Sino-U.S. relations maintain unique consistency in 1990s

By Denny Roy

There will be a consistency in China's policies through this decade on commitment to economic reform, on Taiwan, and on its posture in East Asia and the U.S.

WITH China's post-Deng Xiaoping era well under way, it appears the Sino-U.S. relationship will maintain a remarkable consistency through the decade. Jiang's relations with Washington in the late 1990s resemble Deng's in the early 1990s.

While Jiang's need to consolidate his position may exacerbate tensions on certain issues between China and some foreign powers, particularly the United States, the long-term trends in China's foreign relations are generally unaffected by the leadership transition.

Chinese elites remain committed to market-oriented economic reforms, as confirmed by the 15th Party Congress in September, and to engagement with the world capitalist economy.

This gives the Chinese powerful incentives to respect the rules of international trade regimes and a strong interest in keeping regional political tensions low.

An open and market-oriented PRC economy is politically as well as economically favorable from a U.S. standpoint, as Americans tend to believe economic liberalization begets political liberalization.

On the negative side, post-Tiananmen antipathy towards the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within the U.S., and especially the U.S. Congress, carries over from the Deng regime to the Jiang regime.

Although Jiang was not a major CCP figure during the 1989 crackdown, he is Deng's anointed successor and he declined to express regrets about Tiananmen during his recent visit to the U.S.

It is difficult to imagine a major upgrade in Sino-American relations while the CCP rules China.

Jiang's ascendancy to the paramount leadership does not bring a significant change in Beijing's position on Taipei, including a determination to prevent Taiwan from moving too close to independence, if necessary through the use of military force.

There is a consensus on Taiwan among all leading individuals and factions of the current government, and the party has backed itself into a corner through its promises not to accept an attempt by Taiwan to permanently break politically from the mainland.

As in Taiwan itself and in the U.S., PRC policies that lead to tensions over Taiwan are strongly influenced by domestic politics.

Interestingly, in contrast to the Republic of China and the U.S., the PRC's domestic political inputs into the question of Taiwan's international status are stable, consistent and broadly consensual, producing a policy that has been predictable from year to year, and from regime to regime.

Beijing has the usual appetites of a great power, plus powerful impulses stemming from its historical experience demanding that it be treated by other countries with respect and deference. But this is not to predict that a Chinese hegemony will indeed occur.

China's continued rapid economic growth, national unity and socio-political stability are all uncertain.

If the Chinese leadership successfully steers through these challenges and the PRC continues to increase its relative national power, Beijing may well conclude that it can pursue its objectives most effectively through the present system, especially given that many Asian states, in contrast to the U.S., are prepared to accept China's emergence as the dominant regional power.

For the foreseeable future, China will lack the capability to militarily force its will upon the rest of the region. Thus, the more alarmist scenarios of a Chinese version of Japan's World War II empire or a hegemonic war between China and the U.S. need not yet be seriously considered.

The region can expect that China will strive, inasmuch as it is capable, to reinstitute the bygone arrangement wherein other countries in the region consult Beijing on major foreign policy decisions while the Chinese have relatively broad freedom of action.

China will likely exercise its influence through economic rather than military power, which means the growth of relative Chinese power is tied directly to Chinese economic development.

However, China retains the capacity to act as a systemic spoiler, while the U.S. and the other regional powers have few means of effective retaliation in the event of a crisis.

While Chinese commentators often speak of Western plots to repress the PRC, the U.S. is in effect acquiescing to the rise of a strong China by abetting Chinese economic growth (as indicated, among other things, by a Chinese surplus in Sino-U.S. trade of some US$40 billion a year).

American efforts, rather, are geared towards pacifying and socializing the behemoth so that it accepts the same rules, norms and institutions favored by Washington.

As when Deng was alive, China appears willing to accommodate the present, U.S.-sponsored international system on most issues except Taiwan. But at the same time, the more fundamental sources of friction between China and its neighbors, including rule by an insecure CCP, the PRC's position on the Taiwan issue, and China's rising relative power, persist after Deng's death.

The writer is a Research Fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra.