China – Containment versus Engagement?

Great Debates
1

Let’s try to keep this simple and focused with the question strictly on what the US line should be regarding containment versus engagement with the People’s Republic of China. [Refer to the bottom of the post for some other topics that could be addressed after settling this one.]

I believe that there is an overwhelming global need to bring China further into the international community, which means engagement. Whether America likes it or not, the PRC is a global economic player, an Asian military contender and possess nukes. That means China is in the big boys club even if they don’t play by the existing rules. China is not the enemy of the US although certainly China is a rival. In addition, China is also an economic partner (USD120 billion in two-way trade for 2000), and I don’t have anything handy to throw out about direct investment on both sides of the Pacific.

It’s easy to confront China but it’s a lot tougher to engage. I argue that America’s long term national interest would be best served by engagement. Engagement also means playing hardball behind the scenes, gathering information, acting as a police force in Asia and being prepared for confrontation should that become necessary after first exhausting other options. Engagement in the 1950’s might have prevented China’s entry into the Korean war – it is reasonably well documented that the Chinese tried to warn the US not to get too close to the Yalu river. Not to get off the subject, but the current engagement with Russia seems to be working a lot better than the previous evil empire/cold war period.

For example, after China enters the WTO, then trade disputes will be just trade disputes and not political pissing contests in Congress with blow-by-blow commentary in the US press and China playing the nationalism card at home. Enforcement will be a giant issue, but at least there will be a reference point to start from rather than vitriolic finger pointing from two sides so far apart they can’t even agree on where they disagree. In addition, the current Chinese leadership is also using WTO as an external force to help bring about internal change within China.

Once policy is decided on engagement or containment, then many more great debates could address issues such as the following:

1)Human rights – should a country with 1.3 billion people and a different culture be held to the American ideal? Are human rights in China improving?
2)Independence for Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Manchurian?
3)No one believes that stuff about old maps, what really happened with the embassy bombing?
4)Who should select lama’s in Tibet?
5)Religious Freedom – what is a level of “reasonable” religious freedom?
6)Taiwan and China – the reunification question?
7)Spratly Islands – whose islands are they any way since China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Malaysia and the Philippines all claim them?
8)US role as Asia’s policeman
9)Falun gong – are they an evil cult or should they be covered under religious freedom
10)Is the economic progress providing more freedom?
11)Is the average Chinese “more free” than during Tiananmen days?
12)Is “to get rich, glorious” or is the Chinese stock market a bubble waiting to burst?
13) Should the US boycott all trade with China?

2

This seems more like an arguement for containment to me.

After we kicked their proverbial ass and bankrupted them, they finally saw the light:)
I’m not sure just yet where I stand on China though. I think a little tougher stance than we have had for the last decade would be an impovement, and then we could reasses the situation from there.

3

Um, how exactly are you proposing to “contain” an enormous sovereign nation the size of China, populated by people who aren’t stupid? Just not invite them to any more trade dicussions, or what? Tell them to “stay home”, the way you tell your kid brother not to tag along with you and your friends?

I think the decision for “containment” or “engagement” is up to them, isn’t it? If they want to be engaged, they will. I don’t see any way of stopping them.

Conversely, if they want to decide that the Middle Kingdom is the center of the universe and close the doors again, I don’t see any way of making them come out to play. Maybe we need their cheap Wal-Mart goods more than they need our, what, Mel Gibson movies? Windows upgrades? Disney products?

4

This is not a black or white issue. I agree engagement is the only way to go but you can engage and play hardball when needed. The case of the downed airplane was well handled with no concessions.

Forces from within and without are slowly bringing China into the community of nations. China still has a ways to go in human rights, rule of law, etc and it will take time.

1)Human rights - should a country with 1.3 billion people and a different culture be held to the American ideal? Are human rights in China improving?

It is not an “American” ideal. It is a western ideal if you want to see it that way. In any case, I believe good is good no matter where it comes from. Human rights should be considered universal, not part of a particular culture. Chris Patten, the last governor of HongKong, deals very well with this issue in his book East and West. The west does well in pressuring for improvement in this area (within reason). Human rights records in China are slowly improving due both to internal and external forces.

2)Independence for Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Manchurian?

As much as I support Tibet, we have to be realistic. Any serious threat of independence would be very destabilizing to the region. I would say the best posible solution for now is to maintain the status quo and try to improve liberties and human rights.

3)No one believes that stuff about old maps, what really happened with the embassy bombing?

This was discussed in a recent thread so I won’t go into it. But the fact is the Chinese people believe what they are led and told to believe so the facts are of little consequence. The Chinese government manipulated the issue for its own ends. It is ironic that the Chinese people accuse America of being wrong in everything, yet they cannot accept the idea that America could make a single mistake. America the infallible.

4)Who should select lama’s in Tibet?

Are you kidding? Who should select the Pope of Rome?
5)Religious Freedom - what is a level of “reasonable” religious freedom?

Please tell me you are kidding.

6)Taiwan and China - the reunification question?

The way I see things the best solution for now is to maintain the status quo. Anything else would cause big trouble. If the current situation can be maintained long enough (and that is a big “if”) China and taiwan can become similar enough in economy, freedoms and lifestayle that a peaceful reunification would be possible or they would have grown used to the idea of bein separate. Time is the only solution.
7)Spratly Islands - whose islands are they any way since China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Malaysia and the Philippines all claim them?

The only factual answer is that they are claimed by all those nations. But China is the main threat to stability as they claim the entire South China Sea and have been throwing their weight around in threatening ways. It is important for the international community to be firm and not submit to any Chinese claims in this area.
8)US role as Asia’s policeman

Very necessary as stability there is vital to western interests. China may resent it but most of the countries in the area welcome American presence to keep things quiet.
9)Falun gong - are they an evil cult or should they be covered under religious freedom

You kidding again? You really believe the government has any role in telling people what to believe? Just FTR, FalungGong followers enjoy freedom in Hong Kong and nothing awful seems to come of it except that Jiang Zemin might get an ulcer.

10)Is the economic progress providing more freedom?

That is inevitable.

11)Is the average Chinese “more free” than during Tiananmen days?

I do not think that can be answered with yes or no. But if you want a short answer I would say yes, today there is more freedom than after the events of Beijing 11 years ago.

12)Is “to get rich, glorious” or is the Chinese stock market a bubble waiting to burst?

The Chinese stock market will suffer its hiccoughs like any other, maybe a bit more but I can’t see why it would “burst” any more than the dotcoms did here. It will take time to have a good, stable system, ruled by stable, predictable, laws.

  1. Should the US boycott all trade with China?

No, why should they?

5

I was hoping to hear from all the people out there that think China is the great enemy. Come on, I’ve seen you in the Pit…

Again, like to keep this focused on containment versus engagement. All those other questions we can work out later (and my answers there might not be obvious ones).

6

I’ll keep this short, since sailor already gave a very full answer I agree with. I’ll add that I don’t really see a dichotomy between containment and engagement here. “Containment” is a leftover Cold War term referring to military alliances against a known or believed militarily-expansionist foe against whom no real economic leverage existed. In regard to China’s claim on the Spratlys, Paracels, etc., even Taiwan, the economic realities far outweigh the military ones, and China (or any of the other claimants) has more to lose economically by taking military action than would be worth it.

So, strange as it may sound, the best approach is to have containment as a goal of engagement.

7

Why this constant need to manufacture a Great Enemy? I see you’re still regarding Russia as such, which boggles the mind.

There’s more to the world than Us (Good) vs. Them (Evil), yet so much of America seems unable to grasp this fact.

8

Who is that intended for, **Mekhazzio[b/}? Can’t be me - I agree with you strenuously, and the OP itself mentioned how much more effective engagement with the USSR and now Russia was than the coldest part of the Cold War.

9

Maybe the Pit is the only place where they don’t feel intellectually dwarfed? :slight_smile:

As to the OP, my short answer is to follow Teddy Roosevelt’s advice: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” If our leaders can keep their cool, hopefully speaking softly will be sufficient for most situations.

10

I see one difference between China now and the USSR in the 60’s and 70’s. Back then Russia was trying to install a communist style government in every country they could. Speaking just off the top of my head, but I’ve never heard of China trying to export communism.

If this is true (and I’m sure someone will tell me if it’s not) then I don’t think containment is necessary.

11

They weren’t even doing that, actually. The dreaded spread of communism and/or socialism was, most of the time, a local movement with no outside influence except for the occasional arms deal here and there. In fact, it could be reasonably argued that we were more rabid about installing capitalist governments across the world than the USSR was about installing communist ones.

Heck, sometimes those evil communists were even elected – at which point we promptly proceeded to “contain” the democracy that lead to them (pick one of many South American countries). Sometimes they merely had popular support, so our containment attempts were doomed from the beginning (a la Vietnam)

Containment policy is one of the great blunders/failures of the 20th Century, and the attitude that inspired it caused many problems in and of itself. It’s depressing to see people still chanting that mantra, especially those same people that supposedly “support local government”. Who says we have any right to dictate what a pissant little country on the other side of the world wants?

(BTW, Elvis, I was replying to the OP (and sailor and Freedom - the OP did, in fact, say “current”, not historical)

12

thought I was clear on current egagement with Russia seems to be working a lot better than the historical evil empire arms race stuff. But, that’s a digression, this is about China now.

Well, unless the containment people show up soon, this won’t be much of a debate. hell, even Bush is pursuing engagement even if his press rhetoric is more containment.

13

So what?

I caught that the first time around.

(Hey Mekhazzio, the OP did , in fact, say “WTO” and not NAFTA)

???

Are you feeling the confusion?

14

Well, not just the Pit. There’s the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon too.

Mekhazzio, thanks for the clarification. You had me worried for a moment.

15

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mekhazzio *
**

And, they call Republicans intellectually dwarfed?

16

Well, I for one am still not sure what you mean by “containment”, China Guy. How do you “contain” them? Make them stay on their side of the Pacific at gunpoint? Or what?

Just not invite them to any trade deals? Ignore them completely, economics-wise? Taking Elvis’ definition:

…and extrapolating it to the 21st century doesn’t work for me. So we would form a military alliance against China with–whom? Russia? Hardly likely, they can’t even feed themselves. Great Britain? NATO? Why?

And if we did find someone else who thought China ought to be “contained” (if we ever figured out what that meant :smiley: ), what makes you think China would play along? “Oh, yes, sir, Uncle Sam, we’ll stay here on our side of the Pacific and not make any noise while the grownups are signing their trade agreements”.

And IMO we do have a certain amount of economic leverage against China–they can’t market ALL their plastic Wal-Mart widgets to the nice folks in the European Community, they need the Imperialist Running Dog Yankees to take most of 'em off their hands. So we shouldn’t have to resort to military force at all.

So I guess I don’t see a real talking point in the OP. Given the state of the “global community”, how can we possibly NOT “engage” China? Hmm.

Actually, I would say that China is kind of like the 800 lb. gorilla over there in the corner–you can ignore him if you like, but “where does he sleep?”

“Anywhere he wants to…” :smiley:

17

I’d personally like to see as little of those people ass possible :smiley:

Are you Chinese? Living in China?

I’m an expatriate resident of Beijing and I believe it’s true that America has no choice what so ever in this issue. If they choose to isolate themselves from trade with China, the European Union will reap all the benefits of the fastest growing market in the world, while further destabalizing the US relationship with the UN and the People’s Republic of China.

No one wants that to happen, so if it does it will be because of some terrible mistake in the ongoing diplomatic process.

— G. Raven

18

By the way:

Russia spreading the influence of communism = Trotsky

Russia staying at home and pouting but selling arms = Stalin

After Trotsky was “purged”, expansionist philosophy was not seen kindly by Stalin.

— G. Raven

19

I think this is a good topic of discussion. As a start, I’d be happy to see the US begin defining their relationship with China, rather than simply accept China’s definition. IMHO, with illigal Chinese donations to both political parties, and with China allowing chosen corporations to do business there, they have been in total control of the relationship.

Some policies might serve both containment and engagement. But, when we have to choose one or the other, I’d opt for containment. China is an expansionist tyranny, which is making militaristic threats to its neighbors. Military expansion should be resisted one way or another.

The justification for pure engagement would seem to be that China will evolve into a good neighbor, either with the current government or by replacing their government with a democracy. In particular, I’ve seen a claim that if China can expand a bit more, they’ll be satisfied. These ideas can’t be proved or disproved, but it seems risky to rely on any of them.

20

I don’t understand why people are having this debate about China and not about Cuba.