JAMES PRZYSTUP
, Director,
Asian Studies Center
, The Heritage Foundation: For the United States, as for China, this is a critical time. For the United States as well as for China, this is a critical relationship, one that will significantly shape the economic and strategic contours of the Asia-Pacific region. This is a region in which the United States has vital national interests at stake. Indeed, China's emergence as a great power, how it integrates into the international system or fails to do so, will be among the defining issues for the United States, for Asia, and for the international community for at least the first quarter of the next century. Our speakers today have played significant roles in the evolution and development of United States relations with China over the past 25 years. Looking ahead, their experience, both inside and outside the government, and their judgment should serve as useful and thoughtful guides in dealing with the challenges of the next century.
Chas Freeman is now Chairman of the Board of Projects International. A career Foreign Service Officer, he served as Deputy Director of the Republic of China desk in 1975-1976 and on the China Normalization Working Group in the late 1970s. He served then as Charg? and Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing from 1981 through 1984 and as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993 to 1994. He also served as United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992. He has recently returned from a visit to Beijing and Taipei.
Harvey Feldman, likewise a career Foreign Service Officer, spent the better part of his foreign service career in the Asia-Pacific region, serving in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. He was the State Department's Country Director for the Republic of China at the time the United States was normalizing relations with the People's Republic of China. He was involved in working out the United States post-normalization informal relationship with Taiwan which is embodied in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. He also served as Ambassador to Papua New Guinea.
Harry Harding is the Dean of the Elliott School of International Relations and Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Harry is a true scholar of China. Author of A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972, China and Northeast Asia, and China's Second Revolution: Reform after Mao, and Organizing China: The Problem with Bureaucracy 1949- 1976, he is now working on a book on Greater China.
Dick Solomon, now President of the United States Institute of Peace, worked for Henry Kissinger at the opening of United States relations with the People's Republic of China. He served under George Shultz as Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and then as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and later Ambassador to the Philippines during the Bush Administration. Dick has just returned from a trip to China.
As someone who's had the good fortune of having worked for Dick Solomon and Chas Freeman and with Harry Harding and Harvey Feldman, it is a real pleasure to welcome them today to The Heritage Foundation.
CHAS FREEMAN: Thank you very much, Jim. I'm going to go right into the subject of U.S.-China relations and a variety of issues that have arisen in those relations. On one level, U.S.-China relations are flourishing. Economic interaction and cultural exchange are very healthy elements of Washington's relationship with Beijing, but political relations are deeply strained. They are drifting. The situation is highly unstable for several reasons which I will address.
The recent so-called summit meeting in New York between President Jiang Zemin and President Clinton was a great success in the sense that the highest aspiration of both sides was to prevent further deterioration in their relations, and that objective was achieved. The meeting accomplished virtually nothing in positive terms and left many questions unresolved. Indeed, it may have inadvertently confirmed a Chinese view that the United States is indifferent to the fate of Taiwan. The Taiwan issue, which is the central issue in U.S.-China relations at the moment, continues to be one that the Administration does not wish to address, and which the Chinese are happy to see the United States neglect.
It is often stated in this city that the strain in U.S.-China relations on the political level is the product of some sort of succession crisis in Beijing, or of domestic difficulties in China. Neither proposition can stand up to scrutiny.
First, the succession has in fact occurred. One of Deng Xiaoping's great achievements is to be a Chinese leader who turned over to others responsibility for leading the country while he was still alive--something that is rare in Chinese history and which will be a great contribution to Chinese political culture if others emulate it in the future. There are differences between leaders in Beijing just as there are differences in every capital between political leaders (we've just had an illustration of that in this city), but to describe this as a power struggle in terms of the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s is a gross overstatement.
The second issue that is cited is the four difficulties that China faces domestically, which some would call crises. I do not call them crises because they are not urgent; nor are they impossible to resolve. But there are four major difficulties facing the new Chinese government.
The first is a spiritual or ideological vacuum. The Chinese people are cynical about ideology, and nationalism alone now serves as a strong force for Chinese unity. Nationalism is not a congenial principle in terms of management of difficult issues like the Taiwan question.
The second problem is the pattern of Chinese economic development, which has rested on bureaucratic entrepreneurship. When bureaucrats buy and sell things, people buy and sell bureaucrats. In other words, corruption is the inevitable result. From the point of view of the Chinese populace, corruption is probably the central issue in Chinese politics at present.
The third problem is the lack of definition of relationships between the center and the provinces. This is not a crisis; things work. Thirteen percent economic growth for the last three years or so is not bad by any standard; it was 10 percent for the previous decade. Yet the center is trying to do things which it is incapable of doing, and the provinces are trying to do things which they are incapable of doing. The result is confusion and a measure of unpredictability about decisions that are important in economic and political terms. This is an issue which must be addressed.
The final problem, I believe, is in the context of rising nationalism and an inadequate structure for civilian control of the military. I will leave that for a later discussion.
These factors do have an influence on U.S.-China bilateral relations, but it is not the decisive influence. Let me simply make an obvious point. China now enjoys its best relations in history with most of the world's great powers. The relationship between China and Russia is the most equal and healthy that it has been in two centuries. Relations between China and the great powers of Europe--including Britain, where differences over Hong Kong have recently been set aside; Germany, which is actively courting China; and France, which after some difficulties over the Taiwan question has returned to the good graces of Beijing--are all as good as they have ever been in this century. Relations between China and Japan, due to careful management by both sides, have not been troubled as they were in the past. They are probably the best that they have been in many, many years. Relations with India are the best since the 1950s. Only the United States is an exception.
If we look for why this is the case, perhaps we should look not in Beijing, but here. American relations with Japan and Britain are the least cordial and effective they have been since World War II. Relations with Germany are the least intimate they have been since the 1950s. Relations with France are the most strained they have been since the early 1960s. U.S. relations with Russia are deeply troubled, and relations with India still fall far short of their potential. So perhaps we should ask why China should be the exception in U.S. foreign relations, rather than looking for explanations inside China. Nevertheless, the fact is that U.S.-China relations have taken some very hard knocks over the past five or six years. Remember how this relationship began. It began at the outset of the 1970s, based on a common strategic concern with Soviet expansionism. It rested on several principles.
The first was to pursue, first, strategic dialogue and later, after 1979's normalization agreement, strategic cooperation. The second was to live and let live in terms of ideological differences and the differences between the two societies' cultural and social traditions. Mutual tolerance rather than mutual harping and criticism were agreed. We set aside regional differences--even major ones about the Vietnam War at the beginning of the 1970s--in order to pursue these larger interests in cooperation.
This relationship also entailed a series of very delicate compromises on the issue of Taiwan. These centered on American acknowledgment, and then recognition, of the principle that there was only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. In the first instance, this was a common belief in Taipei and Beijing. In the normalization communiqu?, it was the position of the Chinese government recognized by the United States.
This principle of managing relations with Taiwan found expression in three communiqu?s. Let me review those briefly. The Shanghai Communiqu? of 1972 abandoned U.S. policies of containment towards China and reached a compromise on the Taiwan issue, taking the United States out of the middle of the Chinese civil war while expressing the expectation and hope that the Chinese parties concerned on either side of the strait would work out a peaceful solution.
The Normalization Communiqu? replaced the strategic dialogue initiated in the Shanghai Communiqu? with strategic cooperation. It strengthened the U.S. formula with regard to Taiwan, acknowledging the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China and that there is only one China. It recognized Beijing as the site of the only legal Chinese government and traded form for substance in U.S. relations with Taiwan so that the United States--within the context of recognizing one China and Taiwan as part of China--would be able to maintain economic, cultural, and other unofficial ties with the people of Taiwan.
In August of 1982, the tacit normalization understandings about arms sales to Taiwan were made explicit and strengthened. China acknowledged that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would continue, and the U.S. agreed to cap the quality of those arms sales and to reduce them step by step, leading over time to a final resolution of the dispute.
This is the history.
From the Chinese perspective, the United States has now strayed from or explicitly violated every one of the undertakings that I have just cited. This is the core of the problem from Beijing's point of view. From the American point of view, I would say, events from 1989-1991 destroyed the agreement to set aside ideology in the interest of strategic cooperation and replaced tolerance with strident criticism of Chinese human rights practices and an ideological confrontation, which has continued. These events then destroyed the strategic triangle. The Soviet Union itself -- the common enemy--disappeared. At the same time, Taiwan began to withdraw from the consensus it had previously enjoyed with Beijing, that it was part of China and that the division of China was an unnatural state of affairs which time and dialogue should repair. And, finally, over this period, the United States abandoned an effort we had conducted for 15 years to integrate China into global institutions. Increasingly, global institutions were crafted with China on the outside. That was the case with the Missile Technology Control Regime. It was the case with the Australia Group. More recently, it is the case with the successor to COCOM -- the New Forum. We thus have guaranteed that these global regimes will be a source of friction in U.S.-China relations. China will not be bound by rules that it did not participate in crafting. Frankly, none of these regimes can work because they exclude one of the principal actors with regard to their subject matter.
Let me turn now to the present and close.
This drift and the absence of consensus on a strategic framework for the relationship, the absence of strict adherence by either side to understandings that have been reached, and the emergence of a strong drive in Taiwan for a separate international identity have come together to produce the collapse of mutual confidence and trust. They have engendered Chinese effort to deal with the Taiwan issue separately from the United States. In the late spring, the Chinese saw Lee Teng-hui come here and Lien Chan (the Prime Minister) go to Europe. They saw an offer of a billion dollars to the United Nations for a separate seat for Taiwan. They interpreted these things as a major offensive by Taiwan against the status quo, and a breaking of the tacit modus vivendi which had preserved peace in the Taiwan Strait. Their response has been somewhat erratic but has settled down into the following pattern. You might call this xuan ying jian shi -- soft and hard policies simultaneously applied.
First, the hard policy. It is clear that in the summer the People's Liberation Army received authorization to use force against Taiwan to re-impose a modus vivendi in the Taiwan Strait. Of the series of exercises to be conducted, two of six known to be scheduled have already been carried out. One is apparently about to begin. These exercises are not an empty show of force. They are a campaign of military intimidation which could, and may well as the coming year unfolds, extend into the actual outbreak of combat in the Taiwan Strait and even strikes against Taiwan targets. This campaign of pressure will continue until Taiwan returns to the modus vivendi from which it strayed over the preceding year.
On the soft side, at the same time that this pressure is being applied, the PRC has escalated indications of flexibility in terms of reunification. Without getting into detail, I can say that Beijing has very clearly signaled to Taiwan that many things which had previously seemed non-negotiable are now up for negotiation.
From the point of view of the United States, which had hoped that the Taiwan issue was behind us, this is a most unfortunate set of developments.
There are many people in Taiwan who are convinced that the United States has a commitment to come to Taiwan's aid in the event that its actions provoke conflict with the mainland. They are not correct. There is no such commitment, and Taipei should not bank on such American steadfastness in pursuit of objectives that the United States has not endorsed.
Beijing for its part contains many people, including senior members of the Chinese military, who are convinced that the United States will not intervene in the Taiwan Strait or come to Taiwan's assistance in the event of conflict arising. These people, too, are mistaken.
They base their conclusions on the following factors: first, that the United States is legally stopped from intervening in Chinese internal affairs and that Taiwan is a matter of Chinese internal affairs: second, that the American performance in Bosnia and in Somalia demonstrates a lack of resolve which would also be played out in the Taiwan Strait; and third, that while Taiwan is a vital interest of China which the Chinese explicitly state they are willing to sacrifice millions of people and entire cities to manage, it is not such an interest for the United States. Nor is the United States prepared to make comparable sacrifices.
This is not a happy situation. In a legal sense, the Taiwan issue may well be a matter of Chinese internal affairs--that is not something I wish to dispute -- but in a strategic sense, it is anything but a local matter. The implications of conflict in the Taiwan Strait reach well beyond the immediate region of Greater China in two senses. First, I believe it is true that the region sometimes called Greater China -- that is, the region of "Straits China," the region from Shanghai to Hong Kong, including Taiwan -- will determine the future of China. The future of China will determine the future of the Asia-Pacific region. I believe it is most likely that the future of the Asia-Pacific region will determine the future of the world, at least for the next century or two. Second, if there is conflict in the Taiwan Strait the United States will indeed have to make a decision about whether we intervene or don't.
If we don't intervene, I believe the strategic consequences are enormous. The United States has no intrinsic strategic interest in Taiwan, but we do have an interest derived from our responsibility for the strategic defense of Japan. That interest, plus his ideology of anti- communism, is what led MacArthur in 1949 and early 1950 to dissent from the Truman Administration's decision to let the People's Liberation Army conquer Taiwan without opposition. He sat in the imperial army headquarters in Tokyo. Like everyone before him who had sat there from the time of the Meiji restoration, he saw the strategic importance of Taiwan to Japan's defense. Therefore, when Kim Il-Sung attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950, the Seventh Fleet was interposed in the Taiwan Strait for two purposes: to prevent the spread of the Korean War and the outbreak from its existing borders of the Sino-Soviet bloc and, second, to discharge American responsibilities for the strategic defense of Japan. If the United States did not come to Taiwan's aid, and if we do not manage the Taiwan question in a suitable manner, Japan will feel betrayed. This is not simply a matter of strategic betrayal. It has emotional overtones. There are many people in Taiwan who have fond feelings for Japan and many in Japan who have fond feelings for those Taiwanese. This is rather unusual in Asia. In fact, Taiwanese are by far the most admiring of Japanese among Asians. This is a close emotional relationship. If Japan cannot count on the United States to defend its strategic interests, it must do so itself. That means Japan must assume responsibility for its own defense. That is Japanese rearmament.
If the United States does come to Taiwan's assistance in the event of conflict, we must use bases in Japan to do so. That will pose a terrible dilemma for the Japanese government. One strategic imperative of Japanese policy is to avoid a hostile relationship with the mainland of China. It would have to choose between that strategic imperative on the one hand and its interest in maintaining the U.S. alliance and its strategic interest in Taiwan on the other. I believe Japan would choose the United States and Taiwan. I also believe no future Japanese government would ever be willing to be put in a position again in which foreigners made such a momentous strategic decision for Japan. The result in this case would be rearmament, but at a slower pace.
So whether the United States chose to intervene or not, whether the PRC succeeded in bringing Taiwan within its orbit or not, the Taiwan issue has the potential to overthrow the entire Asian-Pacific strategic balance: not simply to poison U.S.-China relations for decades, but also to break the U.S.-Japan alliance and to reignite rivalry between Japan and China, with all of the implications in terms of an Asian pattern of containment of China that this might itself set off. Therefore, I believe the drift in U.S.-China relations, the failure of the United States and China to manage the Taiwan issue, and the very rash actions which Taipei has been taking are a great danger to the peace and security of the East Asian and Western Pacific region.
HARRY HARDING: It's a great pleasure to be here this morning, and especially to see so large an audience, containing people every bit as knowledgeable about China as the four of us on this panel. The size of the crowd is not only a tribute to the convening power of Jim Przystup and his colleagues at The Heritage Foundation, but also an indication of the widespread interest in China's growing role in world affairs. As Chas Freeman has just said, China will be the determining factor in the future of the Asia-Pacific region.
Chas's remarks have focused on the Taiwan issue. I want to look more broadly at the U.S.-China relationship, organizing my comments around three headings. First of all, I will suggest why we have legitimate cause for concern about the future of China. Second, however, I will argue equally fervently that we should not exaggerate our concern about China, but should keep the rise of China in perspective. And finally, I'll draw the implications for American policy. I'll suggest that neither of the two policy alternatives most usually discussed--containment and engagement -- is a fully adequate or appropriate strategy for dealing with China in the decades ahead.
Why are we concerned about the rise of China? Different people will give you different answers to this question. Some would stress China's domestic circumstances: that it remains a Communist country, or that it is not yet democratic. My concern is more with China's international behavior, and with the nature of the international community surrounding China. I can summarize my concern in the following four points:
First of all, we are concerned because we are seeing a dramatic increase in China's national capabilities, both its economic capabilities and, at least potentially, its military capabilities. We see rapid economic growth, we see significant increases (at least in nominal terms) in the official Chinese military budget, and we see a commitment to acquire force projection capabilities. We also know from the historical record that China is willing to use force to achieve its national objectives, even when others might argue that the odds are against it or that it is not fully rational in doing so.
Second, we realize that China is not a status quo power. It is a demandeur both regionally and, to a degree, globally. Its most obvious demands involve its territorial claims, most notably to the South China Sea and to Taiwan. It is also clear that China seeks major power status and the acknowledgment of that status by others. It seeks to expand its influence in the institutions and forums that make decisions economically and strategically for the region and the world. China's ambitions are being fueled by rising nationalism. This is not just an elite-sponsored nationalism; indeed, I do not yet see any concerted attempt by the Chinese government to fan the flames of nationalism. Instead, this is largely a popular nationalism, emerging among young people and urban intellectuals, many of whom we might have supposed were predisposed to the United States and to the West.
Third, China is not proving to be fully cooperative in various international regimes and relationships, both multilateral and bilateral. It is very skeptical about non-proliferation regimes, about arms control and disarmament regimes (especially in the nuclear field), about environmental regimes, about many global and regional economic regimes, and about some of the bilateral trade agreements that it has undertaken with the United States.
But while all of these developments are grounds for concern, I want to emphasize that alarmist thinking is not warranted at this point. The Chinese make a distinction between guanxin, which means to be concerned about something, and danxin, which means to be very worried about something. My attitude towards China currently is much more one of concern than it is one of alarm. This is because each of the four points I've mentioned requires immediate qualification. First, let me return to China's capabilities. It is very dangerous to make the kind of straight-line long-term forecasts that figure so prominently in the discussion of China's future here in the United States. Although the Chinese may not be facing an acute or immediate crisis along any of the four dimensions that Chas Freeman identified, it is facing chronic problems that are potentially extremely serious. Indeed, one discovers that as one travels around the periphery of China, other Asian countries are at least as concerned about China's long-term weakness as they are about its long-term strength. Or, to put it differently, they are as worried about the unconventional security threats that would come from collapse as much as they are concerned about the more conventional security threats that would come from strength. In contrast, the analysis of China in the United States has not yet fully come to grips with the challenges to China's continued economic and social success in the middle to long term. With regard to the military more specifically, to say that China is increasing its nominal military budget and is seeking to acquire force projection capabilities does not mean that China is in a position immediately to attain this kind of modern military force. China remains far behind the United States and other major powers technologically, and will remain so for many years. While we should monitor China's military preparations very carefully, I don't think we should overreact to them. Second, although China is not a status quo power, it also is not a revolutionary power or even a power that seeks major changes in the international system. In the 1960s, China was exactly that: a revolutionary power that sought to overthrow every single major international institution from the United Nations to the World Bank and to promote revolutionary insurgencies throughout the Third World. Today, in contrast, China does not seek to undermine international institutions, but rather to expand its role within them, just as a claimant to major power status might be expected to do. Although this is a matter of some concern, it is not as threatening to the international community as is the behavior of truly revolutionary powers that regard the international structure as fundamentally illegitimate. Third, with regard to China's willingness to cooperate, I'm editing a volume on the patterns of cooperation in China's international conduct, which I hope will appear in print sometime next year. The basic thesis of the book is that, although China is by no means fully cooperative in international affairs, it has become increasingly cooperative over the last 150 years. Chinese leaders have come to understand that they need cooperative international interaction to achieve their domestic and foreign objectives. They are therefore increasingly willing to work within international institutions and to forge cooperative relationships with other countries. The pattern of China's behavior--albeit more in the economic realm than in the security sphere--has increasingly been to accept the strictures of the international community. Finally, although the environment surrounding China is not entirely tranquil, still, in comparison with other regions, the Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vibrant and stable in the world. There are no power vacuums into which China can easily expand. There is a good chance of dealing constructively with the flashpoints and unstable countries around China's periphery. So the situation today is very different from the situation that confronted the last aspirant to major power status in Asia, namely Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, Japan faced a China in collapse and a number of European colonies in Asia at a time of European retrenchment. That was obviously a much more unstable and less vibrant international environment than we see in Asia today. Let me turn finally to the third section of my remarks, about the implications for U.S. policy. I'm not satisfied with any of the three major alternatives which have been put out on the table in recent years. The first of these is one that I didn't even mention in my introductory remarks because, fortunately, it has begun to fall out of favor: a policy of fragmenting China, encouraging its breakup into its constituent regions and provinces. There's an internal contradiction in that policy that I've never been able to fully understand. If China were really so weak that we could cause it to break apart, then why would it pose such a threat to American security that a policy of fragmentation would be warranted? Moreover, a policy of fragmentation would be guaranteed to ignite precisely the kind of Chinese nationalism that it is in our interest to avoid. And even if we were successful in catalyzing China's disintegration, the fragmentation of that country would be an extremely messy process that would have security consequences very detrimental to the interests of the United States and its allies. So a policy of fragmentation fails, with regard both to the end that it pursues and to the means that it entails. Containment is, of course, the policy that is more frequently presented these days as an alternative to the Clinton Administration's approach. In my judgment, the analysis of China's intentions and capabilities that I have presented does not warrant a strategy of containing Chinese influence or seeking to hamper China's rise to major power status. Were we to do so at this point, we would find ourselves engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating a hostile China. In addition, we would find that no other Asian government -- not Japan, not South Korea, not Southeast Asia, not even Taiwan or Vietnam -- would join us in this undertaking. So we would be taking on China absolutely alone, condemning ourselves to an adversarial relationship with China and therefore to a second Cold War. If it's necessary, a containment policy can, of course, be adopted later. But it is by no means an optimal choice for the United States, and it is neither necessary nor desirable for us to select this strategy under present circumstances. The alternative that the Clinton Administration puts forward is the policy known as "comprehensive engagement." There are several problems with this strategy. One is that the key word, "engagement," has so many different meanings that it is very difficult to explain it to anyone else. It could denote, for example, a betrothal or an agreement to get married--certainly not what it means in this particular case. It could mean a military battle, which is what many Chinese believe that it means. Or it can mean a meshing of gears or a process of dialogue and interaction, which is what the Clinton Administration wants it to mean. But even if we go beyond the semantic confusion that surrounds the term "engagement," we find that it refers to process without substance. Our engagement with China is guided by what vision, and directed at what objectives? In the end, the concept of engagement is an empty one. It refers to dialogue and interaction but does not give a clear sense of what American objectives are. As short-sighted and ill-conceived as they are, at least the concepts of fragmentation and containment tell you very clearly what American goals towards China would be. So what's the alternative? Well, I've never been a good phrase- maker, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the word that I will put forward. But I would recommend a policy of integration: attempting to integrate China into an increasingly vibrant community of nations in the Asia-Pacific region in which the United States is also an active participant. In other words, our policy should be to encourage the expansion of China's bilateral political and economic ties with its neighbors and its active and responsible participation in the emerging economic and security institutions that are being established in the Asia-Pacific region. Now, people in the Clinton Administration might well say that that is what they mean by "engagement," even though they don't spell out their objectives quite so clearly. But I think there are some significant differences between a policy of engagement and a policy of integration. First of all, by talking of integrating China into a regional community, we immediately put our policy in a multilateral setting and not just a bilateral one. A policy of integration implies that we work together with our friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region to enmesh China in a system of mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral institutions. In short, whereas engagement is an essentially bilateral strategy, integration is inherently multilateral, although successfully managing the bilateral relationship between China and the United States would be a prerequisite for its success. Second, a policy of integration would require us to identify our common interests with China more clearly, as well as to delineate our concerns about Beijing, something that the Clinton Administration has still not fully done. We might say that we welcome China's emergence as a major actor in the international economy, including its ability to export to other countries, but that we are also asking that China open up its own markets to trade and investment from other countries, including the United States. We could make clear that we welcome China's growing prosperity, which is good both for the Chinese people and for the rest of the world, but that, at the same time, we are concerned about the environmental consequences of Chinese industrialization. We should indicate that we acknowledge China's right to national security and to a reasonable defense establishment, but that we are very concerned about the possibility that China's growing military capability could be destabilizing to the Asia-Pacific region, especially when not conducted in a transparent way. And we could say that we respect the desire of both the Chinese leaders and the Chinese people for political stability, but that we believe that genuine stability can be achieved better through a process of gradual and sustained political reform than through repression alone. That kind of statement, identifying both our common interests and our differences with the Chinese, would be an important element of an integration policy. Such a statement of American objectives has generally been absent from the articulation of our engagement policy thus far. Finally, because of its multilateral dimension, a policy of integration alerts us to the importance of not just having a clear strategy towards China, but also promoting the stability and vitality of the region as a whole. Security threats are not produced simply by the rise of an ambitious or irresponsible major power. Rather, they are created by the rise of such a power in an international environment that provides it with either nettlesome provocation or easy opportunities. It's therefore very important for us and our friends in the region to maintain an international environment that sends a very clear signal to the Chinese:
But while all of these developments are grounds for concern, I want to emphasize that alarmist thinking is not warranted at this point. The Chinese make a distinction between guanxin, which means to be concerned about something, and danxin, which means to be very worried about something. My attitude towards China currently is much more one of concern than it is one of alarm. This is because each of the four points I've mentioned requires immediate qualification. First, let me return to China's capabilities. It is very dangerous to make the kind of straight-line long-term forecasts that figure so prominently in the discussion of China's future here in the United States. Although the Chinese may not be facing an acute or immediate crisis along any of the four dimensions that Chas Freeman identified, it is facing chronic problems that are potentially extremely serious. Indeed, one discovers that as one travels around the periphery of China, other Asian countries are at least as concerned about China's long-term weakness as they are about its long-term strength. Or, to put it differently, they are as worried about the unconventional security threats that would come from collapse as much as they are concerned about the more conventional security threats that would come from strength. In contrast, the analysis of China in the United States has not yet fully come to grips with the challenges to China's continued economic and social success in the middle to long term. With regard to the military more specifically, to say that China is increasing its nominal military budget and is seeking to acquire force projection capabilities does not mean that China is in a position immediately to attain this kind of modern military force. China remains far behind the United States and other major powers technologically, and will remain so for many years. While we should monitor China's military preparations very carefully, I don't think we should overreact to them. Second, although China is not a status quo power, it also is not a revolutionary power or even a power that seeks major changes in the international system. In the 1960s, China was exactly that: a revolutionary power that sought to overthrow every single major international institution from the United Nations to the World Bank and to promote revolutionary insurgencies throughout the Third World. Today, in contrast, China does not seek to undermine international institutions, but rather to expand its role within them, just as a claimant to major power status might be expected to do. Although this is a matter of some concern, it is not as threatening to the international community as is the behavior of truly revolutionary powers that regard the international structure as fundamentally illegitimate. Third, with regard to China's willingness to cooperate, I'm editing a volume on the patterns of cooperation in China's international conduct, which I hope will appear in print sometime next year. The basic thesis of the book is that, although China is by no means fully cooperative in international affairs, it has become increasingly cooperative over the last 150 years. Chinese leaders have come to understand that they need cooperative international interaction to achieve their domestic and foreign objectives. They are therefore increasingly willing to work within international institutions and to forge cooperative relationships with other countries. The pattern of China's behavior--albeit more in the economic realm than in the security sphere--has increasingly been to accept the strictures of the international community. Finally, although the environment surrounding China is not entirely tranquil, still, in comparison with other regions, the Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vibrant and stable in the world. There are no power vacuums into which China can easily expand. There is a good chance of dealing constructively with the flashpoints and unstable countries around China's periphery. So the situation today is very different from the situation that confronted the last aspirant to major power status in Asia, namely Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, Japan faced a China in collapse and a number of European colonies in Asia at a time of European retrenchment. That was obviously a much more unstable and less vibrant international environment than we see in Asia today. Let me turn finally to the third section of my remarks, about the implications for U.S. policy. I'm not satisfied with any of the three major alternatives which have been put out on the table in recent years. The first of these is one that I didn't even mention in my introductory remarks because, fortunately, it has begun to fall out of favor: a policy of fragmenting China, encouraging its breakup into its constituent regions and provinces. There's an internal contradiction in that policy that I've never been able to fully understand. If China were really so weak that we could cause it to break apart, then why would it pose such a threat to American security that a policy of fragmentation would be warranted? Moreover, a policy of fragmentation would be guaranteed to ignite precisely the kind of Chinese nationalism that it is in our interest to avoid. And even if we were successful in catalyzing China's disintegration, the fragmentation of that country would be an extremely messy process that would have security consequences very detrimental to the interests of the United States and its allies. So a policy of fragmentation fails, with regard both to the end that it pursues and to the means that it entails. Containment is, of course, the policy that is more frequently presented these days as an alternative to the Clinton Administration's approach. In my judgment, the analysis of China's intentions and capabilities that I have presented does not warrant a strategy of containing Chinese influence or seeking to hamper China's rise to major power status. Were we to do so at this point, we would find ourselves engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating a hostile China. In addition, we would find that no other Asian government -- not Japan, not South Korea, not Southeast Asia, not even Taiwan or Vietnam -- would join us in this undertaking. So we would be taking on China absolutely alone, condemning ourselves to an adversarial relationship with China and therefore to a second Cold War. If it's necessary, a containment policy can, of course, be adopted later. But it is by no means an optimal choice for the United States, and it is neither necessary nor desirable for us to select this strategy under present circumstances. The alternative that the Clinton Administration puts forward is the policy known as "comprehensive engagement." There are several problems with this strategy. One is that the key word, "engagement," has so many different meanings that it is very difficult to explain it to anyone else. It could denote, for example, a betrothal or an agreement to get married--certainly not what it means in this particular case. It could mean a military battle, which is what many Chinese believe that it means. Or it can mean a meshing of gears or a process of dialogue and interaction, which is what the Clinton Administration wants it to mean. But even if we go beyond the semantic confusion that surrounds the term "engagement," we find that it refers to process without substance. Our engagement with China is guided by what vision, and directed at what objectives? In the end, the concept of engagement is an empty one. It refers to dialogue and interaction but does not give a clear sense of what American objectives are. As short-sighted and ill-conceived as they are, at least the concepts of fragmentation and containment tell you very clearly what American goals towards China would be. So what's the alternative? Well, I've never been a good phrase- maker, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the word that I will put forward. But I would recommend a policy of integration: attempting to integrate China into an increasingly vibrant community of nations in the Asia-Pacific region in which the United States is also an active participant. In other words, our policy should be to encourage the expansion of China's bilateral political and economic ties with its neighbors and its active and responsible participation in the emerging economic and security institutions that are being established in the Asia-Pacific region. Now, people in the Clinton Administration might well say that that is what they mean by "engagement," even though they don't spell out their objectives quite so clearly. But I think there are some significant differences between a policy of engagement and a policy of integration. First of all, by talking of integrating China into a regional community, we immediately put our policy in a multilateral setting and not just a bilateral one. A policy of integration implies that we work together with our friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region to enmesh China in a system of mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral institutions. In short, whereas engagement is an essentially bilateral strategy, integration is inherently multilateral, although successfully managing the bilateral relationship between China and the United States would be a prerequisite for its success. Second, a policy of integration would require us to identify our common interests with China more clearly, as well as to delineate our concerns about Beijing, something that the Clinton Administration has still not fully done. We might say that we welcome China's emergence as a major actor in the international economy, including its ability to export to other countries, but that we are also asking that China open up its own markets to trade and investment from other countries, including the United States. We could make clear that we welcome China's growing prosperity, which is good both for the Chinese people and for the rest of the world, but that, at the same time, we are concerned about the environmental consequences of Chinese industrialization. We should indicate that we acknowledge China's right to national security and to a reasonable defense establishment, but that we are very concerned about the possibility that China's growing military capability could be destabilizing to the Asia-Pacific region, especially when not conducted in a transparent way. And we could say that we respect the desire of both the Chinese leaders and the Chinese people for political stability, but that we believe that genuine stability can be achieved better through a process of gradual and sustained political reform than through repression alone. That kind of statement, identifying both our common interests and our differences with the Chinese, would be an important element of an integration policy. Such a statement of American objectives has generally been absent from the articulation of our engagement policy thus far. Finally, because of its multilateral dimension, a policy of integration alerts us to the importance of not just having a clear strategy towards China, but also promoting the stability and vitality of the region as a whole. Security threats are not produced simply by the rise of an ambitious or irresponsible major power. Rather, they are created by the rise of such a power in an international environment that provides it with either nettlesome provocation or easy opportunities. It's therefore very important for us and our friends in the region to maintain an international environment that sends a very clear signal to the Chinese:
- We welcome you into our international community on mutually beneficial terms.
- We are not going to do things that impinge upon your vital national interests.
- We are not going to create easy opportunities for you to take unfair advantage of.
- If you attempt to take unreasonable advantage of those opportunities, you will find that the community will come together to resist your encroachments and that it has both the resources and the political will to do so.
Generally, we get into trouble, as we did in Korea in 1950, when we say we're not interested, when we don't pay attention. That leads others to say, "Well, if the Americans are not interested, then we'll pursue our own interests." We have to lean forward, in my view, and indicate in more than just words that the peaceful resolution of these territorial and related issues is very mu
