Asian Voices :

Promoting Dialogue Between the US and Asia

The Rising China: Essential Disposition,

Secular Grand Strategy, and Current Prime

Problems

by

Dr. Shi YinhongProfessor of International Relations

Renmin University

February 12, 2002

Seminar Transcript

Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA

Washington, DC

Shi Yinhong: It is my honor to have thischance to make my representation here on therising China, and first of all I should thankSasakawa Peace Foundation USA and thankProfessor Ikenberry and thank Dr. Minxin Pei who arranged this chance. My presenta-tion is divided generally into two parts. Thefirst part is A Rising China: Ambiguities andControversies. The second part is A RisingChina: National Objectives, Grand Strategyand Prime Problems.

Rising China: Ambiguities andControversies

A rising China is certainly one of the mostfundamental and profound facts in worldpolitics today and tomorrow. To many peopleoutside China, this fact is becoming thenumber two critical reality in shaping theworld power structure and some other vitaldimensions of world politics in the comingdecades, only after the preponderance of theUnited States in importance. To many, it hascreated the China problem just as a rapidlyrising Germany created the German problemafter the accomplishment of German unifi-cation in the 1870s, or after Bismarck resignedas the Chancellor of the Second Reich in 1890.

A lot of people in the United States and othergovernments, academics and think tanks havebeen thinking of a classical issue in moderninternational history. What will be theprospects of national capabilities and inten-tions of the rising China in early or even themiddle 21st Century? What is the bestdisposition and the long-term grand strategytoward this rising China? To make her become a liberal peaceful democracy, aresponsible member of the international com-munity, a great partner of the United States,the Western community and China’s neighbors

in maintaining international stability andprosperity. Or to make it substantially weak-ened, permanently troubled to a degree ofinability or even, like some people now talkabout, to wait for her collapse or imploding bythe great tensions accompanying her currenthistorical transformation.

Within China, among the Chinese informedpublic, international studies scholars, civilbureaucrats and military defense researchers,and even, I guess, some top level officers orleaders, China’s rising as a basic fact has alsostimulated various speculations, discussionsand controversies about the internationalenvironment and China’s place and conditionsin it, both at the present and in the distantfuture. These speculations, discussions andcontroversies up to now mostly have aninconsistent, less radical, short-term andfragmented nature too much depending, in myview, on the vicissitudes of current inter-national events and practical immediate policyrequirements.

However, one still can feel and grasp at thequite different opposite sentiments, ideo-logical inclinations and way of political andstrategic thinking behind these discussionsand the debates. Today, they are characterizedby unprecedented complexity and self-contradiction of the recognition of China’selites on international politics and its generaldirection of movement, as well as theirpositions on the basic course the Chinesegovernment shall take in dealing with the fundamental external political and mili-tary affairs.

The degree of the lack of foreign policyconsensus and the related intensity of the realand potential controversy both among elitesand the public are indeed unprecedented in

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The Rising China: Essential Disposition, Secular Grand Strategy,and Current Prime Problems

byDr. Shi Yinhong

China at least since the ‘49 Communisttakeover. In this respect, the particularremarkable developments in China since thelater 1990s include quite widespread criticismamong a large part of the public against the government’s so-called “softness” and“timidity” in dealing with the United States,Japan and China’s external security matters,the rising of quite strong nationalist senti-ments, especially among a large part ofChina’s youth, the rapid emergence andrelations of unofficial leftists both old and newin the intellectual world in China.

There are now controversies and confusionson at least seven very important issues aboutthe direction of international change and thebasic course China should take. The first is,you can say, philosophical and it can beexpressed as globalization versus multi-polarization. At present, the Chinese govern-ment and many scholars in China treat this asglobalization and multi-polarization. Theformer means general trends in the globaleconomic and technological fields. The latter,a long but inevitable decisive trend of theinternational power structures. And also it canbe pointed out that the former is to them a notso happy reality, especially because the tooobvious preponderance of the United States,the Western developed countries and theWestern multi-lateral corporations in the waveof globalization, as well as of the strongeffects in eroding and limiting the state’ssovereignty and the social control by therapidly international and transnational inter-courses. The latter is to them an ideal becauseof the meaning of decline of the United Statesas the approximate global “hegemon,” espe-cially in the political, ideological and militaryfields, and in China’s further rising and thegeneral liberty of international society, in thesense like the classical “Liberty of Europe.”

However, they at the same time sense gradu-ally the increasing contradictions betweenglobalization and multi-polarization, theinstabilities and possible security dangers toChina in a real multi-polar world and Asia.

And they now proclaim that it will be a verylong process to achieve this multi-polarizedinternational structure, somewhat how aMarxist would treat the collapse of worldcapitalism as a historical inevitability, but notdreamed to come in a few decades.

The second important issue in the debatesamong Chinese elites and informed public can be expressed as rising power versusestablished world power of future accom-modation versus conflict between them. Thedebate on this issue is at large potential. Onlya minority of scholars explicitly discuss it inpublished articles or books. But it’s in theminds of many people and occupies a place asthe paradigm in their long-term internationalthinking. This is a classical fundamental issuein modern international history, especially forthose who are somewhat familiar with thathistory. Generally, there are now three groupsof people in China. The first group is thosewho hope for long-term accommodation withthe United States, but seriously doubt itsprobability, believing that perhaps there maybe a long Cold War confrontation or evenmajor conflict between China and the UnitedStates in the coming decades, primarily due tothe hegemonic or, in the words of their liking,“uni-polar” nature of American power andnational inspiration which is quite difficult to be removed. This group of people isobviously in the majority among China’sinterested elites.

Secondly, those who both hope and believe inthe prospect of accommodation between theU.S. and China as a long-term prospect in theearly decades of the first half of the 21stCentury, though they recognize or evenemphasize the long process of agonizedmutual adaptation which involves so-called“national social learning” of a few generationsin both China and the United States, withgrave mutual suspicion, serious frictions orperhaps even limited conflict in the process asinevitable or difficult to avoid. This group ofpeople is in a definite minority, but theirinfluence at present is much larger than their

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numbers. So those who believe in theinevitability of major conflict between Chinaand the United States as the only historicallyproved solution of the problem of “powertransition,” or as a determined and unchange-able nature of the American “hegemonism”dictates. They have a pessimism that theUnited States will never tolerate a China as aworld power or even No. 2 great power in Asiaand the Pacific, while they, at least someamong them, also hold an optimism that Chinamight break the primary obstacles in her roadto great power and great dignity through thatconflict. This group of people is now only asmall minority among China’s elite and almosthave no remarkable influence upon the so-called “official mind” (to use a phrase of thedistinguished historian, Paul Kennedy),especially of government leadership and thecivil branch, but at the same time they are inchord with the ways of a substantial part of thegrass roots public opinion.

The third important issue relating to the basicnature and function of “American Hegemony”can be summarized as oppression by U.S.hegemony versus the function of stabilitymaintenance of that hegemony. One canhardly find this controversy in publishedliterature in China, but can hear it in some off-the-record formal or informal discussionsamong scholars, the public or even amonggovernment officials. Almost no one in Chinadoes not to some degree recognize and resentagainst the oppression, whether intentionallyor unintentionally, from U.S. “hegemonism”against China and many other countries. Butsome, at the same time, also recognize andeven appreciate the over-decisive role the U.S.played in maintaining stability and order in international politics, both global andregional. Especially for those who put greatattention to the complexities and potentialdangers of the multi-polar power struggle inEast Asia and those to untraditional securitythreats (including those from proliferation ofmass destructive weapons, transnationalterrorism, ethnic and civil conflicts in failedstates, etc.) in a globalized world, this role is

very important or even indispensable.

In an academic conference a few weeks ago, awell-known young professor in Beijing evenspoke frankly that a uni-polar world domi-nated by the United States will not necessarilyproduce vital damages to China’s nationalinterests. This is a minority opinion, but eventhose who never agree with this kind of ideastill in their hearts, and sometimes in theirexpressed opinions, recognize the function ofthe stability maintenance of U.S. prepon-derance in some concrete cases and situations,and this often leads to confusion in theirthinking and attitude.

Because of the limited time of my speech, Ican only sketch briefly the other fourprominent major issues in the generalcontroversy on international politics andChina’s external disposition since the late1990s in the context of China’s rising. Thesefour issues are: first, what are the general prosand cons of China’s participation in variousmajor international regimes or institutions inwhich the United States and its Western allieshave dominance? China’s entry into the WTOhas raised a quite intense debate reflected inmany essays, notes and statements publishedin Internet BBS and some journals, and evenmore in informal talks and conversations,especially before the concluding of negoti-ations, through which we have heard voicesbased on Western liberal internationalist ideasand on the other hand a radical perspective ofdependency and world-system theories. Thegeneral pros and cons of China’s participationto international regimes of arms control, non-proliferation and human rights also raisecontroversy.

Even the phrase, “Taking the InternationalTrack,” as a general national course still has itssupporters and opponents in today’s China asit has had persistently during the past one ortwo decades.

Secondly, what is the fundamental proportionbetween the two major categories of U.S.

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policy toward China: on the one hand, thestrategic precautionary measures (for the mostinformed people in China use the term “con-tainment” or even “strategic encirclement”)and political and diplomatic pressures; on the other hand, “engagement,” accommodation,limited cooperation and so-called “co-optation?”There is an increasing inclination by increasingthe number of people since early 1999 to seethe former category as the only element in U.S.policy and strategy towards China.

Thirdly, China’s so-called “low-profile”versus her “active assertion” in the interna-tional political arena. This instruction of DengXiaoping on China’s international posture andcourse of policy in the dramatic days of ‘89left to the rising China a persistent topic fordiscussion and disagreements, and it willcertainly in the same or different words extendthrough future years or even decades, makingthe balanced combination of “low-profile” and“active assertion” a perennial difficult issuefor China’s statecraft.

Fourth, the last, but perhaps most importantissue, that is, is peace and development still,also in the words of Deng Xiaoping, “the maintheme of our age?” In the contemporaryChinese political semantics, this deals with thebasic nature of the present age of worldpolitics and is thereby determining thefundamental condition of China’s externalenvironment and direction of her foreignpolicy. And there has been a quite intense andwidespread debate in China since NATO’sintervention on Kosovo up to these days sincethe September 11th terrorist attack. A lot ofpeople with increasing numbers have seriousdoubts toward this most essential definition ofa world situation, and some even challenge itin published articles and on unpublished talks.In some sense, you can even roughly defineforeign policy hard liners and moderates intoday’s China by their different attitudetoward this definition of the situation.

All the above disagreements, confusions,paradoxes and controversies in China’s

domestic opinion reflect the complexity of theUnited States as a vast reality to be understoodby the Chinese, the complexity of China’spresent international position and futureprospects, and the increasing diversification ofthe domestic political and social componentsin China in the process of reform, economicdevelopment, and the evolution of modern“mass politics” or even civil society. How-ever, at the same time they also reflect thattoday’s China in her rising is still far fromhaving developed a system of clear andcoherent long-term fundamental nationalobjectives, diplomatic philosophy and long-term or secular grand strategy, let alone a kindof definitive and grand contemporary Chinesediplomatic tradition consensually built in theminds of millions of Chinese people, eventaken for granted by them just as the traditionof isolationism in 19th Century America andthat of the balance of power in Britain fromElizabeth I to at least Winston Churchill. Inother words, a rising China is and willprobably be for a long time an uncertain andsomewhat perplexed China. Her internationaloutlook, her attitude toward the United Statesand her general direction of foreign policy isstill well in the process of being constructedboth by herself and by external forces, amongthem, first of all, by the United States.

Now I will express my personal and perhapssomewhat representative point of view onseveral vital questions, which will determinethe fate of a rising China: what fundamentalnational objectives China should have for theearly decades of the 21st Century? What kindof essential international disposition andsecular grand strategy China shall adapt toachieve these objectives? Are there veryprofound and determining factors to makeChina perfectly capable in pursuing that grandstrategy successfully? What does China wantdomestically at the present for pursuingeffectively the national objectives and grandstrategy as I will now introduce? Due to thelimitation of time available to me for myspeech, I prefer to leave my answers to the last two questions after the two distinguished

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discussants make their comments, if then youwould still be interested in those questions.

Fundamental National Objectives

I believe that China should have three ends asher fundamental national objectives for atleast the early decades of the new century:basic national security, the elementary afflu-ence of the Chinese people and a possiblestatus as a world power.

Basic national security means a state isgenerally secure and maintains independence,sovereignty, territorial integration and thefreedom to choose its own domestic way oflife on the condition that it at the same timerespects the same “natural” rights of otherstates. China has been taking security in thissense among her first national priority formany years because first of all that the existingor potential threats to her security, due to hergeographic location, the geopolitical structureof East Asia and other fundamental political,ideological and historical factors, are espe-cially extensive or multi-dimensional.

Secondly, there are not any regional multi-lateral security regimes or sub-regional onesthat are numerous and effective enough tomitigate the virulent effects of internationalanarchy in East Asia. So there are manyexisting or potential security dilemmasbetween states in this region, and among themthose in which China is involved as one of thetwo antagonists in that pattern are certainly inthe majority.

Moreover, another basic fact which onlyaggravates the lack of enough feeling ofsecurity on the part of China is that between arising China and a preponderant United Statesas the established superpower, there are quitewidespread and deep differences, rivalries,and mutual apprehensions in practicalinterests, power inspiration, ideology, andeven national tradition and mentality. For allof these reasons to do great efforts to secureand maintain basic international security

should continue to be a minimum objective of China at least in the early decades of the21st Century.

But why do I say “basic” rather than “full” or even “absolute” security? Besides quite severe limitations, geographic, political anddomestic elements impose upon China’sfeasible aspiration in this respect, the vitalrequirements of mitigating and even avoidinga security dilemma dictate that China has to besatisfied with basic rather than full or evenabsolute security. Or, in other words, Chinahas to have enough patience to co-existperennially with some relatively insecureconditions and deal with them properly in avery long historical period.

There is a slogan which originated fromJoseph Stalin as well as from the Chinesewhich was understanding of their humiliatingnational experience since the Opium War, thatis the “backwardness (in national strength)means taking a beating.” But I pointed outagain and again in China that national strengthis only a necessary rather than sufficientcondition for China’s security. Unless thesecurity dilemmas China is involved in aresubstantially mitigated, a stronger China willbe a more insecure China, while a really multi-polar East Asia might be one full with power politics, uncertainties, instability andinternational dangers.

It’s very easy to understand that elementalaffluence of the Chinese people should also beone of the fundamental national objectives ofChina in the coming decades. In the languageof the Chinese government, this means that theaverage living standard of the Chinese peopleshould reach the level of that of the secondarydeveloped countries. If we consider thefollowing conditions and developments, wewill be aware that this is indeed someimperative rather than a mere ideal in theordinary meaning of the term: the increasinglygreat gap between the coastal areas and theinland provinces in people’s income; qualityof life and the rate of economic growth; the

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growing unemployed or only partly employedpopulace due to inefficiency and relatedstructural reform of a lot of state enterprises;the numerous poverty groups of people inurban areas resulting from unemployment andthe seriously underdeveloped state of thesocial safeguard system; the often shockingdivision between the relatively rich residentsof the cities and poor peasants, especiallythose in the most inland of the countryside; theawareness by millions and millions of Chinesepeople, through openness of China to theoutside world, of the much higher livingstandard, advanced social welfare andindividual freedom in the developed countries,and the resulting “revolution of expectations”on a very large part of them. Therefore, theelementary affluence is indispensable to thesustainable social and political stability andwell being of China as well as to the decentand respectable existence of her more than onebillion people.

A China having more than a billion peopleshould peacefully and constructively strive tobecome, and then remain to be, a world power- a world power according to the definitiongenerally held by scholars and statesmen sincethe Vienna Congress and Leopold Von Ranke,with particular national power, extent ofinterest, international responsibilities andrights, and the common values and norms with other powers in something like a greatpower concert.

It is important for China to do her best toachieve this kind of status in 30, 50, or morecoming years. Whether China could achieve itin the 21st Century depends on the legitimateself-respect and the self-confidence of theChinese nation with a 1.3 billion population,the reduction of the possibility of beingoppressed or even spited by the present worldpower, the substantial alleviation of existing orpotential threats from all those states whichhave some unjustified intention against China,and obtaining cooperation and support fromother states, including other great powers inChina’s international affairs.

Structural Difficulties

China is facing, and will continue to face inthe long period a lot of difficulties in pursuingthe above national objectives, especially thosewith profound domestic and internationalstructure difficulties, and whether China canovercome them is generally, I dare to say, farfrom certain. For a limited amount of time, Iwill only sketch very briefly the domesticstructural difficulties, except those I have justreferred to, including: first, the uniquely heavyburden of the too vast size of the population,which is and will continue to be, the greatestfactor in obstructing China from becomingrich and strong and optimizing the conditionsfor living of the Chinese people; secondly, thesevere ecological and natural resources andrestraints on China’s economic growth, withthe continuing deterioration of the situation inthis fundamental respect, though its rate hasbeen a little slowed due to increasing nationaland governmental attention; third, the increas-ingly obvious maladjustment or inappropriate-ness of some fundamental aspects of the state-governing system, especially in the context ofrapidly developed urbanization, the spread anddeepening of mass education, and openness tothe outside world, of which the grave andnationally widely resented corruption inofficialdom is only a most remarkable symbol.China has still far from resolved the problemof how to achieve a really sustainable andsocial stability through some feasible, effi-cient, liberal and democratic reform in thepolitical as well as legal field.

For the international structural difficulties, themost remarkable one to the Chinese govern-ment and most of the Chinese informed publicis perhaps the largely undesirable attitude ofthe United States in some fundamentalpolitical, military and ideological aspectstoward the rising China, with her preponderantworld and regional power. Almost having thesame importance is the problem of a securitydilemma in East Asia, including the Indiansubcontinent. As I just mentioned, amongthese security dilemmas, those in which China

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are involved as one of the two antagonists arecertainly in the majority. In this sense, Chinais a country having almost the most numerousand gravest long-term security troubles amongall Eastern Asian countries.

In consideration of the present state ofawareness of the Chinese people, the vastpsychological estrangements and the not-so-potential antagonism between the Chinese andthe Japanese nations, and between the Chineseand the Indian ones, are particularly dangerousin the long term. Besides these, China alsofaces structural difficulties in the transnationallevel due to her great size and relativebackwardness in participating positively andeffectively in the process of globalization, inadapting her traditional way of thinking, incultural patterns of behavior, and social,economic and political institutions success-fully to the requirements of globalization, inaccumulating the national experience of deal-ing with various new forces and changesaccompanying this revolutionary wave of the modern and contemporary history of the world.

A “Diplomatic Philosophy” for China inthe 21st Century

As a very big nation-state that should havelong-term domestic and international aspira-tions and at the same time faces variousstructural difficulties, China ought to havesome reasonable and advantageous long-term“diplomatic philosophy” which can constitutethe perennial national central tradition for herexternal affairs on the one hand, and easilylead to an optimal grand strategy for a wholehistoric age on the other. Up to now, in myrepeatedly expressed opinion, China still hasno such kind of things, whether reasonableand advantageous or not. This is perhaps theNo. 1 cognitive and policy difficulty for thecurrent China in her international affairs.

The prime assumptions for suggesting thisphilosophy and strategy include, among theother most important things, awareness and

understanding of the basic power structure andthe fundamental tide currents of the world inthe early decades of the 21st Century. As tothe former, the basic power structure of theworld, what is most critical will be thecontinued near comprehensive preponderanceof the United States and the Westerncommunity of nations with U.S. leadership.There will be for a very long-term no pos-sibility to form and maintain an interna-tional united front consolidated enough, strongenough, effective enough and permanentenough to balance against this preponderance.

As to the latter, the fundamental tidal currentsof the world, what we can identify withcertainty are that of globalization, domesticdemocratization, change of internationalnorms toward more justice and multi-polarization. The relationship between thesetwo categories of power structure and thedirection of progress is primarily theconnection between the preponderance of theUnited States and the first three above tidalcurrents, that is globalization, democrati-zation, and the change of international normstoward more justice.

Taking into account all I have said, I believethat the essential disposition of China in worldpolitics of the 21st Century should be acombination of being on guard and struggle onthe one hand and accommodation andconformance on the other. Moreover, the latter disposition of accommodation and con-formance shall be in general more than theformer. China should be a “normal” state inworld politics in the meaning that she pursuesmost of the traditional national self-interestsas most other states do, while conforming tothe common interests defined by the con-sensus or mainstream opinion in the society of states.

At the same time, the Chinese should also bean innovative state and this means three majorinnovations in modern world history. The first, to achieve and permanently maintain andsatisfy the basic national security in a highly

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disadvantageous geopolitical environment andin numerous security dilemmas. Second, toachieve and maintain the elemental affluenceof the Chinese people by peaceful, sustainableand a largely equitable growth in a vastcountry which has more than a billion peopleand various domestic structural difficulties.Third, as a leading actor, to contribute to a largely peaceful transformation of thecenturies-long international society commu-nity dominated or controlled by the Westerngreat powers into a new one in which theWestern great powers, especially the UnitedStates, coexist with and accommodate thenewly arisen non-Western great powers, andthereby promote historical great progresses ofthe global international system and its normsin the direction of equity and reasonableness.To speak more briefly, these fundamentalnational objectives, essential disposition inworld politics, and the double normative self-identities form together the diplomaticphilosophy the rising China should have in theearly decades of the new century.

The Choice of Secular Grand Strategy

Strategy is the consciously designed funda-mental way of doing things, and a seculargrand strategy of a state is reference to such away of pursuing basic national objectives for awhole historical era. Based on the abovephilosophy, what kind of secular grandstrategy ought China to adopt or make in thenext 30 or 50 or more years?

It could be said that there are five greatcategories of state grand strategy in theory andpractice: strategy of hegemony, of self-help, ofhiding, of bandwagoning, and of transcending.I shall not talk about the detail of thesestrategies, but I shall focus on the strategy ofbandwagoning and strategy of transcending.

The strategy of bandwagoning is one that isstarting from the assumption of hierarchicalstructure of power distribution in theinternational system trying to cooperate withthe first-rate great power and the international

regimes supported by it, and thereby obtainingits support and protection and other possiblebenefits, though at the cost of one’s ownfreedom of action reduced by some degree.

The strategy of transcending, in the words ofthe inventor of the term, Professor PaulSchroeder, one of the most distinguishedscholars on international history these years,in the words of Professor Paul Schroeder, it isdefined as “an effort to surmount internationalanarchy and go beyond the normal limits ofconflicting politics by striving for inter-national consensus or formal agreement onnorms, rules and procedures to solve theproblem, end the threat and prevent itsrecurrence.” As to the security problemparticularly, transcending means trying tocreate, foster and develop regional and sub-regional security regimes, for the purpose ofgradually producing a kind of internationalatmosphere and framework of institutions, in which a lot of things are stable andpredictable, peaceful, more to expectation,converging and coming into a full being.

Whether the historical experience of the“Concert of Europe” in the 19th Century or thepost-World War II international realities in theNorth Atlantic area, Western and CentralEurope and those in recent years in Centraland South America, part of Africa andSoutheast Asia, or the well developed theoriesof international regimes and constructivism,all support the truthfulness of “transcending.”

For the rising China in the early decades of the21st Century, while the strategy of self-helpshould serve as the strategic basis, it will notonly be unable to mitigate security dilemmasbut aggravate them. Moreover, as pointed outbefore, balancing, one of the key componentsof self-help, can not be effective enough at thegrand strategic level for a long time. As to thestrategy of “hiding,” it will be obviouslyunfeasible for China which is located in thecenter of the Asian Pacific geopoliticalstructure and as a very big country to open upto the outside world.

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China should take “bandwagoning” and“transcending” as her secular grand strategy.What is the “bandwagoning” of China in theearly decades of the 21st Century? At thebottom, “bandwagoning” in this case meansrising on the above mentioned fundamentaltide currents of the contemporary world, andthat in turn means first of all insisting anddeveloping China’s reform and opening-up,entering into international regimes and con-forming to international norms as broadly aspossible, and learning advanced technology,advanced administrative methods, advancedpolitical approaches, advanced ways of think-ing, and an advanced pattern of behavior ofinternational conduct. China has to constructa general relationship of accommodation withthe United States and the Western communityof nations, developing with them as manycommon interests, common values, commonrules and common institutions as possible, andhas to obtain and cultivate various chancesembedded in the basic international andtransnational environments China lives inthrough necessary and affordable compromiseand concessions.

Because of the problem of a security dilemma,China’s pursuit of national security in the 21st Century must include the strategy of“transcending.” This demands that China shallparticipate or strive to participate in all thoseinternational security regimes that could be expected to produce more benefits thancosts to China. In particular, China shouldcontribute as much as possible to the creatingand fostering of regional and sub-regionalsecurity institutions in East Asia. Onlydepending on international security regimesthat can mitigate substantially or even in theend remove the security dilemmas, can arising and increasingly stronger China becomea safer China.

Now I would like to conclude my presen-tation. China, by the essential disposition inworld politics and the secular grand strategyelaborated above, could, I believe with pru-dent optimism, achieve her fundamental

national objectives, a basic security, ele-mentary affluence of the people, and possiblestatus as a world power that would co-existwith and accommodate the United States.Because, first of all, national social learningby more than one generation of the two greatnations, the Chinese and Americans, will bethe most powerful force in the long run in thecontemporary age in which a major warbetween great powers are becoming increas-ingly unimaginable, thereby making peacefulcoexistence and ultimate mutual accommoda-tion become increasingly inevitable.

Thank you very much.

Bates Gill: Thank you very much, ProfessorShi. And let me also thank John Ikenberry aswell as Keiji Iwatake and the SasakawaFoundation USA for this opportunity. I alsowant to extend a pleasant “Xin Nian Kuai Le”to everyone for this beginning of the year ofthe horse. Especially thanks to you, beingaway from your family during this importanttime in the Chinese calendar.

Shi: Thank you.

Gill: I know you’re not here to listen to what Ihave to say, so I’m going to keep my remarksvery brief and I do apologize to everyoneprofusely for having to depart somewhat early.I’m not an historian and I have long admired,however, Professor Shi’s grasp of these grandquestions of history and, most of all, I thinkwe should all be very pleased to have anopportunity to hear him because of hiswillingness to draw his country’s attention in avery frank way to the enormous historicchallenges which China faces and to provide,I think, in a candid way some ideas on howthey might best address them.

I’m a little uncomfortable as a student ofChina, however, to try to attribute policies andstrategies to some single entity that we callChina. If anything, we’ve learned in the pastten or twenty years, this so-called country,China, is becoming far more complex and

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difficult with each passing hour, it seems, toanalyze with a great degree of confidence.

Having put out those caveats, though, I will tryto consider, first, some trends that I see inU.S.-China relations which pose someproblems I think, but also offer up some newopportunities and try to draw our attention tothose new opportunities perhaps as a way offinding convergence on a strategic scale forour two countries to go into the future in amore stable way.

And then, secondly, just say a few words aboutwhat I hope great historians like yourself caninfluence in China on some thinking aboutChina’s future. Let me break the first part ofthose remarks into two parts. First, what I seeas a likely divergence between the UnitedStates and China going forward, and theseareas of likely divergence I think we coulddefine as largely within what I would call theexternal realm of Chinese policy, foreignpolicy, China’s policy on the world stage, vis-à-vis American policy on the world stage.

Divergence between the U.S. and China

There’s a great deal of divergence anddifference, and I think potential problemsloom for our two countries going forward.One reason for this may be that when China orwhen the Chinese people look out into theworld I think there’s been an interestingchange from the past. I think increasingly wemight be able to identify a greater and greaterdegree of confidence amongst the Chinesepeople of their ability to operate based uponespecially the recent successes of the reformera, to operate more confidently and to at leastsee at the end of that tunnel some light of greatpower status in the external realm.

That, obviously, is going to come into somecurrent confrontation potentially with theAmerican role in the international system.And without going into detail, I think it’s veryeasy to identify a number of what I would callgrand strategic questions or grand pillars of

world order over which our two countriessimply do not agree. And I would enumeratethem very quickly as such things as the role ofnuclear weapons in strategic defenses, the roleof alliances and regional security mechanisms,what is the appropriate makeup to providesecurity and stability, the role of questions ofsovereignty and intervention. And here Iwould fold in the perennial question ofTaiwan, as appropriate measures to secureregional and global peace, non-proliferationremains a problem in the U.S.-Chinarelationship.

And I think as Professor Shi suggested evenour two countries would disagree over theappropriate structural balance of power ingrand global terms, which is most conduciveand beneficial to peace and prosperity in theworld. These are big questions, very importantones, and we don’t agree on a lot of them.And, again, this is in the external realm and Ithink these are areas where we’re going tocontinue to see a lot of friction in the U.S.-China relationship going forward. The secondpart though is where I see some opportunityand maybe even potential convergence.

Potential Convergence between the U.S. and China

So I’m moving from likely divergence topotential convergence between our twocountries. And here I would see some potentialconvergence in what I would call in the areasof internal challenges for China. Becausehere, as Professor Shi has very eloquentlysuggested, here we have far less confidence Iwould think among the typical Chinese andeven, more importantly, among the typicalChinese leader of their ability to deal withthese internal challenges going forward.

I think we should take very serious note ofProfessor Shi’s three points of what he calledstructural difficulties on the domestic scene,uniquely heavy burden of populations, severeecological and natural resource restraints andthe problem of, as he so diplomatically put it,

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state governance and corruption. Those arethe fundamental issues. The newspaper head-lines term them other things: unrest, unem-ployment, fraying social safety net, corrup-tion, the problem of the spread of HIV/AIDSin China, and the list is as long as your arm.

I believe that when Chinese leaders lie awakeat night in thinking about the future I don’tthink Taiwan or missile defense or the role ofnuclear weapons with the United States issomething that keeps them awake. I thinkwhat keeps them awake are these, as you putthem, structural difficulties, which ultimatelywill lead to the demise of the Communist partyin China.

So in this sense, these internal challenges areindeed strategic in nature, at least strategic inthe sense that it is a life or death question forthe current leadership or at least the currentparty leadership, let’s say, in China goingforward. And it’s for that reason, because theyare strategic issues for the political leadershipin China and because they are serious practicalproblems that China’s facing that it would bein the American interest to seek greatercooperation and accommodation and evenvarious forms of assistance to help assure thatthese internal challenges can be met in asmooth way that ultimately leads to atransition inside China, political, social andeconomic, which is favorable to the Chinesepeople and to American interests as well.

I think there is a lot of room for cooperationthere and I’m hopeful that as our countrycontemplates how best to get along with Chinain the years ahead we take more seriously thepossibilities of cooperating and findingpotential convergence in these areas ofinternal challenges which are indeed strategicproblems for China and potentially for us ifthey’re not properly dealt with.

Let me just turn then very briefly to what Ithought was a very interesting comment byProfessor Shi. He said, “a rising China will bea perplexed China.” I think that’s very

interesting and one that we should keep inmind because I don’t have much doubt, I meanI think there are these internal challenges, ofcourse, but I think even in spite of thoseinternal challenges it’s highly likely in mymind that even with those challenges as Chinagoes forward it will become an increasinglymore important and more influential and morepowerful player in the regional and interna-tional system.

China’s Increasing Power and Influence

Maybe it will be two steps forward, one stepback, but I think we can easily envision a morepowerful and influential player in China in theyears ahead. Is it a good thing that this morepowerful and influential player is a perplexedplayer? Is it uncertain what its role should be?It is not clear about its normative contribution,if you will, to global peace and prosperity and security.

As Professor Shi has said, while this sort oftraditional definition of power which we canexpect China to have in the future may be anecessary aspect of security and great powerstatus for China, it is not a sufficient conditionfor China’s full achievement of its great poweraspirations. For that I think China will thinkboth the sort of basic accouterments ofnational power that are traditionally definedon the one hand, but on the other handsomething that it doesn’t have right now, andfrom what I take from Professor Shi’sremarks, is not even at the beginning ofbeginning to create, and that is something youmight call a kind of globally vital, a globallyresonant norm, that China can claim torepresent going forward.

That is to say, what does China stand for? Itwould be interesting to hear Professor Shi’sresponse to that because until China stopsbeing a perplexed power and understandsmore clearly and competently what it standsfor and that what it stands for is globallyresonant and vital and is attractive to thebroader international community, then I don’t

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think it can claim to have fully achieved thekind of great power aspirations that it sodeeply desires.

In other words, I think it’s pretty easy for us tothink about what China stands against. I thinkit’s easy to think about what China is against.For China to move ahead in the way that Ithink all Chinese people would hope and Ithink even the global community would hope,much work I think needs to be done todetermine just what it is China stands for. Andwhen it can confidently say that and findsupport globally, then it can say that it hastruly joined the ranks of great powers.

Minxin Pei: Okay, first of all, I want to thankthe Sasakawa Peace Foundation and John forgiving me another opportunity to share someof my thoughts on Chinese foreign policy andtoday I’m really delighted to be a discussantfor Professor Shi, who is surely one of China’smost original and creative and, of course,independent minds of foreign policy. I’m notgoing to go over his presentation point bypoint, except I would like to say that towardthe end of his presentation he raised a veryintriguing idea of a transcending nationalstrategy, a grand national strategy for Chinawhich would be both viable and also effectivein avoiding confrontation or conflict with theU.S. and the U.S.-led Western community inthe process of China’s rise.

The question I want to pose and try to answertoday is whether China’s foreign policy is serv-ing China’s national interests, especially in thevery difficult international environment whereChina is widely perceived as a revolutionarypower and as Professor Shi has explained,China is a country in East Asia that faces verysevere security dilemmas which really meansChina . . . any increase in China’s nationalpower is a concern of many of its neighbors.

Regional and Global Security Dilemma

So how can China cope with both its regionalsecurity dilemma and its global security

dilemma? I identify three major problems,really fundamental problems, that makeChina’s adjustment to its new status as a risingpower, whether its rising is inevitable or notremains an issue as Professor Shi said, but inthe process of being viewed as a rising powerChina’s foreign policy has not served itsnational interests well for three reasons.

First of all, I think China’s traditionalstrategic cultural approach to diplomacy isreally a kind of “hyper-realism” if there’ssuch a term, which might be quite right as aform of approach to a fundamental diplomaticphilosophy in the 19th Century. But in the 21st Century or late 20th Century, thisapproach to international relations is becom-ing increasingly inadequate, if not irrelevant,in many areas because governed by this kindof approach to diplomacy, Chinese decisionmakers pay excessive attention to nationstates as actors while neglecting non-stateactors, and even though I think they do anadequate job in maintaining relations withtraditional actors, they have great difficulty indealing with non-traditional actors, especiallyinternational NGOs, non-traditional security,non-traditional international affairs areas such as human rights, environmental pro-tection. And if you look at how China dealswith the challenge posed by human rights, which has now become a very impor-tant international issue and an issue on which China appears to be very weak, theChinese government really has no effectivecounter measures.

Secondly, China . . . this kind of mentalitymakes Chinese decision makers almostignorant of, if not oblivious to, the power ofsoft power, the view, the value, of soft power.As Bates said it, China really does not knowhow to project an image that’s internationallyappealing even when it is physically powerful.And it also in this area, it has great difficulty,again, in dealing with soft issues, in trying toform international alliances based not ontraditional interests, but on shared norms and values.

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And also this kind of mentality makes Chinavery, very ambivalent in dealing with inter-dependence. Although China is, by theestimates of most people, a huge beneficiary ofinter-dependence, this trans-inter-dependenceand economic globalization. However, Chinadoes not want to pay the price for inter-dependence, especially when paying such aprice means sacrificing its traditional nationalsovereignty. Again, you look at where Chinahas been quite resistant, that’s in the area of theinternational criminal court, which under-mines those cross-border issues that impingenational sovereignty. And that’s a problem forChina’s hyper-realists, is that the realismparadigm no longer functions even wheretraditional power policy is concerned becauseone of the most unique features ofinternational politics today is that there’s nocultivating international alliance againstAmerican uni-polarity, and that may, I think,really throw China’s strategic thinkers into aloop. They just do not know how to functionin an environment where balance of powerlogic becomes totally dysfunctional. And thatgives them a lot of difficulty in either comingup with a set of rhetoric that would convincethem that their diplomatic philosophy is right,while also making foreign policy that wouldsafeguard China’s national interests withoutcoming into a collision with the U.S.

Problematic Process of Policymaking

This is where I see as sort of the problem liesat the more intellectual level. And then I alsosee a major problem in terms of the process ofpolicymaking. If you look at how Chineseforeign policy is made, I would say that it’snot that different from how foreign policy wasmade twenty years ago even though domesticconditions of China have changed enor-mously, I would even say fundamentally, andof course the external conditions China faceshave changed dramatically. This is a processthat is relatively, if not highly closed, decisionmaking structure and process which limits theflow of information to decision makers andalso fails to ensure the quality of such

information. If you look at how top Chineseleaders react to international crises, theirinitial reaction tends to be quite clumsy if notill-advised and the consequences of theirinitial reactions are often very, very costlybecause they often had to climb down fromthose limbs they were creating for themselves.And here you look at sort of how they reactedto the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassyin Belgrade, they set the cone so high it wasdefined as intentional at the beginning so thattoward the end they really could not find asolution that would be acceptable both tothemselves and the U.S.

And also in this foreign policy making processrelevant interests inside Chinese society . . .today I think you can legitimately claim thatoutside the government structure there arequite a few well-informed Chinese scholars orbusinessmen that do know a lot aboutinternational affairs, but their role in makingforeign policy is almost negligible if not non-existent. There’s no independent sources ofinformation analysis and, more importantly,challenging ideas that could pose . . . thatwould call government’s policy into question.

And also even within the government not allinterests, departmental interests or regionalinterests, are taken into account when keydecisions are made. One example was whenthe WTO agreements were negotiated, theMinistry of Agriculture, which really is goingto address one of the most difficult post-recession issues, how to deal with agriculturalsubsidies, was not even involved in this. Andas a result I think China’s exclusive foreignpolicy making process or informationcollection, transmission analysis process, doesnot serve decision makers really well.

Future reforms will have to be made to makethis process more open and multi-polar.Another example is if you look at Chineserhetoric of the sort, of how diplomatic rhetoricis created, you see that several major foreignpolicy themes that form at least to the outsideworld the core of objectives of China’s foreign

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policy in my judgment probably would nothave become such had there been independentanalysis and challenges from an independentforeign policy establishment, such as theCarnegie Endowment.

For example, I don’t know whether it’s truetoday, because for throughout much of the 90sone of the slogans every Chinese foreignminister and the Chinese president espoused isthat the world is moving toward multi-polaritywithout understanding what it means, whilewithout actually confirming for themselvesthat it is not the case. And that kind of rhetoricdoes not serve China’s interests well because itis viewed, interpreted, in Washington asChina’s implicit challenge to Americanpreeminence in these national affairs.

And finally I want to say that China’s authori-tarian regime has become in many instances itsown worst enemy when it comes to foreignpolicy. Of course, that’s related to the exclu-sive closed foreign policy meeting process.

Flaws from the Nature of Autocracy

But I see four additional flaws that can betraced to the nature of autocracy in China.First of all, this official rhetoric that isessential for domestic political reasons is oftenat odds with the same government’s foreignpolicy goals, so it has, if you look at howforeign policy issues are portrayed, andanalyzed in domestic publications, they’reoften very bombastic, nationalistic, they raiseexpectations of the Chinese public. On theother hand, if you look at how actual foreignpolicy is conducted it’s quite moderate, muted,flexible, accommodating. So the government,in fact, creates this expectations step and alsocreates two sets of realities, the propagandareality and international politics reality that ithas great difficulty in explaining to theChinese public.

The second one is that its own officialpropaganda machine operates on a set ofperverse incentives that encourage the

operators in that apparatus to exaggerateforeign threats, to overplay instances whereChina’s sentiments were harmed or hurt byAmerican policy or international policy. Andin most instances, I would say that because ofthe fact that the foreign policy establishmentin China and the propaganda establishment inChina are two distinct institutions.

They have very distinct goals. But on theother hand, the propaganda department canoften jump the gun and create a situationwhich the foreign policy bureaucracy findsvery difficult to deal with. And that’s, I think,that was the case in the NATO intervention inYugoslavia. If you want to understand whythe Chinese public reacted to the mistakenbombing so violently, that had a lot to do withhow the intervention was portrayed evenbefore the bombing took place.

And third, that loose control within thisauthoritarian regime, and I heartily agree withProfessor Shi that internal corruption hasbecome such a systemic cancer in decisionmaking policy implementation in China thatagents within the Chinese government cannotbe relied upon to carry out the top governmentpolicy. That creates all kinds of problems forChina in dealing with the U.S., even thoughthe national policy, the policy of the nationalgovernment, is to honor certain agreements, isto control violations of human rights to acertain level, it cannot really enforce suchcommitments at the lower level.

And finally, I will say that despite ourconventional association of strong men withreal power, authoritarian rulers on theinternational stage are weak players becausetheir power is not protected by the politicalprocess and/or a set of political institutions, sothey cannot really be counted upon to beflexible without consulting their colleaguesback home first. And they, therefore, can onlyproject a very tentative, weak image on theinternational stage. And that’s why I wouldsay that even though I hope that China willmeet the challenges of a rising power, but

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without dealing with these fundamental issues,all of which involve domestic political reform,I have a lot of reservations about whetherChina can actually accomplish its goal.

Thank you.

Ikenberry: Thank you to the discussants. Ithink rather than directly ask the professor torespond, we will open it up for questions andtake a few and then let our speaker respond tothose questions and weave his response to thetwo discussants as he goes forward. When werecognize you, please give us your name andaffiliation and we’ll take it from there.

Q & A

Questioner: I’m with the U.S.-JapanResearch Services. I do have one question.After the integration of Hong Kong into Chinaas one China, two systems, what about theprospect of bringing Taiwan eventuallythrough peaceful negotiations, then you haveone China, multiple systems. How does thiswork out for the future when you talk abouttranscendence, transcending challenges? I’mvery curious, one China, multiple systems, ordoes it have to be integrated into one powerwhich is maybe traditional, more, but, how doyou see the future development along theselines, one China with multiple systems whichmay extend to the outer world which thediscussant talks about international relations.

How do you see as a historian this possibility?One China with multiple systems or Chinamaybe through domination, in conflict withthe U.S. power coming to Asia. I’m not surehow you see the historical point of view aswell as the current order, the future devel-opment on this.

Ikenberry: You want to go ahead with that one.

Shi: As I understand it, one China, twosystems, this is a political slogan and principalidea expressed as a kind of wish of the

Chinese leaders. Taiwan, just like Hong Kongand Macao, should in the legal sense integrateinto China, and all they want is a legalsovereignty, legal sense, no other effects. Thismeans that the social system and the mecha-nism of authorities in Taiwan will remainintact, but to the outside world, a unifiedChinese government is only representative.So I think that this does not mean that it shouldimply the current relationship between themainland and Hong Kong. This pattern willbe moved to Taiwan, no. As I understand that,it means that one China, two systems, Taiwanhas its system, and its long-independentpolitical existence and the regimes and socialsystems and political systems will remainintact. And another pattern is in Hong Kong,this is a so-called specialized district in China.And I think that for most of the Chineseleaders this principle comes from a politicalpragmatism. Of course, there’s difficulty inconvincing Taiwanese people to understandthis. You know that there are a lot of miscom-munications between the mainland andTaiwan and, of course, in Taiwan there aresome political forces which exist that stilldream of an independent state of Taiwan.

So I think at present this principle does nothave its good state of acceptability in Taiwan,but I think actually that this principle iscorrect, it expresses a pragmatical wish thatwe shall have a unified China only in the legal sense.

Questioner: I’m with the Asian StudiesProgram at Georgetown. If I understood youcorrectly, at several times in your talk youused the term democratic development ordemocratic evolution. Could you define for usthe concept of democracy that you envisionfor the long-term future of China and howwould you reconcile that with Jiang Zemin’sstatements last July that there would never bea multi-party democratic system in China?

Pei: Well certainly a democracy will have toincorporate competitive politics, the competi-tive political process, elections, parties and the

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whole gambit of institutions that we normallyassociate with democracy. Of course, we don’t know whether that will take place inChina in the immediate future, but certainly Ihave very high hopes that eventually it willarrive in China, although I’m not so surewhether it will arise as the result of a regime-initiated process or as a result of regimecollapse. But eventually it will be there.

And I also cannot tell you the cost, how highthe cost of that transition will be, whether itwill involve some kind of implosion, nationaldisintegration, civil strife or so forth. So as faras Jiang Zemin’s statement is concerned, Iwould remind . . . I would like to remind theaudience that there was a far more powerfulleader than Jiang Zemin in modern China. Hisname was Mao Zedong and he pledged thatcapitalism would never return to China, andsee what’s going on in China today.

Questioner: I’m with the Carnegie Endow-ment. I thank you very much, Professor Shi,for your remarks. There were two points thatyou made that I found very interesting. I thinkthey are very related to one another. You saidthat you thought that China really wants orshould have, I wasn’t quite sure which, basicsecurity, not full security much less absolutesecurity. And then you said also that youthought that a stronger China might be a moreinsecure China.

Now to me what that suggests and I thinkdrawing from what you said as well is that thereason why you say this is in part because ofthe enormous security dilemma that Chinafaces in the region as it becomes stronger, thatif it becomes a stronger power it will generatemore opposition to itself. So the best alter-native to that is to develop a strategy where it doesn’t really seek to become the strongest power.

It, to a certain . . . as you said, it shouldbandwagon and then it should transcend byjoining in the existing international institu-tions and participating in them more fully. But

all of this to me kind of begs the very basicquestion of what China’s interests are overtime if you assume that, indeed, its aggregatepower grows. If its basic power capabilitiesbecome greater, at what point . . . I shouldn’tsay at what point . . . in what way do itsinterests then change from what they aretoday? Because to me there’s a great deal ofdifficulty when I look at statements aboutChina’s interests and its grand strategy tryingto disentangle what interests are based uponstructural questions, enduring issues that willbe there regardless of whether China is strongor whether China is weak because ofgeostrategic questions.

What interests are based upon weakness, thatChina really has certain types of interestsbasically because it’s a relatively weak greatpower and it’s an aspiring great power? Andthirdly, what interests are basically based uponideology or system or the beliefs of theChinese leadership as Minxin has just said? I mean these are three very different sets of determinates for what influences China’sinterests.

And it seems to me from your remarks youseem to think that the overriding factor overtime will be the fundamental issue of (a) thatChina won’t really be strong enough toovercome opposition within the region andthat, therefore, (b) it will have to adapt itself invery radical ways to the existing set of normswhich one could argue are essentially deter-mined by the United States and the liberaldemocracies. So that assumes certain sets ofissues about China’s interests and such, and soI’d like to just get you to try and define thosefor me a little bit more clearly. Thank you.

Shi: Thank you for your good question. Mybasic idea is that China is in progress and thismeans first of all its strength, general strength,is rapidly increasing, especially economically,but militarily is not so strong. I think that ifyou look at more, not only Chinese politics,but Chinese society and Chinese economy,you can find the greatest change, the greatest

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progress in the past twenty years in China. Wehave increased economic liberty. And if wethink about Western history, democracyshould have a very solid basis. This libertycomes first from the economic field and wehave this great progress.

Of course, the political system has a lot ofwrongs and flaws and backwardness, but Ithink that if we have enough patience to lookat China, not in terms of one year or two years,but in five years or ten years or twenty years,I believe that China will, of course with manydifficulties and even too slowly but certainly,progress toward a liberal democratic systemwhich will not copy the Western world, butwill learn from the West and will be integratedwith China’s particular problems and situa-tions perhaps in the coming one decade or twodecades. Even if China becomes a muchgreater power than now, China still will face avery real and grave problem of securitydilemmas, especially in East Asia.

At the same time, China should progress in thedirection of participating in internationalinstitutions and regimes, and especially in thesecurity field China should play a role. Ibelieve in China in the future of course withmany difficulties and uncertainties, butbelieve in the future China will gradually playa role, perhaps with the United States ingradually creating, developing multi-lateraleffective regional and sub-regional interna-tional security institutions in East Asia totransform this most anarchic area in this worldas now into something in the future like theCentral or even you can say Eastern Asiagradually, like the formation of your Atlanticcommunity in the past half century.

I think, of course, at present, China has still alot to be done in the following two areas. Oneis a real liberal and democratic system whichdoes not copy the Western world, but learnsfrom the West and is integrated with theChinese political situation. And secondlyChina still has a long way to go in partici-pating and creating and deriving security,

modern security, in East Asia. But, if you lookat the past ten years or fifteen years, althoughyou can see in past years an isolated Chinawith a lot of hostility toward the outsideworld, in this one or two decades Chinaalready has made progress in the area ofinternational participation.

Of course, even we in China sometimes loseour patience to see that. The governmentprogresses too slowly, but in China I thinkamong the leaders, even among the govern-ment, even among the government leaders,there’re still a lot of people who want topromote China to progress in this direction alittle quicker.

Ikenberry: Could I just ask the two speakershere, I think Professor Shi is essentiallyarguing that China will solve these securitydilemmas and disarm the neighbors regionallyand globally in the wake of its rise which isbuilt on simply China being China. It’s goingto become more powerful in terms of materialcapabilities just simply as it develops and thiscreates dilemmas, security dilemmas, and thehope is that through reform and Beijing and the encouragement of institutions in theregion it can sort of perhaps avoid the Germanexample, the post-Bismarck German example,and become more like Bismarck, that is to saynimbly reassuring and binding itself withneighbors and through institutions, alliancesand so forth. Or maybe the other betterexample is the 1990 German unification, theway it chose to disarm its neighbors byredoubling Germany, redoubling its effortstowards the European Union and anti-monetary union. It bound itself to itsneighbors thereby reassuring them in the wakeof in this case German unification.

Minxin, you are in some sense saying thatChina can’t really do that because it has aforeign policy problem that’s deeply rooted. Itcan’t really act nimbly, it’s an over-the-topkind of realist state. So my question to you ishow do you react to the professor’s argumentabout the kind of optimistic possibility of

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reform and then a more engagement kind ofaccommodating strategy? Or to ask it moresharply, how deeply rooted are these problemsthat you’ve identified, the type of realism, thedysfunctional foreign policy, the absence ofsoft power capabilities?

Pei: I think a more fundamental restructuringof China’s domestic politics will certainly get at the roots of these problems. However,that’s not possible. But the problem I outlinedin my discussion is really a problem of degree,because I see under the current regime theproblem as being very severe. But someadjustments can certainly start the process ofaddressing these weaknesses, inherentweaknesses in China’s approach to foreignpolicy. And that might create a positivedynamic that would further encourage Chinato be much more internationalist in its world outlook and also develop more self-confidence and a more inclusive process aswell as in a more open domestic politicalprocess.

China does have a very important opportunityin the next few years. There will be a semi-regime change, because the scope of theleadership transition will be so huge and thepeople who are going to rise to the top have alot more international contact and experience.So I do not rule out the possibility that minorif not quite important adjustments will bemade, especially I think in the following twoareas, China’s participation in internationalefforts and peace keeping. Right now Chinahas made some very tentative steps, bywhether it will contribute combat troops,whether it will contribute other assets.

The other area is to take another look at therelationship with Japan, because there’s adynamic going on between China and Japanthat’s very similar to that between Germanyand France in post-World War II that’s amassive full-fledged economic integration. Ithink if China solves its security dilemma withJapan, half of East Asia leaving aside India,East Asia if not Southeast Asia’s security

dilemma will be solved perhaps ninety-fivepercent. So I think that’s an issue . . .

Ikenberry: The issue would be Russia, theequivalent of Russia.

Pei: Equivalent of Russia, yeah. But I thinkthat’s an issue I speculate that will deserve avery important look for the next adminis-tration in China.

Ikenberry: Ben and then Don.

Questioner: I go to the George WashingtonUniversity. This question is in the same veinas the past three or so. Is it possible to restoredomestic politics and specifically the problemof corruption? Is it possible to clean upcorruption from within? Can the CCP do itwithout having an implosion? Anotherprofessor that I studied under, Dr. Pon Wei ofBeijing University, said that if the CCP canclean up corruption it’ll be empoweredforever. Do you see this being possible and, ifso, what steps can the CCP do to go aboutthis? I know even Jiang Zemin has com-mented publicly how frustrated he is aboutcleaning up.

Ikenberry: Let’s take a couple more. Donand then one over here and then . . .

Questioner: Professor Shi, thanks for a verystimulating presentation. Near the beginningof it, you talked about the trends of the latterpart of the 90s among the Chinese people andI gather you mean among the youth but notnecessarily exclusively the youth, towards agreater degree of nationalistic sentiment, acriticism, sharp criticism, of softness ofgovernmental party authorities towards Japan,the United States and so on and so forth. Ofcourse, to some degree this has taken place inmany countries, especially in Asian countries,in other parts of the world as well, but it seemsto be more serious and to a greater degree inChina than elsewhere. I wonder what youattribute it to. Is it simply the end of the ColdWar, the rising United States, and so on? And

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what are its implications? How serious . . . isit just going to be a passing fad and not goingto affect much of anything except people’sopinions or is this something which for thefuture suggests some important role inChinese policy and the way China tries toreact with the rest of the world?

Ikenberry: One more question to thegentleman over here.

Questioner: While I was listening to thepresentation by Dr. Shi and discussions byother discussants, I could not help but recallanother debate or discussion that used to beprevailing in this town ten to fifteen years ago.In those good old years for Japan people usedto talk quite a lot about the rising Japan andnow nobody talks about the rising Japan.Instead, they sympathize with Japan. They areworried that the demise and plight of theJapanese economy could affect adversely therest of the world and they are hoping orpraying that the people of Japan will restorethe confidence as soon as possible.

Well, my question is do you find anything incommon between Japan a decade ago andChina as of today or do you see moredistinction or differences between Japan tenyears ago and China as of today? Or are thereany lessons you might be able to draw out ofthe failure of Japan during the last decade?

Ikenberry: Is that a challenging question!Professor, to answer all three of thesequestions in five minutes.

Shi: First of all, the problem of corruption. Ithink the Chinese government, especially thisgeneration in particular, Jiang Zemin issomewhat serious about suppressing, to controlthe corruption problem, because this problemis increasingly becoming a political one whichsurvives on the propriety, the basic minimumpropriety of the regime. But I don’t think thatthey are willing to eliminate the corruption.They think the corruption is such a problemyou cannot eliminate. And all they want is to

control the corruption, especially in the middleand high levels to restore in some degree thepropriety of the regime among the people.

And I can tell you that what is the greatestcharacteristic of this generation after DengXiaoping of the Chinese leaders. One of themis prudence, or even you can see thatconservatism, so they will deal with theproblem of corruption by using this approach.They are very prudent and they are notdetermined and they don’t expect and believethey can eliminate the corruption. They onlywant to control it, in some degree. On theother hand the people in China are not soconfident that the present leaders are serious insuppressing corruption, enough serious, but ifthey are compared with before they are a littlesatisfied with that, this thing at last is helpingit. I know Professor Pon Wei that youmentioned in Beijing. I think he is one of therepresentative leftists in China today, and Idon’t believe that he seriously thinks that thecorruption can be eliminated and thereby thegovernment can be more consolidated thanbefore. I think the government intent is towant to go this way, that is represented by theso-called action of representatives. They wantto broaden their power base. They want toinclude more dynamic elements into the partyto maintain their control of China.

And a parallel opinion, especially in the late1990s, often criticizes the Chinese govern-ment’s so-called softness and timidity,especially toward the United States, towardJapan, and toward the military buildupgenerally - the problem or issue of militarybuildup and national major security issues. Ithink this is quite extraordinary if you thinkthat the characteristics of Chinese governmentin the past toward foreign threats are almostalways quite harder and quite tough. Thisproves that the generation, the party leadershipsince Deng Xiaoping are even committed todo their best, to establish some constructiverelations with the West, especially with theUnited States. And I believe that the nextgeneration of Hu Jintao will also be committed

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to do their best to derive some constructiverelationship with the West and especially theUnited States.

And the second is that I think that comparedwith Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, thepresent generation of Chinese leaders is notso, you can see they’re not such greatstrategists and they are not so bold men, theyare not so determined men, and they at theirbottom naturally intend to make their responsesofter than their predecessors and sometimesthey are such people that lack enough strategicand modern international experience. Theyare perplexed sometimes.

And on the other hand I believe that in largepart due to the actions of the United Statessince the end of Cold War, especially since themid 90s, you can see that Chinese people’ssentiments against the United States and youcan see nationalist sentiments are rapidlygrowing in China.

Of course, part of this can be due to the factorthat China becomes much stronger and theChinese people become a little more confident,but I think that in eyes of the Chinese, theirunderstanding is that the United States is oftendoing unjust things toward China. So one ofthe basic things of my presentation today isthat I want to talk about, some of you can see,the division and fragmentation of Chineseelites and public opinion.

This means that there are two or more thantwo forces in today’s China and what kind offorces, moderates or hard-liners will gain theupper hand, in a great degree will depend onwhat the United States does to China or whatthe United States does to China as viewed byChinese people. And I think that the UnitedStates certainly should do more beneficialthings towards China, toward the presentChinese government, to let the moderates orthose wanting to have good relations with theWest, and ultimately with the United States inthe future, have hard evidence to let theChinese government, have hard evidence to

talk to Chinese people that their commitmentto do collaboration with the West is correct.And if the United State does too many thingswhich provide the evidence of truth to China’shard-liners, the situation will become worse.

I think the lessons of Japan, this problem . . ofcourse, the two countries, China and Japan,are quite different. But I think that first of allJapan is a great nation. It has more than onehundred million very intelligent and very hardworking people and they have alreadyaccumulated very available experience ofmodernization and post-modernization in thepast fifty years. So I don’t think that the risingof Japan to some level is stopped suddenly. Ithink that because perhaps the past rapidnessof Japan’s growth is perhaps natural. And Ithink that China, at least, should learn fromJapan’s lessons in two fields. One is that theadjustments and the inappropriateness ofpolitical factors, the political machine of thestates is very important. And China nowshould promote more positively its politicalreform. And the second is that the economy issuch a thing, sometimes it will grow very, veryrapidly and sometimes there will be manyproblems and too much confidence. And Ithink the greatest statesman will learn that theeconomy in some sense is like a war. Thefriction is uncertain and is continuing, andChina’s economy is growing quite rapidly, butthere are many not only structural difficultiesas I mentioned, but there are many policydifficulties and some weak points and faultlines.

But I think that the present government,especially Zhu Rongji, has a great sense abouthow weak China’s economy is, not inappearance, but in real things. And they arevery prudent, very serious, to do things tostrive to control the factor of imploding fromdeveloping into an uncontrollable degree.

Ikenberry: Well, I think this has been awonderful way to inaugurate the year of thehorse. So you can join me in applauding ourspeakers. (End)

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Main Speaker Dr. Shi Yinhong is Professor of International Relations and Director of theCenter for American Studies, Renmin University. He also is the Directorof the American History Research Association of China. He has been avisiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute and a Fulbright researchvisiting scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Shireceived a Ph.D. in international history from Nanjing University. He haspublished New Trends, New Structures, and New Norms: The 20thCentury’s World Politics (2000), World Politics, 1956-1958, editor (1999)and The Origins of Confrontation and Conflict; U.S. Policy towards theCommunist China and the Chinese-American Relations, 1949-1950 (1995),and more than 160 articles.

Discussants Dr. Bates Gill is Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studiesand a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.Dr. Gill received a Ph.D. in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.He was co-editor of Weathering the Storm: Taiwan, Its Neighbors, and the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and published China and the Revolutionin Military Affairs (1996), in addition to articles in newspapers andscholarly journals. Dr. Gill also is the author of a forthcoming book,Contrasting Visions: United States, China and World Order (BrookingsInstitution Press).

Dr. Minxin Pei is a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace. Before joining the Carnegie Endowment, Dr. Pei wasa faculty member of the politics department at Princeton University. Hehas received numerous awards, including the Olin Faculty Fellowship, theNational Fellowship of the Hoover Institution and the Robert S.MacNamara Fellowship of the World Bank. Dr. Pei received a Ph.D. inpolitical science from Harvard University. He has written From Reform toRevolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union(1994). He also has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The New YorkTimes and The Los Angeles Times.

Moderator Dr. G. John Ikenberry is the Peter F. Krogh Professor of Global Justice atGeorgetown University. Additionally, he was a Senior Associate at theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Fellow at the WoodrowWilson Center for International Scholars. Dr. Ikenberry is the author ofnumerous publications, including, State Power and World Markets: TheInternational Political Economy (2002), After Victory: Institutions,Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (2000),and Reasons of State: Oil Politics and the Capacities of AmericanGovernment (1988).

About the Panelists