos in the Middle East. The US's influence in the Middle East is weakening and the Bush administration has to consider a withdrawal strategy."
But China is nonetheless willing to cooperate with the US in the Middle East. China doesn't want upheavals in a region of such vital importance. All the same, the People's Daily questioned the efficacy of Bush's new Iraq strategy. And the official China Daily wrote, "The US forces are now faced with a painful dilemma where neither advance nor retreat bodes well for them. The 'new strategy' can be seen as an attempt to break free, though its prospects appear seriously questionable."
The China Daily commented that Bush's latest warnings to Syria and Iran didn't add up. "The United States has already made these warnings a number of times without success. Will the two countries miraculously wash their hands of what's happening in Iraq this time around?"
But in the prevailing highly inflammable and dangerous regional situation, China would still counsel Iran to avoid "flinty language". China sees the US is "losing patience", and the "leeway to Iran is shrinking". The consequences could be dangerous if the US lashes out. In China's opinion, therefore, Iran should "lay down the flinty tongue for a while to avoid the coming stress".
The stakes are very high. The US-Iran standoff can determine the course of Iran's foreign policy. "Even more, it may determine Iran's future and fate." The People's Daily hoped last August that "Iran has a quite flexible foreign policy, and will surely pursue its national interests by seeking dialogue and negotiations".
Meanwhile, China anticipates that "conflicts of interest between Western powers, the United States in particular, will become more intense, rendering the entire Middle East issue all the more complex and altering the delicate strategic balance in the region". Thus, while keeping up manifestly friendly ties with Jerusalem, China coolly estimates that Israel holds a weak hand.
The People's Daily wrote, "Israel not only underestimated the strength of Hezbollah, but also underestimated the power of Syria and Iran ... her strength does not match her ambitions for holding on. Small as she is, Israel falls into a grim strategic environment and faces increasing risks. The only correct way for her is to immediately and unconditionally return to the track of political settlement."
China's Middle East strategy is brilliant. It is a multi-splendored thing. There is great adventure in it insofar as it almost overlooks the so-called non-state actors that one hears so much about in the Middle East - let us say with a dash of Marxian idiom, the "forces of history". China's strategy is cautious, yet pragmatic. It is, arguably, near optimal.
Thus, despite the United States' defeat in the Middle East, China will not take on a condescending attitude toward Washington. On the contrary, this is the time for China to cooperate. If the Bush administration were to work out a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by manipulating the introduction of a pro-Western Arab military force under United Nations mandate, China would have no problem. China might even counsel Iran to take the bitter pill. China is working hard to expand its influence at the same time with the various Middle East protagonists - Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
Moscow is also keen to play a role in the Middle East. But look at the contrast with China's approach. The problem with Russia is what Negroponte in his testimony last week called Moscow's "assertiveness". The great orientalist and former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov said in a Russian media interview recently, "I think good relations with the United States are very important for Russia. Very important. The US should therefore be increasingly aware that it simply cannot settle many problems exclusively with NATO's the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's assistance, and without Russia.
"Take the Middle East and the Middle East settlement as an example," Primakov asserted. "We Russia have contacts with Syria, and no one else, including the US, has. We have ties with Iran and with Hezbollah, which the US doesn't. In this setting Russia can and hopefully will do a great deal."
Russia condemned Saddam Hussein's execution and the detention of Iranian diplomats by US troops in Irbil. China kept quiet. Unlike Russia, China is a stakeholder. Oil must flow impeded, and the price of oil must not skyrocket. Admittedly, there is a cauldron of anxiety in Washington and Beijing about each other's ambitions and intentions. But trade is booming.
Beijing's capital reserves are a major source of US borrowing. China is an increasingly important purchaser of US debt and a de facto financier of the US economy. The reverberations would be profound if China's economic performance were to lag or tend to even a moderate slowdown.
Of course, like Russia, China is opposed to US hegemony. But Russia is too weak to be a "partner". At any rate, the relationship with the US is too important for China to seek any alliance against it. A former Soviet diplomat who served in China in the 1980s, Yevgeny Bazhanov, wrote recently that even if China and Russia were to form an anti-American alliance, its fate couldn't be any different from the pact that collapsed in the 1950s with disastrous consequences. He wrote, "Russia and China are too different, and they have too many different interests."
Sergei Ivanov was right. In comparison with our hugely altered landscape, marked by violent deaths and political treacheries and religious confrontation, the Cold War era was like paradise - a Garden of Eden, even if a serpent or two lived there.
Original article posted here.
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