|
EDITORIAL: China’s
diplomacy masks ambitions
In a perfect world, China’s rise to power would be conducted peacefully and
benefit not only itself, but its neighbors and the world at large. Pragmatic
thinkers in China would prevail over their hawkish rivals and steer a course of
cooperation — not confrontation — with the rest of the world, creating a win-win
situation for everyone.
This is what many academics are again hoping for now that former Chinese
Communist Party secretary of Chongqing and Cultural Revolution throwback Bo
Xilai (薄熙來) has been toppled. They want a return to the good old days when
everybody could make money in China and feel safe from Beijing making ridiculous
demands on the rest of the world or military threats against its neighbors.
However, even without Bo around to sharpen the rhetoric, it seems unlikely that
Beijing will return to an era of cooperation with the rest of the world, as
Tamkang University professor Lin Chong-pin (林中斌) predicted in a recent analysis
of Chinese diplomacy.
Lin is right that things have not gone so well for China diplomatically since it
gave up on its good neighbor policy in 2009 to pursue its nationalist agenda in
the region. The Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, the US, India and Japan all
seem ready to gang up on China if it continues to throw its weight around in
such a bellicose way.
It seems likely that leaders such as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) know that, and are ready to put on a
good face for a while to push forward China’s agenda without alarming the
region.
The military hawks behind the new generation of smiling Chinese leaders will
likely go along with this as long as they think it is necessary, or else they
would not have allowed Bo to be pulled from his perch.
However, it is doubtful that any of China’s leaders have really given up on
their plan to become, if not the world’s, then at least the region’s, most
powerful player.
Even China’s more pragmatic leaders seem bent on the idea of taking back what
they see as China’s rightful place atop the global power hierarchy. Whatever
diplomacy they use is just a backdrop for the ultimate goal of becoming the
major power in the region that calls all the shots. It is just a matter of how
they will go about doing that and how long it will take.
Bo’s way was not working. China’s bellicosity came too early, and would have
caused too many of its neighbors to band together to fight if it continued. The
new path of cooperation is much more likely to work for Beijing, just like it
did in the past, ever since former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) formulated
the stance: “Struggle with rivals, but make sure not to break the
relationships.”
China will again attempt to lull its neighbors into complacency through
cooperation, and many will fall into that trap because they will be happy to
make money off the stable relationships between countries in the region.
However, China has already shown its cards over the past few years,
demonstrating that it could easily turn into a regional bully. If anything, that
has tipped everybody off to Beijing’s real plan — cooperate just long enough
until it has the means to take over the entire region.
|
