Advocates of engagement, from George Bush to Bill Clinton, argue that maintaining good relations with the fastest-growing economy in the world–an economy that will be one of the world’s top three within a few years–is a necessity, not a luxury. By dealing with China the United States can encourage it to play by civilized international rules (i.e., stop selling weapons to rogue regimes) and moderate its regional ambitions. By increasingly integrating it into the world economy, some engagers argue, China will over time become a more liberal state.
Appeasement, cry those–an increasingly diverse array of mostly journalists, from The New York Times’s Richard Bernstein and A. M. Rosenthal to the editors of the Weekly Standard and The New Republic–who want to move toward a doctrine of containment. In this view, China’s ruthless Leninists abuse their own people and cannot be negotiated with or taught good international manners. Beijing’s cadres want to use China’s growing strength to destabilize East Asia and become the region’s hegemon. Morality and strategy both require a new China policy.
The problem is that both views are right, or at least partly right. The fundamental complication in dealing with China lies in the nature of the regime in Beijing. China represents a strange kind of mixed system; a market economy with a Leninist political party. While the incentives of the former may push it toward the world economy, moderation and integration, the constraints of the latter pull it back toward suspicion and repression at home and bellicosity abroad. The leadership in Beijing may well understand that China as a nation has much to gain from becoming a part of the wider world, but as a regime it has much to lose from it. After all, Mikhail Gorbachev integrated the Soviet Union into the world, and look what happened to him and his politi- cal party.
But as an alternative policy, containment is premature and unlikely to work. Containment against a regional power like Iran is possible with or without allies. (It is easier with allies, as we have against Iraq, but America’s solo sanctions toward Iran do hurt Tehran.) The containment of a great power, on the other hand, is impossible without support from regional states, and in China’s case none wish to join such a project. Vietnam would be the only taker. Imagine having tried to contain the Soviet Union with only Belgium as an ally!
More important, China is simply not Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union–a revolutionary, messianic state with an aggressive dictator firmly in power who is bent on spreading his power and ideology abroad. China has neither the ability–with a defense budget around $10 billion–nor yet the inclination to assert its military supremacy even in the East or South China Seas. If it posed such a challenge then surely we must confront it, but it took 40 years, nine administrations, a worldwide alliance and $6 trillion to contain and transform the Soviet regime. It is worth waiting for some clarity before we take on another such endeavor.
Engagement, on the other hand, is a fact, not a policy. The United States is actively involved in maintaining the open world economy, global institutions and international political order. Thus, it welcomes every country that believes in these principles. One of America’s central objectives must be to help integrate other great powers–particularly China and Russia–into this global system. But it cannot ““integrate’’ China into the world at the cost of the principles on which that system is based. It is pointless admitting China into the World Trade Organization if done so on terms that undermine its core value–free trade.
Over the next decade China’s ambitions are bound to expand, bumping up against ours and those of our allies in the region. Washington should treat Beijing with the respect due a great world power, welcoming its participation and clout in all areas of international life. But the United States must also make clear to Beijing–as it would any other great power–that if certain lines are crossed, most importantly the borders of Taiwan, it would seek to contain China’s influence, provide military aid to East Asian states that felt threatened and reverse the integration of China into the various institutions of economic and political power. This could be called a strategy of deterrence.
Such an approach sees Beijing as troublesome but without the power or appeal to be a global rival. It takes into account the potential for instability in China. Beijing has unleashed history’s most revolutionary force within its borders–capitalism. It may not bring liberalism or democracy, but it will certainly bring turmoil and change.
Deterrence may be morally unsatisfying to those who want to confront or co-opt Beijing, but it reflects the uncertain reality we face. It is, in the parlance of global capitalism, a hedge strategy.
