sábado, 25 de agosto de 2012

sábado, agosto 25, 2012


August 23, 2012 7:12 pm
 
My night at the rodeo with China’s elite
Ingram Pinn illustration




The other day I spent an evening at a rodeo in the shadow of the Colorado mountains. I was in the company of a delegation from Beijing’s elite Central Party School, a substantial slice of the US foreign policy establishment and a fair smattering of geopolitical thinkers from Europe. We were all wearing cowboy hats.




As the sun set over a spectacular ridge line, I hesitated to imagine the reaction of the rodeo’s riders and roughnecks had they known they were being cheered on by a group of Chinese communists. Even worse, the cadres were in cahoots with a bunch of soggy European liberals.


.
Colorado is a swing state in the presidential election but I saw few likely Democrats. The rodeo was in what an American friend calledgun country”. Mitt Romney won the T-shirt vote hands down.




Our host was the Aspen Strategy Group, which a few years ago teamed up with Aspen Italia and the party school to create an informal trialogue of Americans, Europeans and Chinese. Watching the bronc riding and steer roping was a break from two days of discussions about everything from the euro crisis and the role of the dollar to US-China rivalry in east Asia and the rupture in the UN Security Council about Syria. Formality somehow dissolves when you are wearing a Stetson hat.




I cannot say the meeting, the third in the series, put the world to rights. Europeans left as depressed about the euro as when they arrived. The US side reaffirmed America’s place as a Pacific power and the Chinese their demand for due respect for its great power status. Fixing things is not the point of such gatherings. The ambition is to reach beyond political posturing and starched-shirt diplomacy to turn up what people really think. Better understanding, hopefully, promotes mutual trust.




These are tempestuous times in China. The jailing this week of the wife of the deposed politburo member Bo Xilai offered another glimpse of the power struggle accompanying the transition to a new generation of political leaders. Among western diplomats rumours abound of a power grab by the People’s Liberation Army. This is not the moment, Chinese scholars agree, for ambitious politicians to seemsoft” on foreign policy.




On the other side, Mr Romney is also striking a nationalist pose. The Republican candidate accuses Barack Obama of being too accommodating of China’s rise. One of the first acts of a Romney White House would be to retaliate economically against Beijing’s manipulation of the renminbi. Mr Obama’s approach has been to engage and hedge: to deepen bilateral dialogue while refurbishing Washington’s regional alliances – the so-called rebalancing of US policy to Asia. Mr Romney seems to think he can contain China’s rise.




The potential flashpoints are numerous. Taiwan is the most dangerous and neuralgic issue: how can the US support a one-China policy and supply Taiwan with high-tech weaponry was a constant refrain of the Chinese delegation.
 


.
I am not sure I heard a convincing US answer. In any event, this really is the “coreChinese interest.




Angry demonstrations across China sparked by a flare-up of the dispute with Japan about a group of islands in the East China Sea fit a recent pattern of muscle-flexing in Beijing. China has grown more bellicose in framing its claims to suzerainty over the waters around its coastline.




Many disputes are not directly with the US. Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and Malaysia are among the claimants to various island outcrops in the South China Sea – and to the hydrocarbon and mineral resources below the waters. But to Chinese eyes, US military power underwrites the challenges to Beijing – the more so when US ships and reconnaissance aircraft routinely operate at the very edge of Chinese territory.




Clashes of national interest cannot be wished away. As it happens an overbearing Chinese approach weakens its own position, driving neighbours such as Vietnam into the arms of the US. The big question is whether the unavoidable differences and inevitable competition in the Sino-American relationship can be contained within a framework of strategic co-operation.




The most persistent demand from the US side is for more transparency about China’s rapid military build-up. There is nothing surprising about Beijing spending more on its armed forces.



.
As the world’s second economic power its interests and vulnerabilities have expanded accordingly. It inhabits a rough neighbourhood.




The question is how much and to what purpose. As long as the PLA’s capabilities and military doctrines remain cloaked in mystery, others will think the worst. Such secrecy empowers those in Washington who want a faster build-up of US forces in the region and those in the Pentagon who insist the intrusive surveillance operations that so infuriate the Chinese are vital to safeguard the security of US forces.




So far the PLA has shunned offers to deepen significantly its military dialogue with the US. The danger is an obvious one: that ownership of the relationship is claimed by the hawks on either side.




Competition becomes confrontation, ratcheting up the arms race and elbowing aside diplomacy.
Gatherings such as that at Aspen are part of an effort to avoid this. The more people talk, the less the risk of miscalculation. If I heard a shared refrain from the US and Chinese it was that Asia is big enough for two great powers.




Yet my impression is that neither side quite believes it. Building trust is going to be a long process. On the evidence of Aspen, it is too soon to give up. At this level, personal encounters and experiences matter. Heading back to Europe I came across some of the Chinese officials in the airport lounge.


.
They were still wearing cowboy hats.



.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

0 comments:

Publicar un comentario