MCLC: how China can defeat America

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: how China can defeat America
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Source: NYT (11/20/11):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/how-china-can-defeat-america.html

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
How China Can Defeat America
By YAN XUETONG

WITH China¹s growing influence over the global economy, and its increasing
ability to project military power, competition between the United States
and China is inevitable. Leaders of both countries assert optimistically
that the competition can be managed without clashes that threaten the
global order.

Most academic analysts are not so sanguine. If history is any guide,
China¹s rise does indeed pose a challenge to America. Rising powers seek
to gain more authority in the global system, and declining powers rarely
go down without a fight. And given the differences between the Chinese and
American political systems, pessimists might believe that there is an even
higher likelihood of war.

I am a political realist. Western analysts have labeled my political views
³hawkish,² and the truth is that I have never overvalued the importance of
morality in international relations. But realism does not mean that
politicians should be concerned only with military and economic might. In
fact, morality can play a key role in shaping international competition
between political powers ‹ and separating the winners from the losers.

I came to this conclusion from studying ancient Chinese political
theorists like Guanzi, Confucius, Xunzi and Mencius. They were writing in
the pre-Qin period, before China was unified as an empire more than 2,000
years ago ‹ a world in which small countries were competing ruthlessly for
territorial advantage.

It was perhaps the greatest period for Chinese thought, and several
schools competed for ideological supremacy and political influence. They
converged on one crucial insight: The key to international influence was
political power, and the central attribute of political power was morally
informed leadership. Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms
whenever possible tended to win the race for leadership over the long term.

China was unified by the ruthless king of Qin in 221 B.C., but his
short-lived rule was not nearly as successful as that of Emperor Wu of the
Han dynasty, who drew on a mixture of legalistic realism and Confucian
³soft power² to rule the country for over 50 years, from 140 B.C. until 86
B.C.

According to the ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi, there were three types
of leadership: humane authority, hegemony and tyranny. Humane authority
won the hearts and minds of the people at home and abroad. Tyranny ‹ based
on military force ‹ inevitably created enemies. Hegemonic powers lay in
between: they did not cheat the people at home or cheat allies abroad. But
they were frequently indifferent to moral concerns and often used violence
against non-allies. The philosophers generally agreed that humane
authority would win in any competition with hegemony or tyranny.

Such theories may seem far removed from our own day, but there are
striking parallels. Indeed, Henry Kissinger once told me that he believed
that ancient Chinese thought was more likely than any foreign ideology to
become the dominant intellectual force behind Chinese foreign policy.

The fragmentation of the pre-Qin era resembles the global divisions of our
times, and the prescriptions provided by political theorists from that era
are directly relevant today ‹ namely that states relying on military or
economic power without concern for morally informed leadership are bound
to fail.

Unfortunately, such views are not so influential in this age of economic
determinism, even if governments often pay lip service to them. The
Chinese government claims that the political leadership of the Communist
Party is the basis of China¹s economic miracle, but it often acts as
though competition with the United States will be played out on the
economic field alone. And in America, politicians regularly attribute
progress, but never failure, to their own leadership.

Both governments must understand that political leadership, rather than
throwing money at problems, will determine who wins the race for global
supremacy.

Many people wrongly believe that China can improve its foreign relations
only by significantly increasing economic aid. But it¹s hard to buy
affection; such ³friendship² does not stand the test of difficult times.

How, then, can China win people¹s hearts across the world? According to
ancient Chinese philosophers, it must start at home. Humane authority
begins by creating a desirable model at home that inspires people abroad.

This means China must shift its priorities away from economic development
to establishing a harmonious society free of today¹s huge gaps between
rich and poor. It needs to replace money worship with traditional morality
and weed out political corruption in favor of social justice and fairness.

In other countries, China must display humane authority in order to
compete with the United States, which remains the world¹s pre-eminent
hegemonic power. Military strength underpins hegemony and helps to explain
why the United States has so many allies. President Obama has made
strategic mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, but his actions also
demonstrate that Washington is capable of leading three foreign wars
simultaneously. By contrast, China¹s army has not been involved in any war
since 1984, with Vietnam, and very few of its high-ranking officers, let
alone its soldiers, have any battlefield experience.

America enjoys much better relations with the rest of the world than China
in terms of both quantity and quality. America has more than 50 formal
military allies, while China has none. North Korea and Pakistan are only
quasi-allies of China. The former established a formal alliance with China
in 1961, but there have been no joint military maneuvers and no arms sales
for decades. China and Pakistan have substantial military cooperation, but
they have no formal military alliance binding them together.

To shape a friendly international environment for its rise, Beijing needs
to develop more high-quality diplomatic and military relationships than
Washington. No leading power is able to have friendly relations with every
country in the world, thus the core of competition between China and the
United States will be to see who has more high-quality friends. And in
order to achieve that goal, China has to provide higher-quality moral
leadership than the United States.

China must also recognize that it is a rising power and assume the
responsibilities that come with that status. For example, when it comes to
providing protection for weaker powers, as the United States has done in
Europe and the Persian Gulf, China needs to create additional regional
security arrangements with surrounding countries according to the model of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ‹ a regional forum that includes
China, Russia and several central Asian countries.

And politically, China should draw on its tradition of meritocracy. Top
government officials should be chosen according to their virtue and
wisdom, and not simply technical and administrative ability. China should
also open up and choose officials from across the world who meet its
standards, so as to improve its governance.

The Tang dynasty ‹ which lasted from the 7th century to the 10th and was
perhaps China¹s most glorious period ‹ employed a great number of
foreigners as high-ranking officials. China should do the same today and
compete with America to attract talented immigrants.

OVER the next decade, China¹s new leaders will be drawn from a generation
that experienced the hardships of the Cultural Revolution. They are
resolute and will most likely value political principles more than
material benefits. These leaders must play a larger role on the world
stage and offer more security protection and economic support to less
powerful countries.

This will mean competing with the United States politically, economically
and technologically. Such competition may cause diplomatic tensions, but
there is little danger of military clashes.

That¹s because future Chinese-American competition will differ from that
between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war.
Neither China nor America needs proxy wars to protect its strategic
interests or to gain access to natural resources and technology.

China¹s quest to enhance its world leadership status and America¹s effort
to maintain its present position is a zero-sum game. It is the battle for
people¹s hearts and minds that will determine who eventually prevails.
And, as China¹s ancient philosophers predicted, the country that displays
more humane authority will win.

Yan Xuetong, the author of ³Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese
Power,² is a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of
Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University. This essay was
translated by Zhaowen Wu and David Liu from the Chinese.