U.S.-China Relations: Who’s the Pawn?

In the past few days, the Chinese official media has fixated on the U.S. panda’s return to China and the Americans’ reluctance to part with the animal.

Many Chinese people believe that the panda is widely appreciated in the U.S. Thus, some even believe that Westerners also appreciate the ancient Chinese empire; whether this has any basis at all is difficult to say.

What is clear is that the official media has guided these sentiments.

In the eyes of the Chinese, the panda was formed through a slow evolutionary process into a treasured national symbol. As we consider the degree to which Americans appreciate this animal, we must consider the other factors at hand. Arms sales to Taiwan, the president’s proposed meeting with the Dalai Lama, trade and currency exchange debates, Google hacking and censorship issues; each of these questions is a time bomb heightening tensions in U.S.-China relations.

A façade of popular amity conceals the underlying tensions in the two countries’ diplomatic relations. This is all according to the Chinese official media’s designs. China meticulously separates cold political relations from warm popular relations. This strategy may well be China’s remedy for the cold it has contracted abroad in dealing with the U.S., as well as for the fever it has caught at home from calls for populism.

The Chinese government has responded to internal pressure with a series of small actions. The government puts these minor actions out in the open for all to observe and explore. It is unclear what the consequences of these will be.

We have reason to believe that while the economy continues to struggle back toward normalcy in 2010, the U.S. still needs cooperation from filthy-rich China. At the same time, China is still far from being on par with the U.S. in terms of military might and technological expertise. China must cooperate with the U.S. or, at the very least, tolerate it.

Thus, this author’s conclusion is that the U.S. and China are each others’ pawns. As the two nations attempt to resolve their disagreements, the potential for unexpected inflammation is high.

To return to the issue raised at the beginning of this essay, the experts say that Meilan the panda’s mixed reaction to its homecoming is typical for an animal that has withstood a long journey.

As China tries to make abnormal relations look normal through this “panda diplomacy,” Meilan is the true pawn; it’s she who is forced to eat the bitter fruit. Let’s hold off on populist celebration of this maneuver’s success, for whoever becomes the pawn will be the first forced to make sacrifices.