20100222 Beijing needs to turn down the heat

Beijing needs to turn down the heat

Monday, Feb 22, 2010, Page 8

China is angry about US President Barrack Obama’s meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and the US ambassador to China has been called in to take the flak.

One might expect the situation to heat up following the Lunar New Year break, with a concomitant cooling of relations between the two countries. While we can expect tensions in Sino-US relations, there are other aspects that are less easily anticipated.

There is a certain pattern of events when it comes to relations with China that every US president has had to face. The first phase is characterized by working hard to create an amicable atmosphere. In the second phase, frictions appear as the US president addresses practical issues and this is where relations become more tense. The third phase is where the two sides accept their differences and find ways to work together, feeling out their counterpart’s bottom line and gradually moving into the fourth, more pragmatic phase.

Obama is already into the second year of his presidency and his inbox is piling up. Predictably, Sino-US relations are entering a testing phase.

The sabers are already drawn, with recent tensions over economic issues, the Google hack attacks and US arms sales to Taiwan. Obama’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama added fuel to the fire, giving the more hawkish elements in Beijing an excuse to push for a harder line against the US. This is likely to cause a cooling of relations that will take us into more unpredictable territory.

The meeting with the Tibetan leader had been planned some time ago — as early as last year — but had been delayed in deference to China. Beijing was also given plenty of time to prepare its response, as the announcement of the date for the meeting was made well in advance.

China’s response, as usual, was that it did not want the leaders of any nation to grant an audience to the Dalai Lama, whom they consider a “splittist.”

The problem is that China pretty much stands alone on that point — the Dalai Lama is mostly viewed elsewhere in a positive light, as a respected religious and ethnic leader and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. China is not going to win anyone’s approval by its intransigence on this issue.

As China’s power and influence in international matters grows it is going to have more opportunities to compete as well as cooperate with the US in international affairs and trade. As it does so, it is going to become more difficult to sweep any differences of opinion or conflicts of interest under the carpet. Both sides are going to have to learn the benefits of cooperation and “constructive conflict.”

If China feels the need to turn up the heat, it risks not only damaging bilateral relations with the US, but also of reversing the current trend of regional integration and replacing it with a polarization of international relations that would do no good for China, the US or the international community.

Both China and the US are currently facing a range of domestic challenges and in future they are going to have to address a number of issues together, such as stabilizing the global economy, dealing with climate change and preventing weapons proliferation. These issues are going to require cooperation and China would do well to recognize the differences it has with other countries and make an effort to tone down its confrontational behavior.