OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Shelving stereotypes a must for cooperation
By Ni Mengzhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-26 07:45
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrapped up a two-day visit to China on the weekend. During her debut trip to China in her new role, she met with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. President Hu pointed out during his meeting with Clinton at the Great Hall of the People that, as two influential powers sharing common interests on a series of issues relevant to world peace and development, China and the United States should undertake larger international responsibilities. Echoing the Chinese president's remarks, the former first lady believed the two countries have opened a new era for bilateral cooperation. She also reiterated US wishes to further cooperate with the Chinese side on various fields as the two countries, she said, are enjoying shared interests in numerous fields and on a number of global and regional issues. In fact, the US has increasingly considered China as its global cooperative partner in international affairs. Such recognition is much different to its attitude toward the emerging Asian nation in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. At that time, prestigious US politician Zbigniew Brzezinski defined Japan and China as global and regional powers respectively. With two decades of development, China is already inseparable from the world's economy, and together with the US, is considered a locomotive of the global economy. The world's economic performance has been increasingly dependent on good interaction between Beijing and Washington in the wake of the outbreak of the US mortgage crisis and subsequent broader financial crisis. The financial tsunami that swamped Wall Street quickly spread to the rest of the world. However, concerted cooperation between China and the US depends fundamentally on whether the two countries can transcend the stereotype mentality of international relations. According to traditional international political theory, fierce competition and even rivalry typically surface between the old hegemony and emerging powers. In today's world, where the US's authority is on the decline, there are no reasons for the US not to keep a precautionary watch over the emerging Asian giant, according to Robert Gilpin, an American international politics scholar. However, such intellectual stereotypes only reflect geopolitical patterns from the period of industrialization. It obviously runs contrary to the contemporary world's political and economic conditions. In the industrialized era, all major industrialized countries basically developed a similar economic structure and model and thus enjoyed no economic complementariness. As a result, they attached much importance to such substantial elements as land, resources and markets and inevitably plunged into the relentless struggle for a larger market and scope of influences. However, the Western world has gradually entered a post-industrial era since the second half of the 20th century. In particular, the US has taken on a virtual capital development road since the 1980s. A majority of its economic activities have no relations to substantial manufacturing. Different from harsh competition between industrialized countries in the past, currently the virtual economy developed by Western countries and the substantial economy developed by others are increasingly interdependent and interconnected. This makes it likely China and the US in the 21st century will avoid confrontation. China has become the US' largest product manufacturer and supplier. The mutual benefits and mutual trust enjoyed by the two countries is exactly what different big powers in the past lacked. Fortunately, this has been acknowledged by more and more people from both sides. In the 1990s, Brzezinski, who once worked as national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, also made a revision to his geopolitical theory. He has even gone farther in recent years by raising a new proposal on many occasions, saying China and the US should construct a Group of Two (G-2) structure. According to him the US should develop China, its global partner, into Chimerica status. His viewpoint has been widely echoed by many in the US. China and the US increasingly acknowledge the importance of the other in their own strategic chessboards. Thus, how the new US administration and China will cooperate on such issues as the global financial crisis, climate change, energy and environment, will command great attention. As the world's largest and third largest economies, Washington and Beijing should adopt a longer perspective in dealing with each other and should shoulder increasing responsibility for the construction of a stable world order. The author is a Beijing-based scholar of international relations and the article was originally published in Beijing News
(China Daily 02/26/2009 page8) |
