Building a New Type of Relations Between Major Countries

Chen Jian

President Hu Jintao pointed out in his opening remarks at the Fourth Round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogues in May 2012 that“we are now in the second decade of the 21st century, and we need to advance with the times in our thinking, policies and actions. We should, through creative thinking and concrete steps, prove that the traditional belief that big powers are bound to enter into confrontation and conflicts is wrong, and seek new ways of developing relations between major countries in the ear of economic globalization.”Mr. Xi Jinping, in his address at the opening ceremony of the World Peace Forum in July 2012, said that China and the United States are actively exploring a new type of relations between major countries featuring mutual respect and win-win cooperation. This is in the shared interests of China, the United States and the world. It will be a pioneering effort in the history of international relations. China will continue to encourage all major countries to see each other’s strategic intentions objectively and rationally, respect each other’s interests and concerns, and strengthen coordination and cooperation on major international and regional issues, and strive to build a new type of major country relations and international relations in the 21st century.”It is very timely and necessary to raise and discuss the subject of building a new type of relations between major countries. This article attempts to make some elaborations on the historical background, necessities and challenges concerning the building of a new type of relations between major countries.

I.Historical Background in Which the Issue of Building a New Type of Relations between Major Countries Is Raised

Judging from the development over the past years and the current situation, the relations between China and the Untied States might slip to a danger of confrontational conflicts which was seen in the history between big powers, if no attention is given to and no efforts are made to reverse the trend.

First of all, the United States, out of its domestic consideration and in particular the need of its military industry development,tends to look for an imaginary enemy. Looking around the world and observing the rise and fall of the strength of major countries, China is seen by the United States as the most qualified imaginary enemy. When George W. Bush became the president in 2001, he named China as a potential adversary of the United States. The 9/11 incident forced the United States to focus on anti-terrorism so that it launched two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During this period of time, China has concentrated on its economic development and achieved remarkable progress in increasing its overall national strength.The United States, after ten years in the wars, was suddenly confronted with a rising China. When Barack Obama entered the White House, he put an end to Bush’s strategy and has made a series of responses to deal with a rising China. By that time, China seemed to be more qualified as an adversary of the United States: its development trend, its weight and its origins.China has shown the tendencies of surpassing Japan and overtaking the United States. In 2010, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. Accordance to general forecast, in the next decade or longer period of time,China will surpass the United States to become the world’s largest economy. Second is its weight. Although China’s per capita GDP is still very low and it ranked in 2010 behind the 90th place in the world, and its science and technology and military strength are not on a par with the United States, yet China’s weight makes it qualified as a rival for the United States. The third is its origins. China and the United States are completely different in terms of their cultures, histories and social systems.The United States asserted that if a country wants to achieve its economic development, it has to implement political freedom in addition to free market economy. China is bound to give up its political system and adopt Western system when its economy grows to a certain stage. However, the successful hosting of the Olympic Games by China in 2008 was regarded by the West as the success of“China model,”thus constituting a challenge to the United States.

From the perspective of the United States, China’s development trend, its weight as well as its political and social model pose comprehensive challenges to the United States. In the past these challenges were potential, now the challenges are realistic. While America was bogged down in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, China enjoyed ever-increasing influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Major countries in the region including ASEAN and Japan rely on China for their economic development. Take the trade for example, in 2000, the bilateral trade between the United States and ASEAN accounted for 16% of ASEAN’s total trade volume, and ASEAN’s trade with China accounted for only 4% of that of ASEAN. However, by 2010, ASEAN’s trade with China rose to over 11%, and trade with the United States dropped to 9%. The political attitudes of the countries in the region have also turned in favor of China.Former Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama was a case in point which shocked the United States. He put forward a proposal of establishing the East Asia Community with no participation of the United States. Washington was astonished to see that even a prime minister from a reliable ally would dare to put forward such a proposal. The United States found itself in a danger of being marginalized in the Asia-Pacific region because it had been obsessed with the wars and anti-terrorism operations in the past decade. China does not pose a challenge to the United States in the global context. In the Asia-Pacific region, China and the United States share convergence of common interests while competing for diversified interests. The relations between the two countries are a complex combination of both cooperation and competition. It is because of the rapid rise of China as well as American cognition of China’s rapid rise, that have made it possible for the two countries to become rivals.

Secondly, the strategic mistrust between China and the United States becomes prominent. In the process of its modernizations,China has made efforts to achieve its economic modernization which is followed by the modernization of national defense. Thirty years’economic modernization has achieved great progress, and it is now able to address the delayed modernization of national defense. In recent years, we have seen major steps taken by China in its defense modernization. Since 2011, China has dealt with challenges on the South China Sea issue steadily and safeguarded its legitimate rights and interests actively.However, Washington takes it as“the Chinese version of the Monroe Doctrine,”the aim of it is to push the United States out of the Western Pacific. The United States makes a big fuss over it by inciting some countries to confront China and by taking counter measures. In the economic field, the United States invites all the Asia-Pacific countries except China to participate in the U.S.-led“Tran-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement”(TPP), with the purpose of establishing a U.S.-led free trade area in the region. In the political field, America tries to multilateralize and internationalize the South China Sea issue. It takes the lead to raise the South China Sea issue at various ASEAN-sponsored meetings, and incites ASEAN,Japan, India and others to fall out with China by making an issue of“freedom of navigation.”Militarily speaking, the United States stations more troops in Darwin port, Australia, conducts joint military exercises with countries in the region and seeks to establish anti-missile system in the Asia-Pacific region.Recently, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made three trips around China, with the last leg of visiting China. The words and deeds during her visits deepened China’s suspicions over American strategic intention in the region. Undoubtedly,the United States worries that a stronger China will challenge its global superpower position, while China suspects that the United States attempts to prevent China’s peaceful rise. The strategic mistrust between the two countries was raised to a new height, which was called by the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai as“trust deficit.”Such a strategic mistrust might evolve into a danger of strategic confrontation.

Finally, the U.S. tactic containment against China increases the danger of military conflicts. In order to contain China’s rising influence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States adopts“smart power”to make up the deficiency of its own strength,and takes a series of tactic tricks to reverse its unfavorable strategic posture. Since 2012, the Philippines and Japan have contested against China respectively over the sovereignty of the Huangyan Islands and the Diaoyu Islands. While pretending to take ambiguous positions by claiming not to take sides on issues concerning territorial disputes, Washington has taken a series of“petty tricks”in support of the Philippines and Japan.When China and the Philippines are in sharp confrontations over the Huangyan Islands, the United States conducted military exercises named“shoulder to shoulder”with the Philippines.When the Diaoyu Islands issue becomes a hot issue, the United States and Japan conducted exercises of“beach occupation,”and the Osprey transport aircrafts landed in Japan. Although the United States claimed not to take sides, and“declared”all military exercises conducted were not targeted against China,the Philippines and Japan do feel that they have the United States at their back. Here comes a question: With the support and connivance of the United States, whether the friction between China and these two countries will evolve into military clashes, and further drag the United States and China into military conflicts which they intend to avoid?

From 2012 to around 2024, it will be the most dangerous years for the relations between China and the United States. If handled improperly, China and the United States might have clashes, even military clashes. During this period of time, with the rising of mutual strategic suspicion, the two countries will take each other as imaginary enemies in their respective strategic planning, and any provocations by smaller countries might drag China and the United States into a military conflict. After this period of time, both China and the United States will have a“new”discovery: the United States will find that although China takes the place of the United States as the biggest economy in the world, the United States still enjoys its leading position in terms of overall national strength; that the United States does not have to worry about the loss of its superiority since China has neither the capacity nor political intention to challenge American superiority. China will find that the United States fails to contain China’s peaceful rise, because the United States can not realize its containment of China by forming an alliance in the era of globalization. The Sino-U.S. relations will come to a fresh stage of good interactions through a re-recognition of each other and repositioning of the bilateral relations.

II.The Possibility of Building a New Type of Relations between Major Countries

Economic ties, policy orientation and consultation mechanisms,make it possible for China and the United States to build a new type of relations.

Firstly, economic ties between the two countries serve as the foundation. President Hu Jintao said in the CPC’s 17th Party Congress report that“historical changes have occurred in the relations between contemporary China and the rest of the world,resulting in ever closer interconnection between China’s future and destiny and those of the world….China can not develop in isolation from the rest of the world, nor can the world enjoy prosperity and stability without China.”In the case of the Sino-U.S. relations, the mutual interdependence between the two countries has reached an unprecedented level never seen in the relations between major countries, and the two countries prosper together and suffer together. When Chinese President Hu Jintao talked about“seeking to develop relations between major countries in the era of economic globalization,”he clearly pointed out the unique historical background in which a new type of relations between major countries is built. In the era of economic globalization, given the economic interdependence between China and the United States, both sides have their own weaknesses, and it is difficult to hurt the other side without undermining its own interests. For the United States, US$3 trillion foreign exchange reserves held by China is its Achilles’heel. And for China, the safety of sea lanes is its great concern.China’s economic development relies on strategic resources such as oil, natural gas, coal and iron ore, which have to be transported via the sea lanes from the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and its exports of finished products go the same sea lanes to major markets in Europe and America. A U.S. Navy commander once said that when the two countries become hostile to each other, the United States, without resorting to force, can give a fatal blow to China by cutting off its maritime lifeline. In this sense, there also exists a mutual assured destruction (MAD) between China and the United States,meaning that each could put the other side into difficulty by economic means rather than military means. On the positive side, the two countries can have win-win cooperation if their relations are dealt with properly, that is to say, their economic interdependence can serve as a foundation for avoiding the Thucydides Trap.

Secondly, policy orientation is critical. There are several rounds of policy orientation between China and the United States. All of them pinpointed that the two sides can not take the old path of confrontation. China has repeated that it has neither political will nor capability to compete with the United States for global supremacy. The United States has also repeated that it welcomes a stable, strong and prosperous China, and it has no intention to contain China’s peaceful rise. In his visit to the United States in 2011, President Hu Jintao highlighted the re-positioning of the relations between the two countries.At present and in the foreseeable future, China and the United States have no conflicts in their respective global strategies,however their respective interests in the Asia-Pacific region determine the two countries will have both competition and cooperation in the region. Most probably the two countries will have clashes of interests and conflicts in the area of regional security since there is ongoing process of economic integration but with no process of security integration. Against such a backdrop, both sides stressed that China welcomes the United States to play a constructive role in the Asia-Pacific region, and that the United States respects the legitimate interests of China in the Asia-Pacific region. Both countries are confronted with a series of challenges such as the Korean nuclear issue in the region, and the two countries should make joint efforts to cope with these challenges. After President Hu Jintao initiated the proposal of establishing a new type of relations between major countries, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made friendly response. She said that the United States is committed to transcend differences, strengthen cooperation and address global issues and challenges together with China so as to prove in an unprecedented way that an established power and a rising power can continue to create a better future for their respective peoples and contribute to world peace and stability. It shows clearly that leaders of both countries realize that, if China and the United States become hostile to each other or even go to war, the first victims will be their people, and then the people in the rest of the world. Judging from the current circumstance,statesmen from both countries are fully aware of the danger of a deteriorating relationship and intend to manage competition so as to prevent confrontation.

Thirdly, there exist high-level consultation mechanisms on wide range of issues.“China-U.S. economic and strategic dialogue,”which has already had four rounds of talks, serves as a shock absorber as well as a stabilizer in the bilateral relations.If this mechanism is used properly, the two countries can, as Vice President Xi Jinping put it,“transcend differences, resolve conflicts, manage crisis”and“seek mutual understanding,seek common ground while dissolving differences and live in harmony.”The strategic suspicions between the two countries at present reached an unprecedented level. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised seven questions concerning China’s strategic intentions. The Chinese side responded through the media in the article“Seven Questions to the America’s China Strategy.”Thanks to the existence of economic and strategic dialogue and other consultation mechanisms, the two countries can talk to each other directly and work out ways to expand their common ground and narrow down their differences.

The economic ties, policy orientation and consultation mechanism make it possible for people to have cautious optimism to the development of Sino-U.S. relations. There is a hope that the two countries will avoid historical precedents and establish a new type of relations between major countries.

III.Challenges in the Establishment of a New Type of Relations between Major Countries

China and the United States are confronted with a series of risks and challenges in building a new type of relations between major countries.

First, the two countries may have frictions and conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region although they have no global confrontation. Economic integration in the Asia-Pacific is not yet institutionalized, the political and security integration still lag behind, and there is no collective security system similar to those in Europe and Latin America. On the positive side,the absence of confrontational military blocs in the region gives opportunity for China and the United States to jointly build an Asia-Pacific collective security system. On the negative side, the United States, with the rising Cold-War mentality, works hard to strengthen existing military alliance and tries to establish new allied relations. Making use of concerns and inadaptability by some countries in the region to the rapid development of China, Washington advocates“China threat”and balance China’s increasing influence by a high-profile strategy of“pivoting to Asia.”To some extent, the U.S. strategy as such has met the aspiration of some countries in the region, and helped create a situation in which they“rely on China economically and depend on the United States in security.”The United States takes big steps to consolidate its military alliance with Japan and Australia, woo India actively and make efforts to develop U.S.-Japan-ROK alliance by turning bilateral military alliance into trilateral military alliance. In addition, an increasing number of joint military exercises have been conducted such as“U.S.-Japan plus Australia,”“U.S.-Japan plus India”and“U.S.-Japan plus another Asian country”etc. People could see clearly that when drawing support from outside forces, the United States takes Japan as the major supporter in its eastward shifting strategy. Washington pushes Japan to play a leading role in the Asia-Pacific region so as to make up for its own insufficient strength. Japan is by no means a passive player: it relies on the United States to realize its dream of becoming a major country. It is because of this that there is a possibility the Asia-Pacific region might have an arms race and military confrontation.

Joint efforts should be made to discard completely the Cold-War mentality and zerosum game, and explore a positive model for peaceful coexistence,benign competition and win-win cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Actions taken by the United States, although not aimed at containing China’s peaceful rise in a comprehensive way, serve the purpose of squeezing China’s diplomatic, economic and strategic space in the region and consolidating and boosting American hegemony in the region. Under such a circumstance,some people in China advocate abandoning non-alliance policy and instead forming alliance with Russia against the United States. Of course such a view is not a mainstream one in the academic circle and even less in the government. Yet it is the voice first heard of since President Nixon shook hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai four decades ago. Such a phenomenon merits attention by both sides. Owning to the lack of regional security mechanism and the existence of America’s Cold-War mentality, the possibility of a confrontation between China and the United States on security issues cannot be ignored.

The second is the disputes concerning the South China Sea issue. The United States makes use of the disputes on the South China Sea issue to stir up troubles among ASEAN countries and China, and incite certain countries which have disputes with China over islands and territorial waters in the South China Sea to challenge China. The United States keeps sending wrong messages to the countries concerned on the South China Sea issue, emboldens these countries to misread American stance,and continue to provoke China, thus intensifying the conflicts and even leading to the danger of clashes. The United States might find itself involved in an unwanted war if it indulges in empty talk of not containing China while does nothing to warn clearly the countries concerned not to provoke or confront China.

The third is the Taiwan issue. The Taiwan issue concerns China’s reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.It is the most important core interests of China, and it is a crucial issue affecting ups and downs of the Sino-U.S. relations. In the bilateral high-level talks, Washington expresses willingness to respect China’s core interests and adhere to the“one China policy”elaborated in the three Joint Communiqués. However, it has in fact pursued a double-dealing policy. On the one hand, the United States says it does not support“Taiwan independence,”it concerns that the cross-strait situation might be aggravated by Taiwan’s openly-declared“independence”and America will be put in a dilemma. On the other hand, it continues its arms sales to Taiwan and does everything possible to contain the fast improvement of cross-strait relations. The United States is the biggest external obstacle to China’s peaceful reunification.As long as the United States persistently regards Taiwan as its“unsinkable aircraft carrier,”the possibility of clashes between China and the United States cannot be ruled out in case of unexpected changes in the cross-strait situations.

IV.Guiding Principles for Establishing a New Type of Relations between Major Countries

So far, there is no established path for major countries to build a new type of relations. Mr. Deng Xiaoping once said to cross the river by feeling the stones under the water. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that“to open the road wherever this is a mountain and build a bridge wherever there is a river.”And when Vice President Xi Jinping visited the United States,he quoted a Chinese saying that“you wonder where the road is. The road is under your feet.”We should explore ways to establish a new type of relations in above-mentioned spirits. In order to achieve this goal, China and the United States should take actions as follows:

1. To deepen interdependence and achieve win-win cooperation

Interdependence is the basis for building a new type of relations between two major countries of China and the United States in the era of globalization. China and the United States should move towards each other, join hands in opposition to trade and investment protectionism, and design together a blueprint for their win-win cooperation. What should be done now in particular is that the United States should relax its restrictions on high-tech exports to China, and China should further improve protection system of intellectual property rights, so that the bilateral economic and trade relations can be expanded. The two sides, through consultations, can work out a list of parallel actions (action for action) for the expansion of economic and trade cooperation. At the same time, more cooperation can be carried out in the fields of green economy,bio-engineering and other emerging industries. The two countries should join hands in their concerted efforts to provide more public goods for economic and science-and-technology progress of the mankind.

2. To refrain from treating the other as adversary and seek peaceful coexistence

The strategic positioning of both China and the United States towards each other is the key to the building of a new type of relations between China and the United States. The two sides should view the other’s development orientation and strategic intention in a rational and objective way. The two countries should expand their cooperation, manage competition and create a virtuous circle in which mutual trusts generate cooperation and cooperation enhances mutual trusts. The building of a new type of relations between China and the United States should be commenced from the Asia-Pacific region, and whether the two countries will be able to establish a new type of relations depends on the Asia-Pacific region as well. To some extent,their respective Asia-Pacific policies are mutually shaped. If one country treats the other country sincerely as a partner, then it will reap a partner. Both sides should make joint efforts to discard completely the Cold-War mentality and zero-sum game,and explore a positive model for peaceful coexistence, benign competition and win-win cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

China and the United States expressed at the highest level their views to welcome the United States to play a constructive role in the Asia-Pacific region and to respect the legitimate interests of China in the Asia-Pacific region. To put these principles into practice, and confirm and expand the inclusiveness to the other’s actions, this will not only ensure a successful establishment of a new type of relations between China and the United States, but also contribute significantly the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

(3) To treat each other as equals and seek common ground while dissolving differences

The Sino-U.S. relations are very complex since the two countries have both convergence of common interests and clashes of different interests. The old problems left over by the history and newly cropped-up problems have to be solved through candid and serious communication and consultation on an equal footing. Now it is imperative to make the best use of the existing consultation mechanism. At the moment,the effectiveness of the current consultation mechanism has been questioned from both sides. These voices, though not representing the mainstream, should be watched closely.During the consultations, the two sides should elaborate frankly their respective interests and concerns, list their respective misgivings and suspicions, and make a detailed explanation and assurance to the other side. Based on this, the two sides should seek and enlarge the convergence of the common interests in a cooperative and inclusive spirit, reach consensus,sign documents and put them into practice. For those issues which the two sides fail to reach consensus or accommodate each other, a control mechanism for managing crises should be established to prevent small differences from becoming largescale confrontation.