China and the United States: Responsible Stakeholder or Emerging Threat?

Abstract

election campaign produced nary a word about China. Rest assured, once the new administration is in place, we will be hearing a great deal about the challenge. central question has not changed: whether to engage China on equal terms, or treat it as a potentially hostile competitor. Judging from the substantial number of Clinton-era appointees on Presidentelect Barack Obama's foreign-policy team, the answer will be engagement. Nevertheless, how engagement is practiced- whether it is a philosophical commitment or simply a reversible tactic, for instance-compels attention to the fundamental guidelines of China policy. Here, then, are thoughts about the guidelines: * People's Republic of China and the U.S. have fundamentally different approaches to international affairs. As a PRC official once told visiting Americans, is more concerned with its own internal development and the U.S. is most concerned with trying to maintain international order. In a word, China is rising, but the United States has risen; and for China, the overwhelming priority is to continue promoting rapid economic development, not challenge the United States for Asian or global leadership. * Despite the two countries' numerous intersecting interests, starting with a high degree of economic interdependence, mutual concerns about global warming, and restraining North Korea's nuclear-weapons development, many senior Chinese leaders and analysts view the United States with suspicion. As Wang Jisi, a top PRC America watcher, has written: The Chinese-U.S. relationship remains beset by more profound differences than any other bilateral relationship between major powers in the world today. That view is shared by both China's so-called fourth and fifth generation of leaders. * Thus, while appeals from American officials to China to join the United States as a responsible stakeholder in world affairs are a positive development, they have not been backed by consistent action. Each country has its own view of what global responsibility means. And each has taken steps-e.g., China with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, arms deals with Russia, and a missile buildup opposite Taiwan; the United States with two wars in the Middle East, Central Asian basing, security ties with Japan, and continued arms sales to Taiwan-that are regarded by the other as irresponsible. * Marring the opportunity to really engage China is a view, which runs especially deep in the Pentagon, that China represents a threat to the United States-because of its economic power, its energy needs, and its increasing military spending. …