inexperienced leadership.
An intensely nationalist and militaristic China would generate its own self-isolation. It would dissipate the global admiration for China’s modernization and could stimulate residual anti-Chinese public sentiments within the United States, perhaps even with some latent racist overtones. It would be likely to give rise to political pressures for an overly anti-China coalition with whatever Asian nations had become increasingly fearful of Beijing’s ambitions. It could transform China’s immediate geopolitical neighborhood, currently inclined toward a partnership with the economically successful giant next door, into eager supplicants for external reassurance (preferably from America) against what they would construe as an ominously nationalistic and aggressively aroused China.
Since the United States has been militarily deployed on the basis of treaty commitments in Japan and South Korea for several decades, how Beijing conducts itself in its immediate neighborhood will impact directly the overall American-Chinese relationship. Broadly speaking, the current strategic goals of the rising but still cautiously deliberate China appear to be driven by the following six major objectives:
1. To reduce the dangers inherent in China’s potential geographical encirclement, due to: the US security links with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines; the vulnerability to interdiction of China’s maritime access into the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca and thence to the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and so on; and the absence of available economically sustainable land routes for trade with Europe through the vast distances of Russia and/or Central Asia;
2. To establish for itself a favored position in an emerging East Asian community (which could include a China-Japan-South Korea free trade zone) and likewise in the already-existing ASEAN, while containing—though not yet excluding—a major US presence or role in them;
3. To consolidate Pakistan as a counterweight to India and to gain through it a more proximate and safer access to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf;
4. To gain a significant edge over Russia in economic influence in Central Asia and Mongolia, thereby satisfying in part China’s needs for natural resources also in areas closer to China than Africa or Latin America;
5. To resolve in China’s favor the remaining unsettled legacy of its civil war—Taiwan—in keeping with Deng’s formula (first enunciated publicly to the Chinese media in the course of a visit to him by this writer) of “one China, two systems”; and
6. To establish for itself a favored economic, and indirectly political, presence in a number of Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American countries, thereby securing stable access to raw materials, minerals, agricultural products, and energy—while simultaneously securing a dominant position in local markets for China’s competitively priced manufactured products, and, in the process, thereby gaining a global political constituency on China’s behalf.
The aforementioned six major strategic goals are a mixture of the country’s geopolitical and economic interests in what some Chinese strategists have described as China’s “Grand Periphery,” but they also reflect China’s historical view of its rightful entitlement to a dominant regional—perhaps eventually global—role. They are not rooted, as was the case with the Soviet Union, in universal ideological aspirations. But they do reflect Chinese pride and presumed desire, disguised for the time being, for China to become again—as it once was—the world’s preeminent power, even replacing America. Indeed, it is already noticeable that China’s intelligently calculated foreign outreach—built around slogans regarding “a harmonious world”—is beginning to intrigue the political imagination of peoples in the world’s less privileged parts. For the many who crave a vision of a more relevant future than offered by the “waning American dream,” China is beginning to offer a new option, that of the rising Chinese dream.
Each of the six Chinese goals can be sought flexibly and patiently, or China can pursue each goal aggressively, in order to undermine America’s position in the East. For example, Japan and South Korea can be partners in an East Asian community that accepts America’s involvement in it, or they can be enticed into one with a united Korea under a Chinese umbrella and a neutral Japan detached from the United States (similarly with the other examples). In essence, the intensity of Chinese nationalism is likely to determine whether the above goals can be assimilated into a pattern of accommodation, largely with the United States, or whether they become objectives to be sought assertively, by a nationalistically aroused China increasingly preoccupied with an antagonistic contestation with the United States.
Which of these two becomes more likely will depend on two fundamental considerations: how America will respond to an ascending China, and how China itself will evolve. The acumen and maturity of both nations are likely to be severely tested in the process, and the stakes for each will be enormous. For America, therefore, the task is to disentangle which aspects of China’s external ambitions are unacceptable and pose a direct threat to vital American interests, and which aspects reflect new historical geopolitical and economic realities that can be accommodated, however reluctantly, without damage to key US interests. In effect, to assess calmly what is not worth a collision with China and where the lines should be drawn so that China itself realizes that going beyond would prove counterproductive to its own interests and/or beyond its means to assert. The ultimate goal, but not at any price, should be a China that is a constructive and major partner in world affairs.
It follows that in seeking to increase the probability that China becomes a major global partner, America should tacitly accept the reality of China’s geopolitical preeminence on the mainland of Asia, as well as China’s ongoing emergence as the predominant Asian economic power. But the prospects of a comprehensive American- Chinese global partnership will actually be enhanced if America at the same time retains a significant geopolitical presence of its own in the Far East, based on its continued ties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia—and does so whether China approves or not. Such a presence would encourage in general the Asian neighbors of China (including also those not explicitly mentioned) to take advantage of America’s involvement in Asia’s financial and economic structures—as well as of America’s geopolitical presence—to pursue peacefully but with greater self-confidence their own independence and interests in the shadow of a powerful China.
Japan is a crucial ally for the United States in its effort to develop a stable American-Chinese partnership. Its ties with America underline the fact that America is a Pacific Ocean power, just as America’s ties with Great Britain confirm the reality of America being also an Atlantic Ocean power. Both sets of ties make possible America’s variable partnerships with Europe and China respectively. Progressive and deepening reconciliation between China and Japan is, in the above context, also a major American interest. The American presence in Japan, and especially the security links between the two countries, should facilitate such a reconciliation. That would be especially so if it is sought in the context of a serious effort by America and China to deepen and expand the scope of their own bilateral cooperation.
At the same time, an internationally more active and militarily more capable Japan would also be a more positive contributor to global stability. Some prominent Japanese have even been urging that Japan joins the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), favored by the United States, which aims at free trade between the states located on the rim of the Pacific Ocean (and denounced by Chinese experts as a plot against the East Asian community). Japan would still lack the power to threaten China, but it could contribute more to international peace enforcement and generally act more in keeping with its significant economic status. Issues between it and China pertaining to the potentially oil-rich islands claimed by both of them could then be resolved more easily by following established procedures for international mediation and adjudication.
South Korea, as long as it remains potentially threatened and with the peninsula divided, has no choice but to depend on America’s security commitments—with those in turn dependent for their effectiveness on America’s continued presence in Japan. Despite extensive trade relations, the historic enmity between Korea and Japan has so far prevented any close military cooperation even though it is in the evident security interest of both. The more secure South Korea is, the less likely there is to be some unexpected assault from the North. Eventually, the issue of peaceful reunification may become timely, and at that moment China’s role may be crucial in facilitating perhaps a reunification by stages. Should that happen, the South Koreans may decide to reassess the degree to which some reduction in their security ties with the United States and especially with Japan might become acceptable as a trade-off for Chinese-assisted national reunification.
Closer US political and commercial ties with Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the maintenance of the historical US connection with the Philippines would also enhance the prospects for Asian support for direct US participation in the expanding architecture of regional interstate cooperation. The interests of each of these states in such a relationship with the United States would also have the effect of generating greater Chinese
