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Volume 5, Number 1
January 1997
Arthur Waldron is a professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and an associate scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. This Wire is an abridged version of an article in the Winter 1997 issue of Orbis, FPRI’s quarterly journal of world affairs.
President Clinton’s first goal in dealing with China must be simply to avoid trouble, but that will not be easy to do. For twenty years, a common interest in offsetting the Soviet Union gave stability to the U.S.-Chinese relationship; that common interest no longer exists. During the same period, moreover, China’s domestic policies were clearly liberalizing. Since 1989, however, the direction of Chinese politics has reversed. The result is a new and inherently difficult situation for Washington.
The stakes are very high. China is a major power in Asia, intimately connected with its neighbors at every level from economics to security. Instability originating in China could spread and lead to disastrous consequences for the region. The number of potential flash points— external and internal — is substantial, and, as the March 1996 confrontation concerning Taiwan made clear, things can go wrong quickly and unexpectedly. Here are eight points of advice:
The core issue in U.S.-Chinese dealings is not most-favored-nation status, or proliferation, or Taiwan, or any of the other immediate and preoccupying agenda items. Rather, it is regime change and its consequences. That China’s fifty-year-old communist dictatorship will change is perhaps not easy to believe. Superficially, the Beijing government exudes confidence. Even the most jaded visitors still find official hospitality both memorable and impressive, and often derive from it a sense that the present situation is permanent and definitive. But in twentieth-century China that impression has almost always been wrong. Today, China’s communist regime faces challenges in nearly every dimension, from economic policy to ecology to basic political legitimacy. No one can say exactly when it will come, but some sort of a political earthquake is inevitable in China, and Washington must bear this fact in mind.
American diplomacy during the past few years makes it easy to forget this obvious point— indeed, to imagine the opposite— but the point remains correct. No matter how belligerent Beijing’s rhetoric may be, a hostile Washington would be a disaster for China. Imagine a world in which
China could not export to the U.S. market; in which World Bank and other financing was opposed by the U.S. The current Chinese economic miracle would begin to wilt— and China’s rulers would be confronted by armies of unemployed citizens, bankrupt investors, and so forth. Nor would other states necessarily be willing (or able) to fill the gap. Would Japan or the European Union be willing to absorb all those Chinese exports? A crisis that alienated the United States would, furthermore, probably frighten other powers in China’s neighborhood, spurring military cooperation and coordination that China would be unable to match. Indeed, it is paradoxical that only if the U.S. cooperates will China be able to exercise the kind of major influence in Asia to which it aspires— influence often described in clearly anti-American terms, as in the new book China Can Say No. The U.S. negotiates from a position of strength— economically, militarily, and diplomatically — and must never forget that fact. Why, then, have things gone rather badly with China for the Clinton administration?
Management, not policy, has been the biggest problem in Chinese-American relations during the past four years. Administration goals — peace in the region, fairness in trade, progress on human rights, and so forth — were basically sound, but in execution they came close to disaster. No one has been clearly in charge of China relations in the Clinton administration, and the White House has regularly responded to political pressure by ignoring Chinese misbehavior (e.g., regarding missile proliferation) or reversing its own proclaimed policies (on MFN status, human rights, and the Lee Teng-hui visit). At best, such behavior baffles the Chinese (they like to know who they are dealing with); at worst, it leads them into temptation. Thus, Washington’s muddled response to initial Chinese military probes in 1995 (against the Philippines and Taiwan) gave an unintended green light to the missile intimidation exercise against Taiwan in March 1996. The Clinton administration should create a clear chain of command for dealings with China. Someone with specialized knowledge and experience, and preferably on the National Security Council staff, should coordinate and approve every official interaction with China.
Engagement, the avowed approach of the present administration, is only half a policy, as the administration has had to recognize in the past year. The ability to lock doors, as well as the willingness to open them, remains a sine qua non when dealing with Beijing. The door that must be locked is the one that leads to force. Probes and threats during the past two years, in both Northeast and Southeast Asia, suggest that some in China believe that door is not only unlocked but ajar. Sending carriers to the Taiwan area showed how wrong the belief was, but the danger of China’s repeating the error remains. Here, robust deterrence and close military cooperation with friends, including Taiwan, are the best answer.
As the door to force is locked, doors to cooperation must be opened. Many of the most valuable cards have already been played— access to the U.S. domestic market above all, without which China’s whole economic modernization program would come into question. The U.S. must not concede any more— permanent MFN status, for example — until the security situation is clarified. But steady and imaginative diplomacy can continue to open up areas for cooperation and mutual benefit.
Many in Washington hope for some sort of comprehensive settlement. But political uncertainty in China makes that an unrealistic goal at present. The world’s basic problems with China are unlikely to be resolved until democratization fundamentally alters the character of the Chinese state. Until then, the best approach for Washington will be to act in concert with friends and allies, in order to combine integration of China into the world community with deterrence of military adventures.
Beijing is happiest when it deals with foreign relations one on one and confidentially. But successful management of China as an emerging and possibly destabilizing international player will be possible only if the U.S. coordinates its policies with other powers. This past year saw some real progress in that respect, notably in the reinvigoration of the U.S.-Japanese security relationship, but there is still a long way to go. Current security dialogue with Asian states must be deepened, and non-Asian states brought in. Thus, Europeans are still important players in Asia; so are Russia and the former states of the Soviet Union, as well as some pariah states (Iran, Iraq, and Syria), and China figures in U.S. relations with all of them.
China will work hard to disrupt any efforts at coordination and, judging by past experience, will be rather successful. But the U.S. must persist. Asia is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, reminiscent of Europe before World War I, which is to say, more prosperous, dynamic, and well armed but without an adequate interstate security structure. Conflict is quite conceivable there, and effort must be expended to avoid it. The U.S. must work with Japan in particular. World War II in Asia was in certain respects a product of the failure of the Washington Treaties to create a functioning multilateral security structure, which in turn led to Japan’s fateful turn to unilateralism. The Clinton administration’s primary goal in Asian policy must be to forge a bond between Washington and Tokyo that can weather any storm arising in China. Given such a connection, Asia will have a credible framework for security and peace. Without it, prospects will be grim.
Much can be accomplished if Washington seriously expounds its own views, even when they are at odds with China’s official line. Many people in the Chinese government are extremely capable but were educated under communism in ways that deprived them of concepts Americans take for granted: for example, the concept of “soft power” in economic and other forms, as well as the concept of “political influence" as opposed to hegemony. Some in the Chinese government privately agree with Washington on many things but cannot say so. Persuasion is thus an important task.
China today feels pride and insecurity; it wants international power and respect but is not sure how to get them. It is like Wilhelmine Germany, seeking a “place in the sun” without knowing exactly what that means or how to attain it-and the uninformed choices it is making (arms races and gunboat diplomacy) are worrisomely similar to those Germany made. Therefore, Washington should take every opportunity to spell out to China what it means to be a great power in today’s world. Military strength is a factor, to be sure, but so are diplomatic credibility, domestic attractiveness, economic participation, and so forth-all the dimensions of so-called soft power. There are times when, owing to political pressures, many Chinese officials can listen but not respond in a positive way. Washington and its friends should use such times to make the case for a peaceful and cooperative world.
The excellent term “calculated over-reaction” was coined by Professor Rudolf Wagner of Heidelberg University to describe China’s unexpected tirades against Germany for supporting human rights in Tibet — tirades that soon had the German leadership apologizing profusely, lest trade be jeopardized. The same technique was used against the United States in connection with the visit of President Lee Teng-hui from Taiwan— and it worked. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake is reported to have promised, among other things, that there would be no new U.S. arms sales to Taiwan in 1996, surely the wrong response to an explicit increase in military threats from China. In each case, China was able to impose its own agenda on a strong foreign state. Instead of asking, “what do we believe?” or “what do we want?” the German and American governments asked, “how can we soothe relations with Beijing? what do they want, and how close can we come to granting it?” Economically and politically, the U.S. and Europe are far stronger than China. But so long as the former do not coordinate their policies, and instead allow themselves to be played off against each other, Beijing will continue to exert a powerful and undesirable influence over the China policies of other countries.
The Tiananmen massacre in China and the flowering of full democracy in Taiwan have created a situation between the two states that, awkward as it is for some to admit, means that certain fundamental assumptions of 1970s China diplomacy must soon be reexamined. In particular, it is now clear that Taiwan is not going to be forced to come to terms with Beijing (as many once expected, particularly after Washington cut diplomatic relations in 1979). Nor is Taiwan going to accept voluntarily the status Beijing offers: that of an autonomous province of the People’s Republic of China. Instead, Taiwan will attempt to go its own democratic way, prosperous, well armed, and increasingly confident— not to mention important internationally. To prevent that, Beijing is attempting to enlist Washington as an ally in bringing Taiwan to terms (through restrictions on arms sales, refusal of travel permission, and so forth) in what the Chinese commentator Ruan Ming has christened the strategy of lianMei zhiTai (uniting with America to control Taiwan). An inclination to cooperate with this strategy has existed in recent years, at least to some extent. The Clinton administration should take a longer-range view. The world will soon have little choice but to face the fact of Taiwan’s separate existence. But how exactly? Being a province of the People’s Republic is not an option. On the other hand, full independence for Taiwan without Chinese acquiescence would pose serious risks. A new middle way must be found. Washington should begin thinking seriously about how such a way can be found and discussing the question with China and other states.
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