The Fallacy of Chinese Containment The best way to deal with China is to let it prosper. By Robert B. Reich Web Exclusive: 03.22.06 Print Friendly | Email Article First the President goes to India -- China’s long-term rival and border contestant -- and agrees to give India nuclear fuel. Then the Secretary of State goes to Southeast Asia for what are billed as "security talks" with Australia and Japan. Before she leaves she says China could become a "negative force" in the region. Then, during the meetings last week in Sydney, an anonymous member of the administration tells the The New York Times that the White House hopes China views those meetings with concern. With the world’s attention focused on America in the Middle East, the U.S. is quietly embarking on what can only be understood as a policy of containing China. The Bush administration is anxious about China’s soaring influence. Last week China announced another increase in its military budget, to the equivalent of $35 billion next year. And its booming economy is making China the powerhouse of Asia. So does it make sense to encircle China with a kind of new NATO comprised of the U.S., India, Australia, and Japan? No. China is nothing like the old communist menace that inspired the creation of NATO. Nor should we try to contain China with an alliance analogous to what the U.S. created with Europe during the Cold War. China isn’t even communist, although its government professes to be. It’s the fastest-growing capitalist nation in the world. Australia and Japan themselves are becoming ever more economically dependent on China. To keep its ravenous industries going, China is importing a huge quantity of raw materials from Australia and technology and higher-value-added supplies from Japan. These purchases are fueling economic recoveries in both nations. Almost every large American-based corporation is already in China, or heading there. Not only are American companies making ever more of their manufactured goods in China, but they are also racing there to sell everything from computers to investment advice to a growing Chinese middle class. Even Wal-Mart is hurtling into China. It just announced it would open 20 stores there next year and hire 150,000 Chinese to staff additional Wal-Marts to be opened there over the next five years. Besides, America desperately needs China. We are dependent on China’s continuing willingness to lend us billions of dollars a year. Without this cash flow, the U.S. economy would implode. The U.S. government could not keep running huge budget deficits. Americans could not keep spending without saving. We also need China to help us police North Korea. China is the only nation with real economic leverage over that rogue nation. If we encircle China with that resembles a new NATO, we feed China’s fear that America sees it as our enemy. That way we strengthen the hands of hard-liners in the Chinese government who want to further crack down on dissent, to take over Taiwan, and to build up China’s military even more. By casting China as our nemesis we also legitimize fears of many Americans that China is taking over our jobs and our economy. The best way to deal with China is to continue to let it prosper. The larger and more buoyant China’s middle class becomes, the less we have to fear. Prosperity is not a “zero-sum” game of winners and losers. We win if they win. A big Chinese middle class will buy more goods and services from America and the rest of the world. It will also want to avoid military belligerence that interferes in economic growth. And it will eventually demand democratic reforms. But treat China as our enemy and it could become our enemy. That would be a mistake as tragic as treating the Arab world as our enemy. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11337
The treatment China is a Cold War remnant for supporting a lost regime and not admitting the fact that the US gave China to the Communists. Before the Revolution, the US actively reached out to China in the spirit of trade and cooperation. I think China's emergence and the resources they're needing to sustain it is more than enough to spark a regional or international confrontation. It would've been a coin flip between China and India if past ideology didn't come into play.
It is hard to know with the Bush gang. They might just still be cold war crazies caught in what is now a silly anti-communism, where it largely does not exist. or. )and it is probably both)given their Carlyle group investing empire ,it could just be another attemtp to have an arms race so they can soak up some juicy government contracts.
Since we are at a China thread, here's a Washington Post report on three US Senators touting American values while visiting China. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032201653_pf.html Schooling China in the American Way Senators Preach Free Trade and Speech to Lukewarm Hosts By Peter S. Goodman Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, March 23, 2006; D01 BEIJING, March 22 -- Three United States senators came to one of China's most prestigious universities on Wednesday, ostensibly to talk about trade. What they delivered was an expansive, almost evangelical campaign for American values -- one that received pushback from their audience of students and faculty. The senators talked about an unfair advantage they say Chinese exporters enjoy over American firms because of the low-value currency. They implored China to adopt the norms of global trade. In strikingly moral tones, they pledged Washington's resolve to pressure China to liberalize not only its currency regime but also its political culture, using trade as a wedge for broader reform. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told the Tsinghua University audience that his model of leadership is "a man by the name of Jesus." He later quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as he urged China to do "the right thing" on trade policy. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told the students that, post-9/11, Americans are committed to taking on whatever battles seem imperative -- China's cheap currency, along with al-Qaeda. "In my country, we're very arrogant, and I admit to it," Graham said. "You have to understand that Americans have for 200 years fought and died not just for our freedom, but for other people's freedoms." Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who has led the drive to force China to raise the value of its currency, the yuan, said economic reform leads toward a free society. "I believe it is inevitable that China will have much more freedom," he said. But when the time came for questions, the reaction from students and faculty -- though polite and reserved -- revealed how the American campaign for a free-floating Chinese currency has backfired in some quarters. Many here resent the specter of the world's lone superpower seemingly attempting to dictate how Beijing should manage its economy and the values that should govern Chinese society. A 21-year-old architecture student who gave his name as Albert rejected the idea that the civil liberties the senators suggested have universal appeal. "Have you ever thought that it is probably the freedom of speech that you guys promote that finally resulted in this terrorist attack," he said, calling 9/11 an act of "revenge" for American offenses against Islam. "In China, we have promoted the harmony that would have prevented this kind of attack." Schumer leapt from his chair. "I don't think you understand the concept of freedom of speech," he said. "It is our American understanding that freedom leads to stability." Economist Li Daokui, a member of Tsinghua's faculty, told the senators that he lived in the United States for more than 15 years and "loves the country." But he warned them that the senators' pressure for change was provoking a defensive response from those who might otherwise be friendly to reform. "Democracy, personal liberties and freedom of speech: These are ideals," Li said. "My worry is that if some people press things too quickly, you will undermine the whole process." He questioned whether a revaluing of China's currency would create any jobs in the United States. A man in a blue suit demanded to know how many U.S. senators -- now moving toward a vote on a trade bill that could have great consequences here -- have ever visited his country. "Many Americans are not very well informed of the real situation in China," he said. Schumer, Graham and Coburn are in China for five days for what they say is an examination of the forces at play before they decide whether to proceed with a vote on the bill at the end of the month. With China's President Hu Jintao scheduled to visit the United States in April and a U.S. Treasury Department report in the works that could brand China a currency manipulator, the Schumer-Graham bill has become a key front in an increasingly tense trade relationship between the countries. It would apply 27.5 percent tariffs to all Chinese-made goods if China does not substantially revalue the currency. The bill has gained momentum as China's trade surplus with the United States has grown, swelling to $200 billion last year. But many economists assert that even a significant revaluation would do little to alter the trade balance, noting that many of the goods China exports, such as clothing and furniture, have not been made in large quantities in the United States for years. Others called the trip political posturing. But the reception the senators are receiving attests to the gravity of the issue for China's leaders, who are cognizant of the angry mood in Washington. The senators dined Wednesday night with Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China. They were to meet Thursday with Vice Premier Wu Yi. The senators said they were here to discuss not only the currency but also China's failure to crack down on routine theft of intellectual property (from pirated Hollywood movies to counterfeit pharmaceuticals), as well as barriers to foreign investment here. The currency issue "has become a metaphor for the whole trade relationship," Schumer said. China has been emphasizing the difficulties it faces in freeing its currencies, particularly the risk that it could slow economic growth. That message has already gained some sympathy from the U.S. visitors. "I've learned that you've got 700 million people who need employment, that the interior of your country is not developed," Graham told the students. "I've learned in coming here that for you to change your system very quickly would be very hard for your country. I understand that better now." Schumer and Graham said they were very impressed by assertions by Chinese officials that they have come to see a free-floating currency as being in their own interest, though they will need to move gradually. "We walk away from this meeting seeing that they are not mouthing it," Schumer said. "They believe." The senators will also walk away with an appreciation for the pageantry that China uses to great effect in winning over visitors -- even those who come with unpleasant business. On Tuesday night, after an official dinner in the Great Hall of the People, the senators buzzed over the experience. "It was the most awesome room," Graham said. "It wasn't your typical Chinese food," added Schumer. "It was amazing stuff, not your usual stuff. And they went easy on us. No sea slugs. No jellyfish." But if China's culinary achievements left a favorable impression, Schumer was less impressed by the political culture. On Wednesday, as he spoke at the university, he asked for a show of hands from those believing that "freedom is the eventual right path for China to be on." Perhaps a dozen of the 50 or so people in the room tentatively raised hands. How many disagreed? Five hands went up. How many people were unsure? No one raised a hand, leaving a silent majority expressing no sentiment at all. "It's still a very controlled society," Schumer said as he boarded the bus that would take him past countless new skyscrapers and on to the five-star St. Regis Hotel. "They've got a ways to go."
What a great sales person in the senator to tell the audience that they are arrogant and superior, and the audience must buy their products. What a great project manager in the president to ask for blank cheque, without deadline, deliverables, and resources limitation for a unknown project. No wonder people want to work for the government, because all the people who can never find a job in private sectors of a capitalism country can get paid in the government.
Not really surprising. Remember China was the envisioned future enemy number 1 when the Bush gang took office. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jed Bush, and many other big names in the Bush gang were founding members of New American Century, an organization that's dedicated to containing China's rise and so named in response to some analyst's prediction that the 21st century will be the Chinese century. Before 9/11, Rumsfeld and friends pushed hard for cutting back on anti-terrorism programs and shifting the resources to containing China (e.g. more aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines in the Western Pacific, more intelligence gathering on China which partially resulted in the spy plane incident, etc.). If 9/11 had not happened and forced the hawks in Washington to shift their attention, the US and China would probably already be deep in the midst of a new Cold War.
What does Schumer, Graham and Coburn know about Economics? It's almost comical how US pressured financial openness (basically that's where US's largest comparative advantage at now) to the developing world in the latest round of WTO talks, and how US government reacts when deals knock on their own door. Strategic containment? China has used to it.
