US-China relations are important not only in themselves, but also for this region and the world.
HOWEVER subtle or not, that US President Barack Obama has visited Hu Jintao’s China before Hu has visited Obama’s Washington may be taken as an omen of sorts between the two major powers.
Obama has in recent days visited not just Beijing but also Shanghai. And apart from meeting leaders and dignitaries, he has also spoken to others including students.
This is almost as significant as Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to Mao Zedong’s China, before Mao ever thought of visiting the US. Obama made the trip within one year in office, whereas Nixon made his after three (although he had sent feelers to Beijing almost as soon as he entered the White House).
The issues between Washington and Beijing are many and important. But beyond the standard media coverage of trade matters, human rights, Iran, North Korea and possibly Myanmar, others like anti-terrorism measures and environmental concerns are also pertinent.
To understand better what has rapidly become the world’s most important bilateral relationship, it is instructive to compare events over a generation.
Mao’s China was economically backward, and struggling on every front after the devastation of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, domestic political intrigue and associated upheavals. Striking ideological postures abroad, if not actually exporting revolution, was not altogether unrelated to internal turmoil in Beijing.
Today, China is the most promising economic power set to overtake the United States in economic strength, and already the largest US creditor.
As the world’s leading prospective superpower, it has everything to look forward to and its conduct abroad accords with this.
Maoist China was deeply ideological, having just taken over from centuries of feudalism to navigate a vast nation through oversized problems.
Today’s China is pragmatic rather than revolutionary, with the state having to hold the country together for national sovereignty and territorial integrity while still tackling oversized problems.
Obama had repeatedly assured his Chinese hosts that the US is not out to “contain” China.
He may not share the ideological hawkishness of some Americans, and certainly none of their sound bites.
But at root, any superpower will be inclined to contain any other power that may rival it on a regional or global level.
For the moment, however, more appears to be at stake for the United States to work with a rising China than to confront it.
Yet no superpower worth its hegemonic clout would want to take the prospect of containment “off the table,” and the US certainly has not.
It has ringed China with allies from Japan to Australia to India, while cheerleading a so-called “alliance of democracies” in a world where a rising China would feel out of place.
As for overt containment by way of something like a naval blockade, certainly nothing like that is on the agenda.
Therefore, militant dissidents in Tibet, Xinjiang or Taiwan hoping for unambiguous US support against Beijing have been disappointed.
The huge market that is a rapidly rising China is far more important to the world’s premier capitalist nation.
And that huge market will remain huge only if it is allowed to grow uninterrupted, without paranoia, and unfragmented by secessionist tendencies within.
Americans with an “attitude” often argue that China has been able to grow so fast only because the US has agreed to buy its goods. But trade cuts both ways, since China today is like Japan before in providing Americans with many products that may otherwise be unaffordable.
There is often criticism of shoddy goods from China, but again like Japan before these are still early days for Chinese industry. The quality of manufacturing is bound to improve, above all because the market demands it.
A new generation of Americans may find new areas of agreement and cooperation with a new generation of Chinese. But things can only work where there is mutual respect and consideration, allowing for their differences, and without double standards or a sense of exceptionalism or special entitlement.
Americans and others may be anxious about the prospect of a lingering “middle kingdom mentality” in Beijing, but the same applies to Washington. The world must hope that a risen China will not copy the domineering, hegemonic stand of the United States.
Obama can help translate the promise of a bold new future vastly different from the past. In China, today’s “Tiananmen youth” are pursuing promising careers, with many among Obama’s student audience.
Japan today is also coming round to seeking fuller, healthier relations with the new China. Much the same goes for Taiwan-mainland relations.
That also applies to South-East Asia with the members of Asean. Not only is China too big to contain, however much a reigning superpower might try, but there can be no point in bottling up shared prospects for the future.
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