Arguing for greater knowledge of each other's histories, cultures and geo-political drivers. True dat, but hard, in an age of Twitter…
She’s now a bit of a regular in the op-ed pages. Click on the “Jing” label below for the other writings. Or click here.
‘Why in US eyes, China’s maritime ambition can only appear as a threat’ | Jing Lee
The Ides fell on March 19 this year; diplomatic etiquette was abandoned at the Anchorage meeting as a result of clashing assumptions between the two largest economies in the world. In the immediate aftermath, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to
Europe to rally the allies while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi started his six-nation
Middle East visit. They were at each other’s heels, and there is a sequence of
naval exercises making waves. Game on.
For most Americans, post-war prosperity and security depended on their country’s unique leadership as the dominant military power and the beacon of democracy. The United States is the world’s security guarantor, its dispute arbiter and deterrent force. America’s social fabric was based on this strategic identity, through which Americans saw their country shape the world.
From the Chinese perspective, however, American-led Western powers control the international order in ways that weaken or threaten lesser powers, especially in the developing nations, thus diminishing the stability and prosperity of the world.
These competing assumptions, if not moderated through mutual accommodation, can morph into full-scale economic, and potentially military, warfare, undermining the shared goals of peace and prosperity. These differences in culture and societal structures have long been emphasised as major causes of antagonism between China and the US.
China has, throughout her centuries-old civilisation, been considered a continental, land-based power. Conventionally, China’s nexus of great power politics resided on land, albeit its impressive advancements in naval technology epitomised by
Admiral Zheng He’s seven voyages to the Western Seas.
America, however, is a federation born from the Age of Discovery, when European ships travelled in search of new trading routes. The internecine struggles of Europe were exported around the globe by sea. Sea power fever continued into the 20th century, where an America armed with nuclear-powered aircraft carriers became the Old World’s heir, defining itself as a two-ocean sea power.
Policymakers in both China and the US could be misguided by these historical and perceived strategic identity differences.
The arrival of Western ships on China’s east coast in the 19th century left China with a sense of grievance linked to the sea. The Boxer Protocol 120 years ago marked the ultimate destruction of the Middle Kingdom.
America’s dream of a new China was almost as old as the foundation of its republic. Using ports in Spain, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the next landfall, Hawaii, Guam, then the Philippines, America created a sea lane across the Western Pacific that connected itself to China, with Japan as the final springboard.
Theodore Roosevelt’s administration established the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship as a chance for “American-directed reform in China”. Chinese students who studied at American universities played pivotal roles in China’s intellectual, economic and diplomatic life upon their return. American ideals were embraced wholeheartedly.
China’s rise was partly a result of such an effort. However, today’s China poses a new challenge. As the world’s largest trading nation, China’s awakening to maritime aspiration, rooted in the renaissance of Zheng’s voyages, is a natural evolution. Given its encounter with Western sea powers just over a century ago, China wishes to reduce its vulnerability to future threats by increasing its influence along its strategically important maritime periphery.
But China’s newly found maritime aspirations are viewed with suspicion. American naval strategists assume that China’s maritime goals are to challenge US supremacy on the sea. There is hardly any resistance in Washington towards such a strategic drive, guided by the earlier ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan and his influential analysis of naval warfare.
As China grew in economic clout, American foreign policy has turned its springboard islands in the Western Pacific into strategic barriers encircling China.
Beijing’s support for a multipolar, balance-of-power system is seen byWashington as a tactical feint designed to challenge American predominance in the Western Pacific and eventually replace America as the global superpower.
This view is based on American experience. After establishing continental control in North America and an industrialised economy, America turned to sea power to achieve a new world order and rid foreign presence from its hemisphere under the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. John Mearsheimer’s
offensive realism theory projects that China would mimic such a journey to world domination, therefore presenting a zero-sum challenge.
Pointing to a supposedly clear-cut “
China threat” is extremely appealing for many US policymakers, even though the world has already moved away from the century-old ideological mirage.
The ultimate incarnation of America’s diplomatic misunderstanding is to allow a few rocks in the Pacific, not vital to its core interests, to become the keystone of its foreign policy, to surround a 5,000-year-old legacy on the Eurasian continent. Animosity has taken over rationality.
By encompassing such domains, America is at risk of overcommitting its defence, and public expenses generated by naval procurements can quickly become prohibitively high. Did not Samuel Huntington warn the American navy right after World War II that such service needed a mightily convincing mission to endure?It is difficult to get our bearings in each other’s cultures and history beyond our own experience. The analysis of history, with cause and effect separated over a long time, is also often lost because of this. The path to compromise becomes narrower and more treacherous, given the technological and military might in our hands.No one desires a return to a world where trade and travel are privileges granted by the whims of a state or two. The Sino-America relationship is no longer bilateral but global. Having arrived at power differently, there is something to be said for learning about and understanding each other’s journey. It can help avoid grievous policy miscalculation. Ultimately, we must deal forthrightly and sensibly with this already changed and globalised world.
The Anchorage meeting was a rendezvous with destiny. May it be an inflection point, setting us on a path, narrow and knife-edged it may be, towards world peace and stability.
Jing Lee is a Hong Kong-based investment banker and lawyer.
