Why China Isn't the Next Soviet Union
It's unlikely the U.S.–China relations will spiral into a second Cold War.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is consolidating power, but the U.S. shouldn't worry about a Cold War standoff.
By Michael Crowley June 20, 2014 | 8:27 a.m. EDT+ More
Last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report, "Decoding China‘s Emerging ?Great Power‘ Strategy in Asia," which poses the question: What kind of great power does China want to be? The question contains an implied recognition that China may have more control over the terms of its rise than the U.S. would like to admit. Despite a shift towards a more muscular Chinese foreign policy, the report underscores why the U.S.-China relationship is unlikely to develop into a second Cold War.
The report‘s principal author, Christopher K. Johnson, discussed how the Chinese Communist Party‘s current General Secretary, Xi Jingping, has placed a premium on consolidating singular authority over areas of the government – specifically the military and intelligence services – over which past general secretaries did not exercise sole control. He has also been moving towards, in Johnson‘s words, ―a robust and adroit‖ and ―active‖ Chinese foreign policy.
The discussion centered on the importance of Xi‘s departure from China‘s traditionally passive role on the world stage. Less discussed was the fact these developments are not surprising in themselves; in fact they have parallels in U.S. history.
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While the power of the U.S. presidency has always encompassed command of the armed forces, the creation of the National Security Council and the growth of the U.S. intelligence apparatus after World War II were changes aimed at securing primary control of military and foreign policy within the executive. The U.S. also linked its role on the world stage to its economic growth. Until the early years of the 20th century, America was recovering from the Civil War and consolidating it domestic economic power. President Theodore Roosevelt‘s role in negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Sino-Japanese War in 1905 is viewed by many as America‘s first ―great power‖ move. The country‘s entry into World War I and World War II followed, amid debates over what constituted the proper U.S. role in world affairs. China‘s Communist Party leadership has traditionally favored what the U.S. might label ―isolationism.‖ Xi‘s shift in policy reflects a debate among
Ch ina‘s elites that is recognizable in U.S. history: whether China should conduct a more robust foreign policy commensurate with its growing economic power.
What that more robust foreign policy means for Asia and the U.S. is the key question. Some in the U.S. advocate preparing for a great power showdown along the lines of the Cold War. There are, however, more differences than similarities between the current state of Sino-U.S. relations and the Cold War model.
First, relations between the two countries are not built on struggles for territory stemming from a prior conflict, as the U.S. and Soviet Union struggled over post-World War II Europe. Where China is catching up with the U.S. and no longer keen to ―accede to U.S. hyper power‖ (in the words of he report‘s authors), the U.S. and Soviet Union were strategic rivals and peers from the latter days of World War II.
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Second, while China is fast developing conventional military capabilities of a great power – for example, a blue water navy –there is no razor‘s-edge ―arms race‖ or
mutually-assured destruction dynamic comparable to U.S.-Soviet competition over nuclear missile capability. Instead, China is looking, over time, to marginalize U.S. influence in Asia.
China‘s Asian neighbors, by and large, want the U.S. to stay engaged in Asian affairs to check its rise. They fear, in Johnson‘s word s, that China may not feel compelled over time ―to adhere to international norms it had no role in creating.‖ In turn China, according to the report‘s authors, sees a period of ―strategic opportunity‖ defined by few external threats to
its own security or role in the region, in which it may develop domestically and develop a more ―active‖ foreign policy. Contained within this assumption of a ―strategic opportunity‖
is a judgment on China‘s part that the U.S. is more likely to dial back its own foreign polic y footprint than expand it. At the same time, as Johnson and the report‘s other authors discussed, China is setting strategic benchmarks around upcoming anniversaries (2021 –the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party) and ones further off (2049 – the 100th anniversary of the Chinese nation) that are aimed at assuring the world that it is on a course towards development and not dissolution.
These strategic benchmarks point to a fundamental difference between the U.S. and Chinese systems. China assumes a long-view made possible by a one-party regime unburdened by electoral cycles. American democracy is more focused on near-term goals. The Obama administration‘s ―pivot‖ towards Asia, maligned by some as, by definition, a
―pivot away‖ from other parts of the world, was nonetheless an effort to establish a
long-view in U.S. foreign policy that China comes by more naturally. It will be important for the U.S. to maintain it.
China Is not the Soviet Union
Often it has been said that it takes but a single pair of eyes to see the sparrow‘s fall and, seeing the fall, go one step further and raise a question: why in God‘s name is the United States creating a confrontation with China?
Hold on, Mr. Kalb. Not so, I hear you say; the United States is merely responding to aggressive moves and actions by China. Haven‘t you noticed the buildup of the Chinese navy, in fact the whole Chinese military; their outright claims to the South China Sea; their economic foothold in Africa, spreading by the day; the growing Chinese presence in Afghanistan; the closer Chinese ties to Iran, and much more? All true, and yet none of these actions or moves can sensibly be considered, at least at this stage, to be a direct threat to America‘s vital national interests, and all can be see n as logical extensions of China‘s impressive transformation in the past few decades from an economic invalid to an economic powerhouse.
If you listen to official Washington—and not just the politicians on the right and left—but also the think tank analysts and media, you might well conclude that
China has replaced the old Soviet Union as the bulky, powerful adversary challenging America‘s central place in the world—even, if unchecked, posing a mortal threat to American national interests. History cries out against such an interpretation of Chinese policy.
Have you tuned in lately to any of the Republican presidential debates? Again and again, China is portrayed as a hostile, aggressive, conniving country intent on undercutting the American economy, stealing American jobs, challenging American allies, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, and, equally important, robbing America of its rightful place in Asia and the Pacific. In fact, China is right up there with Iran and North Korea as agents of troublemaking mischief.
This image of China, by the way, is not a GOP monopoly. Tune in to the Obama White House, where apparently anti-Chinese rhetoric scores a few political points: the new military strategy, announced by the president last week, is said to refocus American strategy from a preoccupation with Europe and NATO to a new emphasis on Asia and the Pacific, almost as though the Yankee clipper ships of the early 19th century did not already suggest a strong American interest in Asia and the Pacific. Why this refocus? Because of the rising Chinese threat, of course, it is emphasized. The United States recently deployed a Marine unit to the northern rim of Australia, a small unit but proclaimed loudly so Beijing could hear American power on the move. Why? Obviously, as a warning signal to China to cool it, we‘re told. The administration is even thinking about recreating a new Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, known in the old days of the Cold War as a bulwark against the expansion of communism in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Why would another SEATO be necessary? Again, China.
There is little in Chinese history to suggest that China is now on a war path, or intent on positioning itself for a 15-round fight with America for control of the Pacific. Maybe, one day, a new generation of Chinese leaders will rewrite their political play book and plunge into a radically changed policy of confrontation with the West. Unlikely, but maybe. In the meantime, let us not construct an enemy where none may exist. China, at its zenith, considered itself the Middle Kingdom—the rest of the world seen as a series of concentric circles of nations and peoples of diminishing power and influence. The closer the nation, the more interest China showed. The further away, the less interest. It was always a delicate balance of interest and need.
The United States does not need a new enemy; it has many challenges that are real and immediate. China may continue to be a diplomatic nuisance and a trading bully, but it is not a mortal threat to America—it is not a new Soviet Union. If President Obama fancies himself to be a realist in foreign affairs, he ought to stop thinking of China as a potential enemy. There is no reason for confrontation with Beijing and every reason for an imaginative policy of cooperation.
In December, 1960, a young CBS reporter suggested to Edward R. Murrow that the United States should feed the people of China, then experiencing a famine, rather than tighten its military containment of China. The idea was rejected by the U.S. government, which saw China as an enemy in the Cold War. Today, there is no Cold War and no need for any administration, Democratic or Republican, to look at China and see an enemy. A problem, yes, but an enemy, no.