CHINA: Moves to Dispel Wariness Ahead of Bush Visit

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING , Nov 15 2005 (IPS) - As United States President George W. Bush flies to China for talks with top Chinese leaders later this week, both Beijing and Washington are focusing on how China uses its rising economic power and new military clout.

Washington is concerned that China externalises its power in ways that harm America’s long-term economic and security interests in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Beijing, for its part, worries that United States’ suspicions of China’s ‘peaceful rise’ as a world player would derail the country from channelling its power into solving a cluster of pressing, internal social and economic problems.

Chinese analysts argue that the string of U.S. politicians-a number of hardliners among them-who have come to visit China in recent weeks, illustrates the amount of attention paid to China’s growing clout. They hope that Bush’s visit, Nov. 19-21, would end this wave of attention by demonstrating top-level support for China’s efforts to establish itself as a global player.

“Apart from the purely symbolic value of hosting the U.S. president, Beijing would be seeking more assertive support from the White House for China’s rise as a world power,” says Bonnie Glaser, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a consultant to the U.S. government on Asian security issues.

A new strategic dialogue between the two nations was launched earlier this year and Beijing wants assurances that the scope of greater bilateral cooperation, outlined by the U.S. envoy Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, is endorsed by President Bush, Glaser said in Beijing after attending talks with Chinese officials ahead of the visit.

Xiong Guangkai, a senior Chinese military official, confirmed these aspirations in a speech at a seminar on bilateral relations Monday. China aims to “form a consensus to share in protecting the security and stability of the Asia-Pacific region and encouraging regional prosperity and development,” Xiong said of the upcoming summit.

The list of U.S. dignitaries who visited China in October included Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, followed by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s trip to Beijing – his first since he took office in 2001, was of particular interest to Chinese officials because of his publicly stated mistrust of China’s military and strategic intentions.

“To use a popular Western phrase – seeing is believing,” says Wu Jianming, a senior Chinese diplomat, who is also the president of the China Foreign Affairs University. “For all those in the Bush administration with misgivings about China, it is important to come and see the country with their own eyes.”

Chinese observers claim that seeing the attraction for the new China, has already swayed staunch neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz to quieten their anti-China rhetoric and switch from promoting ‘containment of China’ to ‘constructively engaging China’.

Since becoming president of the World Bank earlier this year and visiting Beijing, Wolfowitz has stated his belief that China would use its growing influence in a constructive manner, argued Tao Wenzhao, a U.S. studies researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Monday’s China Daily.

“This position shows a sharp contrast to before,” the author wrote, citing Wolfowitz record of promoting pre-emptive strikes during his tenure as a second-hand man in the Defence Ministry under the first Bush administration.

But while Beijing places importance on personal impressions and meetings between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Bush during the upcoming visit, the White House is more pre-occupied with seeking assurances that Beijing would act on a range of explosive issues for domestic audiences back in the U.S.

In the economic area, Washington is particularly concerned with Beijing’s alleged ‘currency manipulation’ and its failure to rein in intellectual-property violations.

China’s surging exports have fuelled a sharp rise in its trade surplus with the U.S., giving more ammunition to U.S. politicians and businessmen that have called on Beijing to make its currency exchange rate more flexible. For the first ten months of this year, China’s trade surplus has hit 80.4 billion US dollars, compared to 32 billion dollars for the whole of 2004.

U.S. manufacturers accuse China of manipulating the value of its currency to make Chinese goods cheaper overseas at the expense of American jobs. Last week, China and the U.S. signed a three-year agreement to reduce the billions of dollars of China’s clothing imports.

Still, Bush is under pressure from the U.S. Congress to raise the issue of surging exports in meetings with Hu and threaten trade sanctions if China does not revalue its currency.

Beijing has tried to give a positive spin on trade frictions between the two countries. “U.S.-China relations are developing and trade is growing,” says Wu. “The disputes are a sign of the maturity of our relationship which has outgrown ideological differences.”

Yet, on security issues, the two countries seem to have drifted apart since Sep. 11, 2001 when Beijing took a major step in pledging cooperation in the U.S.-led fight against global terrorism.

China has used its growing clout in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation-a regional security block that includes Russia and four former Soviet republics, to call for a deadline for the U.S. troops withdrawal from Central Asia.

In July, the group requested a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, reflecting growing Chinese unease over U.S. military presence in the resource-rich region.

China has also supported the inauguration of Asian regional organisations, like the East Asia Summit that includes Australia, New Zealand and India but excludes the U.S.

This has generated a “cauldron of anxiety” about its true intentions in the U.S. and other parts of the world, according to Zoellick.

Speaking in Beijing at the recently initiated strategic dialogue between the two countries, Zoellick warned that China shouldn’t attempt to “manoeuvre toward a predominance of power” in Asia by building separate alliances in Southeast Asia and other areas.

Chinese analysts have countered that China hasn’t mounted a campaign to challenge America’s status as the world’s only superpower and its rise should be regarded with rational restraint.

“If you want to make China a responsible member of the international system, then you have to accept that the country would be shouldering more responsibility and play a greater role in the region,” said Tao Wenzhao, during the Monday seminar.