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Scholar points to avenues for cooperation and understanding in US-China relationship
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EDITOR’S note: Is China’s quest for global influence countervailing US dominance in world affairs?
A leading China expert and authority on Sino-US relations, Susan L. Shirk talked to Shanghai Daily reporter Ni Tao in an interview on this and other questions.
She is Chair of the 21st Century China Center and Research Professor, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. She previously served as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State from 1997 to 2000. Staff at Fudan Development Institute of Fudan University contributed to this interview.
Q: What are the achievements of the Xi-Obama meeting at the recently concluded G20 summit?
A: The greatest achievement is the climate agreement. It’s not only of global significance or significance to the two countries, but also shows that when there is political will, the two countries can cooperate. So this gives us inspiration that we can get back on the cooperative path in other areas too.
But I guess I have to say quite frankly, if you look at not the long list of cooperations, which we do every time, but the public statements by the two sides, they reveal a big gap we have in our stance on many important issues.
Q: Is it true that the Sino-US relations are heading for a scenario of being caught in what historians call the Thucydides Trap?
A: When we talk about the Thucydides Trap, we are referring to the historical pattern that a rising power and an incumbent power have a great deal of difficulty maintaining a peaceful relationship during what we call a power transition.
But I think for many years the US and China demonstrated that they can overcome this so-called trap. I don’t believe that it’s destiny or inevitable that China as the rising power and the US, the current power, inevitably will come to war. I don’t agree with the analysis of people like John Mearsheimer (a hawkish thinker on China) and his followers.
First of all, the two countries are very economically interdependent, and they don’t benefit from harming each other. Instead, they need each other. So this is very different from the US-Soviet relationship during the Cold War.
Secondly, I think we have shown... that we can manage to get along with each other, be cautious and respectful to one another. That in my view is attributed to the statesmanship of the Chinese side and the American side.
Q: What work remains to be done by both sides to avoid misperceptions?
A: Our militaries are working hard to improve communication as well as domain awareness in order to prevent inadvertent, accidental crises. Both sides want to avoid that and have made some pretty good progress in the past few years.
What’s missing, for example, is that we have navies and air forces talking to each other about this, but we need to include the Coast Guard vessels into the communication protocol and crisis prevention.
Q: What is your view on China’s institution-building efforts, such as the China-led AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank)?
A: By and large I think it is a positive thing, and the US government made a big mistake by treating the AIIB in the context of US-China rivalry, which made us look pretty pathetic and insecure.
China’s initiatives in its international economic diplomacy — including AIIB, One Belt One Road — I don’t see anything wrong with them. It’s inevitable that as China revives itself, it’s ambitious to play a leadership role.
That’s a good thing. I’d much rather see that ambition being expressed in economic and diplomatic terms.
We’d make a big mistake if we treat all this as a big zero-sum game. Of course in some areas we may not have the same approach, but that’s okay. I don’t think that kind of economic or diplomatic competition gives us anything to worry about.
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