The 21st Century China Syndrome

Prior to 9/11 China was high on the Bush Administration’s priorities, but Iraq has pretty much consumed the Bush presidency since then. Here’s what BBC News reported on the eve of Secretary Powell’s first visit to Beijing in July 2001:

Almost immediately he arrived in the White House President Bush began talking tough on China. President Clinton liked to refer to China as a strategic ‘partner’. President Bush changed that to strategic ‘competitor’.

In the six years of the Bush presidency, the U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned 180% from $83 billion in 2001 to $233 billion in 2006 per the Foreign Trade Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau.

In January 2007, the Associated Press reported that

“China's foreign exchange reserves, already the world's largest, have passed US$1 trillion,”

and

“economists believe about 70 percent is in U.S. Treasuries.”

Given these statistics it would seem on the surface that the Bush Administration has only managed to further solidify China’s role as a “strategic partner” to the United States. In fact, with the U.S. economy now so heavily dependent on China, President Bush – in the little time that he has left in his term – and future U.S. presidents are going to find it increasingly difficult to change the status quo with China without a paradigm shift in our China policy.

So I was not at all surprised when George Will expressed his very own skepticism in a recent column, “Real Change In China?” using James Mann’s book, “The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression,” as a reference. However, it is important for Americans to realize that Mr. Will's “regime change” sought by President Nixon’s policy of engagement with China has still to bear fruit after 35 years. By comparison our policy of containment of the Soviet Union and communism, initiated by President Truman after World War II, achieved its objective in 45 years.

Coincidentally, containment was also beginning to languish as an ineffective doctrine around its 35th anniversary until President Reagan took office in 1981. He then jump-started it with his “evil empire” offensive and the Soviet Union collapsed barely a decade later.

As mentioned earlier, President Bush has been overwhelmed by the “global war on terror” that he initiated under the auspices of his very own “Bush Doctrine.” Unfortunately, the magnitude and complexity of conducting this preemption policy has rendered him incapable of seriously revisiting our China engagement policy – which happens to be languishing, like its Soviet containment cousin did, in its 35th anniversary.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. economy continues to get more and more interminably entwined and dependent on China, cold turkey disengagement is hardly a viable option and “real change in China” slips further into oblivion. No matter how China performs in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it long ago won the gold medal for international statecraft.

Alas, we have already begun to witness the 21st century China Syndrome – in which China has already demonstrated its ability to launch a missile and destroy an orbiting satellite, to make and launch a satellite for Nigeria, and has also publicly announced its intention to land on the moon by 2010.

Thus, the strategic imperative for the United States is no longer in doubt – China has already morphed into a “worrisome competitor” – we must therefore redefine and pursue a more holistic relationship with this budding superpower, one that encompasses economic, foreign, and trade policies that are not only in sync with our core values, but also more cognizant of the 21st century China Syndrome.