The Longbow Papers

Understanding China

By Kishore Mahbubani

KISHORE MAHBUBANI is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. This essay is adapted from his book Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World.

THE WAKING DRAGON

China today is like a dragon that, waking up after centuries of slumber, suddenly realizes many nations have been trampling on its tail. With all that has happened to it over the past 200 years, China could be forgiven for awakening as an angry nation, and yet Beijing has declared that it will rise peacefully. This good disposition stems partly from China's awareness that it is relatively weak. But it is also a sign that Beijing has endorsed the vision of progress that the United States has extolled since World War II. States no longer need to pursue military conquest to prosper, the theory goes; trade and economic integration pave a surer path to growth. And Beijing has noted how much adhering to this philosophy helped Japan and Germany emerge from the ruins of World War II.

As the main architect of the world order today, the United States should be among the first to celebrate China's progress. For if Beijing continues to abide by Washington's rules, peace and stability could reign, and the United States, as both a society and an economy, could benefit a great deal from the renaissance of Chinese civilization. Curiously, however, the United States is doing more to destabilize China than any other power. And no one in Washington seems to be proposing, much less pursuing, a comprehensive new strategy for U.S.-Chinese relations. The working assumption appears to be that with a little tinkering here and there, the relationship will stay firmly on track. In fact, however, nagging suspicions and mutual misunderstandings are already threatening to derail it.

Continue reading at: The New York Times

China's Search for Stability With America

By Wang Jisi

WANG JISI is Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and Director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China. This essay is an expanded and revised version of an article originally published in Zhongguo Dangzheng Ganbu Luntan, a journal of the Central Party School.

The United States is currently the only country with the capacity and the ambition to exercise global primacy, and it will remain so for a long time to come. This means that the United States is the country that can exert the greatest strategic pressure on China. Although in recent years Beijing has refrained from identifying Washington as an adversary or criticizing its "hegemonism" -- a pejorative Chinese code word for U.S. dominance -- many Chinese still view the United States as a major threat to their nation's security and domestic stability.

Yet the United States is a global leader in economics, education, culture, technology, and science. China, therefore, must maintain a close relationship with the United States if its modernization efforts are to succeed. Indeed, a cooperative partnership with Washington is of primary importance to Beijing, where economic prosperity and social stability are now top concerns.

Continue reading at: Foreign Affairs