US-POLITICS: Sino-American Relations Remain Sensitive

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 1997 (IPS) - The death of Deng Xiaoping – exactly 25 years after U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China – comes at an extremely delicate moment in ties between the world’s last remaining superpower, and its most likely challenger.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have been rocky since the bloody crackdown on China’s “pro-democracy” movement in 1989 and, since then, both countries increasingly have tangled on a broad range of issues.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was expected to advance the “comprehensive engagement” policy propounded by President Bill Clinton during her visit to Beijing this week. But other voices at home warned that U.S. and Chinese ambitions ultimately were incompatible and that conflict – whether by mistake or design – was inevitable.

‘The Coming Conflict with China’, a new book published just last month, is only one expression of this wariness. Other signs include stepped-up military cooperation with Vietnam and Japan while Washington drifts toward a de facto containment policy of China, while publicly insisting such an approach would be counter- productive.

The U.S. public is told the suspicion is mutual. U.S. journalists based in China have devoted considerable attention in recent years to the threat posed by what they almost always refer to as “surging nationalism” in China. Anti-American screeds, such as the 1996 book, ‘China Can Say No’, are cited as evidence that Beijing’s emergence as a global power could be as disruptive to international “order” as Wilhelmine Berlin’s was a century ago.

In fact, these fears are consistent with a predictable cycle in U.S. attitudes towards Asian powers — principally Japan and China – that goes back well more than a century. These attitudes, consisting of sets of both positive and negative stereotypes about Asians, have shifted between admiration, disenchantment, fear, and hostility, depending on which nation seemed more threatening to the United States at any given time.

For example, in 1957, – when relations between Washington and Beijing were non-existent – a leading scholar asked a panel of foreign-policy experts and prominent opinion-shapers about their images of China. Even in the absence of any direct contact with the country, their views were strikingly consistent with those which prevail today.

“In their current feelings about the Chinese, most of our panelists are moving uncertainly somewhere between admiration and fear,” wrote Harold Isaacs in the classic ‘Scratches on Our Minds’.

In the last quarter century of his epic career, Deng himself offered the U.S. public memorable images that evoked both attributes. When, on his 1979 visit to the United States, the dimunitive leader donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat at a festive Texas rodeo, the media reacted with delight.

That small act confirmed in a graphic way that ties between the two countries were not only normal after a 30-year hiatus, but that China had joined the United States in a global effort to defeat Soviet hegemony. Estranged for so long, the two nations were now on the same team, just as they had been during World War Two. As historian Harry Harding put it, the mood was one of “excitement and elation.”

Aside from his American cowboy’s hat, Deng’s spirit, captured in his famous epigramme — “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice” — was seen as an expression of good old Yankee pragmatism.

While the relationship faced some strains during the 1980’s, Deng ensured that its basic strategic thrust – containing a common enemy – drew the two powers closer together, according to James Lilley, a former U.S. ambassador. And Deng’s economic reforms not only brought growing U.S. investment, but also promoted the image of China as a nation of entrepreneurs.

The disillusionment was inevitable, particularly as the Soviet threat faded and ultimately disintegrated. The turning point, of course, was the televised crushing of the democracy movement — including the Statue of Liberty-like ‘Goddess of Liberty’, in Tienanmen Square in June 1989.

The plucky and pragmatic image offered by Deng just 10 years before was replaced by that of a rigid and intolerant old man operating through a ruthless, decadent, and parasitic party bureaucracy incapable of democratic reform.

In his infrequent public appearances after 1989, Deng seemed to embody this perception. Palsied and shuffling unsteadily, the historic leader depended on his daughter to interpret what others told him. He seemed out of touch, barely aware of his surroundings. The 10-gallon hat was long gone.

The question now is whether that image of China’s leadership will change. Which is the next turn in the cycle of attitudes? Much depends on China itself, of course. While Deng’s chosen successor, Jiang Zemin, is believed to have consolidated his position atop the party and the government over the last three years, he is still considered relatively weak by most U.S. analysts.

Few are predicting the imminent outbreak of a power struggle. But many express concern that Jiang may feel compelled to make concessions to hard-liners in the military where distrust of the United States is strongest.

Washington is especially worried that a heavy-handed takeover of Hong Kong in June and and new tensions with Taiwan could sour the atmosphere and bolster pro-containment forces here.

Various interests here are also poised to play an important role in shaping China’s image in the post-Deng period. U.S. business, which has been attracted to China’s vast consumer market and cheap labour since the Boxer Rebellion in the early part of the 20th century and is now heavily invested in Beijing, is girding itself for major struggle against an embryonic alliance of labour unions, human rights activists, and right-wing lawmakers.

While both sides vehemently disagree on an entire range of issues involving trade, human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, and weapons proliferation, there is one point on which they have consensus.

They agree that China has become Washington’s most difficult and perhaps its most important foreign policy challenge.