There is much anticipation in Beijing and Washington DC about this week's summit between Chinese President Hu Jintao and United States President Barack Obama, with US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman characterizing Hu's state visit as "exciting and historic".
Some see it as a chance to address bilateral geopolitical, economic, or human rights frictions. Others view it as an opportunity to reset the tone of the relationship after a rough patch in 2010 linked to domestic politics in the US, disagreements over policies towards Iran, North Korea and the South China Sea, and various trade and economic frictions. Yet others view it as an opportunity to strengthen personal ties between top American and Chinese leaders.
The potential for a fruitful summit should be quite high, with US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke telling a receptive business audience in Washington "We can be certain that it will be a better future if the Chinese and American governments pursue cooperation over confrontation in the economic sphere."
As well, Beijing and Washington have a shared interest in fighting climate change, countering global terrorism and piracy, combating the spread of transnational diseases and crime, promoting stability in areas like Central and South Asia, and ensuring the continued openness of the global trade system.
Moreover, there are extensive governmental and non-governmental linkages in areas like energy, the environmental, and trade and, reportedly, a good personal rapport between top Chinese and American leaders. Nonetheless, contrary to the thinking of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US national security adviser and long-time influential foreign policy pundit, who termed this summit the most important summit since Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the US in 1978, there needs to be reasonable expectations about what it can accomplish in order to avoid disappointment.
As Chinese and Western scholars have widely recognized, both countries have a number of differing national interests that limit the potential for compromise. Furthermore, on the American side, President Obama has been somewhat weakened after the debacle of the 2010 Congressional mid-term elections, which led to the loss of dozens of Democrats seats in congress.
Obama confronts, too, a more conservative congress whose future stance towards China is not entirely clear. On the Chinese side, Chinese leaders must attend to the needs of various constituencies inside the country as well as the upcoming leadership transition in 2012, which has led to much jockeying and posturing.
Finally, many of the issues that Chinese and American policymakers will discuss later this month are the same issues the two countries have been debating since the beginning of the George W Bush administration, which suggests there is little reason to be optimistic about the prospect for progress this go-around.
The summit is likely to yield the best results if it focuses less on substantive policy outcomes than relationship building and education. Regarding education, Obama and his team need to communicate to President Hu and his delegation that the US is not a crippled economy that has lost its will to act, that the US remains an active player with a substantial presence in key regions like the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia, and that the US needs its own space in international waters and other spaces.
The US would do well to remind Chinese leaders of all that the US is doing to accommodate China's rise in global international institutions, expanding presence in various regions of the world, and growing influence over the international economic order.
In short, it needs to emphasize that "strategic reassurance", a doctrine promulgated early on in the Obama administration, is real and that the US policy towards China is nothing close to a containment strategy. Obama might further expound how certain Chinese foreign and foreign economic policies are counterproductive for Chinese domestic economic goals or Chinese foreign policy objectives such as in Northeast Asia.
With respect to the former, it might be pointed out how China's currency policy fuels inflation within China. In terms of the latter, it could be stressed how China's unwillingness to reign in Pyongyang has led to a more complicated external environment for China with tightening security relationships such as that between Japan and South Korea.
Hu and his entourage need to make clear to his hosts, but more importantly, the broad American public that everything Beijing does is not a challenge to the US and that all of China's gains do not yield losses for the US or the American people. Indeed, the message needs to be continuously delivered that the US gains much politically and economically, on numerous levels, from a cooperative, cordial relationship with China.
While American officials rightfully highlight cases of unequal treatment or a skewed playing field in China, the Chinese side should make clear not only that it has been addressing American concerns, but that it too has been facing unequal treatment and a skewed playing field on the trade and direct investment fronts, with political factors excessively influencing the approval of certain Chinese investments in the US.
Beyond this, Hu and his team should convincingly refute American worries that Beijing is losing control of foreign and national security policy to the Chinese military as suggested by China's 2007 anti-satellite missile test, 2008-2009 South China and Yellow Sea encounters with the US military, and more recently Stealth fighter flight just preceding American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' visit to China.
Chinese and American media have reported that aside from his visit with top American officials, Hu will meet some members of congress and subsequently travel to Chicago where he will meet with Chinese and business groups. While this type of public diplomacy is highly desirable, it would be advisable for Hu and his delegation to reach out to a wider community both in terms of sectors and geography.
There are large swathes of the American public, business sector, and political community outside the elite level as well as beyond the "big cities" and the American east and west coasts which need to understand more fully the challenges that limit Beijing's ability to respond fully or rapidly to American requests, which need to appreciate the benefits of economic and political engagement with China, and which need to grasp the diversity of factors beyond China that have caused economic difficulties for them.
It was not that long ago that sensationalist authors speculated about a conflagration between China and the US. This seemed farfetched to many informed observers, even more so with the dramatic improvement in cross-Taiwan Strait relations after the 2008 Taiwan presidential election.
Recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula, though, reminded some of this glum possibility, albeit for just a brief interlude. While serious conflict between China and the US seems an impossibility now given all the factors buttressing bilateral cooperation, the ghosts of misperception and misunderstanding still hover around. Let us hope that the forthcoming summit between China and the US will provide yet another opportunity to dispel these ghosts and to put one of the world's most important relationships on an ever more stable footing. This way the year of the Rabbit may be more likely to continue jumping forward.
Courtesy: Asia Times
Some see it as a chance to address bilateral geopolitical, economic, or human rights frictions. Others view it as an opportunity to reset the tone of the relationship after a rough patch in 2010 linked to domestic politics in the US, disagreements over policies towards Iran, North Korea and the South China Sea, and various trade and economic frictions. Yet others view it as an opportunity to strengthen personal ties between top American and Chinese leaders.
The potential for a fruitful summit should be quite high, with US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke telling a receptive business audience in Washington "We can be certain that it will be a better future if the Chinese and American governments pursue cooperation over confrontation in the economic sphere."
As well, Beijing and Washington have a shared interest in fighting climate change, countering global terrorism and piracy, combating the spread of transnational diseases and crime, promoting stability in areas like Central and South Asia, and ensuring the continued openness of the global trade system.
Moreover, there are extensive governmental and non-governmental linkages in areas like energy, the environmental, and trade and, reportedly, a good personal rapport between top Chinese and American leaders. Nonetheless, contrary to the thinking of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US national security adviser and long-time influential foreign policy pundit, who termed this summit the most important summit since Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the US in 1978, there needs to be reasonable expectations about what it can accomplish in order to avoid disappointment.
As Chinese and Western scholars have widely recognized, both countries have a number of differing national interests that limit the potential for compromise. Furthermore, on the American side, President Obama has been somewhat weakened after the debacle of the 2010 Congressional mid-term elections, which led to the loss of dozens of Democrats seats in congress.
Obama confronts, too, a more conservative congress whose future stance towards China is not entirely clear. On the Chinese side, Chinese leaders must attend to the needs of various constituencies inside the country as well as the upcoming leadership transition in 2012, which has led to much jockeying and posturing.
Finally, many of the issues that Chinese and American policymakers will discuss later this month are the same issues the two countries have been debating since the beginning of the George W Bush administration, which suggests there is little reason to be optimistic about the prospect for progress this go-around.
The summit is likely to yield the best results if it focuses less on substantive policy outcomes than relationship building and education. Regarding education, Obama and his team need to communicate to President Hu and his delegation that the US is not a crippled economy that has lost its will to act, that the US remains an active player with a substantial presence in key regions like the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia, and that the US needs its own space in international waters and other spaces.
The US would do well to remind Chinese leaders of all that the US is doing to accommodate China's rise in global international institutions, expanding presence in various regions of the world, and growing influence over the international economic order.
In short, it needs to emphasize that "strategic reassurance", a doctrine promulgated early on in the Obama administration, is real and that the US policy towards China is nothing close to a containment strategy. Obama might further expound how certain Chinese foreign and foreign economic policies are counterproductive for Chinese domestic economic goals or Chinese foreign policy objectives such as in Northeast Asia.
With respect to the former, it might be pointed out how China's currency policy fuels inflation within China. In terms of the latter, it could be stressed how China's unwillingness to reign in Pyongyang has led to a more complicated external environment for China with tightening security relationships such as that between Japan and South Korea.
Hu and his entourage need to make clear to his hosts, but more importantly, the broad American public that everything Beijing does is not a challenge to the US and that all of China's gains do not yield losses for the US or the American people. Indeed, the message needs to be continuously delivered that the US gains much politically and economically, on numerous levels, from a cooperative, cordial relationship with China.
While American officials rightfully highlight cases of unequal treatment or a skewed playing field in China, the Chinese side should make clear not only that it has been addressing American concerns, but that it too has been facing unequal treatment and a skewed playing field on the trade and direct investment fronts, with political factors excessively influencing the approval of certain Chinese investments in the US.
Beyond this, Hu and his team should convincingly refute American worries that Beijing is losing control of foreign and national security policy to the Chinese military as suggested by China's 2007 anti-satellite missile test, 2008-2009 South China and Yellow Sea encounters with the US military, and more recently Stealth fighter flight just preceding American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' visit to China.
Chinese and American media have reported that aside from his visit with top American officials, Hu will meet some members of congress and subsequently travel to Chicago where he will meet with Chinese and business groups. While this type of public diplomacy is highly desirable, it would be advisable for Hu and his delegation to reach out to a wider community both in terms of sectors and geography.
There are large swathes of the American public, business sector, and political community outside the elite level as well as beyond the "big cities" and the American east and west coasts which need to understand more fully the challenges that limit Beijing's ability to respond fully or rapidly to American requests, which need to appreciate the benefits of economic and political engagement with China, and which need to grasp the diversity of factors beyond China that have caused economic difficulties for them.
It was not that long ago that sensationalist authors speculated about a conflagration between China and the US. This seemed farfetched to many informed observers, even more so with the dramatic improvement in cross-Taiwan Strait relations after the 2008 Taiwan presidential election.
Recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula, though, reminded some of this glum possibility, albeit for just a brief interlude. While serious conflict between China and the US seems an impossibility now given all the factors buttressing bilateral cooperation, the ghosts of misperception and misunderstanding still hover around. Let us hope that the forthcoming summit between China and the US will provide yet another opportunity to dispel these ghosts and to put one of the world's most important relationships on an ever more stable footing. This way the year of the Rabbit may be more likely to continue jumping forward.
Courtesy: Asia Times
