"The U.S. and China: Enemies or Allies?" by Wallerstein

[Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University


http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm



                                   Comment No. 35, Mar. 1, 2000

                                 "The U.S. and China: Enemies or
Allies?"



The United States and China have had a tumultuous relationship in the
modern world. In the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the young U.S. republic launched an early and important China trade, and
U.S. Protestants sent their most competent
missionaries to preach the faith in China. Sun Yat-Sen studied in the
United States. And during the Second World War, the
U.S. was the principal outside military support for China in their
resistance to Japanese overrule. It was at U.S. insistence that
China was included as one of the five permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council in 1945.

But when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, the
friendship seemed to disappear. The U.S. threw its
protective fleet around Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang which had retreated
to Taiwan. And Chinese volunteers supported the
North Koreans in the war that began in 1950. In the United States, the
"China question" had begun: "Who lost China?" was the
theme of those Americans who actively urged military action against the
Communist regime. And in China, the United States
was termed the leading imperialist power in the world as well as a
"paper tiger." Cold war rhetoric between the U.S. and China
exceeded in decibels even U.S.-Soviet Union rhetoric.

Then things changed. China broke decisively its alliance with the Soviet
Union. The Chinese began to engage in "ping pong
diplomacy" with the United States. And suddenly, to the world's
surprise, there was Richard Nixon in China sipping tea with
Mao Zedong. Most commentators gave this a simple geopolitical
explanation. Both powers wished to outflank the Soviet
Union, which each regarded as the primary opponent, at least in the
short run. And it was of course only Nixon and Mao, with
their reputation as hardliners, that could have brought about such a
dramatic reversal of rhetoric.

What started as merely sipping tea together developed into a significant
change in the form and degree of participation of China
in the world-economy - ever greater, ever more open, ever more
profit-oriented. This is what the United States seemed to
want, and this is what China seemed to want. Neither Tienanmen nor the
collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to slow down the
pace of Chinese economic involvement in world trade or of improved
political relations with the United States - until a few years
ago. There was no single event that led to questioning this trajectory.
Still, once again there seemed to be voices on both sides
reviving the old rhetoric. The U.S. thought China was becoming too
threatening about Taiwan. China did not in the least
appreciate that the U.S. Air Force bombed its embassy in Belgrade. The
U.S. said it was an accident, but the Chinese
manifestly did not believe it.

I have discovered that many people are returning to their question of
more than a quarter century ago: will there be war between
the U.S. and China, and when? The very question seems to me to miss the
point of what is happening. Let us review the
putative "alliance" between the two powers that was begun in the 1970's.
It is certainly not based on formal ideological affinity.
Indeed, it involves sweeping under the carpet the official ideological
differences. The basis of the relationship has been primarily
economic, what each side as its economic interests of the next 20-30
years, if not longer.

What does the United States want of China? The primary economic problem
of the United States for the next 20-30 years is
how to maintain its central role as a locus of capital accumulation in a
"triadic" world-economy in which it is engaged in very
keen competition with western Europe and Japan. It will not be easy.
When we enter the next major expansion of the capitalist
world-economy (a new Kondratieff A-phase), it is by no means certain
that the U.S. will be able to corner more
quasi-monopolies of the new leading industries than its rivals. And
since a triadic competition usually reduces to a dyad, it is
possible to foresee a U.S.-Japan economic arrangement in opposition to
western Europe.

If this occurs, then this node will obviously need four things: an
enlarged zone of capital investment, an enlarged zone of
low-cost production, an enlarged consumer market for the new leading
industries, and supplementary military strength. China
offers all four in one fell swoop. It seems elementary that the U.S.
would therefore give priority to including China in some zonal
arrangement. This will be of course in Japan's interest as well, if not
ever more. But given Japan's legacy of Chinese resentment,
the U.S. must necessarily take the political lead in trying to bring
this about.

Now what are China's interests in the next 20-30 years? China has
learned from its history that it can only be respected in the
world if it is a unified state. The underlying political strength of the
Chinese Communist Party resides in the fact that it restored
such unification in 1949 after a long period of disintegration. Priority
number one for the Chinese leadership is thus simply
holding the country together. This explains both the firm political hand
internally and the emphasis the Chinese government
places on reintegrating Taiwan into the Chinese state. This also
explains the effort and expenditure they are putting into building
a powerful and modern armed forces. It is not that Beijing wishes to
expand its zone of sovereignty. Rather it wishes to expand
its zone of suzerainty, to revive an old expression long used in
accounts of Chinese empires.

The goal of political strength is pursued primarily in order to achieve
economic strength. The Chinese leadership understands
quite well how the capitalist world-economy works. They know that there
are different ways in which a weak economic zone
can be integrated into the commodity chains of the world-economy. The
Chinese can be peripheral exporters who keep very
little of the surplus-value they create. And this is precisely their
great fear about the future. Or they can put in place various
political mechanisms which will enable them to get and keep a larger
slice of the world economic pie. This is their middle-run
objective.

So what is the noise of the last few years, the renewed rattling of
swords, the heightened rhetoric of conflict? In a word, it is
bargaining. The United States wants China to "open up" more and thereby
be included in the World Trade Organization
(WTO). China wants to get into the WTO, but on terms that will protect
some of its nascent competitive industries. And this
debate on economic terms takes place in multiple arenas and under many
guises. Naval maneuvers in the China Sea or U.S.
congressmen berating the China's record on human rights may be seen as
part of the bargaining.

Observe two things. China clearly seeks to maintain and expand ties with
a number of middle-range powers around the world
that are seeking to improve their nuclear arsenal. This annoys the
United States, and China has been careful each time to go so
far, and no further, or better put, to go so fast, and no faster. It
fights U.S. resolutions in the Security Council, but in the end it
abstains and does not veto them. And on the other hand, look at the
current presidential race in the United States. As of now,
there are four serious candidates: Bush and McCain as the possible
Republican candidates, Gore and Bradley as the
Democratic. These four candidates seek to differentiate themselves from
each other. There is only one major geopolitical issue
on which there seems to be tacit agreement - maintaining the approach to
China that has been pursued by every U.S. president
from Nixon to Clinton.

So no war, only hard bargaining.

Immanuel Wallerstein

[These commentaries may be downloaded, forwarded electronically or
e-mailed to others, but may not be reproduced in any
print medium without permission of copyright holder
(iwaller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx).

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be
reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from
the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

____________________________________

Go to List of Commentaries

Go to Fernand Braudel Center Home page


--

Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222