China watchers were held rapt by the flurry of activities in the second week of 2011.
In its first official announcement of the year, the People’s Bank of China, the Beijing-headquartered central bank, allowed further liberalization of the use of the renminbi overseas -- marking yet another incremental step in the deepening internationalisation of China’s currency.
Earlier, Ai Weiwei, a prominent artist, hurried from Beijing to Shanghai. He was told that demolition crews – sent by local authorities – were knocking down his Shanghai studio for allegedly flouting the city’s zoning laws. Interestingly, this issue did not exist between 2008 and July 2010, as the studio was being built with support of local officials. Ai could only surmise that the about-turn was the result of his growing domestic and international profile as a dissident.
Moving inland into Chengdu, a Chinese-built fighter plane, supposedly with stealth capabilities, was seen sitting on a runway open to public view. Just as international analysts dismissed the aircraft as an early prototype not yet ready for a test flight, the “J-20” took to the sky– just in time to welcome US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to China.
Three events, three locations, and according to the analysis of Harry Harding, each of these three are manifestations of three broad “tendencies” that shape China’s foreign policy today. The Dean and Professor of Public Policy and Politics, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, was speaking at a seminar held at Singapore Management University’s School of Social Sciences.
Harding, a scholar of US-China relations for more than three decades, was speaking on implications of scheduled leadership changes that will take place next year in both these giants of the international arena. Come 2012, President Barack Obama will be fighting for his second term as Republicans attempt to reclaim the White House. Across the Pacific, Vice President Xi Jinping and his band of fifth generation leaders are waiting to take over from President Hu Jintao’s team.
Harding’s premise was that because politics in China remains relatively opaque, it would be more fruitful to discuss policy alternatives under consideration, than to identify the specific leaders and interest groups that are promoting them. Each of the three incidents described earlier thus represents a different “tendency”: the incremental relaxation over the use of the RMB is “integrative”; the demolition of Ai’s studio is “defensive” and the timing of J-20’s very public test flight is “assertive”.
Integrative: Let’s work together
First up, the “integrative” tendency draws support from two main groups: liberal Western-trained academics and the internationally-oriented business community. Proponents essentially believe that China should deepen its integration with the international community in both security and economic spheres.
“The world today, compared to the 19th and 20th centuries, has become more organised,” said Harding. Countries, even the most powerful ones, need to fit into existing international systems before they can effect changes that they want.
“This school of thought not only thinks that this integrative approach is necessary, but some are quite confident that this will also be in China’s interest,” said Harding. Their strongest argument is that China’s economy, liberalised just over 30 years ago under Deng Xiaoping’s watch, has benefited tremendously from integration. China’s membership into international institutions like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, for example, has helped accelerate its economic growth over the past decade.
What this integrative tendency means for US-China relations is that China will adopt a more co-operative policy against America. The understanding is that both countries are now in the same “great powers” league, but while there is competition to some degree, they share a bigger common interest in the proper functioning of international institutions. “’We are all in it together, we are all in the same boat’,” described Harding.
This tendency, of course, dovetails nicely with the aspect of American policy that is geared towards encouraging greater integration of China into the international order, which implies – from the American perspective – a more predictable and responsible China.
2012, May 24 
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