Whether China is what its critics say it is depends on one’s perspective. But in China’s view, given the histories of the West and Japan, they are not qualified to judge it, because they are committing the very deeds they accuse China of.
The fact is that China has neither the resources, time nor inclination to pursue global dominance when it needs a prolonged period of peace, stability and resources to build a “prosperous and strong” socialist country by 2050. It is promoting globalization and a multipolar world rather than bullying weaker nations and threatening the West and Japan.
The world according to China
Chinese leaders appear to be astute students of history, “facing the future with history as the mirror.” They have learned that self-isolation during the early part of the 15th century was the root cause of China’s backwardness and decline, explaining why President Xi Jinping was moved to declare: “Isolation is like putting one in a dark room.”
The country has learned that being weak invites bullying, the reason for China’s determination to build a strong military. China is aware of the bitterness that bullied victims endure, explaining the reason for its “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence” foreign-policy platform, which includes equality among nations and non-interference into other countries’ internal affairs.
Walking the talk
It seems that China is “walking the talk,” promoting interconnected, invigorated, inclusive and innovative growth from which every nation should benefit. For example, the Belt and Road Initiative is meant to be an outlet for China’s industrial overcapacity and enhance economic growth for countries that participate in the BRI, with nearly US$1 trillion in Chinese investment. For example, the country’s steel surplus is to be used to build participating countries’ infrastructure, factories and other buildings.
Further, China is hesitant to export to or impose its values and ideology on other countries. The success of China’s development path led American journalist Joshua Cooper Ramo to coin the term “Beijing Consensus“. He suggested that other developing countries should use it as a template for their economic development. But China encourages those who want to emulate it to follow a development path and governance platform that are suitable to their own history, values, culture and other institutions.
Finally, China does not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries unless they affect its interests. Unlike the US and its allies, China has not criticized, threatened or invaded nations harboring a different ideology or governance architecture. For example, China did not bomb countries (like Libya and Syria) for no other reason than they are dictatorships or are doing business with countries (like China and Russia) the West doesn’t like. It did not criticize Israel for developing nuclear weapons.
Pots calling the kettle black
On China bullying weaker nations. In the 1960s, the US and its allies invaded Vietnam to prevent communist expansion by lying to the American people that communist-controlled North Vietnam fired on a US warship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Since then, they have have bombed or threatened countries that defied them (Libya, Iraq, Syria and North Korea), again based on “alternative facts” and speculations. Iraq was speculated to have possessed weapons of mass destruction and North Korea was “provocative” and “threatening” to the US and its allies.
As far as China is concerned, it is building a strong military to deter another Treaty of Versailles experience. In 1919, the League of Nations treaty gave Japan all of Germany’s Chinese possessions without consulting China. That painful experience and the Opium Wars led Mao Zedong to state that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” That is, China has learned from the West and Japan that meaningful diplomacy requires a strong military.
On China being “aggressive” in the South China Sea. The territorial claims in the sea were largely buried for “wiser” future governments to settle until 2012, when US president Barack Obama announced his “pivot to Asia” policy and the Japanese government decided to “buy” the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands from their “Japanese owners” (how they got to own the islands was never explained). The timing of the two occurrences might be coincidental, but they opened a can of worms.
The Japanese government’s decision to buy the islands was seen as a refusal to accept history and was emboldened by the United States’ commitment to defend the islands if they were attacked. The US was a drafter of and signatory to the 1944 Cairo Declaration demanding that Japan to return all Chinese territories it had annexed be returned to China. However, the US reneged on its commitment and turned the Senkakus over to Japan in 1972.
In response to the Japanese government buying the islands, China established the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), requiring foreign planes to identify themselves when flying over the region. Ignoring the fact that they themselves had established similar zones earlier, the US and its allies vehemently protested against China’s decision.
The Japanese government also misled its public and the world by saying that China did not consult it beforehand. Mainichi Shimbun reported in 2012 that China did inform Japan of its ADIZ decision. The Shingetsu News Agency reported that China asked the Japanese government how the two countries should deal with potential issues three months before it was put in place.
The transfer of technologies to Chinese joint-venture partners is a condition for entering the Chinese market, not ‘forcing’ them as its critics would like the world to believe. Foreign firms have a choice of whether or not to invest in China
To counter Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy, China built islands and installed weapons systems on them within the “Nine Dash Line.” China is determined to prevent the US and its allies from mounting a naval blockade in the South China Sea. Most of the trade transiting the waters belongs to China.
China stealing technologies from US firms or forcing their transfer. Whether China hacked US firms to steal their technology is unclear, but the accusation is just that. Mandiant, a US-based cybersecurity firm, only indicated that the hacking of US computers was “most likely” done from within China. Perhaps to add “credibility,” the firm even identified the building from which the hacking was supposed to have originated.
What’s more, hacking other countries’ computers was in fact started by the US when it cyber-spied on Iran. According to WikiLeaks and the revelations of Edward Snowdon, the US government relentlessly spies on other countries, including its allies.
The transfer of technologies to Chinese joint-venture partners is a condition for entering the Chinese market, not “forcing” them as its critics would like the world to believe. Foreign firms have a choice of whether or not to invest in China. Indeed, China is not the only country that imposes conditions on foreign investment; Japan and Western nations do the same.
China’s “beggar thy neighbor” policies. China has been accused of manipulating the yuan, but the US Treasury Department repeatedly refuses to label it as a currency manipulator. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund rejects the United States’ definition of currency manipulation: any country that has a trade value of $50 billion and a current-account surplus over the US of more than $20 billion.
The anti-China crowd seems to be suffering from a case of amnesia. In 2002 the US deliberately depreciated the greenback for 20 years to enhance economic growth (through lowering interest rates and increasing exports).
Moreover, the US Federal Reserve has carried out three rounds of quantitative easing since 2008 in which the central bank printed new money to buy US Treasuries. The more than $4 trillion in new money was to bail out banks and firms deemed “too big to fail”. But the huge increase in the money supply reduced interest rates and depreciated the dollar, prompting Germany and Brazil to accuse the US of instigating currency wars.
A final comment
Whether China is what its critics accuse it of depends on whom one talks to. But China has a point when it accuses the Western and Japanese anti-China crowds of hypocrisy and prejudice.
Feeding the public with subjective information can be dangerous and costly, as the Vietnam and Iraq wars demonstrated. The US and its allies lost tens of thousands of their young men and women in Vietnam for nothing. Instead of blocking communist expansion, the US and its allies might have ended up hastening it in the region. Instead of making Iraq a “democracy”, the US and its allies turned it into a dysfunctional state wrought with sectarian fighting, which in turn created massive refugee issues.
China is a much bigger and stronger country than Vietnam or Iraq, and creating conflicts with the rising superpower will far costlier. The Chinese idiom “Face the future with history as the mirror” might be wise advice.
You’re right about China. Whenever China gets called out for aggression against its neighboors, or economic cheating, they simply turn around cry that some other country did the same thing. Rather than face up to their own crimes, they simply try to shift the discussion back to something which happened during the Qing Dynasty or WWII, as if that can justify their actions.
people living in SE Asia unlikely buy in the arguments. while appreciating economic benefits from China’s rise, China’s patterns of development and territorial expansion spooks its neighbors. China is good at hiding its true intention. Beware calm water runs deep.
The author opened his paper with the following statement. "Whether China is what its critics say it is depends on one’s perspective. But in China’s view, given the histories of the West and Japan, they are not qualified to judge it, because they are committing the very deeds they accuse China of."
I believe China’s view is completely wrong. The said view means the West and Japan are not quaIlified to judge China’s future actions. But among the West, the US was qualifed after WWII even though the US has committed aggressions before WWII. If nobody were qualified, then China would be free to do any aggression in the future, and potential victims would have no peace officers to ask for help.
Secondly, China’s view also means the West and Japan "are" committing the very deeds the Chinese are accused of. In fact the West and Japan "are" not (not) committing the deeds the Chinese are committing or might be committing in the future. For instance China is trying to seize an entire sea and threatening force against disputants. The West and Japan are not doing so.
The author, as if representing China said "China does not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries unless they affect its interests". Such a no-interference-policy is no policy at all because of the conditional phrase "unless they affect its interests". Whenever China feels its interests are affected, it will interfere. When the US interfered the Sino-Japanese war, the US felt its interests were affected. When the US did interfere, China was the biggest beneficiary. After being benefitted by the US’s interference, China now refurses to help US’s interference policy. What a China we have today?
China is smarter than the US and USSR. There will be political domination of Asia, some expansion by military means along its borders and econo-political control of parts of Africa. China will not claim to hold the only true political model which will save it the cost of garisoning the world and thereby China will be able to shore up its suzerainty a little longer before it divides. Amen.
I think times are changing. In the olden days there were no rules of what was theft and what was not. When laws on copy rights and patent rights and international agreements were written, most former innocent acts became unlawful. When ancient technologies are concerned, it is impossible to claim any rights because those technologies were volunteered to foreigners in an attempt to show off greatness of the inventing country such as the silk from China.
i’m surprised this neocon, mental, pejorative, false, self-righteous Asia times has deviated from their grandstanding position of painting american policy as righteous and has some choice words for them while exalting China? it’s just remarkable! how the tables are turned. I can’t believe how hypocritical some people can be
I know that it’s no use arguing with a propagandist. If China is true to her propaganda of a "co-existence" foreign policy instead of the same policy of conquest, exploitation and control of foreign lands and governments that the West pursued since the era of exploration and colonization starting in the late 1400s to the 1800s, she should refrain from militarizing the South China Sea and the West Philippines Sea ang grabbing Philippines territories. Also, she should leave Tibet alone.
You actually implied that the article’s contention seemed to be true and accurate.
The author appears to be a very good surrogate of Communist China! China is recruiting good writers!
It is not so what you think,No Big power is doing any thing without interest of its own. Actually they are preparing themselves silently without murmuring and creating noise to that level America and Russia have. I just Quote one Amnerica
and Russia have atleast 7000 to 8000 Nuke war head each that is the thing.
one can read and see that the writer is very pro-China and one-sided
Well said, one of the best articles published by ASIA TIMES. Well researched and factual. Of course the haters will try to discredit and criticize.
Thank you. A very precise and right on the dot appraisal. Whatever the fake news and propaganda pressure from the jingoistic imperialistic and hegemonistic West and its allies, China must remain Zen calmed and focused on its 5 Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The mainstay of this strategy is the economic betterment of all countries that have been exploited and subjugated by white colonialism and western hegemony.
All nations and peoples should be free in their self esteem and dignity and their unique national and cultural and socio-religious or philosophical spiritual identity.
It is not one Western hegemonistic world but one multidiversified world of to each his own living with his neighbours. Neighbours should not interfere with each other’s internal household or backyard. But neighbours have to be good neighbours. And in this modern world it means contact at the common fence and trading with each other and helping each other to better each other’s life. If we are extra congenial and friendly we can invite each other to our respective houses. Otherwise we will still meet to trade whether we are social or unsocial neighbours. There is no such thing as one neighbour having the imprimatur to be ‘World Sheriff’ or play prosecutor judge and jury and dictate how a neighbour has to bring up his family or what he has to grow or do in his own backyard, so long as one’s activity does not impact adversely on the neighbour, like burning one’s rubbish openly and staining and spoiling the neighbour’s laundry hung out to dry. What part of this principle of peaceful co-existence does the whiteman not understand?
As long as China continues to grow economcally at a reasonably strong pace, continues its military modernisation and above all continue to be patient and not be provoked, no war with the US will occur. The US and the hypocrisy, double standard and double talk are the hall mark of past and present US political and power culture. All the criticisms, accusations, condemnations leveled against China should be treated as pin pricks that cause some annoyance and nothing more. Time is on China’s side. So far its strategies whether they are regarding the East and South China Seas, Taiwan, Japan are working just fine.
It seems the war between China and America will not be avoided.