Chapter Ninteen

U.S.-China Relations: A New Start?

David Lai

A war broke out 2,432 years ago in ancient Greece between the Spartans and the Athenians. Thucydides, an Athenian historian, took note of this bloody and protracted war (the war started in 431 BCE and lasted for 27 years) and turned his account and analysis into a book called The Peloponnesian War. At the beginning of this monumental work on war, Thucydides asserts that while there were many different factors contributing to the onset of this military conflict, what made this war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear this expanding power cast on the Spartans.

Since the Peloponnesian War, there have been many other major power wars resulting from similar situations (Germany's rise and World War I is a contemporary textbook example). Today, we may be witnessing the making of another power transition. This time, it is between China and the United States.

With the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States stands as the lone superpower. In the past 10 years, riding the tides of the information revolution and globalization, the United States has raised its supremacy to an unprecedented level. Across the Pacific Ocean, however, China has embarked on industrialization. Rapid economic development in the past two decades has given China newfound power and influence.

History suggests that there is natural tension in the power transition process between the competing powers. Typically, the rising power is unhappy with the existing international order created and maintained by the hegemonic and status quo power. With its increased power, the rising state will try to alter the situation. Conflict will arise if the two powers cannot accommodate each other.¹

The United States is watching with concern over this rising China-the world's youngest and oldest great powers have a precarious relationship that has gone through many ups and downs in the last 50 years. They are also currently at odds over a wide range of issues such as the way of government, Taiwan, human rights, arms sales, missile defense, military modernization, and many others. The rise of China has added more complexity to this troubled relationship. A pressing question for us is: Will this power transition result in another Peloponnesian War? No one can rule out such a possibility. We just have to recall how dangerous it was during the U.S.-China standoff over the military aircraft incident on April 1, 2001. In the long run, inherent tension generated out of the power transition process could prompt the two great powers for conflict. In the short term, the contentious Taiwan issue stands as a flashpoint.

However, if the relationship is properly handled, the United States and China will not have to go to war against each other. For better or for worse, the United States holds the keys to the issue of war and peace with China. Chinese leaders largely watch what the United States would do to China and make their responses and adjustments. Yet to put it jokingly, there is no guarantee that the "American sheriffs" would find the right keys to the demanding problems. More often than not, U.S. national leaders are influenced by an always divided policy advisory, checked by a divided government between the President and the Congress, and divided they mess up the keys.

Currently, there are mainly three schools of advocates, each proposing a different approach to deal with China. The Clinton administration pursued an engagement policy toward China. Conservatives attacked this approach for being too accommodating to the Chinese. They insist that the best way to change China is through discipline. Containment therefore is their proposed policy choice. Between these two camps comes a middle-of-the-road approach proposed by the RAND Corporation. It is a policy of congagement, a combination of engagement and containment.²

All three schools share a common goal: to change China in the U.S. image. They differ, however, on the means to this end. These approaches, after all, are not new. They are the traditional approaches of carrots and sticks. It is questionable that these old tricks are working on China. Indeed, John Mearsheimer bluntly warns that the United States should not expect too much from changing China. Instead, it would be better off to "do whatever it can to slow down China's rise."³

While the debate goes on, the United States appears to follow the RAND approach to deal with China. The engagement part is the continued economic, trade, and other exchanges. The containment part is the action taken by the United States to strengthen or promote bilateral security ties with China's neighboring countries. From the Chinese perspective, the United States is building a ring of encirclement around China that goes from Japan and Korea to China's northeast down around China's eastern and southeastern seaboards through Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, and up to China's western frontier with India and Pakistan. The current war against terrorism in Afghanistan has brought the United States into Central Asia, right next to China's sensitive northwestern territory.

One cannot blame the Chinese for their concern. We just have to imagine how we would feel if we found the Chinese government making a presence around the United States. To a lesser extent, as David Shambaugh rightly puts it, even the U.S. engagement approach is perceived as a soft containment on China.⁴ Distrust, as a result, still runs deep.

Contentious incidents in the last few years have made the tense relationship worse. The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in May 1999, the Cox report about Chinese stealing secret nuclear technology information, the continued American support for Taiwan, and the military aircraft crash on April 1, 2001, all served to reinforce the distrust between the two nations.

The Bush administration has not made this relationship any easier. During the 2000 Presidential election campaign, candidate George W. Bush criticized the Clinton administration's attempt to make China a strategic partner. He proposed to redefine China as a strategic competitor instead. No sooner had he moved into the White House than did President Bush and his foreign policy team start to translate this campaign rhetoric into policy consideration. Chinese leaders took note of this change and perceived it as a further deterioration in the already troubled U.S.-China relations.

Bush's attempt, however, quickly ran into snags. Shortly after the April 2001 military aircraft incident, the Bush administration started to modify its approach toward China. President Bush and his senior advisors quickly dropped the term strategic competitor. When Secretary of State Colin Powell went to Beijing on July 30, he was all smiles, calling the Chinese leaders friends. Secretary Powell was in Beijing to prepare for a summit meeting between President Bush and the Chinese president Jiang Zemin in China in October 2001. U.S.-China relations appeared to be on the upswing.

Then came the unexpected terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. The United States suddenly found China on the same side against terrorism. The scheduled meeting had become an opportunity for President Bush to solicit support from China (and other Asia Pacific national leaders who were attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation annual meetings in Shanghai).

These changes ironically put President Bush much ahead of his predecessors in adjusting his approach toward China (David Lampton observes that it took Ronald Reagan more than a year and a half and Clinton more than 3 years to get back the main channel of U.S.-China policy⁵). However, it is becoming clearer that such an important relationship between the United States and China should not be like a constantly swinging pendulum. A more stable approach is badly needed to meet the long- and short-term challenges posed by the rising China.

A sound approach toward China should be based on a proper understanding of it. However, this understanding is still lacking. The lack of understanding of China is largely reflected in the following areas.

Overstating China Threat

There are several ways to see if China is a threat (to the United States and the international community). One is to determine if China has territorial design beyond its borders. This is certainly a disputable call. China's quest for unification with Taiwan and its claim on the South China Sea islands are cases in point. From China's perspective, these are historical losses waiting to be recovered. However, the other disputants insist that there must be room for negotiation and compromise. How the Taiwan question and South China Sea disputes will be settled is a topic for another analysis. A fair proposition can be made here that there is no reason to believe China would seek expansion beyond these disputes. A domino effect (in President Dwight Eisenhower's terms) is far fetched.

Realistically, any Chinese expansionist attempt will be easily offset by its geopolitical constraints. Unlike the United States, China has 15 formidable neighbors, some of whom it has unsettled border disputes with. Its approach is to mend fences and promote good neighbor relations. China has been quietly pursuing this policy for the last 20 years. One must agree that its accomplishment is rather impressive.

Another way to gauge if China is a threat is to see if it has ideological designs beyond its borders. China has abandoned its call to promote international communism long before the collapse of the communist camp (the alarming one was made by Lin Biao during China's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s). Chinese leaders have no desire to revive the failed international communist movement. Aside from political ideology, China does not have a religious drive to conquer the souls of the world.

Still another way to see if China is a threat is to assess if it has the capability to threaten other nations. Chinese military power is the central focus. There have been numerous studies about the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Most see that China's priority and grand strategy is to develop the economy and to transform China into a great power in 50 to 100 years. Military modernization takes a backseat in China's modernization drive. However, new developments in the Taiwan question put much urgency on China's need to upgrade its military power. Much of the increase in China's military buildup in recent years has been largely driven by China's need to keep its reunification quest credible.

Moreover, many of China's neighbors have acquired impressive advanced weapon systems from the United States, Russia, and other Western major powers. The awesome American military power operations in the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, and the current war against terrorism in Afghanistan have put the Chinese on alert that they cannot let their military power fall too much behind.

The balance sheet should be clear: the China threat thesis has been overblown.

Overestimating China's Development

After a few false starts in the past, China finally embarked on a true process of industrialization in 1978. Its economic development in the last 23 years has been really impressive. However, a fair assessment of China's development has to take its huge population into account. The difference between China's gross domestic product (GDP) and its per capita GDP is a case in point.

China has come a long way in its quest for industrialization, but it has a long way to go. Chinese leaders rather modestly claim that China is still at the early stage of "socialism," and this early stage of socialism is going to be a long one, say, about 100 years. During this long period of time, China will remain a developing nation.

Overlooking Changes in China

As economic reform continues to thrive in China, many fundamental changes are also taking place. Most of the changes are taken for granted in the West and the United States. However, these changes are revolutionary to the Chinese. Indeed, from the list of change presented below, we see that the Chinese are actually Americanizing their life in many aspects. Specifically, the Chinese are:

eating fast foods and drinking coffee (getting to be fast paced)

moving on four wheels and highways (a car for each household in 20 years)

housing single families (no more three generations under one roof)

paying their own way in college education (it was practically free in the past)

reforming government work assignments for college graduates (graduates are allowed to look for their own jobs)

freeing up the labor market (a competitive labor force is on the move)

loosening the household registration system (the Chinese government finally translates one constitutional right into action)

transforming the state-run industries (it is privatization!)

embracing free trade (becoming a member of the World Trade Organization)

adopting American legal concepts and practices (presuming innocence rather than guilt and setting up law firms in China)

having nationwide village level elections (grassroots democratization)

modifying the Communist Party of China (capitalists are welcome to join the party).

This list can go on and on. These are fundamental changes that will eventually put China more and more in line with the advanced industrialized nations.

Underestimating Chinese Leaders' Ability to Move China Forward

The Chinese regime survived an internal uprising (the Tiananmen Square movement) and an external shock by the collapse of the communist camp in 1989 and 1990. Twelve years later, Chinese leaders continue to pay lip service to Marxism and Maoism in their effort to maintain the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China rule of the country. However, Chinese people know that Marxism and socialism are just talk. Capitalism is what everybody does in China. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is only the code word for capitalism in China.

Chinese leaders understand this. They clearly see that it is their efforts in moving the economy upward and improving the people's standard of living that help them win the support of the Chinese people. Their accomplishments in getting China into the World Trade Organization, winning the competition to host the 2008 Olympics, and maintaining a thriving economy have earned them much popularity and secured them in the driver's seat.

China is currently in the process of leadership transition. Jiang Zemin's successor apparent, Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, took a "coming out" tour of five major European nations: Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Spain (from October 27 to November 11, 2001) and made his first-ever official visit to the United States in April 2002. This high-profile exposure should help him prepare for his formal succession in the coming years.

With succession matters ostensibly in smooth progress, Chinese leaders appear to be more confident in dealing with both internal and external affairs. One new development in the Chinese leadership is the recent telephone diplomacy launched by President Jiang Zemin. Responding guardedly to the terrorist attacks on the United States and the U.S. war against terrorism, Jiang made calls to all the major power leaders (and answered a call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair) and quite a few leaders of other countries (for example, Egypt, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). On another occasion, immediately after the conclusion of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Shanghai, Jiang called French President Jacques Chirac to brief him on the key issues discussed at the meetings.

It is interesting to recall Deng Xiaoping's (Jiang's predecessor) remark that it was not in the Chinese tradition to have national leaders talk to foreign counterparts on the telephone. Deng made this remark to explain why he did not answer the call from President George H.W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the June 4, 1989, suppression. That was during the old days when China had limited telephone users. China's telephone lines have since increased a million-fold (recent statistics report that China now has over 300 million telephone household accounts). It seems natural that current Chinese leaders would break this tradition. Nevertheless, it also shows that Chinese leaders are more confident and are taking a more proactive approach in international affairs.

U.S. Approach toward China

In the face of the misconceptions about China and the fundamental changes taking place there, the United States needs to reconsider its approaches toward China.

Engagement. The United States wants to integrate China into the U.S.-led international order through engagement. This is a non-issue now. China is already integrated in many parts of the world community and is actively trying to break into the remaining areas. Engagement with China will be more and more on equal terms.

Containment. It is a nonstarter (in David Shambaugh's term). There is no way to contain China. There is no need to, either.

Congagement. It is only a new bottle for the old wine.

To have a fresh new start in U.S.-China policy, American leaders would be better served to review the Nation's founding fathers' advice.

At his farewell address to the nation on September 17, 1796, President George Washington laid down the principle for future American foreign policy: "Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." Washington also charted a course for America: 'It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence." However, Washington cautioned that:

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all be should cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.⁶

There is ample evidence that contemporary American foreign policy leaders have forgotten Washington's advice and have indulged in both habitual hatred of some and fondness toward other nations. Our insistence on labeling some nations as rogue states is a perfect example. Defining China as a strategic partner or a competitor is another prime example. It has shackled our Government's attempt to promulgate a coherent China policy. Labeling China in any way will only lead us to deal with a China that we wish it to be.

Following Washington's advice, the United States should prepare to deal with all other nations with neither ill will nor illusion. Particularly, the United States should prepare to engage China frankly and squarely. We must see that some of the American approaches toward China are overbearing. The United States should take a more enlightened approach, especially with respect to China's internal problems. Many of the problems are best seen as growing pains of a developing nation. They are China's own problems, and they would be better off left to the Chinese to solve. Excessive intervention will only backfire. Moreover, our excessive meddling in China's internal affairs only gives the Chinese leaders an excuse to resist change. We also hand the Chinese leaders an opportunity to rally the Chinese behind them in their opposition to the United States. In short, facing the reality, not wishful thinking, is the key to many of the problems in U.S.-China relations.

In addition, a big failure in the American dealing with China is that many of the conflicts appear to be attacks on China rather than the Chinese leadership. This is typically the case with many of the resolutions passed by Congress against China. The annual threat to terminate most-favored-nation trade status, the resolutions to frustrate China's efforts to host the Olympic games, the attempt to get the United Nations to condemn China for its poor human rights conduct, the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the Cox Report about Chinese stealing secret information from the United States, and flying spy planes along China's coasts all serve to reinforce the Chinese government's propaganda that the United States bullies China. The rise of nationalism in China has much to do with this failed U.S. approach toward China. The anti-American sentiment has gone to the extent that when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, many Chinese hailed the attacks. Chinese Internet chat rooms were filled with comments that the United States deserved the attacks.

It Takes Two to Tango

If the United States is to take a fresh approach toward China, Chinese leaders must face reality in their policy toward the United States as well. Chinese leaders must see that they have their undeniable share of responsibility for the troubled relations between China and the United States. Particularly, Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Jiang Zemin have all looked at the United States as their archenemy. The root cause of the Chinese leaders' animosity toward the United States lies in their self-imposed Marxist ideological outlook and in their cardinal interests derived from an outdated political system that was abolished in many other former communist countries.

Chinese leaders have been asking U.S. leaders to discard the Cold War mentality toward China. They do not see that they are the ones who live in contradiction, and they have much to discard on their side. It is their outdated views on a wide range of issues that get them into troubled relations with the United States. Specifically, Chinese leaders must see the fundamental problems in Marxism and the Chinese government, the inherent contradiction in China's economic development and political decay, their lack of understanding of democratic government and human rights, and their erroneous views on international relations. Chinese leaders also must see that the ideology and the political system they choose to run are not historically determined. However, until they remove these self-imposed ideological barriers, Chinese leaders will not share fundamental interests with the United States. There can be no true improvement of relations between the Chinese leaders and the United States.

Revolution versus Governance

Karl Marx is undisputedly one of the founding figures of contemporary sociology of social conflict and revolution. Marx's theory today continues to inform us about the tension between the haves and the have-nots, as well as the potential of deadly social upheavals. However, Marx had very little to say about governance. Thoughts and theories about governance are from other political thinkers, such as Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, John Stuart Mill, and others. Unfortunately, Chinese leaders favor only Marxism and reject all others.

There is no evidence that Mao Zedong read any of these major Western works on representative government. Mao followed Marxism to launch a revolution in China and won the victory in 1949. However, Mao could not find answers from Marxism for governance. He then turned to the Chinese classics of palace power struggle such as Zizhi Tongjian for clues. The tragedy was that he ran the "People's Republic" as a revolution until he died in 1976.

Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping, had his limitations as well. Deng was a little better than Mao in that he understood the importance of economics. While Mao emphasized the power of political authority, Deng relied on economic means. China under Deng took off in economic development. Unfortunately, Deng left behind an outmoded political system intact. Deng openly admitted that he hardly read any theoretical work. All he had offered was pragmatic experience talk. He believed that as long as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can improve Chinese people's standard of living, it can continue to control China. He refused to accept the idea that as China's economy develops, its political system has to change accordingly. Ironically, this is precisely what Marx's theory is all about.

Jiang Zemin inherited a Chinese government that is in the shadow of its suppression of the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The CCP and the PLA have no doubt lost much popularity. Jiang understood that the only way to continue the CCP rule of China was to continue China's economic reform. As Jiang and his associates put it, economic development is a necessity but not a choice. However, Chinese leaders also see that economic development carries the seed of political instability, a typical problem in changing societies. Therefore, they are trying everything they can to uphold their authoritarian control.

Chinese leaders also justified their continued economic reform by referring to Marx's theory about social development. Human society, according to this theory, develops in an evolutionary fashion from primitive tribes to agricultural communes, and then slavery, feudalism, and capitalist societies; eventually, capitalism gives way to socialism and finally the world becomes communist. China, as Jiang put it, jumped from feudalism and semicolonialism into socialism. It is clear that this rush was premature. So in the CCP 15th national convention in 1997, Jiang declared that China is still in the early stage of socialism; moreover, this early stage is going to be a long one, perhaps over 100 years. During this long period, China has to make up the lessons of capitalism.

We would leave aside this absurd theory about history developing in a predetermined and linear fashion. But we want to point out that since the corresponding political system to market economy (that is, capitalism) is democratic government, China would be better off making up the lessons of representative democratic government as well. In this respect, the thoughts and measures taken by the Founding Fathers of the United States have much to offer to the Chinese leaders in improving China's political machine. Specifically, the Federalist Papers should replace the "Mao Thought," "Deng Theory," and "Jiang Insight" to become the guiding principles of a new Chinese political system.

Lasting Stability

China has a recorded history of about 5,000 years. For thousands of years, Chinese leaders have been concerned with political stability. To date, China still does not have a political system that can guarantee lasting political and social stability.

For thousands of years, Chinese leaders have known and maintained only one form of government. It is a centralized authoritarian government without checks and balances on political power, especially the high-level rulers. As Lord Acton put it, power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. This system is unstable by design.

Adding to this fatal flaw is the absence of the mechanism for legitimate and peaceful transition of rulership. With no exception, every dynasty came to power through war or rebellion. When the CCP founded the People's Republic in 1949, the triumphant Chinese leaders claimed to have broken away from China's dynastic past. Unfortunately, the record of CCP rule of China in the last 50 years is essentially the same as the old dynasties. It was perhaps even worse during Mao's absolute dictatorial control.

Another major problem is the lack of political and civil liberty. Chinese top-level rulers are traditionally chosen through power struggle. Middle and lower level officials are all appointed from above. As a result, they all try to please their superiors, but none are responsive and accountable to the people under their control. Anyone who criticizes the government is charged with capital crime. For thousands of years, the Chinese government has kept perhaps the longest and worst record in the world for punishing people for what they think and say. One such example appears in one of China's earliest historical chronologies, The Shiji, by the great historian Sima Qian (145-90 BCE). According to Shiji, Emperor Li Wang of the Western Zhou dynasty (9th century BCE) brutally silenced dissidents and then bragged about his brutality. One of his senior advisers warned him that the emperor's heavy-handed suppression was like building a dam to withhold water; when the people's frustration built up, it would eventually break the dam. Unfortunately, Emperor Li Wang did not take this advice. Later generations of Chinese leaders all emulated Li Wang but paid no attention to the advice either.

Finally, it is the involvement of the military in the country's political life. Mao is credited for making the remark that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. However, the PLA mission, as its name suggests, has been long accomplished. It is high time the Chinese leaders turn it into the Armed Forces of China. Its new mission should be to defend China, but not as a tool of the CCP in handling China's internal political affairs. In the most recent White Paper on Defense (released in October 2000), Chinese leaders once again insisted that the PLA adhere to the absolute leadership of the CCP. Chinese leaders should realize how outdated the approach is to have the military under the control of the party rather than the government. The experience of military coups throughout the world in contemporary history should bear this argument out.

There are many other problems in the Chinese political system as well. However, the ones mentioned here are sufficient to ensure political instability in China. Once again, the American example is of much help to the Chinese leaders. The fiasco of the 2000 American Presidential election has become the laughing stock of Americans and other peoples alike (including the Chinese leaders). However, after the laughter, Chinese leaders should see the essence of democracy at work. The freedom in political debate, the respect for law, and Al Gore's graceful concession have no doubt impressed many Chinese. Unfortunately, these acts would all be inconceivable in China.

Chinese leaders are big fans of Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. They like his theory of economic development through authoritarian rule in changing societies. However, they have all skipped Huntington's comment about the Chinese government's lack of adaptability--a key element of mature political institution and political stability. So from 1921, the year when the CCP was founded, the Chinese have had only two generations of leaders. Although the CCP defines Deng as the second-generation leader, Deng and Mao are what Huntington calls the "intra-generation succession." The shift from Deng to Jiang is an "inter-generation succession." In the same time period, the Americans have seen 15 Presidents, from Warren Harding (1921-1923) to George W. Bush.

Peaceful transition of leadership in the United States is a routine matter. However, it is a crisis in China. The CCP and Chinese government will have a generational change of rulers in the years 2002 and 2003. Chinese leaders are still operating in their outdated black-box fashion to determine the fate of their party and the Chinese government. There are indications that they have managed this upcoming rulership change. However, Chinese leaders must see that they are only muddling through the crisis. They still do not have a mechanism in place to guarantee peaceful transition of rulership in China. Chinese leaders want to develop China into a great power. They must see that it takes more than economic power to become a great power in today's world. Chinese leaders must see that without a democratic government, there can be no lasting stability in China.

Westernization and Peaceful Evolution

Chinese leaders have been pursuing a campaign to resist Westernization in China for the last five decades. Unfortunately, they forget that the CCP leaders are the ones who first Westernized China when they imported Marxism from the West. There is really no reason for the CCP to favor only Marxism in China. Chinese leaders should not continue the useless attempt to resist ideas from the West. What they should do is to see if they have better ideas to offer. If Western ideas serve China's interest, why reject them? In fact, Chinese leaders should do the Chinese a great favor and build an electoral democracy that can ensure lasting peace in China. Deng Xiaoping said that if China did not pursue socialism, the best it could become would be a vassal state of the Western industrialized countries. This is completely absurd.

It is true that democracy and representative government are ideas of Western origin. However, these are ideas that have stood the test of both time and contests with other forms of government. As the Dalai Lama recently put it, no government is perfect, but electoral democracy offers the best government that can accommodate imperfect human nature.

In the 1950s, the late U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles placed hope on the third and fourth generation Chinese to turn China into a democratic country. He also hoped that China would go through a peaceful evolution in the change from authoritarian rule to representative government. Chinese leaders hate this comment. They have been fighting hard to resist this change. Chinese leaders must see that attempts to resist peaceful evolution will breed only violent upheavals. They should take steps to make political change before it is too late.

The changes in Taiwan offer a great example of peaceful evolution. All Chinese should feel grateful that the change of leadership in Taiwan did not turn into a war. This is the first time in China's 5,000 years of history that there was a peaceful transition of leadership from one ruling party to its opposition. There are obviously many lessons to be learned from the Taiwan experience. Perhaps this is the most important one.

Lastly, Chinese leaders must stop their outmoded anti-U.S. propaganda. They must see that years of anti-American propaganda have given rise to a generation of hateful Chinese. It is really a shame to see the Chinese people take pleasure at the pains of the Americans following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. If the Chinese leaders do not stop this anti-U.S. practice, they will push the Chinese people toward confrontation with the Americans in the future.

A New Road to Peace

While the above-mentioned changes involve a change of mindset on both sides and will take time to implement, a quick fix is within our reach. This approach is to build a multilateral security regime in Asia. It is clear that the U.S. approach to pursue bilateral ties with the Asian nations around China does not serve the purpose to promote security and stability very well. It seems more reasonable that the United States should pursue a multilateral option.

An Organization of Security and Cooperation for Europe and Partnership for Peace-like political/security regime would offer the United States, China, and Asian nations an opportunity to minimize the chance of a future Peloponnesian War in Asia.

The reasons are multifold. First, this structure would offer continuous diplomatic contact and dialogue, currently absent in the region. Second, it would moderate China's fears of a U.S. containment strategy, as witnessed by U.S. bilateral alliances around China. Third, it would include an operational level structure, where one does not now exist, for military interaction to increase transparency, confidence, and predictability. Finally, a multilateral security regime would also induce stability that would stave off regional fears of a rising China through dialogue, confidence and security building measures, and preventive diplomacy.

To conclude, let us review George Washington's advice again. The United States and China should look into the mirror, reflect upon the past, and both take a refreshed new start toward each other. George Washington prophetically told us:

The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.⁷

Notes

 ¹See A.F.K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1958), for a discussion of the power transition theory. [BACK]

 ²Zalmay M. Khalilzad et al., The United States and a Rising China (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1999). [BACK]

 ³John J. Mearsheimer, "The Future of American Pacifier," Foreign Affairs (September/October 2001). [BACK]

 ⁴David Shambaugh, "Containment or Engagement of China?" International Security 21, no. 2 (Fall 1996), 180. [BACK]

 ⁵David Lampton, "Bush Is Ahead of the Game on China," The Christian Science Monitor, August 29, 2001. [BACK]

 ⁶George Washington, "Farewell Address," Two Centuries of U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. Stephen J. Valone (Westport: Praeger, 1995). [BACK]

 ⁷Ibid. [BACK]