America’s New Position and the Challenge It Poses to China

The U.S. has recently published the new National Security Strategy of the United States, and President Barack Obama’s positioning of the strategy is to “maintain America’s position as a global leader.”* This is not too hard to understand, and there have not been any major changes to it. No matter what strategic terminologies were used, the strategies that the preceding U.S. administrations used were all to maintain America’s global dominance or leadership. As the sole hegemony, the U.S.’ greatest national interest was to maintain this status. The methods employed by the preceding presidents, however, were varied. For example, President George Bush Jr. abided by unilateralism while Obama abides by multilateralism. However, this is not an absolute. The only reason unilateralism and multilateralism exist at the same time was that the key issues at different times were different.

In the new National Security Strategy document, the greatest change is America’s new positioning on China. For the first time, the document called for China to take up a responsible leadership role. During the later stage of the Cold War, America’s positioning on China was to counter the former Soviet Union’s “potential” allegiance. After the Cold War ended, America’s positioning on China changed according to the changes in the objective circumstances, from the “enemy” and “competitor” of the earlier days to the likes of “stakeholder,” “responsible stakeholder” and “responsible superpower” in recent years.

G2 Cannot Be Further Formalized

Certainly, the U.S. has given this role to China in view of its own national interest. The U.S. is aware that “the burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone — indeed, our adversaries would like to see America sap our strength by overextending our power.” With this awareness, the U.S. has to adjust its relationships with other emerging superpowers, which include China, and reposition the international roles of these nations. Therefore, the document mentioned that the U.S. has to “build a stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia,” reiterated that it is establishing a strategic partnership with India, and said, “We welcome Brazil’s leadership.” At the same time that Obama expressed to China that the differences on human rights issues between the two nations “should not affect their cooperation based on mutual interests,” he has also declared that America will monitor China’s military modernization plans and be prepared with countermeasures. As apparent from them replacing G8 with G20, the U.S.’ adjustment of its positioning of these emerging nations had in fact begun long ago.

In recent years, the greatest change in the Sino-U.S. relation has been nothing more than the formation of what people call the G2. But to many, China, to a large extent, is a “passive G2.” The Chinese officials also do not acknowledge the G2. In reality, the G2 cannot be further formalized. Looking at its framework, China is only a helper in the internal matters of the G2, and is placed in an unfavorable position. Because the U.S. is at the top of the framework, China in reality has only responsibilities and no leadership rights. The U.S. and China have to cooperate on international affairs, and at the same time, the U.S., in executing its policies, also has to give China some space to fulfill its international responsibilities, for example, increasing China’s limits of authority by the World Bank and the International Monetary Foundation. However, because the U.S. has the right to veto on many key areas, it can choose whether or not to fulfill its requirements to China, and China does not have any actual restrictive powers on the U.S.

Such a situation arose mainly because China’s power remains incomparable to America’s. Even though China’s economic strength is growing, it still lacks the capability to fulfill its international responsibilities, much less exercising its leadership rights. This is because, even though it exists within the same framework as the U.S., China, to a large extent, still needs to fulfill its international responsibilities through a system that the U.S. has established. It is hard to imagine that China is able to enjoy international leadership rights through such a system.

Another reason why China is not able to accept the G2 officially is that it recognizes that China and the U.S. are not able to decide on international affairs. Not only is this not in line with China’s goal of “democratizing of international affairs,” by doing so, China will also face immense international pressure.

China Needs to Consider its International Role Once Again

However, the understanding of a “passive G2” is also not precise enough. The G2 is a product of an objective change in the international framework but does not change with people’s subjective will. The actual origination of the G2 framework is not solely due to China’s rapid development, but also the result of China’s strategic choices. Since the opening up of China, the nation has decided to join an international system that is led by the West, particularly the U.S. This is China’s structural safeguard for its “peaceful emergence” or “peaceful development.” There are many flaws in this system, but China does not want to challenge it outside the system, but to attempt to change it from the inside. China has already begun to play an increasingly important role within this system. Subsequently, China’s rapid development indicates clearly its rise in status within the system, forming the G2 framework that we see today.

Whatever it is, the G2 reflects the structural changes of international politics. America’s new positioning of China (as well as other nations) is a requirement of this new objective framework. What about China itself, then? It is very obvious that China needs to rethink its international role.

First on the list is China’s international position. Traditionally, China’s international position is that of a developing country. Today, China has certainly not yet become a developed nation, but it can no longer simply position itself as a developing nation. This is because China cannot avoid shouldering some global responsibilities being placed on it within the international power framework. Acknowledgment of the traditional “developing country” label is not simply an objective reflection of China’s level of development of its economic society but also a political and strategic consideration, namely a need for national security and to fight hegemony. Similarly, there is a need to reconsider this acknowledgment now, not simply because of China’s economic development, but also because of strategic and political needs. No matter what China’s actual capability is, from the expectations of the international community, the international responsibilities that China has to shoulder has far exceeded the perimeters of that of a developing nation.

China is also facing the new problem of superpower diplomacy. During the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union, the purpose of superpower diplomacy was to vie for international spaces in either the American camp or the Soviet Union camp. Things are different now, however, because China and the U.S. exist within the same system. Even though China is still a long way off from being comparable to the U.S. in terms of power, China and the U.S. are the most closely matched. Japan is under America’s (military) wing, and the European Union is, after all, not a sovereign state. This increases the complexity of China’s foreign diplomacy. As a responsible superpower, China should be responsible to the entire system, but the one that is standing at the top of this system is the U.S. Therefore, some people cannot distinguish between responsibility to the system and responsibility to the U.S. The superimposition of these two types of responsibilities should be implemented for the stability of this system, regardless of whether the U.S. or China stands at the top of this framework. These two types of responsibilities are not the same thing, however, because the interest of the framework and that of the nation’s are not completely consistent. The interest of the framework coincides much greater with America’s interests than it does with China’s. Simply put, this system was established under the leadership of the U.S. Being in the same system but having different national interests at the same time determined the existence of cooperation and the conflicts between China and the U.S.

Handling common problems under the same system requires China and the U.S. to at least have common values and a consensus on the methods for handling problems. If there is no consensus, however little, on this level, not only will it be hard to resolve common problems, it could even intensify conflicts to a level more serious than the tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During the Cold War, both America and the Soviet Union had their own camps, and other than intimidating each other with nuclear weapons, the two powers had no substantial relationship between them. This sort of relationship is certainly dangerous, but there were very little interactions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and everyday conflicts were minimal as a result.

China and the U.S. Are Already Very Mutually Reliant

The structural changes in international power affect the Sino-U.S. bilateral relationship. In this bilateral relationship, China and the U.S. are already very mutually reliant, especially economically. The bilateral relationship is also becoming more international, which is to say that how China and the U.S. handle their bilateral relationship will have a huge effect on the entire international community. The bilateral relationship in areas like investments, trade, exchange rates, military matters and diplomacy will produce great external effects. This requires the two nations to handle these issues within the structure of international relations and not just bilateral relations.

This structural change will surely also affect China’s relationships with developed and developing nations. Traditionally, developed nations are more often in the American camp, and all this while, they ruled the world together with America. Now, they suddenly discovered a nation that is different from the U.S. standing on top of them, being able to play a role that is more important than theirs. On many occasions, the roles of these nations are declining. There are even occasions where their influence in international affairs is negligible. This could be seen at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, where China, together with the U.S. and some key developing nations, played decisive roles.

China’s relationships with developing nations are also experiencing major changes. The difference in standards between developing and developed nations remains extremely huge, and it is expanding. This determines the contradictions and conflicts between these two types of nations. No matter what angle from which one looks, the level of agreement developing nations have for China exceeds that of what they have for the U.S. This is not only because “developing nation” is China’s traditional identity, but in terms of interests, China is also closer to developing nations. Under such circumstances, if China is not careful, it will, consciously or unconsciously, be “pushed out” to step up as the leader of developing nations. This was also reflected at the Copenhagen Summit, where China was “made” the leader of developing nations, vying for “leadership rights” with developed nations of the West. This resulted in dissatisfaction among other developing nations. This meant that China had unintentionally shouldered a responsibility that it should not and does not wish to shoulder. Traditionally, China has been fighting for the democratizing of international order. But today, when China has begun to get closer to the top of the system, how can China become a level of democracy that can influence the international order?

As mentioned earlier, the U.S.’ new position on China is based on America’s interests. China certainly cannot shoulder a leadership role that it is not capable of shouldering. Shouldering international or leadership responsibilities beyond its capability will not only impede China’s further progress, it will also cause China to be sluggish on the international stage. This is because China emerged within a system that objectively called for its responsibility to reach a leadership role. What should China do? This will be a test for China in a long period of history from now on. This not only involves China’s development and all of its diplomatic relations, this also involves the issue of global war and peace.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.