China will not be the world’s deputy sheriff
By David Pilling
Published: January 27 2010 20:27 | Last updated: January 27 2010 20:27
These days, people expect a lot from China. Beijing is expected to help Washington persuade (or force) North Korea and Iran to ditch their nuclear ambitions. It is expected to set the developing world’s agenda on reducing carbon emissions. It is expected to keep buying US Treasuries, but not to create the requisite surpluses by selling Americans consumer goodies they can no longer afford. While it’s at it, it is expected to bail out Greece. Oh, and it is expected to keep its own economy barrelling along at 10 per cent a year. In short, it is expected to save the world.
The problem is China just does not see things that way. As Chinese officials may make clear in Davos, where such expectations are riding high, Beijing is not ready, or willing, to take up the leadership role being foisted upon it. Typical of what one hears in Beijing is the comment from Zhou Hong, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “There will for a long time be a big gap between outside expectations and China’s ability,” she says. “China is big. But it is poor. Its preoccupation will still be internal.”
That difference in perception has become a source of tetchiness, if not outright friction. David Shambaugh, a China specialist at George Washington university, says Barack Obama’s administration put huge store in a joint document signed in November. That laid out the framework for a new era of shared responsibility in which the two will combine to tackle the world’s biggest problems. But Prof Shambaugh, who detects a “hunkering down in Chinese diplomacy”, says the plan was stillborn. “They’ve become very truculent, sometimes strident, sometimes arrogant, always difficult,” he says of recent Chinese diplomacy.
Examples of China’s truculence – as viewed from Washington – abound. Beijing played what many consider to have been a destructive role at the Copenhagen talks on climate change. It has shown no interest in supporting sanctions against Iran. Nor has it done as much as Washington would like to bring North Korea to heel. It has annoyed Japan by pressing ahead with exploitation of a disputed gas field in the East China Sea. Relations with India have also taken a turn for the worse over disputed territory. The list goes on.
Even the business community, which normally sticks up for Beijing, complains of a more hostile atmosphere. Google’s threat to quit China has brought into the open previously muted complaints about non-tariff barriers and allegedly arbitrary regulation. Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian miner, is still smarting after last year’s arrest of four of its employees, including Stern Hu, an Australian. “The world was collapsing and China did great. Who cares about foreigners?” is how one senior foreign business leader with 20 years of China experience characterises Beijing’s new attitude.
Such talk of a hardening stance may be true on the margins. China could have concluded – and who can blame it? – that it has less to learn from the free-market model peddled at Davos than it once thought. It may also be more jumpy about internal stability because of recent outbreaks of violence in Tibet and Xinjiang and because it is beginning a tense period of transition to a new generation of political leaders in 2012.
Yet the basic problem is more fundamental. China has a different perception about how an emerging superpower should act. Beijing has no desire whatsoever to be the world’s deputy sheriff.
China’s mantra is “peaceful development”. It even shuns the phrase “peaceful rise”. Its priority is economic growth, both because that is required to recapture China’s glory and because it is a vital ingredient of the Communist party’s legitimacy. Beijing prefers to keep a low profile and get on with the hard slog of building an industrial economy. For that, it needs reasonably civil relations with an increasingly far-flung array of foreign countries, both those that supply its factories with fuel, minerals and components and those that buy its finished products.
Its much-trumpeted doctrine of non-intervention (said to have its roots in Confucian values of respecting others’ opinions) suits that purpose well. China will continue to portray itself as a poor country with a less-than-decisive part in world affairs as long as it can. The role the US has mapped out for it looks dangerous. It involves picking fights, taking sides and – if recent history is any guide – even going to war.
Yet it is hard to see how China will be able to sustain its non-intervention doctrine as it grows richer and as its commercial and strategic interests become increasingly entangled in world affairs. There could eventually come a time when China begins to flex its muscles in the way we expect of a superpower, but on its own terms. Ms Zhou at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says of recent humiliations: “China was a loser in the last century or two. China was weak. China was occupied. China was attacked.” China’s first priority is to regain its strength. Then there may be some unfinished business.
david.pilling@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/davidpilling
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中国不当世界“副警长”
如今，人们对中国抱有很多期望。人们期望它协助美国说服（或迫使）朝鲜和伊朗放弃核野心；期望它制定发展中国家的减排议程；期望它继续购买美国国 债，但不要向美国消费者兜售他们再也消费不起的玩意儿，从而累积必要的盈余——尽管它正埋头此事，人们依然期望它能出面救助希腊；噢，人们还期望它能够让 本国经济继续以每年10%的速度增长。简而言之，人们期望中国能够拯救世界。
问题是，中国根本没有那样的想法。尽管在达沃斯(Davos)，人们对中国的期望正不断高涨，但中国官员可能会借此论坛阐明：中国并不准备、也不愿 意担当起人们强加给它的领导角色。中国社科院欧洲研究所所长周弘的言论，代表了你能在北京听到的典型说法。她说：“在外界期望与中国自身能力之间，将长期 存在巨大差距。中国是大国，但也是穷国。中国的当务之急仍是内部事务。”
想法上的差异即使没有引发直接摩擦，也已成为制造不和的源头。乔治•华盛顿大学(George Washington University)中国问题专家沈大伟(David Shambaugh)表示，巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)政府极其重视美中两国去年11月签署的联合文件。该文件确定了一个框架，两国将协同解决全球最重大问题，共同分担责任，开创新时代。但沈大伟 教授表示，这项计划已经胎死腹中。他察觉到，“中国外交透出一种固执己见的意味”。他在谈到中国近期的外交时表示：“他们变得十分好斗，有时尖锐有时自 大，总是很难相处。”
在华盛顿方面看来，中国好斗的例子比比皆是。在许多人眼里，中国在哥本哈根气候变化会议上扮演了破坏者的角色。中国完全无意支持制裁伊朗，它也没有 像华盛顿方面希望的那样尽力搞定朝鲜。它坚定不移地开采存在争议的东海气田，令日本头疼不已。由于领土争议，它与印度的关系也转向恶化。凡此种种，不一而 足。
即使是常常力挺中国政府的商界，也抱怨该国的氛围更加充满敌意。谷歌(Google)威胁退出中国，令此前的无声抱怨公开化，这些抱怨是围绕非关税 壁垒和有专横之嫌的监管。去年，英澳矿业企业力拓(Rio Tinto)属下包括澳籍人士胡士泰(Stern Hu)在内的四名员工在中国被捕，此事至今仍是该公司心头的一块伤疤。“当时世界正在崩溃，而中国却大放异彩。谁会在乎外国人？”一位在华从商20年的资 深外国商界领袖如此形容北京方面的新态度。
如此形容中国立场的日趋强硬或许与事实相距较远。中国可能已得出结论：西方在达沃斯兜售的自由市场模式可供汲取的经验，已不像它原先所想的那么多。 这也无可厚非。此外，由于近期西藏和新疆相继发生暴力事件，加上即将进入政权交替的紧张期（新一代政治领导人将于2012年上台），中国可能对内部稳定更 为关切。
然而，基本问题出在更根本的层面上。对于一个新兴超级大国应当如何行事，中国有着不同的想法。它根本无意担任什么世界的“副警长”。
中国一再宣扬“和平发展”。它甚至避而不讲“和平崛起”。中国的优先事务是经济增长，这既是中国再造辉煌的需要，也是展现共产党合法性的关键要素。 北京方面情愿保持低调，并在建设工业化经济的道路上继续艰苦跋涉。为此，中国需要理性地与越来越多的国家发展民事关系，这既包括向中国工厂供应燃料、矿 物、零部件的国家，也包括从中国购买制成品的国家。
中国大力鼓吹的不干涉主义（据说源自“尊重他人意见”的儒家价值观）非常符合它的上述目的。只要做得到，中国将继续把自己描绘成一个在全球事务中不 具决定性作用的穷国。在它看来，美国为其设定的角色是危险的。那将涉及挑起争端，加入某一阵营，甚至会卷入战争（假如近代历史可以为鉴的话）。
然而，随着中国变得越来越富强，随着其商业与战略利益越来越与全球事务息息相关，它将很难继续奉行不干涉主义。有朝一日，中国也许会开始展现自己的 威力，表现得就像我们心目中的超级大国一样——不过它将按照自己的主张行事。中国社科院的周弘谈到了中国在近代所遭受的屈辱：“在上一、两个世纪，中国是 输家，疲弱挨打，国土被占领。”中国的首要任务是恢复实力。在这之后，它可能会去处理一些未了之事。
译者/杨远
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