To many in the West, China seems to have gone from a country that “keeps a cool head and maintains a low profile” in Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) formulation, to one that loves a good international bust-up. Putting an Australian mining executive behind bars for 10 years, squeezing out Google, keeping the EU at bay for an important dialogue and letting a mid-level official wag his finger at US President Barack Obama at the Copenhagen Climate summit is not, after all, the best way to convince partners of your constructive intentions.
Nor is it reassuring to recall that China has been stubbornly watering down sanctions on Iran, investing in major offensive military systems and pillorying Western leaders for irresponsible financial policies and protectionism.
However, the point in reciting this litany is not so much to highlight China’s behavior as it is to demonstrate the dilemma in which it finds itself: If it behaves like a “normal” power, the world will forget the many hundreds of millions of people that it still needs to pull out of poverty.
The Chinese leadership is aware of this and is not eager to fiercely compete with the West or its neighbors. During the recent National People’s Congress, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said that China should not punch above its weight and that the country still needs stability if it is to be a society that offers a decent life to all of its citizens.
Recognizing this, China has stepped up its efforts to mend fences. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) visit to Washington was a clear attempt to de-escalate tensions with the US over its arms sales to Taiwan, the yuan’s exchange rate and Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama. China will likely go to great lengths to foster a more positive attitude among the dozens of EU leaders visiting this year’s World Expo in Shanghai.
At a lower level, China has also unleashed an impressive charm offensive. State broadcaster CCTV will launch a worldwide program to explain the Chinese position on global affairs. In the EU and US, one gets the impression that the mission of China’s diplomats nowadays is to meet and charm everyone. Hardly a week passes without its ambassadors giving eloquent speeches for different audiences. Indeed, in Brussels, events are organized for members of the EU Parliament, the business community and even high school students. Chinese diplomats now maintain closer relations with think tanks than their European counterparts and are praised for their constructive contribution to the public debate.
However, charm will not make up for lack of progress at the official level. It is unlikely that cajoling Western elites will mitigate the deep-seated uncertainty in the West about China’s rise. And economic stagnation in the West will inevitably exacerbate distrust vis-a-vis the rising power as the relative gains from trade diminish and defensive and even protectionist policies follow.
China needs a mature strategic dialogue, particularly with the EU. This will not rescue the partnership, but at least it could help define common interests, identify policy options and create the conditions to achieve results. One can have the most visible business summits possible, but if Western companies feel threatened by Chinese state-owned enterprises, relations will continue to sour. Roundtables can be staged to discuss the importance of relations between China and the West, but if issues like Iran, Africa, or other trouble spots are not managed better, China will inevitably be seen as a security threat.
Cultivating high expectations without progress could even be dangerous. In the short term, it would reduce the sense of urgency among decisionmakers to get serious about translating ambitions into deeds; long term, the growing expectation gap would aggravate the inevitable setbacks and leaders who championed closer relations could even be replaced by hardliners.
“The crash will come if things go on like this,” German chancellor Otto von Bismarck wrote in the 19th century. “We ought to do all we can to weaken the bad feeling, which has been called out through our growth to the position of a real great power. In order to produce this confidence, it is above all necessary that we are honorable, open, and easily reconciled in case of frictions.”
However, even Bismarck had to watch as distrust, economic nationalism and populism pulled the European powers into a downward spiral of trade wars and diplomatic rivalry.
History offers too many examples of partnerships collapsing for China and the West to take their relations for granted. For China, it will be hard to build confidence if the EU and US doubt their own future and Beijing will remain prickly as long as it fears protectionism or a new containment strategy. Neither side can talk its way out of this predicament. If Beijing is serious about building strategic partnerships with the West, it should back up its charm offensive with deeds and take the initiative in fostering more effective cooperation.
Jonathan Holslag is research fellow at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies.
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