Professor Aaron Friedberg, who has just published a new book on the US-China relationship and it's future, spoke last night at King's College London's War Studies department. While it's not my area of expertise by any means, I found it an interesting take on the future of America's relationship with China, particularly because if avoided the paranoia found in so many American analyses of China's increasing power. At the same time, he was anything but complacent about the challenges to the US posed by a more assertive China.
The Professor put forward two central forces for cooperation and two central forces for tension. The cooperative forces are easy and are stated in most basic analyses--mutual economic gain and shared desire to avoid the risks of confrontation. The tensions are similarly easy to see--tension between rising powers and ideology. This much is certainly uncontroversial, though perhaps some would argue that there are other forces for cooperation such as shared interests and involvement in international institutions.
For America, there have been two prongs to its policy toward China, a policy that hasn't changed much since the presidency of the first President Bush. Firstly, the US has sought to engage China on a wide range of issues, from military to societal to economic. Engagement seeks to tame China into becoming a responsible stakeholder in the world system while slowly transforming it into a more liberal state. Second, the US has balanced China by cementing alliances, economic and military, in region. These include historical relationship with South Korea and Japan as well as newer "quasi-alliances" (Professor Friedberg's word) with Japan, Singapore and possibly Vietnam in the coming years. Balancing's goal is to "hold the ring" to maintain stability while engagement runs its course.
China has similarly pursued a consistent strategy over the last several decades, as it has attempted to make good on two long term goals--preserve the exclusive political writ of the CCP and make the world/Asia safe for authoritarianism. These goals have been pursued along three tracks. First, and most importantly, avoid confrontation and improve relations with the US and regional powers. Second, China has sought to build comprehensive national power, incorporating military, economic, technological and diplomatic facets. Third, China has advanced its interests incrementally, slowly moving out of their shell to strengthen themselves--and weaken the US--where possible but always avoiding open confrontation.
In general terms Friedberg talked about where things stand now, arguing that by and large China has gotten the best of America over the last decade or so. He sees the US as being overly optimistic about the success of engagement and has ignored those areas where interests diverge instead of understanding China as a country with its own endgame. For instance, in dealing with North Korea's nuclear proliferation, China's desire to keep an important buffer state happy and secure matter more to it that any shared concern with the US over nonproliferation. China has also developed a series of economic ties with traditional US allies, particularly South Korea and Australia, that has forced those governments to recalculate how forcefully they can deal with China.
However, he also addressed a series of recent events that have shown China to be increasingly aggressive and that have actually alienated countries that were slowly softening toward China. These events include the mess surrounding the North Korean torpedoing of a South Korean vessel, the arrest of Chinese fishing boat captain in Japan and China's increasingly aggressive posture and language regarding the South China Sea. The question, however, is whether this is simply a temporary aberration from China's traditional tactic of avoiding confrontation, or a sign of things to come as an increasingly powerful and assertive China begins its domination of the Western Pacific. Professor Friedberg was cagey as to which side of that debate he came down on, but it seemed clear he is skeptical that China will be happy to return to its traditional muted role for long.
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