American scholar David Lampton, deeply concerned about the current status of US-China relations, said recently that the bilateral relationship is moving toward a “tipping point”.
His comment triggered heated debate internationally. The mainstream view highlighted by the US is that the bilateral relationship has undergone substantive changes and is now marked by the two countries’ rivalry for making and setting of rules making and systems. The US must forcefully prevent China, which it has locked in as a strategic rival, from competing with the US as an equal, and to this end, put more pressure on China.
There are also more positive voices. Take Lampton for example. He stated that, fundamentally, America has to rethink its objective of primacy. Many people share the view that the US should face up the reality squarely, seek cooperation with China and avoid prolonged confrontation.
Negative views, however, are having an upper hand, making the already not so comfortably interdependent relationship even more uncomfortable. Why is this the case? This is a question of interest to people across the world, including the Chinese and Americans. We may find the answer by tracing the changes in the history of the bilateral relations.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the US was so overly excited that it believed the next block of dominoes would be China. The US has long intended to dominate the world but failed because China has not tumbled. To US disappointment, China has become a new force for the progress of human society. Its fast growth has propelled the quantitative change of the world and accelerated the historic shift in the international balance of power and the world trend toward multipolarity. Against this background, the US eastward strategic pivot, its strategic rebalance to the Asia-Pacific and its advocacy for “world primacy” and “world leadership for a century” are not demonstrations of its strength, but rather reflections of its weakness and concerns.
As a matter of fact, China has followed the trend of the times for peace, development and cooperation, and has all along been sending signals of goodwill to the US. China hopes to build a new model of big power relations with the US featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutually beneficial cooperation, and mutual accommodation of each other’s core interests. The aim is to gradually make the uncomfortable interdependent relations more comfortable. China has no intention to push the US out of the Pacific Ocean, but hopes that the US will play a more positive role in the region. Nonetheless, nothing should stop China from improving its comprehensive strength and military power or playing its role as a “stakeholder”. The same applies to India, Brazil and other countries in the world.
When he was the US president, George W. Bush on many occasions put China on the list of countries that were “at a strategic crossroads” (Russia and India also had the “honor” of making the list”). In retrospect, it was not China, Russia or India who were at a strategic crossroads, but the US itself, a restless, arrogant and disturbed country and the world’s only super power that was at a loss for what to do next.
There are and have been many people of insight and vision in the US. Sober-minded and realistic, they have also supported US leadership in the world and American values. They have aired different views on the world situation and US policies.
George Kennan was one of them. As early as the 1990s during the Clinton administration, the 95-year-old veteran diplomat pointed out that it is impossible for the US to take on the duties of other governments and do things in the US way rather than in light of the traditions of the local people and that the US might as well play down its dreams and aspirations for its leadership in the world. Kennan was an advocate for the US containment policy during the Cold War. His reflection was echoed by many insightful leaders and statesmen across the world.
At the turn of 2011 and 2012, late in President Obama’s first term, some mainstream US media outlets released a series of articles about the US supremacy in the world. Now, the American people are more worried about their country’s world standing, feeling that the good old days are fading into their memory and that they need to have a rethinking of the world and themselves.
Such rethinking is not without reasons. Along with the flux of the world landscape, the American “think tank views” are also evolving, as represented by Francis Fukuyama, John Mearsheimer and a few others. Their basic positions remain unchanged. They still have some arrogant and biased views about the emerging economies, especially the major developing countries. On the other hand, they have realized that, to differing degrees, the world has changed, the US baton is not as effective as before, and the US needs to seek a new objective for itself.
Recently, the US has attempted to further intensify its dominance and military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, stirring up disputes, causing trouble, taking sides and making provocative remarks on the South China Sea issue. A few media outlets and renowned scholars, including Doug Bandow, who worked as special assistant to President Reagan, criticized the US meddling in the South China Sea issue as a dangerous move and suggested that President Obama should keep a distance from disputes over sovereignty and stop provocative words and deeds against China, which would add fuel to the fire and end up backfiring for the US. They deem it impossible to “contain” China and believe that the thought of controlling China is anachronistic, and that the right thing to do is to treat China as an equal and cooperate with the country.
Now it is not a matter of China and the US meeting each other half way, but rather where the US is heading. China has no intention of vying with the US for primacy. As a Chinese saying goes, China believes that “A single flower does not herald spring and a lone goose cannot make a formation”. China hopes to seek win-win cooperation with the US. The key is whether the US is willing to listen to China’s views and be an understanding and thoughtful superpower that fully appreciates the dynamics of the new century.
