MCLC: report on US-China distrust

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: report on US-China distrust
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (4/2/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/asia/chinese-insider-offers-rare-gl
impse-of-us-china-frictions.html

Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions
By JANE PERLEZ 

BO¹AO, China ‹ The senior leadership of the Chinese government
increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as
a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American
economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an
influential Chinese policy analyst.

China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time
believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even
disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China¹s becoming
the world¹s most powerful country, according to the analyst, Wang Jisi
<http://www.ciss.pku.edu.cn/EN/TeacherBaseInfo.aspx?id=175>, the co-author
of ³Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust
<http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2012/0330_us_china_lieberthal.aspx>,² a
monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brooki
ngs_institution/index.html?inline=nyt-org> in Washington and the Institute
for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

Mr. Wang, who has an insider¹s view of Chinese foreign policy from his
positions on advisory boards of the Chinese Communist Party and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributed an assessment of Chinese policy
toward the United States. Kenneth Lieberthal
<http://www.brookings.edu/experts/lieberthalk.aspx>, the director of the
John L. Thornton Center for China Studies
<http://www.brookings.edu/china.aspx>at Brookings, and a former member of
the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, wrote the
appraisal of Washington¹s attitude toward China.

In a joint conclusion, the authors say the level of strategic distrust
between the two countries has become so corrosive that if not corrected
the countries risk becoming open antagonists.

The United States is no longer seen as ³that awesome, nor is it
trustworthy, and its example to the world and admonitions to China should
therefore be much discounted,² Mr. Wang writes of the general view of
China¹s leadership.

In contrast, China has mounting self-confidence in its own economic and
military strides, particularly the closing power gap since the start of
the Iraq war. In 2003, he argues, America¹s gross domestic product was
eight times as large as China¹s, but today it is less than three times
larger.

The candid writing by Mr. Wang is striking because of his influence and
access, in Washington as well as in Beijing. Mr. Wang, who is dean of
Peking University <http://english.pku.edu.cn/AboutPKU/>¹s School of
International Studies and a guest professor at the National Defense
University of the People¹s Liberation Army, has wide access to senior
American policy makers, making him an unusual repository of information
about the thinking in both countries. Mr. Wang said he did not seek
approval from the Chinese government to write the study, nor did he
consult the government about it.

It is fairly rare for a Chinese analyst who is not part of the strident
nationalistic drumbeat to strip away the official talk by both the United
States and China about mutual cooperation.

Both Mr. Wang and Mr. Lieberthal argue that beneath the surface, both
countries see deep dangers and threatening motivations in the policies of
the other.

Mr. Wang writes that the Chinese leadership, backed by the domestic news
media and the education system, believes that China¹s turn in the world
has arrived, and that it is the United States that is ³on the wrong side
of history.² The period of ³keeping a low profile,² a dictum coined by the
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989, and continued until now by the
departing president, Hu Jintao, is over, Mr. Wang warns.

³It is now a question of how many years, rather than how many decades,
before China replaces the United States as the largest economy in the
world,² he adds.

China¹s financial successes, starting with weathering the 1998 Asian
financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, the execution of
events like the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai Expo in 2010,
contrast with America¹s ³alarming² deficit, sluggish economic recovery and
polarized domestic politics, Mr. Wang says.

He does not address head on the far superior strength of the United States
in military weaponry. But he notes that Beijing has developed advanced
rocketry and space technology and sophisticated weapons systems without
the ³United States or the U.S.-led world order.²

In the face of China¹s strengths, and worries that the United States will
be displaced from its premier position in the world, Washington is engaged
in activities including stepped-up spying by American planes and ships
along China¹s borders that anger the Chinese, particularly its military,
Mr. Wang writes.

Promotion of human rights in China by American-supported nongovernmental
organizations is viewed as an effort to ³Westernize² the country and
undermine the Communist Party, a stance the party will not stand for, he
says.

That China is increasingly confident that it will prevail in the long run
against the United States is backed, in part, by Mr. Lieberthal¹s
appraisal of American policy toward China.

Mr. Lieberthal cites findings from American intelligence based on internal
discussions among crucial Chinese officials that these officials assume
³very much a zero-sum approach² when discussing issues directly and
indirectly related to United States-China relations.

Because these are privileged communications not intended for public
consumption, American officials interpret them to be ³particularly
revealing of China¹s Œreal¹ objectives,² he writes.

In turn, American law enforcement officials see an alarming increase in
Chinese counterespionage and cyberattacks against the United States that
they have concluded are directed by the Chinese authorities to gather
information of national interest.

At a seminar last week at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Brookings
finances a study center, Mr. Lieberthal said there was an increasing
belief on both sides that the two countries would be ³antagonistic in 15
years.²

That would mean major military expenditures by both countries to deter
each other, and pushing other countries to take sides. ³The worst case is
that this could lead to actual armed conflict, although that is by no
means a necessary consequence of mutual antagonism,² Mr. Lieberthal said
in an interview.