Hu is the better alternative

Michael J. Green in the National Interest has an excellent piece on communique diplomacy with China, but it leaves open the difficult question of the longer-term relationship between Washington and Beijing. While this question is being asked at Brookings and elsewhere, answers seem to be lacking. Clean energy technologies are far too weak a reed to support a long-term U.S./China relationship.  While some argue that what is needed is to implement what has already been agreed, that too seems a formula less robust than what is needed.

The basic problem lies in diverging values.  This is not just a matter of human rights, but it is also a matter of human rights. First ducking the question and then sounding forthcoming yesterday, President Hu Jintao said China “recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights” and acknowledged that “a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights.”  This answer that will cause Hu more trouble in Beijing than in Washington.  But expert analysts are having a hard time interpreting what it means, and even whether it is boiler plate or something new.  And for the Chinese, human rights include economic and social rights, not just political ones.  Where we hear “freedom of expression” they may mean “right to health.”

My own inclination, but I admit it is not a particularly well-informed one, is to think that yesterday’s visit did open some possibilities for improved longer-term relations with China, if only because the two leaders seemed on the same wavelength and free to express their agreements and disagreements clearly and comfortably. Above all, they seemed to agree that the kinds of misunderstandings that plagued the bilateral relationship in 2010 should not be repeated in 2011 and beyond.  Tone matters in diplomacy, especially with the Chinese, and yesterday’s tones were harmonious (an important value in Beijing).

The tone of mutual respect hides however a fundamental asymetry.  Hu Jintao is the leader of a one-party system.  President Obama is not everyone’s favorite in the U.S.–I am getting a lot of Tea Party tweets these days about defeating him at the next elections–but precisely because he won office in a tough political competition he has a kind of democratic legitimacy that Hu Jintao lacks.  In fact, democracy of the sort we would recognize as such is still a great threat in China, because it calls into question the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power.

What difference does this make?  A great deal, it seems to me.  The Chinese are feeling their cheerios:  the past decade of rapid economic growth, financial success and infrastructure modernization has given even the man in the Shanghai street the sense that nothing can stop an inevitable rise, one in which competition and potentially conflict with the U.S. is regarded as likely. Chinese nationalism is a serious and rising threat to good relations with the U.S., since it sees the U.S. as hegemonic, or at least as trying to hem in China’s growing power.

There is the irony:  Hu Jintao, weak though he is in the panoply of Chinese leaders and lacking though he may be in real democratic legitimacy, is a bulwark (or at least a facade) of sorts against vigorous expressions of Chinese nationalism, which seem to be all the rage these days, especially in the military.  So the Americans are once again caught in a situation where the democratic alternative, more nationalistic than the Hu Jintao we witnessed yesterday, would be a lot more difficult to deal with than the less democratic reality.

But China’s one-party system will not persist forever.  There will be enormous risk to U.S. interests once that system starts to transition to something more obliged to reflect Chinese nationalism.  The kind of cautious, low-key  and mutually sensitive approach on display between the two presidents yesterday will not satisfy human rights hawks in the U.S. or Chinese nationalists, but it certainly sets a reasonable tone for the difficult challenges ahead.