US-China Relations after 911

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Article from Asia Times

China, US and the new world order
By Francesco Sisci

The day after the attacks on the United States, China's President Jiang
Zemin called his American counterpart George W Bush and pledged support
for the US anti-terrorist campaign. The next day, the official Xinhua
news agency reported the story and the official Chinese-language China
Daily carried an editorial with the title "Serious threat to world peace
and civilization".

"The international community was shocked at what happened in the United
States on Tuesday, when a series of terrorist attacks resulted in the
destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, causing devastating
casualties and suffering to large numbers of people. The government and
people of China have joined others around the world in expressing
condolences to the victims and condemnation of such barbarous acts," the
paper said.

On September 12, a group of Chinese journalists, invited to the US,
cheered the attack on the World Trade Center and were soon sent back
home. On the 13th, China banned anti-American postings on the Internet
and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen assured Secretary of State Colin
Powell of Beijing's cooperation in fighting terrorism. On September 14,
the official Xinhua news agency said Qian had promised "enhanced
cooperation" with Washington although he gave no clues on how China
might help.

"We have constantly opposed any kind of terrorism and we believe that
the fight against terrorism needs cooperation of the international
community," Xinhua quoted Qian as telling Powell by phone on Thursday
night. "The Security Council of the United Nations unanimously adopted a
resolution condemning terrorism and we are willing to, together with the
US side, enhance cooperation in this field."

Then, at the end of the week, China was eager to deny reports of some
kind of cooperation between Beijing and the Taliban, including one
report suggesting a military agreement with Afghanistan.

The reality is that China is very concerned because in Xinjiang province
there are about 1,000 active  Taliban-sponsored separatists. Beijing has
been for years eager to cut the umbilical link between the Xinjiang
separatists and the Taliban, and Beijing's tactic had been to coax
governments hosting anti-Chinese groups into cooperating with China.

There is still some hidden disagreement between China and the US on the
definition of terrorism, but the cheers of the Chinese journalists and
the need to ban anti-American Internet postings are in stark contrast to
the official pledge of cooperation. Actually, internal and external
factors produce a delicate mix in China these days.

The terrorist attacks came at a delicate time for China, with many
officials still hotly debating Jiang's July 1 speech on allowing
entrepreneurs into the Communist Party. So as soon as the media
announced Jiang's support for the anti-terrorist campaign, a series of
letters from some party cadres started pouring in, opposing the
"angelization" (tianshihua) of Americans. They argued that this
angelization was as wrong as the previous "demonization".  Americans
can't be angels; China's hopes in them should not be too high.

Some letters voiced support for "Comrade" bin Laden and former
Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, forgetting that bin Laden is
an anti-communist millionaire who cut his teeth fighting the Russians.
Many link their opposition to  Jiang's position on terrorism with their
opposition to his July
1 speech, and arguably are right, as both initiatives appear important
moves in changing the Communist Party from a revolutionary party to a
ruling party. This implies a reconsideration of China's political role
in the world, away from the old "Third-Worldist" theories and toward
greater responsibility as an emerging power.

The change causes a huge ideological problem for the country. Although
since the early 1970s China had
developed a de facto alliance with the United States, the official
rhetoric still pushed non-alignment, maintaining that China was a Third
World country, neither pro-USSR nor pro-US. Public opinion in the
meantime became pro-American, seeing the US as a kind of basic model for
development.

Things changed again after 1989. Beijing reached out to Moscow.
Gorbachev came to China, and China, in the  aftermath of the Tiananmen
crackdown, warmed to Moscow's leadership. At the same time a strong
trend toward nationalism was building up. Many people, who had felt
somehow betrayed by the US position after Tiananmen, became
anti-American, believing that the US goal was to weaken China and stall
its development. This new Chinese rhetoric in turn fed on parallel
American rhetoric about a possible future Chinese threat.

Behind the rhetoric there was the reality of bitter clashes over human
rights, trade, intellectual property rights, and the conditions for
China's accession to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and
later the World Trade Organization. In this atmosphere, the 1999 NATO
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade seemed to prove to many
Chinese America's evil intentions. The leadership also fostered this
nationalism, considering it an important element for a new national
spirit now that communism was fading.

Throughout this process, China's goal was to maintain an independent
policy that would bring back Taiwan, despite the island being defended
by the US. This American intervention is officially branded
"hegemonism". China, in other words, refused to acknowledge the American
role as sole superpower and strove for a multipolar world.

However, there is a new reality today. The terrorist attacks on the US
have revealed a new dimension of international affairs that changes all
geopolitical standards. The gigantic dimensions and brutality of the
attacks dwarf any other friction the US may have with other countries.
The main issue is a conflict between accountable and non-accountable
countries. That is to say, between countries which largely control their
territory and do not shield internationally dangerous criminal or
terrorist organizations, and countries which do shield such
organizations or which could launch violent attacks against other
countries.

This new international dimension puts aside issues like hegemony and a
multipolar world. The main issues now are:

1) Political or crime-related groups have escalated their acts of terror
toward all-out war;
2) There are many geopolitical black holes on the world map, that is to
say states that are not accountable and predictable in their behavior
and offer safe haven to those groups.

Up until last week, the common wisdom was that these black holes could
be ignored and marginalized; now it is clear that they must be dealt
with. The most dangerous of these black holes is Afghanistan, which is
right in the middle of Eurasia and in fact blocks all possible trade
between the east and west Eurasia.

In this new world, it makes no sense to think in old ways, as some
Chinese people do. China's leadership has realized very quickly what is
happening. Many common Chinese people were horrified by the terror
attacks (a Xinhua opinion poll said that 98 percent of all Chinese
condemned the attacks). But some Chinese cadres and intellectuals have
yet come to grips with the new reality, failing to understand that
any of the militant groups opposing the present Chinese leadership could
learn from the anti-American attacks and apply the tactic against, say,
Zhongnanhai (the Beijing residential and administrative enclave for the
party elite).

Some other party cadres actually appear keen on using the past
nationalist rhetoric against the leadership, which they believed
betrayed communist ideals with Jiang's July 1 speech. These people seem
unaware of the Chinese reality, in which private enterprises dominate
the economy. They seem unaware that China has de facto joined the WTO,
and  that billions of dollars of investment will pour in and that the
country has pledged to abide by international trading agreements. In the
face of these events, it is clear that these
people do not want to side with bin Laden - they want to wage war on
their own leadership.

This indicates that the balance of power in China is still delicate, but
it also suggests that the Chinese leadership has a  stake, an internal
motivation, in joining the fight against terrorism.

China's leadership won't be a priority for the American administration
for a number of years, that is to say until the US has satisfactorily
dealt with the terrorist problem. By then, China's economy could have
grown by 50 or 100 percent, but at that point the issue of China will
return to US minds with a vengeance. Therefore, China has roughly until
the 2008 Olympic Games to present some significant
improvement in its political and economic framework that could help
deflect future criticism. In the meantime, China has to build a strong
relationship with the US, to bind the two countries.

There are two areas where the US and China need each other: the first is
in general political strategy, the second is about territorial control.
The issue of general politics is interesting to consider. Out of its
weakness and the impossibility of exercising force outside its borders,
China has developed a strategy of trying to coax states into siding with
it. The strategy has been largely successful in Central Asia, where
Kazakhstan no longer offers safe haven to Xinjiang separatists, and with
Turkey, which is no longer the
prime base for Uighur operations. The strategy involves long-term
planning, but it has been the basis for Chinese diplomacy in Central
Asia and it could be of great assistance for America and its likely
operations in Afghanistan. On the other hand, if they are not carefully
handled and organized, the US operations could smash this Chinese
diplomacy and expand the waves of terrorism into the heart of China.

The issue of territorial control is linked to the political issue. The
US needs not only to smash bin Laden but also to re-establish some form
of state control in Afghanistan. It needs to make Afghanistan an
accountable state and get it moving on the road of development. For this
goal the US needs strong neighboring partners who can provide the
territorial basis for the transformation of Afghanistan and
also the economic muscle to push economic development in Central Asia.
For many reasons, Pakistan is the only neighboring country that could
provide support, but it, like the bordering ex-Soviet republics, does
not have the economic muscle to boost Afghani trade. But in both
Pakistan and these republics, China has established significant
influence. Therefore, for all practical purposes, the future control of
Afghanistan and the rebuilding of the state requires some kind of
cooperation with China. Without this, it will be impossible to establish
long-term control over the region.

The US intervention in Afghanistan is bound also to shake the balance in
Southeast Asia. Malaysia and Indonesia could be very sensitive to
operations that could take an anti-Islamic tinge. In this new picture,
the American partnership with Japan becomes less relevant than a
necessary new partnership with China, India, Russia and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations. Here there could be a specific role for
Thailand as a bastion of stability in ASEAN and a bridge between China,
India and the US.  While cracking down on Afghanistan it is also
necessary to stifle other sources of terrorism and find political
solutions for simmering issues like Kashmir and Myammar.

On this front, the Chinese stress that besides cracking down it is
important to provide political solutions to the issues that  foster
terrorism, without waging a new holy war against Islam. Islam is part of
the world culture and an essential contributor to Western civilization -
ancient Greek philosophical culture was received in the West first
through Arabic translations. Besides, terrorism is now incidentally
Islamic, but it can be sponsored by criminal organizations or any group
with a political motive.

So far, very little thought has been given to the causes that pushed
dozens of educated, cultured people to give up their lives to kill
thousands of innocents. This must also be addressed in order to avoid
future acts of terrorism.

((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.