Tiger Head, Snake Tails by Jonathan Fenby
Author:Jonathan Fenby
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
12
THE WORLD AND CHINA
The simple answer to the first part of that last conundrum is that, in general, governments are at a loss as to how to respond to the rise of China, especially now that Beijing has abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s twenty-four-character prescription to adopt a policy of ‘biding time and hiding one’s talents’ while the PRC concentrated on its economic rise. Deng was content to work within a US-led global world as China grew, but the leadership in Beijing and its citizens – and army – now feel that their success entitles them to adopt a higher profile in pursuit of their ‘core interests’. These are defined narrowly as consisting of the preservation of the domestic system, continuing rule over Tibet and the recovery of Taiwan – a Xinhua news agency commentary in September 2011 also included sovereignty over the islands and waters of the South China Sea, and subsequently Beijing added a crop of uninhabited islands off Japan. In addition, the PRC insists on free access to raw materials and denies the right of other countries to comment on its internal record on such matters as human rights, Tibet or Taiwan.1
Foreign powers can surely have qualms about the ascent of a state that operates so much to its own agenda and follows its own norms, but geopolitical and economic realities impel them to pursue a working relationship. The United States, the nation with most at stake, seeks to engage the People’s Republic while hedging its bets by retaining an ability to confront the rising power in the case of a major crisis. Most presidents have stressed the first: George W. Bush started by portraying China as a competitor but then switched to a more conciliatory tone; Barack Obama emphasized that the two had a mutual interest in cooperation. But there is a constant tone of uncertainty about the PRC’s long-term aims in US policy, especially when, as on Obama’s visit to the mainland in 2009, his hosts were clearly in the driving seat, reflecting their growing confidence vis-à-vis a power that they see as facing long-term decline. The situation remains as set out that year by Clark Randt, the ambassador in Beijing; ‘Just as no one in 1979 would have predicted that China would become the United States’ most important relationship in thirty years, no one today can predict with certainty where our relations with Beijing will be thirty years hence.’2
The relationship stretches from economic and monetary affairs to regional security, from environmental pollution to trying to paper over a fundamental difference in values notably over human rights and freedom. When they meet, President Obama makes the point that liberalization would help the PRC but Hu Jintao is not impressed. Still, each of these great states depends on the other to the point at which it has been suggested that they constitute a G2 at the centre of global affairs. When he accompanied Richard Nixon on the ground-breaking trip to see Mao in 1972, Henry Kissinger was reported
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