As the relationship between China and the United States is increasingly becoming that of the top two world powers, and China’s global and regional impact continues to grow, the international community is increasingly concerned about the direction of Sino-American relations. It was against such a backdrop that China has actively advocated the building of a “new-type of major-country relationship” between the two countries, the connotations of which, in President Xi Jinping’s own words, are “no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation”. The goal of such a relationship is to strive for the two parties’ peaceful co-existence, seeking common ground while reserving differences, and engaging in benign interaction and common progress.
The essence of this goal is to take advantage of economic globalization and the mutual dependence between the two countries, to make sure that the established dominant power in the current international system and the emerging power jointly and reasonably share international authority and responsibilities, and that the two nations will avoid repeating the zero-sum games, even head-on collisions, as has happened between existing and emerging powers in the past. The “new-type of major-country relationship” between China and the United States is both the call of our time of globalization, and a significant innovation in international relations theories and strategies, demonstrating both China’s sincere wishes for peaceful development and a proactive diplomatic style in the new era.
The building of the “new-type of major-country relationship” entails more than good intentions. It also calls for squarely facing reality. Currently there are two major obstacles from the United States and “third parties.”
First of all, in contrast to the consistence between words and deeds on the Chinese side, the US side has displayed an inconsistency between what it says and what it does. The United States continues to see China as a main challenger of its hegemonic status, and thus has upgraded various countermeasures against China’s “catch-up” strategy in its peaceful development. Such endeavors are embodied in the following “six new tactics”:
- In the name of “strategic rebalancing”, the United States places considerable weight on the “eastward shift” of its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific, fighting hard for geopolitical interests. Taking advantage of China’s territorial disputes on the sea with neighboring countries, the US has offered substantial support for countries such as Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. While dumping arms in the neighborhood, the United States has tried to sink China in a mess of conflicts with its neighbors, and thus disrupt the process of China’s peaceful development and rise;
- Taking advantage of its dominance on the Internet and playing on such influential values such as “democracy, freedom, human rights”, as well as contradictions in China’s social transformation, the United States has been cultivating hostile forces in and outside China, conducting subversion and permeation in China, interfering in China’s domestic affairs, trying to channel the devastating tides of the “Arab Spring”, and sabotaging domestic stability and the safety of state power in China. Such ploys include recalcitrant insistence on double standards in anti-terror campaigns, and refusal to repatriate terrorism suspects of the “East Turkistan” movement to China;
- The US has also intentionally created market disintegration in the Asia-Pacific by means of the so-called “high-standard and high-threshold” Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, scrambling wildly for market shares in the Asia-Pacific, and trying everything possible to elbow China out;
- In the name of coping with global climate changes, and on the pretext of sharing “big-country responsibilities”, the United States has repeatedly urged China to accelerate its shift toward a “low-carbon economy” and to accept compulsory obligations of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. The goal is to raise the cost of China’s development, weaken China’s competitive advantage, and slow down China’s economic growth;
- Taking advantage of its military, and particularly its maritime hegemony, the United States has been suppressing China’s military modernization, strengthening the deployment of its own naval and air forces in the Asia-Pacific, containing the development of China’s blue-water navy, and misleading China into the trap of an arms race;
- Taking advantage of its rhetorical hegemony, the United States has been denigrating China’s development mode and political regime, debasing China’s international image, all in a bid to label China as an “alien” and throw China into political isolation.
Sino-US relations are vulnerable to disruption by “third-party” factors. The United States may easily outsmart itself in dealing with China and be dragged by its Asia-Pacific allies into their own conflicts with China. The risks for the United States to be used by Japan and the Philippines in their confrontation with China, resulting in a Sino-US standoff, are dramatically increasing.
Deeds are more important than words in building a “new-type of major-country relationship” between China and the United States. The two parties should be tolerant of each other, pragmatically proceed with and steadily expand cooperation, effectively manage and control competition, and be on guard against third-party disruptions. They should strive to expand collaboration in the following six areas:
The two powers should upgrade their strategic mutual trust, and explore the establishment of a mutual notice mechanism on occasions of major military operations, as well as a common code of conduct for naval and air safety for the two militaries, increase transparency regarding both parties’ policies and strategic intensions, avoid misjudgments, and prevent unexpected incidents;
China and the US should open up new prospects for economic and trade cooperation, and deepen their common interests, accelerate negotiations for agreements on bilateral investments, and seek points of convergence in the process of both countries’ economic “re-balancing” and transformation;
There should be increased human and cultural exchanges, improved mutual understanding, and increased mutual good feelings;
The two nations need to upgrade their coordination in coping with various regional hotspot issues and global concerns;
There should be a new pattern for benign Sino-US interaction in the Asia-Pacific, and the two powers should explore ways to share the benefits of peace, stability and development in the region, and gradually explore the possibility of a certain degree of “joint governance on the basis of coordination and consultation.” As China resumes its role as a major power in the Asia-Pacific, the United States needs to tread carefully on China’s doorstep and avoid becoming a presumptuous guest;
Both nations should avoid fomenting discord among third parties, and compare notes in a timely manner, so that the two do not fall prey to third-party ploys. The United States needs to give more consideration to the big picture of Sino-US relations, and apply control over its allies’ provocative stunts and outrages. China and the United States should jointly contain the right-turning Japan, which is seeking to overturn World War II history. The United States should not connive with, appease, or be numb to the rightist Shinzo Abe. Conniving with Japan will bring disaster to the United States. A United States eager to contain China with a defiant Japan will find it self-defeating in the end. It will become a tool in the hands of Japanese rightists and lose more than it gains.
The building of a “new-type of major-country relationship” between China and United States will be more difficult in deeds than in rhetoric. Rather than indulging in blind optimism, both parties should make earnest efforts to match rhetoric with deeds.
Chen Xiangyang, Research fellow, deputy director of Institute of World Political Studies of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
