U.S. – China relations have deteriorated appreciably over the past few years. The prospect for improved relations are bleak, with a strong likelihood that bilateral relations will continue to worsen. Although there’s no simple answer, it’s apparent that more must be done to restore trust in this important bilateral relationship.
Despite the ruling from the Court in The Hague that rejected China’s claim to historic rights over most of the South China Sea, China continues to build outposts on the Spratly Islands. The recent construction of hangers for 24 fighter jets was another indicator that China will not abide by the Court’s ruling. This intransigence on the part of China has soured relations with its neighbors in Southeast Asia and proven to be a public diplomacy nightmare for Beijing.
The strong U.S. response to China’s claims in the South China Sea was welcomed by China’s neighbors and the international community. Unfortunately, China’s response has been to escalate tension, with military exercises and threats of China imposing an Air Defense Zone in the area. The military exercise next month with Russia in the South China Sea is another message to the U.S. that China has a Russia card they’re willing to play. Another card available to China is North Korea. The recent Xin Hua – “muscle flexing” – criticism of the ongoing U.S.- South Korea annual military exercise was another pointed message to Washington that China’s assistance with North Korea is not unconditional.
The challenge for the U.S. and China is to defuse this downward spiraling of relations. Most immediate are the steps that must be taken to ensure that we don’t accidentally stumble into conflict in the South China Sea. China’s harassment of U.S. naval vessels and airplanes could accidentally escalate into conflict. We saw that in April 2001, with a mid-air collision between a U.S. Navy EP-3 signals intelligence aircraft and a PLAN J-8 jet fighter interceptor, resulting in the death of a Chinese pilot and China holding the U.S. crew. After intense negotiations, the U.S. crew was returned. Incidents of this type could happen now in the South China Sea. Indeed, there are those in China, primarily with the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army), who speak of the inevitability of eventual war with the U.S.
The irony with these developments is that U.S. - China relations in the 1980s and 1990s were good. No one was talking about the inevitability of war. Rather, it was China, in the person of Chairman Mao Zedong, concerned with an aggressive Soviet Union, who invited President Richard Nixon to China in 1972, in preparation for the establishment of normal diplomatic relations in 1979. And it was Chairman Deng Xiaoping who agreed with President Jimmy Carter to collaborate on defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. During this period, Deng Xiaoping worked hard to ensure good U.S. – China relations, with thousands of Chinese students going to the U.S. for education and U.S. business investment in China increasing exponentially. Cooperation with China in the 1990s and early 2000 on international drug trafficking and international terrorism was added to the list of mutually beneficial initiatives.
For China, one would hope that President Xi Jinping, who has embarked on a very popular anti-corruption campaign, resists the pressure to placate those vocal conservative members of the Party and PLA who want to make the South China Sea a core issue, similar to Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Moreover, it would be a mistake for President Xi Jinping to use the South China Sea and related tension with the U.S. to divert domestic attention away from the socio-economic issues requiring greater attention. Of immediate concern should be State Owned Enterprise (SOE) reform and a GDP growth rate that will create the jobs necessary to maintain full employment and ensure a robust consumer economy. Interestingly, not much has been said about the need for greater democratization in China, given a growing middle class interested in governance issues. All of these domestic issues are front burner issues for President Xi Jinping.
Improving bilateral relations is important for China and the U.S. It is important for China to understand that the U.S. will not negotiate its access to international waters in the South China Sea. It is also important for the U.S. to work harder at convincing the Chinese people that the rebalance to Asia was not an effort to confront and isolate China. Diplomacy should kick in to intensively negotiate these and other issues, definitely to include a nuclear North Korea, and the need for China and the U.S. to return to an era of greater trust and collaboration.
