China travels mapless on road to being great power
There is no plan. I had assumed that China had a plan for everything. On the long flight to Shanghai I read that Beijing had already charted the economy’s course as far ahead as 2050. After a brief period when it seemed that American power would go forever uncontested, China’s extraordinary economic performance is now reshaping the geopolitical landscape. Surely this ordered, deliberative nation had mapped out the role it would play as a great power?
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I was mistaken. Even as much of the rest of the world struggles to adjust to what is being called the Asian century, the message from China itself seems strangely equivocal. Listening to Chinese scholars, military figures, diplomats and Communist party officials this past week, I took it to be roughly as follows: yes, we want, and expect, to be listened to with due respect by other leading powers, not least by the US; no, we are not sure yet as to what we intend to say.
The occasion for this instant education was a symposium in Shanghai headlined China’s Role as a Global Player. The gathering’s sponsorship, led by the international affairs faculty at the graduate school of the University of Geneva and the National Intelligence Council of the US, itself seemed to speak to the openness of China’s foreign policy debate. It is not often that one listens to US intelligence analysts debate strategic options with officers of the People’s Liberation Army.
There were points of certainty, of course, on the Chinese side. Some in the west may see Taiwan as a foreign policy issue. For China it is one of national integrity: no one should harbour the faintest scintilla of doubt about Beijing’s resolve to make a reality of One China.
Nor do Chinese policymakers seem in any mood to seek to defuse the present, dangerous tensions with Japan. History, they judge, demands that Tokyo show appropriate humility. I heard someone remark that China and Japan had never before been strong at the same moment. The implication was faintly menacing.
The facts of China’s international resurgence are clear enough. The unquenchable thirst for natural resources has prompted Beijing to build a network of partnerships and alliances across every continent. Oil, metal and mineral deals have been buttressed by a political and diplomatic effort of unprecedented scale. Few, if any, other world leaders collect as many air miles as President Hu Jianto and prime minister Wen Jiabao. Later this year they will host a unique summit in Beijing for all 45 leaders of resource-rich Africa.
Nor did I detect any apology for this singular pursuit of national interest in securing supplies of raw materials. Western empires, after all, plundered the resources of the rest of the world. China, I heard, was striking commercial bargains as profitable to its suppliers as to itself. As for the charge that deals were being struck with some of the world’s more unpleasant regimes, the west has scarcely been pure in its choice of allies.
For all that, the hesitancies are equally unmistakable. Until quite recently the self-description of China’s return to the club of great powers was of a “peaceful” rise. The purpose was clear enough
