This article is written with a lot of introspection and it is based on
historical wisdom. It came to my mind that the Ahoms also spread their kingdom
using the soft side of diplomacy and the kingdom started crumbling when the
rulers started using force to rule the dissidents.
==============================================================
Op-Ed Contributor
How China Can Defeat America
Edel Rodriguez
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By YAN XUETONG
Published: November 20, 2011
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Times Topic: International Relations
WITH China’s growing influence over the global economy, and its increasing
ability to project military power, competition between the United States and
China is inevitable. Leaders of both countries assert optimistically that the
competition can be managed without clashes that threaten the global order.
Most academic analysts are not so sanguine. If history is any guide, China’s
rise does indeed pose a challenge to America. Rising powers seek to gain more
authority in the global system, and declining powers rarely go down without a
fight. And given the differences between the Chinese and American political
systems, pessimists might believe that there is an even higher likelihood of
war.
I am a political realist. Western analysts have labeled my political views
“hawkish,” and the truth is that I have never overvalued the importance of
morality in international relations. But realism does not mean that politicians
should be concerned only with military and economic might. In fact, morality
can play a key role in shaping international competition between political
powers — and separating the winners from the losers.
I came to this conclusion from studying ancient Chinese political theorists
like Guanzi, Confucius, Xunzi and Mencius. They were writing in the pre-Qin
period, before China was unified as an empire more than 2,000 years ago — a
world in which small countries were competing ruthlessly for territorial
advantage.
It was perhaps the greatest period for Chinese thought, and several schools
competed for ideological supremacy and political influence. They converged on
one crucial insight: The key to international influence was political power,
and the central attribute of political power was morally informed leadership.
Rulers who acted in accordance with moral norms whenever possible tended to win
the race for leadership over the long term.
China was unified by the ruthless king of Qin in 221 B.C., but his short-lived
rule was not nearly as successful as that of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, who
drew on a mixture of legalistic realism and Confucian “soft power” to rule the
country for over 50 years, from 140 B.C. until 86 B.C.
According to the ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi, there were three types of
leadership: humane authority, hegemony and tyranny. Humane authority won the
hearts and minds of the people at home and abroad. Tyranny — based on military
force — inevitably created enemies. Hegemonic powers lay in between: they did
not cheat the people at home or cheat allies abroad. But they were frequently
indifferent to moral concerns and often used violence against non-allies. The
philosophers generally agreed that humane authority would win in any
competition with hegemony or tyranny.
Such theories may seem far removed from our own day, but there are striking
parallels. Indeed, Henry Kissinger once told me that he believed that ancient
Chinese thought was more likely than any foreign ideology to become the
dominant intellectual force behind Chinese foreign policy.
The fragmentation of the pre-Qin era resembles the global divisions of our
times, and the prescriptions provided by political theorists from that era are
directly relevant today — namely that states relying on military or economic
power without concern for morally informed leadership are bound to fail.
Unfortunately, such views are not so influential in this age of economic
determinism, even if governments often pay lip service to them. The Chinese
government claims that the political leadership of the Communist Party is the
basis of China’s economic miracle, but it often acts as though competition with
the United States will be played out on the economic field alone. And in
America, politicians regularly attribute progress, but never failure, to their
own leadership.
Both governments must understand that political leadership, rather than
throwing money at problems, will determine who wins the race for global
supremacy.
Many people wrongly believe that China can improve its foreign relations only
by significantly increasing economic aid. But it’s hard to buy affection; such
“friendship” does not stand the test of difficult times.
How, then, can China win people’s hearts across the world? According to ancient
Chinese philosophers, it must start at home. Humane authority begins by
creating a desirable model at home that inspires people abroad.
This means China must shift its priorities away from economic development to
establishing a harmonious society free of today’s huge gaps between rich and
poor. It needs to replace money worship with traditional morality and weed out
political corruption in favor of social justice and fairness.
In other countries, China must display humane authority in order to compete
with the United States, which remains the world’s pre-eminent hegemonic power.
Military strength underpins hegemony and helps to explain why the United States
has so many allies. President Obama has made strategic mistakes in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Libya, but his actions also demonstrate that Washington is capable of
leading three foreign wars simultaneously. By contrast, China’s army has not
been involved in any war since 1984, with Vietnam, and very few of its
high-ranking officers, let alone its soldiers, have any battlefield experience.
America enjoys much better relations with the rest of the world than China in
terms of both quantity and quality. America has more than 50 formal military
allies, while China has none. North Korea and Pakistan are only quasi-allies of
China. The former established a formal alliance with China in 1961, but there
have been no joint military maneuvers and no arms sales for decades. China and
Pakistan have substantial military cooperation, but they have no formal
military alliance binding them together.
To shape a friendly international environment for its rise, Beijing needs to
develop more high-quality diplomatic and military relationships than
Washington. No leading power is able to have friendly relations with every
country in the world, thus the core of competition between China and the United
States will be to see who has more high-quality friends. And in order to
achieve that goal, China has to provide higher-quality moral leadership than
the United States.
China must also recognize that it is a rising power and assume the
responsibilities that come with that status. For example, when it comes to
providing protection for weaker powers, as the United States has done in Europe
and the Persian Gulf, China needs to create additional regional security
arrangements with surrounding countries according to the model of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization — a regional forum that includes China, Russia and
several central Asian countries.
And politically, China should draw on its tradition of meritocracy. Top
government officials should be chosen according to their virtue and wisdom, and
not simply technical and administrative ability. China should also open up and
choose officials from across the world who meet its standards, so as to improve
its governance.
The Tang dynasty — which lasted from the 7th century to the 10th and was
perhaps China’s most glorious period — employed a great number of foreigners as
high-ranking officials. China should do the same today and compete with America
to attract talented immigrants.
OVER the next decade, China’s new leaders will be drawn from a generation that
experienced the hardships of the Cultural Revolution. They are resolute and
will most likely value political principles more than material benefits. These
leaders must play a larger role on the world stage and offer more security
protection and economic support to less powerful countries.
This will mean competing with the United States politically, economically and
technologically. Such competition may cause diplomatic tensions, but there is
little danger of military clashes.
That’s because future Chinese-American competition will differ from that
between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Neither
China nor America needs proxy wars to protect its strategic interests or to
gain access to natural resources and technology.
China’s quest to enhance its world leadership status and America’s effort to
maintain its present position is a zero-sum game. It is the battle for people’s
hearts and minds that will determine who eventually prevails. And, as China’s
ancient philosophers predicted, the country that displays more humane authority
will win.
Yan Xuetong, the author of “Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power,” is
a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern
International Relations at Tsinghua University. This essay was translated by
Zhaowen Wu and David Liu from the Chinese.
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