China makes \\\'peaceful rise\\\'

Md Saifullah Khaled | Published: March 14, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

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China's rise can be seen as a quintessentially political process. Through the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has sought to shore up its legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution irreversibly changed the nation and caused three crises of ideological belief, faith in the CPC, and confidence in the future. As the Party realised that the performance-based legitimacy was the only hope for prolonging its rule, economic development became the highest politics. Consequentially, the success of economic development would have to cause political implications. The external ones are carefully monitored and evaluated by China's neighbours and the only superpower of the world - the United States of America (US).
After the fall of the Soviet Russia, China has emerged as a major headache for the US. Will China become a threat to the US, Japan, and surrounding countries? The reason for the US concern mainly arises from its hegemonic status in the world politics and the ideological incompatibility of China with the Western value system and democracy. China's stunning economic growth has convinced the West that it is just a matter of time until China becomes a world superpower. But its ideological orientation makes China a revolutionary power that is threatening both to the US status and global structure.
Three different logics have been constructed to substantiate the "China threat" thesis. These are: (i) Ideological and cultural factors make China a threat. For neo-conservatives in the US administration, the mere fact that China still sticks to communism makes view it adversely. Samuel Huntington has added a cultural factor: in the clash of civilisations, the "alliance between Islamic and Confucian civilisations" is the most fundamental threat to the West. For people using this logic, the sensible response from the US is, in the short run, a containment policy, and confrontation is possible if needed, in the long run, the promotion of a peaceful transformation within China. (ii) For many realists, even China has shed off its ideological straitjacket, as a great power in size - territory, population, and economy. China has to pursue its own interest and respect. Nationalism may still drive China into a course of clash with the US, if the latter refuses to accommodate or share the leadership with China as a rising power. Some scholars fear that democracy can unleash strong nationalism and popular nationalism can make China even more aggressive toward the US. (iii) Opposed to the previous two perspectives, some people are concerned that if China suffers a Soviet-style sudden-death syndrome and spins out of control, it can create an even worse scenario. The sheer size of the population makes refugee problem, the failed state and the followed crises - warlords, civil war, crime, proliferation of nuclear weapons, et cetera - impossible for the world to deal with.
Due to these three different considerations, the US often oscillates from "demonisation to romanticisation" of China, from containment to engagement. The US-China relationship has shifted from conflict, to confrontation, to competition and back to conflict, but so rarely features with cooperation. One American China specialist characterises the bilateral relationship as "the sweet-and-sour Sino-American relationship."
The US's close Asian ally the Japanese have a different set of reasons to feel upset by China's rise. Although Japan has been culturally indebted to China since the Tang dynasty, somehow Japan has developed a strong Oedipus complex toward China - namely to commit patricide against its cultural patron. In the past century, China suffered several severe acts of aggression at the hands of the Japanese. The mutual animosity between these two countries has been strong. Japan's deep involvement in Taiwan, its stubborn refusal to offer unequivocal apologies to the Asian neighbouring countries over its aggressions, and the US military alliance with Japan - all have been irksome to the Chinese. The construction of Chinese nationalism by mainly relying on anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese turned Japanese into an easy target. To some degree, the Chinese leadership has tried to release the popular anger against the regime by directing it either to the local tyrants or to the international bullies - the US and Japan are two natural candidates. Now Japan and China still have not developed any framework to resolve their territorial disputes and their relationship has reached a low point. The Chinese often suspect that the US and Japan are the originators of a variety of "China threat" arguments.
In addition to the ideological threat, many other neighbouring countries have more stakes in China's new move. For Southeast Asian nations, the presence of a sizeable and extremely rich Chinese ethnic group and their increasing dependency upon China's economy for growth forced them to be very careful in handling their relationship with China. With a continental size - China has almost two times the territorial and population sizes of all other Asia Pacific countries combined. China consumes a tremendous amount of foreign direct investment and pops out huge volume of exports. Other countries feel the competition from China. At this moment, no government in the Asia Pacific region has adopted a clear anti-China policy.Â Â Â Â Â
The combination of stunning economic growth and unpredictable political governance causes deep concerns about China among the nations in the world. The Chinese leadership has realised the urgency to calm down these concerns and to build a supportive international environment for its ascendancy. To make its rise less threatening, the Chinese government has sponsored many public relation events - such as exhibitions in foreign countries, promoting Chinese language programmes, and so on.
But most importantly, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao put forward the thesis of "China's peaceful rise" in his speech to a Harvard University audience in December 2003. Under this thesis, there are several points: (i) China's development depends upon and in return will contribute to the world peace. (ii) China will resort to peaceful means for development. (iii) China's development will rely more on its own resources and market. (iv) China is prepared for a long-term process of hard work, even several generations, for economic prosperity. (v) Even as China has achieved its economic development, it will not seek hegemony in the world or come out as a threat to any country.
Under such guiding principles of China's peaceful rise, the Chinese government has conducted actively diplomacy at at least four different levels: (i) Creating strategic partnerships with the second-tier powers. China has signed strategic partnership treaties with the EU, Russia and India to strengthen their relationships as well as to balance the US power. (ii) Promoting good neighbour policy in the Asia Pacific region. By increasing trade with the Asia Pacific region and also letting these countries enjoy trade surplus with China, China has positioned as an important trading partner with these countries.
Besides, China has entered into various mechanisms of regional cooperation with these countries. During the 1997 Asian financial crises, that China refrained from devaluing its currency and helped stabilise the regional economy by mobilising its foreign currency reserve won positive reactions from this region and the US. (iii) Seeking cooperation and avoiding confrontation with the US. The Chinese side basically has sent to Washington a clear message that China is a conservative power and has no intention to upset the status quo - namely the US as the sole superpower in the world. (iv) Neglecting Japan - as China has successfully managed relationships with the sole superpower, the second-tier strategic partners, and neighbouring countries - China is able to afford to ignore Japan and occasionally show some toughness.
For the past few years, the Chinese leadership has been cautious and successful to some degree in managing the internal nationalism and the US unilateralism. Now some signs have indicated that the honeymoon between the US and China in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 attack and anti-terrorism coalition has arrived at its end. If the US shifts its policy to a hard-line toward China, the cyclical turbulence in the Sino-US relationship may soon resurface. This might jeopardise China's plan of a peaceful rise. At the micro-level, the US seems to have been more provocative toward China. China has been more on defensive. But if we look at the Sino-US relationship from the macro-level, it seems that China can take back initiative if it can remove the communist ideology. Because the US tends to believe that under the doctrine of Western democratic peace, Western democratic countries do not fight war against each other. Therefore, to create long-term internal and external stability, the CPC has to learn how to play the card of Western democracy. The US maintains that, does this amount to ask a "leopard to change its spots"? Hence the China threat for the US and vice versa remains.
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre.
E-mail: sarwarmdskhaled@gmail.com