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By Benjamin Whitlock, Class of 2015
As the McConnell Scholars Class of 2015 prepares to travel to the People’s Republic of China, we must answer questions from our classmates, friends, and family members. “Is it safe?” “Are you afraid of the Chinese Communist Party?” “Do they like Americans?” and “Does China’s economy threaten the U.S. economy?” (My grandparents are begging me to stay home.) My research has yielded a great deal of information about the Chinese government, as well as Chinese foreign policy and the Chinese military. I have learned that the United States made several security agreements with China during the Cold War, which led me to think about how the U.S. would contain potential Chinese ambition in East Asia. Ultimately, though, I concluded that war with China is unlikely – not because of the strength of the U.S. military, but because of the combined strengths of the American and Chinese economies. Although China has continued to experience high levels of economic growth, the Chinese are not interested in challenging American interests. In fact, integrating China into the global economy helps to prevent the likelihood of conflict.
I read foreign policy and national security articles by Michael Desch and John Lewis Gaddis, as well as On China, the definitive work on Chinese strength during the Cold War by Henry Kissinger. My first research question centered on Chinese security ambitions in East Asia; I then turned to question the possibility of military engagement if China negatively influences U.S. interests abroad; and I ended my research by looking at the international economic regime and the future of U.S. – China relations.
CHINESE SECURITY AMBITIONS FOR EAST ASIA, THE CCP, AND U.S. CONTAINMENT AFTER THE COLD WAR
Two predominant ideologies exist in American foreign policy, according to Michael Desch: Neo-conservatism and Neo-realism. Desch defined neo-conservatism, or neo-internationalism, as the idea that “a great power should actively promote sympathetic regimes in the Third World and oppose those that align with its adversaries for reasons of balance of power.” In other words, neo-conservatives in the United States believe that the American government should actively assist states with sympathetic governments who can aid the US abroad. Also, neo-conservatives argue that the US should promote sympathetic regimes in Third World nations so as to foster cooperation and promote strategic allegiances in different regions of the world. On the other hand, Desch defined neo-realism as an idea that “the Third World has little strategic importance for the great powers. Adherents of this view assert that their position reflects an unsentimental and more balanced assessment of great power security interests in peripheral areas. Neo-realists maintain that few Third World areas directly affect the balance between the great powers. Neo-realists in the United States believe that the balance of power is maintained by supporting state actors in strategic zones of influence. The Third World is marginally important to neo-realists. States have dominant strategies in war fighting. The US strategy of “containment” was defined in the Cold War as the ability to contain communism where it existed and prevent it from spreading to other nations. These ideologies and strategies shape security ambitions for particular states. China’s ambitions for East Asia, therefore, have been marked by its unique security ideology and strategy of war-fighting.
Dr. Henry Kissinger wrote in On China that the People’s Republic of China viewed national security with new zeal after World War II. Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist leader, wrote in 1949 that the Chinese people had begun to stand up for themselves to complete the work of their ancestors. He wrote:
We have a common feeling that our work will be recorded in the history of mankind, and that it will clearly demonstrate that the Chinese, who comprise one quarter of humanity, have begun to stand up. The Chinese have always been a great, courageous and industrious people. It was only in modern times that they have fallen behind, and this was due solely to the oppression and exploitation of foreign imperialism and the domestic reactionary government. . . . Our predecessors instructed us to carry their work to completion. We are doing this now. We have united ourselves and defeated both our foreign and domestic oppressors by means of the people’s liberation war and the people’s great revolution, and we proclaim the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.
Mao’s statement reflects the traditional sentiment that rather than projecting Chinese government and society abroad, China should be more concerned with maintaining traditional boundaries and protecting its traditional borders. China’s ideology in international affairs, then, is characterized as self-focused. China’s strategy of war fighting attempted to extend the traditional boundaries and to maintain those borders. Kissinger wrote:
When the Communist Party seized power in 1949, substantial regions had broken away from the historic Chinese Empire, notably Tibet, parts of Xinjiang, parts of Mongolia, and the border areas of Burma. . . . Mao, like several founders of dynasties before him, claimed the frontiers of China that the empire had established at its maximum historic extent. The territories Mao considered part of that historic China – Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, border regions in the Himalayas or the north – he applied the maxim of domestic politics: he was implacable; he sought to impose China’s governance and generally succeeded.
The Chinese Communist Party maintains Mao’s goal of maintaining traditional empire in East Asia. The security goals are influenced by the domestic political needs of China because of China’s unique international policy ideology and the strategies that China employs in achieving its foreign and domestic directives.
The United States’ ambitions of containing the spread of global communism took a decidedly neo-internationalist approach during the Cold War. While the US viewed East Asia as the major zone of influence during the Cold War, it maintained influence in peripheral Third World nations to contain the spread of Chinese communism. The US was heavily involved in the Korean civil war, as well as the Vietnamese civil war in the 1950s and 1960s. Before that, in the 1940s, the US supported the nationalists in the Chinese civil war. According to John Lewis Gaddis in Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, “The United States had the power to accelerate fissiparous tendencies within the international communist movement . . . but only by indirect methods.” However, during the Cold War, US involvement in East Asia only bled the super power of resources and influence. As Kissinger stated:
Nixon was committed to ending the war (Vietnam), but equally strongly to giving America a dynamic role in reshaping the international order just emerging piece by piece. Nixon intended to free American policy from the oscillations between extremes of commitment and withdrawal and ground it in a concept of the national interest that could by sustained as administrations succeeded each other.
Although the US tried to contain the ambitions of China in East Asia, it became apparent that the Chinese government did not wish to contribute to the spread of global communism, but merely the proliferation of the traditional borders of China. The US security agreements from the Cold War, then, was shaped in a way that fostered a neo-realist approach to East Asia. Since the Cold War, the US has maintained relations with China – the great power in strategic zone of influence – which conforms to the traditional view held by the Chinese Communist Party.
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REGIME AND CHINA, CONTINUED ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF A NEW COLD WAR
China has been supported by the international economic regime. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Bretton Woods system have all influenced China’s development since the Cold War, and have led to high levels of economic growth. It could be argued that China would be in a position to challenge American interests if it continues to experience high levels of economic growth. However, integrating China into the global economy would actually help to prevent the likelihood of a new cold war. Security competition between the United States and China can be avoided by mutually developing strong economies.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization created by the Bretton Woods Conference in 1945. After World War II, the IMF attempted to reconstruct areas devastated by heavy combat. The IMF claims that it is an “organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.” Like the IMF, the World Band is an organization that assists nations economically, striving to “end extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%” and to “promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country.” According to the World Bank website, “The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. We are not a bank in the ordinary sense but a unique partnership to reduce poverty and support development.” Finally, China’s economy benefitted from the Bretton Woods system until that system ended in 1973. The Bretton Woods system fixed global exchange rates so that nations could trade with each other fairly. At the end of World War II, China received assistance from each of these three resources. The IMF ensured that the Chinese government had the necessary funds to provide services to the Chinese people and to ensure continued economic prosperity in East Asia. The World Bank supported the poverty stricken in China, particularly in the Chinese country-side. Throughout Chinese development, the Bretton Woods system ensured that the exchange rates between China and other economic powers remained constant.
As a result of the international economic regime, China’s economy developed quickly and efficiently. The high level of economic growth would naturally lead to technological advancements and a stronger military industrial complex in China. At the end of the Communist Revolution in the twentieth century, Mao stated that China would take a Great Leap Forward. Henry Kissinger wrote in On China:
In 1958, at the outset of the nationwide program of economic collectivization known as the Great Leap Forward, Mao outlined his vision of China in perpetual motion. Each wave of revolutionary exertion, he proclaimed, was organically a precursor to a new upheaval whose beginning needed to be hastened lest the revolutionaries became indolent and start resting on their laurels. . .
Mao stated that China’s revolutions are like battles. “After a victory,” wrote Mao, “we must at once put forward a new task. In this way, cadres and the masses will forever be filled with revolutionary fervor, instead of conceit.” According to Mao, economic developments would push China to react and impose international initiatives and would threaten American interests. In the twenty-first century, however, China worked constructively with the United States to mutually benefit Sino-American economic prosperity. The Chinese do not want armed conflict with the United States because the US has a stronger military industrial complex and better weapons systems. The United States is also better suited for intense long-term struggle. US military dominance became apparent during the US involvement in the Gulf War. Chinese leaders estimated that the Chinese military would take 40 years to acquire the same level of military might that the US displayed in the early 1990s. Rather, as Kissinger wrote, “China’s foreign policy aimed primarily for a peaceful international environment (including good relations with the United States) and access to raw materials to ensure continued economic growth.” Although the Chinese economy has grown as a result of the international economic regime, the nation seeks to maintain mutually beneficial relations with the United States.
Benjamin Whitlock, of Campbellsville, Ky., is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying history and political science.