THE CONSTELLATION OF  NATIONS: TWO VIEWS

"A Japanese scholar said to me a few years ago when I was visiting,   

'You have to understand: we view the world horizontally, and they [the Chinese] view it vertically.'" 

The Hon. Jim Talent 

March 13, 2019 

Today, China steals our intellectual property and uses it to put our people out of work, it intimidates its neighbors - including close U.S. allies - while increasing its military capabilities in the South and East China Seas.  China exports corruption and its authoritarian model across the globe.  It uses cheap financing as a debt trap and has built a police state that the Chinese Communist Party uses to limit free expression that contradicts the party line.

These are not the actions of a responsible stakeholder.

SEN. MENENDEZ:   In your view, what does China want in the near term, in the long term, and why?  And, secondly, what are, in your views, the three most important things the United States can do protect its interest, in all if its dimensions, vis-à-vis China?

SENATOR TALENT: You've really asked the $64-dollar question, Senator.  Which is: What is the ultimate object of these policies?  I refer in my statement to the fact that they are seeking a kind of hegemony in East Asia, but what does that really mean?  I would answer that with reference to one of the reasons that they're doing it.  In my statement I talk about sets of reasons being ... .  One set of reasons is nationalistic and historical. 

A Japanese scholar said to me a few years ago when I was visiting, ...  you have to understand, we view the world horizontally, and they view it vertically.  So, we view the international order as one in which nations relate to each other basically according to agreed-upon rules and resolve disputes according to those rules, and resolve them peacefully.  Where there are no rules, [they] negotiate peacefully.  They [the Chinese] view relations between nations as [a system] in which the larger and more powerful nations naturally get the benefits. 

And if you think in terms of the history, their way of looking at the world has actually been the predominant way in which nations have related to each other through most of history.  I'm not really even attacking them for this. I think they are more comfortable in that kind of a setting, just as we are more comfortable in ours - the order that we and our allies and most of the world has built.  [It] comports with our values.  We believe it preserves the peace, and it is one in which we have prospered, and as Dr. Mastro said, many nations have had an opportunity to prosper. 

So I do think, as an ultimate objective, they [the Chinese] want to move the world more in the direction of their view of how nations ought to relate to each other.

As mentioned, there were two witnesses at the Senator Foreign Relations Committee's hearing on March 13.  Sharing the witness table with Senator Talent was Dr. Oriana Mastro, Associate Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.  It was a rich discussion, and one to which we expect to return in the coming days.  In the meantime, you can watch the full hearing yourself or read the testimonies of the two witnesses, all of which are available at the links below.

The short segment we excerpted from Chairman Risch's opening statement concluded with the remark, "These [actions by China] are not the actions of a responsible stakeholder."  That, of course, was an allusion to the now famous speech by Robert Zoellick back in 2005.  Ambassador Zoellick was then Deputy Secretary of State in the Administration of George W. Bush.  On September 21, he addressed the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.  It was an upbeat speech, one that took note of China's great strides, its burgeoning economy, as well as its membership in the World Trade Organization and other bodies.  Above all, it was a speech that set out America's hopes for China's further development.  In the defining passage, Ambassador Zoellick asked:

For the United States and the world, the essential question is - how will China use its influence?

And continued:

To answer that question, it is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China's membership into the international system: We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in that system.

***

Chairman Risch is certainly right that things have not worked out as Ambassador Zoellick had hoped.  Senator Talent made a similar point in his testimony, which included a short but useful history of the U.S.-China relationship from the Nixon visit to China in 1972 to the present.  In discussing, for example, the U.S. legislation granting China "permanent normal trade," a precursor to China entering the WTO, Senator Talent said:

The Clinton Administration supported that change, and Congress approved it in May 2000.  I was serving in the House at the time, and I supported the Administration's policy.

Two paragraphs later, he offered this more up-to-date assessment:

[T]he dominant view at the time in our government [i.e., back in 2000], and for years afterwards, was that participating fully in the world trading system would change China.  But it is fair to say the opposite has happened - that China has succeeded in changing the world trading system.

Yes, it is true that, from the beginning, or at least from the 1990s on, there were American voices warning against just such an outcome, but that in no way disparages the efforts made to shape a more positive future.  That is always the job.  And it was certainly the common if unstated goal of all of those who participated in the March 13 hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  We'll conclude with this paragraph from Senator Risch's opening statement:

Given Chinese behavior over the past several years - economic, political, and military - some now believe conflict is inevitable.  I don't think it is, at least not yet.  But the relationship must be rebalanced in order to avoid future conflict and provide a sustainable way forward for both countries.