December 11, 2014
China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies
I wish to begin by thanking the China Foundation for
International and Strategic Studies for inviting me to this
Conference.
The United States and China bear preeminent responsibilities
to promote international stability, prosperity and peace – in
Asia and across the globe. This means in the first instance
doing everything possible to avoid a crisis in U.S.-China
relations. Despite the feel-good atmospherics of the November
Obama-Xi Summit in Beijing, I worry that both sides may be on
a downward path to such a confrontation. This would produce
nothing less than a prolonged international convulsion, with
consequential and damaging effects in Asia and around the
world.
For example, take into account the negative consequences for
each country’s formidable domestic challenges if the U.S. and
PRC seriously mismanage their relationship. Imagine the
tumultuous effects on the global economy. Consider the
dramatic increase in tension throughout Asia and the fact that
no country in this vast region wants to have to choose between
China and the United States. Envision the corrosive impact on
U.S.-China collaboration on climate change. Picture the fallout
on attempts to deal with the nuclear weapons programs of
North Korea and Iran.
In this context, let me state what I believe is the fundamental
problem in U.S.-China relations. It concerns the balance of
power in Asia. As Henry Kissinger has put it, “In the end, peace
can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.”
Because of profound differences in history, ideology, strategic
culture, and domestic politics, the United States and China have
diametrically opposed and mutually incompatible perceptions
regarding the future balance of power in Asia – in short, the
two countries have conflicting grand strategies.
Although both sides will deny it publicly, the main thrust of U.S.
policy is to maintain its strategic primacy in Asia, and the main
thrust of China’s policy is to replace the United States as Asia’s
leading power. There are those in each country who disagree
with these trends, but they are in a distinct minority in both
nations. This being the case, until one side or the other, or
both, change grand strategy which I do not foresee happening
anytime soon, there is no prospect of building fundamental
trust not to say a strategic partnership between the United
States and China. The agreements of the recent Beijing Summit
on climate, military confidence building measures, investment
facilitation, high-tech cooperation and visa conveniences do
not affect that deeply rooted and potentially dangerous
strategic reality.
Rather, the most that can be hoped for by the two governments
in the period ahead is caution, restrained predictability, and
adherence to signed bilateral agreements, and even that will be
no easy task to achieve in the next decade.
With this in mind, the U.S.-China discourse should be more
candid, high level, and private than current practice – no rows
of officials principally trading sermons across the table in
Washington or Beijing. Bureaucracies wish to do today what
they did yesterday, and wish to do tomorrow what they did
today. It is, therefore, inevitable that representatives from
Beijing and Washington routinely mount bills of indictment
regarding the other side. All are familiar with these calcified
and endlessly repeated talking points. As the Chinese proverb
puts it, “to talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as
climbing a tree to catch a fish.”
For such an intensified high-level bilateral dialogue between
Washington and Beijing to be fruitful, it should avoid
concentrating primarily on the alleged negative behavior of the
other side. For instance, no amount of American
condemnation of China’s human rights practices, including
regarding Hong Kong – private or by megaphone – will in my
judgment affect PRC policies; and no degree of Chinese
complaints will lead the United States to weaken its alliance
systems which are indispensible to the protection of its vital
national interests. Endemic contention will over time
contribute to a systemic worsening of U.S.-China bilateral
relations with all the destructed consequences I enumerated
earlier.
So what to do? The two sides should commit themselves to
working together on two or three issues that would make a
positive contribution to bilateral ties and to international
peace and security. After the recent U.S.-China Summit in
Beijing, Asian security would be good subject with which to
begin. For example, subjects for joint exploration could include
the possibility of creating a variety of OSCE for Asia; and/or
expanding the Five Power talks on North Korea to include 4
broader Asian security issues; and/or agreeing on enhanced
security confidence building measures between the two sides.
To inspire fresh thinking and creative policy initiatives, it
might be best if the senior policy makers who would take the
lead in these talks were not in the direct national security chain
of command. My bipartisan candidates for such a U.S. team
would be Thomas Donilon, former Obama National Security
Advisor, and Robert Zoellick, former World Bank President and
George W. Bush administration policy maker. The Chinese side
would have similar credentials and all these individuals would,
of course, have to have the confidence of their respective
leaders. Such a channel would simply recognize the reality
that the two countries’ strategic policies are being designed not
by foreign and defense ministries, but instead by those close to
each president and by the presidents themselves; and that the
current means of bilateral interaction are not adequate to the
task.
The purpose of this intense presidential diplomacy in these
dangerous circumstances would be to mitigate and manage the
severe inherent tensions between these two conflicting
strategic paradigms, but it cannot hope to eliminate them. I
agree with former Australian Prime Minister and distinguished
Sinologist Kevin Rudd who believes that China has come to the
same conclusion, “There is emerging evidence to suggest that
President Xi, now two years into his term, has begun to
conclude that the long term strategic divergences between U.S.
and Chinese interests make it impossible to bring about any
fundamental change in the relationship.”
So let me sum up. In my view, given the irreconcilable grand
strategies of the United States and China, the current quality of
bilateral diplomacy is insufficient to avoid the danger of an
eventual sustained confrontation between the two countries,
even though neither Washington nor Beijing want such a crisis.
Only the two presidents can address this problem by creating a
new, intense and utterly private channel of communication
between them. They should urgently do so.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions
and your comments.
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