Unfortunately, though some nations may resent China's growing power, too often they resent the United States more.
This is the crux of the problem, it’s not that China is so good - it’s that our present administration is so bad. While China’s rise took flight during other presidential tenures only recently, while Bush has been in office, has the Middle Kingdom been able to fly so swiftly.
-Am
07:56 PM CDT on Saturday, July 9, 2005
At a major Asian security conference last month, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was typically blunt. Discussing China's military modernization, he said that China's upgrade of its military technology was a threat to countries across Asia. "Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: Why this growing investment?" Mr. Rumsfeld said.Unfortunately, he is focused on the wrong problem. China is indeed on the verge of posing a major threat to U.S. power and could potentially dominate parts of the developing world. But the real concern is not that China's armed forces will challenge the mighty U.S. military.
No, China's rising power is reflected in a different way. In late 2003, Australia hosted back-to-back state visits by two world leaders. The first to head down under was George W. Bush, a staunch ally of Australia, which, along with the United Kingdom, was a major provider of non-U.S. troops for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. On arrival, however, Mr. Bush was treated like a boorish distant cousin.
The treatment was far different when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived for a more extended stay. Canberra threw open its arms to the Chinese leader. For days, Australia's business and political elite fêted Mr. Hu at lavish receptions. Mr. Hu became the first Asian leader to address the Australian legislature, receiving a 20-minute standing ovation.
Perhaps this differing treatment shouldn't have been surprising. Australia's leaders were simply following their people's lead. Recent polls suggest that, despite decades of close American-Australian relations, Australians generally have a more favorable view of China than of the United States.
China has also scored diplomatic successes in Latin America, long thought to be within Washington's sphere of influence. During a successful 12-day Latin America trip, which, like his visit to Australia, coincided with a brief Bush trip to the region that received a cool reception, Mr. Hu signed some $30 billion in new investment deals and subtly staked a claim that the United States was failing as the major power in the region.
Beijing's inroads with Australia and Latin America, two vastly different regions of the world, signify aspects of the same sea change. For the first time in centuries, China is becoming an international power, a nation with global foreign policy ambitions. In fact, China may become the first nation since the fall of the Soviet Union that could seriously challenge the United States for control of the international system.
Beijing is pursuing its strategic and economic interests through a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, China appears to be building a string of alliances across the globe with nations shunned by the United States – nations like Venezuela, Iran, Sudan, Burma and Zimbabwe. At the same time, China appears to be wooing non-rogue developing nations – both democracies like Brazil and stable pseudo-authoritarian states like Malaysia.
Beijing does so by championing a vision of international relations centered on national sovereignty – one that contrasts sharply with recent U.S. doctrine – by leveraging China's economic successes to win over foreign leaders and by using Chinese soft power to win hearts and minds even in places like Australia, once considered firm American allies.
China's rise may have significant positive effects. As China takes on a larger role in the world, it may come to assume a large role in peacekeeping, global aid disbursements and other responsibilities currently handled by the United States and other wealthy nations.
Yet China's more prominent international footprint is likely to threaten U.S. interests seriously. Beijing's quest for natural resources will thrust it into competition with the United States. China could threaten America's role as the primary guarantor of stability in Asia. Its increasing access to international markets could damage U.S. corporations. And China's power could damage one of the most important U.S. interests of all: the spread of democracy, which will ultimately enable us to win the war on terrorism.
Though hawks have been warning of a "China threat" for over a decade, they usually focus on China's military capabilities, not its diplomatic skills. Yet while China probably has the world's third-largest military budget, in most respects, Beijing badly lags the U.S. military. In fact, a 2003 report on the Chinese military by the Council on Foreign Relations concluded that Beijing was at least two decades from closing the gap on the United States.
Nevertheless, a richer, more worldly, more confident China has begun to reassess its place in the world, enunciating a new foreign policy doctrine, just as a young United States once did.
The China doctrine has several components. One is the idea of "peaceful rise" – China is growing into a pre-eminent power but would never use its strength unilaterally to threaten other countries, supposedly a sharp distinction from U.S. policy.
Second is the notion that China has created a model of socioeconomic development that can be applied elsewhere. This model argues that developing nations must pursue innovation-led growth by obtaining the latest technology; must control development from the top, so as to avoid the kind of chaos that comes from rapid economic opening; and must rely on links with other developing nations to counter the economic advantages of Western states.
In controlling development from the top, of course, the Beijing model implicitly rejects both the free market and the idea that ordinary citizens, not a small elite of rulers, should control countries' destinies.
China then wields its policy doctrine, along with other weapons like trade and aid, to draw developing nations to its side. Beijing focuses in part on countries shunned by the United States, but it also aims closer to Washington's heart, seeking, if not to win over U.S. allies, then at least to complicate their loyalties by emphasizing that gains for developing nations come at the expense of arrogant Western powers.
The response to Beijing has been overwhelming. Asian leaders increasingly look to China for economic and political cues as well, and they are increasingly willing to do Beijing's bidding. Average Asians, too, look to China, which is building up its soft power in the region. Asian students increasingly seek out education in China, rather than the United States, and Chinese-language schools are gaining popularity in South Korea, Malaysia and other countries.
In Africa and Latin America, where post-independence economic models imposed by Western international financial organizations have failed to raise living standards, China's ideas, its companies and its emphasis on a multipolar international system are also increasingly welcome.
Key African and Latin leaders, awed by China's economic success, praise Beijing's foreign policy doctrine and development model and have signed lucrative trade deals.
In some respects, China's new foreign policy assertiveness is only natural, and it could benefit the developing world. But, despite significant political opening over the past two decades, China remains a highly authoritarian state – hardly an ideal political model for developing nations. Indeed, African, Asian and Latin American democrats certainly can take no comfort in their leaders moving closer to Beijing, since China places no priority on human rights in its decisions about its allies.
What's more, China's talk of noninterference may be just that – talk. After all, Chinese academics at government-linked think tanks say that, ultimately, China will surpass the United States in Asia and control the region. Some foreign leaders recognize that China's kinder face abroad may mask a desire to increase Chinese power across the developing world.
Unfortunately, though some nations may resent China's growing power, too often they resent the United States more. The United States has all but abdicated its presence in parts of the developing world, and Washington seems unprepared for China's emergence as a more aggressive foreign policy actor.
During a private luncheon last year for the American ambassador to Thailand, one person asked about recent unrest in southern Thailand, where the United States closed its consulate a decade ago – and where the region has become a potential hotbed of Islamic extremism.
What happened to the U.S. consulate? asked someone else in the audience. The ambassador paused. "I think it's the Chinese consulate now," he said. Everyone in the room laughed.
Joshua Kurlantzick is the foreign editor of The New Republic, on whose Web site (www.tnr.com)
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
