Sino–U.S. Relations Will Never Return to the Past

The Sino–U.S. relationship, which has seen unceasing troubles since early last year, seems to be warming up at the start of 2011. The U.S. secretary of defense will visit China, and China’s diplomacy is also preparing for President Hu Jintao’s later visit to the U.S. The warming up of the relationship can surely be attributed to President Hu’s planned visit to the U.S.

Not long ago, the “Sino–U.S. grand strategy agreement” newly proposed by U.S. scholars was hotly debated in a panel discussion led by He Liangliang on Phoenix Cable TV. The “Sino–U.S. grand strategy agreement” refers to a potential agreement that would be signed during President Hu’s upcoming visit, similar to the 1972 “Shanghai Communiqué”. It is further claimed that if such an agreement were signed, it would be as important as any other document signed in the history of Sino–U.S. relations.

The two peaks in Sino–U.S. relations

This writer thinks that, in the foreseeable future, Sino–U.S. relations will never return to the past. The so-called “past” here refers to the honeymoon period in Sino–U.S. relations, otherwise known as the stable peak period.

The two honeymoon peaks in Sino–U.S. relations are the 17 years between 1972 and 1989 and the seven years between 2002 (Post-9/11, Bush Jr. participated in the 2001 APEC meeting in Shanghai, and in 2002 he visited China.) and 2009. In November 2009, Obama visited China and announced the “U.S.–China Joint Statement”. According to Chinese scholar Tao Wen, the word “common” appeared as many as 20 times in the statement. In comparison, it appeared only three times in the 1972 bulletin.

While there were obstacles of various magnitudes in the 17 years between 1972 and 1989, the “informal Sino–U.S. alliance” was generally unaffected (Kissinger, in his masterpiece “Diplomacy”, claims that after a visit to China, President Nixon confirmed the unofficial alliance between the two countries.). The reason why an alliance could be formed was that there was a common enemy — the threat of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union dissolved, when this common enemy no longer existed, the basis of the alliance dissolved as well.

Between 2002 and 2009, though they were not as close as during 1972–1989, Sino–U.S. relations were basically stable. Bush Jr. visited China in October 2001, a first move towards the subsequent four visits he would make to China. 9/11 utterly changed the China policy of the Bush Jr. administration. While terrorism was unable to push the Sino–U.S. relationship to its peak, as the Soviet Union threat did in pushing the two nations to come together as military allies, it at least maintained the stability of the relationship.

Sino–U.S. conflicts on the international stage

Though Sino–U.S. relations reached a new peak under the Obama administration, the goodwill did not last long. Not long after Obama left China, friction and conflicts ensued. These ranged from the arms sale to Taiwan to meeting the Dalai Lama and then the RMB issue and the later military conflicts in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea.

The driving forces and mutual interests behind Sino–U.S. cooperation still exist: terrorism, nuclear proliferation, trade relations, climate and the environment, maintaining global political and economic stability. Even so, following the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the rise of the Chinese economy and Obama’s global strategic adjustments have caused Sino–U.S. relations to deteriorate rapidly. Obama’s one sentence “I do not accept second place for the United States of America” shattered the popular belief that the era of U.S. supremacy is at its end.

The first honeymoon period was driven by the common threat of the Soviet Union. The second honeymoon period was driven by the need to combat terrorism to safeguard national interests and global supremacy. From the viewpoints of the Obama administration and some Americans, the two countries that used to work together to safeguard global supremacy are now working against each other to claim unilateral supremacy. As described above, the Obama administration sees China as a challenger to U.S. hegemony. This move by Obama introduces Sino–U.S. relations to the greater global stage. Only from a macro worldview can we comprehensively understand the friction and conflicts between China and the U.S.

Cooperation between China and the U.S. brings about micro level benefits for the U.S. such as lowering the cost of living for Americans and increasing employment opportunities. There are also more macro-level benefits such as maintaining the stability of the global economy. Even so, from the current viewpoint of the Obama administration, the Sino–U.S. relationship, while mutually beneficial, benefits China more than the U.S. In the long run, the U.S. will not only lose its comparative advantage but would be replaced by China.

Obama is looking to use Hu’s upcoming visit as an opportunity to lower China’s absolute gain and increase the relative gain of the U.S. in their relationship. Even though a joint statement may be issued, or even a joint communiqué, the outcome will certainly be the further limitation of China’s progress. In international diplomacy, national leaders are always smiling when cursing and always laughing when killing others!

In the international arena of what international relations scholars call “power politics”, especially among the great powers, one country’s increase in relative strength signifies the relative reduction in strength of another. The U.S., the only dominant power since the end of the Cold War, definitely does not wish for other nations to weaken its own absolute and relative strength. In history, those who could have threatened or did threaten U.S. hegemony, such as the Soviet Union and Japan, have been brought down by the U.S. or have been led to economic stagnation by the U.S. As China grows unceasingly into a real threat to U.S. hegemony, the U.S. is bound to expend great effort toward limiting China’s progress, until it feels that the threat has been resolved.

Conditions do not exist for a warming up of Sino–U.S. relations

Looking at the current balance of powers, the existing configuration of one superpower trumping many indicates that Sino–U.S. relations are unlikely to warm up in the short term. Since the end of the Cold War, especially into the 21st century, under market economy conditions fueled by economic globalization, the U.S. has become one of the most important trading partners of other countries. At the same time, military alliances formed during the Cold War did not dissolve with the end of the Cold War. Rather, the U.S. makes full use of these alliances and existing conflicts on the international arena to further strengthen its military presence all over the world. In short, to many countries, the U.S. is the most important trading partner and military ally.

The current status of the U.S. means that, in the foreseeable future, the phenomenon of the second and third most powerful countries forming an alliance against the most powerful will not come to pass, unlike at other points in history. China, India, Brazil, Russia, as well as the traditionally developed countries of Germany, France, England, Italy, Japan and Spain, all have close economic ties with the U.S. Except for China and Russia, the rest of the countries have closer military ties to the U.S. than to each other. To world powers outside of China and Russia, coming together to combat the U.S. will be too costly and the price too high for them to take the risk.

In the short run, it is impossible for any entity to become a significant threat to the U.S., as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War period. The Obama administration has already lowered the strategic status of counterterrorism. Conversely, the threat of China has risen dramatically in importance in the overall grand strategy of the U.S. The forces that drove Sino–U.S. relations into the previous honeymoon periods not only no longer exist, but the U.S. now views China as the most significant threat to guard against.

Based on the above analysis, I believe that even if any so-called “achievements” come of Hu’s upcoming visit to the U.S. or if Sino–U.S. relations are to reach new heights, all would be temporary. Obama’s visit to China last year proved this to us. The current global pattern determines that for a long period (at least two decades), the Sino–U.S. relationship is bound to be continuously characterized by friction and conflicts. Last year’s conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands led to a rapid deterioration of their bilateral relations. In actuality, that was only a micro-level adjustment and focus point in Asia. When China and the U.S. make a similar adjustment, a significant turbulence will be felt at the global scale.

In the face of the restricting force that is the U.S. and its layers of containment, the Chinese government is not totally helpless. Conversely, with enough confidence, strategy and the appropriate policy, China is bound to be the leader of the world in the coming years!