By Joseph Nye, Jr.
Global Beat, 22 June 1998
Washington's current hysteria about China is largely driven by domestic politics. Three times in two weeks, the House of Representatives rebuked the president over China. In an election year, Republicans seize on allegations of campaign finance scandals, and illegal technology transfers to build campaign issues. Democrats looking forward to the year 2000, split over how to handle human rights during Clinton's trip.
It would be a pity if domestic politics caused Americans to lose sight of our long-term strategic interest in East Asia. Clinton defended his trip in a recent speech. Disagreeing with those who want to isolate China, he argued that such a course would make the world more dangerous. I agree.
When I served in the Pentagon in the first Clinton administration, my concern was how to manage a balance of power in East Asia. After careful studies of the current and projected power of the United States, Japan and China, we developed a four-part strategy: Maintain the forward presence of roughly 100,000 troops in the region. Support multilateral institutions such as ASEAN Regional Forum. Put our alliances, particularly with Japan, on a firm post-Cold War basis.
From that position of strength, encourage China to define its interests in ways that in the long run could be compatible with ours. Clinton accomplished an important part of this strategy in April 1996, when he and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto publicly affirmed the yearlong work of a joint group that redefined the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty as the basis for stability in the Pacific in the next century. As a result, China cannot play a Japan card against us or try to expel us from the region.
He also made progress during Jiang Zemin's visit last year on the crucial second stage of the strategy, the constructive engagement of China. His current trip is the next step. Ever since Thucydides and the ancient Greeks, historians have known that great wars are often caused by the rise of new powers and the fears such change creates in established powers. But it is not true in every case. New powers can be accommodated if they can be persuaded to define their interests in responsible ways. That is the overarching question the United States faces in its relations with China.
Pessimists about China's future and about America's continuing strength argue for a policy of containment analogous to our response to the Soviet Union after World War II. But the current debate between containment and engagement is too simple. For one thing, a crude policy of containment would not work.
Three Fatal Flaws
Containment has three fatal flaws. First, it exaggerates current and future Chinese strength. Unlike the Soviet Union, which had an expansionist ideology and conventional military superiority in Europe, China lacks the capacity to project military power much beyond its borders. Moreover, in the new dimensions of military strength in the information age, America's edge will continue to persist.
Second, as a quick survey of Asian capitals makes clear, the United States could not now develop a coalition to contain China even if we tried. China's neighbors do not see it as a current threat in the way the Soviet Union's neighbors did during the Cold War. Only if China's future behavior becomes more aggressive could such a coalition be formed. In that sense, only China can produce an effective containment policy.
Third, containment is mistaken because it discounts the possibility that China can evolve to define its interests as a responsible power. If we treat China as an enemy now, we are guaranteeing ourselves an enemy, particularly given the fact that nationalism is rapidly replacing communism as the dominant ideology among the Chinese people. No one knows for certain what China's future will be, but it makes no sense to throw away the more benign possibilities at this point. Containment is likely to be irreversible, while engagement can be reversed if China changes for the worse.
Engagement, on the other hand, is more an attitude than a detailed policy. It does not prescribe how to handle hard issues like Taiwan, trade or human rights. The United States and China will continue to have important disagreements, and we will often need to take actions China will not like - such as sending two carriers near Taiwan in 1996, or insisting on proper conditions for joining the World Trade Organization.
Two Nations, Common Interests
At the same time, we also have important areas of common interests with China. We both want prosperity in the region, and China has acted responsibly in the Asian financial crisis. Neither country wants a conflict on the Korean Peninsula or a nuclear arms race in the region following the Indian and Pakistani tests.
A weak or chaotic China that could not feed its people, stem the flow of refugees, or manage its environmental problems is not in our interest either. In some areas, like nuclear nonproliferation or the comprehensive test ban, China over the past decade has come to define its interests in directions more like ours and has greatly improved its behavior.
If China can be brought into a network of rule-based relations, such an evolution may continue. Will this strategy work? No one can be certain, but it is clearly better than the containment strategy advocated by many who object to Clinton's trip. It would be one of history's tragic ironies if domestic politics leads to an unnecessary Cold War in Asia that will be costly for this and future generations of Americans.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
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Citation: Joseph Nye, Jr. "The Case Against Containment: Treat China Like an Enemy and That's What It Will Be," Global Beat, 22 June 1998.
Original URL: http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/asia/china/06221998nye.html
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