by Nina Hachigian and Yuan Peng
Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 4, August–September 2010, pp. 67–86
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Editor’s Note
China’s emergence on the global stage and the impact of the world financial crisis have widened a rift in expectations between East and West, the ramifications of which underlie many of the themes discussed in other essays in this issue. Survival invited Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Yuan Peng, director of the Institute for American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, to explore these issues in an exchange of letters, which we present here.
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Dear Peng,
We find ourselves at a transitional moment in the global order. China, long a rising power, has now arrived on the world stage. The United States, for two decades the sole global superpower, is reeling from the global economic downturn and entangled in two difficult wars. Meanwhile, global threats like the economic crisis, global warming and nuclear proliferation only grow more intense.
These shifts in the international environment raise some major questions. To what extent do shared global challenges push the United States and China toward shared responsibility? What considerations will spur them to join or lead other nations in collective action? What are the signs that China is ready to help solve global problems? What are the signs that the United States is genuinely ready to share leadership? What will be the consequences if US and Chinese foreign policies fail to coordinate on matters of shared concern?
The White House under President Barack Obama has outlined the contours of a national security paradigm that differs substantially from its predecessor. It is clear to the president’s political allies and detractors alike that he approaches foreign policy not in terms of asserting America’s unparalleled might, but of seeking common cause on shared global challenges. In our age of security interdependence, the White House realises that cooperation with pivotal powers like China is vital to resist threats – terrorism, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, economic crises, global warming – that can harm Americans where they live. In other words, the extent to which China helps solve global problems has very tangible consequences for ordinary Americans, affecting the frequency and severity of hurricanes they experience, the quality of their jobs, or the degree of protection they enjoy against avian flu and rogue nuclear states such as North Korea.
Washington and Beijing have framed US–China relations as a positive, constructive and comprehensive relationship that provides a basis for partnership and shared responsibility on the key global issues of our time. For this approach to truly contribute toward international peace and prosperity, however, China has to become more active in forging collective responses to global challenges, and the United States has to accept China’s greater influence over those responses. The stakes are high; if Beijing and Washington fail to cooperate, progress will falter and the consequences could be disastrous.
Does China seem ready to engage with others on key global challenges within the existing international architecture? Yes and no. Over the last 30 ...
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Nina Hachigian is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where she focuses on US foreign policy and US–China relations. She is the co-author of The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as OtherPowers Rise (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Previously she was a senior political scientist at RAND Corporation and directed its Center for Asia Pacific Policy. From 1998 to 1999, she worked in the White House on the National Security Council staff. Yuan Peng is Director of the Institute for American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, where he conducts research on American foreign policy, Sino-American relations, cross-strait relations and East Asian/Pacific security studies. His latest books include China–U.S. Relations: A Strategic Analysis (co-editor, 2005), and American Think Tanks and their Attitudes TowardsChina (editor-in-chief, 2003). This exchange was originally commissioned by the Stanley Foundation.
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