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Beijing's Fragile Swagger
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This piece originally ran in The Diplomat on 22 July, 2010.
BEIJING'S FRAGILE SWAGGER
Confucius said 'The superior man is firm in the right way, and not merely firm.' From a Chinese perspective, the same can probably be said about other nations.
When Hillary Clinton was running for the US presidency, she encouraged then President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to signal US frustration over China's treatment of Tibet and lack of cooperation on Sudan.
Her posture, reversed since she became Secretary of State, was remarkably un-presidential as any serious geopolitical analyst would have noted that the United States needed China's support on virtually every one of its major international objectives--from redirecting Iran's nuclear aspirations to climate change to stabilizing a global financial system near meltdown.
Indeed, gratuitous gut punches simply raise the cost of China's support, underscoring the fact that Clinton's approach in the summer of 2008 was simply the wrong way to be 'firm.'
But there's also another side to China, and it's one that doesn't respect 'desperate' friendship, groveling or appeasement. It's this element to Chinese foreign policymaking that means the United States can't simply acquiesce to all of China's demands and expect China to respond in kind.
After just a short time in Beijing recently, with an unscripted schedule and no government handlers, the most significant gap in attitudes that I've found between average Chinese up to senior state officials on the one hand, and Washington's Mandarins on the other, is a different calculation about political firmness and resolve.
Those leading the Chinese government, for the most part, put a premium on opaqueness and disdain transparency. Cautiousness is rewarded; risk-taking often punished. But perhaps most importantly, while these architects of China's rise respect and respond to power, they view solicitousness and vacillation as weakness.
The implications of this power dynamic in Chinese calculations are vital for US-China relations. In other words, a United States that dithers on the release of a report on currency manipulation, or that offers a US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that buries all controversial issues and offers only what China wants to hear (as happened in July 2009), or that allows China to repeatedly veto key military exercises in the seas of Northeast Asia is, put simply, a weak United States.
Indeed, China has watched Israel--a client state of the United States--discipline the White House. No matter what the realities are behind the scenes, the publics in the US, Israel and around the world see an Obama presidency that seems to need positive relations with Israel more than Israel needs or wants US presidential affection. Meanwhile, China sees America's military capacity overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq and notes US allies behaving as if they can't count on the United States for the same level of support they once could. This has contributed to a situation whereby many of these same allies are now courting China for support, investment and strategic dialogue as they perceive a United States in decline.
The irony of all of this is that China doesn't want US power to fall away rapidly--it wants the United States to remain a vital, global force with which China has deep structural relations.
The reason? China wants to free-ride on US global power because it fears its own internal fragility. China knows that it's not ready to carry the burden of global stability and isn't ready to position itself as a provider of global public goods while it's still in a mode of highly concentrated neo-mercantilist self interest.
China fears the Obama administration is weak, very weak--and that the world will keep provoking the United States to see where its power begins and ends. In fact, China is doing the same thing--testing US resolve, including rejecting six times US-Republic of Korea joint military exercises that will now go on despite Chinese objections (which they have themselves recently softened).
China has also rebuked the Obama administration for arranging a meeting with the Dalai Lama and protested vehemently over arms sales to Taiwan, a move that prompted it to suspend military-to-military exchanges and block a trip to China planned by Defense Secretary Gates. In the words of both a senior US interlocutor with the Chinese government and a senior Chinese official, 'China is poking the US to see how America will respond.'
The impression in Beijing is that the United States is desperate for China's support and fears upending a relationship it badly needs. The reality, according to both Chinese and informed foreign expatriate voices here is that while China will escalate to near breaking point a dispute of some sort, ultimately China will respect resolve and won't break the compact of cooperation.
The Chinese experience is that the US regularly blinks first--and works harder for Chinese attention than China is willing to work for US attention. This gives it an edge in the Sino-American relationship that many in the Chinese government actually aren't particularly comfortable with. They want a stronger United States, one with vision and one that's willing to continue to set the terms of the global order that China is prospering in.
Unfortunately, what they see instead is a desperate country that swings between appeasement of China's geoeconomic and geopolitical appetite on one side, and fear of China and talk about containing or punishing or imposing surcharges on it on the other.
It's ironic then that these two extremes, which China believes demonstrate the United States is forfeiting its dominance in the international system, validate China's sense of importance and evolving swagger, one which many in Beijing actually believe is a 'fragile swagger' that's not yet ready for prime time.
-- Steve Clemons
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Reader Comments (6) - post a comment
Your description makes it sound as if the US is exhibiting a "fragile swagger," as well. The US prominently puts its military might on display with little positive outcome, while meekly trying to ingratiate itself with Israel and China.
Despite that swagger, the US does indeed seem to behave as a desperate country, alternatively swinging between issuing vain threats and lashing out in pursuit of pointless military adventures.
IMHO the problem here is not the US stature in the world, which is real. The problem is the US' unbounded, unreasonable expectations for a global position well beyond its means.
Steve has spent some time in China now, but has unfortunately failed to absorb much of its history or culture, and is in this piece merely stating some obvious conventional wisdom backed up by a belligerent photo.
Yes, the US is having trouble accepting China as a new world (or certainly Asia) hegemon. Yes, the US is still trapped by bi-polar cold war thinking, with its reliance on military power. Yes, China "provokes" the US with its weak resistance to US moves into its sphere (Tibet, Taiwan, China Seas).
The biggest CW proclamation: The only thing China respects is force. "while these architects of China's rise respect and respond to power, they view solicitousness and vacillation as weakness." Where have we heard that before? And with respect to China it's flat wrong.
Historically, China (a 5,000 year old nation) has been occupied and harassed by western powers, including the US. The US Marines have been there, several times. The US naval fleet has sailed between China and its province of Taiwan. Currently, a US naval thinks that sailing around in the East China Sea is a cool move.
Just recently the US SecState has proclaimed that China's claims in the South China Sea are a matter of US concern. China has said : "Yes, we will talk about the South China Sea." Note that China will not sent its naval fleet into the Gulf of Mexico in retaliation, it will talk about the South China Sea. Why?
Culturally, one cannot understand China without understanding Taoism. Tao, The Way. It has been described as the course of a stream as it proceeds downward, taking the best path between obstacles. Patience and politeness, not power, pays.
The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, is one of the most influential books in history, and it has a different take on power. Chapter 69: Winning a fight by giving in--
********
Military strategists have a saying:
"Rather than act like the lord of the manor,
I would rather behave like a guest.
Rather than advance an inch,
I would rather retreat a foot."
The point of the saying is that you should:
Advance upon them without going forward
Seize their property without even bearing arms.
Attack where there is no enemy.
Prevail upon them without weapons.
There is no greater disaster than to underestimate your enemy.
If I did that, I would lose my 3 treasures (benevolence, frugality, never trying to be number one)
In combat, the most reticent side will win.
**********
China will act in its own way (tao), based on its history and culture. That's why China doesn't interfere in other nations' internal affairs, why it doesn't sail its naval fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, and why it will talk to Secretary Clinton about the South China Sea.
Mr. Clemons, this is the most insightful and thoughtful article I have
read on US-China relations in a long time. China is so diverse that
people here can argue what they want and still be able to be right,
or argue that. But you capture nuances extremely well. It's
important to recognize the different layers of face, of confidence,
and of concern or fragility that are all mixed up here. This is
absolutely one of the best pieces on China with all due respect to
DonS.
Mr. Clemons may not be an expert on Chinese culture but in a
short time here he has gone to the heart of something many of us
here in China feel and see in our interactions. That is not to say
that Don S can't also point to supporting evidence too. But it is to
say that what you have written is what the leadership is thinking.
East and West have always had a great ideological divide regardless of bumbling politicians who have not sought to deeply embrace the mindset of the other. Hilary is no exception and attempting to stiff arm a leviathan by ignoring it is simply futile and given China's economic might and the astounding extent of the US debt to China it begs the question as to which people advised Hilary or did she choose this non diplomatic approach intuitively. Albeit often rhetoric between the two an inferior form of communication surpasses none at least by making way for the possibility of purposeful dialogue.
At least Clinton's attitude doesn't approach Bush's. Hopefully we won't have a replay of President Hu's visit to Washington on April 20, 2006.
from Dana Milbank:
The White House gave press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five years ago heckled Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90 seconds into Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking, "President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from killing!"
Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse.
The Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.
Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an "official" visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.
But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House. Explaining the incident -- the first disruption at the executive mansion in recent memory -- White House and Secret Service officials said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in her background. In other words: Who knew? (end of Dana Milbank extract)
AsiaHand,
Thank you for your courteous response. You have obviously absorbed and retained more oriental-type manners than I have exhibited in my overly harsh response to Steve's diary. I should remember to remove my (verbal) boots when I'm in a man's house.
While I thoroughly disagree with almost everything Steve wrote, and fear the possible implementation of its ideas, I will shut up on the subject for now so that I don't completely wear out my welcome (applause).
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