Uneasy partners

There appears to be no shortage of books published in America these days that warn of China’s looming challenge to the US or of its approaching ‘domination of the world’. The exaggerated titles of these books indicate a certain strand of thinking in Western countries. ‘Showdown’, ‘The Coming Conflict with China’, ‘Hegemon’, and ‘Contest for Supremacy’ are just a few examples.

Lionel Vairon’s ‘China Threat?’ bucks that trend and takes issue with such alarmist and often biased writing. It agrees with the view, propounded most notably by Henry Kissinger, that urges Western governments to engage the world’s newest global power, China, as a partner and not confront it as an adversary because self-interest dictates that course.

A former French diplomat and journalist, Vairon sets his sights on explaining China’s rise as a global economic powerhouse and why this has evoked suspicion among Western publics and “latent hostility” from Western governments.

The author explains his motivation in writing this book was to find the reasons behind the constant barrage of criticism directed in the West at China, which has repeatedly called for the establishment of a “harmonious international society” and mutual respect among nations. Every week, the author notes, a fresh round of claims surface about the danger China poses to global stability. Accusations range from China’s ‘manipulation’ of its currency, its ‘threatening’ military modernisation, abuse of human rights and policy towards Tibet, to cite a few examples.

Vairon writes that initially the opportunities offered by a growing Chinese economy evoked much Western excitement. But this has given way to rising anxiety about the unexpected impact of China’s increasing economic power. The climate of Western negativity about China reached a peak in 2008 when China hosted the Olympic games, a year that also ushered in a new international era, according to Vairon. But it has since persisted in America and in some European countries, including his own.

The author examines both the perceptions and substantive motives behind this negativity, which sometimes assumes campaign proportions in the media. He compares this to the European Right’s attitude in the twentieth century, which was rooted in Europe’s loss of global influence and leadership to the US. He suggests that “gratuitous hostility” towards China especially among conservative and hawkish circles in America reflects a similar loss-of-ascendancy syndrome.

For Vairon there are both ideological and economic reasons for this expression of hostility. The first has to do with the West’s search for meaning after the end of the cold war and disintegration of the Soviet Union. This search focused temporarily on the threat from “Islamist terrorism”, but its “fleeting significance on a historical scale” led many in America and Europe to “look for a new target”. China fit that bill.

Western frustration with China’s rise also stemmed from the debunking of the assumed infallibility of the Western model of economic liberalism and parliamentary democracy. As Vairon puts it, “the growing attraction of Chinese style development came to represent a threat to Western powers that ruled the world for nearly two centuries, handing out report cards to third world states and leaders”.

China’s emergence as the engine of global growth and its extraordinary success in lifting 300 million people out of poverty represented a ‘third way’ for economic development that defied the Western model.

As for economic reasons, the author offers as an example, China’s “geographic centrality in Asia” that came to pose, along with China’s rise, a “natural challenge to American hegemony” on the Asian continent. And China, for its part, aware of this fact, found itself justified to keep American power in check in continental Asia, “wary of American errors of judgment” (as its support of anti-Soviet guerrillas in Afghanistan, which later fuelled religious radicalism) and actions against China from bases and the US presence established at its western periphery over time, but especially enhanced after 9/11.

Vairon refers several times to a speech by President George W Bush, which he says was to have a major influence on Beijing’s strategic thinking. During the 1999 election campaign Bush said that America’s approach in his administration will be one in which China “will be unthreatened but not unchecked”. And so under Bush, China came to be viewed as a “strategic competitor” rather than the “strategic partner” envisioned in the Clinton years.

While the book does not make any specific reference to America’s declared policy, since 2011, of “pivoting” to Asia and its implications for Beijing, the author discusses at length the broad contours of what he sees as Washington’s contain China strategy.

He then analyses how China has responded, with efforts to reach out to establish multilateral and bilateral alliances. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a prime example but efforts have also involved rapprochement with Russia and moves to settle border disputes with other countries.

In pursuing its energy diplomacy, China has been driven as much by its growing energy needs as by what Vairon depicts as America’s “hegemonic strategy” in this area. As a consequence, in Asia as in Africa, China has made inroads, often outbidding Western companies and stoking Western fears about a clash over control of global resources.

But is conflict between China and America inevitable? Vairon’s unambiguous answer is no. Acknowledging the disparate views on this, he argues that China does not want confrontation. This is why in 2003 its leaders evolved the concept of China’s “peaceful rise” to provide reassurance to anxious Western powers and their Asian allies and signal Beijing’s sensitivity to its partners’ concerns. He gives a number of reasons why China will not pose a threat to the West.

First there is the influence on Chinese thought and practice of the “principle of alternative currents preserved by yin and yang”. This produces a vision of the world as a continuous web of interdependent relationships “without any one transcending the other”. In this perspective both America and China have a place in a multipolar world: “America is not China’s antithesis but rather the other element that allows balance in the world.”

Moreover, Vairon argues, unlike America and the former Soviet Union, China has no desire to export its values. Beijing also has an ability to defuse crises without compromising its long-term interests. These factors make for a non-confrontational Chinese approach, which is also driven by the need for an international environment of peace and conciliation for China to continue its economic progress.

But this doesn’t mean that China will not vigorously defend its interests or endeavour to circumvent Washington’s containment strategy. Both firmness and flexibility will characterise China’s future approach, says the author.

Despite Vairon’s obvious admiration for China’s remarkable economic achievements, he also addresses attention to the economic, political and social challenges facing the country, which include demographic aging, energy security and treatment of minorities. The challenge in Xinjiang receives considerable attention, as does the role of Turkey among “outside influences” in that restive region. This provides useful insights into a problem about which Beijing’s anxieties have been rising.

In judging that China poses no threat to the West, the author has important counsel to offer both Beijing and its Western detractors. China, he cautions, must guard against a ‘nationalist reaction of defiance” and avoid too strident a position on the South China Sea territorial disputes. This will only widen the gap of misperception between it and the world and provide a fillip to the case made by its enemies. Instead it should adhere to its own notion of ‘a harmonious international society’ and learn to communicate better.

His advice to the West: “Between containment and engagement, asymmetric war and cooperation, Europeans and Americans must choose the policy that will best serve their long term interests.” That, in his opinion, is to treat China as an equal partner. Finally he urges both to shun protectionism, which would ultimately benefit neither side, nor the world.

An eminently readable and insightful book, this does however need considerable updating. Lionel Vairon, China Threat? New York, CNTimes books, 2013.

The writer is special adviser to the Jang Group/Geo and a former envoy to the US and the UK. Twitter: @LodhiMaleeha