Rising China

This kind of thing gets annoying after a while.

There's an opinion article in The Australian by John Mearsheimer just recently... turns out it's a reprint from a debate between Mearsheimer and Zbigniew Brzezinski from Foreign Policy magazine earlier this year, though for whatever reason, The Australian's editorial people didn't credit that on the internet page. Anyhow, Mearsheimer's going along okay, if a little simplistically, and explaining why China's rise in the Asia Pacific might not be a peaceful one. Familiar enough thesis, and sort of plausible. But then he has to destroy his argument's credility by throwing in rubbish like this...

"Why should we expect the Chinese to act any differently than the US did? Are they more principled than the Americans are? More ethical? Less nationalistic? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of these things, of course, which is why China is likely to imitate the US and attempt to become a regional hegemon."

So America is the benchmark for aggressive nationalism? For unethical behaviour? For lashing out in fear because they're 'concerned for their survival?' Now I've got my share of bad things to say about various American policies at various periods (and Australian ones, for that matter) but give me a break.

America got to be the 'hegemon' in the Pacific because the Japanese attacked them. Little place called Pearl Harbour, might ring a bell. Yeah yeah, America threatened to cut off Japan's oil, so the Japanese had 'no choice'... a bit like the school yard bully having 'no choice' but to punch another boy in the nose for failing to surrender his lunch money. In fact, if you want to look through history, America did its damnedest to stay OUT of all the world's troubles, and the greatest anti-American fury in much of the world during WW2 was that they took as long as they did. Funny thing, history -- back then, everyone complained that America always came to war too late. Now, they complain they're too early.

As for ethics and nationalism, I'm an Australian, and I'm damn glad we have to suffer American nationalism and ethics instead of that which came with the Imperial Japanese Army. If the Chinese were to come and save us from some other promised invasion just as nasty as that one would have been, I'd welcome the Chinese 'nationalistic, unethical army' too, with open arms. It'd be better than seeing what happened to Nanking repeated in Sydney or Melbourne. Let's get some perspective here.

Furthermore, if all hegemons are only interested in beating everyone else down, as Mearsheimer argues, why is America almost single-handedly funding China's rise? Where would China's booming economy be, without the American market sucking in their exports like a giant hoover? Without the tens of billions of dollars of American investment that floods into China each year? It's not like the Europeans have led the way in opening their markets the same way. Without America, China today could be rather like, say, North Korea. Only much bigger, and much more well armed with nukes and the like, and thus enormously more frightening.

The truth, I suspect, is that many American planners know all too well (even if they haven't admitted it publically) that there's no other choice. America funds China's rise, knowing it may well displace America at the top of the stack in the long term, in order to avoid the instability that would go with a poor, hungry, backward, nuclear armed China in the short term. And besides, India's rising too, whose long-term prospects I believe are better than China's, and makes a nice counter-balance of democracy and pluralism to a part of the world that desperately needs it.

Say what you like about other American policies, but vis-a-vis China, and India, I think America has it exactly right. It's maintaining stability while promoting growth and democracy. It's only the lack of imagination on the parts of some narrow-minded people that makes them incapable of imagining worse possibilities. I can think of far, far worse ways to go.