WRONGLY MISTAKING CHINA

...This is one of those times...

...before they take any initiatives in the region...

...The same passion and fear helped find acceptance for the “domino theory” that said democracy defeated by Chinese-sponsored Communism anywhere in Southeast Asia was a defeat for democracy everywhere and that if Vietnam fell to the Communists so Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, India, and eventually the Middle East would also succumb...

...According to F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 1 7 The Communist Party: A Pudding Without a Theme W R O N G L Y M I S T A K I N G C H I N A OMEPROMINENT SINOLOGISTS in the United States believe that the centrifugal forces at work in China will eventually force a split into three or four new countries: a cosmopolitan eastern coast...

...Paulson’s languid audience barely batted an eye...

...that American markets might simply be unavailable one day and that China’s export economy, and the transition it sustains, might grind to a halt...

...a far hinterland comprised of the arid northwest and Muslim areas...

...The 2003 constitution left unanswered the question of who, exactly, owns the land—an issue thought settled by the 1949 revolution...

...The result was a distorted perception of the challenge facing America and an ill-conceived foreign policy debate leading Americans to believe that “Peking,” not Pyongyang, initiated North Korea’s invasion of the South...

...But just as the authorities officially prohibit such discussions, they have been less than successful in stopping them...

...Unlike the United States, where a dynamic democracy and 1 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 S T E F A N H A L P E R There is no easy way out of this situation, created by America’s insatiable demand for inexpensive consumer products and a lifestyle built on cheap credit...

...and Tibet...

...We must not again allow a Big Idea driven by passion to frame our China policy...

...Framing the domestic debate, McCarthy coined the phrase— “Red Scare”—that defined an era...

...A senior member of the Mongolian government told this author in Washington last year that while his government had publicly stated its commitment to market democracy, “democracy has too many side effects, it is too complicated...

...Today, while America’s determination to spread Preoccupied with the War on Shia militias, and how, when, or whether to extricate ourdemocracy is focused on the ins and outs of Sunni and selves from Iraq’s Byzantine morass, China looms in the middle distance...

...Will New Freedoms Bring Democracy...

...In mid-December of last year, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke traveled to Beijing with other members of the cabinet for high-level talks on a range of trade and currency issues...

...That is where we are really going...

...Moreover, its relevance has been substantially challenged by the growing numbers seeking greater meaning in their lives, including the Falun Gong, Christian, and Buddhist communities...

...Hu was unsuccessful in 2006...

...market, China’s has an unremitting need for oil, gas, copper, and iron ore to build the infrastructure and sustain manufacturing and jobs growth in an economy that has expanded by more than 10 percent each year for over a decade...

...In the short term, we are able to reduce our dependence on China only very slowly...

...So, like Godot, democracy is talked about—some expect it—but there is no way to know when, or if, it will show up...

...ILITARY POWER is also an important dimension in the U.S.-China relationship...

...Y tect their claim to ants expect the Party to pro t serious challeng arty with its mos the P ET IT ISTHEDISAFFECTED RURAL POOR who present e. Peasthe land and to ensure they are fairly compensated if the village authorities sell it for commercial development...

...Throughout their history, Americans have embraced Big Ideas such as the Monroe Doctrine in the 19th century, “Imperialism of Righteousness” on the eve of the 20th century, and “Freedom on the March” in 2003—all expressions of “American exceptionalism”—to provide direction, purpose, and forge a unique presence in world affairs...

...Choice in the marketplace of consumables has not meant choice in the marketplace of ideas...

...It is not decisive today, however, because China does not pose a threat to the U.S...

...Serious mistakes can result...

...Having failed to provide a viable Chinese “identity,” the Party has been left largely to react to events...

...markets...

...Gone are the days when Party membership and socialist values forged the coming generation...

...the air force has developed refueling and needed lift capacity, and the army has become leaner and high-tech...

...Beyond access to the U.S...

...Beyond Beijing’s inner circle (and perhaps within it), few can articulate the Party’s longterm goals...

...BY STEFAN HALPER terized by recurring episodes of misunderstanding, poor analysis, and fear...

...Critics charged that those who drafted the law copied “capitalist civil law like slaves” and gave equal protection to “the rich man’s car and the beggar man’s stick...

...will find itself in a stiff competition with China for energy, food, raw materials, and markets in every region of the world...

...A proposed law, rejected by the delegates, would have codified new property rights allowing the sale of communal land for commercial purposes...

...Russia (which already calls this “managed democracy”), Cuba, Egypt, and the nations of Central Asia would have an alternative to the American model...

...have in the China relationship today...

...It would affect not only U.S...

...market-democracy, as a competitive governing model, would have a rival in the global marketplace where nations transitioning from authoritarianism must choose a governing template...

...The likelihood of this actually happening depends on a number of things, including the strength of Chinese nationalism and its “anti-splittist” theme...

...operations in the Balkans and in Iraq, China has invested heavily in optical and communications technology that will improve its real-time management of the battle space...

...StefanHalper, a senior fellow at the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University, served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations...

...With 69 million members, just 5 percent Today’s Party is a very different creature from the system that once oversaw a gulag of communes and work camps and ordered millions of people to build backyard blast furnaces to make iron...

...This is not to deny that China is a gathering multi-dimensional threat...

...Recent events tell the story all too well...

...U.S...

...The prosperous coastal cities see globalization and economic liberalization as a magic carpet transporting them to a modern, global reality...

...most important, however, is the continued strength of the Communist Party...

...China’s leaders understand that their longevity in office depends on continued economic progress...

...has overlooked the emergence of a market-authoritarian model that is finding more adherents in the world than market-democracy...

...The point is that China, with massive hard currency reserves and a highly educated population, is improving its military as rapidly as it can absorb relevant new technologies...

...Absent is any detailed discussion of the mechanics of democracy and its applicability or inapplicability to China...

...Lenient residence requirements have brought homelessness...

...This in turn will govern China’s reaction to a range of commercial and financial issues—which will have broader implications and challenge the Party more deeply than even the pro-democracy movement that was crushed by the military in 1989 in Tiananmen Square...

...Some are already traveling down this road...

...What is new is the presence of an “angry young online”—a growing semi-dissident community that challenges the Party’s “China story...

...The confrontation has surfaced the wider, and seminal question of how China can sustain its economic march if entrepreneurs cannot own the property on which their plants are situated...

...For the 2007 National Peoples Congress, the leadership, according to diplomatic sources, intends to recast the question from “who owns the land” to “who should be allowed to use the land...

...and China, having shared a troubled history, are joined in a marriage of liabilities...

...China’s urban population has increased by 13 percent since 1990 so that now 40.5 percent live in cities—a figure expected to rise to 60.5 percent by 2030...

...Yet, in those 24 hours Americans were reminded that decisions made in Beijing can and do have on impact on Americans, raising the broader question of how the benefits and liabilities in U.S.-China relations add up...

...It is certainly not the source of innovation and productivity that has propelled China’s remarkable growth nor, crucially, is it thought to have protected the interests of the rural population forming its base...

...Today’s Party is a very different creature from the system that once oversaw a gulag of communes and work camps and ordered millions of people to build backyard blast furnaces to make iron...

...ven the mos has pro UCHOFTHISPLAYSOUT t divisive force in China on the Internet, which Beyond the hubbub of working life there is a sepThe Angry Young Online arate reality inhabited by China’s 111 million Internet users, who exchange opinions and information on everything from rural corruption to Shanghai housing prices and manners in the office...

...In midNovember, when the People’s Bank of China announced the purchase of yen for its hard currency reserves instead of dollars, the dollar dropped abruptly overnight and the Dow Jones sagged the next day...

...APIDCHANGEINMANYAREASof society has raised What Does It Mean to Be Chinese...

...Bernanke’s speech text contained the line (though his delivery did not) that the yuan’s artificially low value amounted to a government subsidy of Chinese exports...

...debt) and by exporting inexpenF E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 1 5 W R O N G L Y M I S T A K I N G C H I N A ubiquitous media require that the pursuit of interest be qualified by JudeoChristian ideals, China is driven by interest informed by a distilled opportunism...

...This provides China a coherent power projection capability—but the essence of the China threat comes from elsewhere...

...Meanwhile, it remains that our quality of life and our global role will be more affected by China than by any other nation as the century unfolds...

...Rather, it suggests the Party has become one of several institutions affecting China’s priorities and direction...

...a less progressive rural and industrial interior...

...America’s experience with China has been characTerror, the U.S...

...analysts...

...To no one’s surprise Mr...

...now, nor will it for over a decade...

...Equally important, we must not underestimate the dimensions of the China threat...

...Among other things, it would demonstrate to authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian nations that one can capture the power of the market without surrendering public space to opposition political actors...

...This would certainly be the case if Beijing were to export the market-authoritarian model as a template that invited others to apply their national versions of socialism or socialist principles...

...Implicit in his point was that the export market China so desperately needs to sustain its economic expansion and employ the millions of workers transitioning from the state to the private sector—could slam shut...

...They feel there is no coherent view of the nation’s values and priorities, or a correct path to realizing them...

...He is the co-author of the new book, The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing (Basic Books...

...They calculate, probably correctly, that the story of China’s economic miracle must dominate the story of repressed speech, local corruption, and the dissatisfaction of the Net-informed younger generation...

...Or can the market-authoritarian model, with its repressive capability (if it provides stability), an improving quality of life, and a middle class compatible civic culture, deny the creation of opposition parties...

...China’s defense budget at approximately $90 billion is about a sixth of what the U.S...

...Indeed, it could be the pivot on which China’s future direction turns...

...China’s military challenge will not achieve focus for a decade—though an engagement in the Far East could be very costly for Washington and winning the peace with China as an adversary on the Asian mainland would be impossible...

...Since the 1950s, few other nations have inspired suspicion and dislike on such a grand scale...

...But such change comes with a cost...

...CHINA WRONGLY MISTAKING HEN YOGI BERRA, THE LEGENDARY CLARIFIER, warned us not to make the wrong mistake, he could have been talking about China...

...These requirements have combined to force Beijing to pursue a ruthless and mercantile foreign policy—complicity in genocide in Darfur and brutal repression in Zimbabwe—where communal values and global ethics have hardly any role...

...Its financial, trade, and international political challenges will soon be joined by the capacity to challenge the U.S...

...For its part, China needs American dollars to fuel its export-driven economy...

...The Party’s failure to produce a compelling rationale for its leadership or provide a social adhesive has left the impression that its primary missions are to respond to emergencies and retain its own power and privileges...

...The reality is that the quality of American life— interest rates, inflation, wage rates—is profoundly affected by decisions made in Beijing...

...But progress on the land question did not come easily...

...no other nation has engaged the powerful theme of American exceptionalism so deeply embedded in our nation’s identity and sense of global mission...

...For many, the very nature of Chinese society is in play...

...He warned that the new Democratic Congress, unlike its Republican predecessor, is in a protectionist mood and concerned about suppressed wage rates and outsourcing, and also has a deep commitment to human rights...

...Both climbed back a day later when the People’s Bank said the yen purchase was routine, and that 72 percent of its hard currency reserves (worth $1 trillion) were denominated in dollars...

...The Internet has emerged as possibly the most important influence on public opinion, not only accelerating the communication of news and information within China but also relaying news of unfolding events from the worldwide Chinese Diaspora and global media networks like CNN and the BBC...

...Over the past half century, particularly in moments of crisis, the passions of the moment have, at times, delivered not only false choices, but directed the nation’s attention and resources to the wrong challenge...

...They knew better...

...fundamental questions about China’s direction, and even the question of “what it means to be Chinese...

...Overcrowding has left millions of workers without adequate housing or salaries to replace those previously subsidized by the state...

...In the political realm a sharp division has emerged between those proposing ideological solutions for China’s current problems—sometimes called “the New Left”—and pro-market forces advancing pragmatic solutions...

...Reportedly impressed with U.S...

...China, alien and threatening, provided the perfect foil for Joe 1 4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 McCarthy who distilled a fourth of mankind with the simple phrase “monolithic communism...

...F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 1 9 W R O N G L Y M I S T A K I N G C H I N A That this is a work in progress should surprise no one...

...We turn now to four convulsive issue areas in China...

...Though it is felt in every corner of the country, the Party struggles to remain relevant...

...Thus, modernization has meant China’s socialism competes with an expanding consumerism on the eastern coast...

...1 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 S T E F A N H A L P E R of the population, the Party has neither endorsed the “New Left,” reflecting Mao’s egalitarianism, nor embraced expanded freedoms...

...Who Owns the Land...

...The most pressing issues in China’s transition, however, arise from the frustration of workers attempting to move on from state-owned industries to the many private enterprises located in the cities...

...The polar opposite of a chaotic region convulsed by ethnic, tribal, and religious violence, China today is a going concern, unique in its ability to integrate its tactical and strategic objectives in world affairs...

...This expanding void and the quest for meaning in people’s lives has nurtured groups like Falun Gong and, to a lesser degree, the Democracy Movement...

...Egalitarianism,” for all its nostalgic appeal, suggests a discredited “old thinking” and recalls the stagnation of the state-industrial and collective production model...

...In this case, Hu’s task was nothing less than reconciling China’s socialist past with a hoped-for market-driven future...

...the U.S...

...Without question, the U.S...

...Today, with the Soviet empire consigned to history, we are left with a complex and difficult relationship...

...global democracy promotion policies...

...The price of a misunderstanding with China—particularly when Beijing decides each month whether and how much U.S...

...Confrontations over the spread of information are not new in China, where today there is an everevolving patchwork of permitted and forbidden topics...

...This omission is not, of course, by choice...

...Moreover, it is clear that the market has improved the quality of life without democracy...

...The answer—even the fact that the question was raised—says a great deal about China’s transition...

...Bloggers and coded chat rooms seem to stay one step ahead of Beijing’s 40,000 Internet police...

...Meanwhile, the growing popularity of the Falun Gong, and of Christian and Buddhist movements, has forced the authorities to give priority to creating a new, inclusive civic culture...

...Treasury debt to purchase— would be high...

...spends on defense each year—but it is all the Chinese military can absorb...

...It will confirm that the government gives priority either to advancing socialism or, by allowing communal land to be sold for profit, to advancing commercial development...

...Recent modernizations have seen the navy transition from a white water to a blue water navy, extending its control of the sea lines of communication in the Pacific...

...could rapidly overwhelm China in any set battle space in the world—or out of it...

...It is defined in economic terms today, but will take on an increasing military quality in the future...

...Should the leadership succeed in creating a new broadly accepted Chinese identity associated with growth and prosperity brought by the marketauthoritarian model, it would have significant implications for U.S...

...Democracy, however, is thought by many to be risky...

...failed to confirm that socialist property is inviolable, a concept they believe lies at the heart of China’s socialism...

...For the moment, it is a Faustian bargain, but one that could become immeasurably worse were we to ignore Yogi Berra and make the “wrong mistake...

...OREOVER, THERE ARE GOOD REASONS to believe that the leadership will manage the pressures on the Party, the land ownership question, and the new consumer identity and that the U.S...

...The 2003 constitution left unanswered the question of who, exactly, owns the land—an issue thought settled by the 1949 revolution...

...In an odd way, the China relationship demonstrates the limits of America’s unprecedented military power...

...The censors admit that technology, not politics, is setting the pace for change...

...one Chinese Internet surveillance official, “The people who get their information from the web are the most active sector of society—80 percent of web users are under 35...

...The chances are that it can, at least for the foreseeable future...

...HOSE WHO BELIEVE that a vibrant market inevitably brings pluralism and democratic participation will be chastened to learn that the market-authoritarian model managing China’s expansion has done the opposite...

...Beyond 2020, the central question is, will increased wealth, a better quality of life, and a consumer identity that values material possessions necessarily lead to the formation of interest groups with pluralist political views—and eventually independent political parties...

...distilled, focused, and determined in its mercantile and security pursuits...

...Not until 1972 did the hard reality of the Soviet threat spur Richard Nixon to recast U.S.-China relations when he advanced a diplomacy that combined power, ambiguity, and interest to isolate Moscow...

...But a coalition of leftist activists blocked the change because the law Confrontations over the spread of information are not new in China, where today there is an ever-evolving patchwork of permitted and forbidden topics...

...This is not to suggest that the Party has become irrelevant...

...20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7...

...The United States relies on China to help contain inflation by the continued purchase of Treasury debt (China holds $340 billion of U.S...

...What we can do, however, is to clearly understand the domestic pressures playing upon the leadership there...

...Within the decade the U.S...

...Divisions along these lines cloud the way forward, particularly where there are growth-generated problems like polluted air and water, conflicting claims to the land, and evolving views on individual rights...

...Mtoday...

...We like the Chinese model better where you can have both growth and stability...

...At the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2006, this matter boiled over into an ideological confrontation on the direction and implications of China’s economic development...

...A new cosmopolitan consumer identity has emerged in the trend-setting coastal provinces, where members of a middle class of some 250 million people increasingly define themselves by their possessions and choices: what clothing they purchase, where they live, their cell phone style, how they spend their leisure time—even the schools their children attend...

...Nonetheless, China has emerged as a regional power whose concerns and objectives must be carefully considered by others and by the U.S...

...Without American demand for its products, there is little question that China would fall into chaos as unemployed workers demanding jobs and a stake in China’s new prosperity filled the streets...

...But his main message was that the American people were fast drawing the conclusion that trade with China was neither fair nor balanced—that it was a bad bargain...

...Paulson urged that Beijing look beyond congressional concerns about China to the American people...

...there is a vacuum at the center...

...sive products (Wal-Mart produced $18 billion of its stock in China last year) for sale in U.S...

...will not find release from Beijing’s tangled embrace for at least a decade...

...Shanghai, for example, now has soup kitchens...

...Furthermore, so long as the United States is reliant on China to contain inflation, and remains willing to import its products, China’s export-driven economy will solidify its market-authoritarian governance at home and challenge us for markets and trade abroad...

...These trends raise the question—of direct interest to U.S...

...in three decades, at current growth rates, the Chinese economy will be the biggest in the world...

...The resolution of these differences will say a great deal about China’s future as a socialist state...

...interest rates and thus consumer credit, but also the quality of life in America and America’s place in the world...

...Thus, the question: What, if any, leverage does the U.S...

...While elites and China’s Internet bloggers talk broadly about democracy, there is concern that if the masses take it seriously, there will be chaos...

...If this happens, it will reveal the irreconcilable nature of the problem for U.S...

...in the Pacific and on the Asian land mass...

...Seeking to resolve the dispute, President Hu Jintao told the Party delegates that the nation must “unshakably persist with economic reform...

...But Big Ideas (the War on Terror is a good example) also bring powerful emotions to the political debate that distort options and substitute aspirations for realizable goals...

...An accurate assessment of the Internet’s impact, the new consumer identity, the role of the Communist Party, and the fundamental problem of who owns the land will allow us more effectively to calibrate our efforts and protect our interests in this complex relationship...

...the rural countryside sees a Party detached from its socialist roots, rampant corruption, broken families, and livelihoods evaporating as communal land is sold...

...analysts—of what theme, if any, is capable of integrating these two worldviews...