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China's Investment in Beijing-Centered 21st Century Multilateralism
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Sunday, Feb 27 2005, 9:47PM
One of the mistakes of American foreign policy over the last several decades was to not heavily invest in, build, and fortify serious multilateral security and economic institutions among Asian nations.
America has not really taken APEC seriously and on the security front has long chosen to rely on bilateral arrangements between the U.S. and every nation we care about in Asia rather than trying to sew them together in a broader network. One exception to this has been occasional military exercises involving U.S., Japanese, Australian, and occastionally Korean forces -- but generally, America's strategy has been to secure stability in Asia through a set of robust bilateral arrangements rather than a multilateral structure, as in NATO.
One of the interesting consequences of this strategy is that it puts little pressure on the governments in these regions to mature very far beyond their dependence on U.S. forces. It also allows them to bully each other over long term cultural and historical disputes, knowing that at the end of the day that they can get away with various manipulations of the historical record -- and this goes for Japan, China, and Korea -- because America provides an ultimate buffer between them when it comes to any hot conflict.
China, however, may be leap-frogging America's anachronistic and inefficient set of bilateral deals by rooting the first serious efforts in some time of a China-centric multilateralism in the region. China has called for an annual East Asian Economic Summit and the establishment of and East Asian Community that could very well become the dominant structural fabric of Northeast and Southeast Asia.
Yes, there are other networks and forums -- including the ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN plus three, and there have been efforts at economic insitution-building like former Malaysian Prime Minister's East Asian Economic Caucus. And of course, there is APEC that seems to be barely kicking anymore.
But China seems to know that there is a genuine opportunity in instituion-building among a great cross-section of regional stakeholders. Frankly, this kind of diplomacy -- as we once forged together in Europe -- is exactly what Asia has needed for a long time, and in my view, the U.S. should have been at the helm of this process. Unfortunately, we have been tethered down by the constraints of our own bilateral relations, afraid of becoming less significant to our partner countries if alternative arrangements were introduced.
Here is an interesting excerpt from a Washington Post article titled "China's Quiet Rise Casts Wide Shadow" by Edward Cody. It's a long tract, so I won't italicize:
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The shift in status, increasingly clear over the past year, has changed the way Chinese officials view their country's international role as well as the way other Asians look to Beijing for cues. In many ways, China has started to act like a traditional big power, tending to its regional interests and pulling smaller neighbors along in its wake.
The new Chinese role has been evident recently in international efforts to deal with North Korea's declared nuclear arsenal. When Kim Jong Il's government declared Feb. 10 that it was suspending participation in Chinese-sponsored six-nation nuclear talks, the question that arose immediately in Asian capitals and beyond was: What will China do about it?
Japan, whose economy surpasses China's by a large margin, in some ways has been the Asian country most uncomfortable with China's rising stature. The oil sources and sea lanes increasingly seen as vital by China and its traders have long been viewed the same way by Japan. In that light, Japan's government has tightened strategic cooperation with the United States, and in December, it issued a 10-year defense program that identified China as a potential threat.
Chinese officials and foreign policy specialists emphasized in interviews that they had no intention of challenging the U.S. role as Asia's main military power, a fact of life here since World War II. U.S. power was on vivid display in East Asia after the Dec. 26 tsunami in southern Asia, with a U.S. carrier group dispatching helicopters to deliver food and medicine to hard-hit Indonesian towns while China's navy was nowhere on the horizon.
But with 1.3 billion people, 3.7 million square miles of territory and a $1.4 trillion economy, China is the rising regional leader in other fields. This view has come into focus particularly over the last year, when U.S. diplomacy has seemed preoccupied with Iraq or anti-terrorism and China increasingly has asserted its pre-eminence.
"There is now this feeling that we have to consult the Chinese," said Abdul Razak Baginda of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center. He added, "We have to accept some degree of Chinese leadership, particularly in light of the lack of leadership elsewhere."
From Outsiders to Insiders
China's leadership has become visible in small but telling ways. Premier Wen Jiabao was clearly the star, for instance, at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit conference in Laos in November. Lower-ranking ASEAN diplomats have begun to turn to Chinese colleagues for guidance during international meetings, according to a senior foreign diplomat with long experience at such Asian gatherings.
"I was struck by how naturally, even at the working level, the other Asians looked to China and how naturally China played that role," the diplomat said, noting that only a few years ago, Chinese diplomats were viewed as outsiders.
The change also comes across in bigger and more formal ways. In particular, China has taken the lead in organizing an East Asian summit conference for next November that, according to Chinese and other observers, will formalize Chinese regional leadership in several aspects.
A senior Chinese diplomat said it had not been decided whether the United States will be invited to attend and, if so, in what capacity. That the question of U.S. participation is even on the table dramatizes the shift in Asia's diplomatic landscape.
As envisioned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the summit deliberately frames participation on a country-by-country basis, dispersing ASEAN's combined weight and enhancing China's role as first among equals. "It's very subtle, but it could be very important," the senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.
The ASEAN countries -- Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- increasingly have begun to deal with China individually rather than as a bloc. As a result, an association that began with U.S. encouragement in 1967 in large measure to fend off Communist Chinese influence has evolved into a forum through which China exercises its regional leadership.
Other examples of Chinese leadership include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security forum comprising China, Russia and four former Soviet republics along China's northwest borders. As a part of this grouping, China's formerly standoffish military recently held anti-terrorism exercises with Kazakhstan and plans exercises next fall with the Russian military.
But China's new face has been most apparent in its dealings with the ASEAN countries, mainly because of the economic equation. At China's initiative, for instance, ASEAN countries and China in December agreed to create a free-trade zone by 2010, which would further integrate neighboring countries into China's orbit. (end)
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I don't believe that China's diplomatic success should necessarily be feared or should inspire a new round of Project for the New American Century-style letters calling for containment of China.
But it would be a serious mistake to underestimate China in today's global climate, and secondly -- what has been missing in my view from Bush's foreign policy is a serious and coherent strategy that is going to promote principled and stabilizing American engagement with the world.
Engagement means more than fighting wars and occupying small nations. There is a long list of other tools of diplomacy and "global presence" that need serious attention from this administration and the Congress.
And the Millennium Challenge Fund is not the silver bullet.
-- Steve Clemons
(ed. note: I cannot hyperlink many items to this post because of the place I am writing in Hawaii and will try to add them later. SCC)
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"Engagement means more than fighting wars and occupying small nations. There is a long list of other tools of diplomacy and "global presence" that need serious attention from this administration and the Congress."
Very nice, Steve. Very nice.
I'd simply note that ASEAN has had a number of disputes among its members in the last few years, which may be part of the reason Beijing is able to deal with individual ASEAN countries, rather than ASEAN as a bloc.
As China economy expands, so will its influence. That is not a bad thing. It breaks up the Muslim v Christian dichotomy in a healthy way.
it's off topic but I have not other place to say it but here. I can't understand why Iraqi's killing Iraqi's is the sign of progress it is claimed to be. I can't help but feel we should have done more or done something differently so that people lining up for jobs wouldn't have to go through this. I'm not the answer man, I don't claim to have all the answers but plenty of our countries leadership claima to have this all figured out, yet people standing in lines for jobs are blown to hell and that's that. Don't understand.
Bakho,
I have to disagree on on your point:
"As China economy expands, so will its influence. That is not a bad thing. It breaks up the Muslim v Christian dichotomy in a healthy way."
See following:
"...as Beijing uses the U.S. decision on ETIM to justify a broad crackdown on peaceful Uighur dissent and Muslim religious activities -- a crackdown that long predates Sept. 11.... Muslim religious activities are controlled. Students at state schools and universities are not allowed to pray, fast during Ramadan or carry out other open religious activity. Earlier this year, officials ordered increased surveillance of Muslim weddings, funerals and circumcisions. Some have been arrested for translating the Koran into local languages." http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/china1216.htm
Additional links:
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=asia_pub&c=china
http://www.uhrp.org/issues/economic_segregation
_cultural_assimilation/news/uighurs_lose_out
Hey Top,
I'm with you on your point. Kinda busy, more later
China's growing clout should also not be overestimated-- there is little that China can do in real terms without US agreement at least tacitly. While policy change in terms of engagement is necessary, the Chinese bogey is largely shadows cast by a paper tiger
"...the Chinese bogey is largely shadows cast by a paper tiger"
Perhaps, but they are a tyrannical communist government and our support for this tyranny should be limited, not expanded.
Recall our original justification for engagement with China was to counter the Soviet Bear, not to engorge our elites unquenchable thirst for ever cheaper labor who's rights are circumscribed by the barrel of a rifle.
Please remember Tiananmen, when a fledgling Democracy movement was crushed and the American business community applauded and sent our capitol and our jobs in support of tyranny. Lenin may yet have the last laugh, if businessmen continue to vie for the right to sell the rope that they'll hang by.
What's paper about China? Do they or do they not have the ability to single-handedly crush our economy? Everything I've read says the answer is "YES". What is illusionary about that?
Definite agreement with S.Brennan on the nature of the Chinese regime. Cruel, repressive, imperialist, and xenophobic.
So, A) They have power over us. B) They are mean and dislike us.
Two very important things for our s**t-for-brains government to keep in mind.
The thing to keep in mind tho is that the US can hurt China by orders of magnitude more than the Chinese being able to hurt the US. Agree completely on the tyrannical nature of the regime in China. This underlines the need for the US to recognize the enormous leverage that is available to it wrt China and start using that leverage rather than building China up to be anywhere near in terms of power of any kind. The dollar reserve issue, while serious in the short term, is not a real threat at this time. The Chinese economy is not going to be sustainable sans US trade and investment for some time to come and neither does China have the kind of alliances (albeit bilateral) that the US has. The time is appropriate for a tougher US line towards China.
DeLong has a very interesting take on US-China-Asia relations.
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000447.html#comments
SBrennan, my point was that compared to China, the relationships between Islam and the West are good. As China becomes more powerful, the comparison between Western tolerance and Chinese orthodoxy makes the West look good.
So Bakho with your post above, if I have you right...when you say:
"As China economy expands, so will its influence. That is not a bad thing. It breaks up the Muslim v Christian dichotomy in a healthy way."
You mean the Muslim states will turn their gaze away from the occupied territories and our manipulation of gulf state affairs once it becomes absolutely clear that China is real player?
I'll have to think about that.
Doug..thanks for the correction. I thought I had fixed this before, but apparently it did not go through. best, Steve Clemons
There is a real sleeper story of a couple of recent news items points to be connected to other dots.
China announced one of the most ambitious nuclear electric power generation programs since the initial boom of the 1960s.
The insatiable hunger of China for energy is the present Achiles' heel of the China economic expansion.
There are some new, revolutionary, effective, direct fusion-to-electric conversion technologies not based on thermal conversion. If this is bought by China on the cheap, because of Western short-sightednes, they can leapfrog and gather around them all the poor energy starved nations in Asia .
There is a new nuclear-to-hydrogen cycle reactor development , which China may well exploit since they don't care about return-on-investment and other nonsensical old-fashioned business models but follow the Great leap Frog philosophy.
Lastly, all the export trade of China to date is only to finace the required capital-investment programs needed to fill the future internal market in China and Asia. All they need to do is empower the Chinese buyers and the market for 2 billion Chinese will put to shame the American internal market miracle, which created the Americam economic success story.
The good news is that all of the above requires peace in the World. The Chinese will not bury us, they will sell us the caskets, embalming fluid , sell the wine for the wake and the funeral music on CDs and the player to go with it.
A damn sight better world than the 19 & 20th Centuries were brought on by Colonialism and the Western Industrial Revolution.
Change of subject-Wolfowitz to World Bank.
Steve, in your next post I hope that you will address the idea, floated this week by the White House, that the United States will select Paul Wolfowitz at the next President of the World Bank.
JohnStuart
China seems to be the new Russia in the new Cold War. The nations that are highly successful on the world stage have a Bill of Rights and a high degree of freedom for their people. I have a feeling that China's contrdictions will catch up with her.
Given the current economic fire burning in China, I would not make any bets on the short term future. The chances of an implosion/meltdown are substantial. In the long term, that's only a small event, but still one to plan for. Given the US exposure on imports, this is not some itty-bitty concern. Interesting times these are and will be going forward.....
The important part of DeLong's post:
When diplomats talk about international trade and finance, they talk about them as carrots and sticks: we give people we want to reward access to our markets; we punish people who we want to punish by slapping on trade embargos. "Economic diplomacy" is like bombing, only less so.
And arguments that it is much more important to build large and profitable positive-sum games that align interests than to win zero- (or negative!) sum games that lead to the domination of one government's conception of its momentary interest over another's? They blow right past the diplomats, the State Department people as if they were just gentle breezes.
Now this matters a lot, for in the long run we all have an enormous mutual common interest in peace, tolerance, and prosperity. And we have virtually no interest in most of what governments choose to fight about. Next to nobody in the foreign relations community is thinking about a set of issues that is one of the key sets of geostrategic issues for America today. What set? Let me back up a century and a half.
Between 1850 and 1910--by accident--Great Britain built ties with the United States: economic ties, cultural ties, political ties of mutual deference where strategic issues were at stake. As a result, by 1910 Americans perceived Britain as their friend, and the British Empire as by and large a force for good in the world. This is in striking contrast to how Britain was perceived in 1850: the cruel corrupt ex-colonial power that had just starved a quarter of all Irishmen to death.
Now this mattered a lot.
This meant that when Britain got into trouble in the twentieth century--whether with Wilhelm II or Hitler or Stalin and his successors--it had wired aces as its hole cards in the poker game of seven-card stud that is international relations. The willingness of the United States to send Pershing and his army Over There, to risk war with and then to fight Hitler, and to move U.S. tanks from Ft. Hood, TX, to the Fulda Gap were all powerfully motivated by America's affinity with Britain, its geostrategic causes, and its security.
How does this apply to the present? It is obvious. Alexis de Tocqueville could project before the Civil War that the U.S. and Russia were likely to become twentieth-century superpowers. We can project today that at least one of India and China--perhaps both--will become late-twenty first century superpowers. We have an interest in building ties of affinity now. It is very important for the late-twenty first century national security of the United States that, fifty years from now, schoolchildren in India and China be taught that America is their friend that did all it could to help them become rich. It is very important that they not be taught that America wishes that they were still barefoot and powerless, and has done all it can to keep them so.
The fact that these issues are not even on the radar screen of the international relations community is indeed terrifying..
Bakho:
Good points, but there are severe downsides to the approach too. China's desires, ambitions and aims are also relevant here. Your parallel between the US/British Empire is flawed - for one thing, that presupposes a decline of American influence as a given. Second, if anything recent trends have shown that no amount of playing nice with aspiring powers, especially given the political structure and history of China, will cause goodwill within the population. Only a wholesale change in the nationalist ambitions and a re-orientation/replacement of the communist party's public attitude towards the US can bring about that kind of goodwill. If China was a free society, I would endorse your strategy. As it is I think it will not work and only harm
I'm uneasy too about the effect of the Little Emperor syndrome on Chinese politics a little further down the road. Perhaps it will be insignificant; the requirements of effective international relations may smother the psychosocial effects of being monstrously spoiled as children. I hope so, but I'm skeptical.
Discussions of China's coming rise to "superpower" always reminds me of the saw about Siberia- "Siberia has a great future...and always will." China faces a number of demographic, economic and environmental problems that are potentially crippling. However, I think Al is right in identifying China's biggest problem, its lack of democracy, which I think will hobble it in the long run. On the other hand, China was a great country in the past, and who knows the future? Certainly, the US cannot assume it will always be on top. Back in the 1700s the Ch'ing Dynasty let the "foreign devils" from England know in no uncertain terms that there was nothing England had that they wanted; one hundred years later those same foreign devils were ripping up China's economic, military, political and territorial fabric.
However, what ever the long run, the fact is, as the article points out, China poses a number of challenges to the US right now because its economic and political clout in the region continues to increase. President Bush has identified Burma as an outpost of tyranny, but given the overwhelming support the military regime in Rangoon receives from China, beyond rhetoric, does the US have any policy that would aid the Burmese pro-democracy forces? Also, prior to the recent elections in Taiwan, the US leaned on the Taiwanese government to tone down any moves that might be seen as advancing Taiwanese independence in order not to provoke China. So whether the US or China would come out on top of some future trade war ( I think the US would come out on top, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory) doesn't change the fact that China poses challenges to us right now. I don't think that it is inevitable that there will be conflict with China, but if we continue to ignore the substantial changes in Asia, the chances for a clash are much greater, and we might be due a very rude awakening.
Finally, whatever the true nature of China's economic and political power, the fact remains that perception is that China is becoming a more powerful nation and it is doing so by not following an American or European model of political development, and therefore it provides a potential role model for other developing countries, particularly in Asia. This is not a minor point. Back before the Asian economic meltdown in 1997, a number of authoritarian leaders in SE Asia, were promoting "Asian Values" which, among other things, stated that things like democracy and human rights were of secondary concern compared to economic growth. Lee Kwan Yue would point out that Indonesia under Suharto's dictatorship was growing much faster economically than the Philippines under an elected government. Lee went so far as to say the Philippines had too much democracy, although it is probably more accurate to say that it could use more democracy and a lot less oligarchy. Nevertheless, Suharto was held up as the ideal, even by some westerners. While Suharto is gone, there are still plenty of people enamored with the authoritarian ideal in SE Asia, and China's substantial economic and political gains strengthens their hands, particularly if the US fails to engage the region and provide and alternative model.
Where is our host? Is Steve Clemons hesitating to return because George W. Bush is increasingly seen as a hero to many freedom loving people throughout the world? Three cheers for the President of the United States. He should receive the next Nobel Prize for Peace. And gosh, I’m sure that Clemons will agree, won’t he? Afghanistan was the first domino, Iraq the second, and it looks like Lebanon will be the third.
And of course, because they have us by the financial short-hairs due to the Bush administrations' chronic deficits, we have no leverage over them whatsoever.
davey-
Why would you want to include your saviour in such esteemed cortege as Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Amnesty International, Le Duc Tho, The International Labour Organization, Martin Luther King Jr., The Quakers, Carl Von Ossietzky, and others you really may not wish to recall? Are you sure you are spelling "peace" correctly?
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