Hugh White is worried that China has interests:
For a long time American (and Australian) thinking about China has been dominated by a broad consensus that, despite many signs of growing assertiveness, Beijing does not pose a fundamental challenge to US leadership in Asia. The argument goes that, whatever they might say, China’s leaders know that its economic future is too uncertain, its political system too fragile, its military too weak and its friends too few to allow it to contest American primacy. They also know that China’s own stability and prosperity depend on the regional order that only America can uphold.
Therefore, the consensus has concluded, America doesn’t have to do much in response except remind everyone that it intends to stick around. Hence the ‘pivot’, which has emphasised declaratory statements rather than substantive actions.
But that consensus may be unravelling, at least in America. Washington’s AIIB debacle seems to have sounded a wake-up call and now, in just the past week, two major reports from the heart of the US foreign policy establishment have chimed in too. Both reports argue that China’s challenge to US primacy in Asia is for real, and that America’s policy in Asia needs to shift radically to respond.
I think that our policy with respect to China has been bad for 40 years but, presumably, not in the way that Mr. White does. I think that Nixon erred in opening U. S. relations with China, Clinton erred in granting China “Most Favored Nation” status, and the world erred in admitting China to the World Trade Federation. Just to name a few among many missteps.
We needed to approach all of those things with the patience the Chinese authorities would have shown. Confucius once said that if your plan is a one year plan, plant rice; if your plan is a ten year plan, plant trees; if your plan is a hundred year plan, teach children. With characteristic American impatience we have been pursuing one year plans when we should have been pursuing a hundred year plan. China is simply too large for anything else and we’re seeing the results of that now.
Whether our economy is in a slow motion collapse as a result of our terrible policies with respect to China remains to be seen and I feel fortunate that I will probably not live to see it. Not that our policy with respect to China is our only problem. Our policies with respect to Mexico are just as bad and have even more serious implications.
The argument goes that, whatever they might say, China’s leaders know that its economic future is too uncertain, its political system too fragile, its military too weak and its friends too few to allow it to contest American primacy.
Sweet Jesus, don’t the folks writing this stuff realize that all those weaknesses are a PRIME excuse to go looking for an external enemy? The leaders of any given country are usually much more interested in their own futures than that of the nation they lead, and foreign enemies are a primary way of redirecting anger at a leadership class.
In applying Confucius’s philosophy to our own vision of U.S. party and/or government politics —> The one year plan looks a lot like our current deal with Iran. The ten year plan reflects our fiscal policies relating to future debt. The hundred year plan is more in line with social progressive’s dominance in academia and journalism, where minds are marinated mainly in one ideology railing against other opposing options of governance.
“We needed to approach all of those things with the patience the Chinese authorities would have shown. ”
That sure would be nice. It’s also apparent where China is headed – I think anyone who thinks they don’t aspire to be a regional and then global power isn’t paying attention.