Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

President Barack H. Obama’s recently concluded trip to East Asia has created an irrational buzz in the American media about how the declining hegemon is increasingly behaving as such, and how China seems to be exploiting that perception to further its own advantages. The second part of this buzz is not contentious, since all great and small powers operate to maximize their advantages. However, the first part of that buzz is indeed controversial. This type of analysis may not be highly conducive to Obama’s palpable desire to promote multilateralism, both regionally and globally.

In criticizing Obama, it seems that even the liberal media in the United States is longing, unwittingly of course, for George W. Bush’s brash unilateralism, for which they were in the lead in piling scorn on the Bush administration.

What seems to be happening in East Asia—as elsewhere—is that the United States is trying to find a niche for multilateralism as a modus operandi for solving global economic problems, which are affecting the United States more than they are the PRC.  The latter, being a controlled economy, can manipulate its fiscal and monetary policies without much debate or tug-and-pull, which are idiosyncratic of American democracy and its system of separation of powers.  Another reality is that, despite America’s exhortations for an active leadership role in the management of global economy, the PRC has been very reluctant to be forthcoming.

It is not that the current leadership of China is still so hung up in following the 1989 advice of the late Deng Xiaoping who said “hide the brightness and nourish obscurity” (Taoguang Yanghui).  Rather, they have not decided how forthcoming they ought to be in “nourishing obscurity.”  The least discussed aspect of China’s current policy posture is that, in its spectacular rise, it has become a very conservative power.  That conservatism is also nurtured by the fear of Chinese leaders of the potential destructive aspects of their people’s wrath if their economic development falters or flops.  So, it opts for pursuing economic policies whose success has been proven.  In addition, China seems to be apprehensive that its assertive posture in economic affairs might be misinterpreted as a harbinger of its brazenness in military issues.  It should be remembered that China, unlike any other country in recent history, has to be constantly on the defensive about the purpose of its rise, by insisting that it will be of a peaceful nature.  

One area where China has been quite proactive, indeed assertive, is in finding energy reserves and in acquiring equity oil by offering lucrative contracts to the owners of energy reserves.  That policy has been a source of constant criticism from Western countries, many of which have notorious records of their own in coddling up to the dictators of the Middle East to ensure guaranteed access to oil. 

The goal of finding assured access to energy sources is one of the vital interests of China.  At the same time, finding solutions to economic problems, though that is quite important, they will not become vital to China as long as the United States remains willing and able to play a dominant role in attempting to solve them.  So, the argument that China might be acting as a “free-loader” on economic issues is not at all wrong-headed.

The question, then, is whether the United States is being irrational in expecting China’s leading role in world affairs.  What Washington might not have considered at this point is whether it really wishes China to become a co-equal in resolving global economic issues, because the Chinese are quite busy calculating why they should bear the burden of leadership, when, in the final analysis, the United States might steal most of the limelight once these problems lose their current obduracy and attendant urgency.  In thinking along these lines, the Chinese are not being petty, they are only being coy.

There have also been suggestions that President Obama has an ambitious strategic agenda of extracting cooperation from China.  That includes putting pressure on Pakistan to be more resolute in defeating the Pakistani Taliban; and on Iran to close down its nuclear program, which Washington suspects of leading to that country’s emergence as the next nuclear power.

Obama’s best bet is to concentrate on seeking China’s cooperation on global economic matters.  That is the only area where the deft Chinese leadership sees much benefit in cooperating with the U.S. at this point.  Their ties with Pakistan are inextricably linked with their rivalry with India.  The United States has not even begun to comprehend the intricacies related to that issue.  Iran is an important partner of China in the realm of energy supplies and an important customer of its military weapons.  No amount of U.S. persuasion is likely to bring those ties to an end.

In the final analysis, Washington is well-advised to understand that China’s regional and global ties are becoming almost as cumbersome as its own.  That very reality enhances the element of selectivity, which the leaders in Beijing will increasingly use in dealing with the United States in the days ahead.