America Wants More from China

Before even being enthroned in Beijing, the man who is to lead China passes by Washington. It’s become a tradition. The visit to the in-laws is a gesture of courtesy and homage to the only superpower that recognizes the Chinese. It is also useful from the inside: The interview at the White House finishes by giving its imperial stature to the designated candidate.

Xi Jinping is in Washington this week. At 58 years old, the current Chinese vice-president is programmed for the supreme power, the one which the discrete Hu Jintao will still occupy for several more months. Mr. Xi should be named general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in October on the occasion of the eighteenth congress. He will thus preside over the central military commission, and then be appointed president of the country in 2013. Strengthened by this triple imprimatur — the one of the party, the army, and the state — he will lead China for two five-year terms.

The Washington stage is the prelude to this slow accession to the command of the world’s second economic power. It marks the privileged relationship which unites China with the United States, the funny tango which the two of them dance: an obligated embrace from the fact of a growing financial and economic interdependence, succeeding despite the inevitable moments of defiance, even frank hostility between the installed superpower and the one which could try to steal its place.

Mr. Xi has a lot with which to seduce America. The general allure is the opposite of that of President Hu, a caricature of policed apparatchik, with fine glasses, perfectly straight hair, and discrete manner. The future Chinese president has a John Wayne-like quick draw, tall silhouette, a certain cultivated nonchalance, burly shoulders, and a happy jovial mood.

He belongs to the aristocracy that those in Beijing call the princelings, the children of the ex-Maoist leaders. He was born after the creation of the popular Republic of China in 1949. He traveled; he has already been to the United States several times. His daughter studies at Harvard. A brother lives in Hong Kong, a sister in Canada.

Suspicion: The same CV is the mark of a new generation of leaders, not necessarily the promise of new directions. With Xi Jinping, the United States does not expect a Chinese Gorbachev; they would love to get out of the stasis which has marked Mr. Hu’s term. On the economic and strategic scores, Mr. Xi comes into power at a moment when Sino-American relations are going through a difficult phase.

For several years, the electoral campaigns of the United States have resonated around a volley of anti-Chinese slogans. China was accused of having stripped Americans of millions of jobs and of being, from every angle, a disloyal competitor. Cited by Fareed Zakaria in Time (Nov. 28, 2011), a recent Pew survey found that “more than half of Americans see China’s growth as bad for the U.S.”

But this time there is a new element: “business — the core constituency for good relations with China — is changing its views.” “Businessmen in the U.S. have become less star struck and more worried,” writes Zakaria, “worried about the policy adopted in Beijing.” Chinese firms are being prioritized over others, watertight public markets, refusal to respect intellectual property, doubts about the protection of foreign investments, etc.

The strategic relationship is more peaceful. Paradoxically, Washington blames Beijing for too much shyness on the international scene. The Hu diplomacy was of that advocated by the father of China’s economic opening, Deng Xiaoping: low profile and non-interventionist. It has primarily the goal of ensuring the country’s energy supply.

On the outside, China is a hyper conservative power of the status quo. The ideal international scene for Beijing: a world where no regime changes! The heir of Maoism, the popular Republic of China abhors revolts, revolutions and other guerrillas, all which, in one way or another, can perturb international order and, as an after effect, its own development.

China has made the principle of the sovereignty of nations sacred: it is against economic sanctions (other than very rare exceptions) and against all military interference. It is not only the desire to protect itself from criticism against the policies which it takes inside its borders, notably in Tibet and Xinjiang. It’s also a real caution, the worry of leading an economic power, so rapidly acquired, which it does not know, nor seem to otherwise want, into political ascendency (except in the South China Sea).

It’s still a privilege to receive an international order which it has benefited from without having contributed to it: whether it’s the fight against terrorism, the combat against nuclear proliferation or stability in the Middle East, China does nothing, or nearly nothing.

It’s amazed when they dare blame him for this passiveness following the Maoist revolutionary activism. “There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point the finger at us.” “China doesn’t export revolution, neither hunger nor poverty, neither does China come and give you a migraine,” he followed, before saying: “So, what do you want from us?”

Barack Obama will tell him kindly that he wants a China that is more active on the international scene, notably in the Middle East; a China that participates in the struggle against nuclear proliferation and does not torpedo sanctions against Iran; a China which is less of a follower with regards to Russia at the U.N. Security Council; a China which is more enthusiastic in the fight against climate change, etc. America wants more from China, not less.