China is a partner, not a foe

The 11th FYP will also seek to match migrant workers' skills with industrial needs. Migrant labour already in the cities will benefit from vocational training. Their children will also receive education. Training will be extended for another 100 million more on the waiting list. Continued growth requires a skilled labour force in both modernised manufacturing and the service sector.

Beijing has also committed to increasing the number of students in higher education from the current 23 million and the number of graduates from last year's record high of 3.4 million. This raises the overall education spending by more than 40 per cent, from 2.8 to 4 per cent of GDP.

Chinese responses to US concerns are different

The Soviets, under President Nikolai Khruschev, threatened in the 1960s to “bury the US [and the capitalist economies] with socialism”. Khruschev’s infamous speech at the UN General Assembly, where he rapped his shoe on the rostrum and uttered the chilling words, is perhaps the most graphic depiction of the antagonistic posture of the Soviet Empire towards the US. In the words of Winston Churchill, the “iron curtain has descended on Europe [and the world]”. Of course, the benefit of hindsight has shown us that the USSR imploded four decades later. The Iron Curtain corroded away and capitalism and democracy triumphed.

China does not and has never sought to “bury” the US. Instead, China’s diplomacy has been one of co-operation and not confrontation. This was seen in the recent April 2006 Sino-US summit. Both parties have expressed their role in the international system as “stakeholders”.

However, the usage of the term differs. The US used it to convey that China must use its new power for more than just economic gains, but flex its diplomatic muscles to facilitate a breakthrough in areas such as the North Korean nuclear deadlock and the Iranian nuclear issue. The Chinese employ “stakeholder” to mean “partners in constructive co-operation” as President Hu stressed in his address to Yale University.

The co-operative stance of China towards the US is far cry from the days of Mao Zedong. Gone are the days when Beijing’s preference for political and economic self sufficiency were characterised by an isolationist attitude towards foreign events that did not concern China. Since Deng Xiaoping’s modernisation program in 1978, China has become very much part of the international community. It is fully plugged into the international political and economic system.

China also has a major say on all salient international issues of the day and agrees to disagree with other members of the Security Council. The case of Iran and North Korea are two examples of China asserting its position, which though contrary to the US stance, is a more constructive approach in international diplomacy for keeping the peace.

The Sino-US ties are one of interdependence and mutual benefit. Of course, this does not belie the fact that fundamental differences in political cultures, systems of government and foreign policy agendas persist. The perennial issues of human rights, trade deficits, re-valuation of the yuan, religious persecution, intellectual property rights and China’s oil consumption patterns will confront any Chinese and American president in office.

Depending on the political climate in Washington and Beijing, selected issues can become political footballs for leaders to “kick” and “score goals” for the benefits of their domestic constituents and media consumption. But this dynamic relation again shows the Sino-US relations will blow hot and cold but never lukewarm or peripheral.

Ties that bind

The tendency to look for new enemies is characteristic of the moralistic bent in American foreign policy thinking. But it is a moral crusade that ends up creating unintended monsters and constructing self-fulfilling prophecies of a diabolical entity seeking to do mortal harm to the world in general and to the US in particular.

China is not the nemesis of the new Cold War. It is a normal, non-belligerent political actor pursuing its agenda in similar ways that any country of democratic or non-democratic persuasion will do.

Harvard Professor Richard Rosecrance remarked that China is a rising power that is willing to be co-opted unlike Soviet Union, Germany and Japan into the international community. But he also cautioned that this is provided that “we get it right”. Rosecrance’s observation encapsulated the unique and different configuration of the Chinese nation.

Isn’t it time to see China as a partner and not a foe? China, a nemesis? Certainly not.