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A Chinese military honor guard stands at attention in front of a mural depicting the Great Wall during a welcoming cereony for President Barack Obama in Beijing on November 17, 2009. Obama and President Hu Jintao of China met in a session that signaled the central role of China on the world stage and highlighted the different approaches that it and the United States are taking on urgent problems around the globe. Partners, Not Rivals Take, for example, global attitudes towards China’s rise. The Pew Global Attitudes Project reports that among the 18 countries surveyed in 2009 and 2011, the median percentage that believes China will or has already dethroned the United States as the leading superpower increased from 40 to 47 percent in those two years. This adversarial position assumes that the United States and China are in competition for leadership. Yet China perceives its own rise as occurring in a multipolar world. Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues in a 2009 paper, that “The vast majority [of Chinese scholars and experts maintain] that the prevailing international structure of power will not last; it eventually will give way to a multipolar era in which China and other emerging economies have an increasing say about issues of global importance.” Susan L. Craig, a scholar at the United States Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, issued a study in March 2007 that examined China’s perception of traditional and nontraditional security threats. In it, she contends that throughout history, China has viewed itself as exceptional from all other states precisely because of its long 26 SIPA NEWS
history of peace and anti-imperialism. As such, China behaves defensively and rarely, if ever, offensively. China does not appear to actively challenge the United States on contentious issues nor does it seem to have any desire to recreate a Cold War standoff. Rather, it has sought primarily to allay the negative influence of Western criticisms, such as attacks on its poor human rights records or accusations of currency manipulation. China’s criticism of Western media, for example, has focused not only on its inherent contradictions but has also emphasized that the West is flawed just like China and therefore not culturally or politically superior. When the U.S. debt deliberation nearly led to a government shutdown, China used the opportunity to point out the weaknesses of democracy. Niall Fergusson, a professor of history at Harvard University, reported in Newsweek that, viewed from China, the debate over the debt ceiling confirmed that “Western democracy is a form of institutionalized chaos to be avoided by all sane Asians.” Daily Beast reporter Isaac Stone Fish followed the Chinese media’s critique of the Rupert Murdoch wiretapping scandal in the summer of 2011. The Chinese press agency Xinhua ran an article chastising the West for unethical reporting. The Shanghai Communist Party newspaper Liberation Daily questioned whether, in fact, a free press was such a prized and universal goal. The People’s Daily, considered the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, took it further by saying, “Western media doesn’t care about social morality.” Fish also spoke with Michael Anti, a Chinese media commentator, who warned that when Western media slams Chinese media for bogus reporting or propaganda, an average Chinese reader may now think, “Well, Western media is also very rotten.” This view is not exclusive to residents of China. A 2006 article by Li He in Asian Perspectives reveals that Chinese students studying in the West (liuxuesheng), who were exposed to Western media’s views on China, did not significantly alter their opinions about their homeland. A large number of the returnees Li interviewed believe that though Western democracy is good, it is not appropriate for China today. While political reform is necessary within the Communist Party, the returnees advocated for greater efficiency and rule of law rather than democratization. A group known as the “New Left,” comprising leading academics, most of whom are returned liuxuesheng, has also emerged in China to voice its disenchantment with the West. Li writes, “They are challenging China’s unique system of state-controlled capitalism with a simple message: What they call China’s failed 20th-century experiment with communism cannot be undone in the 21st century by embracing a 19th-century style of laissez-faire capitalism.” Friend, Foe, or Just Trying to Grow? Those who view China’s rise as a threat—mostly in the West—emphasize China’s rapid military buildup. Top U.S. defense officials released a report in August 2011 cataloguing China’s impressive military expenditures. While Pentagon officials expressed concerns about China’s military intentions in the Pacific, Michael Schiffer, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said that there was no particular increase that led him to describe China’s overall arms buildup as “potentially destabilizing.” Schiffer instead accused China of being opaque about its military intentions. Even if Schiffer is correct, the United States responded in November 2011 by announcing a decision to deploy 2,500 marines to Australia. It seems U.S. officials share the view, as Glaser argues, that “If Beijing were to perceive the U.S. position as weakening, there could be fewer inhibitions for China to avoid challenging the United States where American and Chinese interests diverge.” However, U.S. officials and scholars like Glaser overlook China’s perceived threats in the Pacific and thus dismiss China’s arms buildup as a defensive tactic. Despite spats with Japan and China over the South China Sea, China’s threat has been economic, not military. During a nine-day visit to China in November 2011, President Obama praised Beijing for its cooperation on South China Sea disputes. While it is difficult to assess whether China’s military spending is defensive in nature—it becomes an impossible question of who started what— China’s definition of its own borders is another example of how China perceives itself as nonimperialistic and benign. China sees its claims over Tibet and Taiwan as a question of national unity, which Craig attributes to China’s colonization by the West in the 19th century. She cites a speech given by Lieutenant General Li Jijun of the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army at the U.S. Army War College in 1997, in which he points to a “unifying consciousness” in China, committed to “maintaining the unity of the country and its territorial integrity and sovereignty.” Craig ascribes China’s distaste for interventionism and its insistence on respecting national integrity to that period of colonization, known in China as a “century of humiliation.” China may view itself as a friendly giant, while others question whether it is just a guise. After 5,000 years of uninterrupted civilization and impressive cultural continuity, it is not unlikely that China still sees itself as wielding a firecracker, not a gun. But even at 5,000 years of age, China has not fully matured as a modern nation. It remains to be seen whether China will upgrade from firecracker to firepower as it tries to figure itself out. Rebecca Chao, SIPA News coeditor, is a second-year MIA candidate concentrating in International Security Policy and specializing in media. She is currently the features editor of the Journal of International Affairs and also writes for Asia Society. SIPA NEWS 27
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