Fixing the U.S.–China Relationship

The second round of the U.S.–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue will soon be held in Beijing. The two parties’ priority issues for this meeting are not entirely the same. Because each has its own priority discussion topics as well as a different understanding of “respecting each others’ core interests,” the two sides need to talk frankly and work toward mutual understanding.

Most important is the issue of the two countries’ strategic positions toward each other. After moving through a period of high mutual expectations and extreme frustration in 2009, now China and the U.S. must return to a time of cool-headed, realistic and rational mutual strategic positioning. Many variables and constants exist in the strategies of China and the U.S. toward other countries, and each of the two countries’ strategic orientations has an influence on the policy direction of the other. The two countries’ heads of state reaching consensus on wanting to create a “comprehensive, active, and cooperative” relationship has a positive significance, but how to understand and promote this sort of relationship remains tricky. There are differences in worldview between the two countries that are difficult to overlook. Even though China continues on the path of peaceful development, the United States continues to hold “doubts.” An official American document states that the U.S. “welcomes China as a strong, prosperous and successful member of the community of nations,” but a series of actions by the U.S. makes it difficult to recognize whether the U.S. really “welcomes” China’s strength, prosperity and success.

Any sort of consensus for a “comprehensive, active, cooperative” relationship needs to be specific, pragmatic and verifiable, and the two sides should reach a consensus, the fulfillment of which would be difficult to misinterpret. As the world’s hegemon and a rising great power, the U.S. and China, respectively, naturally have structural contradictions between them, and an accurate mutual strategic position can prevent the instability and even military conflict that historically accompanies the rise of a new power. We are willing to join the U.S. in creating a history of positive great-power interaction, but the key is that the U.S. needs to give up its traditional conception of great-power power politics and let its actions match its words in “welcoming China as a strong, prosperous, and successful member of the community of nations.”

The second concern is how to resolve the question of “core interests” that deeply concerns both countries and periodically affects their relationship. When the two heads of state created a joint statement during Obama’s 2009 China visit, the American side made some positive expressions it had never made in the past, but in the specifics of carrying them out, there remained large differences, and they were difficult to verify and implement. From 2009 through the beginning of 2010, the U.S. did a series of things that hurt China’s core national interests, such as selling arms to Taiwan and Obama’s visit of the Dalai Lama. These actions incited the intense opposition of China’s government and people. Not only did the U.S. not learn anything from its mistakes, it further slandered China as being too tough and even said that China’s high-level policy had problems. Chairman Hu Jintao’s attendance at the Nuclear Summit in Washington in April signals that Sino–American relations have started to warm, but it does not imply that military relations have completely returned to normal. America’s recent arms sales to Taiwan and other encroachments of Chinese core interests have still not been resolved. The U.S. should not think that it has already so easily passed the test; it must do more to produce practical acts to gain the trust of the Chinese people. Lately, within the U.S. and on the island of Taiwan, there has been much clamor for the U.S. to sell Taiwan F-16 C/D planes; this one thing merits a pattern of scrutiny!

This absolutely does not imply that we are either “petty” or “indulgent.” Rather, it shows that the Chinese government takes a principled stance on cardinal questions and that the Chinese people have a very low tolerance for encroachments on their own country’s core interests. We must frankly point out the American side’s hypocrisy and two-faced trickery. From now on, if losses are inflicted on China’s core national interests, the violators must be brought to justice, and the cost will be ever higher.

Third is the reduction of the burdensome factors of the Sino–American security relationship. These last few years, the U.S. government’s official documents and high-level officials have all constantly demanded that China increase the transparency of its military, claiming that “the level of transparency of China’s military development has caused the U.S. and China’s neighboring countries natural concern.”* We must correspondingly demand that the U.S. strengthen the transparency of its own strategic security position and policy trends and that it strengthen the transparency of the military strength it deploys to our borders. We must not let the U.S. wave the banner of guarding against North Korea as an excuse to effectively surround our country and increase military pressure on it through bilateral and multilateral military alliances and joint exercises. American warships’ and planes’ “close-up investigations” of our territorial waters and skies need to be reduced. The positive interaction of the Sino–American bilateral security relationship cannot just require China’s unilateral increase in “transparency” toward America. Rather, the two sides should all demonstrate good faith and reduce military deployments and related preparations directed against the other side. At the same time, they should strengthen cooperation in the area of responding to nontraditional security threats and thus press for the development of the bilateral security relationship in an active direction.

China remains commited to peaceful development. It does not seek any regional or global military advantage, and it does not challenge America’s military advantage. China will continue to play an active role and provide “public security goods” for the peace and stability of the region and the world. We should justly and resolutely require that the American side, in the areas of nuclear strategy and regional and global military strategy, reduce or even eliminate their “unconstructive” strategic plans against China. This will reduce the negative factors of the security relationship that influence the overall Sino–American relationship.

(The author is a high-ranking naval officer.)

*Editor’s Note: The original quote, accurately translated, has not been verified.