China's Charm Offensive
While the US has been focused on Iraq, it has ignored a subtle – but enormous – change in the world. Since only the early 2000s, and under the US radar, China has changed from a country that barely interacted with the world into a growing foreign power. In fact, China savvily has amassed significant “soft power” around the world through aid, formal diplomacy, public diplomacy, investment, and other tools. Here in Washington, where China’s image is not great, it’s hard for us to understand how popular China has become in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Even China’s model of development, of state-ordered economic liberalization and minimal political liberalization, has significant appeal. In particular, it has appeal to elites in nations in the region – and in other places like Africa – alienated by the Washington Consensus and American intervention around the world.
No one amassed chits with other nations for no reason. Now, China can begin to use its soft power. It will be able to utilize its popularity in regions where the US and China have potentially competing interests in resources. China is already trying to draw upon its charm to push back against American power in Asia. In the future, China could prod countries like the Philippines or Thailand, which are already using China as a hedge, to downgrade their close relations with the United States. Beijing continues to support authoritarian regimes, stemming from its vow of noninterference. This, too, weakens US diplomacy. Though their interests sometimes overlap, fundamentally the United States and China still do not agree on how diplomacy and international affairs should be conducted. And though Beijing can be persuaded to support better governance in places, like Burma, with limited resources and such horrendous regimes that they breed instability in China, it is much harder to persuade China to act against terrible governments with oil, like Sudan, or whose policies have no direct impact on China itself, like Zimbabwe. In the future, China’s ability to support its friends will only grow stronger as China builds its global soft power.
Let me give you just one example. On June 14, 2001, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, an organization focused on Central Asia. At the founding summit, the members declared that the SCO would be devoted to enhancing regional economic, cultural, and security cooperation. The rest of the world paid little attention to SCO’s founding; most American officials dismissed it as a useless talk shop. But between 2001 and 2005, Central Asia went from an obscure region of Muslim-majority “’Stans” to one of the world’s most vital regions. As diminishing global oil reserves and growing energy demands pushed up world oil prices, the resource-rich Central Asian states became, comparatively, even resource-richer. After September 11, the region’s land borders with Afghanistan, and its old Soviet bases, placed it in the center of the fight against Al Qaeda.
After September 11, Washington secured basing rights in Central Asia, though some of the region’s leaders appeared concerned that the United States would use its presence to help topple their governments. As it became clearer that the war on terrorism had no end in sight, it also became clearer that the Pentagon wanted to keep a semipermanent garrison of US troops at Central Asian bases. For its part, Beijing was not pleased with the idea of American soldiers permanently stationed next door, and its paranoia only grew after democratic revolutions in the former Soviet states of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
China had been cultivating Central Asia before the world discovered the region. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Chinese officials like then-Premier Li Peng courted Central Asia’s leaders, promoting Chinese investment and trying to boost trade through proposed border free trade zones. Supporting China’s charm offensive, the Chinese government invested in public diplomacy in Central Asia and increased its aid programs. Beijing established a Confucius Institute for Chinese-language and -cultural studies in Uzbekistan. It created programs to train Central Asian officials and politicians, and promised the ’Stans that Beijing would fund a $1.5 billion highway linking China to Central Asia.
Once the SCO was formed, China could use the multilateral organization for leverage as well, to present itself as a natural leader of the region, or at least a regional coleader with Russia. China would be the friend who would not interfere in domestic politics, even as American officials touched down in Central Asia to make demands for basing rights. Chinese investment also received local media coverage, which molded perceptions of China. At the same time, America’s image plummeted—in one Pew poll, a majority of people in Uzbekistan did not want American ideas and customs spreading to their country.
By 2005 China was ready to use its subtle influence in Central Asia to support the region in taking a clearer stand against America. Before the 2005 SCO meeting, China quietly offered increased aid to Central Asian nations. After the Uzbek government cracked down on opposition in 2005 and American officials criticized the Uzbek regime, China quickly backed the Uzbek policies, hosting Uzbek leader Islam Karimov for a state visit to Beijing, where China feted him with a twenty-one-gun salute. In July 2005, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, SCO countries warned against any countries—clearly meaning America—“monopolizing or dominating international affairs” and demanded that Washington provide a timeline for withdrawing American forces from SCO member countries. Soon Uzbekistan rescinded America’s basing rights.
To be fair, Chinese and American interests sometimes coincide in Central Asia—and around the world. Many of China’s interests are only natural—peace, access to resources, friends, and allies. China’s soft power often has benefited the United States. But sometimes China’s interests conflict with American interests, including America’s own alliances, need for energy, and commitment to democratization. When China discovers that its interests do not overlap with America’s, it now has the tools to build allegiances to Beijing—and it can find countries looking for a great power to balance their relations with America. In the worst-case scenario, China might use its soft power to subtly prod countries to choose between itself and the United States.
We had better learn to use what world political capital we have left to strategize alliances with the Chinese rather than the new American way of propagating hate speech between us. They own us; all we can rely on now is their sense of compassion because before long they won't need us at all.
June 25, 2007 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Its the simple golden rule, the one who owns the gold, rules. The US doesn't have the money to compete with China and, therefore, will become less and less dominant. It's not that we didn't notice, which is a fact, it's going to happen no matter what.
Having an incompetent administration makes life so much easier for the Chinese.
June 25, 2007 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even China’s model of development, of state-ordered economic liberalization and minimal political liberalization, has significant appeal. In particular, it has appeal to elites in nations in the region – and in other places like Africa – alienated by the Washington Consensus and American intervention around the world.
American intervention around the world since the 1950s/1960s has slowly alienated an expanding number of nations and created a vacuum that China is now filling. The Bush administration raised the foreign intolerance of the USA to yet higher levels.
Most of the "friends" we have today are mendicants, bought and paid for. Many take our largesse and yet they despise us, and who is to blame them? Was our intervention altruistic, or were we acting then just as they are acting now?
Khruschev said; "We will bury you,", but as it turns out, China is the one who may bury us, economically, not militarily. The irony is that China is now doing what we did for years, intervening one way or another in other countries, and one day in the future some Chinese citizen may be writing a post similar to this one.
June 25, 2007 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe it was Mao who said something to the effect that the US would sell them the rope to hang them with...how right that was.
Or elite globalist pricks in a mindless quest for quick and large profits have move a vital amount of our industry to China. They think the Chinese leadership can be bought...wrong. These fools have sold us out to China for thirdly pieces of silver and the Chinese will deal with them as harshly as they will with the rest of us in the end.
I wish the American people would hang these greedy pricks before the Chinese get around to it. We need to bring our industries home, especially those related to defense, and protect them if we value our national existence. Yes, Yes I know now I've got to duck the protectionist rocks thrown by a pack of sycophants and their dupes...
June 25, 2007 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that certain elites in the USA wouldn't mind if America moved towards "state-ordered economic liberalization and minimal political liberalization", and that Rove just wanted that to occur under the banner of the Republican Party. Today, we have government protection of large corporations and slowly constricting civil liberties (via Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, executive orders, right-wing justices interpreting laws and the constitution to favor the powerful, etc...).
I just hope people wake up from their consumption driven stupor and turn of American Idol before it's too late.
June 25, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
all i can think of when i think of china is bush using the excuse that china hasn't signed on to the kyoto accord. so maybe china should sign on to some sort of plan of attack on global warming?
that and toxic toys.
not a fan.
but if the rest of the world thinks they're great, more power to them.
although, what's written above does point out what certainly bears repeating. iraq has impacted our credibility abroad.
the fact that china is now viewed more favorably (if that is indeed the case) doesn't show me that china is a good country, it only shows me how far we've fallen during the bush administration.
June 25, 2007 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
it’s hard for us to understand how popular China has become in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Or, for that matter, in Iraq.
June 25, 2007 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Josh's book is an excellent resource on a topic that is increasingly important—the role of nontraditional foreign policy tools in this era of globalization. The combination of the growing strength of nonstate actors and the increasingly intolerable cost of state-to-state total warfare gives these tools more weight. I had the privilege of seeing Josh present his book to a packed audience at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. I agree that China has been exploring soft power for years as armed conflict has become less of an option given that the CCP's domestic legitimacy derives from providing economic growth to its people—something that is mostly inconsistent with all out warfare. But I would like to point out a few areas of possible debate.
First, it might help to define soft power. Looking at his book here on my desk, Joseph Nye writes, "Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others." It is not the same as influence. Most relevant here, Nye names three sources of soft power: "its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)." It is this last source—moral authority—that seems to be lacking in Josh's analysis. In particular Nye writes, "When a country's culture includes universal values and its policies promote values and interests that others share, it increases the probability of obtaining its desired outcomes because of the relationships of attraction and duty that it creates." The United States benefits from a "universalistic culture," Nye writes.
Josh notes that China's image in Washington is not great. Why? Something I cheekily call China Revisionism. (I have blogged about this issue here: http://fairerglobalization.blogspot.com/) Last week's IHT editorial captures this mood: "...The latest reminders are reports of slave labor in Chinese factories and the discovery that some of the popular Thomas the Tank Engine toys manufactured in China have lead in their paint. Before that, it was the contaminated dog food, the stubborn support of Sudan for its oil, the regular reports of human rights abuses, the huge economic disparities between city and country, the controls on the media." But these issues are not just obsessions among the privileged in the United States. They also matter to prosperous Asians, in Japan and Singapore for example, and to Chinese that have the wherewithal and access to information.
The idea that China is a model for other countries is questionable. To paraphrase a China-watcher friend of mine, a Chinese model of economic growth has appeal mainly with states that are failures—and Josh is right to say that these states are also those that have been alienated by Washington. Russia may be an exception of one that can mix limited freedoms at home and exert power and prestige abroad. But Russia would never sign off on a China-led region much less international community. Indeed over the past ten years, the Chinese have seen as expansion in their personal freedoms in the areas of speech, mobility, and religion. If anything, while the majority of Chinese remain very poor, China's experience reminds us that prosperity and democratic society are linked.
Will China use its soft power to prod countries to chose China over the United States? We cannot be sure, but I doubt it. As senior Pentagon officials have said to me, the United States will seek to avoid a situation in which a country is forced to choose between China and the United States. It is likely that China has a similar position especially given that China's most important international relationship is that one it has with the United States. China is doing much—including sending FDI to politically strategic U.S. states—to nurture that relationship.
Looking at culture, China does have a great asset on which to draw—its successful Diaspora in many large cities around the world. And as Josh mentions, China is using a soft touch in establishing Confucius Centers that stick to teaching Chinese rather than trying to propagandize. But Chinese cultural influence still has a long way to go to match up to the superlative that often describe American cultural power in movies, books, media, and scholarship. A wonderful book on this subject is "America's Inadvertent Empire" by William Odom and Robert Dujarric. To give a taste, they write on the advantage America enjoys in the university gap, "…American academic publications in the social sciences and humanities enjoy an international following that is second to none." Who is one of the most renowned scholars to critique the "Washington Consensus"? None other than American economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.
How does China's soft power play out on the world stage? For all practical purposes, China's soft power base is vulnerable. Darfur is becoming a case study for how vulnerable China's "brand" is. China would like to be seen as supporting universal values and human rights rather than as a pariah. Finally, as the New York Times magazine pointed out over the weekend in its article "Hard Realities of Soft Power," perceived meddling can produce blowback—as it has for the United States in Iran.June 25, 2007 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd suggest that every time we negotiated trade agreements that didn't include provisions for fair labor and human rights that we were unwittingly playing into China's hands.
What China is doing isn't charming, it's strong arming. They're loaning money to African countries in exchange for a share of oil revenue and in the process China is basically taking over a great number of African economies, including Darfur and Chad. Why can they do this? Well, the US paved the way by removing humanitarian concerns from trade talk. China's just following our path, using the tools we foolishly gave it.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 25, 2007 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't true. There are a lot of states that are in intermediate stages at the moment between authoritarian forms of government and democratic ones. Think of Malaysia, Thailand, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka; or states like Egypt which sometimes showcase promising growth rates. There are also several successful authoritarian states, like Vietnam and Singapore, which the Chinese success threatens to confirm in their current attitudes. And fragile democracies like the Philippines and Indonesia, far from "failed states" but in danger of reverting to authoritarianism under pressure of a crisis. A successful authoritarian China makes such a transition more plausible.
You may argue that the Chinese model is not exportable because, unlike the European liberal democratic model, it does not rest on universal values. But we have seen over the past 10 years that the liberal democratic model is not actually so easily exportable outside Europe, either; and Iraq has given such efforts to export democracy a very bad name at the moment, perhaps worse than they deserve. If the Chinese model is "shut everyone up and pursue economic growth first," that is a model that does seem exportable to many places.
Accumulating Peripherals
June 25, 2007 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
While the US has spent the last 5 years in a fruitless, counterproductive and wasteful display of hard power, squandering tens of billions of dollars of our national treasure the Chinese are expanding their sphere of influence the old fashioned capitalist way...by buying their friends. And ironically much of their wealth comes from the hard working folk of the US of A, via retailers like Wal-Mart.
Any "friends" the Chinese have aren't so because they admire what China stands for in terms of social values. It is because the Chinese are making money by helping other regimes make money...and not forcing themselves on those countries culturally. If the Chinese continue to make goods cheap and remain a top exporting country they will become a global superpower on the same level as the US.
China will probably be held back from surpassing the US as the leading superpower because of their illiberal form of government and what it represents. But if they use their new found economic wealth to their advantage, and do not try to project hard power, it'll be difficult for the US to regain the economic upper hand and rein in Chinese global influence...further diminishing America's global power and influence in the 21st century. Making the goods, exporting the finished product and amassing the wealth is the key to attaining global power. China has done it with a big assist from the American consumers but most importantly by our multinational corporations who are just in it for the money with little regard for promoting America's democratic values other than capitalism and wealth accumulation.
June 25, 2007 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
At some point in time (ah... a use for that cliché) temporal scale needs to be introduced into this discussion. I know that "in the long run we're all dead," but so much of the discussion seems strangely "timeless".
I like what Libertine has to say--I almost always do. But I look at this statement and wonder to myself--does it really make all that much difference? Looking back thirty years, maybe thirty-five, who would have predicted the political/economic model which is China, 2007? Mao died in 1976. Looking ahead thirty years, maybe thirty-five, can we predict what the political/economic model which is China will be? For that matter, can we predict what our own will be?
History never provides exact parallels...but I think the relationship between England and the United States in the last part of the 19th century is illuminating. England bankrolled economic development in the United States partly through purchasing our agricultural products and selling us machined goods, and partly through taking the money earned through those sales to invest in developing our infrastructure--chiefly rails. I don't expect many of the English merchant princes or politicians of that era (Gladstone? Disraeli?) would have predicted a supporting role for the United Kingdom within the lifetimes of persons who knew them. I'm not sure its a bad thing for the English people to give up striving to be king of the world/mountain. But then I'm not sure it was a bad thing for the Swedes to have the age of Gustavus Adolphus pass, either. Would that we had a world historian among us to direct our thinking in such directions.
Soppy and sentimental as it sounds...maybe a day will come when our attention can be focused on exploring what it means to being a good culture rather than a powerful country. But, then again, maybe not. <shrug></shrug>
Nice Post, Libertine :-)
aMike
June 25, 2007 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Mike...and the feeling is mutual about your posts. :)
You make a good point. How do we know how this will play out? I don't think any of us can be sure. But if China remains the number #1 producer and exporter of goods they will remain a global power for the forseeable future. How does the US respond? I think our repsonse should be to use our best economic asset which is our ability to develop new technologies.
I look back to the early 60's when JFK bodly proclaimed we would reach the Moon by the end of the decade. We did and the benefits were much more than national pride. The technology that was needed to accomplish that feat had benefits well outside the primary mission. In fact in a sense the reason we are able to communicate on this medium was facilitated by the development of computer semiconductors needed for our trip to the Moon. We need to undertake another major "national project" whether it is a trip to Mars, developing clean alternative sources of energy or whatever...we would enjoy the benefits for decades to come.
We should stop looking at what happened to get us here and the ramifications of where we are, and as a country be willing to be more proactive and exploit our strengths rather than trying to address where we might be deficient.
June 25, 2007 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is the Chinese government trying to accomplish? Some think it is economic development while others think their main interest is to hold on to political power.
I think they are willing to allow rising economic inequality since those who are the winners can be counted on to support the government that is doling out the goodies. This is going to backfire in the not to distant future.
China cannot support a continual increase in the standard of living. There are signs that they are already reaching limits in some key areas like water and arable land. But the government can't risk reining in the nouveau riche because they need their political support to suppress the peasants.
Reports indicate something on the order of 80,000 protests last year by peasants over corruption and land expropriation. Making deals with foreign resources suppliers can only go so far.
Remember when everyone in the US was worried about being beaten by the Japanese and their sophisticated management techniques. Not only did the bubble burst, but Japan entered 15 years of stagnant growth and impending demographic problems.
China can be expected to run into real trouble as well. As it says in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't Panic". Or, if you prefer, panic because resource constraints are going to be a worldwide issue sooner rather than later.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
June 25, 2007 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to go all wacky on you.
I think our response should be to use our best economic asset which is to generate novelty, period. <grin></grin>
aMike
June 25, 2007 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Japan's bubble bursting
News report: Toyota beats GM
In Q1 2007, Toyota sold 2.35 million vehicles, compared to GM’s 2.26 million.
http://www.worldmoneywatch.com/Toyota-GM-news.htm
June 25, 2007 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
don't buy into the golden Midas image -- China has a lot of serious financial problems being swept under the rug, in what amounts to an economic cover-up.
June 25, 2007 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
these doom and gloom posts are extreme. China needs us as much as we need them -- after all we are the largest market in the world, Europe and Japan are shrinking. Even if China eventually overtakes the US, they will always be an important trade partner.
June 25, 2007 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually,we are not the largest market in the
world--Asia is.(I'm including India in Asia)
In about two years China will replace the U.S.
as India's biggest trading partner. China now exports goods worth about $10.7 million to India; India's exports to China total aobut $6.7 million.
And when China eventually decides to stop subsidizing U.S. debt (i.e. buying our Treasuries) because they have plenty of other places to sell their goods, interest rates in the U.S. will go so high that we won't be able to afford China's exports . . .
June 26, 2007 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point, Don Bacon.
RDF: For China's government it is not a choice
between economic development and holding on to
political power. They MUST continue to develop the economy-- employing more people and bringing
more people out of rural poverty and into the
middle class---or they will lose political power.
They know this. In China,the biggest threat to
stability has always been its enormous population. The history of China is the history of internal revolts that are unstoppable. When
that many people are dissatisfied, watch out.
I suspect that the goverment will be able to
maitain order--but not by using the elite to
repress the peasants. Rather, they need to
include the peasants in the new economy--which
they are trying to do.
China face huge challenges-- environmental
as well political--but in many ways this is
a very shrewd and practical govt.
June 26, 2007 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
i see the situation as more complex than that. India is still a highly corrupt country, which makes it much less attractive for foreign investment, and that has always been the key to US stability, given our trade deficit. We will remain a much more attractive place to park investment dollars, and the Chinese will be a huge player in our markets.
June 27, 2007 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink