Relations between China and the USA............ Despite periods of convergence and cooperation, have never quite lost their edginess. China is a fast growing power which is not shy of pursuing its own goals and interests. Its relations with the USA do not ordinarily spill over into confrontation, though that can happen, and currently there is a recrudescence of the periodic finger pointing between these two major global powers.
The immediate issue, as so often, is trade. China has clocked up a huge trade surplus with the USA and is being accused of bending the rules to maintain the advantage it has gained over the last few years. It is not the USA alone that has its grievances: others too, India among them, have found China to be restrictive in the matter of imports and ready to overstep the rules when it comes to promoting exports. A number of trade disputes have been taken up with the WTO for adjudication. Such arguments are not unusual and will no doubt continue, but what is now to be seen between China and the USA is a bigger and more complex story. The recent sharp exchanges between them may originate in trade-related matters but they point also to broader questions of the balance of power and authority.
Trade relations:IN pursuit of what they would regard as a level playing field in trade, the USA and several of its Western partners have long argued that China must revalue its currency. The present exchange rate is believed to be artificially maintained at a lower level than is warranted, in order to boost exports. Thus while China prospers, it is claimed, others suffer, and there are job losses in other countries and much anguish. Protectionist pressures build up, with demands for reciprocal action that could do much harm to the global trading system. This is not the first time that concerns about China’s trading practices and demands for the revaluation of its currency.........
But whereas earlier China tended to be cautious, even conciliatory, in response, making a few token gestures to satisfy its critics, this time it has hit back. It does not accept the charge of unfair dealing and has not signified any intention of changing its ways. It is obviously ready and willing to stand for its rights as it sees them, and refuses to be pushed into taking action in order to stave off pressure from the USA.
Relations between the two have been made worse by the US decision to sell a fresh lot of modern arms to Taiwan, and to agree to receive the Dalai Lama in Washington later this month. From China’s viewpoint, these are provocative gestures directed at the most sensitive of its concerns. These regions are regarded as integral parts of China, notwithstanding Taiwan’s current independence and Tibet’s quest for autonomy. Across the Taiwan straits is where the Chinese army, the world’s largest, is concentrated in biggest numbers, and this is the one place where military consequences in assertion of its claim have never been excluded. Coming on top of the trade and currency issues, these acts by the USA could well seem deliberately confrontational.
With this, the two countries that loom so large globally are glaring at each other, and in the process providing a few pointers to the current shape of the world. The USA remains the sole super power, with unparalleled military strength and reach. It can rearm Taiwan with impunity, being militarily in a league of its own and thus unafraid of the consequences. But it is not able to push China off course in the direction it desires. Even so, the USA has great influence across the world, so that its sense of grievance with China on trade and other issues is widely heeded. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding its global power, the USA seems more able in today’s setting to make the argument than to force the issue.
As relations have become disturbed, differences between the two countries on a number of other matters have been highlighted. Among these is the important question of Iran. There are signs that sterner measures are to be demanded through the UN by the USA and its allies, so as to place curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme. China has been a stumbling block in this endeavour and seems likely to remain so, which can only add to the frustrations of the USA and further sully the bilateral atmosphere. China’s role at the recent Copenhagen conference on climate change has also come in for retrospective criticism. In Copenhagen, China took the lead in shaping a consensus which all countries, including USA, accepted.
Angry exchanges:
BUT since then many vocal critics have assailed the Copenhagen outcome for not being sufficiently demanding on major polluters like China. This can become an ongoing source of discord in coming years, as was the Kyoto Protocol on the same subject and for similar reasons. And to add further to the frictions is the so-called cyber wars, with China accused of mounting a cyber operation against Google. This has been denied but it has again drawn attention to the uneasy relationship between China, which is reluctant to permit complete access, and the internet companies that are pulling down communication barriers everywhere.
The latest angry exchanges have revived thought about the shape of a world in which these two are the major organizing powers. They are not in confrontation with each other across the board, nothing reminiscent of the Cold War. Indeed, given the economic ties they have developed it can be seen that they have an irreducible stake in each other’s stability and well-being. But the rivalry also exists and cannot be concealed. Nor, as we have seen, is China content to stand back in the face of what it regards as undue demands from the other. China is careful not to project hegemonic aspirations that could spread concern. Yet there seems no stopping its continued rise, even at a time of global recession.
Under Chinese leadership, the security structure of Asia has already been influenced by a body like the SCO, and there are notions, as yet distant, of an Asian Union in the making where China would have a leading part. Where such stirrings can lead is impossible to predict but the current international system will surely need to be redrawn to meet the changing realities. India has long called for change to accommodate its own demands, and similarly the realities of China’s growing power will need to be acknowledged. Thus there is a further, more challenging dimension to the current friction and bickering between the USA and China.
Source: The Statesman.
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