I apologize for not posting for a while. This post couldn't have been possible without my new International Relations hero Mr. Stephen M. Walt and the refreshing Realism that infuses his politics and his blog. After discovering his blog on Foreign Policy I realized I share a lot of his opinions on the Middle East and China. Please enjoy the link-fest.
China's Long Shadow
"while Japan’s economy is mature and its population quickly aging, China is in the throes of urbanization and is far from developed, analysts say, meaning it has a much lower standard of living, as well as a lot more room to grow...Its per capita income is more on a par with those of impoverished nations like Algeria, El Salvador and Albania — which, along with China, are close to $3,600 — than that of the United States, where it is about $46,000...While the country is still relatively poor per capita, it has an authoritarian government that is capable of taking decisive action — to stimulate the economy, build new projects and invest in specific industries."
In the 1980s Japan was like China and economic analysts forecasted that they would overtake the U.S. in a number of years. However, Japan was unable to overtake us because it is less like a China and more like the West. Japan like many Western nations, including the U.S., is a democracy with an aging population.
Like the West, Japan plays fair but China with its "authoritarian government" ruthlessly puts its poor, peasant population to work as cheap laborers in factories or coal miners in dangerous operations that harm workers, communities and the environment. China may have surpassed our ally Japan in wealth, but benefits of that wealth are only felt by the relatively few living in Beijing and Shanghai. China may be moving up in the world but it is doing so through unscrupulous means that do not benefit China's population equally. The West and Japan are falling behind but what would we have to do in order to grow like them?
China's new economic clout has given it room to grow some political muscle and begin exerting its influence in the international sphere. There is absolutely no reason for China to support new sanctions on Iran, a country which sells so much oil to energy-starved China. Mr. Walt also points out that there is no reason for China to give the U.S. a straight answer since China doesn't want the U.S. to give up on sanctions and bomb Iran but it also doesn't want to belligerently support Iran in case the U.S. wises up and realizes China is the real problem and not Iran.
Also unlike the U.S. who is constantly worrying about what effect Iran having nuclear weapons has on the Middle East, China has a more rational view and realizes that Iran having nuclear weapons will not make Iran any safer or belligerent, since the Chinese know from experience that a nuclear arsenal does not necessarily translate into political clout or the ability to be a regional bully.
Mr. Walt has a friend who is even more realist than him - Mr. Mearsheimer (he an Walt had the bravery to write the first of its kind - an obviously controversial book on the Israel Lobby. I don't think the book was antisemitic conspiratorial talk at all but fair and critical dissent, free speech and a realistic statement of the facts by two accredited intellectuals - the U.S. needs to get out off the Middle East but certain people including Christian Zionists and neocons compel Washington to keep us there. Unlike their unfortunate benefactor Charles Freeman they managed to escaped a smear campaign).
Mearsheimer recognizes a simple truth - China cannot rise peacefully. China's growing economic and political power in the region threatens the security of other Asian nations and Pacific nations and eventually these nations will be forced to pick a side - between Western interests or Chinese interests. China continues to build it's military forces, supposedly for defense - from what? Some think China will continue to rise peacefully through economic means but as China gains more capital and invests that capital in offensive capabilities, its opinion of the status quo may change. With more power, China is likely to push back against the U.S. and become more aggressive.
Even as the U.S. tries to pick itself off of its feet economically, we must keep a wary eye on China and know that eventually China will challenge the U.S. for hegemony in its region or in the world if the U.S. and other Asian and Pacific nations do not balance against China now. If we do not want a future war with China, we must maintain our "strategic primacy" as a world power in what is likely to become a "security competition." Hopefully Cold War containment and nuclear deterrence will be enough to corral China so we don't have to resort to bombs.
The Australian Defense White Paper which Mearsheimer references in his talk can be found here.
Mr. Mearsheimer's report squares with Mr. Walt's appraisal. Mr. Walt rightly points out that Clinton's liberal age of "economic interdependence" and "democratic peace theory" has ran out. China isn't "transitioning to democracy" anytime soon and according this NYT article, in order to protect its sea routes to the Middle East which carry precious oil, China is expanding its naval sphere of influence. The Chinese call this "far sea defense" but as the Chinese expand their "blue water navy" into straits controlled by Indonesia and Singapore as well as the Indian Ocean and other waters the U.S. normally controls, they gain greater offensive capabilities.
As Mearsheimer emphasized above, China is looking to become a regional hegemony just as the United States became regional hegemony of the Western hemisphere with Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine. But since the U.S. became a regional hegemony it has worked hard to make sure no other regional hegemonies arose. The U.S. successfully opposed Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Today the U.S. remains the only regional hegemony and there is no reason we will not oppose China as well if it too endeavors to become a regional hegemony.
Mr. Walt concludes that what China will do is to try not to agitate the U.S. or draw our attention to them as they build their military, "forge relations with traditional U.S. 'spheres of interest'" in Asia and otherwise, and "divide and conquer" their own back yard. China hopes we will be too distracted by the Middle East - Iran, Israel, Afghanistan - to notice a shift in the world's balance of power.
Although Mr. Walt has a decidedly more optimistic view on a power-hungry China than Mr. Mearsheimer, he too speculates about a future "balancing act" taking place in Asia in the Pacific. Yes, China's navy is weaker and it's military spending is a lot less when compared to the U.S. Yes, perhaps China's exponential economic growth could slow in the next twenty years due to more social and domestic demands from China's small but growing middle class, precluding further military growth. But there's another option in the Realism IR playbook that China might employ to gain regional hegemony without exerting extra military muscle: the bandwagon.
Mr. Walt points to another NYT article that talks about Indonesia's sudden love for the Chinese language:
"As China’s economic power grows, the study of Mandarin is surging around the world. Its rise in Indonesia may be one of the most telling examples of how China’s influence is overflowing even the steepest of barriers."
U.S. dominance pushed English to become the most sought after language in the world. What does this article indicate? That Chinese, the language spoken by the most people in the world, may soon become surpass the business standard, English. Also this article indicates the terrible chance that Asian nations may choose to bandwagon with China, the new regional power on the block instead of balancing against China and siding with the distant regional hegemony, the U.S.
Mr. Walt as a defensive realist hopes the medium Asian powers will balance against China and adhere to the status quo power, the U.S. But there is always the hairy possibility of the opposite. How would the we respond if China marshaled the entire region against the U.S., the power that has controlled Asia and the Pacific since 1945?
The Chinese President has acknowledged that the spread of Mandarin language and culture is diplomatic in nature, a "soft power." But subtle soft power campaigns are power grabs nonetheless. The U.S. will need to pay more attention to Asia and less to Afghanistan if it is going to offer a sweeter deal to Asian nations lulled by China's smooth talking.
Could the U.S. be wising up? As China begins to flail its arms menacingly could the U.S. be realizing that China won't always give out free cookies? In the 1990s we thrived on their "Made in China" cheap goods and cheap labor. We've borrowed more than a trillion dollars from them. Have U.S. foreign investors and multinational CEOs finally woken up and realized that China is a not-so-nice rival and not our personal piggy bank? As China's economy grows its economic policy takes on a more nationalistic direction, alienating and ejecting Western economic interests that thrived in China before.
Even President Obama refuses to drink the free-trade Kool-Aid Pres. Clinton could once drink:
"Mr. Obama, who took office in an economy far worse and far more hostile to trade than the one Mr. Clinton inherited, appears less convinced of the virtues of free trade per se... he is arguing that China is posing as a developing country even though it has grown up and needs to be treated like the economic powerhouse it is. At home, he knows—no matter what his economists tell him—that neither voters nor Democrats in Congress will be convinced that free trade is good for them. So he is styling himself as a tough bargainer, who can beat other countries at their own game."
As one of Drezner's sources notes if it weren't for big businesses the relationship between the U.S. and China would have gone sour long ago. China is Communist I don't think the U.S and China were ever meant to be friends. People on both sides of the Pacific can no longer hide behind the success of say, Google. Time to face the music.
Meanwhile,
Of course we must ask these questions now that China has overtaken Japan and seems set on overtaking us. With our aging populations the West and the U.S. look weak and seem to have little room to grow. Has our time as hegemonies ran its course? Does China's rise herald a new era or is this simply a wake-up call pushing the U.S. to regroup and fight back?
More Required Reading
(China's) Energy Pinch - Peak Oil and Cheap Dirty Coal
China's desperate dependency on oil and coal could stifle its growth in the long run but in the mean time it ruthlessly ignores any implications their actions have on climate change or the world's shrinking oil levels.
Of course it would not be tactful to squarely put the blame on humanity for the death 1600 Pakistanis by flood and 700 Russians due to heat and smog but the ever-increasing number of disasters caused by weather extremes should be enough to convince anyone that global warming is very real. If we refuse to curb our emissions, pull away from fossil fuels and look towards new green technologies, the global community may very well be facing a more realistic Day After Tomorrow down the road.
Middle East Mayhem
Probably the best article summing up all the best reasons on why we shouldn't attack Iran. The author Marc Lynch elucidates this article further in his contribution to the Goldberg debate atThe Atlantic with this:
Israel v. Palestine
Mr. Walt thinks this Peace in the Middle East thing is an ongoing historic quagmire and I'm inclined to agree with him.
Another commentator who isn't impressed.
The optimistic a la J Street side of the coin. This was sent to me in one of their emails.
Iraq
There was not victory in Iraq, no matter what you think of General Petraeus.
Iraq war: President Obama marks end of combat mission - latimes.com (NEW DEVELOPMENT)
I was so happy when I got that email from Pres. Obama.com saying the War in Iraq was finally over. It's been going on since 2003, far too long.
Afghanistan
We're not addressing the corruption in Karzai's government, we're enabling it.
Good luck.
(Sorry if this whole realism thing seems like a downer. However, even if realism makes you think the world and its history is simply a big game of Risk, at least you'll never delude yourself. This is politics as it has always been and should always be)
Unrelated to Foreign Policy
As I commented on the blog post of a gay conservative, I think if the RNC stepped away from their anti-gay agenda they could open up a new voting demographic for gay conservatives and make a America a better place for being gay.
A long time ago I mentioned Beck's "Take Back America" rally on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. For anyone who wants to see how Beck stacks up to King, look below. Click to enlarge.
- Ryu
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