Optimism/diplomats = courage/soldiers

Chas Freeman appeared Thursday at the Carnegie Endowment to introduce his new collection of essays on China, Interesting Times:  China, America and the Shifting Balance of Prestige.  Those who know Washington will understand right away that such an event promises more wonkish amusement than dry analysis, as Chas is one America’s premier racconteurs and iconoclasts.  From his early reference to DC’s “belief tanks” to his later claim that optimism is to diplomats what courage is to soldiers, Chas was in good form.  To acclaim by several in the audience, he characterized the Chinese system as a unique form of “cadre capitalism”:  a party-based system of political boosterism and entrepreneurialism.

But he was also serious in trying to dispel the misperceptions that cloud American and Chinese views of each other.  Americans view the Chinese as their mirror image.  But in fact the Chinese do not share our interest in military power, especially of the naval sort.  China is an Asian land power as much as it is an Asian Pacific sea power.  The Chinese are emerging from a lengthy period of weakness and humiliation, but their main concerns are economic and social.  Our focus on the military dimensions of competition with China could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Americans need a more multidimensional and multilateral approach to China.  This should not aim for dominance.  Chinese power is growing far too rapidly for that.  We have to be realistic about our own influence and power, especially in the current political and budgetary environment.  The pivot to Asia was the right thing to do, but we should be careful not to let it be seen as antagonistic to China.  Polarization will not serve our purposes.  Nor will the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  How can we hope to establish an economic partnership that excludes the biggest and most important economy in the region?

Chinese leaders are feeling domestically vulnerable, as the ideological underpinnings of the Communist system have rotted away.  The leadership knows China needs economic, legal and political reform.  Legitimacy is now based excessively on development, including breakneck export growth that has to give way to greater domestic consumption.  Rule of law is lacking.  The Chinese are defensive and suspicious, as they have no political model to offer the rest of the world.  But the leadership is trying to dampen nationalism, not inflame it.  Beijing wants to avoid territorial conflicts with neighbors, which in any event should not concern the US.  China will not challenge freedom of navigation.  It defends the Westphalian state system.  We are the revolutionaries introducing new elements like responsibility to protect, which the Chinese see as destabilizing.

The “China dream” is not something Americans should fear.  It is still inchoate.  Xi Jingping thinks a great nation needs a great dream, but he hasn’t really said what it is to be.  The Chinese are creating alternatives to the Bretton Woods financial institutions, but that is due to our own refusal to institute governance reforms that reflect the growing power of the BRICs and other emerging powers.  On the many demographic, environmental and social challenges China faces, Chas was confident the Chinese would be able to manage.

What did he say about optimism and diplomats?