I’m surprised at my reaction Andrew Browne’s musings over whether China can be contained:
The U.S.-China relationship has weathered storms before. Recall the days following the Chinese army’s 1989 assault on pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square, when cooperation between the countries went into a deep freeze. But President George H.W. Bush calculated that the U.S.-China relationship was too important to sacrifice, and he quickly sent emissaries to Beijing to ensure that it remained intact.
Today, surely, that calculation carries no less weight. Moreover, trying to contain China would be immensely costly: Neither country can succeed economically without the other. Kennan’s containment strategy worked against the Soviet Union because it was economically weak, with almost no commercial ties to America. But today’s China is an economic powerhouse, and its double-digit military budgets are supported by a deep and diversified industrial base.
Set against these realities, however, is the fact that the U.S.-China relationship has lost its strategic raison d’être: the Soviet Union, the common threat that brought the two countries together.
On the one hand I agree with his skepticism over whether China can be contained. On the other I disagree with his implicit assumption that it needs to be.
China and Putin’s Russia are irredentist. Their policies are founded on an in some ways mythical view of past national greatness. They are not messianic or revolutionary if you’d prefer in the way that the U. S., Soviet Russia, or Iran are. They have very little soft power. No one yearns to emulate the Chinese system or the Russian system. And most of their hard power is directed against their own people.
While China cannot be contained, we don’t need to contain them. Containing ourselves might be a better strategy.
That doesn’t mean that China’s neighbors aren’t justifiably nervous as Russia’s are. That doesn’t mean that we should pursue their foreign policy objectives on their behalf. It means they need to come to a modus vivendi with their powerful neighbors—a difficult balancing act between preparedness and reassurance.
China has several foreign affairs projects, but I have not kept track of them. One is the Asia Bank project, and another is the Silk Road project. They are also trying to expand to use of the yuan.
It is not only the military expansion that needs to be contained.
But President George H.W. Bush calculated that the U.S.-China relationship was too important to sacrifice, and he quickly sent emissaries to Beijing to ensure that it remained intact.
An alternate view is that enough of 41’s backer had money at risk, and they told him to cut the crap and get back to business.
Moreover, trying to contain China would be immensely costly: Neither country can succeed economically without the other.
Bullshit. The US does not NEED China. It is convenient for various players to use China for various purposes (for off-shoring labor and pollution, most notably) and for extracting the maximum amount of wealth from the American people for the rich, but we do not NEED them. At the moment they need us. Hopefully that will change in time as they develop their own internal market.
…
His argument reminds me of the arguments made by various people that the US benefits more from the current world order than any other nation. (Kasparov and various other neocons have made this argument.) That too is bullshit. The US is probably well down the list of beneficiaries of the current order, behind every single nation in Western Europe, Japan, Australia, Singapore, China and a host of others.
One gets so very tired of all the lies.
And by the way, Bruce Jenner is still a man. (Feels good to write the truth.)
“Containment” is one of those words that’s thrown around by pundits without much thought. Containment means actively preventing China from doing something it would otherwise like to do. What, exactly, are we supposed to prevent China from doing?