The Misperceptions of the redefinition of Chinas role in International Affairs

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira East Asian Studies Sen Golden Introduction The international arena may be seen as a field of conflicting, common or overlapping interests. Such different perspectives may lead to place the international actors and the political developments into different schools of thought or theories of international relations. So, in a world of perspectives, what is the most adequate for the Chinese ascension? Is there one? With the previous question in mind, this paper aims at discussing how different authors present the Chinese Ascension to fit a way of seeing the international relations. Besides, we endeavor at questioning such framework of analysis through reflecting over the Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations and the need to understand the Chinese domestic order in order to comprehend its international behavior. The Chinese Traditional Foreign Relations In order to access the Chinas Traditional Foreign Relations, we should make a few considerations over its view of the occidental values and of the face and favor power game. Sean Golden (2004) states that the Asian cultural values remain as a counter weight to the occidental values. The Chinese debate between the denial of the modern occidental values and the search for post-modern Chinese values presented by the author highlights the search and the need of a new way of conceptualizing and understanding modern China. Golden (2004) goes further in his analysis, when he implies that important characteristics of the modern European society actually came through the cultural exchange between China and Europe in the XVI and XVII century. Ideals of LEprit des lois, the illustrated despot and of civil service were a practiced reality in the Chinese imperial world. However, a great level of distance and lack of confidence was developed in the XIX and beginning of the XX century. The European expansion left China known as The Asian sick man and the denial of the occidental values as universal may be seen as a post colonialist Chinese reaction. According to Fairbank (1968), to understand Chinese Foreign Relations one must understand how the Chinese perceive the world order. This perception is strongly influenced by the interpretations of history and tradition. In that sense such negative historical background only reinforces the traditional Chinese worldview. Such worldview was, and to a certain extent remains, guided by three main ideas: Sino-centrism; The assumption of Chinese Priority and Chinese foreign relations as a reflection of the principles of hierarchy and non-egalitarianism that prevailed internally on the Chinese society. These ideas can be associated to the system of tributes maintained by the Chinese empire and the distance always kept by its dynasties from the outside world, for

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira East Asian Studies Sen Golden instance. More recently, we can see the same focus on Sino-centrism and the assumption of Chinese Priority in the repetitive discourses from Chinese leaders that refuse to play a larger role in the international order, arguing that China needs to be developed first, in order to be able to contribute to the international order. One can also identify these characteristics on the strategic significance that regionalism plays in Chinese Foreign policy. From this same Chinese tradition came the idea that China needed to get itself jiegui to this order first: only by joining can China learn from other powers within the order, how to deal with it(GUNGWU, 2008). This thought guided much of Deng Xiaopings grand international strategy.
Deng Xiaoping envisaged a politically stable China embracing a more independent foreign policy that would take advantage of a less threatening international environment in which bipolarity and the risk of superpower war would give way to multipolarity and a peaceful opportunity for economic development. With less of a need to address immediate military challenges, China hoped to focus on the tasks of modernization that would provide the foundation for realizing the century-old nationalist goal of making the country a rich, powerful and respected member of the community of modern states1

Three diverging views of the Chinese ascension When confronting three authors views over the Chinese ascension, what we see are diverging views of the world system trying to fit Chinas ascension into them: In 1997, Bernstein and Munro (1997) wrote a piece that assured the Chinese hegemonic goals in replacing the United States as a dominant power in Asia. Almost ten years latter Wang (2005) pledges that China seeks cooperation with the hegemonic superpower, in the process of passage from US to Chinese leadership. And Zheng (2005) declares that China do not seek for hegemony in world affairs. When placing the authors in accordance with schools of thought Bernstein and Munro fall into the Hobbesian school, Wang into the Kantian and Zheng into the Grotian. Each author present elements of these schools, especially regarding the logic of interaction among actors in the international system: - Bernstein and Munro: Zero-sum, distributive game, with conflicting interests; - Wang: Cooperative, win-win game, with common interests; - Zheng: Neither zero-sum nor win-win game only, with overlapping interests. As seeing, the three authors disagree on their main assumptions. When Bernstein
1

Goldstein (2001)

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira East Asian Studies Sen Golden (1997) argues that China is seeking to replace the USA as the dominant power in Asia, he places China and the USA as future adversaries presenting ideas such as the pursuit of military power by the Chinese, political alliances and balance of power. According to Bernstein and Munro China is expanding its power, which falls into the offensive realism view, within the structural realism, that maintain that it makes good strategic sense for states to gain as much power as possible and, if the circumstances are right, to pursue hegemony (Mearsheimer, J., in DUNNE et al, 2006). Bernstain and Munros ideas can also be associated with a post Cold War scenario, with an upper void of power left behind by the fall of the Soviet Union. Wang and Zheng, argue in favor of a cooperative Sino-American relationship, leading to a Chinese peaceful rise. Nevertheless they differ on what they understand will be Chinese role in world politics. Wang draws a cooperation scenario that is bound by security2 and well being, where the main actors try to avoid war, with focus on maximization of absolute utility through cooperative action. All assumptions falling into a neoliberal approach. Conversely, Zheng presents a blurred distinction between domestic and foreign affairs, in which internal affairs set the priority for international action. In this scenario military force is no longer the most effective means to achieve State goals. Therefore, cooperation between China and USA will reflect a reciprocal, however not necessarily symmetrical, relationship. Such approach presents elements of an Interdependence theory of international relations. For both Bernstein and Wang economic advancement will lead to strengthening military power. However they disagree in the outcome of such power, that for the first will be conflict and for the second a peaceful transfer from US to Chinese leadership, with both sides avoiding war. Taiwan and North Korea are seeing as a possible source of conflict between US and China. However, as North Korea became the 8th nuclear power in 2006, and tensions did not result in conflict, Berstein and Munros assumptions resulted misleaded. All assumptions are lead by the thought of arguing in favor of against the threat analysts argument that a countrys rapid economic growth will inevitably lead to a similarly development of its military power, that will eventually challenge the existing international order. So far, Chinas role in international affairs has been redefined due to its growing economic might and a culturally entrenched soft power claim referring to Chinas entitlement to a great power in East Asia. Final remarks Lastly, Dengs long-term dream of a great China, ruling a multi-polar world where
2

Wang refers briefly to the post September 11 scenario in which the alliance between China and the United States grow in importance to face the new challenges of world terrorism and new nuclear bombs armed actors.

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira East Asian Studies Sen Golden sovereignty and nationality, defined in Chinese terms of respecting each different belief seems to became closer to reality. The more recent American position of supporting the Chinese strategic role, intertwined with the US dependence of Chinese loans and economic role, and the rise of Chinese military capability reflect on neoliberal and interdependence issues. As a result, Wangs view might seem the most appropriate to the current scenario, but certainly not the totality of its assumptions. In this sense, another theory could be used, for instance a constructivist approach that would better cover the nuances of current international interaction that has been pending on face and favor on the interests in hazard. Further, a Chinese theoretical approach might be more suited. Once Chinese foreign policy is analyzed from a knowledgeable point of view of the Chinese society, new theories can fructify the debate and help to achieve a theory that is in fact adequate for framing the Chinese ascension. References: BAYLIS, J.; SMITH S. and OWEN, P(eds). The Globalization of World Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. BERNSTEIN, Richard y MUNRO, Ross H., The Coming Conflict with America, Foreign Affairs, vol. 76, nm. 2, Marzo/Abril 1997, pp. 18-32. DUNNE, T., KURKI, M. and SMITH, S.(eds.), International Relations Theories: discipline and diversity, 1st ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. FAIRBANK, John King. The Chinese World Order: Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968. GOLDEN, Sean. Valores Asiticos y multilateralismo, in Golden, Sean (ed.) Multilateralismo versus unilateralismo en Asia: el peso internacional de los valores asiticos. Barcelona: CIDOB, 2004. GOLDSTEIN, Avery. The Diplomatic Face of Chinas Grand Strategy: A rising Power Emerging Choice, in The China Quarterly: 2001. GUNGWU, Wang; YONGNIAN, Zheng (Eds.). China and The New World Order. New York: Routledge, 2008. WALTZ, K. Structural Realism After the Cold War. International Security, volume 25, issue 1, pages 5-41. Cambridge: Harvard, 2000. WANG Jisi, Chinas Search for Stability with America, Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, nm. 5, Septiembre/Octubre 2005, pp. 39-48.

Cyntia Sandes Oliveira East Asian Studies Sen Golden

ZHENG Bijian, Chinas Peaceful Rise to Great-Power Status, Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, nm. 5, Septiembre/Octubre 2005, pp. 18-24.