Sino-US Relations: New Cold War Avoidable

Some noticeable changes in Sino-US relations have taken place since George W. Bush was sworn in as the new US president in January this year.

Yet a new Cold War between China and the United States is avoidable.

Although the Bush administration emphasized as a priority its relationship with allies and appointed some hawks to key posts in its foreign affairs and national security departments, the overall Sino-US relations remained normal.

During Vice-Premier Qian Qichen's visit to the United States in March, the United States showed a positive attitude toward bilateral relations.

However, after the April 1 plane collision incident, the United States created tensions between the two countries by refusing to apologize and putting the blame on its victim.

Some US political forces and elements of the media made use of the crisis to launch an anti-China campaign. Officials of the Bush administration also spoke against the three Sino-US joint communiques in a bid to belittle the importance of Sino-US relations Amongst the worst was from US President Bush himself who bluntly pledged in an interview with US reporters in April to use "whatever it takes'' to help defend Taiwan.

Though Bush and his officials later tried to modify such remarks, subsequent events indicated a marked negative change in the Bush administration's China policy.

Since then, the United States has taken a series of actions detrimental to Sino-US relations. These include upgrading arms sales to Taiwan; granting a visa to Lee Tenghui; lowering official exchanges with China and tabling another anti-China resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

In the decade after the end of the Cold War, the United States not only exerted external pressure against China but also tried to promote changes inside China.

It is by no means an accident that the Bush administration now takes a harder line with China.

In the United States, the presidential election defeat of the Democratic Party implied that the political field was tilted to the conservative's advantage. And to depict China as a threat to US security meets some right-wingers' political needs and arms dealers' economic interests.

The massive immigration and import of foreign goods in recent years has fueled xenophobic nationalism in the US society.

A report published in major US newspapers in March indicated that 46 per cent polled in a survey believed Chinese Americans suspicious to divulging US state secrets to the Chinese Government; 32 per cent believed that Chinese Americans are more loyal to China than to the United States. This suggests that the new anti-China campaign is being accepted by many Americans and is a handy tool for US politicians to score political points by attacking China.

Internationally, although the US economic outlook worsened, US global dominance has not been undermined.

As Europe, Japan, Russia and some nations viewed by the United States as "problem countries'' -- such as Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- are unwilling or not in a position to defy the United States, socialist China, a rising power and an advocate of multipolarization, naturally becomes a thorn in the United States' flesh.

In the meantime, after the end of the Kosovo conflict, Europe faces no urgent security problem, and NATO's eastward expansion becomes a matter of fact. Under such circumstances, some people have urged the United States to shift its strategic focus toward East Asia. It is self-evident that such a strategic shift is aimed at China.

On the other hand, illusions that China's market-oriented economic reform will lead to significant political reform in the United States and in the political Westernization of Chinese youth were shattered after NATO's bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 and the April 1 plane collision. The United States decided to take the hard line.

Nevertheless, a Cold War between the two countries is still not inevitable.The domestic US political scene will neither be tilted in favour of the Democrats nor the Republicans for a long time. It is predictable that the Republican Party will find it hard to have its way in the US congress as they lost their Senate majority in June. The Bush administration's tough stance against China has been doubted and opposed by some US politicians.

In the international arena, the United States cannot succeed in building its anti-China strategical ring of encirclement. It is not in China's neighbouring countries' long-term interest to make China their enemy to meet US strategy needs.

Objectively speaking, China does not pose a threat to the United States in terms of comprehensive strength, strategic intention and international influence. China is basically a regional power in the Asia-Pacific region. The two countries share many common interests in safeguarding international financial order, fighting against international terrorism, preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons and maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula.

An aggravated relationship with China was in the short-term interest of a few right-wingers and arms dealers but against long-term and fundamental US national interests.

Therefore, unless it makes some most severe strategical mistakes, the US Government will sooner or later turn back from the anti-China policy.

China and the United States have developed important trade and economic relations as well as wide social contacts.

In the past two decades, US companies invested more than US$30 billion in China. And in the 1990s, the volume of bilateral trade increased sixfold. China's entry into the World Trade Organization will further facilitate bilateral trade and economic co-operation.

But trade and economic co-operation will not automatically ease political conflicts which can hurt the sound development of the former.

Undoubtedly, a new Cold War will bite deep into US companies' interest in China.

Problems in Sino-US relations can and should be settled through diplomatic means. That demands the great foresight and special expertise of both sides.

Given the various frictions in bilateral relations at the present time, the Chinese Government's calm response out of its long-term national interest is key to avoiding a new Cold War between China and the United States.

As to those deep and structural contradictions in Sino-US relations, both countries should face them squarely. Dialogue and co-operation will help reduce antagonism.

In the era of economic globalization, contradictions and conflicts between nations are still unavoidable. But, from symbol to substance, they will differ from those of the Cold War era.

People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/