The complexity of 21st century Sino-American relations defies simple binaries. China and the US are partners in some sectors and competitors in others; they are each other’s most important economic partner yet rank among each other’s greatest security concerns. Despite incongruities between their definitions of core national interests, especially in the realm of security, both nations have benefited disproportionately from the international system that has emerged as a result of the latest wave of globalization. Robert Zoellick’s “responsible stakeholder” formulation opened American strategic thinking to the dynamic of contradictions that capture contemporary US-China relations. It established a framework where both nations are seen as common stewards of the international system, one that emphasized shared interests over strategic differences. The term “responsible stakeholder” itself is best defined as a nation’s willingness to cooperate with other international actors to deliver global public goods such as sustained economic and political stability or continued efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and climate change.
Whether China has indeed become a responsible stakeholder remains a hotly contested question. China’s foreign policy behavior since 2005 has been a mixed bag of progression and regression. Those who believe that the PRC is a responsible stakeholder point to Chinese leadership in the Six Party Talks, its significant contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, its commitment to free trade, its progress in developing green technology, and its efforts to stabilize world markets after the Global Financial Crisis. Those who disagree with this characterization highlight instead China’s refusal to criticize Kim Jong Il’s regime after the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, its foot-dragging on harsher UNSC resolutions against Iran and North Korea, its artificially low exchange rate for the renminbi, and its obstructionist actions at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.
This debate over whether China is or is not a responsible stakeholder obfuscates the issue and misguides US strategy. While Beijing’s vision of global order has much in common with Washington’s, there remain many areas where they hold conflicting interests. The ruling CCP rejects American hegemony and is allergic to the idea of regime change at home. It believes that America supports democracy and human rights as part of a geopolitical ploy to undermine Chinese influence. Furthermore, with the rise of nationalism in China, the majority of the Chinese people back the CCP in its definition of core national interests which include Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, the Yellow Sea, and the South China Sea. Conflicts with the US over territorial issues strengthen the CCP’s claim to legitimacy and do little to bolster the cause of democracy and human rights in China. Effective foreign policy can neither depend on what policymakers wish China to be nor be predicated on ideological differences. Instead, it must be focused on the areas in which the two nations share common interests.
As China’s power and influence grows, the set of common interests may grow as well. China is quickly realizing that being a superpower has its costs. Today, America upholds a broad definition of interests and maintains the global commons because of its centrality in the international system. Tomorrow, China too will discover its own set of interests swelling. Beijing’s anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden and its cooperation with Washington to exert pressure on Burma are precursors of a growing trend. Given this trend, America is in a position to define US-China relationship in terms of this grow set of shared interests and facilitate China’s development as a responsible stakeholder rather than strategic competitor.
China, for its part, is eager to play a greater role on the international stage, but is also very cognizant of its status as arrival nascent power. Many observers have noted that the tenor of recent Chinese diplomacy seems to indicate that Beijing has abandoned the foreign policy principle of taoguang yanghui (keep a low profile and bide one’s time while getting something accomplished) and taken a more assertive stance internationally. Beijing’s confidence, however, is more bluster than substance. Carnegie’s Doug Paal and Minxin Pei have both elaborated the various domestic concerns, such as rising rates of both inequality and social unrest, which prevents China from becoming expansionist abroad. A recent Global Times survey shows that 87% of Chinese citizens believe that China is not yet a superpower. By contrast, 85% of Americans believe that China is already a superpower and only 78% believe that the U.S. has maintained such a status. In other words, Chinese know the challenges facing their nation and the real limits on China’s ability to project influence into the world while Americans are too quick to exaggerate Chinese power and underestimate America’s own influence. The self-fulfilling nature of the ‘China Threat Theory’ line of thought is a great danger in American foreign policy. Treating China like an enemy is the surest way of creating one. 80% of respondents to the Global Times survey believed that the West had the intent to suppress China’s development. American policymakers must be mindful that their efforts to de-legitimatize or deter the CCP are not perceived by the Chinese public as attempts to sabotage China’s development. Despite all the points that can be scored domestically by adopting aggressive rhetoric of being “tough on China” or “containing China”, such an approach ironically rallies the Chinese people behind the CCP and runs counter to long term American interests.
While Washington and Beijing agree that China should become more of a responsible stakeholder, they have not established consensus about the future of the international system. Both nations are now deeply invested in a peaceful, stable, market-based global architecture that is predicated upon free trade. For the moment, the US remains the most powerful actor with the ability to shape the rules, norms, and institutions of the international system. Beijing will act as a responsible stakeholder only in an international system which it believes to be just and equitable. Thus, whether or not China will be a responsible stakeholder in the future depends largely on how the US chooses to define the system today.
The most daunting challenges facing both nations in this age of globalization are too great for either to tackle alone; the problems of climate change, nuclear proliferation, transnational terrorism, and the scarcity of natural resources such as water and energy have repercussions for every nation in the international arena and require cooperation of all major actors. If American leadership puts multilateral engagement of these shared issues at the heart of the new international system, then China is more likely to be a responsible stakeholder. However, if the US reinforces Chinese anxiety over American hegemony and is perceived to challenge China’s core national interests, then China will become increasingly confrontational and less likely to play a “responsible” role in global affairs.
