NI FENGResearcher of Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences



China-US Relations: Status Quo and Problems Existed

NI FENG
Researcher of Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

THE US WARSHIP LASSEN ILLEGALLY ENTERED WATERS CLOSE TO CHINA’S NANSHA ISLANDS without receiving permission from the Chinese Government on October 27, 2015.Both Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Defense issued stern warnings and protests to the US side.The incident took place only one month after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the US, which naturally touched off suspicions over the causes of the US abrupt face-off and provoking of the “dangerous game”.

President Xi’s first state visit to the US in September 2015 injected enormous positive energy into the development of China-US relationship.After consultation, both sides agreed to continue with the joint efforts in building a new-pattern major power relationship based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to make new breakthrough in cyber security and military cooperation as well as to expand collaboration in areas of climate change, economic and trade, culture and anti-corruption law enforcement.The visit has been a great success, which allows the China-US relations develop on an even broader and sounder foundation.However, with the contradicted modes of the “rising power” and the “existing dominant power” between the two countries, the bilateral relationship is faced with unreduced competitive elements and even more conflicts and risks, in particular on the South China Sea issue.It is still a long-term and arduous task to build the new-pattern major power relationship.

CHINA-US RELATIONSHIP IN 2015

This relationship has roughly developed along a route of two highs and two lows in 2015: a good start at the beginning of the year; markedly increased gaming from March to May; President Xi’s successful visit in late September adding thick and heavy colors; and the US warship’s intrusion into the waters close to China’s Nansha Islands in October stirring up new troubles.

With President Obama’s successful and achievable visit to China at the end of 2014, it has been a consistent thread running through the bilateral relationship in 2015 to carry out the common consensus between the two state leaders.The negotiation on investment agreement between both sides has been steadily pushed forward.The two armies have continued with frequent exchanges.Anticorruption cooperation has been a new bright spot in bilateral relations.Meanwhile, the two states maintain close communication and coordination on the DPRK nuclear issue, the Iran nuclear issue, the Afghanistan issue, anti-corruption, fighting against Ebola and other issues.Neither side has sedulously badgered the other over those traditional structural questions existed in the bilateral relationship.In particular, both sides downplayed the meeting between Dalai Lama and President Obama, which prevented major impact on bilateral relations.More significantly, while the two state leaders held phone talks exchanging New Year greetings on February 10, 2015, President Obama invited President Xi to pay a state visit to the US in September the same year.It has been a very rare case inthe history of China-US relationship to extend an invitation for state visit seven months in advance, and that shows the importance attached by the Obama Administration to China-US relationship.

In the meantime, the endeavor of the two governments to enhance tangible cooperation could hardly reverse the increasing fierce strategic competition between China and the US.The British announcement to join China-initiated AIIB on March 12 accidentally triggered another round of intensive gaming between China and the US.For the Obama Administration, China is attempting to rewrite the world rules with AIIB.Therefore, the US has tried to hinder the founding of AIIB by all means.Nevertheless, the UK’s decision has been followed by France, Germany, Italy, Australia, ROK and other US allies, which resulted in the avalanche collapse of the US obstruction.

In late April 2015, Abe received the highest courtesy during his visit to the US.The two sides officially unveiled the updated US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines and issued a joint declaration, which shows between the lines the major cause for strengthening the US-Japan alliance being coun-tering China, though China was not mentioned in the declaration.At the later joint press conference, Obama publicly accused China of muscling to its neighboring countries over the marine issue, and reiterated the coverage of the Diaoyu Islands in the US-Japan security treaty.

The South China Sea issue heated up rapidly in May.One US official stated on May 12 that the US army was considering the actions of sending aeroplanes and ships to challenge China’s territorial claim for a series of fast-expanding built-up islands and reefs.According to US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter, these actions shall include flying navy surveillance planes over those islands and reefs and sending ships into 12 nautical miles of relevant islands and reefs.CNN on May 22 broadcast the video of the US most advanced P-8A spy plane patrolling over China’s built-up islands and reefs in South China Sea.The South China Sea issue once again became a wirlpool in China-US relationship, and even turned into a topic of the G7 summit with the manoeuvre of Japan and the US.

The disturbances of “espionage” and “cyber” issues harrassed China-US relationship almost at the same time.A professor of Tianjin University was arrested at a science and technology conference in the US on May 16.Later on June 4, the US side disclosed that the computers of the US Office of Personnel Management were subjected to a massive hacker attack, which resulted in the data theft of over 4 million current and former employees.The US side believes that the mastermind behind this attack could probably be some foreign organization or government.

Along with the exacerbation of the stratetic gaming between China and the US, particularly with the US clamour of sending warships into 12 nautical miles of relevant islands and reefs in South China Sea, the possibility of bilateral collision accelerated fiercely.However, the bilateral relationship did not deteriorate sharply.The 2014 “struggle over microphone” did not show again during this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue at the end of May.When meeting a visiting young Southeast Asian leaders delegation on June 3, Obama softened the once hardline US stance toward the South China Sea issue by saying that “it may be that some of their (China’s) claims are legitimate.”

China-US relationship is like a boat sailing against the current, which, if not forging ahead,would be driven back.

The 7th China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue and the 6th China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange held in Washington DC on June 23 scored many achievements which display broad space for cooperation between the two states.And since then, it had been a task of prime importance for both governments to ensure the successful US visit by President Xi starting on September 22 on purposes of strengthening trust and clarifying doubts, focusing on cooperation, facing people, and creating the future.During his visit, President Xi travelled to Seattle and Washington DC, meeting with President Obama and exchanging ideas extensively with personages from all walks of life in the US as well as giving a series of important lectures.The state visit achieved 49 significant results.While some people were pessimistic about the prospect of China-US relationship due to China’s accelerating national strength and increasing disputes between the two countries, the two state leaders worked together to send a strong signal to the peoples of both countries as well as the entire international community that both governments are making great efforts to manage and control differences and expand cooperation so as to achieve common goals.

CURRENT CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS

In observation of the development of China-US relationship since the beginning of 2015, it is very obvious that, although there has been more cooperation than competition and both governments have shown strong will for a stablized bilateral relationship, this relationship still faced with a series of risks and challenges.With more and more arduous tasks of managing and controlling differences, China-US relationship is like a boat sailing against the current, which, if not forging ahead, would be driven back.The illegitimate intrusion of US warship Lassen into waters close to China’s Nansha islands highlighted the arduousness and changeability of the tasks to enhance trust and clarify doubts as well as to manage and control differences between China and the US.

Firstly, it is still a long-term and arduous task to strengthen strategic mutual trust.The lack of strategic mutual trust has been and will still remain for a long time a structural problem existed in China-US relationship.In spite of the great efforts made by both sides in enhancing trust and clarifying doubts, the anxiety from the US side is still increasing along with China’s improving national power.

Before the outbreak of the financial crisis, the concerns of the US about China were mainly based on China’s development potential as a major power.In 2009 when realizing that the rising of China was already a fact, the US started to worry about China’s constantly improving capability.Since 2014 CICA Summit as well as China’s proposal for AIIB, the US, while concerning about China’s improving capability, has been sceptical about China’s strategic intention.It believes that China was challenging the US-dominant world order by attempting to evict its presence from Asia.The US strategic circle started to spaculate the so-called “political direc-tion”.Since the end of the Cold War, all US regimes have pursued a China policy based on “engagement”, an important premise of which is that China will achieve political libralization along with its economic modernization.However, today more and more Americans believe that China is developing against that direction.All in all, the overlapped concerns about China’s capability, intention and development direction resulted in the call for readjusting policy “paradigm” toward China.

Secondly, the “China policy debate” has increased the uncertainty of the US policy toward China.China-US relationship in 2015 has been developing against a very special backdrop, i.e.a China policy debate was in full swing.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has experienced several China policy debates.One of them took place in 1995 and 1996, when China’s economy was entering the fast track, and the Taiwan Straits Crisis broke out in 1995.After a fierce debate between the engagers and containers, the engagers ultimately gained the upper hand.The basic argument of the engagers was that along with China’s integration into the US-dominant world economic system, the political systems of the two states will gradually converge.Another US China policy debate happened in 2005 against the background of China’s rapid growing weight in world economy after it got WTO membership.The US, deeply stuck in two wars, claimed that China shall shoulder more resposibility while taking “hitchhiking”.The engagers and the containers finally reached consensus on requesting China to be an “accountable stakeholder”.

Albeit the differences in forms, contents and even conclusions, the above two debates were similar in several aspects.Firstly, both debates took place when the US were fairly confident in dealing with China due to the wide gap between the two states in national power.Secondly, though with many negative noises, both debates yielded positive results.Lastly, the business circle has been playing a very positive dominant role in both debates.

Handicapped by the third-party factor, China-US relationship has been trapped in a cycle of vicious gaming in Asia Pacifc region.

Nevertheless, some major changes occurred in this debate.First, the US confidence has long been replaced by concerns and worries with the approaching China’s national power.Second, the US business circle, though still hopeful for China-US cooperation, is not so enthusiastic as before due to the increasing competitive factors in bilateral economic and trade relations.What’s more important is that this time the debate is no longer dominated by the business-led pro-China alliance, but by the alliance formed by other circles which advocate competition with China.Third, an increasing number of people from the US strategic circle call on the authorities to “be resolute” to play a “leading”role in “paradigm changing” so as to be “courageous enough to counterbalance China” , which not only is affecting the Obama Administration’s China policy, but also will exert important impact on next president’s policy toward China.

Thirdly, neither side has found effective solutions to the new problems existed within China-US relations.With the accelerating changing of China-US national power balance since the financial crisis in 2008, China-US relationship has entered a new phase of development with a prominent feature of intensifying strategic competition between the two countries.That is embodied by the fact that in addition to the four traditional structural contraditions (namely strategic mutual suspicions, the Taiwan issue, economic and trade frictions, and human rights issue), some new problems have arisen, such as marine disputes and cyber security etc.Among all those problems, the South China Sea issue is the most serious one.

The South China Sea issue was originally disputes and conflicts among the surrouding countries on the ownership of relevant islands and reefs as well as the demarcation of the sea waters.None of the US administrations has intervened in the South China Sea issue in the past.However, Hilary Clinton officially expressed the US intervetion in the issue in July 2010.As a result of the US back-up, some claimant states took more aggressive action, stirring the situation in the South China Sea area now and then.

The US intervention in East Asia marine disputes has been aimed to enhance its control over China by manipulating smaller countries and integrating the alliance system, so as to “gain maximum benefits with minimum cost”.However, the same strategy is used by the smaller countries to achieve balance among major powers.Aware of being backed by the US, some countries even show a tougher attitude on the hot issues so as to make use of the “China threat” for a higher demand from the US.As a result, the US is held hostage to the interests of its own allies.Handicapped by the third-party factor, China-US relationship has been trapped in a cycle of vicious gaming in Asia Pacific region.

Particularly in recent years, the occasional outbreak of the South China Sea issue has exerted an increasing impact on China-US relationship.Right after President Xi’s visit to the US, the US media announced that its army was planning to cruise within 12 nautical miles of China’s artificial islands and reefs in South China Sea.And that became a reality very soon.The South China Sea issue once again triggered attention and concern, and to an extent has replaced the Taiwan issue as one of the major causes of China-US strategic collision.