Rethinking China

On July 9, 1971, a team of American officials stopped for a short rest in a Himalayan hill station. What followed, as then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recalls, was the most dramatic event of the Nixon presidency. It was the first diplomatic visit between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and it happened in complete secrecy. Kissinger and his team were whisked away on a forty-eight hour visit to Beijing, where they met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in a series of preliminary negotiations and paved the way for a reopening of relations between the two great powers.
At the time, China sought to resume its diplomatic ties with the United States not because of ideology, policy, or the economy, but because of military necessity. As Kissinger notes in his recent book, On China, Chairman Mao Zedong’s doctor had this conversation with the Chairman in 1969: “Mao presented me with a riddle. ‘Think about this,’ he said to me one day. ‘We have the Soviet Union to the north and the west, India to the south, and Japan to the east. If all our enemies were to unite, attacking us from the north, south, east, and west, what do you think we should do?’ When Mao’s interlocutor responded with perplexity, the Chairman continued: ‘Think again. … Beyond Japan is the United States. Didn’t our ancestors counsel negotiating with faraway countries while fighting those that are near?’” What blossomed out of these first encounters during the Nixon years was a willingness on both sides to set aside ideological misgivings, and work towards a more cooperative future.
Forty years, ten presidencies, and an almost two hundred percent increase in Chinese GDP later, we seem to be losing sight of this vision. The recent rhetoric of American media and politicians, especially leading up to and during the presidential elections this past November, suggests that China and the U.S. may inevitably end up as competitors for world hegemony. The rise of China’s economy appears to be a direct threat to American influence worldwide, a threat that may translate into conflict. But popular rhetoric in the United States may only be making the situation worse: by gearing up for a potential clash with China, on both economic and military fronts, Americans are fuelling a sense of Chinese nationalism that benefits neither side.
At a time when neither politically-shaky China nor militarily-overextended America can really afford a showdown, we should be cautious about the way we approach hot-button, nationalistic issues like Tibet and Taiwan. To effect peaceful change without forceful confrontation, a strong and coherent China is essential. The traditional Chinese approach to foreign policy is a considerably more peaceful and less invasive one than the European model, and China’s framing of world hegemony is starkly different to that of the West. The Chinese view of a 21st century world order is, to a large extent, shaped by American attitudes and actions. If the United States continues to view China’s rise as part of a zero-sum game, then so will the Chinese.
Why History Matters
It would be a gross oversimplification to assume that all countries determine their policy based on the same rational calculations. Cultural norms, dictated by history, are just as important as geography, economics, and military factors. And when dealing with a country with as long a history as China, historical context becomes essential to understanding China’s priorities.
In 1492, a little-known Genoese explorer sighted land in the Bahamas, an island inhabited by a small population of indigenous Arawak. Almost a century earlier, a Chinese admiral had already navigated a sizeable fleet to Brunei, Thailand and the Horn of Africa, bestowing lavish gifts upon the kingdoms he encountered, and bringing back ostriches, giraffes, and ivory as tribute to the Yongle Emperor. Yet around the world, people remember and celebrate the life of Christopher Columbus, not Zheng He. Both were naval explorers, both received sponsorship from their monarchs to extend the reach of their respective empires, both struck land and made meaningful contact with local inhabitants.
Columbus’s voyages began a new era of European conquest, while his Chinese counterpart did the opposite. After Zheng He’s death, Chinese naval exploration came to a sudden halt. For reasons historians still debate, the Emperor decided to dismantle the royal fleet and destroy the records of Zheng He’s voyages. “China’s naval history was thus a hinge that failed to swing,” observes former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “technically capable of dominance, China retired voluntarily from the field of naval exploration just as Western interest was beginning to take hold.” Some scholars suggest that Zheng’s travels ran contrary to the Confucian priority of domestic harmony and stability. Others argue that for the Ming rulers, they offered no practical benefits. While “God, gold, and glory” drove Columbus to the shores of the Bahamas, the lure of trade and colonization did little to motivate the self-sufficient Ming Chinese. This example from history is particularly relevant today because it illustrates a larger difference in European and Chinese world views. American sinologist Lucian Pye once famously noted that today’s China is not a country, but rather, a “civilization pretending to be a state.”
Is China’s Rise is Anything Special?
For almost all of recorded history, this civilization has accounted for approximately thirty percent of the world population and forty percent of world GDP. For a China that has never needed to contend with economically aggressive neighbors, the majority of financial innovation has focused on increasing domestic efficiency and productivity, rather than on honing its competitive advantage. This is not to say that China’s economy stagnated throughout the past half millennium. In fact, scholars in the 1950s argued that China would have developed a fully industrial and capitalist economy had the country not been ravaged by foreign imperialists during the Opium Wars. But the overall trend of Chinese economic development has prioritized internal stability over international expansion. Regardless of whether this trend is a product of geographic location or of contingent factors like European imperialism, the fact remains that China’s enthusiasm for economic stability has formed the foundation of its political culture, both past and present.
The ruling style of the late imperial era reflects China’s economic appetite for self-sufficient stability. Despite Zheng He’s wide-ranging travels, he never displayed any territorial ambition, for the simple reason that there was no need for China to expand abroad. According to American sociologist Charles Tilly, many of the trademark innovations of the West, including secure property rights, banks and the rule of law, are really the byproducts of war. The pressure-cooker that was modern Europe led not only to aggression among neighboring states and imperial expansion abroad, but also to adversarial systems of government within each nation, which pitted one interest group against another in an elaborate system of checks and balances. China, on the other hand, strove to create a unified and coherent state under a single moral authority. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous epic from the fourteenth century, opens with this line: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” Whether the nation is ruled by the Kangxi Emperor, Mao Zedong, or today’s Xi Jinping, China’s political history can be viewed as a continuous thread, with successive regimes sandwiched between temporary periods of inner turmoil.
Why We Matter
The rise of China to the world stage can be viewed as another link in the long chain of Chinese history.  As international relations expert Alastair Johnston argues in his book, Strategic Culture, “ahistorical or ‘objective’ variables such as technology, capabilities, levels of threat, and organizational structures are all of secondary importance: it is the interpretative lens of strategic culture that gives meaning to these variables.” In other words, how China sees itself as a long-standing culture is just as important to relations with our Pacific neighbor as any number of trade agreements, military tactics, or presidential visits.
Our triangular relationship with Taiwan and China is a case in point. Since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, Taiwan has remained a contentious issue — not just for military or political reasons, but for questions of China’s national identity. The very existence of this island, not much bigger than the state of Maryland, and with somewhat limited strategic importance, reminds the Communist Party that it was never able to eradicate its historical foes. The fact that the Nationalist Party took China’s imperial treasures with it when it fled in 1949, including over 650,000 artifacts covering every time period from the Neolithic to the present, continues to rankle with the Chinese sense of national pride. In 2007, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan Shirk warned that if an outbreak of Chinese nationalism were to occur over the Taiwan issue, the Communist Party may be forced to go to war. “We don’t want to become mired in rhetorical polemics with China,” Shirk told the HPR. “Name calling would force politicians to want to show how tough they are in maintaining national strength.” In a country with a domestic situation as precarious as China’s, an aggressive American foreign policy could very well tip the scales.
Over the past four years, however, the danger of war with Taiwan has significantly receded. Leadership on both sides of the Strait has pursued a cautious and largely successful rapprochement. In a 2008 phone call to President George Bush, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao conceded for the first time that although “both sides recognize there is only one China, [they would] agree to differ on its definition.” Both mainland China  and Taiwan have agreed to establishing “three links” of communication, transportation, and commerce, which had been cut off since 1949. William Kirby, T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard, is optimistic about the implications for the United States, “The normalization of relations across the Taiwan Strait has removed a potential area of military strife,” he told the HPR. “For all the rhetoric, we forget that enormous progress has been made in the last five years on the issue that was the most dangerous for US-China relations.” This is thanks, in large part, to the active role that Obama administration has pursued in the area. “President Obama’s policies are quite consistent in finding a basis for cooperation with China,” Susan Shirk stated. “I don’t foresee any major change in the substance of American foreign policy over the next four years. Now is the time to maintain a cautious and consistent stance with China.”
Moving Forward by Looking Back
The normalization of cross-Strait relations is an example of how the United States can maintain a non-confrontational presence in Asia, without stepping on the toes of Chinese nationalism. “China is an ancient civilization,” Kirby reminds us, “but as a country, it was founded about a hundred years ago.” As an ancient civilization, China is heir to an unparalleled legacy of economic prosperity, internal stability, and peaceful world hegemony. As a young state, it must live up to these goals, while grappling with a unique national identity that calls for a return to its past glory. The United States’ future coexistence with China will depend on how clearly we can view China through both lenses.