tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26817306762453436692024-03-12T16:47:36.610-07:00Thinking About AsiaHarry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-18950911079948888412012-09-09T12:32:00.000-07:002012-09-09T12:51:23.854-07:00How much do Obama and Romney differ on China?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With one potentially important exception and with several
differences in emphasis and tone, the treatment of China in the platforms of the two
major political parties and in the statements of the two presidential nominees
suggest a remarkable degree of consensus on American policy toward China this
year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say “remarkable” because of the intense
polarization on so many policy issues these days, and the high level of
controversy over China policy in some past presidential election campaigns
(especially 1960, 1980, 1992, and 2000).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
So far at least, </span>China does not appear to be the contentious issue that it once was.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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What are the similarities in approach and the differences in
emphasis?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Both platforms declared an American interest in
a “peaceful and prosperous China,” but the Republican platform went on to say
that “we will welcome even more the development of a democratic China,” whereas
the Democratic platform spoke of the importance of “respecting the universal
human rights of the Chinese people.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
difference echoes a long-standing difference in emphasis between those who
focus on a change in China’s domestic political institutions and those who
focus on the promotion of a broader set of human rights, but it does not
suggest any concrete ways in which the China policies of the two candidates
might differ.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Compared with the Democratic Party platform, the
Republican counterpart has a far longer list of American concerns about China,
including its “pursuit of advanced military capabilities without any apparent
need; a barbaric one-child policy involving forced abortion; the erosion of
democracy in Hong Kong and its destabilizing claims in the South China
Sea.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Relatedly, the Republican platform
did not include a commitment to try to build a “cooperative relationship” with
China, as did the Democratic platform, which listed Korea, Iran, and climate
change among the issues that present “opportunities for cooperation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet neither the Republican platform nor
statements by Governor Romney have included a description of China as a “strategic
competitor” – as George W. Bush did in the 2000 campaign, let alone a portrait
of Beijing as a prospective adversary.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><o:p> </o:p>Both platforms reiterated the American
commitment to Taiwan’s security and the American interest that the future of
Taiwan be resolved peacefully that are embodied in the Taiwan Relations Act. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Republican platform went on to take a number
of other positions favorable to Taipei, including supporting Taiwan’s: “full
participation” in multilateral organizations, “the timely” sale of defensive
arms” to the island, and “free trade agreements status” for Taiwan-- presumably
a somewhat awkward reference to either a free trade agreement with the U.S. or
Taiwanese membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But these differences pale in comparison to
the statements on Taiwan policy by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 campaign and
by George W. Bush just after his inauguration in 2001.<o:p></o:p></div>
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These are all interesting differences of
emphasis:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Republican platform more
supportive of democracy in China, the Democratic platform willing to call for a
cooperative relationship with Beijing, and the Republic platform somewhat more
forthcoming with regard to Taiwan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
in themselves, these differences do not suggest major differences in China
policy no matter who wins the election in November.<o:p></o:p><br />
The more
important and potentially significant differences involve trade policy. Both platforms
called for a “firm response” (as the Republicans put it) to unfair Chinese
trade practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they differed over
which party would do the better job of being firm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Democratic platform claimed that the Obama Administration had already taken a
tough position with Beijing by bringing trade cases against China to the World
Trade Organization at “twice the rate of the previous administration.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Republican platform declared that it
would take a “new Republican Administration” to address trade issues
successfully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a fuller presentation
of his position, Mitt Romney’s September 2011 “Believe in America”
manifesto accused the Obama Administration of having “singularly failed in
handling commercial relations with China. He came into office with high hopes
that displays of American goodwill toward Beijing would lead to better
relations across all fronts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Predictably,
the good will has not been reciprocated. .. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having tried and failed with ‘engagement,’ the
Obama Administration now behaves as if the United States has no leverage” in dealing
with China and has “acquiesced” to the “one-way arrangements the Chinese have
come to enjoy.”<o:p></o:p><br />
Romney’s “Believe in America” plan went on to
call for a policy of “confronting China” on trade issues,” being prepared to
“walk away” from trade negotiations with Beijing, showing a willingness to “say‘no more’ to a relationship that too often benefits them and harms us” and to
“put on the table all unilateral actions within our power to ensure that the
Chinese adhere to existing agreements.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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More specifically, Romney
has declared that among other executive orders he would issue on the first
day of the new administration, he would declare Beijing to be engaged in
“currency manipulation” and instruct the Commerce Department to impose
countervailing duties on China “if it does not move quickly to float its
currency.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– (This charge that China
manipulates its currency was repeated in the Republican Party platform,
but without the accompanying promise that a President Romney would issue a
formal declaration to that effect in his first day in office.) This is
reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s promise in the 1998 election campaign that
he would revoke China’s most-favored-nation status if its human rights
situation had not improved, but so far is different in several
respects:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is not as prominent a
feature of Romney’s campaign rhetoric as it was of Clinton’s; and the
consequences of such a declaration are less immediate, since China would
doubtless file bring a case against the U.S. before the World Trade
Organization, and such a case would almost certainly delay the imposition
of the American countervailing duties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For those interested in a stable U.S.-China relationship, this
feature of the Romney platform is a matter of concern, but should not yet be
cause for alarm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Otherwise, the Romney campaign
appears to be promising a high degree of continuity in American policy toward
China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are differences in the way
in which China is portrayed, but they are not as great as they were during the
2000 campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore, let alone in the 1998
campaign between Clinton and George H.W. Bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This suggests that, unless there are unexpected developments in China’s
domestic or foreign policies, there is likely to be a high degree of continuity
in American policy toward China no matter whether Obama or Romney wins the 2008
election.<o:p></o:p></div>
Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-50004871541117697532012-08-26T18:06:00.004-07:002012-08-26T18:06:54.857-07:00Will China's new leadership present an opportunity for the U.S.?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
was forced to suspend this blog when I suffered a serious stroke about fourteen
months ago. Now that I have recovered enough to start writing again, I’m
looking forward to resume sharing my thoughts about China, Asia, Sino-American
relations, and US relations with Asia in the months ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
plan to begin with comments on the leadership transitions that are about to
occur in China and the United States and their likely impact on the U.S.-China
relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll start with China, and
write about the U.S. presidential election in my next posting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
few weeks back, I was asked to participate in a discussion organized around the
question of whether China’s new leadership will present an “opportunity for the
United States.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My schedule didn’t
permit me to accept that invitation, but I did reflect a bit on the intriguing
question it contained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I concluded that
the opportunities presented by the impending leadership transition at the Eighteenth
Party Congress are far greater for China than for the U.S., but if the new Chinese
leadership elected at the congress seizes those opportunities, there could be
positive consequences for the United States and for the Sino-American
relationship as well as for China itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
most important question posed by China’s leadership transition is whether the country’s
new leaders, presumably headed by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, will be prepared
to boldly and successfully address the key challenges facing their country at
home and abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The domestic challenges
are numerous, but the most important ones are an economic model that overemphasizes
state-directed investment and exports as engines of growth, enterprise, depresses
household consumption, privileges large state-owned enterprises, restricts <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>credit to private entrepreneurs, and offers
limited outlets for the investment of household savings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Economically, this model has produced a property
bubble, a weak banking system, and the chronic risk of inflation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Politically, China remains vulnerable to
popular unrest and, as a result, maintains tight control over the press, social
media, and non-governmental organizations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
issue is whether the new leadership will have the desire and the power to deal
with these challenges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least one leader
who will retire at the Party Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao, has forcefully
advocated limited political reform and has repeatedly warned of the unsustainability
of China’s imbalanced economic model.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it is not yet clear that his views will be shared by a majority of the incoming
leadership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dismissal of Bo Xilai,
the populist leader of Chongqing, is a positive development for proponents of
economic and political reform, but Bo’s are not isolated views in the Party,
and it remains to be seen whether the positions he espoused will be championed
by other incoming members of the Politburo and, if so, what share of power they
will hold.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Internationally,
the steady increase in Chinese military power, Beijing’s increasingly muscular
assertion of territorial claims in the East China and South China Seas, and the
lack of transparency about its military budgets and foreign policy objectives
have led to a growing willingness among neighboring states to engage in at
least a “soft balancing of China, as well as a more open American hedging
against the risks posed by China’s rise..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some unethical Chinese economic activities in the Third World, Beijing’s
failure to support or fully honor international sanctions regimes against
countries like Iran, Syria, and North Korea, and its reluctance to more fuller
open its economy to imports and incoming investment, have posed serious
reputational risks to China and have limited China’s efforts to develop its
soft power. As in domestic affairs, the upcoming Party Congress presents the
opportunity to select a new generation of leaders who are prepared to address
these international issues, but whether the Party ‘s new collective leadership
will tilt in that direction is as yet unknown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If China’s
new leaders are more oriented to political and economic reform at home, and
more conciliatory and cooperative abroad, that will indeed present opportunities
for the United States. Indeed, it will present opportunities for both countries
to forge a closer and more stable relationship. But, in the first instance, the
opportunities are China’s – </span></div>
Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-61705256300183439442011-06-14T06:31:00.000-07:002011-06-14T06:40:14.442-07:00Are China and the U.S. on a collision course?The following paper was presented to the 25th Asia-Pacific Roundtable, held in Kuala Lumpur on May 30 - June 1, 2011.<br /><div align="center">- - -</div><br />The question posed by the organizers of this year’s Asia-Pacific Roundtable is a familiar one, increasingly debated by analysts of international relations around the world and especially here in the Asia-Pacific Region. “Are China and the US on a Collision Course?” ask the designers of this panel. “Will China’s Rise Lead to War?” asks Charles Glaser, writing in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. “Is Conflict Inevitable” in the US-China relationship? asks Aaron Friedberg in a past issue of International Security.<br /><br />While some observers answer in the affirmative, most do not. Rather, the prevailing view is that the future relationship between the US and China will be characterized by a combination of cooperation, competition, and even conflict, with the balance among these three outcomes dependent on how the two countries define their national interests, the priorities they place on those interests, and their ability to build on their commonalities and manage their differences. Most analyses of the relationship therefore focus on providing an assessment of the key independent variables, particularly national interest, mutual perception, and mutual trust, that will determine that balance.<br /><br />I will take a somewhat different approach and focus on the dependent variable: the likely nature of the relationship. I agree that the future of US-China relations is likely to be a blend of three outcomes – cooperation, competition, and confrontation – but I will suggest that each of these there terms needs to be deconstructed, since each of them contains a further range of possibilities. In short, rather than simply predicting that there will be competition between the two countries, I will ask what kind of competition there will likely to be. And I will ask the same question about the other two elements in the relationship, cooperation and conflict.<br /><br /><br />Competition<br /><br />We do not need to forecast the future to realize that China and the US are already competitors in many realms. Chinese and American firms are competing for markets in China, in the US, and in third countries. Chinese and American scientists and engineers are competing in various scientific and technological fields, including supercomputing and stem cell research. The Chinese and American militaries are trying to develop the weapons systems and strategies and defeat the other in the event of armed conflict. The two countries have different models of development. While the Chinese are hesitant to say that there is a Beijing Consensus that can be a model for others, they are not at all reluctant to argue that the American model – the Washington Consensus – is not universally applicable, and should not be adopted uncritically by others. Most generally, there is a widespread perception – held by many people in both China and the US, as well as in third countries, that the two nations are competing for international power and influence, especially in Asia.<br /><br />This competition between the two countries is not always officially acknowledged, lest it be exacerbated. As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush declared China and the US to be “strategic competitors,” but he dropped that language shortly after taking office, in the aftermath of the EP-3 incident of 2001, when the risky consequences of such a competition became apparent. For a time, Colin Powell replaced that initial slogan with a slightly different formulation, declaring the two countries to be “strategic competitors, but economic partners.” But relatively soon thereafter, these portraits of a competitive relationship were replaced by the hope that the two countries could form a constructive and cooperative relationship, even a “partnership” of sorts.<br /><br />Still, despite those praiseworthy and optimistic aspirations, the two countries do have a relationship that contains significant competitive elements. The key question is not whether such a relationship exists, but what form it takes and what consequences it produces. In this regard, it is interesting that competition is so widely believed to be an unfortunate development in international politics. In many other areas of human activity, competition – or at least certain forms of competition – is considered not only not to be harmful, but actually to be beneficial.<br /><br />Competition is one of the most important features of market economics, where it is seen as the mechanism that improves the quality, increases the availability, and lowers the prices of the goods and services on offer. Most market economies have policies to promote competition, initially laws against monopoly, and more recently laws to increase access by foreign firms. From that perspective, economic competition between Chinese and American firms will be a positive development to be welcomed, not a negative outcome to be avoided.<br /><br />Similarly, competition is one of the most important features of pluralistic political systems, where political parties and candidates for office compete for votes and for financial backing; interest groups compete for membership and contributions; and policies and ideologies compete for support from members of society. The concept of the “marketplace of ideas” draws the analogy between the benefits of competition for an economy and the benefits of ideological or political competition for a society. In that sense, too, a competition between the Chinese and American models of development, or even between Chinese and American norms of international governance, may be healthy.<br /><br />The issue is not whether economic and political competition should exist, but what form it takes. The key question is whether competition occurs in such a way that it achieves the promise of positive-sum outcomes both for those directly engaged in the competition, and the broader community in which the competition occurs. While there are several aspects of competition that might be examined in this regard, the most important is whether the competition is conducted fairly or unfairly. The problem with US-China competition in the economic and political realms, in particularly, is that neither country believes that the competition is fair.<br /><br />For its part, China believes that it is the target of discriminatory treatment by the US. Beijing points out that Chinese direct investment in the United States is scrutinized for security concerns involving both advanced technology and critical infrastructure. It also complains about continuing American controls on the export of advanced technology to China, and the fact that China is not yet regarded as a market economy with regard to the application of anti-dumping regulations.<br /><br />Conversely, there have been many complaints, first in the US and now increasingly in the EU and Japan, that Chinese firms are not engaged in fair economic competition. The theft of intellectual property, and government regulations discouraging purchase of foreign products, are examples of trading practices that are widely regarded as unfair. So are various forms of government financial support, whether tax rebates, below-market loans, or export subsidies. One could increasingly add the lack of reciprocity in investment regulations, where one country limits investments in some sectors while seeking the right to make investments in those same sectors abroad. Many in the West also express their concern that China offers generous foreign aid packages to authoritarian regimes in the developing world, without imposing any conditions that might ensure the effective use of that aid.<br /><br />This is not to imply that China is the only country to have engaged in such allegedly unfair commercial practices. Many others have, and some still do. But perceptions of unfairness will complicate the economic competition between China and other economies. Fortunately, the WTO provides rules to ensure fair competition, and a dispute resolution mechanism to adjudicate alleged violations of those rules. Bilateral negotiations between China and the US are intended to reduce other barriers to trade between the two countries. Regrettably, there is as yet no comparable international mechanism that can assure fair competition when it comes to investment or to overseas development assistance, and no bilateral agreements governing either of those two areas.<br /><br />On economic and political issues, then, a key consideration is whether international competition is fair or unfair. Political and economic competition is usually regarded as beneficial, if conducted according to rules that ensure fairness, since its long-term outcomes can be positive for all parties. For security issues, in contrast, the problem is that competition may not be desirable at all. Strategic competition is usually regarded as wasteful, and potentially dangerous, if it involves costly arms races or if it increases the possibility of war by either miscalculation or accident.<br /><br />The danger today, in other words, is not so much that the US and China increasingly regard themselves as competitors, but that they perceive each other as strategic competitors. The two countries’ militaries are designing and developing weapons systems and military tactics to overcome the other. This process will be costly for both sides, although both China and the US are sufficiently wealthy that this will involve more opportunity cost than absolute cost. Even worse, the process will be risky. We have already seen incidents in which American reconnaissance and patrol missions off the coast of China have literally collided – or nearly so – with Chinese military unions seeking to push them further away from Chinese territorial waters. The EP-3 incident of 2011, mentioned above, was the most dramatic of these. The risks that such incidents can escalate are not trivial – which is precisely why it led the G.W. Bush administration to stop describing China as a “strategic competitor” shortly thereafter.<br /><br />There is a long history of arms control and other confidence-building measures to limit those costs and risks, but their results have at best been mixed. They are more effective in situations where strategic competition is only incipient and the overall relationships in question are cooperative; they are far less effective when strategic competition has already gotten well underway, and when that competition dominates the broader relationship.<br /><br />This already appears to be the case with the US-China relations. The US has sought to engage China in military-to-military exchanges to increase transparency and build trust, and in discussions of possible arms control measures to govern the two countries’ nuclear deterrents and weapons in space. So far, the results have been disappointing, which creates the danger that the costs and risks of strategic competition will continue to mount. Fortunately, the overall US-China relationship is far wider and deeper than simply a strategic competition, which was the main feature of Soviet-American relations during the Cold War. That reduces the change of conflict – a point to which we will return later.<br /><br /><br />Cooperation<br /><br />The existence of a competitive relationship does not preclude the possibility of cooperative behavior to advance common goals. Most frequently, these common goals may lie in other areas, as when economic competitors join together in a security alliance against a common enemy (like the US-Japan alliance against the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s). Less frequently appreciated is the possibility that two competitors may have a common interest in maintaining the viability of the arenas in which they compete. Asset managers are competitors, but they share an interest in maintaining efficient financial markets. Manufacturers and service providers may also be competitors, but they share an interest in maintaining the prosperity and openness of the markets to which they both wish to sell. Governments may compete for support in the UN Security Council, but they may also have a common interest in preserving the vitality of that key international body.<br /><br />There is a long list of issues on which China and the US have had common or overlapping interests, and therefore on which they can cooperate: counterbalancing the rise of the former Soviet Union in Asia, encouraging the denuclearization of North Korea, preserving stability in Asia, ensuring the vitality of the international economy, opposing the rise of protectionism, suppressing piracy off the African coast, supporting counter-terrorist activities in Central and Southwest Asia, discouraging Taiwanese independence, promoting the security of energy supplies, developing alternative sources of energy, and preventing climate change, to name a few.<br /><br />And the two countries have cooperated to advance some of these common interests. Their common interest in maintaining the vitality of the international economy was reflected in the parallel stimulus policies that they implemented after the Global Financial Crisis. Both countries have supported the creation of regional security and economic architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. Doubtless they would also cooperate if there were crises in other areas that threatened both of them, such as a pandemic such as SARS or avian flu. And they have agreed to work together or still other issues, including enhancing energy security, developing alternative sources of energy, and promoting the more efficient use of energy.<br /><br />As with competition, however, the issue is not just whether or not cooperation exists, but what form it takes. The most basic issue is the question of relative gains. Even when two countries can identify common interests, they can differ over the allocation of either costs or benefits, making cooperation more difficult. The American and Chinese governments agree that climate change is a problem that would pose significant costs and risks to both their countries. But they cannot agree on the allocation of the burdens of reducing carbon emissions between the developed and developing countries. Both Washington and Beijing may agree on the desirability of creating a more robust regional architecture in Asia, but they do not necessarily agree on the membership or agendas of those organizations. They may have a common interest in the denuclearization of North Korea, but they differ on the extent they are willing to impose such severe sanctions on the country as to threaten the collapse of its government, since such a collapse would impose far higher potential costs on China than on the United States. These differences over burden-sharing have been frequent between China and the US, and they often reflect the competitive aspects of the relationship. They make the development of a fully cooperative relationship far more difficult.<br /><br />The assessment of relative gains is only one way of evaluating a cooperative relationship. A closely related but less familiar way of distinguishing among various forms of cooperation is to distinguish the degree of enthusiasm and active collaboration that the relationship involves. At one end of the spectrum is simply a willingness to talk: a mutual agreement to identify and discuss common interests in the hope of achieving cooperative outcomes. Much of passes for US-China cooperation is little more than this. For example, many of the so-called “deliverables” reported as outcomes of the “strategic track” of the most recent US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington were little more than agreements to launch, or continue, discussions of various issues, without any indication of the specific outcomes that those dialogues were expected to achieve.<br /><br />A slightly more positive form of cooperation is passive consent, given by a party that might otherwise be able to block an action that its counterpart might wish to take. In many votes taken by the UN Security Council, involving the imposition of sanctions or military action against third countries, the so-called “cooperation” from China that the US has been able to obtain is simply Beijing’s willingness to abstain, rather than exercising a veto. Even se Sometimes, Beijing may be able to water down the resolution under consideration, removing some of what it regards as the most objectionable passages, as the price for its consent. But securing this modest form of cooperation is important to Washington if it permits the adoption of a Security Council resolution that authorizes the United States to undertake the sanctions or military activity it seeks.<br /><br />At the other end of the spectrum, the stronger forms of cooperative interaction are two forms of mutual assistance that I call “cooperation” and “collaboration,” respectively. By cooperation, I mean the willingness of two countries to acknowledge common goals, either tacitly or openly, and then to take action to advance those goals. By collaboration, I mean something more: not just identifying common interests, and not simply taking action to advance them, but the joint design and implementation of similar or coordinated measures to achieve those shared goals. The distinction between cooperation and collaboration can be seen as difference between working in parallel and working in tandem – or, to borrow terms from international politics, the difference between a united front and an alliance. In the former, each party retains far more autonomy and room for maneuver than in the latter.<br /><br />Fairly or not, many Americans have perceived over the years that China may cooperate, but does so in a relatively passive way. In some areas, it consents to American initiatives that it does not have the ability to block, but it does not commit its own resources to undertaking those initiatives. In others, it may cooperate by adopting and implementing its own policies, but it does not collaborate with Washington in formulating a joint response, largely because it does not want to be perceived by either domestic or foreign audiences as working too closely with the United States. This was first apparent in the two countries’ opposition to Soviet expansion in Asia, where both countries shared the same interest but did not actively collaborate in the same way as the United States and Japan. On North Korea, Beijing wants to maintain a clear difference between its position and that of the Unite States, even to the point that it can play a mediating role between Washington and Pyongyang in a way that neither Seoul nor Tokyo would be able to do. It is the gap between these more nominal or passive forms of cooperation and the more collaborative and active forms that the US would like to see that makes even the cooperative aspects of the US-China relationship so unsatisfying to many American observers.<br /><br /><br />Confrontation<br /><br />The third possible pattern in US-China relations can be called “confrontation.” That hostile form of relationship is what is meant when analysts discuss the likelihood of a “conflict” or “collision” between the two countries. Unlike cooperation, a confrontational relationship implies the existence of sharply different objectives, rather than common or overlapping interests. In the case of Chin and the United States, perhaps the most significant of these divergent interests have to do with Taiwan and human rights. Beijing regards the future relationship of Taiwan and the mainland an issue in which no outside party has the right to interfere, whereas Washington believes that it has a legitimate and historic interest in ensuring a peaceful future for the island.<br /><br />Conversely, the United States believes that it has an interest in promoting human rights around the world, with particular attention to civil and political rights, whereas China insists that these are also domestic matters in which no other country has the standing to become involved, as well as maintaining what it regards as principled differences over the definition of civil and political rights and the priority to be assigned to them relative to economic development and political stability. A third issue is also emerging that would fall into this category: China’s desire to push American military activity farther back from its coasts, and America’s insistence that reconnaissance activity of this sort is justified to monitor potentially threatening Chinese military developments and is legitimized by the principle of the freedom of the seas.<br /><br />The difference between competition and confrontation is difficult to draw, since both are based upon divergent interests. One distinction is that competition can produce positive-sum outcomes, at least over the longer term, while confrontation is more likely to be zero- or negative-sum. Another is that competition is more likely to be conducted according to commonly accepted rules or judged by third parties who decide which party “wins” and which party “loses.” To draw on Anatol Rapoport’s distinction in his classic book on various forms of conflict, competition is more likely to take the form of a “game” or a “debate,” whereas confrontation is a form of a “fight.”<br /><br />As with cooperation, however, we need to probe more deeply to understand that confrontational relationships are not all alike, but can take different forms. Just as earlier in this paper we distinguished among consent, cooperation, and collaboration, here we can distinguish among disagreement, confrontation, and open conflict.<br /><br />By disagreement I mean a situation in which two parties, in this case China and the United States, have divergent interests that they openly acknowledge, but that do not lead to conflictual behavior and therefore do not disrupt the broader relationship. This pattern of behavior is frequently described by the Chinese as “reserving differences,” and by Americans as “agreeing to disagree.” Today, the United States continues to criticize China for what Americans regard as violations of human rights and as retrogression in China’s domestic political situation. But other than those statements, issued both publicly and privately in various forums, the United States undertakes no significant action to sanction China for its alleged human rights violations. Similarly, China continually criticizes the United States for selling arms to Taiwan – an action that it regards as the most objectionable example of American intervention in what it regards as a domestic issue – but it is no longer restricting military-to-military relations with the United States as a result of those arms sales. The key here is that each side has been is able to identify clear “red lines” that the other should not cross, and yet draw those red lines sufficiently conservatively such that the other is unlikely to cross them.<br /><br />Such has not always been the case. In the past – including quite recently – the two countries have dealt with these same two issues in ways that embodied confrontation rather than simply disagreement. For some time after the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989, for example, the United States imposed a series of sanctions on China over its concerns about human rights, including the threat (never implemented) to remove China’s most-favored-nation status unless the human rights situation in that country improved. And China has periodically suspended military exchanges in retaliation for American arms sales to Taiwan. Such interactions involve a kind of negative quid pro quo: a sanction or punishment in response to a violation of a perceived interest. Even if they do not lead to a tit-for-tat pattern of escalatory retaliation – a common danger in this kind of situation – they can be difficult to reverse, if the sanctioning party insists upon a reversal, cessation, or repudiation of the behavior that led to the sanction, and if the target of the sanctions refuses to do so. But they still fall far short of the open conflict that many observers fear may develop in the US-China relationship.<br /><br />The most dangerous and severe form of confrontation in any international relationship is the threat or use of force. The United States and China have already experienced such conflict in Korea and (to a lesser degree) in the Taiwan Strait. There is the possibility that armed conflict could recur if either of these hot spots exploded again. The most commonly acknowledged danger would be one of two developments in the Taiwan Strait: a unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan which China sought to reverse through military means, or the unilateral use of force by the mainland to compel Taiwan to accept unification. In either scenario, the United States would have to decide whether or not to use force or the threat of force to uphold its residual commitments to Taiwan’s security as contained in the Taiwan Relations Act. If it decided to do so, then the risk of military conflict between the United States and China would be extremely high.<br /><br />Although the scenario is less frequently discussed, the Korean Peninsula could once again become the occasion for armed conflict between China and the United States. The most worrying possibility would be the collapse of the North Korean regime, followed by a competitive intervention by outside powers to promote their interests, whether the installation of a friendly and effective successor government, or the securing of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and fissile materials. Such competitive intervention would not necessarily involve the United States directly. But if South Korea were to cross the DMZ in this situation, to be countered by Chinese forces crossing the Yalu River, the United States could conceivably also become involved. Note that the key development here is not the collapse of the North Korean government per se, but a competitive intervention following such a collapse. Unfortunately, China and the US have thus far not been able to discuss what their governments would do in the event of such a regime failure, making it impossible to rule out the possibility of such a competitive intervention.<br /><br />Other scenarios are also conceivable. These might include a crisis in the South China Sea or an incident between American and Chinese military forces, similar to the EP-3 incident of 2001. Fortunately, the possibility that either of these scenarios would escalate to a point that involved actual armed conflict between Chinese and American military forces is quite low.<br /><br /><br />Looking ahead<br /><br />What are the relative probabilities that any of these broad categories of interaction – competition, cooperation, and confrontation – will characterize the US-China relationship in the years ahead? And if none of them dominates, what blend of the three types of relationship will the two countries experience?<br /><br />In my judgment, it is highly unlikely for the relationship between the US and China to be primarily cooperative, at least in the short to medium term. The differences in values, political systems, interests, levels of development, and perceptions of the existing international order are simply too great for the two countries to find common ground on all issues, or even to find a mutually agreeable allocation of costs and benefits when they try to pursue common interests. Only a common interest that was massively compelling – say a widespread pandemic, another financial crisis, a global outbreak of terrorist activity targeted at both countries, or increasingly severe consequences of climate change – might produce a predominantly cooperative relationship.<br /><br />Fortunately, an essentially confrontational relationship is also unlikely, especially if one is primarily concerned with the risks of military conflict. The high degree of economic interdependence between the two countries has already created a relatively resilient relationship. The cost of military conflict, especially given the fact that both China and the US are nuclear powers, will be a significant deterrent against military conflict. Equally important, the probability of the most worrying of the trigger events identified above– a unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan – is presently quite low, as is the risk that China would try to compel unification through the use of force.<br /><br />If the analysis above is correct, then the most likely future for the US-China relationship will be largely competitive, although with some elements of cooperation and divergence as well. The balance among these elements will depend on whether the two countries can:<br /><br />-- Increase the cooperative elements in the relationship, and minimize the confrontational.<br />-- Transform those cooperative interactions from the relatively passive (unproductive “dialogue” or passive consent) to more positive (active and fruitful collaboration)<br />-- Ensure that the competitive aspects of the relationship are governed by rules and norms that make them fair to both sides<br />-- Avoid introducing strategic elements into the two countries’ competitive relationship.<br />-- To the extent that divergence is avoidable, keep it at the level of disagreement, rather than confrontation or open conflict.<br /><br />In short, the familiar formula that the US-China relationship will be characterized by a combination of competition and cooperation is not wrong, but is incomplete. Some of the competition will be healthy and constructive, even though possibly intense. Some of the cooperation will be grudging or strained, and thus disappointing. While open conflict is unlikely, there will almost certainly be disagreements, and possibly even elements of confrontation in the relationship. As a result, the US and China are not necessarily on a collision course, but they will be passing through turbulent waters that will test the resilience of their highly interdependent relationship.<br />Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-64251876652153364672011-05-05T10:07:00.001-07:002011-05-05T10:12:13.382-07:00How resilient is China's "resilient authoritarianism"?<div align="left">The essay below was written for the Asia Foundation’s blog, <em>In Asia.<br /><br /></em>It is interesting to compare the situation today with that in the late 1980s. Then, as now, China was faced with rising inflation, differences within the leadership, stalled political reform, growing corruption, and an international environment undergoing democratic change. The result was the June 4th crisis of 1989.<br /><br />That said, there remain important differences between the two periods. Today, the divisions within the Chinese elite are narrower, public support for the present system is wider, the government’s ability to manage the economy is somewhat greater, and the attractiveness of the political revolutions outside China is somewhat smaller. Thus, it would be foolish to forecast with any confidence that China is about to experience another crisis just as severe as that in 1989.<br /><br />Even so, to quote the last sentence of this essay, “The odds are beginning to shift in ways that suggest that the resilience of [the Chinese political] system may be increasingly tested.”<br /></div><br /><div align="center">- - -<br /></div><br />Many observers both inside and outside China have come to perceive the country’s political system as remarkably resilient. Sustained economic growth, greater political responsiveness, and considerable public satisfaction with the status quo have seemingly created a high degree of political stability. This widely shared assessment of Chinese politics was reflected in the title of a recent op-ed in the International Herald Tribune comparing the situation in China with the “jasmine revolutions” in the Middle East: “Why It Won't Happen in China.”<br /><br />And yet, there is reason to believe that China’s own leaders are less confident about their country’s stability than these foreign observers. Recent crackdowns on political activists suggest to some a growing nervousness about the future. Are Chinese leaders worrying needlessly? Or do they accurately perceive that their country’s political system may be subject to increasing strain?<br /><br />Perhaps the most important cause for concern is the increasing level of inflation in China, the result of the flood of foreign capital into the country, China’s chronic foreign trade surpluses, growing labor shortages, and rising global prices for food, energy, and raw materials. If not brought under control, inflation has the potential to create a high degree of popular dissatisfaction. Over the last 20-odd years, China has been beset by numerous public protests over issues ranging from environmental pollution to contaminated food. But almost all of those grievances have been localized and the number of people affected by them has been limited. In contrast, inflation will affect virtually everyone in China, and is already leading to grumbling over rising energy costs and strikes for higher wages.<br /><br />Second, China is on the verge of a political succession, with a new generation of leaders to be elected at the Eighteenth Party Congress in 2012. Although the succession procedures are now highly institutionalized and the policy differences within the leadership are far less than they were in the 1980s, there remains considerable uncertainty about the composition of the new leadership and how it will address the country’s problems. Moreover, one characteristic pattern of Chinese political life historically has been that dissenters may be emboldened to speak out and act up if they perceive there to be differences among the top leadership.<br /><br />Third, whatever foreign observers may say, Chinese leaders do appear to be worried about the “jasmine revolutions” in the Middle East and the “color revolutions” that have occurred elsewhere in the world. Theirs is not simply a generalized fear of contagion, but a more specific perception that the same communications technologies that sparked the protests in the Middle East could have an impact on China as well. Recent reports indicate that Chinese activists working both inside and outside the country have begun to create networks that cross local and provincial boundaries, creating a virtual version, however embryonic, of the independent nationwide political organizations that Chinese leaders have long tried to prevent.<br /><br />And finally, there is the widespread perception that political liberalization in China has stalled. Chinese leaders have once again made clear that pluralistic democracy is not on the agenda, and the pace of more limited types of political reform appears to be controversial. This perception can itself become a further cause of grievance and instability.<br /><br />All of these developments -- increasing inflation, apparent differences within the political elite, revolutionary protest in the Middle East, and the continuing revolution in communications technology -- make it easy to see why Chinese leaders might be concerned about their country’s stability, and why they are imposing stricter controls on political expression.<br /><br />China’s political system remains resilient, and there is still considerable popular satisfaction with the country’s achievements. But the odds are starting to shift in ways that suggest that the resilience of that system may be increasingly tested.Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-8316995564914187272011-03-03T18:46:00.000-08:002011-03-03T18:57:41.033-08:00Three Competing Strands in Chinese Foreign PolicyThe following essay represents my attempt to understand some of the contradictory elements that have emerged in Chinese foreign policy over the last several years. It is based on talks given at the Kokoda Foundation in Australia in November 2010, at Singapore Management University in January 2011, and at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in February 2011. I thank friends and colleagues at each institution for their comments and suggestions.<br /><br /><div align="center">---</div><p>China’s foreign policy today contains many contradictory elements. The Chinese navy is working with others in trying to suppress the pirates operating off the east coast of Africa, but also is asserting its territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. Beijing is launching an international cable news channel, broadcasting in English around the world, at the same time that it is harassing foreign journalists who are trying to cover street protests in China. Chinese firms are increasing their investments abroad, even as the Chinese government continues to limit foreign investments in China.<br /><br />How can we understand these contradictions in China’s approach to the world? I will suggest that they all reflect a commonly held objective – the quest for great power status – but also embody competing strategies for achieving that goal. I will conclude with some thoughts about how the balance among these competing strategies may shift over time, but why the main objective of competing for relative power is unlikely to change.<br /></p><p><br /><em>The competitive quest for great power status: China’s basic orientation toward international politics </em></p><p><em></em><br />Most Chinese believe that competition among great powers is, and will continue to be, the essence of international politics, as it has been since the emergence of the nation-state system. Chinese leaders and analysts acknowledge the emergence of other actors (international organizations, MNCs, NGOs). They recognize that a growing number of transnational issues require cooperation between and among national governments, and are increasingly willing to engage in that kind of cooperation themselves. But they continue to assume that the rise and fall of great powers remains the basic narrative of international history, and that competition among the powers lies at the heart of international politics. In line with that view of history, China’s goal is to become a great power once again.<br /><br />The extent of that general ambition remains unclear. Some Chinese leaders certainly believe that China can and should become a paramount power, if not globally, then at least in its region. But most realize that this can be at best a long-term objective and, equally important, one that should not be expressed openly for the time being. For one thing, most Chinese assume that, given the competitive nature of great power politics, the United States and other established powers will attempt to slow or block China’s rise, especially if they think that China will be a threat. Expressing ambitious objectives simply exacerbates that risk. Better to engage in what some have called the “hiding and biding” strategy, after Deng Xiaoping’s injunction that China should “hide its capabilities” and “bide its time.”<br /><br />Moreover, the outcome of China’s quest for great power status cannot be guaranteed. One crucial factor will be China’s power relative to others. Although China is seeking to build up its “comprehensive national power,” the success of its efforts cannot be forecast with any accuracy or confidence. Even more uncertain is the future levels of comprehensive national power that will be available to other major states, particularly those that exist in close strategic proximity to China: Russia, Japan, India, and particularly the U.S.<br /><br />However, in the short run, most Chinese leaders and analysts seem to believe in the desirability of pursuing a more limited but still significant objective, mainly having to do with how China is perceived and treated by others. This more limited goal is defined in three interrelated ways:<br /></p><ul><li>China now deserves to be treated as an equal, even by other major powers. The days in which others sought to lecture China on its domestic and international behavior, even if done out of good intentions, are over. </li><li>While China will demand to be equal, it will also seek to be different. China will go its own way, seeking its own model of political and economic development. In many ways, many Chinese believe, its model is already proving to be effective and even superior to the models promoted by the United States, including early democratization in politics and the implementation of the “Washington Consensus” in economics. </li><li>China has made many changes in its domestic economic structure and international behavior to conform to “international standards” so as to integrate itself into the international order. This represented China’s accommodation of that order, and was appropriate at the time. But as China becomes more powerful, and as its development path proves its worth, that pattern of behavior will be at least partially reversed. The time has come in which, as one Chinese scholar recently put it, “the rest of the world is going to have to adapt to China.”<br /></li></ul><p>To become a great power, especially a paramount power, China needs to seek and achieve power on all three dimensions: economic, military, and soft power. Chinese believe that, although they are still in many ways a poor country, they have made significant strides along the first two of these dimensions. Although gaps remain between China and the established powers, China will be able to narrow if not fill those gaps over the next twenty years and more, at least in aggregate if not per capita terms, by taking advantage of the prospect that growth rates in the United States and the advanced West will slow. The “growth gap” that so many Western analysts anticipate – the difference between slower growth rates in the advanced economies and faster growth rates in emerging markets such as China – will work to China’s advantage. China’s military capabilities will also increase, and China will seek to develop asymmetrical strategies for using its military power in ways that will further redress the imbalance between China and the United States.<br /><br />China is also attempting to develop its soft power, but is finding it difficult to do so. It has traditionally espoused its own set of norms to govern international relationships – the five principles of peaceful coexistence -- but they embody the Westphalian concepts of absolute sovereignty and therefore appear dated. Beijing seeks trust, but does not yet appear to understand that trust can only be earned, not just demanded. It asks for understanding, without promoting that understanding through candor and transparency. Above all, China remains preoccupied with its own rise and its own interests. And until it begins to stand for more than itself, its attempts to acquire soft power will fall short.<br /><br />However, as with the harder forms of power, China will try to narrow that gap. Already, Beijing has been able to delegitimize Western models of finance, development, and governance. It is trying to promote the study of Chinese language and the appreciation of both Chinese traditional and modern culture abroad. It will try to develop new, more attractive concepts of international relations, starting with the ideas of a “harmonious world” made up of “strategic partnerships.” And it may begin to act in more altruistic ways as its resources and self-confidence grow. China’s quick dispatch of relief workers to New Zealand, following the devastating Christchurch earthquake, is but one recent example of this latter trend.<br /><br /><em>Three strands in Chinese foreign policy<br /><br /></em>Although this is the basic direction of contemporary Chinese foreign policy, there appears to be considerable difference of opinion in China over the details. I see three competing strands of thought – three different tendencies -- in discussions of Chinese foreign policy, the balance among which will be a key variable in determining the country’s future international course. These tendencies are distinct, but not mutually exclusive. They can be, and are, combined in various ways at various times. But the balance among them varies over time. One reason for this is that each of the tendencies has shortcomings and poses dilemmas. As those shortcomings appear, other tendencies may seem to offer attractive alternatives – at least until the dilemmas associated with those alternatives themselves become apparent.<br /><br /><u>Defensiveness:</u> Chinese leaders believe they are passing through a middle-term period of domestic vulnerability, and thus they remain highly insecure and suspicious as they face the rest of the world. China’s economic performance is essential to domestic political stability, and yet Chinese leaders know that their country’s investment- and export-led growth model needs to be revised in favor of greater domestic consumption. There are significant societal grievances over issues ranging from corruption to environmental degradation, without a responsive and accountable political system that can adequately absorb them. Chinese leaders see dangerous separatist tendencies in Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Foreign observers sometimes find these perceptions to be unnecessarily pessimistic, given China’s economic successes. But Beijing’s highly sensitive reaction to the recent protests and revolutions in the Middle East shows the influence of this line of thinking.<br /><br />At the same time, as China’s power and footprint grow, the world makes more and demands on China: to allow greater religious freedom, to open its markets to foreign trade and investment, to cease censoring the internet, to revalue the renminbi, to reduce carbon emissions, and so forth. Chinese leaders suspect the intentions behind those demands. Many believe that foreign powers (especially the United States) are seeking to exploit China’s domestic problems in an attempt to block or delay China’s rise. This perception is intensified when – as is often the case – the demands are regarded as hypocritical: when they involve changes in China’s economic and environmental policies that other countries are not prepared to make themselves.<br /><br />The combination of internal vulnerability and external pressure produces the first strand in Chinese foreign policy: a defensive desire to evade foreign threats or demands that might be disruptive to domestic economic and political stability. I associate this defensive tendency above all with the top Chinese political leadership, whose main concern (or “core interest”) has been candidly defined as the preservation of the leading position of the Chinese Communist Party. “Avoid trouble” might be the paramount concern of this first group. Supporting this strategy would be those sectors of the Chinese business community who want protection from foreign competition, supported by those leaders who can be persuaded that such protection is a necessary part of a national security policy. “Avoid competition,” would be the slogan I would associate with this second group.<br /><br />The dilemma for China is that this defensiveness contributes to the international perception of China as a “free rider” – a country that seeks to benefit from its integration into the international community, but not to take on many domestic or international obligations in return. Unable frankly to admit its weaknesses, China instead falls back on the increasingly unpersuasive argument that it remains a poor, developing country that cannot be expected to do too much, or the even angrier response of accusing the rest of the world of unwarranted intervention in its internal affairs.<br /><br /><u>Assertiveness</u>: Other Chinese perceive that the balance of power has shifted in China’s favor in recent years, particularly as the combined result of the global financial crisis, which has weakened the major advanced economies; the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have drained the United States of both hard and soft power; and China’s sustained double-digit growth, which has greatly enhanced China’s economic and military capabilities. These developments have given China the opportunity to advance interests it has previously had to compromise, and even to renegotiate some arrangements (formal and informal) that it previously had to accept.<br /><br />China’s resulting assertiveness has taken many forms, some of which have been more widely accepted outside China than others. China has sought a greater voice in international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF, and support the idea that a broader grouping in which China is included – the G-20 – should supplant the narrower one whose membership is restricted to traditional advanced economies (the G-7/8). These are widely regarded as reasonable demands, reflecting China’s increasing role in the global economy.<br /><br />But other examples of China’s assertiveness are less broadly acceptable. At various times, Beijing has taken a more assertive approach to its territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, demanded that foreign governments reduce or terminate their contacts with the Dalai Lama, insisted that the US stop arms sales to Taiwan, requested that it announce its support for Taiwan’s peaceful unification with the mainland (as opposed simply to a “peaceful solution”), and above all tried to push American naval patrols and reconnaissance activities away from China’s coasts, especially those that occur in China’s exclusive economic zones.<br /><br />This strategy is associated not only with the military, which views the promotion of China’s security interests as its core responsibility, but also with what are variously called Chinese “netizens” or “angry youth”: the highly nationalistic internet users, usually young men, who also are extremely attracted to the idea that China’s increasing national power gives it the ability to overcome past humiliation by greater assertiveness. “Our time has come,” “it’s China’s turn,” and “China can say no” are all ways of summarizing the thinking of the supporters of this second strategy. The influence of these two groups challenges two familiar assumptions about the nature of Chinese politics: that the party controls the army, and that the state controls society. Instead, it illustrates that, in a more pluralistic China, even the authoritarian party-state is influenced by interests that are either powerful (as in the case of the PLA) or numerous (as in the case of the “netizens.”)<br /><br />The dilemma here is that many instances of Chinese assertiveness have counterproductive consequences. They give rise to exactly the perceptions of a “China threat” that Beijing has sought to avoid and, in so doing, are leading more and more countries in Asia to form some kind of soft balance against China. As one Japanese scholar recently put it, China has unintentionally been engaged in a process that amounts to “self-encirclement.” In the future, China may have enough relative power to compel bandwagoning – to force others to accommodate its demands. At present, however, the rest of the region can still engage in a form of balancing. This discourages overly assertive Chinese behavior, and in so doing promotes the third tendency: integration into a broader international community.<br /><br /><u>Integration</u>: China’s quest for comprehensive national power has involved a high degree of integration into the international system. At first, the motivation for this integration was almost entirely economic: to attain access to capital, markets, advice, and technology abroad that would facilitate China’s economic reform and development. Increasingly, however, Beijing has seen additional benefits from a policy of international integration. By joining free trade arrangements, China not only gains more secure access to those same foreign markets, but also introduces greater competitiveness into its home market and provides greater choice for its consumers. By joining cooperative security arrangements in Asia, China may reduce the suspicions about its growing military power. And by joining international organizations more generally, China may build trust and increase confidence that its rise will be governed by international norms and thus not be a threat to others.<br /><br />The strategy of integration also reflects, to some degree, a departure from the purely realist approach to international relations that still dominates most Chinese thinking on the subject. Chinese increasingly accept the logic of globalization: that, alongside its benefits, globalization is producing or exacerbating a wide range of transnational problems that affect all societies that are integrated into the emerging international community; and that those problems can only be dealt with by collaboration with other members of that community. China’s response to the challenges of global climate change, terrorism, and the global financial crisis shows an increasing realization that China’s self-interest requires a degree of international cooperation. China has shown greater willingness to work together with other countries on all these issues, as well as playing a more active role in addressing the problem of North Korea’s nuclear program and in combatting piracy off the coasts of Africa. It has also taken the initiative in creating global and regional institutions that fill in gaps in the international structure or address new international needs, such as the G-20, the ASEAN+3, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.<br /><br />The strategy of integration is supported by a coalition of interests that either benefit from it directly, or else are convinced that it serves China’s broader long-term economic and geopolitical interest. These include, most notably, the more internationalized sectors of China’s business community, China’s more cosmopolitan urban elites, and liberal academics. Unfortunately, the political base for this third tendency is probably the weakest of the three – at least so far.<br /><br />Moreover, as with the other two tendencies, this strategy generates its own dilemmas. Even as China becomes more integrated into the international community, its essentially realist approach to international relations makes many Chinese suspicious of international institutions that Beijing did not create and international rules that it did not write. This reinforces the assertive tendency noted above – the desire to increase China’s participation in these organizations, to participate in the drafting of responses to new issues, and, to some degree, even to rewrite existing rules in China’s favor.<br /><br />In addition, the more integrated China becomes, the more demands it brings upon itself, especially when the solutions being applied to international problems fall short. This can trigger the defensive tendency: to reject demands that China do more on the grounds that China’s capabilities are limited.<br /><br />And, once again, the issue of reciprocity emerges. As China’s integration increases, it begins to act in ways that challenge the policies toward others. China’s economic integration, for example, now involves outbound, as well as inbound, foreign direct investment. And this is triggering, both in the US and elsewhere, concerns that Chinese investment in certain strategic areas threaten the security interests of the host country. China’s integration into international energy and commodity markets raise questions about whether China is trying to “lock up” supplies or even “take them off the market.” Its increasing foreign assistance programs are sparking concerns that China is giving aid that is tied to resource deals and is insufficiently conditioned on good governance and sound economic policy. Beijing understandably asks whether it is being held to the same standards as others and, even if it is, whether those standards should be open to challenge. This reaction to integration can take the form of a more assertive Chinese approach to its international relationships.<br /><br /><em>The balance among the tendencies<br /></em><br />These three tendencies are not diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive, but can be blended in complex and sometimes contradictory patterns. One reason for this is that all three tendencies reflect core Chinese interests – indeed, interests that are shared by many other states: defending against threats to domestic stability, advancing national objectives interests that remain unfulfilled, and achieving the benefits of integration into the international community. Many of China’s recent foreign policy initiatives can be seen as pursuing some of these goals simultaneously. Beijing’s quest for “strategic partnerships” with other countries, for example, reflects a combination of defensive and integrative strategies, in that it seeks both to reduce criticism and advanced cooperation with other key nations. China’s desire for a more prominent role in the new global financial structure is a blend of assertiveness and integration.<br /><br />Another reason is that, as already noted, each of the three tendencies has significant bases of support within China. Although China’s current political system is in not democratic, it is a form of consultative authoritarianism in which powerful domestic interests are at least partially accommodated. This suggests, as a general rule, that none of these three tendencies will ever become entirely dominant, but that elements of all of them will be blended into Chinese foreign policy, albeit in different proportions at different times.<br /><br />What, then, changes the balance among these three tendencies?<br /><br />In the short run, the changing balance among the three tendencies results from the fact that the dilemmas inherent in one tendency may trigger another. In particular, the international demands generated by the strategy of integration can contribute to Chinese defensiveness and assertiveness; and the negative foreign response to an overly assertive Chinese foreign policy can lead to a renewed emphasis on integration as a way of reassuring others of Beijing’s intentions. The global financial crisis, for example, played a major role in moving Chinese foreign policy in more assertive directions through most of 2010. The sharp foreign response to that development promises to make integration a more prominent theme in Chinese foreign policy in 2011.<br /><br />In addition, specific developments inside and outside China clearly make a difference. Major domestic events (particularly Party Congresses or sensitive anniversaries) lead to a marked increase in defensiveness. In particularly, that can be expected in the run-up to the next Party Congress in 2012. Conversely, some major international events (particularly state visits to major powers) usually generate a more cooperative approach, so that the visit can be declared to be a “success.” That may help explain the more accommodative attitude to the United States taken on the eve of Hu Jintao’s trip to America in early 2011.<br /><br />But what about the longer term? Here, much speculation has centered on the looking political succession. And yet, I believe that the succession process has become highly routinized, and that China’s collective leadership structure makes it not only possible, but highly likely, that all three tendencies will be reflected in the post-succession leadership to some degree. As a result, the succession is unlikely in itself to produce big changes in China’s foreign policy.<br /><br />Instead, more enduring changes in the balance among the three tendencies are more likely to be the result of larger trends and forces outside the leadership. Specifically:<br /></p><ul><li>Domestic problems in China will certainly reinforce tendencies toward defensiveness. But in addition, will they also promote assertiveness? The proposition that governments seek foreign adventures abroad to distract their citizens from problems at home has a long standing in both scholarly and popular literature. In the case of China, however, I think that today there an equally powerful case can be made that Chinese leaders, while certainly blaming foreigners for any domestic problems, will not seek to exacerbate the risk that foreign governments will try to manipulate them. I would suggest that greater integration (in the sense of greater cooperation) is more likely in such a situation than greater assertiveness, but that both are less likely than greater defensiveness. </li><li>The international situation will also play a role in determining the relative weight of these three tendencies. A robust balance of power – as we have seen this past year -- will discourage assertiveness and encourage integration. On the other hand, a shift in the balance in favor of China, and particularly a power vacuum in any area peripheral to China, will encourage greater assertiveness. And, as we have seen recently, anti-authoritarian or pro-democracy movements in countries that leaders in Beijing see as presenting parallels to China will trigger a defensive response.<br /></li></ul><p><em>Conclusion<br /></em><br />Most foreign countries – especially the other major powers with interests in China’s strategic space – prefer the integrative strategy, oppose the assertive strategy, and can tolerate, although not welcome, the defensive tendency. But whatever their preferences may be, Chinese foreign policy is likely to show a shifting balance among these three themes, depending on the international and domestic factors outlined above. Still, other major powers, especially the United States, can influence the relative weight of the three tendencies. Expecting China to play a constructive role in the international community, and rewarding it when it does, will strengthen the integrative tendency. Providing a firm counterweight to assertive Chinese behavior that challenges international norms or threatens the interests of others will weaken the assertive tendency. And, although China has the principal responsibility for managing its domestic situation, clear indications that the other major powers will not try to sabotage China’s economic development and international stability, even as they compete with it economically and urge domestic political reform, will help reduce Chinese defensiveness.<br /><br />But what about the main continuity that runs across all three tendencies: China’s quest for great power status and its realist approach to international affairs? There is some hope that, over time, the realist approach will weaken in favor of more liberal outlooks. This may occur if the perception grows that there is an emerging international community, governed by international institutions, and facing common problems and opportunities. The coexistence of liberal and realist perspectives on international affairs reflects the fact that the international system itself contains both the traditional elements of anarchy and self-help (on which realism is based) and growing institutions of international governance (in which liberalism is rooted). The changing balance between these structural features in international politics will have a strong influence on Chinese perceptions of international affairs, although the realist tradition in Chinese thinking is so powerful that it will be difficult to completely overcome.<br /><br />But even if this should occur, it is unlikely that it will alter China’s desire to become a great power. That, too, is an enduring theme in Chinese thinking about its role in the world. And it does not depend on a realist perspective. Many decades ago, Anatol Rapoport identified three forms of competition in human affairs in his book entitled Fights, Games, and Debates, published in 1960. In a world of anarchy, the principal form of competition is the fight, and realist theories try to explain and predict how countries prepare for such fights, try to deter them, and how to win them. But competition does not end in a more orderly world; it simply takes a different form. Countries will have different interests, and will continue to seek advantage in pursuing them. Even in a global community with international governance, better understood by liberal analysis than by realist models, there will still be competition, but it will take the form of economic and cultural competition (a form of game) and diplomatic and possibly ideological competition (a form of debate) rather than by military competition (preparation for a fight). China will then change its strategies, but it will remain determined to be an effective and successful competitor. </p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-80063252029745018892011-02-13T18:53:00.000-08:002011-02-13T19:05:47.480-08:00On "Nixon in China"<div align="left">I had the great pleasure of giving the introductory lecture before the live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of the opera <em>Nixon in China</em> here in Charlottesville on February 12, 2011. The paper that I prepared as background for my lecture is far too long to reproduce here, but it is attached as a pdf. I have simply posted the introduction and conclusion of that paper below. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="center">- - -<br /></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>Nixon in China</em> is an opera about a fairly recent historical event: the visit of President Richard M. Nixon and his delegation to the People’s Republic of China in February 1972. The visit marked the end to a period of more than twenty years during which the United States tried both to isolate and contain China following its successful Communist revolution in 1949.<br /><br />From a theoretical perspective – the perspective of realist theory in international relations – this event was what scholars call “over-determined.” It is not difficult to explain, and thus is not particularly interesting. Both China and the United States were facing a rising rival – the former Soviet Union – during periods of weakness. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was still tearing China apart. Two of Mao’s probable successors, Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao, had been were dead: Liu of illness, allegedly untreated, while under arrest; Lin in an airplane accident in Outer Mongolia, trying to flee the country after attempting a coup against Mao. For its part, the U.S. was bogged down in the war in Vietnam and, as a result, was also experiencing political turmoil at home, although not at anywhere near the scale of the Cultural Revolution. The outcome of Nixon’s reelection campaign was therefore uncertain. In this context of shared vulnerability, the growing military power of the Soviet Union in Asia gave the two countries a common enemy, one of the most powerful incentives for two foes to mend their fences.<br /><br />But probing beneath the surface, although the rapprochement between the two countries is easy to explain now, it was difficult to predict at the time. Both Mao and Nixon had reputations of implacable hostility toward the other country: Mao, the great anti-imperialist; Nixon, the staunch anti-Communist. Nixon had written, in 1968, about eventually bringing China into the family of nations, and had given a few other public signs suggesting an interest in improving American relations with that country, but few expected so dramatic a breakthrough. Mao had also given a few indications that he was willing for China to welcome a high-level American visitor, but as late as Nixon’s arrival at Beijing airport, it was uncertain as to whether he personally would receive him. The phrase “only Nixon could go to China” has entered the American language to refer to the surprising possibility that a hardliner would be well-positioned to engage in détente, if he so chose.<br /><br />Thus, from the perspective of the principal personalities involved, the visit was a far more dramatic event than it may have appeared from a purely theoretical point of view. And it was the drama of the moment that made it the subject for grand opera.<br /><br />How accurately does the opera <em>Nixon in China</em> reflect the reality of Nixon in China? Obviously, the scene featuring <em>The Red Detachment of Women</em> is a complete fantasy; and the last act of the opera is like a docudrama – we have no idea what the main characters talked about in their bedrooms during the Nixons’ last night in Beijing.<br /><br />But parts of the opera are actually quite realistic, or at least are based on fact. In particular, much of the dialogue in the meeting between Nixon and Mao is based on the Nixon and Kissinger memoirs. Winston Lord, who was present during that meeting, has said that the opera accurately captures the essentially philosophical nature of the production. And, while Nixon did not actually state his concerns about the possible failure of the trip when he landed at Beijing Airport, we know that that what was on his mind and the minds of his assistants.<br /><br />What’s entirely missing from the opera is what is normally regarded as the most important event of the trip: the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué. This is not accidental. In his long interview at the Asia Society, Sellars argued that the Communiqué was basically meaningless, and thus the last act is appropriately despairing, not triumphant. (He seems to think that the last scene occurred after the Shanghai Communiqué was signed, but in fact it is described as the “last night” in Beijing, before the American party moved on to Hangzhou and Shanghai. Nonetheless, his assessment of the communiqué is important and worth noting.)<br /><br />This skeptical view of the Shanghai Communiqué is particularly interesting given the importance that is now assigned to that document as creatively providing a workable framework for a relationship between two nations that once regarded themselves as implacable adversaries. In fact, just before Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Washington, in an op-ed in the <em>New York Times</em>, Zbigniew Brzezinski called for another communiqué that could similarly define a new framework for a relationship between two countries that increasingly view themselves as rivals.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this nostalgia for the Shanghai Communiqué is as unrealistic as is the nostalgia for the Middle America in the mid-20th century that permeates the soliloquies of Richard and Pat Nixon in Nixon in China. Brzezinski apparently forgot that the two leaders had already produced just such a communiqué in 2009, during Obama’s visit to China. And the fact that he had forgotten, while surprising, was understandable; unlike its predecessor, that communiqué was an unmemorable document that did little to redefine the US-China relationship. The communiqué that was produced this time, following Brzezinski’s advice – a Joint Statement with no fewer than 41 points -- will suffer, I fear, the same fate.<br /><br />Peter Sellars’s skeptical view of the Shanghai Communiqué may not have been fully justified at the time. But today it is far more appropriate than Brzezinski’s naïve hope for a document that will “codify the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation.” Alas, the days of that kind of diplomatic breakthrough in US-China relations, undertaken by “heroic” characters who create a “game-changing event” by making “one of the moving gestures in human history” are over. It’s unlikely that even Peter Sellars will conceive, or John Adams will write, another “CNN opera” called <em>Obama in China</em>, or even <em>Hu in America.</em> </div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">For the full text of my paper, see: <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9MZYja1piAhMmFiNDgwOWQtNjNmMC00Y2FhLWFjZTgtNjNjYmFlYWE0MzNh&hl=en&authkey=CIrJo70C">https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9MZYja1piAhMmFiNDgwOWQtNjNmMC00Y2FhLWFjZTgtNjNjYmFlYWE0MzNh&hl=en&authkey=CIrJo70C</a></div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-29612120188082122982010-09-01T10:11:00.000-07:002010-09-01T12:37:00.416-07:00The Shanghai Expo: Yesterday's World's Fair Today<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">I had the pleasure of spending two days at the Shanghai Expo during the summer, in the company of my son, Jamey, who lives and works in Shanghai. The visit reactivated a long-standing interest in the history of world’s fairs, which led me to discover a recent book by Anna Jackson -- <em>Expo: International Expositions 1851-2010</em> — which is the catalogue for an exhibition on the subject at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.<br /><br />As Jackson shows, cities have been hosting world’s fairs for more than 150 years. From the very beginning, international expositions have had multiple objectives– partly trade show, presenting new technologies to businesspeople; partly corporate advertising, presenting new products and services to prospective consumers; partly popular education, introducing fairgoers to other societies and cultures from around the world; and partly entertainment, with rides and side shows for the general public.<br /><br />In the broadest terms, however, the overall purposes of international expositions have changed considerably over time. Until World War II, when international travel was far more difficult (and therefore less common) than it is today, fairs were mainly intended for the people of the host country, displaying goods, art objects, and performers from the rest of the world, often with an emphasis on exhibits from the host country’s colonial empire. In those days, as Jackson shows, international expositions were essentially a nationalistic enterprise, creating greater public understanding of the outside world in which the host country was playing a growing part, and building a sense of national pride in host country’s role as a major power<br /><br />More recently, as foreign travel has become easier, the main purpose of such expositions has changed. They are increasingly aimed at foreigners, rather than at domestic audiences, and have been organized around themes that have global relevance and appeal, such as scientific progress, urbanization, and the environment. Their purpose is to educate foreign fairgoers about the theme, rather than encourage local visitors to understand and celebrate their country’s role in the world. Their agenda, in other words, has become less nationalist and more internationalist.<br /><br />From this historical perspective, the Shanghai Expo is largely a return to the earlier form of international exposition. To be sure, it is organized around a theme of global relevance –urbanization -- with the motto “Better City, Better Life.” Many of the pavilions in the “Urban Best Practices Area” on the Puxi side of the exposition, sponsored by various cities around the world, examine this theme in some detail, as do several of the theme pavilions on the Pudong side. And certainly the Expo organizers have encouraged foreigners to visit the far to learn about the experiences of major world cities in urban planning and design.<br /><br />But the more important purpose of the Expo is not to introduce foreigners to best practices in urbanization, but rather to introduce Chinese to the rest of the world. Most of the pavilions are national pavilions, varying greatly in size and quality of presentation. Most of those national pavilions, in turn, have little to do with the official theme of “Better City, Better Life,” but instead are intended to introduce the economy, culture, and society of each country to visitors. The overwhelming majority of those visitors are Chinese, not foreigners. And the primary purpose of the Expo – at least as perceived by a casual visitor like me – is celebration of the rise of China, not education about a global issue.<br /><br />The relative importance of these two purposes – the traditional nationalist purpose and the more contemporary internationalist objective – is most clearly evident in the Expo’s physical architecture. Although there are, as noted above, several theme pavilions, they are not particularly striking architecturally, nor do they occupy the most central places in the Expo’s plan. Instead, the most important building – in terms of design, size, and location – is the Chinese national pavilion, which has become the Expo’s principal icon:</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgl-Ltjhpk1YTH-kvP15UNaW4Ws5ej6YRb1dNx02-TauDHJPdQb1LnZWEmVVjQT0HeXumUW9oTvDbg5-1XQhxl-XvGxrm41UXDUCCddQrCNnw5k_ER1fmvLR1C0Fjgwyo4U8EEMAZMds/s1600/Chinese+pavilion,+Shanghai+Expo.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 227px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511994413831018802" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgl-Ltjhpk1YTH-kvP15UNaW4Ws5ej6YRb1dNx02-TauDHJPdQb1LnZWEmVVjQT0HeXumUW9oTvDbg5-1XQhxl-XvGxrm41UXDUCCddQrCNnw5k_ER1fmvLR1C0Fjgwyo4U8EEMAZMds/s320/Chinese+pavilion,+Shanghai+Expo.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">Having the national pavilion of the host country serve as the central iconic structure in a World’s Fair is quite unusual, especially in the contemporary period. Normally, the iconic structures in recent international expositions (and in most of the earliest fairs as well) represent the theme, not the host. The symbols of the earliest world’s fairs were industrial exhibition halls, such as the Crystal Palace in the London World’s Fair of 1951. The familiar icons of the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40 were the Trylon and the Perisphere, representing the fair’s theme, “The World of Tomorrow.” The San Francisco World’s Fair, also of 1939-40, featured an 80-foot statue of “Pacifica,” depicting peaceful relations among the Pacific nations. The symbol of the Brussels World’s Fair of 1958 (whose theme was science and the atomic age) was the Atomium; the symbol of the Seattle World’s Fair of 1962 (whose theme was space) as the Space Needle. And so on.<br /><br />As expressed architecturally, therefore, the main theme of the Shanghai Expo is far more the rise of China than the design of better cities. Its target audiences are far more Chinese than foreign, and its purposes are more nationalist than internationalist. This is not unprecedented, but these characteristics and purposes make the Shanghai Expo far more similar to the world’s fairs in Paris in 1851 or London in 1862 than to more recent expositions. </span></div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-19569925238225969152010-04-20T18:43:00.000-07:002010-04-20T18:46:50.532-07:00The Evolving International Order<div align="left"><br />Below are the talking points for a presentation I made at a forum sponsored by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki in March 2010:</div><div align="center"><br />- - -<br /><br /></div><div align="left">Let me begin by reminding you of five major international trends, most of which will be familiar to you, and then address the question of their impact on the international order.<br /><br />1. In some ways, the most basic trend is globalization: the greater flows of goods, services, ideas, capital, people, viruses, and information over distance and across borders. Thomas Friedman has described globalization as a fact, not a choice, but actually it is some of both. The technologies that make the flows faster, lager, and cheaper are facts. But the decisions to deploy them, and to allow the flows to occur, represent choices. Societies that isolate themselves from those flows fall behind economically; that is a fact. But a small number of governments have still made the choice to remain isolated, despite the opportunity costs, and a much larger number try, at least at the margin, to regulate, restrict, or shape the flows.<br /><br />2. The second major trend is the rapid growth of some of the large economies that have chosen globalization, especially those that were previously relatively disconnected from the global economy. I do not see this trend as the “rise of the East” or the “rise of the rest,” as Kishore Mahbubani and Fareed Zakaria have portrayed it. Rather I see it as the rise of parts of the East and some of the rest – first the Asian tigers, then the BRICs, and now the “Next-11.” This trend is, however, shifting the relative balance of power, not only with regard to traditional bilateral and multilateral state-to-state relationships, but in the institutional sphere as well. Institutions in which the rising powers are represented (like the G-20) are supplanting those in which they are not (like the G-8). Other key institutions, like the World Bank and the UN Security Council, are facing growing pressures to become more representative of the new balance.<br /><br />3. Globalization is leading to the rise of new kinds of actors, as well as to a larger roster of powerful nation states. These transnational actors are qualitatively different than traditional state actors. They include multinational corporations, international NGOs, terrorist groups, criminal organizations, and virtual networks of those who share views of important issues. The emergence of these non-state actors is a challenge, not only because the rogues among them can now cause so much damage and are so difficult to regulate or suppress, but also because our international system is not yet structured to give non-state actors a voice, since the principal members of the system (and the institutions that comprise it) are states and their governments.<br /><br />4. Fourth, globalization is producing new issues, most of which can be seen as the need to regulate the flows that globalization has generated: facilitating the positive and restricting the negative. The positive aspect of globalization is that the increased flows of goods, services, and people provides the contemporary world with greater access – to talent, goods and services, financial capital, natural resources, and markets – than ever before. This means more choice, more opportunity, lower cost, and greater benefits. But the negative aspect of globalization is that it gives rise to various kinds of insecurity, many of which can be seen as parts of what some Scandinavian analysts have termed “societal security.”<br /><br />5. The negative aspects of globalization, in turn, are producing the fifth trend: a backlash against globalization. In some cases, this is simply a desire to restrict or regulate negative flows to reduce the perceive risks to societal security. Trade and investment protectionism is the most obvious example of this. But in other cases, the backlash reflects a deeper concern that national or local identities are under threat. This produces a more angry opposition, not only to the negative aspects of globalization, but also to the leaders and governments that have allowed globalization to occur. As opposed to the milder forms of protectionism, this angry and more fundamental opposition to globalization is less compromisable and more likely to lead to violent protest and internal conflict.<br /><br />Now, what kind of international order are these five trends producing?<br /><br />First, any talk of unipolarity has virtually ended. (In my judgment, there never was a unipolar world, even in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War, but there certainly was talk of it. Now, even the talk is fading away.) The United States remains the most powerful single country in the international system, but the rise of other powers, and America’s own weaknesses, mean that it cannot be dominant. Equally important, unipolarity is being replaced not by multipolarity, but by what I call “multimodality” – a system that is characterized by multiple centers in an interconnected network, where the main competition is not over the ability to compel through military force or economic sanction, but over the ability to attract through economic dynamism and cultural appeal.<br /><br />Second, there is a growing demand for international cooperation to address the issues produced by globalization and economic growth. Some of that demand is being reflected in informal, ad hoc networks of collaboration, what some in the U.S. have called “coalitions of the willing.” It is also being embodied in the growth of formal international institutions, some of which have a relatively long history (the UN, the WTO, the World Bank), and others of which are new (the EU, APEC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization). But virtually all of these institutions remain relatively weak and ineffective. Some operate on the basis of consensus – and therefore require a level of common interest and common approach that does not exist. Others embody norms that are not universally accepted. And virtually all have weak powers of enforcement, in an international system that remains largely anarchic.<br /><br />Out of frustration with the shortcomings of international institutions, great powers practice what Richard Haass called “multilateralism a la carte”: they decide both whether to act multilaterally, and which organizations they will utilize when they do. This tendency toward what some call “forum shopping” simply compounds the problem of weak institutions.<br /><br />In short, the trends I have identified are producing a somewhat less anarchic world, but one which is not yet well governed. At most, the international order can be described as a confederal one, in which institutions are weak, non-representative, and insufficiently legitimate. This gap between the need for effective international governance and weak international institutions constitutes lone of the major challenges in the early 21st century. </div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-45216728459705826482010-01-07T17:00:00.001-08:002010-01-07T17:06:27.379-08:00The G-2 Chimera: Fusion or Illusion?<div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This blog represents a revised version of remarks presentation originally prepared for presentation for “G2 at GW”: The Second Conference on China’s Economic Development and U.S.-China Economic Relations, sponsored by the Institute on International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, November 20, 2009. </span></div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><div align="center"><br /><br />- - -<br /><br /></div></span><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">The title and subtitle of this talk, “The G-2 Chimera: Fusion or Illusion?,” may require some explanation. The title refers to two concepts – G-2 and “Chimerica” – that embody, in different ways, the proposition that the bilateral relationship between the United States is uniquely important – that, as Hillary Clinton wrote during the 2008 presidential election campaign, it is “the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century.”</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn2" name="_ednref2"><span style="font-family:arial;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The concept “G-2” is associated most prominently with C. Fred Bergsten, the direct of the Peterson Institute of International Economics.</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn3" name="_ednref3"><span style="font-family:arial;">[2]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> This concept focuses on the roles of China and the United States in the broader international trade and financial system, and their unique ability to set the agenda and possibly forge agreements on a wide range of international issues. China and the U.S. form a G-2, according to Bergsten, because they are the world’s two largest economies, and because they represent the interests of the developing and developed worlds respectively.<br /><br />The term “chimera,” in turn, is a reference to the etymology of the concept of “Chimerica,” which in turn is most closely associated with the Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and, more recently, with author Zachary Karabell.</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn4" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn4" name="_ednref4"><span style="font-family:arial;">[3]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> This second concept focuses less on the two countries’ role in the world than on their high degree of mutual integration, despite their differences in structure and values, such that one country’s economic circumstances strongly influence the other’s. The term is a clever pun, since the original word, “chimera,” refers to the mythological creature that is composed of parts from genetically different animals: originally the head of a goat, the body of a lioness, and the tail of a snake. And of course Ferguson’s revision, “Chimerica,” modifies that word to refer to China (“Chi”) and America (“merica”).<br /><br />The subtitle of my talk, “Fusion or Illusion,” then asks whether the basic proposition common to both concepts – that the U.S.-China relationship is a uniquely important and a uniquely promising pairing -- is likely to be valid. After all, in modern genetics, the term “chimera” refers to a true hybrid – a real animal that comprises genetically distinct cells. But in common English usage, “chimera” retains its original meaning as a work of fiction, a creature of the imagination, rather than something real.<br /><br />In short, what do concepts like the “G-2”say about the relationship between China and the U.S.? Are we talking about two countries that constitute the most economic and political actors in the contemporary world? Or are we talking about what has become a single integrated economy, such that the health of one depends fundamentally on the health of the other? And does either of these premises suggest a genuine hybrid or fusion, created by some new form of international genetic engineering? Or is it, like the original chimera, an illusion, not based on any reality?<br /><br /><br /><strong>The G-2</strong><br /><br /><em>The two largest economies<br /></em><br />Fred Bergsten’s notion of the G-2 is a direct and obvious allusion to the earlier notions of a G-7 or G-8. It implies that because China and the U.S. are the two world’s largest economies, they have a unique ability and responsibility to manage the world economy and may form a more appropriate grouping for economic governance than the G-7 or G-8, or even the G-20. Although, as we will see, this is only one basis for Bergsten’s argument for viewing the two countries as a group of two, it is the version of the G-2 that is most common in policy circles today.<br /><br />It’s certainly true that the U.S. and China are the world’s largest economies, at least on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP). They are also the world’s two largest trading nations. This would seem to create a plausible reason to propose that Washington and Beijing exercise some kind of global economic leadership. The fact that, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the two countries have also formulated and implemented what appear to be the largest and most effective economic stimulus packages also underscores their relative importance.<br /><br />However, although the two countries are the world’s two largest economies, their share of world GDP (again in PPP terms) is not as great as those rankings might suggest. According to the World Bank, total world GDP in 2008 was $69,697,642 million (or $69.7 trillion). Of this, the U.S. accounted for $14.2 trillion, while China accounted for about half as much, or $7.9 trillion. The next two countries, Japan at $4.4 trillion and India at $3.4 trillion, were together about the same size as China. And then came six other countries – Germany, Russia, the U.K., France, Brazil, and Italy, with economies ranging from $1.8 trillion to $2.9 trillion, that together were about the same size as the United States.<br /><br />So it’s hard to assert that the U.S. and China dominate the world economy, even though together they produce almost one-third of global GDP. I find it more value to argue that the top ten countries dominate, responsible for 62% of GDP ($43.2 trillion of $69.7 trillion). And if one wanted to single out subgroups, it would make as much sense to see the U.S. as a G-1, or the U.S., China, India, and Japan as a G-4, as to see China and the U.S. as a G-2.<br /><br />The fact that the U.S. and China do not dominate the world economy as thoroughly as talk of a G-2 implies helps explain the fundamental political reality that other large countries are reluctant to cede global economic leadership to the U.S. and China. If the G-8 has been expanded to the G-20, how can it now be shrunk back to become to the G-2? This is why, in one version of his argument, Bergsten has argued that the two countries “must…operat[e] as a de facto ‘G-2’ without ever announcing or even acknowledging its existence.”[4</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn5" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn5" name="_ednref5"><span style="font-family:arial;">]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Nor does China appear eager to take on this role. Chinese analysts seem flattered that some in the U.S. would regard them as equal to America as a member of a G-2, giving it a status above all other nations, but they seem reluctant to take on the special responsibilities or encounter the likely resentments that accepting that role would entail. And when China becomes powerful enough to do so, would its leaders be willing to maintain a special relationship with the United States – especially one that many Chinese many believe is intended to limit their freedom of action? At the point at which it was reasonable for China to form a G-2 with the U.S., in other words, why would it agree to do so?<br /><br /><br /><em>The established power and the rising power<br /></em><br />A second version of the G-2, also contained in Bergsten’s original vision, stresses the differences in the values and ambitions and China and the U.S., rather than the similarities in their size. Bergsten noted that, as a “poor, significantly nonmarketized, and authoritarian” country, China seemed reluctant to “accept the systemic responsibilities that should ideally accompany superpower status.” Indeed, he went on, “Chinese recalcitrance seems to be increasing rather than decreasing over time.” The risk, again to quote Bergsten, was that China would propose “alternative structures for which China can be present at the creation” – structures in which China would presumably play a greater role, and that would be organized around quite different values than those associated with the United States. Bergsten in particular mentioned low-quality free trade agreements and non-conditional foreign aid packages, but the problem could well apply to other institutions and issues as well.</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn6" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn6" name="_ednref6"><span style="font-family:arial;">[5]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Part of the purpose of Bergsten’s concept of the G-2 was, therefore, to encourage China to accept existing international norms and institutions, rather than to challenge them or replace them, by offering China a unique partnership with the United States. Where the Bush Administration, through then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, had offered China the position of “responsible stakeholder” in the an international order led by the United States, Bergsten was offering China something more – something that he described as a “true leadership position” in that order. More specifically, Bergsten argued that the existing bilateral Strategic Economic Dialogue (which has now evolved into the Strategic and Economic Dialogue) could serve as the mechanism through which that shared leadership could be exercised. Thus, in Bergsten’s vision, the G-2 was only in part a recognition of an existing reality: the size and dynamism of the Chinese economy. Equally, if not more, important, its purpose was to create a new reality: a China that would cooperate with the United States by offering it shared leadership.<br /><br /><br /><em>The largest developed and developing countries</em><br /><br />Also embedded in Bergsten’s concept of the G-2 was still another, slightly different idea. The U.S. and China could appropriately share global leadership as a G-2 not only because they are the world’s two largest economies but also, and perhaps even more importantly, because they are the world’s largest developed and developing countries respectively. If China and the U.S. could reach a consensus on key global issues, that consensus would therefore be able to attract – some would even say compel -- support from others. So far, the issues in question have been primarily trade and climate change, but in the future could also include investment, energy security, development assistance, and possibly others as well. So, for example, if the U.S. and China could reach a consensus on climate change, they would immediately set the agenda for the Copenhagen Conference and for subsequent meetings on the agenda.<br /><br />This version of the G-2, like the others, is rooted in an important reality. It’s true that China and the U.S. are both successful globalizers, and that this gives them more common perspectives than the U.S. would have with more autarkic or protectionist economies (or, for that matter, than it would have had with China itself before the early 1990s). But they still remain at very different levels of development – and of course they have different political and economic systems, which in turn are rooted in different values. That gives them different perspectives on many, if not all, of the global issues listed above.<br /><br />On climate change, for example, each holds that the other – and the larger group of countries it presumably represents – bears the greater responsibility for the problem. Chinese say that the U.S. has the greater responsibility, because it has historically introduced more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Americans say that China has the greater responsibility, because it is now emitting more greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere, and will emit even more in the future. The outcome of the December 2009 Copenhagen conference on climate change shows how difficult it can be for China and the United States to reach a constructive agreement on the issue, despite the confident predictions by some observers that the issue would be the basis for a natural partnership between the two countries. Instead, they could only agree on a document that required no binding goals from developing countries, set no specific emissions targets for the developed world, and contained no reference to negotiating a more binding treaty in the future. And even this minimal achievement involved negotiations between the U.S. and China that were described as highly acrimonious.<br /><br />Or take the global flow of foreign investment. As I understand it, the negotiations between Washington and Beijing over a bilateral investment treaty addressed the issue from two very different angles. The U.S. wanted to reduce the limits on foreign access to direct and indirect investment opportunities in China. The Chinese wanted to gain equal access as any other foreign investment to investment opportunities in the U.S., even in deals that involve advanced technology and critical infrastructure. In effect, Beijing has argued that if British Petroleum was eligible to buy Union Oil (UNOCAL), then the Chinese National Overseas Oil company (CNOOC) should have been eligible to do so as well. The U.S. has countered that, if CNOOC were eligible to buy UNOCAL, then UNOCAL should have been eligible to buy CNOOC. As in trade, China has demanded most-favored-nation status, whereas the U.S. has been more interested in acquiring greater access to the Chinese market.<br /><br />Moreover, even if the two sides were able to agree on these difficult issues, they might not find so easy to bring other developed and developing countries along with them. This could happen if consensus reached by China and the U.S lagged behind what other developed countries desired. (For example, the U.S. and China could conceivably agree on a “deal” on climate change that required few commitments from either country, disappointing the Europeans and the Japanese – basically the outcome that was achieved at Copenhagen.) Or it could occur if the consensus reached by Washington and Beijing went beyond what other developing countries would accept. (For example, China might now be willing to accept market-opening measures that other large economies, such as India, would find objectionable.)<br /><br /><br /><em>The P-2</em><br /><br />Finally, there is a fourth version of the G-2 argument that is not directly relevant to a discussion of U.S.-China economic relations, but that still warrants at least passing mention. I call it, not the G-2, but the P-2, proposition: that China and the U.S. are the world’s most important military and geopolitical powers. In other words, just as the G-8 should really be seen as a G-2, so should the UN Security Council’s P-5 really be regarded as a P-2, since the U.S. and China are so much more important than the other three permanent members of the body. And just as some argue that, as the world’s largest developed and developing countries, if China and the U.S. can reach a consensus on global issues, they can set the agenda for the rest of the world, so too do others argue that, if China and the U.S. can work together as a concert of powers, they can assure stability in the Asia-Pacific region and can virtually impose solutions on major sub-regional issues both inside the region (e.g., North Korea) and elsewhere (e.g., Iran)<br /><br />Again, the idea of a P-2 is rooted in an important reality. Increasingly, China and the U.S. share common interest in geopolitical stability, counter-terrorism, and non-proliferation. And together, they have levels of comprehensive national power that can encourage – if not compel – solutions to key global and regional problems.<br /><br />However, it is equally true that the two countries also different interests when it comes to specific issues. For example, their common interest in the denuclearization of North Korea and Iran counterbalanced somewhat offset by China’s interests in the stability and survival of the North Korean regime, and access to Iranian energy supplies – neither of which is an interest shared by the United States. In addition, the two countries have quite different preferences as to international strategy. Washington is far more willing to envision the use of economic and military sanctions than is China, and far more willing to engage in humanitarian intervention that is unwelcome to the government of the country in question. As I have argued elsewhere, this reflects China’s preference for a set of international norms that reflect the Westphalian values of equality, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity, whereas the U.S. prefers a post-modern international system that can impinge on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states that violate post-modern norms of non-proliferation and human rights.<br /><br />These differences are significant in themselves, in that they limit the ability of the U.S. and China to agree, as a P-2, on how to handle major political and security issues. Equally important, they exacerbate the mistrust that already characterizes the relationship between a rising power and an established power that have a recent history of conflict and competition and that have very different political systems.<br /><br />And, of course, the other members of the existing P-5 do not want their positions diluted by the creation, however informal, of a P-2. And other major rising powers – including Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, want the UN Security Council to include them. Each of them also has significant resources – military, economic, diplomatic – to bring to the work of global leadership, with some potentially playing critically important roles on particular international issues.<br /><br />Moreover, there are other stakeholders who would resent and even fear a Sino-American strategic condominium. This would include many of America’s Asian allies, who are important partners in the U.S. hedging strategy against China that, in turn, stems from the mistrust I have just mentioned. Most of them take what I call the “Goldilocks” approach to U.S.-China relations: they want the relationship to be not too hot, not too cold, but “just right.”<br /><br />So just as the G-7 is more likely to be replaced by a G-20 than by a G-2, so is the P-5 more likely to evolve into a P-9 than to devolve into a P-2.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Chimerica</strong><br /><br />As noted above, the concept of Chimerica, associated with Niall Ferguson, is slightly different than Fred Bergsten’s concept of the G-2. The G-2 singles out China and the U.S. because of their potential role in the international community. Chimerica singles them out because of their high degree of economic interdependence. In fact, the title of a recent book by Zachary Karabell, Superfusion, pushes the concept even further, saying that the level of interdependence is so great that the two countries have been “fused” into “one economy.” However, despite this underlying similarity, Karabell and Ferguson interpret the high degree of interdependence between China and the U.S. in two quite different ways, highly positive and highly negative, respectively.<br /><br /><br /><em>Healthy hybrid or dangerous monster?</em><br /><br />Zachary Karabell takes an optimistic view of the growing integration between China and the U.S. The “fusion” of the Chinese and American economies creates, in his view, considerable commercial benefits for both Americans and Chinese: greater availability of consumer and capital goods, and greater opportunities for investment. Moreover, because the U.S.-China economic relationship also benefits the rest of the world as well, since American imports from China also involve the export, to China, of components and raw materials from many other countries. That explains the second half of the subtitle of Karabell’s book, which posits that “the world’s prosperity” depends on the fusion of the Chinese and American economies.<br /><br />In addition, according to Karabell, the economic integration of China and the U.S. produces greater requirements for economic cooperation and thus introduces greater stability into a previously volatile U.S-China relationship. The two countries’ commercial and financial economic interdependence has created a kind of “mutually assured destruction” reminiscent of the Cold War, except the mutual destruction would be economic, rather than nuclear, and the interdependence generates positive cooperation to enhance mutual gain, rather than merely negative cooperation to prevent nuclear war.<br /><br />Karabell’s positive view of the economic and political implications of Chimerica leads him to argue the economic relationship between the two countries should be deepened and institutionalized. In a recent essay, for example, Karabell has proposed that the U.S. and China form a “joint central bank” to “determine interest rates and currency pegs,” and that the U.S. stop reviewing proposed Chinese investments in the U.S. for their security implications.</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn7" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn7" name="_ednref7"><span style="font-family:arial;">[6]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />In contrast, Niall Ferguson focuses on the unhealthy aspects of the relationship. His argument is not just that the two economies are interdependent, but that their interdependent relationship is imbalanced. The U.S. has been running a continuous trade deficit with China since the mid 1980s, while China has been accumulating excessive levels of U.S. dollar reserves. This imbalanced, “symbiotic” relationship, as Ferguson calls it, reflects the deeper problem that China has a far higher national savings rate than the U.S. These imbalances were an ultimate cause of the current global financial crisis.</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn8" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn8" name="_ednref8"><span style="font-family:arial;">[7]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> And unless they are reduced, there will be a continuing risk to the stability of the international financial order. A continuing American trade deficit will imperil the value of the U.S. dollar, threaten higher interest rates, and thus jeopardize the sustainability of American economic growth. Conversely, a continuing Chinese surplus will create the a risk of asset bubbles and inflation at home and abroad, due to the huge amount of liquidity generated by the buildup of China’s dollar-denominated reserves. The U.S. and China need to cooperate in managing their interdependent economies, but the reason to do so is not just to generate mutual gain, but to prevent mutual loss. Indeed, the ultimate objective, according Ferguson and his colleague Moritz Schularick, should be to either kill this “economic monster” or else allow it to die the “peaceful death it deserves.”</span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn9" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_edn9" name="_ednref9"><span style="font-family:arial;">[8]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><em>But does Chimerica really exist, or can it be created?</em><br /><br />But to what extent does the chimera-like relationship between China and the U.S. actually exist? Of course the two countries are interdependent, but perhaps not to the degree that much popular discussion seems to assume. Once again, a focus on rankings and an examination of shares produces two quite different analyses.<br /><br />Rankings of the two countries’ mutual importance to each other do suggest that China and the U.S. have become highly interdependent. In 2008, the U.S. was China’s number one trade partner, while China was America’s number two trading partner. As with the concept of the G-2, ranking, or relative size, has helped produce the concept of Chimerica. At the same time, the degree of interdependence is further deepened by the nature of trade – by the fact that it is generated by highly sophisticated transnational production and consumption networks centered in the two countries – and by the associated capital flows that both generate the trade (in the form of direct investment) and are produced by the trade (in the form of China’s increased holdings of U.S. dollar denominated assets).<br /><br />But each country’s share in the other’s global trade patterns is less than the rankings might suggest. As noted, last year China was America’s number two trade partner, but it accounted for only 12% of America’s global trade. Last year the U.S. was China’s number one trade partner, but the U.S. accounted for 13% of China’s global trade. The numbers are obviously much higher for certain sectors and for certain regions of both countries, but these national statistics would surprise many of those who believed that the two economies are joined at the hip.<br /><br />The same is true of China’s holdings of U.S. Treasurys. To hear many commentators tell it, when Barack Obama visited China, he was visiting America’s banker. In fact, as of the end of August, China held less than a quarter of American sovereign debt held by foreigners: $797 billion of $3,449. (And, of course, around half of U.S. sovereign debt is held by American investors, making them, not China or Japan, the U.S. government’s most important lender.) Indeed, Obama actually visited two of America’s bankers on his visit to Asia, since Japan holds another $731 billion in U.S. Treasurys, or 22% of the total. From a financial perspective, perhaps what we are witnessing is not “Chimerica” but “Chijapica” – a tripartite image that might be more faithful to the original vision of a chimera as part lion, part goat, and part snake.<br /><br />And to what degree does the interdependence of the Chinese and American economies produce pressures for even greater fusion? Interdependence has almost certainly stabilized the overall bilateral relationship to a significant degree, for all the reasons mentioned above. But it also has long generated complaints from each side that the other is benefitting more – in other words, a disagreement about how to assess the relative gains to the economic relationship. And it is also producing a debate over responsibility that parallels the debate over climate change: the two sides agree that there is a dangerous problem that needs to be addressed, but differ over who is responsible and what should be done.<br /><br />Karabell laments that this resistance to the further integration of the two economies is irrational. But rational or not, the opposition limits the possibility that U.S.-China economic relationship will achieve a high degree of “fusion.” The term might be appropriate if they two countries had formed an economic union, which is the highest institutional form of economic integration, or even a common market, which is one step less. But they do not even have a free trade agreement and, given the difference in economic structure and level of development, it is difficult to imagine that they will be taking this first step any time soon. Even Ferguson’s recent proposal that the U.S. promise a continued commitment to free trade in exchange for Chinese promise to revalue the renminbi will be difficult to implement.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Conclusion</strong><br /><br />My task was to give a charge to this conference by introducing the concept of the G-2. I’ve done so by setting out my understanding not only of the concept that China and the U.S. play uniquely important roles in the international political and economic systems, but also of the closely related, yet not identical, idea that they form a highly integrated economy known as “Chimerica.” I’ve noted that each of these two concepts, in turn, has spawned several variants. I’ve identified four versions of the G-2, and two versions of “Chimerica.” The G-2 idea is based variously on the notions that China and the U.S. are the world’s two largest economies, that they have different views of the international economic order, that they can represent the developing and developed worlds respectively, and that they are also uniquely key to the management of global and regional political and security matters. The concept of Chimerica means that the Chinese and American economies have become highly interdependent, but one version sees this as a positive development that should be deepened and institutionalized, while another version sees it as troubling phenomenon that should be significantly redefined as soon as possible.<br /><br />But how accurate are these various descriptions of the U.S.-China relationship? My own view is that these two sets of idea carry important insights, but like so many concepts that capture the public imagination, they are subject to quite different definitions, oversimplify a complex reality, and imply controversial policy implications that are an uncertain guide to action.<br /><br />My conclusion is that the depth of economic integration beyond mere trade and investment flows (the basic phenomenon behind the concept of Chimerica) is likely to be limited. To the extent that the economic integration of the two countries has occurred, I find Ferguson’s concern about the unhealthy nature of the two countries’ financial interdependence to be more persuasive than Karabell’s more benign portrait.<br /><br />I have also concluded that the degree to which U.S. and China occupy singularly important places in the global political economy (and thus constituting a G-2) is likely to be limited. True, there will be some issues (such as climate change) where China and the U.S. will together form the biggest part of the problem, and others (such as the North Korean nuclear program) where they might together provide the most important elements of a solution. But even here, China and the U.S. will not monopolize either the problem or the solution. Other actors, both other large developed economies and other major emerging markets, will be critically important as well: Japan and South Korea on the North Korean issue; India, Brazil, the EU, and Japan on climate change. This will be equally, if not even more true, for other major regional and global issues. And, as we have seen on issues ranging from climate change to the Iranian nuclear program, the degree of policy cooperation that they will be able to achieve may not be as great as the proponents of the G-2 would hope.<br /><br />And from a strategic perspective, concepts that single out one country – China – to occupy a uniquely important place in U.S. foreign policy is not necessarily wise. Indeed, the concepts of a G-2 and a Chimerica represent the most recent example of our historic obsession with China, whether as partner or rival, sometimes to the neglect of other important international actors and problems. By contrasting the G-2 with the G-20 and the P-5, and by pointing to the role of Japan and other major actors (including American domestic investors) as buyers of U.S. Treasurys, I’ve tried to suggest that concepts that continue to that limit our focus to China may blind us to the challenges and opportunities that lie beyond Beijing.<br /><br />For all these reasons, then, my conclusion is that the U.S.-China relationship forms a very incomplete hybrid -- the U.S.-China chimera may therefore be more illusion than fusion. </span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><div align="center"><br /><br />- - -<br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref1" name="_edn1"></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><div align="left"><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref2" name="_edn2"><span style="font-family:arial;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Hillary Clinton, “Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century,” Foreign Affairs, 86:6 (November-December 2007), pp. 2-18. This presumably replaced America’s relationships with Britain, the Soviet Union, and Japan, which at various points were described as the most important bilateral relationships in the world in the last century. To paraphrase Tom Wolfe’s brilliant line about trendy New York restaurants in Bonfire of the Vanities (“this week’s restaurant of the decade”), the U.S.-China relationship has become this decade’s relationship of the century.<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref3" name="_edn3"><span style="font-family:arial;">[2]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> On the G-2, see C. Fred Bergsten, “A Partnership of Equals: How Washington Should Respond to China’s Economic Challenge,” Foreign Affairs, 87:4 (July-August 2008), pp. 57-69; and Bergsten, Pacific Asia and the Asia Pacific: Choices for APEC,” Policy Brief PB09-16 (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, July 2009).<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn4" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref4" name="_edn4"><span style="font-family:arial;">[</span></a>3] <span style="font-family:arial;"> On Chimerica,” see Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick, “’Chimerica’ and the Global Asset Market Boom,” International Finance, 10:3 (2007), pp. 215-39; Ferguson and Schularick, “The Great Wallop,” New York Times, November 16, 2009; Zachary Karabell, Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends On It (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009); and Karabell, “On China Trip, Lose the Old Baggage,” Washington Post, November 8, 2009.<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn5" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref5" name="_edn5"><span style="font-family:arial;">[4]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Bergsten, “Pacific Asia and the Asia Pacific,” p. 3.<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn6" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref6" name="_edn6"><span style="font-family:arial;">[5]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Bergsten, “A Partnership of Equals.”<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn7" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref7" name="_edn7"><span style="font-family:arial;">[6]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Karabell, “For China Trip, Lose the Old Baggage”<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn8" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref8" name="_edn8"><span style="font-family:arial;">[7]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ferguson and Schularick, “’Chimerica’ and the Global Asset Market Boom.”<br /><br /></span><a style="mso-endnote-id: edn9" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ednref9" name="_edn9"><span style="font-family:arial;">[8]</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ferguson and Schularick, “The Great Wallop.”</span></div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-60315257471270516382010-01-07T00:52:00.000-08:002010-01-07T00:56:06.173-08:00Are Americans Ready for the Rise of China?<span style="font-family:arial;">The rise of China is not entirely assured – the country has many internal contradictions that could pose significant problems – but I think the most likely scenario is that the growth of China will continue for the foreseeable future, that the balance of power between China and the U.S. will shift in China’s direction, and that China will adopt a more assertive foreign policy. Are Americans ready for this development? The short answer, I’m afraid, is no.<br /><br />First of all, a strong China is a phenomenon with which Americans have no historical experience. From the founding of the U.S. up until quite recently, China has been experiencing a long period of national weakness (indeed, from the Chinese perspective, 150 years of “national humiliation,” followed by thirty years of highly uneven performance under Mao Zedong). Although Americans feared the spread of Chinese-supported revolutionary movements in the Third World Maoist ideology in the 1960s and early 1970s, this aspect of Chinese foreign policy reflected China’s weakness, not its strength. The customary American predisposition is that the U.S. should help a poor China develop, preferably following an American model. That teacher-student orientation no longer fits a rapidly changing reality of a China that is becoming wealthier, stronger, and increasingly self-confident. For the U.S., the new reality is completely unprecedented.<br /><br />Not only is China rising, but it is the first potential rival of the United States that is accumulating all dimensions of national power. With its ideological appeal waning and with its planned economy inefficient, the Soviet Union had become, by the 1960s, primarily a military power, resting on a weak economic base. Japan had an attractive popular and traditional culture, but it placed severe restrictions on the development of its military capabilities so that, when it rose to global status in the 1980s, it did so almost exclusively as an economic power. China, in contrast, is poised soon to become the world’s largest economic power (terms of aggregate GDP measured in purchasing power parity terms), is developing more extensive force projection capabilities, and is trying to enhance its soft power. That too is unprecedented in the American experience as a superpower.<br /><br />At the same time that China is rising, the U.S. appears to be stumbling. American soft power has been undermined by its domestic and foreign policy problems, its economic power has been hampered by the global financial crisis and by its high levels of indebtedness, and its military power is strained by the simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although there is still a large power gap between the U.S. and China, that gap is narrowing, at least on the economic and military dimensions. Moreover, unlike China, which remains almost exclusively an Asian power, the U.S. must project its power resources on a global stage. That makes it more difficult for the U.S. to continue to be the dominant, or at least preeminent, power in Asia. This suggests the limited utility of our tendency to see the future course of China as the key variable that will shape the evolution of U.S.-China relations as the future course of China. To me, ensuring a vibrant Asia and a strong America that remains actively engaged with Asia is equally important.<br /><br />There is still a tendency in some quarters to dismiss the risks posed by a rising China. As James Mann pointed out several years ago in his provocative book, The China Fantasy, many observers assign what he and I both regard as excessively high probabilities to two “soothing scenarios” about the future of China: one that China will soon become democratic, the other that China will experience some kind of internal crisis. Of course, one could argue that neither of these two scenarios is all that “soothing”: a democratic China could, at least in its early decades, be characterized by a high level of popular nationalism, and a decaying China could present its neighbors (and indeed the rest of the world) with a variety of transnational security problems. But the more important problem with these two scenarios is that their probabilities, in my judgment, are not that high.<br /><br />Nor is the probability of a third “soothing scenario,” more recent in vintage: that even if it does not experience democratization, China will be compelled by its own national interests to form a highly cooperative partnership with the United States to address common bilateral, regional, and global issues. It is perfectly appropriate for the two sides to say that they want to create such a relationship, and on that basis to try to promote their collaboration. And certainly the two countries will find areas in which they will be able to cooperate effectively. It is naïve, however, to assume that the U.S.-China relationship will ever involve by unalloyed cooperation on all major issues. Rather, the China-U.S. relationship will be characterized by a complex blend of cooperation and competition. China will be competing with the United States as it tries to develop its comprehensive national power. And even as Beijing shares common interests with Washington on a number of important international issues, it will often differ over how to allocate the costs and benefits of cooperation, or how to define the best strategies for advancing those common goals.<br /><br />This runs up against another problem in our approach to China: Americans have a tendency to view other major powers in black-or-white terms – as either allies or adversaries. That is especially true of China, with whom we have historically had a “love-hate” relationship that oscillates from one extreme to another. Just as we have little experience in dealing with a strong China, nor do we have much experience in dealing with a China that simultaneously both a partner and a competitor. Seeing China as a potential enemy runs the risk of being a self-fulfilling hypothesis. But, at the same time, seeing China as a uniquely important partner in dealing with common problems runs the risk of excessive naiveté.<br /><br />The good news is that our mainstream China policy combines, in proper balance, the desire to build a more cooperative relationship with China and the foresight to hedge against less desirable outcomes. Any departure from that mainstream – be it the Bush Administration’s early declaration that it regarded China simply as our “strategic competitor” or the Obama Administration’s overly enthusiastic description of the U.S.-China relationship as “the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century”—is likely to be criticized, no longer to be replaced with the opposite orientation, but rather to be adjusted so that the U.S. returns to its mainstream policy<br /><br />But the bad news is that we will have to develop a more objective and more pragmatic understanding of China, and above all to build a stronger material and ideational base for dealing with China, for that balanced policy to be implemented effectively.</span>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-45354157922238207572010-01-07T00:48:00.000-08:002010-01-07T00:52:06.674-08:00Why Hasn't China Democratized?<div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">This essay is based on a talk given at the World Affairs Council of Northern California on October 5, 2009.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><div align="center">- - -<br /></div></span><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />With the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989 now well behind us, it’s time to reflect on its implications. In the immediate aftermath of that crisis, more than two decades ago now, a significant number of observers confidentially predicted that the Chinese Communist leadership would not survive for long, and that China was on the verge of some kind of democratic revolution. Those predictions have gone unfulfilled. And the obvious and important question is: why not?<br /><br />The answer to that question lies in the fact that none of the drivers that might have promoted democratic change has been powerful enough to have that effect. Indeed, some of them have not even pointed in that direction. Four of these drivers deserve particular attention:<br /><br />1. The domestic strategy of the CCP. Given the severity of the Tiananmen Crisis, it was possible to think that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party might embark on some type of democratic reform, so as to make their political system more resilient. To be sure, there were a few indications of such a development: the endorsement of eventual democratization by some national leaders and intellectuals, continued experiments with elections above the village level, and some talk of greater democratization within the Chinese Communist Party itself. Analogies with Taiwan (competitive grass-roots elections gradually moving up to higher levels of the political system and becoming more pluralistic) and with Japan (factionalism within the ruling party as a limited form of political pluralism) suggested that such developments would be very much in keeping with the modern East Asian experience with gradual, even limited, democratization.<br /><br />Despite these hopeful signs, however, the Chinese Communist Party has not chosen democratization as its strategy for increasing the stability of the political system. Direct elections remain confined to the lowest levels, with nominations usually controlled by the Party. The scope and freedom of action of non-governmental organizations remain limited. Any factionalism within the Party is carefully hidden. The press is under tight restrictions, as is the internet and the blogosphere. <br /><br />Instead of movement toward pluralism, let alone democracy, the Party has placed its emphasis on constructing more consultative forms of authoritarianism (thus continuing the approach that first became apparent just before the Tiananmen Crisis in the late 1980s) and on creating a more professional, responsive, and proficient bureaucracy. Party leaders seem concerned that greater pluralism will be too risky, not only to their grip on power, but also to the continuation of domestic and foreign policies that they regard as essential but that many parts of the public find unpopular. Thus they continue to base the legitimacy of the Party and the Chinese political system more broadly on performance, not on democratic procedures. <br /><br />2. The middle class. One of the most powerful drivers promoting democracy was said to be the rise of China’s urban middle class, the result now of three decades of rapid economic development. Based on the example of Western Europe in the early modern era, the assumption was that this new middle class would demand a greater voice in Chinese politics, and that this would be an irresistible force promoting at least limited democratic reforms.<br /><br />But this forecast was based not only on a misreading of the situation in China, but also on an inaccurate generalization of the experience in Western Europe. The experience of Western Europe actually suggests simply that a rising middle class will want its interests respected and protected. If the state is not willing to do so voluntarily, then the middle class will see some combination of liberalization and pluralism – in other words, some degree of democratization – as the only way to acquire that voice. But if the state attends to the interests of the middle class, as well as to those of the aristocracy and the highest economic elites, then the middle class may not feel the need for democratization.<br /><br />And, in fact, most of the interests of China’s middle class – rapid economic growth, expanding economic opportunity, and greater protection of most property rights (other than land and intellectual property) -- have been respected by the economic policies of the Chinese Communist Party. Intellectuals, potentially the most dangerous part of the middle class, have been rewarded with higher salaries and somewhat greater freedom of academic expression. Moreover, the middle class has also been given some degree of political voice, both through the consultative mechanisms mentioned above, and also by its representatives into the Party through the “three represents” recruitment policy associated with former president Jiang Zemin. This combination of economic benefit and political cooptation has kept middle class opposition to the Communist Party to a minimum.<br /><br />Moreover, many members of the middle class seem to share the Party’s concern about the possible dangers of democratization. In an increasingly unequal society, the middle class is alarmed by the possibility of that giving more democratic voice to the lower classes would lead to demands for more redistributive and populist policies. A frequent mantra from China’s middle classes is that the low levels of education of the poor, especially in the rural areas, would make democracy unfeasible and undesirable for China. In previous centuries, it was possible to start democratization with mechanisms that limited the enfranchisement of the lower classes first through various property restrictions on the right to vote, then through poll taxes, and in some places through the creation of special classes of seats (an appointed or indirectly elected upper house or functional constituencies, as in Hong Kong). Those restrictions are far less feasible in today’s world, where it is probably easier to resist any form of democratization than to limit the beneficiaries of the process to privileged urban classes.<br /><br />3. Popular pressure. In terms of numbers, the greatest threat to the Chinese communist Party would be pressures for democratization from China’s working classes, in both urban and rural areas. This is also a potential driver for democratization, given the widespread grievances over a large number of issues, ranging from environmental problems to corruption to disputes over state appropriation of property. <br /><br />There has indeed been a significant increase in local protests over the last decade, but they have remained localized and they have generally focused on a redress of grievance rather than on democratic reforms. Moreover, the Party has developed a successful strategy for coping with the protests: address the problem, deal leniently with most of the participants in the protests, but crack down on the leaders. Above all, the Party has tried to portray the problems as specific local issues that do not reflect any broader structural issues.<br /><br />What is most discouraging to the proponents of democratization in China is that the Party has not been significantly challenged even when issues have arisen that have not been purely local. These have included, most notably, the collapse of elementary schools during the recent Sichuan earthquake, which was regional in scope, and the melamine and other product safety scandals, which were national in scope. These problems could not easily be blamed on individual local officials, as is the case with most other local issues in China. Even so, they did not lead to protests on a scale that the authorities found difficult to deal with. Nor did the major national anniversaries of 2009 (the ninetieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, or even the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Crisis) serve as the occasion for any widespread protest.<br /><br />The biggest exception to these generalizations has been the riots and protests in minority areas, especially Tibet and Xinjiang. These have been large in scale and violent in conduct. Even so, the authorities have had little difficulty in suppressing them. And, perhaps most important, they have not triggered sympathetic protests among Han Chinese. On the contrary, the Tibetan and Uighur protests have been largely condemned by the bulk of the Chinese population.<br /><br />4. “Democratic contagion.” A final driver would be the positive examples of democratic transition in other countries of relevance to China. One reason for optimism about the prospects for democratization in China in the years immediately after the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989 were the transitions to democracy in other state socialist societies, most notably the European states in 1989 and then many constituents of the former Soviet Union (especially Russia itself) in 1991. This occurred at about the same time that other countries in Asia were also experiencing democratic reforms, including the Philippines (the fall of Marcos in 1986), Taiwan (the first direct presidential elections in 1986), and South Korea (first direct presidential elections the following year).<br /><br />However, within a few years, the democratic tide outside China began to crest and then recede. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, and Russia’s subsequent loss of status as a global power, could be persuasively portrayed in China as a negative side-effect of democratization. The polarized political scene on Taiwan in the 1990s, the difficulties experienced by the United States in promoting democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s, and the seeming difficulty of some Western democracies in dealing with the financial crisis of 2008-09, could also be successfully used by Chinese leaders to discredit democratic institutions, especially when created in developing countries and in times of economic difficulty.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /> </div></span><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;"> - - -</span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><div align="left"><br /><br />This analysis suggests that the absence of democratization in China, rather than posing a mystery that is difficult to explain, is actually over-determined. None of the drivers that might have led to democratic reforms appears to have been particularly powerful.<br /><br />This all might change, of course, if any of the drivers is activated, singly or in combination: if the international environment appears to make democratization inevitable, if issues arise that mobilize popular protest on a scale that cannot be kept localized, if the middle class becomes dissatisfied with the performance of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, or if the Party itself decides that its prospects are better if it begins, rather than postpones, democratic reforms. None of these conditions appears likely at the moment, but each of them needs to be carefully monitored for the prospect of change.</span></div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-40219607313713789532009-10-29T11:52:00.000-07:002009-10-29T12:05:36.875-07:00Public Policy in a Globalized WorldOne of the most exciting parts of my new job at the Batten School is to learn about the public policy issues facing the United States. In my inaugural lecture as dean, I spoke about one particularly important aspect of the American public policy agenda: the fact that public policy is being made in an increasingly globalized world, in ways that affect both the substance of policy and the process by which it is formulated.<br /><div align="center"><br /></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center">- - -</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">One of the most exciting challenges in building a new school of public policy at the University of Virginia is to design a curriculum that is suitable to the dramatic changes that are occurring in the twenty-first century. A school of public policy freshly designed today will look quite different, I think, from a school of public policy that was organized forty years ago, let alone eighty years ago.<br /><br />One of the most important of these contextual changes – although not, as we will see, the only one – is globalization. Both the practice and the teaching of public policy must take into increasing account the fact that public policy is being formulated in a globalized world.<br /><br />I want to address this topic under three headings: </div><ol><li><div align="left">What do we mean by globalization, and why is the process of globalization occurring? </div></li><li><div align="left">How is globalization affecting the public policy agenda in countries like the United States? </div></li><li><div align="left">Equally important, how is globalization affecting the process by which public policy is made?<br /></div></li></ol><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>Globalization: what and why? </em></div><div align="left"><em><br /></em>By globalization I mean the increasing level of interaction across national borders. This involves not just the flow of goods – the increasing volume of trade with which we are so familiar – but also the increasing flow of capital, people, technology, ideas, and viruses – both biological and electronic.<br /><br />As my reference to viruses suggests, these flows can be either negative or positive in their impacts. Trade can involve trade of consumer goods and advanced technology, or trade in illicit drugs or the precursors for weapons of mass destruction. The flow of capital can finance productive investment, or create unhealthy asset bubbles. People crossing national borders can include tourists, businesspeople, and migrant workers; but also criminals, terrorists, or illegal immigrants. Ideas that cross borders can spark further innovation, or be regarded as alien and subversive. And alongside computer viruses and biological viruses can flow polluted water, smog, and greenhouse gases.<br /><br />Why is this increased interaction occurring? Thomas Friedman has famously argued that globalization is a “fact, not a choice.” In reality, it is a bit of both.<br /><br />The basic fact is that there have been several revolutions in technology that are facilitating globalization, by increasing the speed and reducing the cost of international transactions.<br /><br />Many of the revolutions in speed actually occurred sometime ago. We do not communicate that much faster today than we did in the age of the telegraph and the telephone. E-mails and text messages travel at the same speed as telegrams and telephone calls – they are virtually instantaneous, although e-mails, text messages, and now phone calls no longer need the intermediacy of an operator to send them or place them. Similarly, we do not travel by sea that much faster than in the steamships of 100 years ago, or by road that much faster than the cars of 50 years ago. (In fact, because of congestion, road travel may be slower in some places.) Nor are simple calculations of today’s computers that much quicker than those of the first electronic calculators.<br /><br />But other recent technological revolutions have involved speed – especially when we add to our assessment the volume of transactions that can occur at a given speed. Not only are jet aircraft faster than propeller planes, but the most modern generation of passenger jets can fly longer ranges without refueling and can carry far more people. Even more impressive is the volume of transactions that computers can handle, such that the centralized institutional computer center – exemplified by the annex next to Garrett Hall here on Grounds – is largely obsolete, replaced by much smaller although equally powerful desktops.<br /><br />Perhaps most important, the cost of these transactions has collapsed. What was once prohibitively expensive (an international telegram or a transoceanic phone call) is now virtually cost-free – at least in terms of its marginal cost (an international e-mail or a phone call through Skype). And what was already affordable is now vastly more capable (today’s notebook computer compared with a laptop even ten years ago). According to data that I once learned from Joseph Nye, if the cost of automobiles had fallen at the same rate as the cost of computers, the most recent model of the Fiat convertible that I bought as a graduate student in the early 1970s would cost only $5 today.<br /><br />Friedman is correct when he says that these technological facts are a major driver facilitating globalization, because they make the international transactions so much faster and cheaper. But that is not to say that globalization has not also involved choices. The present era of globalization is the result of societal decisions to reduce the barriers that once restricted the flows of goods, capital, people and ideas. China’s decision to move from autarky under Mao Zedong to integration with the global economy under Deng Xiaoping and his successors is perhaps the most dramatic example. The creation of economic unions (like the EU) and free trade agreements (like NAFTA) are somewhat less dramatic but equally important examples of choices to reduce the barriers to international economic, commercial, and societal interaction.<br /><br />But just as some societies have chosen to eliminate barriers, others have chosen to retain them, all or in part. North Korea remains highly autarkic. India retains high barriers to incoming investment. Countries like India, although gradually liberalizing, remain highly protective. Even China, despite its overall embrace of globalization, retains various restrictions on imports, incoming foreign direct investment, and internet communication.<br /><br />Nor are the decisions to liberalize necessarily permanent. Even in normal times, some aspects of globalization – the lower barriers to trade, investment, and migration – are highly controversial and contested, as the major demonstrations against the WTO and the G-8 in major cities have demonstrated. In the current global financial crisis we have seen an upsurge of trade and investment protectionism, as well as calls for tougher restrictions on illegal immigrants. And were there a major terrorist attack that targeted international aircraft, or that utilized international shipping to carry WMD, we would see – at least temporarily – the imposition of quite draconian restrictions.<br /><br />Given these revolutions in both technological facts and policy choices, it is perfectly appropriate to ask whether the present levels of globalization are unprecedented. To some extent, the answer is “no,” in that societies have been interacting with one another, people have been on the move, and diseases have been migrating from one society to another throughout human history. Arguably, in fact, this is the third great wave of globalization that has risen over the last four centuries, during the era of the modern nation-state. Other waves of increased intersocietal interaction occurred far before that.<br /><br />But other aspects of globalization are arguably unprecedented. With lower costs and greater volumes, the nature of interaction changes. Today we see not just interaction but interdependence where, for many economies, transborder interactions constitute a more and more important part of the national economy. We see not just trade between societies but transnational production processes, where capital, technology, and components flow across borders, as well as the final goods themselves. Similarly, in the cultural sphere, we see not simply the exchange between different artistic, philosophical, and religious schools - -as we have for centuries – but the emergence of transnational cultural communities, in which the national origin of artists and philosophers becomes far less relevant than their membership in the same cultural community. Increasingly, in fact, the country in which a particular product or service or cultural artifact originated is difficult to determine.<br /><br />Moreover, it is correct to say that the choice to liberalize or restrict is far more bounded now than it was in previous decades. Some flows – particularly of airborne and waterborne pollutants – do not respect boundaries at all. And other flows – terrorists, viruses, and tainted products – are difficult to restrict. There is an increasingly obvious opportunity cost to countries that fail to open up or those that choose to tighten up. And once the process begins, there are vested interests in societies that want to keep borders open, just as there are those who want to tighten border controls.<br /><br />Still, although the extent of globalization is unprecedented, and although the possibility of significant and lasting retrogression is low, the process of globalization is by no means complete. Just as it was premature to declare the “end of history” – the elimination of all alternatives to liberal democracy hypothesis was premature -- so may it be misleading to posit the “end of geography,” as those analysts who see the irreversibility and universality of globalization often imply. Not only have some countries chosen to opt out of globalization, or else to severely restrict the process, but more importantly some parts of some societies remain insulated from the rest of the international world economy, often by the lack of infrastructure to connect them to the globalized world, or else by the fact that the cost of connection is more than they can afford.</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><em>How does globalization affect public policy?</em><br /></div><p align="left">The process of globalization, produced by these facts and choices, affects public policy in several ways:<br /><br />First, more and more public policy issues in the U.S. have become transnational in nature, blurring previous distinctions between domestic policy and foreign policy. Although these issues have a direct impact on U.S. society, their origins lie at least in part outside America’s borders. Let me cite a few examples:</p><ul><li><div align="left">The availability of high quality, inexpensive imported goods has created a challenge --sometimes an insurmountable challenge – to American manufacturing. Although unemployment and job insecurity have many sources, one is clearly the rise of foreign firms that can compete more effectively for American markets now that the barriers to trade have been reduced. This pattern is complicated by the fact that many of these foreign factories are subsidiaries or branches of American firms, such that they have access to American technology, management, designs, brands, and marketing channels –as well as to the American market. Macroeconomic policy in globalized societies is now inherently transnational.</div></li><li><div align="left">The character of American financial markets is strongly influenced by the availability of capital from abroad. Foreign investors influence the prices of American real estate, the value of American equities, and American interest rates. The recent financial crisis was the result, in large part, of the availability of large volumes of liquidity from abroad. Here, too, financial policy must take international developments into full account.</div></li><li><div align="left">Immigration to the United States – both legal and illegal – is shaped by the political stability and economic vitality of the societies from which the migrants come. Although opportunities in the American economy produce an important “pull” for foreign immigrants, unsettled circumstances in their home countries still constitutes an important “push.”</div></li><li><div align="left">National security in the U.S. was once seen almost entirely as the deterrence of, or defense against, attacks by foreign armies, air forces, or missiles against America and its allies. Now, homeland security represents the defense of the U.S. and its interests against attacks that could well occur on American soil, but are often launched or coordinated from abroad by international terrorist organizations.</div></li><li><div align="left">Increasingly, threats to public health are posed by diseases that come to the U.S. from abroad, whether acute diseases like SARS, avian flu, swine flu, or (potentially) the Ebola virus, or chronic diseases like HIV-AIDS.</div></li><li><div align="left">The concern with energy security represents the acknowledgement that the price and availability of energy in the U.S. – especially oil – is increasingly affected by the decisions of foreign governments or the ability to foreign terrorist groups to disrupt the flow of crude oil by pipeline or tanker. </div></li></ul><p>Most generally, we can say that globalization, because it still involves choice, is itself a transnational policy issue. Although Friedman is probably correct in saying that, in its most fundamental sense, globalization has become a fact for the United States and most other economies, the details of that choice are changeable and thus remain matters of debate. Trade policy, energy policy, investment policy, immigration policy, and energy policy are controversial in the U.S. precisely because globalization itself is controversial: the benefits are uneven, and there are costs in terms of the limitations on sovereignty and the correct sense of vulnerability to external forces beyond our control.<br /><br />Second, in a globalized world, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the ability of their economy to remain competitive – in other words, to sustain the kind of economic activity that can provide higher standards of living for American workers and their families. The need to maintain and increase American competitiveness raises yet another set of policy concerns: </p><ul><li>The effectiveness of the American educational system to produce skilled workers who can command high wages because they provide high-value-added goods and services</li><li>Whether the U.S. healthcare system can maintain public health at reasonable cost to employers and workers</li><li>The adequacy of American infrastructure – both traditional physical infrastructure such as roads, railroads, airports, and seaports, but also newer forms of infrastructure such as telephonic and high-speed data networks.</li><li>Whether American tax policy – and don’t forget this involves state as well as federal taxes -- places an excessive burden on the American economy relative to societies with lower individual and corporate tax rates</li><li>Whether American policy in such areas as intellectual property protection and funding for research and development adequately encourages scientific and technological innovation.<br /></li></ul><p>Finally, globalization is producing what some analysts have described as the “rise of the rest” – in other words the emergence of a dynamic set of emerging market economies, including most notably the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Along with the industrial and post-industrial economies that emerged earlier in Europe and East Asia, these economic and political success stories make it less likely that the United States has a monopoly on “best practice” in economic and social policy. Increasingly, the U.S. will not only be sharing its positive experiences with others, but will be studying the experiences of others in an attempt to provide better solutions to its domestic social and economic problems.<br /><em></em></p><p><em>How does globalization affect the U.S. policy making process?</em></p><p>Globalization also affects the policy making process in the U.S. in several ways.<br /><br />First, transnational problems require transnational solutions. America cannot solve problems of macroeconomic management, malfunctioning capital markets, energy security, climate change, terrorism, and communicable disease by itself. The solutions involve not simply cooperation with other governments, but the creation of international regimes and organizations that can coordinate the efforts of many governments. The need to cooperate with other countries, and the development of international regimes, will limit American autonomy and will require restrictions on American sovereignty. For the United States, no less than for other countries, these restrictions will often be controversial and occasionally be painful.<br /><br />Second, globalization will encourage foreign entities – foreign governments, MNCs, and NGOs – to try to penetrate the American political process to articulate their interests. The same technologies that facilitate globalization – particularly inexpensive transportation and communication, and information – will make it easier and less expensive for them to do so. Unofficial actors will have ready access to information once available only to the most advanced governments, and will have the resources to press their demands forcefully and articulately. Not only will the American political agenda be increasingly made up of transnational issues, but the American political process will increasingly feature transnational actors articulating transnational interests.</p><p>And third, the ways in which transnational issues impinge on the American agenda, foreign interests penetrate the American political system, and Americans increasingly worry about their ability to compete effectively abroad, will challenge America’s sense of identity. Significant numbers of Americans may lose the sense of confidence and optimism about the future that has previously characterized our country’s political culture.<br /><br />The changing nature of politics – from interest-based to identity-based – may have several consequences. Those whose sense of identity is threatened may search for those responsible, demonizing their opponents both at home and abroad. They may seek simpler, more ideologically based solutions to their declining economic fortunes and self-esteem. And they may even begin to challenge the empirical bases of the policies that threaten their interests and identity. These are the consequences of what David Apter, in his Politics of Modernization, described as the shift from “instrumental” politics to “consummatory” politics. I would posit that some of these trends are already evident in American politics today.<br /><br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em></p><p>In short, globalization is having significant effects on both the content of public policy issues in the U.S. and on the process by which public policy is made. Of course, globalization is not the only mega-trend that is having such an impact, and we therefore should not exaggerate its importance. Other key trends include: </p><ul><li>Demographic trends, particularly the changing age and ethnic composition of the population, as well as the different attitude and values across generations, pose both challenges and opportunities for health policy, labor policy, migration policy, social security, and many other issues.</li><li>Climate change will require changes in the composition of our energy mix, the development of new technologies that can provide cleaner energy and greater energy efficiency. It will also most likely lead to change in policies on housing, transportation, and other sectors of the economy that consume large amounts of energy. It will also, as we have already seen, require complex international negotiations to assign the responsibility and allocate the cost of reducing carbon emissions, and then equally complex domestic negotiations on how to implement the commitments to reduce those emissions.</li><li>Information and communications technology is already transforming the policymaking process, perhaps most importantly by reducing the role of political middlemen, and thus reducing our ability to aggregate political interests.</li><li>Other new technologies, particularly biotechnology and nanotechnology, will produce great opportunities for health, agriculture, and other areas of public policy, while also posing significant questions about the ethical choices that these technologies will pose and the social and environmental risks that they may engender.</li><li>The “rise of the rest” is already producing major changes in the international balance of power – traditionally a major cause of instability in international politics.</li></ul><p>Some of these trends – particularly the emergence of new information and communication technologies – constitute some of the “facts” that, as Thomas Friedman has argued, make globalization possible, if not necessary inevitable. But they also act on their own, forming additional independent variables that, along with globalization, are affecting the content of public policy and the contours of the public policy process in today’s world. These, too, will be issues with which the Batten School will be deeply concerned.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-3692955426661365352009-10-29T11:27:00.000-07:002009-10-29T11:51:50.169-07:00The U.S. and China: Still a "Fragile Relationship"?The following is the text of a lecture I gave to the East Asia Center at the University of Virginia in September, reexamining the question of whether the relationship between China and the United States can best be described as "fragile."<br /><br /><div align="center">- - -</div><div align="left"><br /><br />In 1992, I published a history of US-China relations since the Nixon visit of 1972. The book was fundamentally shaped by the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989 – whose 20th anniversary we will mark a few weeks from today. US-China relations had been significantly undermined by that tragic event – public opinion toward China had turned markedly negative, the U.S. had sharply reduced its level of official contact with China, had ended arms sales and most economic aid, and was debating the revocation of China’s most favored nation status. At the same time, China’s future course was by no means certain. Would the Tiananmen Crisis produce further economic and political reform? Or would it, as I thought at the time, let to a mixture of repression, retrogression, and political decay?<br /><br />To underscore the uncertainties surrounding both the U.S.-China relationship and China itself, I therefore entitled my book <em>A Fragile Relationship</em>. I did not mean to imply, as some critics have suggested both then and subsequently, that the U.S. should treat China with kid gloves. I simply meant that the relationship was highly unstable, and that there was a non-trivial possibility that it would rupture.<br /><br />In the seventeen years since the book was published, two things have happened that have led me to reconsider the concept of a “fragile relationship.” First, I’ve been asked on many occasions, both in the U.S. and in China, whether I still believe the relationship to be fragile. For a while, I replied that while it was not so fragile, it remained highly turbulent, as it was through the 1990s. But I did not have the occasion to think systematically about how the relationship had evolved.<br /><br />The second development was the opportunity to work for almost two years in the area of political risk assessment, which I did after my term as dean of the Elliott School ended in 2005. At Eurasia Group, I learned that the concept of instability is one of the core concepts in the analysis of political risk. I also learned much more about how political forecasters assess instability. And, of course, I realized that my own reference to the “fragility” of the U.S.-China relationship was simply another way of saying that it was unstable.<br /><br />So today, let me give you my assessment of the degree to which our relationship with China remains unstable. My bottom line is that the relationship is far less fragile than it was in the 1990s, and far less turbulent than it was around the turn of the century. However, it remains highly complex, with areas of both vulnerability and resilience. It would take a large trigger event to produce a crisis, but such a trigger is not inconceivable. Even more worrying, a series of lesser shocks could still weaken the relationship so that it could become less stable over time. And while the crisis management mechanisms – what might be called the “shock-absorbing mechanisms” – are far better now than they were when I wrote my book, they have some shortcomings that provide less than complete confidence about our ability to manage serious problems in the relationship. </div><div align="center"><br /><br /><strong>Analytical framework</strong> </div><br />How can we assess the stability or instability of an international relationship? And how does the relationship between the U.S. and China today compare with that in the early 1990s? I will consider four dimensions that I regard as particularly important in determining the levels of vulnerability and resilience in the U.S.-China relationship:<br /><br /><ul><li>The extent to which the two countries are economically interdependent, and the ways in which they evaluate the impact of that interdependence on their economies. </li><li>The degree to which the two countries regard their other interests as common, competing, or overlapping, and particularly the degree to which any of their vital interests diverge. </li><li>On this basis, whether the two countries see their overall relationship in positive terms – or, to put it slightly differently – whether the two sides have a common, positive conceptual framework for the relationship. </li><li>And finally, what I call the Jeff Legro question, after my colleague here at Virginia: Even if each country defines its relationship with the other in essentially positive terms, does that policy enjoy a solid domestic political base or, conversely, are there alternative, less accommodative policies that might challenge it if circumstances change?<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> </li></ul><p align="left">These four dimensions determine whether the U.S.-China relationship is still fragile or has become more stable. But there are still two more parts of the analysis. We need to consider whether the two countries have developed structural mechanisms that can anticipate or manage problems in their relationship. And finally, we need to identify the trigger events that might produce either a serious crisis – or a more gradual deterioration – of the U.S.-China relationship.</p><p align="center"><br /><br /><strong>Stability: vulnerability vs. resilience</strong> </p><p><em>Interdependence</em><br /><br />Although there was much talk of a mutually beneficial economic relationship as early as the mid 1980s, when China’s program of economic reform and opening was clearly underway, in fact the two countries did not begin to become highly interdependent until around fifteen years later. This interdependence was the product of three things: </p><ul><li>The surge of incoming FDI that accompanied the gradual relaxation of restrictions on investment in the 1980s and especially the 1990s. </li><li>The growth in two-way trade, both as a result of that investment (Chinese exports to U.S.) and China’s accession to the WTO (U.S.; exports to China). </li><li>The accumulation of Chinese foreign exchange assets, much of which was invested in USD assets, and particularly in US treasuries and agency obligations. </li></ul><p>A working definition of interdependence is that is a situation in which both sides would suffer significantly if their economic relationship was disrupted, or even if their domestic economies experienced a downturn. This is the reason why interdependence gives greater resilience to a bilateral relationship. And what signs do we see of an interdependent economic relationship<br /><br /></p><ul><li>The idea that China could be decoupled from the fate of the American economy was proven incorrect by the GFC. When the U.S. economy suffers, the Chinese economy suffers – perhaps not to the same degree, and not across the board, but still significantly.</li><li>The idea that the trade imbalances between the U.S. and China created a one-sided American dependence on China’s willingness to finance our deficits has also been discredited by recent events. Instead, the two sides increasingly recognize that they are vulnerable to a form of mutually assured financial destruction, where a decline in the value of the US dollar or the value of USD assets, perhaps as a result of a Chinese decision to divest itself of those assets, would also inflict great costs on the Chinese financial system. </li></ul><p>Although the Chinese and American economies have become increasingly interdependent over the last seventeen years, this has not necessarily produced an entirely stable situation, because so far we have ignored the question of relative gain. Each side may “win,” but one side may be gaining more than the other. And the irony is that each side in this interdependent relationship believes that the other side is winning more than it is.<br /><br />How could this be? The U.S. is more focused on balance of trade: on the trade imbalance, which many Americans believe are destroying jobs and lowering wages, and is the result of various forms of unfair trade practices, including an undervalued Chinese currency. The Chinese are more focused on the structure of trade: on the fact that China adds relatively little value to the goods that it exports to the United States – mainly it provides some components and conducts final assembly – while foreign firms gain a larger share of revenue from the more lucrative parts of the supply chain, including profits from product design, branding, advertising, financing, and distribution.<br /><br />Moreover, each side sees the other as resisting measures to address these problems. Although the Treasury Department has recently refused to cite China as a “currency manipulator” under existing legislation, some in Congress remain dissatisfied at the slow pace of revaluation, and are introducing legislation that will redefine the issue so as to make it easier for aggrieved American firms to seek countervailing duties or anti-dumping remedies against China. Chinese, in turn, believe that one way to capture more of the supply chain and to move up the value-added ladder is through Chinese investment abroad, including investing in, and even acquiring, sophisticated foreign firms – but that the U.S. (as well as other advanced economies) are blocking or restricting such efforts in the name of national security.<br /><br /><br /><em>Interests</em><br /><br />One of the biggest changes over the last seventeen years has been the growing ability of China and the U.S. to identify common interests and to manage their differences.<br /><br />In the early 1990s, the relationship seemed to be devoid of common interests. The need for a strategic alignment against Moscow weakened with the more accommodative foreign policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, and then ended altogether with the Soviet collapse. The idea that China and the U.S. had naturally complementary economies – an idea promoted by Richard Nixon as the next basis for a positive relationship – ran afoul of the disputes over the growing imbalance of trade. And the belief that Beijing’s domestic reform program would soon produce a more democratic China was crushed along with the anti-government protests in Tiananmen Square.<br /><br />It was painful to see the two sides groping to identify common interests in the early 1990s. I recall a speech by then Secretary of State Warren Christopher in which he tried to argue that the two countries had a common interest in avoiding a weak China, and in managing an emerging set of transnational issues. Neither I, nor the broader Washington audience that he was addressing, was convinced that these could possibly serve as a replacement for the powerful common interests of the 1970s and early 1980s.<br /><br />But over the subsequent decade between then and now, the two countries seemed to be identifying a wider and more persuasive set of common interests. Over time, the list has included common concerns about the economic prosperity of Asia, capping the North Korean nuclear program, combating the threat of terrorism, addressing the possibility of global pandemics, and now dealing with the global financial crisis and the issue of climate change. Alone, none of these interests may have the weight of the common threat from the Soviet Union. But together, they do make a compelling argument for cooperation.<br /><br />Moreover, the two countries have found ways of managing some of the issues that created the greatest tensions in the past. On trade, the U.S. and China worked hard to reach an agreement by which China could join the WTO: the agreement involved commitments to significant liberalization, gave China permanent most-favored-nation status, and provided dispute resolution mechanisms through which remaining trade conflicts could be addressed. And while continuing to criticize China’s violations of human rights, the U.S. has essentially stopped threatening economic sanctions against China, and is now placing greater emphasis on assisting China in those areas where it is willing to undertake political reform.<br /><br />Still, there are at least two areas in which China and the U.S. only have divergent interests, but diverge on issues that involve vital interests – or at least could have vital interests, depending on how the two countries define their interests:<br /><br />The more specific one is Taiwan. Here, the basic dilemma remains: the U.S. retains a commitment to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of an unprovoked attack by the mainland, presumably one aimed at forcing Taiwan to unify with China. Happily, each side has recently redefined its interests in ways that minimize the degree of divergence. The U.S. has offered renewed assurances that we did not seek an independent Taiwan, and China redefined its red line extremely conservatively as a de jure declaration of independence through constitutional revision. But either side could change that definition. The U.S. might decide that it would not welcome the unification of Taiwan and China, even if it occurred peacefully and with the consent of the Taiwanese people, or even that the economic integration of Taiwan and China was developing to the point that it made us uncomfortable. Or China might once again define its interest not just as deterring independence, but as actively promoting unification, through various kinds of economic, political, and military pressure, and possibly through the imposition of a deadline. That would make the Taiwan issue much more difficult to manage than it is now.<br /><br />The broader issue is the overall strategic relationship between China and the U.S. We can define it this way: does the U.S. welcome the rise of China, even to the point that it becomes the most powerful single nation in Asia? And does China accept a security role for the United States in Asia, especially with regard to the maintenance of the military bases and the forward deployments that make that role meaningful? So far, we have managed the potentially crucial differences on this subject. The U.S. says that it welcomes the emergence of a more prosperous, stable, and even influential China, as long as it acts as a “responsible stakeholder” in international affairs, meaning that it does not pose an essential challenge to the status quo. This is congruent with a more general definition of our national interest as opposing the emergence, in any region, of a dominant power unfriendly to the United States. But what if we redefined our interests more ambitiously, as preventing the dominance of Asia by any other power, friendly or not? Or, more ambitiously still, as trying to ensure that the U.S. remained the dominant power in the region? And what about China? So far, Beijing says that it welcomes the “constructive role” of the U.S. in maintaining Asian security. But what if China begins to argue that the American network of alliances and bases – which Beijing already describes as remnants of the Cold War – no longer play a “constructive role”? What if it actively tries to minimize the American role in the region, by attempting to push the U.S. out of the regional security balance and to exclude it from a pan-Asian, as opposed to trans-Pacific, economic architecture?<br /><br />And even in the areas where China and the U.S. have identified common interests, they continue to pursue those interests in different ways. Let me suggest some of the major categories here, citing one example of each: </p><ul><li>Where interests are overlapping, but not entirely convergent. The North Korean example, where both countries agree on the desirability of eliminating the North’s nuclear program, but where China is far more concerned than the U.S. about preventing the collapse of the North Korean regime. </li><li>Where the two countries have common interests, but disagree over the allocation of the costs of pursuing them. The best example here is climate change, where again the two countries increasingly agree on the severity of the problem, but differ over the allocation of responsibility -- both for the emergence of the problem and for finding solutions. </li><li>Where the two countries agree on a problem, but differ on the most effective strategy for addressing it. Both countries agree on the importance of Third World development, but have been promoting development strategies that differ over such key issues as the role of government in the economy, the priority to be assigned to democratization, and the conditionality to be placed on aid. Both countries may agree on the severity of humanitarian problems in failing states, but differ over the conditions under which the international community can engage in humanitarian intervention. </li></ul><p align="left">In many cases, in turn, these differences reflect not just differences with regard to interest, cost, and strategy, but differences over underlying norms and values about the organization of both domestic society and the international system.<br /><br /><br /><em>Framework</em><br /><br />In addition to identifying the specific interests that promote cooperation or conflict into a relationship, countries may also seek to identify an overarching framework that describes the relationship, and that thereby provides greater coherence to its various elements. (The Chinese are particularly interested in this kind of exercise.)<br /><br />As noted above, the overarching framework in the 1970s was a tacit alliance against Soviet hegemonism. In the 1980s, it was cooperation in China’s reform and opening. And, as already indicated, both frameworks collapsed in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the suppression of the Tiananmen protests.<br /><br />Just as the two sides had difficulty in defining common interests, so too did they have difficulty in defining a new framework for their relationship. At about the same time that I published A Fragile Relationship, I also published a short article in the Brookings Review, entitled “Neither Friend or Foe: A China Policy for the 1990s.” All I was trying to do was to suggest that if the U.S. and China found it hard to be friends after the Tiananmen Crisis, at least they could avoid becoming enemies. What was so fascinating about the article was how much traction it got in China: Chinese were typically looking for a new framework for the relationship, and they seemed to agree that, at this point, this definition was the best they could hope for.<br /><br />But by the late 1990s, the two sides began to do better. The U.S. began to speak first of a policy of comprehensive engagement with China to address the complex set of issues on the agenda. Then it put forward the idea of integrating China into regional and global institutions as a way of managing those issues. Most recently, in 2005, it has further declared its desire to see China become a more “responsible stakeholder” in those institutions.<br /><br />For its part, China tried to forge what it called “strategic partnerships” with other countries, including the United States. This implied that the relationship should focus on what Beijing regards as fundamental long-term issues (that’s the “strategic” element), and should be based on the principle that common interests are more important than differences in interests or values (that’s the “partnership”). In 1997-98, when this concept was presented to the Clinton Administration, it was reluctant to accept that the U.S. and China had already formed such a strategic partnership, but did agree to state that it was its goal to “build toward” such a relationship for the 21st century.<br /><br />Although the two sides developed and put forward policy frameworks that cast their relationship in relatively positive terms, these frameworks were not entirely identical, and each contained elements that the other side finds questionable.<br /><br />Although the George W. Bush Administration stopped calling China a “strategic competitor” shortly after taking office in January 2001, it never agreed label Beijing as a “strategic partner,” even a prospective one. Nor has the Obama Administration. To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. has never explained why it finds the Chinese formulation unacceptable, but my hunch is that it implies a more one-sidedly cooperative relationship than the U.S. believes exists, and perhaps therefore suggests constraints on the American ability to criticize China for policies of which it disapproves.<br /><br />Conversely, the Chinese still chafe somewhat at the American concept of China becoming “integrated into the international community” as a “responsible stakeholder,” since this suggests that China should accept the norms and structures of an international community that it did not help form, and that the U.S. should retain the ability to judge the degree to which Beijing is acting “responsibly.”<br /><br />In the Obama Administration, the differences have narrowed further. Each government now describes the relationship in the same terms, as “positive, comprehensive, and cooperative relationship for the 21st century,” downplaying the terms (“strategic partnership” and “responsible stakeholder”) that had proven problematic for the other side,<br /><br />Still, each side’s policy framework contains elements that acknowledge the remaining uncertainties in the relationship. The U.S. talks of hedging against the risks that might be produced by a rising China; China says that this reflects an unwarranted degree of mistrust about its longer-term intentions. China says that alliances are “relics of the Cold War”; the U.S. fears that this reflects an attempt to undermine the American security posture in the Western Pacific.<br /><br />And underlying all this are large normative differences between the two countries’ overall foreign policies. In many ways, China remains what might be called a “modern” power normatively, committed to Westphalian norms of national sovereignty, the juridical equality of states, and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. The U.S. in contrast, is what might by comparison by called a “post-modern” nation, asserting norms that limit sovereignty, distinguish between “responsible” and “irresponsible” actors, and assert the right to engage in humanitarian intervention in the case of severe threats to human security. So while the words are now the same, the “background music” for each country’s foreign policy remains quite different.<br /><br /><br /><em>Policy challengers</em><br /><br />Another factor that contributes to the stability of the relationship is that the development of these frameworks has reflected a growing consensus in each country about policy toward the other.<br /><br />In the U.S., the Tiananmen Crisis had produced a very intense debate over policy toward China, reflected in the prominence of the issue in the 1992 presidential election campaign between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and in the debates between the White House and Congress over China policy under both administrations. Even in the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush declared that he regarded China as a strategic competitor of the U.S., rather than even a prospective strategic partner.<br /><br />Today, in contrast, the policies of engagement and integration appears to be have gained a stronger basis of political support in the U.S., especially since the Bush Administration slightly hardened that policy by asking China to become a more responsible stakeholder in the international system and by stating that the U.S. would continue to hedge against the possibility that China might not do so. A strong majority of the public appears to support this revised mainstream policy, as reflected in the fact that China policy was a not really an issue in the 2008 presidential election – a minor issue in the primaries, and no issue in the general election itself.<br /><br />In China, the American response to the Tiananmen Crisis also produced considerable debate. Initially, the dominant Chinese reaction seemed to be that the U.S. was intent on destabilizing China – was posing a near-existential threat to the survival of the Communist regime – but that the end of the Cold War would produce a more multipolar world that would give China greater room to resist American pressure.<br /><br />Gradually, however, Chinese analysts concluded that the U.S. intentions were not so malign, that Beijing could successfully prevent the U.S. from forging a united front against China on the human rights issue, but that few other countries would join China in an effort to challenge American dominance in the post-Cold War world. Moreover, that consensus also incorporated the idea that China needed a stable, and hopefully cooperative, relationship with the U.S., so that it could continue to concentrate its energies on the economic development that Chinese leaders regarded as key to bolstering political stability and to enhancing China’s role in the world.<br /><br />Although there does seem to be a broad base of support in each country for a cooperative relationship with the other, there are also areas of potential dissent that are worrying.<br /><br />First, neither society has a particularly positive view of the other. True, few Americans hold strongly negative views of China, and American assessments of China have improved considerably since 1989, but less than half (now 41%) take a favorable view of China, and the trend toward more positive images seems to have peaked, at least temporarily, in the middle of this decade. The plurality of Americans – 44% -- believes that the rise of Chinese influence is “mainly negative.”<br /><br />Similarly, Chinese are also evenly divided in their overall assessments of the United States. And they hold a negative view of America’s role in the world – in one recent BBC poll, 58% of Chinese believe that role to be “mainly negative,” although admittedly not as negative as that of some other countries, including some of America’s allies. Perhaps we have stopped idealizing or demonizing the other, but the result is still a set of mixed perceptions that continue to have significant negative elements.<br /><br />Second, public opinion holds a more cautious view of the relationship than official rhetoric would suggest. A Pew poll from 2008 revealed that only 13% of Chinese regarded the U.S. as “more of a partner,” whereas 34% saw it as “more of an enemy.” American views of the U.S.-China relationship are somewhat more positive: 23% in a recent Harris poll see China as an “unfriendly enemy,” whereas 30% see it as friendly or even a “close ally,” and 40% see it as neither friend nor foe. Far more see each other as competitors, at least in an economic sense, than as collaborators.<br /><br />Third, and potentially most important, non-trivial minorities in each country favor a tougher policy toward the other. In china, the recent publication of the controversial book China is Unhappy is but the latest in a series of books, beginning with the equally notorious China Can Say No, that call for greater resistance to American demands on China. In the U.S., about a third of the public believe that the U.S. should try to “limit the growth of China’s power,” rather than to “undertake friendly cooperation and engagement.”<br /><br />Thus, the stage is set, at least conceivably, for a switch, either sudden or gradual, toward a policy framework whose content is much less cooperative and far more competitive, or even confrontational. </p><p align="left"> </p><strong></strong><p align="center"><strong>Relationship management: mitigation vs. exacerbation</strong><br /><br /></p><p align="left">One of the most worrying consequences of the Tiananmen Crisis was the American decision to suspend all official contact above the level of assistant secretary – with the noteworthy exceptions of the Scowcroft-Eagleburger missions to China that, because they seemed to violate the policy against high level conduct, and because one of them was therefore conducted in secret – became highly controversial in the U.S. In fact, the suspension of high-level contact was one reason I regarded the U.S.-China relationship in the early 1990s as being so fragile.<br /><br />It took a crisis – the missile tests in the Taiwan Strait in 1995-96 – to persuade the two sides to resume high-level dialogue. For a time, the U.S. and China returned to the familiar pattern of “trip-driven diplomacy,” with summit meetings in each country intended to address all the key issues in an increasingly burdened agenda.<br /><br />Today, in contrast, we have evolved what I regard as a more feasible and sustainable pattern. The pattern still features occasional top-level visits in both directions, but with fewer expectations about their results. Equally important are more frequent, and briefer, meetings on the sidelines of major multilateral conferences (particularly the UN, APEC, and the G-8 or G-20) to engage in consultations without pressure to achieve results – and even more frequent telephone conversations to deal with the most urgent questions.<br /><br />Also useful has been the inauguration of cabinet and sub-cabinet level discussions of key issues: the Senior Dialogue on political issues dating from 2005, the somewhat better known Strategic Economic Dialogue that began in 2006, and now the combined Strategic and Economic Dialogue that will commence later this year. The main feature of these dialogues is that they provide opportunities for direct communication among a number of functional agencies in both countries responsible for the issues in question – opportunities that may enhance coordination within each country as much as facilitating cooperation between the countries.\<br /><br />But although there are now robust mechanisms for consultation between civilian officials between the two countries, the same cannot be said for the military sector. True, a hot line has been established, but its effectiveness in the event of crisis remains untested. Even more important, military-to-military dialogue has not yet produced grater transparency about Chinese military capabilities or intentions – and that dialogue remains highly vulnerable to suspension if Beijing is displeased about some aspect of American security policy relevant to China. It does not bode well that a mechanism intended to prevent or manage crises would be suspended at the first sign of a problem in the relationship.<br /><br /></p><p align="center"><br /><strong>Triggers </strong></p><p>Overall, I believe that the relationship is sufficiently stable that it would take a very powerful shock to be fundamentally disruptive. Three such shocks are conceivable: a military crisis in the Taiwan Strait, a collapse of North Korea in a way that invited external intervention, or a major incident of instability and repression in China comparable to the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989. All of these potential trigger events are what we in the risk assessment business call “long-tails”: high impact, low probability, but not inconceivable.<br /><br />Over the longer term, however, perhaps the greater danger would be trends that produced greater instability in the relationship. These might include:<br /><br /></p><ul><li>Inability to reach agreement on issues of high salience to one side or to both.<br />New issues on which China and the U.S. come to differ, perhaps because of differences in underlying norms and values. </li><li>The evolution of the economic relationship in which the relative gains from of interdependence become more controversial in either or both countries. </li><li>A more assertive and ambitious definition of China’s interests, as its stake in the world economy increases and as its power grows, accompanied by an unwillingness by the U.S. to accommodate such increasing demands. (Already, Beijing seems to be chafing under the terms of tacit bargains – on issues such as the treatment of the Dalai Lama and the legitimacy of American naval patrols inside its exclusive economic zone.) </li></ul><p>Developments such as these could produce greater skepticism in each country about the possibility of a cooperative relationship.<br /><br />Conversely, however, there is also the possibility that the relationship could become even more resilient than it is now: </p><ul><li>The gradual identification of more common interests and values, and more agreement on effective measures to advance those interests. </li><li>An ability to find ways of giving China a greater role in the existing international system, with a concomitant willingness by Beijing to take on greater regional and global responsibilities </li><li>Deeper economic interdependence, with greater acknowledgment of the benefits to each side </li><li>Greater transparency regarding military strategy and deployments. </li></ul><p>These developments could produce greater mutual trust and greater confidence in each country about the prospects for cooperation.<br /></p><p align="center"><br /><strong>Summary</strong><br /><br /></p><p>In short, China and the U.S. today enjoy a relationship that is less volatile, less turbulent, and more resilient relationship. It is no longer a fragile relationship. But it is still a complex one, for the two countries have different interests and different values, and are undergoing a significant shift in their relative power. The chances for continuity – as a complex, comprehensive, but ultimately stable relationship -- are high. But there is still the “long-tail risk” of sudden deterioration of the relationship, and a higher chance yet of a more gradual devolution into a more competitive one.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2681730676245343669#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Jeff W. Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-61192880676490666442009-08-17T12:20:00.000-07:002009-08-17T12:28:56.976-07:00China's Quest for Soft Power<p>What is soft power? It’s easy to say what it is not, since the term was devised to distinguish it from “harder” forms of power, both military and economic. But what is it?<br /><br />Joseph Nye, who has done more than anyone else to popularize the term, sees it as the power to attract or to induce emulation – the power to make others want to be what you are, or to have what you have. But not all attractive power is soft power (I may want to live in another country because of the economic opportunities I find there, not because I particularly enjoy its lifestyle), and not all soft power evokes emulation (I may appreciate and respect another country’s religion, but not want to adopt it myself).<br /><br />So I see soft power slightly differently: not as power that induces emulation, but as power that induces respect. It is a wide range of non-material power – ideas, norms, values, cultural products – that enhance the reputation, influence, and legitimacy of the nations that produce them.<br /><br />Over the last several years, China has placed a high priority on the development of its soft power, and has been seeking to do so in a variety of ways. First, it has been developing the modalities by which soft power is acquired and exerted. These modalities – all of which have been utilized by other countries trying to enhance their soft power -- include:<br /></p><ul><li>Symbolic actions intended to reflect China’s economic and military successes (manned space flights, hosting the Olympic Games, building the world’s tallest skyscraper, naval port calls some distance from China’s shores, etc.)</li><li>Global media (including CCTV-9, China’s English-language satellite news channel, and the English-language editions of China Daily and Caijing)</li><li>Cultural diplomacy (such as sending performing arts troupes and art exhibitions abroad)</li><li>Educational exchanges, both in China and overseas (e.g., the establishment of Confucius Institutes to offer Chinese language courses abroad, the creation of English-language graduate programs in Chinese universities, and the development of financial aid programs for foreign students who wish to study in China)</li><li>Diplomatic activities (including China’s role in creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Boao Forum, and the Six-Party Talks on the denuclearization of North Korea) </li></ul><p>Why has China been putting so much effort into the development of its soft power? The most general answer is that Beijing has been trying to develop its “comprehensive national power,” and sees soft power as part of that package. <br /><br />Even more important, soft power, in Chinese eyes, can legitimize the harder forms of power, and thus reassures others that the rise of China does not have to be contained or balanced. At the same time, as I have already argued in “The Hard Edge to Soft Power” elsewhere on this blog), Beijing understands that some kinds of soft power can delegitimize other countries’ power, either hard or soft.<br /><br />China’s desire to legitimize its own power and to delegitimize the power of others helps us understand the content of China’s soft power diplomacy. Although Beijing, like other governments, conducts some programs that are intended to introduce foreigners to the attractive features of Chinese language and culture, it places particular emphasis on developing and promulgating the norms that Beijing says should govern international conduct and national development strategies. These norms are particularly important to China because they are seen as the most important means for legitimizing the development and exercise of China’s hard power, and for delegitimizing the international behavior of others.<br /><br />The norms that Beijing has been formulating can be placed into three clusters, two involving international behavior, and one governing domestic development models.<br /><br />The first cluster is the most traditional: the “five principles of peaceful coexistence.” These can be traced to the early years of the Soviet Union, but were more fully developed by China in the early 1950s. They include:</p><ul><li>Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty </li><li>Mutual non-aggression </li><li>Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs </li><li>Equality and mutual benefit </li><li>Peaceful co-existence </li></ul><p>A second cluster, more recent in origin, is largely an updated version of the first. It is organized around the concept of a “harmonious world,” associated with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Interestingly, however, while that phrase has been chosen for its roots in Chinese philosophy, its more specific components are largely Western in origin:</p><ul><li>Cooperative security (or what the Chinese call a “new security concept”)</li><li>Unconditional foreign aid</li><li>Limited sanctions</li><li>Mutual accommodation</li><li>International democracy</li><li>Cultural diversity</li></ul><p>The differences in terminology between the first and second clusters underscore a point I made in my earlier blog. Unlike the traditional concept of soft power, where countries seek influence by persuading others to emulate their unique features (“don’t you want to be like me?”), the current Chinese conception of soft power seeks legitimation for Beijing’s behavior by persuading other major powers that, to a large degree, China is emulating them (“I want to be like you”).</p><p>The third cluster involves the model of economic and political development associated with China – what some call the “Beijing Consensus,” but what most Chinese analysts simply call the “Chinese model.” More specifically, this cluster includes the following:</p><ul><li>Privatization and marketization, but under state guidance</li><li>Experimentation and gradualism</li><li>Export-led growth, with restrictions on imports</li><li>A consultative, but non-pluralistic, political system</li></ul><p>These three clusters – especially the second and third -- are both familiar and different. They are familiar because they use largely Western terminology and summarize a strategy of development (export-oriented growth through developmental authoritarianism) that has been used elsewhere in Asia. But the differences between these Chinese norms and the comparable American norms enable Beijing to use them to distinguish China from the West and to delegitimize American foreign policy when it wishes to do so.</p><p>How well is China doing in its efforts to build its soft power? Over the past several years, there has been considerable interest in – and even concern about – the rise of Chinese soft power. This was largely because China’s attempts to develop soft power were coming at the same time that the U.S. was hemorrhaging soft power, particularly through its strategies in Iraq and in the global war on terror.</p><p>Today, that hemorrhaging has stopped, and we are simultaneously more aware of the limits to the growth of Chinese soft power:</p><ul><li>The sustainability of China’s development model remains in doubt, thus raising questions about its attractiveness.</li><li>China’s domestic behavior, particularly with regard to dissidents, human rights activists, and ethnic minorities, calls both its domestic norms and its commitment to international norms into question.</li><li>China’s norms, particularly its continuing emphasis on sovereignty and non-intervention and its relative neglect of human rights concerns abroad, strike many as dated, insensitive to the poor and disenfranchised, and overly protective of oppressive governments. Much of Beijing’s normative framework will be more attractive to elites in authoritarian countries in the Third World than to other constituencies.</li><li>China’s behavior, particularly in its aid policies and its foreign investments, often departs from its articulated norms. This is particularly true in Latin America and Africa, where China has been making investments in resource and energy extraction in ways that raise allegations of maltreatment of local workers, or trying to export manufactured goods in ways that compete with local firms.</li><li>So far, China has shown little willingness to sacrifice to uphold these international norms. This has given China the reputation of being a free rider in international affairs.</li><li>China’s response to criticism has often been angry and defensive, evincing a level of insecurity that is not compatible with a high degree of soft power.</li></ul><p>In short, China has been making impressive efforts to develop soft power, with attention to both the messages it wants to convey and the media through which it will convey them. But the effectiveness of those efforts is far from assured. And, even if China’s soft power continues to increase the relative balance of influence – how China’s soft power resources stack up relative to those of other countries – will depend as much on those other countries’ attractiveness as on China’s.<br /> </p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-85480018567638668742009-07-04T12:28:00.001-07:002009-08-17T12:30:34.138-07:00Change and Continuity in the Obama Administration's Foreign Policy<em>This is a slightly revised version of another talk I gave to the Asia Society's Hong Kong Center in late May, shortly before ending my five-month stay at the University of Hong Kong and returning to the U.S. to take up my new position at the University of Virginia</em><br /><em></em><br /><div align="center"><em>- - -</em></div><br />Over its first six months since the inauguration, the foreign policy of the Obama Administration has been characterized by a complex blend of continuity and change. Because Obama ran on a platform of change – and in part because there really are significant ways in which his foreign policy differs from that of the Bush Administration that preceded him -- I’ll focus on the elements of change, categorizing them as the “six R’s”: repudiation, restoration, reprioritization, resetting, reorganizing, and revitalizing. But I will follow that with a discussion of the continuities between past and present, and the uncertainties that remain in the new administration’s approach to foreign affairs<br /><br /><br /><em>Changes<br /></em><br />1. The Obama Administration has <em>repudiated </em>those aspects of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy that Obama believed to be unacceptable departures from American norms and traditions. These include his decisions to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, to end the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as “waterboarding,” and to employ military tribunals to decide the fate of the “enemy combatants” housed there. However, here a surprising degree of continuity is apparent: the Obama Administration has decided to continue the use of warrantless wiretaps to monitor transborder communications with those regarded as possible terrorists, and is having considerable difficulty in deciding where to place (and whether to try) some of the detainees presently held in Guantanamo.<br /><br />2. The Obama Administration says it will <em>restore</em> what the Obama Administration regards as the traditional American emphasis on consultation with allies, a pragmatic approach to problems, respect for international law, and the use of established multilateral organizations – all to replace what it has claimed was an excessively unilateral and ideological approach by the Bush Administration. But from the very beginning of the administration – specifically, Vice President Biden’s speech at the Munich Security Conference – the Obama Administration has also set out exceptions to its renewed emphasis on international law and institutions, saying that the U.S. would work through international institutions when they are “credible and effective." He also echoed earlier administrations in saying that, while the U.S. would work together with friends and allies whenever it can, it will act alone “when we must,” and that it will expect its allies to do more in support of American initiatives, especially in Afghanistan.<br /><br />3. In perhaps the biggest change to date, the Obama Administration has <em>reprioritized </em>America’s foreign policy agenda so as to place greater emphasis on neglected regions and issues. Geographically, this includes a shift of regional focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, renewed attention to Southeast Asia (particularly Indonesia) and the Middle East, and greater attention to the deteriorating domestic situation in Mexico. Functionally, there is a new emphasis on certain transnational issues, including not only the immediate problem of the global financial crisis, but also the longer-range issues of nuclear arms control, economic development, and (above all) climate change. This is paralleled by declining emphasis on terrorism (including a decision to stop using the term “global war on terror”) and, less expectedly, lower priority to the promotion of democracy as compared to economic and political development more generally. These new priorities are evident, too, in particular bilateral relationships – especially that with China, where managing the financial crisis and addressing the problem of climate change have supplanted the earlier emphases on trade and human rights.<br /><br />4. Drawing a metaphor from computing, the new administration has spoke of “<em>resettin</em>g” difficult relations with both rogue states and potential strategic competitors. This is reflected in its expressed willingness for engage in direct dialogue with, or at least new approaches to, countries such as Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. In some cases, like Burma and Cuba, this has also been accompanied by an acknowledgement that past policies have failed to achieve the desired result – although not yet by a clear definition of any alternative. In other cases, it is accompanied by a redefinition of American priorities, such as a renewed attention to strategic arms control negotiations with Russia, and somewhat less attention to the Russian invasion of Georgia. In what are perhaps the most immediately important cases, such as Iran and North Korea, the computer metaphor is particularly appropriate, since the Obama Administration seems to be trying to restart negotiations without changing the objectives, or even the incentives, that were embodied in the original program that guided those negotiations. In these areas, the change in tone is accompanied by continuities in both goals and strategies.<br /><br />5. The Obama Administration is <em>reorganizing</em> the State Department to provide somewhat greater bandwidth to deal with the daunting agenda of international issues. The most widely reported of these organizational reforms has been the appointment of special envoys to deal with particular problems that can place huge demands on the time of regular officials, such as George Mitchell to oversee Israel-Arab relations, Richard Holbrooke to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan, Steven Bosworth to manage the Six-Party Talks on North Korea, Scott Gration to address problems in Sudan, and Todd Stern to handle negotiations over climate change. The combination of previously separate economic and security dialogues with China into a single broader dialogue, co-chaired on the U.S. side by the Secretaries of State and Treasury, might also be mentioned here.<br /><br />6. Finally, the new administration has committed itself to <em>revitalizing </em>the instruments of American foreign policy, under the rubric of enhancing the country’s “smart power.” This means more attention to public diplomacy and foreign aid, but also more focus on rebuilding American economic competitiveness through investment in infrastructure and education and through reform of the U.S. health care system. It also appears to mean a restructuring of the U.S. military to focus on non-conventional wars rather than on the problem of balancing potential peer competitors.<br /><br /><br /><em>Continuities<br /></em><br />If these are the six major changes in American foreign policy under the Obama Administration, what are the continuities?<br /><ul><li>As noted above, there appears to be no change in some key American objectives in troubled relationships, including the desire to eliminate the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs, and to promote political reform in North Korea, Burma, Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere.</li><li>Although the priority assigned to counterterrorism may have been reduced, and he attention paid to economic development increased, the other tactics used in that effort have not been fundamentally changed </li><li>There is no movement toward a rapid withdrawal from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Indeed, the administration’s aim is to increase NATO troop levels in Afghanistan, including the level of American forces if necessary.</li><li>Although there may be a reassessment of the relative importance of transnational issues, the list of items on that agenda remains more or less unchanged.</li><li>Above all, there is considerable continuity in overall American strategy toward major powers such as China, India, and Russia, despite some change – as noted above – in the specific issues that the administration wishes to advance.</li></ul><p></p><p><em>Uncertainties<br /></em><br />Beyond this list of changes and continuities in the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, there are also some significant uncertainties, both with regard to American policy toward specific issues and regions and, equally important, whether those policies will prove effective.<br /><br />1. How far will the administration depart from free trade principles both in handling the global financial crisis and then, over the longer term, in negotiating free trade agreements with American economic partners?<br /><br />2. Will “pushing the reset button” really improve U.S. relations with countries such as Iran and North Korea, unless there is also a redefinition of underlying goals and incentives in ways that make them more persuasive? Indeed, will the more accommodative tone taken by the Obama Administration encourage rogue states such as North Korea and Iran to be more recalcitrant rather than more cooperative, as presently appears to be the case?<br /><br />3. What will be the domestic reaction to the Obama Administration’s reduced emphasis on promoting human rights in countries like China and Iran? Already, it has come under sharp criticism from the human rights community for this change in tone, particularly after the disputed presidential elections in Iran.<br /><br />4. How will the U.S. military balance the needs to balance against rising conventional and nuclear powers and to develop the capability to engage in non-conventional conflict? This appears to be one of the most important unresolved foreign policy issues for the new administration, made particularly difficult by the sharp increased in the federal budget deficit.<br /><br />5. Which are the international organizations on which the U.S. now says it wants to rely? What reforms are envisioned for the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF? In Asia, where there is a growing interest in multilateral institutions but many competing regional organizations vying for support, will Washington decide to continue to support APEC or shift its attention to the East Asian Summit? Will Washington send its top leaders to the ASEAN Regional Forum or the Shangri-la Dialogue? Will it continue to focus on one of these two region-wide security organizations, or place greater emphasis on sub-regional organizations like the Six-Party Talks?<br /><br />6. Will Congress provide the authorization or appropriations necessary for the administration to implement its policies? This is a particularly obvious problem with regard to any proposed increases in ODA and to the administration’s future military budgets. But, as the recent negative Senate vote on the relocation of detainees from Guantanamo indicated, the White House may face problems in mustering sufficient Congressional support on other issues as well.<br /><br />7. And, of course, how effective will be the attempts of the Obama Administration to revitalize the U.S. economy and rebuilding its soft power?</p><p align="center">- - -</p><p align="left"><br />In short, the Obama Administration’s approach to foreign policy involves a blend of change and continuity. On balance, however, the degree of continuity is noteworthy – and comes a surprise (and sometimes a disappointment) who expected more change, and a vindication to those who predicted that much of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy was be proven to be both necessary and effective. The greatest uncertainty is whether any of those policies – those that embody change or those that reflect continuity – will be effective unless and until the U.S. can revitalize its economy and rebuild its legitimacy abroad.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-25098518133910620552009-04-23T19:32:00.000-07:002009-04-23T19:37:37.593-07:00Thirty Years of Political Reform in China<div align="left">A few weeks ago I participated in a panel discussion, organized by the Asia Society in Hong Kong, marking the thirtieth anniversary of China’s program of “reform and opening.” Fred Hu of Goldman Sachs spoke about the evolution of China’s foreign economic policies; I spoke about the course of political reform. </div><div align="center"><br />- - -<br /> <br /></div><div align="left">The five most common generalizations one hears about the course of political reform in China over the past thirty years – at least the ones you hear in the United States – go something like the following:<br /> </div><ul><li>Political reform has lagged behind economic reform.</li><li>Many promising political reforms have been rolled back, so China is actually less open and democratic today that it was in previous years.</li><li>China’s political system remains authoritarian (and here some would even say totalitarian).</li><li>China is therefore vulnerable to political upheaval in the event of a crisis.</li><li>And because of China’s authoritarian system, U.S.-China relations will also be vulnerable to the human rights issue.<br /></li></ul><p align="left"> Like most conventional wisdom, these five generalizations are not entirely wrong. But each of them needs to be modified if we are to gain a balanced assessment of the changes in China’s political structure over the thirty years of reform and opening.<br /><br /><br /><em>1. Political reform has lagged behind economic reform</em><br /><br />It is hard to compare the extent of economic reform with the extent of political reform, since they are such different phenomena. But, relative to the ideal types that are most commonly mentioned, it is probably true to say that China has moved farther toward becoming a privatized, marketized, globalized economy than it has moved toward becoming a liberal, pluralistic, democratic political system.<br /><br />Still, each of these two comparisons should be qualified. First, however extensive it has been, China’s economic reform program has also encountered its limits. The hand of the state remains strong, both as an owner of enterprises and as a regulator of the market. There are still significant restrictions on capital flows in and out of China, and on the ability of foreign firms to participate in strategic sectors of the economy. Small and medium-sized enterprises find it difficult to get access to investment capital, largely because land is publicly owned and cannot be used as collateral for bank loans. Moreover, the global financial crisis has led to some retrogression in some areas, particularly ownership structure (toward more state ownership), the financial system (toward more non-performing loans), and market access (toward greater protection of domestic industry).<br /><br />Second, despite the limits to political reform, to be discussed later below, there has also been substantial change in the nature of the Chinese politics over the past thirty years. Compared with 1978, when reform began, the Chinese political system is now characterized by:</p><ul><li>More pragmatic and technocratic administration</li><li>Relatively institutionalized systems of political succession </li><li>A far freer society</li><li>A more extensive and effective legal system</li><li>A narrower political spectrum, in which most political debate is over the details of policy rather than the overall course of reform</li><li>Greater consultation with affected interests on specific issues</li></ul><p align="left"><br />These changes make the Chinese political system very different than it was in 1978 – certainly more pragmatic and liberal, even if neither pluralistic nor democratic.<br /><br /><br /><em>2. Many promising reforms have been rolled back</em><br /><br />In considering this second proposition, we have to begin by distinguishing between cyclical change and secular change. China is still characterized, as it has been since 1949, by a cyclical pattern of tightening and loosening of political controls: a loosening when the regime feels more confident of public support, and a tightening when it is less so. That tightening is particularly evident with regard to freedom of political organization and expression, but in its extreme form it can take the form of curfews and travel restrictions in order to reduce the possibility of political protest. We have recently seen examples of the latter in the run-ups to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and to the fiftieth anniversary of the Tibetan uprising.<br /><br />The even larger question is the extent of secular change. Has there actually been a permanent rolling back of any of the reforms summarized above? I would argue that there has not – with one important exception that is particularly sensitive in the United States. There appears to be far less enthusiasm about local elections in China now than there was in the past – and certainly less enthusiasm about extending direct elections beyond the village to higher levels of the political system. The Party’s principal rationale for village elections was to impose greater accountability on local officials from below than could be exerted administratively from above. It did not reflect any philosophical commitment to this particular mechanism as the best means of doing so. The apparent ease with which village leaders can evade that accountability through vote buying and other forms of corruption has significantly eroded support for local elections within the Party’s leadership.<br /><br />In the end, however, the most important problem facing political reformers in China is not the degree of retrogression, but the lack of forward movement. Recent months have seen the imposition – or, more accurately, the restatement – of the limits on further change in political structure. Top Chinese leaders have explicitly identified, and rejected, all of the key features of pluralistic democracy, including independent political parties competing for power, an independent judiciary, or a fully independent legislature. They have also reiterated the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly over political leadership. None of these limits is new, but their recent reiteration suggests that we should not expect further qualitative changes in China’s political structure any time soon.<br /><br /><br /><em>3. China therefore remains an authoritarian, or even totalitarian, system</em><br /><br />Also some continue to describe it as such, by any reasonable definition of the term China can no longer be considered to be a totalitarian political system, although it was during most of the Maoist period. It does not have any of the organizational characteristics of such a system: a charismatic leader, a powerful ideology, or an effective network of media and mass organizations that can mobilize all members of society in support of the Party’s goals and policies. Even more important, the variety range of opinion and activity in society is evidence that the Party clearly does not exercise total control over either thought or action.<br /><br />China is, however, an authoritarian system – but the question is, what kind of authoritarian system is it? Here, Western political typologies fail us. They define ideal types – such as democratic and totalitarian systems -- reasonably clearly. But they do not provide much analytical insight or clarity into that far larger set of political systems that fall into neither of those two extreme categories. Authoritarian systems vary considerably one from another, but comparative politics does not offer a commonly accepted set of dimensions along which they do.<br /><br />Still, let me suggest two dimensions that are particularly important in assessing the state of Chinese politics after thirty years of reform. First, China today is what some call a “soft,” or consultative form of authoritarian system – as opposed to a “harder,” more directive form. China has created several mechanisms by which society can express opinions – through the press, public opinion polls, government consultative procedures, the “blogosphere,” and increasingly through protest (even though leading protest activities can still be risky). The Party is more skeptical about some of these mechanisms (the blogosphere and protest) and more enthusiastic about others (public opinion polls, investigative reporting, and formal consultative mechanisms). But their existence means that China is a far less closed and rigid authoritarian system than it was in the 1980s, let alone in the 1960s and 70s.<br /><br />Another dimension along which authoritarian systems vary is their coherence. Here, Chinese politics is characterized by a high degree of fragmentation, both vertically between central and local governments and horizontally among different bureaucratic agencies. Indeed, many China specialists use the label “fragmented authoritarianism” to describe the country’s political structure. In addition, China’s administrative system is plagued by increasing corruption as officials seek financial benefits through bribes (accepting payment in exchange for favorable decisions) and graft (acquiring state assets for personal gain). Together, fragmentation and corruption mean that the central authorities can have only limited confidence that their decisions will be faithfully implemented, or that their subordinates will enjoy legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary citizens.<br /><br /><br /><em>4. China is vulnerable to political upheaval in the event of crisis<br /></em><br />True, China is vulnerable to political upheaval – but the study of political risk tells us that all political systems are vulnerable in the event of crisis. The only question is the size of the shock that would be needed to trigger that instability.<br /><br />And, in fact, despite its authoritarian character, and despite the fact that its political institutions are both fragmented and corrupt, China appears to be relatively stable – or at least far more stable than was anticipated by analysts who predicted, after the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989, that the country was on the verge either of democratization or collapse. Indeed, some foreign analysts are now saying that China’s political future is more likely to feature “resilient authoritarianism” than either upheaval or democracy.<br /><br />There are several factors that seem to be making the Chinese political system so resilient:<br /><br /></p><ul><li>Mechanisms for the expression of grievance, as noted above</li><li>Increasingly effective procedures protests – some accommodative, others repressive -- for responding to them</li><li>Relatively high levels of popular legitimacy, rooted largely in thirty years of sustained economic growth and growing personal freedom, and bolstered by widespread popular nationalism</li><li>A middle class that has been co-opted into the existing political system, and is wary of the consequences of either democratization or “chaos”</li><li>A leadership that has been able to maintain the appearance – and probably the reality – of relative unity<br /></li></ul><p align="left">The resilience of the system has been demonstrated by its ability to ride out a number of rather serious shocks, including a stock market collapse (which predated the global financial crisis), outbreaks of communicable disease (especially SARS), the Tibetan riots, the Sichuan earthquake, the current economic downturn, and especially the melamine and other product safety scandals. These were all national (or at least regional) issues – not simply local problems that could be blamed on local officials. And yet none of them has posed a serious challenge to the stability of the Chinese political system.<br /><br />It seems, then, that it would take either a more powerful shock, or else the gradual erosion of the regime’s resilience, to create the conditions by which China could experience a severe political crisis. A big shock cannot be precluded, but seems unlikely at the moment. The bigger danger is a gradual decline in the legitimacy of the political system if it is unable to manage China’s long list of social and economic contradictions effectively, especially if that decline is accompanied by growing differences of opinion among Chinese leaders over the desirability of further political reform.<br /><br /><br /><em>5. U.S.-China relations will also be vulnerable to the human rights issue</em><br /><br />A political crisis in China would once again produce a big shock to U.S.-China relations, just as the Tiananmen Crisis shook the relationship to its foundations in 1989. And the authoritarian character of Chinese politics does contribute to the mistrust that many Americans feel toward China, and their concern about the consequences of China’s rising power.<br /><br />Even so, the human rights issue has been pushed to the side, as other issues in the relationship – the financial crisis, climate change, the North Korean nuclear program, energy security, and the like -- have come to the fore. To be sure, there will be relatively mild criticism of China by the U.S. government, particularly in the annual State Department human rights report, and far sharper criticism of China by non-governmental human rights organizations. Particular developments – especially involving Tibet, individual dissidents, and religious organizations, each of which has supporters in the U.S. – may inflame the issue from time to time. But while the human rights issue will remain an irritant in the U.S.-China relationship, it is unlikely to cause a crisis – unless the human rights issue in China itself reaches crisis proportions. </p><p align="center">- - -<br /></p><p align="left">In short, much of the conventional wisdom about China’s record political reform over the last thirty years is correct. There have been limits to political reform, the system therefore remains authoritarian, it is vulnerable to shock, and U.S.-China relations will not be immune from a serious political crisis in China. But these same generalizations have to be modified to be more fully accurate: there has been considerable political reform, China is a relatively soft and resilient authoritarian system, and it will take a very large shock – or protracted political decay – to destabilize either the U.S.-China relationship or China itself</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-29922025573881047122009-04-18T23:24:00.000-07:002009-04-18T23:36:53.379-07:00The Hard Edge to Soft PowerIt’s increasingly clear that Chinese are interested in developing their soft power, as well as their military and economic power. Is this something that Americans should be concerned about? Is the development of another country’s soft power entirely benign, or can it legitimately be of concern to others?<br /><br />Some forms of soft power are non-threatening. These include the attractiveness of a country’s culture, the beauty of its landscape, the appeal of its educational system, even the skill of its diplomatic corps. To be sure, there may be a degree of competitiveness here, in the sense that all these forms of soft power may enable a country to develop more vital hubs of cultural, tourist, intellectual, and diplomatic activity than other countries enjoy. But the overall effect is positive: everyone benefits from the emergence of these new centers of soft power.<br /><br />But two other types of soft power may be somewhat less benign. They are the use of soft power to explicitly legitimize the development of one’s own harder forms of power; and then the use of soft power to delegitimize another country’s power, whether hard or soft. Both of these, especially the second, may make the acquisition of soft power a much more competitive undertaking. And while China is clearly trying – with some degree of success – to develop the benign forms of soft power, it is also attempting to create these two other forms of soft power as well.<br /><br /><br /><em>Legitimizing Chinese power</em><br /><br />One key purpose of soft power is to legitimize the development and deployment of harder forms of power, both military and economic. Since hard power can appear threatening, soft power can be used to reassure others about the intentions that harder power will ultimately serve.<br /><br />Chinese became interested in this issue when they grappled with what initially appeared to them to be a puzzle. After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, when the United States became the world’s sole superpower, why did not the rest of the world come together to counterbalance it? Chinese analysts considered two possible explanations for this. One was that the world was truly unipolar – that the US was so powerful that the only possible response was to bandwagon, not counterbalance. But the other, seemingly more plausible to Chinese analysts who see an irreversible trend toward multipolarity, was that the US was not seen as sufficiently threatening to warrant counterbalancing. And they concluded that the main reason why American predominance was not widely regarded as threatening was that America’s hard power was legitimized by its soft power.<br /><br />This conclusion became even more relevant to Beijing when the rise of Chinese economic and military power toward the end of the 1990s began to produce concerns about China’s own intentions, and to give rise to the so-called “China Threat” theory. To counter that theory, Chinese analysts realized, Beijing would have to find ways of doing what the U.S. had done so well: to use soft power to legitimize its acquisition of hard power.<br /><br />Beijing could have tried to do this by putting forward an idiosyncratic set of goals and values to justify the rise of Chinese power. For example, it could have reasserted some of the ideological values rooted in the Marxist-Leninist tradition. Or it could have presented a set of cultural values drawn from Chinese civilization. And, indeed, Beijing has used both these approaches, but to a remarkably limited degree. It continues to talk about a “new international economic order,” much as it did in the 1970s; and it has started to talk about creating a “harmonious world,” using a term that has much deeper resonance in Chinese traditional rhetoric than in contemporary international parlance.<br /><br />But China’s main strategy has been to invoke universal international values – not specifically Marxist-Leninist or Chinese values -- to justify its rise. In so doing, China has been exercising soft power in an unusual way. It has not taken the approach described so well by Joseph Nye: persuading others to be like China. Instead, it has taken just the opposite tack: trying to persuade others that China wants to be just like them. In other words, China has been reassuring the rest of the world it has accepted international norms and values, and therefore its rise will not be a threat to the international community that upholds those values.<br /><br />But of course, in invoking those international norms, China has done so selectively, stressing those with which it felt most comfortable and, as we will see in the next section, sometimes using them to subtly delegitimize the exercise of power by the United States. This list of selected universal norms and values is a long one, but they can be summarized by grouping them into five broader categories: goals, values, transactional norms, institutional norms, and policy norms.<br /><strong></strong><br /><ul><li><strong>Goals:</strong> Chinese leaders speak of a variety of goals that they say China shares with other nations. Two frequently used formulations are “peace, prosperity, and partnership” for the international system as a whole, and “stability, development, and human rights” for the individual countries within it. These two formulations build on the earlier statement, associated with Deng Xiaoping, that the world is in an era of “peace and development” – a statement that, in turn, was a tacit repudiation of the Maoist formula of a world characterized by “war and revolution.”<br />The Maoist formula was a good example of the presentation of an idiosyncratic set of goals that, in the end, appealed to only a relatively small number of people and to even fewer governments. By emphasizing the more universally held values of “peace and development,” in contrast, Deng's formula has been more reassuring form of soft power. The subsequent addition of values such as “prosperity,” “stability,” and “human rights” only enhances its appeal. </li><li><strong>Values:</strong> Here, China has also invoked universal values, but more selectively. It has championed the Westphalian values of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, together with the more recent value of cultural diversity. These lead China to oppose intervention by stronger powers in the internal affairs of the weak, oppose unwanted regulation of sovereign states by international institutions, and defend each government’s right to define its own path of development free of foreign pressure. To be sure, Beijing China no longer absolutizes these values, and is even willing to support economic sanctions and humanitarian intervention in certain circumstances. But in general China holds to what I call the “conservative” (or “modern”) values in international affairs, whereas the U.S. upholds what might be called more “liberal” (or “post-modern”) values – values that permit intervention and sanctions in the name of the protection human security and the promotion of human rights. </li><li><strong>Transactional norms:</strong> By transactional norms, I mean the norms that govern the interactions among states. Here, China has made a somewhat more original contribution – indeed, a contribution that some say will form the basis of a new Chinese theory of international relations – by saying that it stands for “partnerships” that are characterized by norms such as mutual understanding, trust, consensus, and cooperation. These are universal values, to be sure, but they have previously been applied more to domestic social relations than to the international relations among states. China also continues to uphold the related elements of the “five principles of peaceful coexistence,” including equality and mutual benefit. </li><li><strong>Institutional norms:</strong> Similarly, in its discussion of international organizations, Beijing favors those that follow the norm of universal (rather than selective) membership and that operate on the basis of consensus (rather than majority rule or minority dominance). In so doing, it claims two be upholding the principle of democratic governance of international affairs, and opposing any country’s claims to hegemony or dominance. </li><li><strong>Policy norms:</strong> China also has codified a set of norms that underlie specific foreign policies and development programs: For example, China says its foreign policy is organized around “defensive defense,” ”cooperative security,” “win-win” economic relationships, and unconditional foreign aid. And Beijing’s development policy advocates experimentalism, gradualism, and varied solutions to fit the particular circumstances of each developing country, all undertaken by a strong, authoritarian, pro-development state. </li></ul><p><br /><br /><em>Delegitimizing American power<br /></em><br />At the same time that Beijing is trying to use soft power to legitimize its growing role in the world, there are also some signs that it is simultaneously attempting, at least to a degree, to delegitimize American power and policy. It is doing so by suggesting the ways in which its selection of universal goals, values, and norms stand in contrast to America’s, and the ways in which American foreign and development policies violate the norms and values that China espouses.<br /><br />Let’s proceed through the same five categories outlined above, to see how Beijing uses them to criticize the United States, and thereby attempts to delegitimize the American role in the world:<br /></p><ul><li><strong>Goals:</strong> Here, the differences between China and the U.S. are centered more on the goals that Beijing asserts for individual countries than on its goals for the international system. On the latter, China does not imply that the U.S. does not join China in favoring international peace and prosperity as ultimate objectives. But on the former, China asserts far more differences with the U.S. By setting out China’s three goals – stability, development, and human rights -- Chinese analysts say that the U.S. is focused only on one (human rights), and even there is focused primarily on political and civil rights, rather than on the economic and social rights that have equal standing under international law. Beijing does not accept the charge that China is not as committed to human rights as is the U.S. Instead, it says that the U.S. ignores the developing world’s equal interest in stability and development, especially for poorer states, and is willing to sacrifice them in a quixotic attempt to promote democracy and pluralism in countries that are not yet “ready” to achieve them. </li><li><strong>Values:</strong> Here, the differences are far starker, although not absolute. As noted above, China can be seen as upholding “conservative” values in international affairs, which Beijing then contrasts with the “liberal” values (and I stress this is my term, not Beijing’s) promoted by the United States: the right of the U.S., either unilaterally, in concert with its allies, or with the backing of international organizations, to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs to impose Western policies, institutions, and values. Increasingly, too, Beijing accuses the U.S. of a cultural bias – of a “West-centric discourse” that denies the acceptability of anything other than Western policies, institutions, or values in evaluating the domestic and foreign policies of other countries. </li><li><strong>Transactional norms:</strong> As noted above, China advocates transactional norms that embody the ideal of cooperative relationships among trusting partners. Beijing accuses the United States of frequently violating those norms. It claims that America’s relationship with China, like its relationships with other countries it regards as potential threats, is characterized by mistrust and misunderstanding. China also says that the U.S. deals with other countries through sanctions and pressure, rather than in a cooperative and consensual sprit; and conducts its relations with other countries in a hierarchical or hegemonic way, rather than forming equal partnerships of the sort that Beijing claims to favor. </li><li><strong>Institutional norms:</strong> China reserves some of its most pointed criticism of the United States for violating its favored institutional norms: universal membership organizations that operate on the basis of consensus. It has criticized US alliances, especially in Asia, and US proposals for the creation of a league of democracies, as “dividing the world” on the basis of “ideological thinking” and a “cold war mentality.” In other words, these are allegedly institutional reflections of a American mindset that demands allegiance to “Western values,” mistrusts and misunderstands countries that do not unequivocally accept those values, and creates hierarchical and exclusive relationships centered on the US rather than more equal and inclusive “partnerships.” </li><li><strong>Policy norms:</strong> Finally, many of China’s policy norms can be seen as criticisms, direct or indirect, of American policies. For example, “defensive defense” is a criticism of the US policies of preemptive and preventive war. Similarly, China contrasts its “no-strings-attached” approach to ODA with the conditionality associated with the United States and the Washington-based international financial institutions, and contrasts the gradualistic and experimental strategy of development with the orthodox neo-liberal approach it attributes to the “Washington Consensus.”<br /></li></ul><p><br /><em>Conclusion</em><br /><br />My point here is not to suggest that China’s normative arguments are correct or unanswerable. Rather, it is to assert that China is using normative arguments to legitimate its rising military and economic power, so as to reduce the chances that China’s rise will be seen as a threat that requires other countries to counterbalance it. It is also to suggest that China is using those same normative arguments to delegitimize some aspects of American foreign and defense policy.<br /><br />The main implication is that the U.S. will have develop effective counterarguments (or, in some cases, to modify its policies) if it is to maintain the international legitimacy that is such an important part of its overall national power. Many American analysts focus on the rise of the harder forms of Chinese power, or the more benign forms of soft power. They may not be paying adequate attention to the ways in which that soft power can possess a harder edge.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-44624320514496767292009-02-17T17:54:00.000-08:002009-02-17T18:00:12.726-08:00How to Promote Human Rights in China?<p align="left">The Center for American Progress, one of the Washington think tanks I respect the most, has issued a new report on the promotion of human rights in China, entitled Strategic Persistence: How the United States Can Help Improve Human Rights in China. The report was written by William Schulz, a senior fellow at CAP who was formerly executive director of Amnesty International.</p><p align="left">The report contains an overall assessment of the human rights situation in China, and offers some detailed recommendations about how the U.S. government, business, and non-governmental organizations can promote human rights there. But to me, the most important and persuasive part of the report is the overall strategy that Schulz believes should underpin American policy on the subject.<br /><br />Schulz begins by underscoring two key assumptions: </p><ul><li><div align="left">First, our leverage to force China to advance human rights and democracy is limited. Our “sticks” are relatively weak and counterproductive. This was already demonstrated after the Tiananmen Crisis of 1989, when we tried but failed to use trade policy to force improvements in China’s human rights record, but then backed down when in essence Beijing called our bluff. The lack of leverage, and the cost of trying to exercise it, would be even greater today.</div></li><li><div align="left">And second, the growth in the various elements of China’s national power, and the emergence of a wide range of transnational issues in a globalized world, means that the agenda between the two countries is far longer than ever before. No longer can we focus entirely on the traditional trinity of trade, Taiwan, and human rights. We now must address a far greater range of bilateral, regional, and international issues now than we did twenty years ago, and we need China’s cooperation if we are to manage those issues successfully. </div></li></ul><p align="left">Still, as Schulz points out, the promotion of human rights remains an important American objective, for both moral reasons and practical ones. We want Chinese, like all people, to enjoy rights that we regard as inherent and inalienable, and that are now enshrined in several international legal conventions that China has signed and ratified. Violations of human rights undermine the Chinese business climate: they are a potential source of political instability, can reduce the government’s responsiveness to economic and social problems, and can produce reputational risks for firms operating there. As Schulz points out, China’s domestic policy on human rights is correlated with Beijing’s reluctance to criticize human rights violations by repressive regimes in the Third World, let alone to accept the principle of humanitarian intervention.<br /><br />Of course, democratization will not solve all America’s international problems. I don’t agree with the former Clinton administration’s position that democracies inevitably make better trading partners and agree with the United States on key international issues. That’s an exaggeration, as our trade disputes with Japan and the disagreements with our European allies over Iraq have so amply demonstrated. But while all good things do not necessarily go together in the real world, promoting human rights will remain, and should remain, an American foreign policy objective.<br /><br />How then to promote human rights in the new context, in which America needs Beijing’s cooperation on a variety of international issues and America has limited leverage over the human rights situation in China? Here again I agree with the principal conclusions of the CAP report. Putting them in my own words, and occasionally adding my own gloss, I would summarize them as follows: </p><ul><li>We should focus on supporting positive developments, working with both Chinese government agencies and with civil society where it is possible to move forward. But I don’t see this as a choice of “carrots” over “sticks,” as the CAP report does. Describing this policy as offering China “carrots” might imply paying the Chinese government to do something they would not otherwise do. Rather, we would be providing funds and technical assistance to enable the Chinese government and China’s emerging civil society to conduct reforms that they already want to undertake, and encourage them to take those reforms one step further. </li><li>We should continue to make candid assessments of China’s human rights situation, through such mechanisms as the annual State Department human rights report. But in so doing we need a broad definition of that subject. Civil and political rights, as Schulz points out, are not conterminous with democracy. Indeed, the attainment of these two objectives will almost certainly occur on quite different time scales, the first sooner than the second. Furthermore, internationally protected human rights include economic and social rights as well as civil and political rights. Poverty alleviation is as worthy an objective – and as admirable an achievement -- as democracy promotion. Relatedly, those assessments should also be well-informed and well-balanced, acknowledging positive developments as well criticizing as negative ones. One-sided critiques of China’s human rights violations will have little credibility, either in China or in third countries. </li><li>Our approach to promoting human rights in China should be as multilateral as possible. This means working with our allies to present a common front on the issue, and pressing the UN Human Rights Council to look objectively at China’s human rights record. Working through multilateral channels will be frustrating at some times, as in the recent Universal Periodic Review of China conducted by the UN Human Rights Council, where China rejected a large number of the recommendations submitted by democratic states. Multilateral mechanisms are unlikely to be any more effective at forcing change in China than are measures taken unilaterally by the United States. But sometimes they will have an impact, as when dockworkers in several African countries refused to offload Chinese weapons destined for Zimbabwe. And working multilaterally demonstrates that concern with human rights is not simply a unique American preoccupation, and that America’s assessments of China’s human rights record reflect not just American preferences, but widely shared norms. </li><li>Businesses should also promote human rights, in part by raising questions about the operational and reputational risks associated with working business in countries that violate them, and above all by doing no harm when conducting business there – with regard both to how they treat their own workers, and to whether they sell the Chinese government equipment (such as police surveillance equipment) that can be used to violate human rights of Chinese citizens. </li><li>Perhaps most important, as the emphasis changes from threats of sanction to offers of assistance, the focus will also shift from the role of government to the role of NGOs. NGOs can better perform both the critical and cooperative functions outlined above. Compared with governments, they are under fewer obligations to weigh other factors in their approach to China. While they should also be objective and well-balanced, as advocacy organizations they can also be blunt and outspoken. And, also compared with governments, NGOs that operate in China are in a better position to promote positive developments inside that country, albeit perhaps with financial assistance from governments and international organizations. </li></ul><p>CAP’s call for “strategic persistence” on human rights is a modest prescription that carries no guarantee of short-term success. But it is a realistic one, based on the acknowledgement that the more can be achieved by encouraging positive developments and by offering candid but objective criticisms of negative ones than by threatening sanctions that will be costly, ineffective, and possibly counterproductive.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-54305873031756809002009-02-07T04:05:00.000-08:002009-02-07T04:15:28.949-08:00Will Australia Have to Choose Between the US and China?I mentioned in an earlier blog the Australian concern that the balance of power in Asia might be shifting away from Australia’s ally, the United States, and toward China, a country that many Australians still mistrust. I noted that this was one of the two issues that I was most frequently asked about during my visit to Australia at the end of last year. The second, which I have not yet had time to write about, was closely related to it: will Australia ever be forced to choose between China and the United States?<br /><br />Here, the question is just as interesting as the answer, because it says much about Australian history, and the ways in which the present situation Australia faces are both familiar and unprecedented.<br /><br />The familiar aspect of Australia’s present international situation is the Australian perception that is a relatively small country, whose larger neighbors cannot entirely be trusted, and which therefore needs a stronger ally, necessarily at a distance. Until World War II, that ally was Britain; since World War II, that ally has been the United States.<br /><br />These alliances have been in some ways comfortable to Australia. Britain was the previous colonial power, and then British monarch remained Australia’s head of state after Australia achieved independence. The United States shares many common values with Australia, and common historical links to Great Britain.<br /><br />However, no matter whether it was Britain or America that served as Australia’s ally, Australia has always appeared to fear abandonment – that is, that the stronger ally would desert it in a time of need. Perhaps this has been a result of the geographical distances between Australia and its ally, or because of Australia’s peripheral strategic location, which might make the ally less inclined to defend it.<br /><br />One way that Australia tried to cope with this risk was to demonstrate its fidelity to its ally, repeatedly and at considerable cost.<br /><br />One only has to visit the Australian War Memorial in Canberra – one of the world’s most remarkable military museums – to have that point brought home. From the Sudan in the 1850s and the Boer War at the end of the 19th century, through two world wars, through Korea and Vietnam, and now down to Iraq and Afghanistan, Australians fought, with great heroism and sacrifice, alongside their stronger allies, even though Australia itself had not been attacked. (To be sure, Australia was attacked by the Japanese during World War II, but only several years after it had already declared war on Germany in 1939.)<br /><br />To some degree, when the stronger ally was Great Britain, the ties to a common monarchy appeared to require this. In Australia’s declaration of war in 1939, following the German invasion of Poland, the prime minister of the time, Robert Menzies, explained his decision extraordinarily concisely: “Great Britain has declared war on [Germany], and as a result Australia is also at war.” But legalities aside, the main motivation was to show faithfulness to Australia’s principal security guarantor, in the expectation that such fealty would be rewarded in the event of a threat to Australia.<br /><br />When applied to the present situation, Australia’s concern is therefore that, if the United States got into a conflict with China over Taiwan, American would expect Australia to come to its aid, and that Australia would feel obliged to do so. Faced with a conflict between the two great powers of the region, Australia would be faced with an awkward choice: remain loyal to its ally, or avoid any commitments to that ally in order to avoid hostilities with a very powerful neighbor.<br /><br />And that leads to the second historical comparison: the one that is unprecedented for Australia. In the past, Australia’s two major allies – the United Kingdom and the United States – were simultaneously Australia’s biggest trading partners. That is no longer true. China is now Australia’s largest trading partner, because of its large and growing imports of raw materials from Australia. To choose between China and the United States is not just a choice between war and peace, or between accommodating a potential enemy and remaining loyal to an ally, but also a choice between one’s most important strategic partner and one’s most important commercial partner.<br /><br />Of course Americans can reassure Australians that China and the United States share a powerful common interest in avoiding conflict or confrontation, certainly on a scale that would involve allies like Australia. Thus, the apparent necessity to choose is most likely a false dilemma.<br /><br />Still, this question does raise yet again a difference between the ways in which Americans and Asians think about the region. To Americans, the biggest question concerns the strategic implications of the rise of China. To most Asians, the most important question is the likely American response to that development.<br /><br />To Americans, in other words, the issue of greatest concern is the future of China; to Asians, in contrast, the issue of greatest concern is the future of the U.S.-China relationship. And given Australia's long-standing tradition of loyalty to its allies, that issue is of particularly great interest.Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-43190478506773118252009-02-04T21:21:00.000-08:002009-02-04T21:51:36.533-08:00China's Perception of ObamaThis blog is drawn, with slight modifications, from a posting that appeared on the Asia Foundation's blogsite, <em>In Asia</em> (<a href="http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia">http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia</a>)<br /><br /><div align="center">- - -</div><br />I was recently asked to describe how the Chinese have assessed the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Their assessment has evolved somewhat over time, and can be divided into three stages: the campaign, the transition, and the (still very young) post-inaugural period. For each, we can consider both official and unofficial Chinese opinion. The latter, some of which appears in the Chinese press and on Chinese blogs, provides useful supplement – and sometimes, an interesting contrast – with more official statements and commentary.<br /><br /><em>The Campaign<br /></em><br />During the campaign, the Chinese officially said little that would hint towards a preference among the three major candidates: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The Chinese generally like continuity of leadership in the U.S. They prefer leaders they know, who have already been converted from an initial skepticism about China to a commitment to a reasonably close working relationship. This was the case with President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. This election year, however, there was no incumbent and all the leading candidates ran on platforms promising significant change.<br /><br />But, of all the candidates, they knew Hillary Clinton best. Yet Clinton worried them as well, since the Chinese were not confident that she had overcome her critical views of China’s human rights records, especially with regard to women and Tibetans, to the same degree her husband appeared to have done. And some of her statements on trade issues during the latter stages of the campaign, especially as she fought to save her candidacy in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, appeared to reflect a high level of protectionist sentiment.<br /><br />The Chinese also generally prefer Republicans to Democrats, largely because the presidents they have worked with most closely – George W. Bush, his father before him, and especially Richard Nixon – have been Republicans. They also fear that, compared with Republicans, Democrats are more likely to criticize China’s human rights record, and represent protectionist sentiments within American society. But the Chinese were considerably concerned about candidate John McCain. McCain did not focus on human rights or trade issues, but he had called for the creation of a “League of Democracies” that might not only exclude China, but also serve as an alternative to the United Nations for legitimating American foreign policy initiatives, which might include sanctions and humanitarian intervention. McCain also favored the deployment of an American ballistic missile defense system, and explicitly stated that one of its targets would be China’s strategic capability.<br /><br />In spite of those concerns, although the Chinese never expressed a clear preference, based on their traditional criteria, Barack Obama would probably have been their last choice: a Democratic candidate who had never visited China, with whom Chinese had few personal ties, and who promised the greatest degree of change in both American domestic and foreign policy.<br /><br />Chinese outside of government had their own views of Obama, which seem to have gone through an intriguing evolution as the campaign proceeded. Like much of the rest of the world – and like many Americans — Chinese were intrigued about the possibility that an African-American might actually be elected president of the United States. At first, some actually appeared to think that this was sign of American weakness – even of the decay of the American political system. But as they learned more about Obama and his background – the fact that he had been educated at Columbia and Harvard, that he was highly intelligent and extremely articulate, and that his policy positions placed him in the middle of the political spectrum rather on the extreme – reservations turned to admiration. Many ordinary Chinese, especially those sympathetic to the United States, reacted to Obama’s election with admiration, and even joy. Many thought that it reflected the openness of American society and the responsibility of the U.S. political system. As one friend wrote me just after the election, they felt it showed what “a great country” the United States is.<br /><br /><em>The Transition</em><br /><br />Faced with the fact that America had elected the candidate they knew least, and about whom they had some of the greatest reservations, the Chinese then had to prepare themselves for the inauguration. Not only did Chinese officials and the official Chinese media express their desire to continue a cooperative relationship with the United States, but they also presented several reasons why they were confident such a development would occur.<br /><br />Restating a key theme in Chinese analysis of U.S.-China relations since 1980, well-connected Chinese scholars said that the desire for cooperative engagement with China has consistently been mainstream American policy. Even those presidents who had campaigned against that policy or for other fundamental changes in American relations with Beijing – presidents such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush — had eventually changed their minds after a relatively short time in office. Even if Barack Obama were to adopt a tougher American line toward Beijing, that would be unlikely to endure.<br /><br />This time, this was especially true because of the growing economic interdependence between the two countries. Especially during the present global financial crisis, that interdependence, and the importance of the two economies, would make cooperation essential. The growing list of transnational issues in which the two countries had a stake – terrorism, proliferation, energy security, and climate change – also appeared to Chinese analysts to be a powerful factor promoting a cooperative and stable relationship.<br /><br />In this election especially, China had not been a major campaign issue. That in itself was reassuring to the Chinese, since it reduced the chances that the newly elected president would adopt a more hostile or critical approach to Beijing, even temporarily. And of the three major candidates, Obama had appeared marginally less protectionist than Clinton, and certainly did not support McCain’s positions on ballistic missile defense and a league of democracies<br /><br />Finally, although Chinese had often expressed a greater degree of comfort with Republican presidents, some officials began to acknowledge the contributions of Democratic presidents to the U.S.-China relationship. It was Jimmy Carter who had actually completed the task of normalizing the relationship; and it was Bill Clinton, despite his original threat to remove China’s Most-Favored-Nation trading status, who had negotiated China’s membership in the World Trade Organization and who had secured permanent normal trade relations for Beijing.<br /><br /><em>Post-inauguration</em><br /><br />It has been just a couple of weeks since the inauguration of Barack Obama, but some Chinese are now expressing some signs of concern about the new president’s intentions toward their country.<br />Obama’s inaugural speech did not contain any explicit reference to China, and thus did not include a commitment to continue a cooperative relationship between Washington and Beijing, as some Chinese may have hoped. Instead, it referred to the successful American struggle against fascism and communism under earlier administrations, and then talked critically about those governments that “suppress dissent” and are on the “wrong side of history.”<br /><br />It is not at all clear to me that these passages were intended to refer to China. And yet, it is true that the phrase “the wrong side of history” had been used by Bill Clinton, in a meeting with Jiang Zemin, to refer to China’s policy toward Tibet. If Barack Obama and his speechwriters did not remember that reference, Chinese analysts most certainly did.<br /><br />Of even greater concern were the written responses to questions about the currency question made by Timothy Geithner during his Senate confirmation hearings after his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner’s answer included the sentence that “President Obama – backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists – believes that China is manipulating its currency,” implying to some that the Treasury Department would cite China as a currency manipulator in its next semi-annual review of the question. Also, they feared that the new administration would support some kind of legislation that would impose sanctions against China and presumably other countries who had been found to be manipulating their currency.<br /><br />In fact, Geithner’s full answers qualified that particular sentence in important ways. He said that, in the short run, the most important economic challenge facing the two countries was not addressing the value of the renminbi, but rather coordinating stimulus packages that could promote the recovery of the global economy. And, over the longer term, the issue again was not necessarily currency value, but rather the underlying need to encourage China’s shift away toward consumption-led growth (and, by implication, away from export- or investment-led growth). When and if the U.S. did raise the currency issue, Geithner carefully quoted Obama’s campaign statements that he would “use aggressively all the diplomatic avenues open to him to seek change in China’s currency practices,” wording that did not necessarily imply the use of countervailing duties or other sanctions, and even raised the question of “how and when to broach the subject in order to do more good than harm.” But it was the opening sentence, not the subsequent qualifications, that attracted most attention both in the U.S. and in China.<br /><br />At a minimum, therefore, these two statements – Obama’s inaugural address and Geithner’s confirmation testimony – were somewhat ambiguous about the new administration’s approach to China. The explicit official responses – as during the transition period – have been largely optimistic. Both Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., Zhou Enzhong, continue to express their hope for a stable and cooperative U.S.-China relationship. But there have also been indications of concern, particularly from unofficial observeers.<br /><br />Obama's inaugural speech contained elements that were worrisome both to both Chinese officials and to Chinese analysts in universities and think tanks. Deleted from Chinese broadcasts of Obama’s inaugural speech and from the transcripts in the official Chinese media were the passages about America contributing to the end of communism, and to authoritarian regimes standing on the “wrong side of history.” Interestingly, too, some Chinese analysts have referred to yet other aspects of the inaugural address that they regard as negative. China Daily carried an article that criticized Obama’s reassertion of American global leadership in his inaugural address, commenting caustically that “U.S. leaders have never been shy of talking about their country’s ambition to be the leader of the world. For them, it is a divinely granted destiny no matter what other nations think.”<br /><br />Geithner's testimony at his confirmation hearings aroused even greater concern. One prominent Chinese specialist on U.S.-China relations was quoted as saying that Geithner’s comments on currency manipulation reflected a lack of “maturity,” while a Chinese central bank official warned that a finding that confirmed China manipulated the value of the renminbi would obstruct cooperation on what Geithner had acknowledged to be the more immediate issue: cooperation on managing the global financial crisis.<br /><br />But Chinese observers have reserved most of their venom for the charges in American commentary – now heard with increasing frequency – that the high Chinese savings rate, the high Chinese foreign exchange reserves, or both, provided the liquidity that produced the asset bubble that lay at the bottom of the global financial crisis. Xinhua’s reaction was typical: “The high savings rate in emerging markets is not a reason for developed countries to loosen financial regulation and look on, arms folded, as financial institutions develop new derivatives and let financial bubbles balloon. The reasons for the current financial crisis lie in excessive consumption, high indebtedness, and lack of financial regulation.” These comments were echoed more recently, although a bit more indirectly, by Premier Wen Jiabao in remarks made at the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos. Chinese appear concerned that this analysis lies behind the Obama Administration's apparent determination to place more pressure on China to revalue the renminbi.<br /><br /><em>Conclusion</em><br /><br /><div align="center"></div>In short, Chinese observers are viewing the incoming Obama Administration with some apprehension. Officials have been more reserved in their expressions of concern than have analysts, but in general the Chinese reaction has contained three themes: (1) worry that the Obama Administration will take a harder line on trade and human rights; (2) disappointment that it has not expressed a clearer desire for a cooperative relationship with China and has not assigned higher priority to its relations with Beijing; but (3) confidence that ultimately the Obama Administration will realize that America's relationship with China is so important that cooperation with Beijing will be necessary.Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-87700455134919200942009-01-25T18:49:00.000-08:002009-01-25T23:42:13.052-08:00America's evolving role in a changing Asia<p>Earlier this month, I visited three capitals in Southeast Asia – Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Hanoi – to present the latest in a series of reports on America’s role in Asia, produced each presidential election year by the Asia Foundation.<br /><br />The report was not easy to summarize. It contains chapters on no fewer than eight countries and sub-regions (Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), plus seven additional chapters on key functional issues (trade, security, alliances, the environment, energy, terrorism, and regional architecture). All the chapters incorporate individual insights on trends in the region, as well as numerous detailed recommendations on policy. The report also reflects a few differences of opinion, both among the Asian participants and between the American and Asian contributors, especially with regard to questions involving regional architecture.<br /><br />But the main purposes of the project – to identify the key trends in the region, and to make policy recommendations to the incoming U.S. administration – provided a structure for my summary. Within that broad framework, I found that there was a remarkable degree of consensus on six major trends, and on ten broad policy recommendations. That consensus is presented below, although I have also indicated a few places where the contributors had different views, and where I have somewhat contrasting opinions of my own.<br /><br /><br /><em>Key trends</em><br /><br />1. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the bipolar international order that had formed at the end of World War II, there was a commonly held assumption that the world had become unipolar, with the U.S. in the dominant position. More than a decade later, however, it has become increasingly clear that the rise of new global and regional powers has created a multipolar world, not a unipolar one. But within that multipolar world, the longer-term balance among the global and regional powers remains uncertain. It will depend on domestic developments in the key national actors, particularly the relative speed and degree to which they recover from the global financial crisis. While the U.S. may remain the most powerful nation in the world in that future order, it is unlikely to dominate either the Asian balance or the global balance of power.<br /><br />2. Because it involves the lowering of barriers to transborder flows of people, capital, and goods, globalization is promoting both economic interdependence and the emergence of a wide range of transborder issues. This is changing the international agenda, both in Asia and more globally, adding a wide range of new issues, as well as new economic opportunities. (I believe that globalization is transforming Asia and the world in yet another way: it is making the world multinodal, rather than multipolar. Rather than seeing the major world powers as relatively independent poles competing for position in a geopolitical balance of power, they should now be viewed as multiple nodes in an interdependent economic and financial network. In this new multimodal world, major nations continue to compete, but now as economic centers as well as military powers. They also have major common interests in maintaining the vitality of the global order and in managing transnational issues. The blend of competition and cooperation among the major powers is therefore very different in a multimodal world than it was in a multipolar one.)<br /><br />3. Asia will remain a highly important region for both the U.S. and the world. It is home to several of the most important rising powers (China, India and, if it can develop a common foreign policy, ASEAN), as well as such established powers as the U.S., Japan, and Russia. It is almost certain to remain one of the world’s most economically dynamic regions. It is the location of the two most important unresolved issues left over from the Cold War: Korea and Taiwan. It is also a region in which every virtually contemporary transnational issue – from terrorism and climate change to transborder crime and communicable disease -- can be found and where effective solutions will need to be developed.<br /><br />4. There is a widespread perception that America has become somewhat disengaged from this important region, to the extent that some Asians assert that Washington has been treating Asia with “benign neglect.” (I think this may be a bit exaggerated. I prefer to say that the U.S. is paying selective attention to the region, focusing only on the major powers [Japan, China, and India], “hot spots” [North Korea and Taiwan], and issues [the war on terror and non-proliferation] that are of greatest concern to the U.S.)<br /><br />5. Asia is trying to build regional organizations that will eventually form an economic and security community for the region. The aim is to promote cooperative security, manage economic interdependence, and address the transnational issues that affect the region. But there are different assessments of the accomplishments and effectiveness of the organizations that have been created so far, especially such flagship institutions as ASEAN, ARF, and APEC. Asians (who stress process) are more positive about these organizations than are Americans (who emphasize concrete outcomes). Where Asians see these organizations as moving at “a pace comfortable to all,” Americans complain that they are like a naval convoy that is limited to “the speed of the slowest ship.” Equally important, there are also differences of opinion as to whether these organizations should be pan-Asian (excluding the U.S.) or pan-Pacific (including it).<br /><br />6. There is a growing sense that global institutions (the UN Security Council, G-8, IMF, IBRD, etc.) do not adequately represent the emerging powers, including those in Asia (particularly China and India and, in the case of the Security Council, Japan).<br /><br /><br /><em>Policy recommendations for the new administration</em><br /><br />1. The U.S. should pay more comprehensive attention to Asia. This means, in particular, more attention to Southeast Asia and to the smaller states of South Asia, which feel particularly neglected. It also means greater attention to the issues of greatest concern to members of the region -- not just to the war on terror, non-proliferation, and sub-regional hot spots, but also to prosperity, financial stability, development, food security, energy security, climate change, public health, and disaster management. (I would add that this may also require increasing the “bandwidth” of the American foreign policy bureaucracy responsible for Asia, so that it can deal effectively with these additional issues.)<br /><br />2. Preserving U.S. strategic dominance in the region – in other words, trying to make Asia into a unipolar region -- will not be a viable strategy. It is neither desired by most of the region, nor feasible given the rise of regional powers. Instead, the U.S. should look at itself more as an offshore balancer in the near term, and as an architect of effective regional cooperative security organizations over the longer term.<br /><br />3. Even this somewhat more modest goal will require the U.S. to remain strategically engaged in the region. This means not only maintaining America’s forward military deployments, but also consolidating the U.S. alliances and building stable and cooperative security relationships with the emerging Asian powers.<br /><br />4. The U.S. should maintain its commitment to free trade. The report recommends renewing the president’s trade promotion authority (“fast track”), resisting protectionism, pushing for the successful completion of the Doha Round, and completing and ratifying the free trade agreements that it is negotiating with the region. (While protectionism is indeed a danger during the current financial crisis, I believe that the oft-stated concerns about American protectionism are usually exaggerated. I would also note that the U.S. is not the only obstacle, and is not even the principal obstacle, to the completion of the Doha Round. Agricultural policy in Europe, and industrial policy in much of the Third World, are equally significant problems. I would also caution that, as the U.S. negotiates free trade agreements with countries in the region, many of its Asian counterparts will resist the demanding and comprehensive form of free trade agreement on which Washington insists. In this regard, the problem will not be American protectionism, but Asian protectionism.)<br /><br />5. The U.S. should become more supportive of the construction of regional economic and security architecture. However, there was no clear conclusion among the American contributors to the report about which of the growing number of regional organizations hold the greatest promise. In addition, while there was a general consensus that the U.S. should sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with ASEAN, there was a difference of opinion among the Asian participants as to whether the U.S. should be invited to join the East Asian Summit (also known as ASEAN+6).<br /><br />6. The U.S. should also support an expanded role for the emerging Asian powers in global institutions. But the contributors differed somewhat as to whether the U.S. should insist that countries like India and China act as “responsible stakeholders,” accepting existing international norms without significant modification, or whether it should expect that those norms would be readjusted to reflect the interests and values of the rising powers.<br /><br />7. In promoting development in Asia, the U.S. should not just support free trade, better governance, and respect for human rights, but should also provide more traditional forms of economic development assistance. In particular, the report recommends that the U.S. develop a program of investment in Asian physical infrastructure, to supplement initiatives being undertaken by China and Japan.<br /><br />8. The U.S. should continue to pay attention to human rights and democracy, but should take a more positive approach. It should use more moderate rhetoric against human rights shortcomings, support reforms initiated by local governments and civil societies whenever possible, and be more consistent in its own behavior at home and abroad. Above all, the U.S. should not replace a single-minded focus on terrorism with an equally single-minded focus on human rights.<br /><br />9. The U.S. should place more emphasis on the development and deployment of its soft power. But this implies more than devising a more effective foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. It also will require the U.S. to rebuild the instruments of public diplomacy (such as cultural and academic exchange) that have been neglected over the last several years.<br /><br />10. The U.S. should increase its own economic competitiveness. This will be key not only to maximizing trade and investment flows with the region, but also to maintaining a commitment to free trade and to restoring the appeal of the American economic model.<br /><br />These ten points can, in turn, be boiled down into three even broader recommendations:<br /><br />1. In most of the areas on which the Bush Administration has focused, American policy in Asia has generally been appropriate. In these areas, the Obama Administration should stay the course, with perhaps some tactical adjustments to promote our evolving relationships with such countries as China, Japan, North Korea, and India. The exception to this generalization lies primarily in Southwest Asia, where the report recommends more dramatic changes in U.S. policies toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.<br /><br />2. As noted above, however, the Bush Administration’s focus has been limited. The new administration should fill in the gaps that have been left by American selective attention to Asia.<br /><br />3. The U.S. should work to sustain or rebuild all forms of American power in the region: hard, economic, and soft.<br /><br /><br /><em>Asian reactions</em><br /><br />The report was generally well received in the three capitals I visited, particularly in its suggestion that the U.S. pay more attention to neglected countries and issues. But there was some concern expressed about three aspects of the report: whether the new administration would actually support Asian multilateralism, whether it would accept a somewhat reduced role in the region, and whether it would place undue emphasis on human rights.<br /><br />With regard to that first issue, some in the region will place considerable weight on whether or not President Obama chooses to attend the summit meeting between ASEAN summit and its dialogue partners that will be held in Thailand later in the year. The Thais are strongly urging that he do so, not only as an expression of a US interest in ASEAN, but also as an implicit endorsement of Thailand’s desire for a greater leadership role in the region, and an acknowledgement of Thailand’s return to political normalcy. And yet, some in Thailand explicitly said that it was “not the time” for the U.S. to join the East Asian Summit, underscoring the fact that the creation or maintenance of pan-Asian (as opposed to pan-Pacific) regional organizations was a real possibility. This underscored the tensions created by the American need to deal both with ASEAN and with regional organizations led by ASEAN – one of the contradictions I had identified in my earlier blog entitled “The Challenge of Engaging Southeast Asia.”<br /><br />I sensed, moreover, that not everyone in the region was keen to see an unqualified American return to multilateralism. Cambodians seemed to welcome it, since they doubted that their country would otherwise attract sustained high-level attention from the U.S. But some Thais, and particularly some Vietnamese, appeared concerned that an American focus on multilateral approaches toward the region as a whole would mean less U.S. attention to bilateral relations with their own countries. Larger regional powers, with robust ties with the U.S., may fear that they might lose relative influence if Washington chose to deal with the region primarily through ASEAN or through other multilateral mechanisms. This illustrated yet another tension mentioned in my earlier blog: the contradiction between dealing with Southeast Asian nations individually, and dealing with them as members of ASEAN.<br /><br />As for America’s role in the region, some in Thailand asked whether American would actually accept the fact that the U.S. could no longer dominate the region. Conversely, some in Vietnam raised the opposite concern, cautioning that the U.S. should not redefine its role too modestly, as they believed the term “offshore balancer” implied. In particular, they were worried that the U.S. was not paying attention to the conflicting claims in the South China Sea, and that this lack of concern might lead China at some point to assert its claims unilaterally and by force, producing a fait accompli to which the U.S. might be unwilling or unable to respond.</p><p>The report did not contain a chapter on human rights. Interestingly, not a single participant in any of the three meetings in Southeast Asia questioned this omission. Instead, there was some concern expressed that the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State might presage a return to what some regarded as the excessive focus on human rights of the Clinton Administration.</p>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-91342580201521943452009-01-07T08:52:00.000-08:002009-01-07T08:57:20.455-08:00Is there a role for ethical principles in Chinese foreign policy?The following post, on Chinese attitudes toward the role of ethical principles in shaping its foreign policy, appeared recently in the Carnegie Council's on-line journal, <em>Policy Innovations </em>(<a href="http://www.policyinnovations.org/">www.policyinnovations.org</a>):<br /><br /><div align="center">- - -</div><div align="left"><br />In the fall of last year, the Carnegie Council sent a small delegation to Beijing to identify and discuss the ethical principles that guide China's international conduct. In addition to myself, the delegation included Jonathan Gage, a trustee of the Council and publisher of strategy+business, Booz and Company's business magazine; Joshua Eisenman, fellow for Asia at the American Foreign Policy Council; Devin Stewart, director of the Council's Global Policy Innovations program; and Alex Westlake, managing director of ClearWorld Energy's Beijing office.<br /><br />The delegation's goal was to identify both the normative differences between China and the United States—differences that might lead Beijing and Washington to adopt different approaches to common international problems—and the similarities in ethical thinking that could promote cooperation and mutual understanding between our two countries.<br />Although we were invariably received with great courtesy, we found some of our Chinese colleagues to be quite skeptical about our mission. America's promotion of human rights is widely regarded as a way of attacking China's domestic policies or even of undermining China's domestic stability. In the same way, some of our interlocutors expressed their concern that a discussion of international norms was simply another American tactic for criticizing China's international conduct or a strategy aimed at forcing China to comply with U.S. foreign policy preferences.<br /><br />We had to reassure them that we were open to a serious discussion of China's views, along with those of other non-Western countries, on the ethical basis for international conduct. Our goal was not primarily to press China to adopt the same international norms as the United States, but rather to gain a better understanding of the international norms that China espouses.<br /><br />A common objection was the tendency to equate ethical considerations with ideological concerns, and then to contrast both of these to more pragmatic ways of thinking about policy choices. We were told on numerous occasions that Chinese are a "pragmatic" people who are uninterested in abstract discussions of ethics. The tacit assumption was that ethical thinking is impractical, and that pragmatism implies indifference to normative considerations. Deng Xiaoping's well known saying that "black cat or white cat, if it catches mice, it's a good cat" was frequently cited in support of this proposition.<br /><br />We were puzzled by this argument, since we were well aware of China's rich ethical traditions. When we pursued the point, we were told that the Maoist era had significantly discredited ethical discourse in China. Mao's Cultural Revolution was characterized by a highly moralistic approach to politics that, in the end, associated ethical principles (particularly Mao's demand for continuing revolution against privilege and inequality) with an impractical and costly set of policy options (the denigration of expertise, an aversion to material incentives, and the dismantling of bureaucratic institutions). This led many Chinese to conclude that there is a fundamental incompatibility between thinking ethically and acting pragmatically.<br /><br />When applied to foreign policy, this skeptical attitude toward ethics was reinforced by the realist tradition in international political theory—a theoretical tradition that is very comfortable for many Chinese. Realism holds that a country's foreign policy should be entirely based on an assessment of national interests, and it is inappropriate to impose normative considerations on what should properly be an interest-based behavior. Realism was said to be especially suitable for a developing country like China. Several of our Chinese colleagues described ethical considerations as a "luxury" reserved for rich and powerful countries. They asserted that poorer and weaker nations would have to do whatever was necessary to ensure their survival, whether or not it violated others' definitions of ethical behavior.<br /><br />Although we heard much skepticism about applying ethical considerations to Chinese foreign policy, a number of Chinese colleagues expressed substantial interest.<br /><br />In part, this interest reflected their concern about the costs that indifference to ethics was having on China's own society. We arrived in China just as the extent of the tainted milk scandal was becoming clear: Milk had been spiked with melamine as an inexpensive way of enhancing its protein content, but melamine can cause kidney failure in infants and kidney stones in children and older people. Many people realized that this contamination of milk products (and, it was later discovered, meat and other dairy products as well) reflected the dairy companies' unwillingness to allow ethical standards to hamper their quest for profits. We were told that the scandal, along with other similar scandals before it, was creating a growing interest in reconstructing an ethical foundation for Chinese society, drawing not only on China's past ethical traditions, but also on socialist norms and on Western ethical systems.<br /><br />Although most of that discussion has so far been focused on the need to reintroduce ethical considerations to China's domestic affairs, some of our interlocutors acknowledged its relevance to foreign policy as well. But their interest in this question did not simply reflect the desire that their country adopt ethical standards of conduct for their own sake. There was also a two-pronged instrumental argument: that espousing norms of international behavior could enhance China's soft power, and that the invocation of ethical standards could legitimate its development and use of harder forms of power. As China grows in economic and military strength, simple reassurances of a peaceful rise will become less credible and persuasive than the argument that ethical considerations are shaping its international behavior. And, at the same time, ethical arguments can also be used to delegitimize the actions of one's competitors and rivals.<br /><br />As the Chinese gradually rediscover the need to introduce ethical considerations into their foreign policy, what will those considerations be? The Chinese Communist Party has generally been attracted to the classic Westphalian norms of international affairs, particularly those norms that enshrine the autonomy of the nation-state against external pressures. In fact, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, first formulated by Beijing in the mid-1950s, provide a concise summary of those norms: national sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, peaceful coexistence, non-intervention in another country's internal affairs, and equality and mutual benefit.<br /><br />More recently, these norms have come into conflict with what might be called post-Westphalian norms that stress the right (and indeed the obligation) of the international community to infringe on the autonomy of the nation-state to protect or advance other considerations. Westphalian norms also stand in contrast to what the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes as the tendency to regard "social system, ideology, or the concept of values" as inevitably determining the relationship between nations.<br /><br />The Westphalian norm of national sovereignty thus contrasts with the concept of humanitarian intervention or the responsibility to protect; territorial integrity with the more recent norm of self-determination; peaceful coexistence with international efforts to promote human rights in those countries where they are violated; equality with the principle that rogue states should be denied some rights of participation in the international community; and the norm of non-aggression with the use of military action to enforce international norms. Both Westphalian and non-Westphalian norms can easily be justified. Each set reflects a powerful ethical tradition. But they produce very different approaches to today's international problems.<br /><br />Chinese leaders and policy analysts understand that these post-Westphalian norms make sense in a world in which a wide range of social, economic, and security issues span and erode the national borders that Westphalian principles hold sacrosanct. But they are not entirely comfortable with post-Westphalian ethics. They see post-Westphalian principles—like the principles of universal human rights with which they are associated—as a worrisome challenge to China's security and stability.<br /><br />As they gradually develop a normative structure to guide their intentional behavior, Chinese leaders will therefore have to find a balance between the traditional Westphalian norms and the newer norms associated with a globalized world. In doing so, they will most likely find common ground with the United States on many issues but will differ on others. Either way, the need for further discussion of international norms between Chinese and Americans will prove to be a fruitful, even essential exercise.</div>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-77416838664356963252009-01-07T08:47:00.000-08:002009-01-07T09:08:21.708-08:00The challenge of engaging Southeast AsiaI'm on a speaking tour of Southeast Asia -- visiting Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam -- to present the Asia Foundation's recommendations on American policy toward Asia, as contained in its recent report, <em>America's Role in Asia, 2008: Asian and American Views. </em>(The report is available on line at the foundation's website, at <a href="http://www.asiafoundation.org/program/overview/americas-role-in-asia">http://www.asiafoundation.org/program/overview/americas-role-in-asia</a>.)<br /><br />I'll write up my presentation, and report on some of the reactions to it, in a few days. Meanwhile, I thought I would post a presentation I gave back in October, on my last visit to Thailand, on the challenges the U.S. faces in trying to engage with Southeast Asia. This is drawn from the Asia Foundation's online blog, <em>In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia, </em>which can also be found on the foundation's website at <a href="http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia">http://asiafoundation.org/in-asia</a><em>.</em><br /><div align="center"><br />- - -</div><br />Now that the U.S. presidential election is over, the incoming Obama administration will begin a reconsideration of American foreign policy. Numerous urgent issues will compete for attention, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and the parlous state of the global economy. But consideration of these urgent matters should not come at the expense of issues that, while perhaps less immediate, are no less important. One of these is the American relationship with Southeast Asia.<br /><br />There is a widely shared view, both in Southeast Asia and in the Asian policy community in the U.S., that the United States has been paying insufficient attention to the region. In introducing the Southeast Asia section of the Asia Foundation’s recently-released America’s Role in Asia report at a press conference in Washington last month Tommy Koh, Ambassador-At-Large at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, complained that Washington has been treating Southeast Asia with “benign neglect,” perhaps because the region has presented the U.S. with neither significant challenges nor great opportunities.<br /><br />I’m not sure that the U.S. has completely neglected Southeast Asia, but I agree that our attention to the region has been highly selective. We focus on some countries more than others, and on some issues more than others. In particular, we pay attention to the region mainly when bigger issues – terrorism, the rise of China, avian flu – make it relevant. Still, from the Southeast Asian perspective, this selective attention is insufficient, especially when the issues we select are not what Southeast Asians want us to emphasize.<br /><br />However we diagnose the problem – insufficient attention or selective attention – the solution will have to be more than electing a new president who lived in Indonesia as a child, or new members of Congress who may be more internationalist in their outlook or more knowledgeable about Southeast Asia. We also need to understand the structural obstacles that prevent the U.S. from treating Southeast Asia as it would like to be treated. In this regard, the basic problems are that the U.S. has to engage with the region on three different levels simultaneously, and doing so effectively may require more resources than the U.S. presently enjoys.<br /><br />First, the U.S. must deal with each of the countries of the region bilaterally. Some say this is a matter of preference, in that the U.S. (like any great power) can find it easier to deal with each member of ASEAN individually than collectively, since it can dominate any particular pairing. But it is really a matter of necessity. ASEAN comprises ten very different countries – at different levels of development, with different political systems, and with different interests and perspectives. The U.S. must have separate relations with each Southeast Asian country, just as it has separate relations with each member of the EU.<br /><br />At the same time, the United States also needs to deal with ASEAN as a regional organization that is seeking to develop a unified position on key regional and global issues, and then exert more influence by acting collectively. But ASEAN’s collective positions are taken largely through consensus, the development which can be a time-consuming process, and whose outcome can be frustrating to the U.S.<br /><br />In addition, ASEAN seems to be saying that great powers like the United States that want to engage effectively with the organization should sign the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC). This poses a clear dilemma for Washington: would signing the TAC force the U.S. to accept the legitimacy of the government of Myanmar as a member of ASEAN? Would acceptance of the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs, which is included in the TAC, prevent the imposition of sanctions against Myanmar for its violations of basic human rights? Moreover, what would the U.S. get in return? How would American relations with ASEAN benefit from this gesture? Would the U.S., for example, be invited to join the East Asian Summit, which ASEAN has recently organized? And is this something that Washington would really want to do?<br /><br />The East Asian Summit brings us to the third level at which the U.S. must engage with ASEAN: the super-regional organizations that ASEAN leads, none of which is as effective as the United States would like. The general problem is that the Southeast Asian view of these organizations appears to be more process-oriented than results-oriented. Southeast Asians value these organizations as ways of building personal relationships among leaders and officials, establishing what some call “habits of dialogue,” and gradually producing a sense of regional community. Americans, by comparison, are more practical and less patient in their outlook: they ask what the organization has produced, and whether it’s worth the time and effort that participation requires.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the answer to that question is that most of the ASEAN-led organizations do not appear to be achieving the objectives that the U.S. would like to promote. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) seems to be far from creating a trans-Pacific free trade area of the sort the Bush Administration has endorsed, or even achieving the earlier goal of “freer trade” in the region. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has neither taken up the tasks of preventive diplomacy or crisis management, nor done much to promote security cooperation on key transnational issues. Southeast Asian nations want America to pay more attention to these organizations, but the U.S. finds participation to be frustratingly non-productive. The East Asian Summit is too new to be expected to have achieved many results, but at this point even its agenda remains uncertain.<br /><br />Thus, engaging with Southeast Asia is a demanding and sometimes frustrating job. And yet, the United States suffers from a shortage of both organizational resources and policy capabilities.<br /><br />Take its foreign policy bureaucracy, for example. Much has been made of the fact that the U.S. government has recently created the position of an ambassador for ASEAN – the first major power to do so. But, in fact, no additional personnel line has been created inside the State Department; the title has simply been given to the Deputy Assistant Secretary who is already responsible for Southeast Asia. Above this position, no one in the State Department has any full-time responsibility for the region. The same situation is basically repeated in the other key agencies responsible for foreign affairs, like the National Security Council, Department of Defense, and USTR. Nowhere in the US government is Southeast Asia the full-time responsibility of any official above the rank of deputy assistant secretary. And those higher-level officials are preoccupied with issues that are regarded as more urgent (like North Korea) or more important (like Japan and China).<br /><br />As a result, the US government suffers from a lack of bandwidth in dealing with Southeast Asia. But organizational bandwidth is not the foreign policy resource in short supply in the United States these days. The US military – particularly the army and marines – is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan. The financial crisis, and the economic recession is will almost certainly produce, will place significant constraints on America’s national defense and foreign affairs budgets. The U.S. will be a less abundant source of capital for Southeast Asia, and a less vital market for the region’s exports – although a global economic slowdown might mean that America’s economic role in the region will decline only in absolute, but not relative, terms. If the recession leads to greater protectionism in the US – an outcome that is not certain, but also cannot be ruled out – trade in both directions could decline still further.<br /><br />Although the election of Barack Obama may help restore U.S. prestige in the eyes of many Asians, it will take some time to reverse the overall decline in America’s soft power. While the election of our first black president has underscored the vitality of America’s political institutions, another key element of our domestic story –a prosperous free economy overseen by effective governmental regulation – has been significantly undermined by the financial crisis. And our international story – as a generous supporter of Third World development, a credible guarantor of international security, and a promoter of free trade – may also be contradicted by the consequences of the recession.<br /><br />In short, Southeast Asia is understandably and appropriately asking for greater attention from the United States. It is asking that American policy not define Southeast Asian countries simply as a counterweight against China (not a role that it wants to highlight), or as partners in the global war on terror (not an issue that it wishes to be the central feature of U.S. policy), or as candidates for free trade agreements with the United States (a status not all can achieve). Pointing to its importance strategically and economically, Southeast Asia wants the U.S. to pay attention to a wider range of countries and issues.<br /><br />But engaging with Southeast Asia is not easy, since the U.S. will have to do so on three different levels – bilateral, regional, and supra regional – simultaneously. It will also strain America’s governmental attention span, when other more urgent issues demand attention from top foreign policy officials. And calls for greater engagement will come up against the reality that, for at least in the near term, the U.S. will be overstretched militarily, constrained financially, and enjoying less soft power than might once have been the case.<br /><br />The challenge for the U.S. is to conduct a smarter foreign policy, doing more with less.Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-7406357080968636122008-12-27T03:14:00.000-08:002008-12-27T03:16:47.740-08:00The changing balance of power in Asia<span style="font-family:arial;">One of the two questions most commonly raised during my trip to Australia in late November and early December was whether is the balance of power in Asia shifting away from the United States and towards China.<br /><br />The short, but inadequate, answer to that question is probably yes, as both Fareed Zakaria (in The Post-American World) and Kishore Mahbubani (in The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East) have recently argued. But the degree to which power is shifting is not yet clear. It is true that the United States has lost significant amounts of soft power over the last six or seven years, as a result of the perceived unilateralism and the violations of human rights associated with the “war or terror.” Its economy has entered what is almost the most serious recession in decades – and that recession is likely to be both deep and unusually protracted. Its military is still the strongest in the world, but it is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military budget is likely to come under significant pressure during the current recession. <br /><br />However, the U.S. may recover along most of these dimensions, if the new Administration acts wisely. U.S. soft power had already begun to revive in the latter years of the Bush Administration, and may well revive further if the Obama Administration restates a commitment to multilateralism, international law, and a wider range of traditional American values. Although the American economy will likely take up to two years to recover, a stimulus package that includes smart investments in human resources and physical infrastructure, and that promotes new high-value added industry and services, could make it more productive than ever. The U.S. military will still face a long-term challenge in Afghanistan, but at the same time will be reducing its presence in Iraq.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Moreover, the rise in China’s power should not be overstated – either how far it has come so far or how far it is likely to go. China is developing the infrastructure to project its soft power, but it has not yet fully developed the message that infrastructure will be expected to communicate. Although China’s military is a powerful defensive force – and has the ability to complicate any American intervention in a crisis in the Taiwan Strait – it is only just beginning to develop an effective offensive or power projection capability. China has experienced three decades of double-digit economic growth, but its economy is severely imbalanced and faces the challenges of an aging population, environmental degradation, and growing inequalities. And China’s economy is suffering from the collapse of its own asset bubble, as well as the impact of the global financial crisis.<br /><br />So there is almost certainly going to be a gradual shift of relative power away from the United States and toward the emerging economies of Asia. But it is unlikely that the power shift will be so swift and decisive that China will replace the U.S. as the regional hegemon, as some Australians are now worrying. Asia is an extremely crowded region geopolitically, including give five major powers (China, India, Japan, Russia, and the U.S.), two significant middle level powers (Australia and South Korea), plus the ASEAN grouping. For Beijing to dominate so complex and vibrant a region would require not only a spectacular success on China’s part, but also the simultaneous weakening of a large number of its neighbors. The odds of that outcome are relatively small.<br /><br />Still, America continues to maintain its traditional interest in not seeing Asia dominated by any other power, particularly a power that might take positions hostile to that of the U.S. Advancing that objective in the face of China’s rise cannot depend solely, as some Americans seem to believe, on waiting for China’s economy to falter and for America’s economy to experience the normal cyclical recovery. It will require a concerted effort by the U.S. to build a new economic infrastructure, advanced industrial and service sectors, and a sophisticated work force suitable for the 21st century. It will also require comparable efforts by other Asian countries to maximize their economic productivity and competitiveness</span><br /></span>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681730676245343669.post-72751324047181968432008-11-15T20:55:00.000-08:002008-12-27T03:20:54.726-08:00Starting in....<span style="font-family:arial;">I'm on sabbatical this year, and will be spending some time at two other universities with graduate programs in international affairs: the University of Sydney and the University of Hong Kong. I thought this would be a good opportunity to start a blog, containing my thoughts about developments in Asia, and about U.S. relations with the Asia-Pacific region. It's timely for another reason as well: American relations with Asia are now in flux, as a result of the current financial crisis and the transition from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. </span>Harry Hardinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12139801545344153306noreply@blogger.com0