The East is Ready

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I post the below Interview with Ross Munroe from an American Site about China's ambition to be a regional super power in the Far East and South EastAsia for further review the case.

The East is Ready

Ross H. Munro is director of Asian studies at the Center for Security Studies in Washington, D.C. During his career as a journalist, he worked in Beijing for the Toronto Globe and Mail, at a time when he was the only North American reporter living in the People's Republic of China (PRC). He also worked as Time magazine's bureau chief in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and New Delhi. His cover stories for Time included the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the Sino-British agreement that returned Hong Kong to China, and Deng Xiaoping as Time's "Man of the Year."

Since 1990, Munro has conducted research on U.S. policy in Asia and his articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and numerous other journals. His frequent radio and television appearances include "Nightline with Ted Koppel" and "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer."

In 1997, Munro coauthored The Coming Conflict with China with Richard Bernstein, the New York Times's first Beijing bureau chief and now one of its daily book reviewers. (A paperback version of the book is available from amazon.com for $10.40.) In their work, Munro and Bernstein argue that China is emerging as the chief global rival of the United States and that it considers the U.S. to be its enemy.

Navigator: Libertarians who hear the title of your book may be tempted to say, "If there is going to be a conflict, let's get out of the region." How do you respond to that?

Munro: This is why, though a friend of libertarianism for thirty-five years, I have never become a full-fledged libertarian. I think that libertarianism is profoundly lacking when it comes to global strategic thinking.

There has been a consensus among strategic thinkers in the U.S. for a century that we cannot allow a potentially hostile hegemon (a dominant power) to arise in either Europe or Asia. Even during the period when public opinion was isolationist (as in the 1930s), most strategic thinkers supported that proposition. Because there are very good reasons for it. A Soviet Russia or a Nazi Germany or a China that dominated its region would exclude us from that region and would be able to turn its attentions to building up military power to project against us in other parts of the world.

Libertarians do not really have an answer to this whole issue of the need for countervailing power. In Asia there clearly is a prospective hegemon and we can prevent the rise of a hostile hegemon in China and Asia by working with our democratic and free allies and friends (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and certain members of ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations]). Certainly we cannot be the policeman for this part of the world and that of course is one of the messages of The Coming Conflict. But libertarians have no answer for the rise of a hegemon. Fortress America would be a manifestation of defeat.

Navigator: What interest would a hegemonic China have in threatening us or challenging us? Aren't they busy trying to reform themselves into a liberal democracy? On what grounds could they sell anti-Americanism domestically and persuade their workers to take on a country like the United States?

Munro: First of all, I don't think there is a great movement for freedom and democracy in China. I don't think there is any substantial trend in that direction nor is there any substantial recognizable body of opinion that places a big value on that right now. China may one day be democratic, but I don't think that that has any policy implications for us. There is no timetable. Are you talking five years, ten years, or five hundred years? If China is going to be a democracy in 100 years, then as Keynes said we'll all be dead. We have to deal with China today.

Navigator: Other U.S. strategists want to take a tough line with China. Who are they and how do you distinguish yourself from them?

Munro: First is the religious right, which wants to focus on internal issues of human rights and democracy, because they subscribe to the "we-can-change-China" myth. They want to set down a series of ultimatums, requiring China to change its policies, which is simultaneously naive and arrogant, not to mention counterproductive because the regime leadership loves to point to such demands as an example of American arrogance and the United States's talking down to China.

Then there are strategists like Bob Kagan who apparently believe that the United States's global hegemony can be sustained indefinitely. I am a realist who thinks that, even if our absolute power continues to grow, our relative power is going to decline. And therefore we must be building alliances in Asia and we must make compromises with countries like Japan and India to establish strong relationships that protect our common interests-not only to protect democratic ideals but also to counterbalance Chinese power.

Navigator: As noted above, libertarians don't want Americans to be in harm's way if the shooting starts in East Asia. On the other hand, being libertarians, they do want to forward the prospects of liberty and democracy. What do you think is wrong with their strategy of doing this through free trade?

Munro: Whether one is a full-blown libertarian or (like me) a half-baked libertarian, we all believe in human rights and individual freedom. But the great flaw in libertarianism is that while there is a valid argument for it in American domestic politics, it starts to fall apart when it comes to interstate relations. Most libertarians-and many American policymakers-seem to believe that continuing to trade with and invest in China will inevitably lead to an independent economic sector; and that in turn will inevitably create a bourgeois social class, a pluralistic society, liberalism, and, voilà, one day democracy.

Well, first of all the historic record on that is far from clear. The examples of Nazi Germany or Peronist Argentina demonstrate that a pluralistic or a developed society is not sufficient for democracy and freedom to take hold. And India suggests it may not even be necessary. I find it ironic, to say the least, that libertarians are repeating almost verbatim the Clinton argument: that that is the way we should proceed and that then China will inevitably become more like us.

I know what you are going to say. What about South Korea and Taiwan? But there are some interesting variables there. For instance, their security has in effect been guaranteed directly, or, in the case of Taiwan in recent years, increasingly indirectly by the United States. They've been prodded in the direction of democracy and in both cases it is actually strategically advantageous for those countries to be democracies in order to solidify their relations with the United States. By contrast, look at Singapore, which is far ahead of South Korea and Taiwan in terms of its economic and technological development, but which is not a democracy.

Navigator: So do you or do you not accept the premise that capitalistic trade and open trade leads to democratic reforms?

Munro: It correlates with and encourages, but does not guarantee, democratic reforms.

But let me get back to another flaw in this argument regarding open trade. China is an increasingly aggressive trading nation. If you look at the pattern of Chinese trade, they drastically limit the inflow of material to two or three different categories that do not have much impact on society. Those categories are commodities (which are fungible, so that a man in Sichuan Province does not know whether his wheat came from Hunan or Nebraska). Such commodities do not have much impact on reforms. Then there are high-technology items, which are part of the whole business of building up a strong state and a strong military. Lastly, there are imported components for the export industry. China's imports, as you know, have not been growing significantly and they are much, much below China's exports. Yet even though classical economics tells us that China should be running a healthy trade deficit right now because of the inflow of investment capital, it is not-because it is mercantilist. So trade is not having anywhere near the effect that the engagement school suggests.

Navigator: In your book, you make much of the fact that China's mercantilism means the U.S. has a huge trade deficit with the PRC. But libertarians would ask: So what? American consumers get goods more cheaply, and the dollar surpluses Beijing is building up will have to be spent somehow.

Munro: I couldn't agree with you more when you say that there isn't anything wrong with a trade deficit. I couldn't agree with you more if you see this question in purely economic terms. But if you put the deficit in a larger context, you start to have problems.

Yes, in textbook terms there is nothing wrong with the trade deficit. But in fact our trade deficit with China is a huge strategic issue-not an economic issue, a strategic issue. In what ways? Number one is that, through mercantilism, China is building up this huge foreign-exchange reserve that it uses to advance its national power at our expense. First, it uses the reserve to buy weapons explicitly designed by the former Soviet Union to counter American military power. Second, it uses the reserve to wield influence in countries like the one I am in right now, Thailand, by giving out loans. Those are Kmart dollars flowing around here. Third is something that no one notices because it is a dog that doesn't bark, and that is-with its mercantilist policies and its foreign-exchange reserve-China is subsidizing its exports. In textbook terms, that is not a problem for us economically. American consumers benefit. But what it is doing is pushing out of the U.S. market exports from our friends elsewhere in Asia, particularly from Southeast Asia. Taiwan and Hong Kong are special cases because they are so tightly tied with China. But Indonesia, Thailand, countries like that, which are friends of ours, are suffering because of Chinese mercantilism. I think we should threaten the Chinese with managed trade unless they open up their markets to American goods and especially to American services, thereby lessening the foreign-exchange reserve at their command.

Navigator: Does "managed trade," mean revoking MFN [most-favored-nation] status?

Munro: Yes. I recommend threatening to revoke MFN and ceasing to give China untrammeled access to our markets if China does not allow much more access to U.S. goods and services. I know that is sacrilegious in the libertarian context, but I am saying that there is a bigger strategic issue here, one that goes well beyond the libertarian religion.

Navigator: You assume that, if the U.S. were to cut access to its market, China wouldn't be able to cultivate markets elsewhere, to compensate for it.

Munro: You're damn right it couldn't! Because the Europeans are already restricting, indirectly, what the Chinese can export to them. And what else is left? Asia is in recession and China's exports to Asia are stagnating. What magic market are you talking about? As you know, one of the big issues right now is overcapacity in the world. We're in a global deflation; we're in oversupply in almost every commodity and manufactured good. We have leverage against China that we'll never have again.

Navigator: In your book you make the point that it is not Chinese people who pose a threat to American interests, it's the government clique. It is in their interest to wage war with the United States, not in the interest of China as a whole. If you cut off trade with China, who are you actually empowering or disempowering? Are you disempowering the average Chinese or the Chinese rulers?

Munro: I think you're threatening the Chinese rulers-by confronting their mercantilism. In the same way, we would threaten the Chinese ruling clique if we stood up to them on military issues like their intimidation of Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. What does their legitimacy rest on? Their legitimacy no longer rests on Marxist-Leninist ideology, which is a hollow shell and embraced by almost no one in China. It has rested on economic growth, but that is becoming increasingly fragile. China is within a year of a financial implosion and all the regime will have left will be nationalism, which will mean escalating the threat against Taiwan and escalating the threat against the Philippines. So that is what to watch. We cannot change China internally, but we can challenge the external sources of the ruling clique's legitimacy, the external sources being mercantilism and their jingoistic nationalism.

Navigator: And that will be sufficient to weaken China's rulers, you think?

Munro: Weaken, yes.

Navigator: In your book, you indicate that Taiwan may be a flash point in U.S.-China relations, an issue that could set off a shooting war? And in just the last week or two tensions between the U.S. and China have risen over Taiwan. How do you see that situation? How dangerous is it?



-- (Việt_Nhân@Filsons.com), October 10, 2004

Answers

[ Continued From above ]

Munro: I believe that if China were to start taking warlike actions against Taiwan, we would quickly be in a war of some type with China- unless Taiwan had done something outrageously provocative to inflame China, which I think is an extremely remote possibility.

In many ways, then, Taiwan is the ultimate test-case for the U.S. This is a vibrant democracy that has a population that wants not only self-determination but also wants and is able and willing to defend itself. We've gone to war to defend Kuwait, South Korea, and Vietnam from invasion and none of those countries at the time was a democracy. In the case of Vietnam, it ultimately proved unwilling to defend itself. In the case of Kuwait, it wasn't able to make much of a try. So here we have the ultimate case: a (de facto) independent democracy that wants to defend itself.

I want libertarians to think about this: how we would diminish ourselves as a nation if we did not help Taiwan preserve its freedom and its democracy. This is the real acid-test for you. Ted Galen Carpenter tries to square that circle by saying: Of course, we shouldn't defend Taiwan, but we should give it every single weapons system it needs to defend itself against China. Well, that has a surface plausibility about it and I respect Ted for making that proposal, but it has a couple of terrible flaws in it. Number one: if we announce that policy we would have an immediate military crisis because China would try to preempt us. Number two: suppose what we send Taiwan isn't sufficient? Suppose China tries, just by sheer weight, to overpower Taiwan militarily. Are we then going to say that "Well we did our best, too bad?" No, we are going to intervene. We are, for better or for worse, locked to Taiwan. Our future in Asia and our future as a supporter of freedom and democracy are tied to how we handle the Chinese threat to Taiwan.

Navigator: So what do you think we should do?

Munro: I think we should gradually, without making any grand announcements, give Taiwan more and better weapons to defend itself. This would not be an ethically difficult position to defend, because Taiwan is not considered an aggressive power by anyone's definition. But even if we do that there still might be situations in which Taiwan needs our help.

This is so distinct from, say, Vietnam. In Vietnam we had a nondemocratic country that ultimately proved unwilling to defend itself. But Taiwan is a democracy that wants to defend itself. And we would be diminishing ourselves as a nation if, in extremis, when they needed out help, and couldn't do the job, and had nowhere else to turn, we were to turn a blind eye to them.

I think this is a really interesting issue for libertarians and Objectivists to confront. Again we cannot make China into a democracy but we can damn well help a democracy defend itself. I feel passionately about that.

Navigator: But our current policy does not support independence for Taiwan, does it? I mean the United States has repeatedly turned a blind eye to even Taiwanese requests for representation in most international bodies.

Munro: Clinton's statement in Shanghai, where he explicitly declared that, and became the first president to do so, was probably the worst moment in his presidency. In Shanghai, in the first or second day of July, he declared that we do not support independence for Taiwan; we do not support one Taiwan, one China; and we do not support Taiwan's entry into international organizations that require statehood. It was called the three nos. This was all set up as a bit of political theatre and this, if you can believe it, was Clinton's way of repaying the Chinese for their wonderful favor of letting him get on Chinese television Saturday afternoon when no one was watching.

One of the levers that we had over China when it came to Taiwan was the prospect that if China attacked Taiwan, Taiwan in its rage would declare total independence and we would then support them as the aggrieved victim of an unprovoked Chinese military attack. Clinton threw away that chip in the poker game because Clinton is the least strategically minded president we've had since Harding. It was just the worst thing that happened last year in American foreign policy: that Clinton made statements in China that undermined or worsened our relations with the democracies of Japan, Taiwan, and India. It was absolutely appalling.

Navigator: What I am hearing you say, then, is that Clinton should have maintained a sort of ambiguous stance toward Taiwan in order to use that as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with China. Which would mean what?

Munro: The United States has a policy of not getting involved directly in any discussions between Taiwan and China.

Navigator: What position would you want the United States to take towards Taiwan?

Munro: I think it should be closer. I think we should be giving it more military weapons; we should start some forms of joint exercises. Right now, in a crisis, we would hardly be hardly able to communicate with each other. I mean our pilots and our naval vessels aren't going to be able to communicate, because we haven't been exercising for twenty-five years.

Navigator: And that should be restored?

Munro: Yes. Obviously we have to find the least provocative way of doing it. But the Chinese declare themselves provoked by almost anything we do. That is one of the problems we have: We allow the Chinese to define what is provocative. We allow them to define what U.S. actions vis-à-vis Taiwan are provocative, what actions by Taiwan are provocative. And once China prevails, it moves on to another, broader definition of what is provocative. And unless we put a stop to this process, it will continue to broaden the definition of what is provocative until it controls Taiwan.

Navigator: Besides absorbing Taiwan, what sort of dominant position is China seeking in Asia? What in your view is its final set of goals? You make clear in your book that you do not believe China is a new USSR.

Munro: You are absolutely right in pointing out that the Soviet Union and China are not comparable. Indeed, I reject suggestions that we are facing the prospect of a second cold war. As far as expansionism and aggression are concerned, the Chinese and the Soviets have had very different styles and approaches. For one thing, the Chinese have a huge weapon the Soviets never had: economic power.

More significantly, though, the clash between the U.S. and China is not primarily ideological. China has known only two international systems in its history, to be deliberately simplistic: It has known the tributary state system, where countries around it explicitly acknowledge China's primacy and go out of their way not to do anything that China would define as against China's interest. The only other international system it has known has been the one that began about two hundred years ago, from which it started to emerge at the midpoint of this century, and is almost completely emerged from now: an era of humiliation.

That era was really the deviant case. Today, China wants to return to the old norm. It is certainly thinking instinctively in those terms and Chinese intellectuals love to joke, "Hey, we Chinese have just had a couple of bad centuries, that's all." There is nothing in the book, as you know, to suggest that we're predicting an invasion of Japan or an invasion of Indonesia. What China clearly wants is for countries like this to accept China's primacy.

Navigator: This is to redeem the honor that they see as lost for the past several centuries?

Munro: I think it goes way beyond expunging humiliation. I think it is a very positive ambition (from a Chinese perspective). What I just gave you was a pretty abstract explanation. It is supposition and speculation that the Chinese instinctively are looking for a modern version of the tributary state system. We can narrow it down to China's announced goals, goals that you can pull out of Chinese statements and Chinese articles: The explicit goals are an end to any American military presence in Asia; that is now quite explicit (though there is no timetable). They want total control of Taiwan. They say that they will allow Taiwan to maintain a garrison, which means, "We'll be in the air above you and the sea around you, but you can have your home guard." In other words total control. They want to control the South China Sea.

Also, one Chinese goal that is in a slightly different category but is very clear to me is the permanent strategic subservience of Japan. This is what strategy intellectuals have told me in China and this is what you can infer from Chinese writings. They believe that Japan has no legitimate right to adequate self-defense or the ability to project power to defend its interests. They would like some sort of international treaty that would, in effect, keep Japan militarily weak in return for some phony international treaty assuring Japan of its security.

So if you combine those announced goals, they amount to a program to dominate Asia. If China controls the South China Sea and Taiwan, the U.S. military is out; and if Japan is permanently subservient strategically, then China controls Asia.

If current trends continue, China will be the preeminent power in Asia, whatever the United States does. It is going to dominate continental East Asia. But as long as the U.S. works with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, archipelagic South East Asia-and those countries are willing to work with the U.S.- then we can maintain stability and a balance of power in Asia.

Navigator: So that should be the primary goal of the United States?

Munro: That is it in a nutshell. I part company with those folks who use the word "containment." The word "containment" suggests that we should somehow be trying to aggressively encourage and assist countries like Kazakhstan, or Laos, or those on China's borders to resist Chinese influence, and that's a fool's game. At best, we can be a marginal player in situations like those.

Navigator: What you are recommending is balancing China, not containing it.

Munro: Precisely. In other words, maintaining close security ties with our core allies and friends like Japan and Taiwan on China's Eastern periphery. Of course, there is some risk. China must realize that we are prepared to go to war if it attacks our core allies and friends.

Navigator: In your book you have a chapter, "The New China Lobby." Could you explain what that is and why we should worry about it?

Munro: It begins with this whole myth that we discussed earlier that if China develops economically then it will transform itself into a liberal democracy. But, as I said, you cannot assume that will happen nor can we base our policy toward China on that hope. No matter how noble or even reasonable a hope, it is just a hope. Not observably true so far. But the business lobby peddles this hope like crazy. And the interest of the business lobby of course is in the Chinese market. But that interest is more complicated than most people realize. Most businessmen understand that they won't export a pair of sneakers or a radio to every third Chinese. But they believe that when it comes to scale of productions and worldwide competitiveness they have to be in China. So Motorola has set up a domestic plant in China. And Boeing is another perfect example. There is room in the world for only two or three passenger airplane manufacturers and if any one of them is shut out of China, it may not survive the decade. So they are desperate to get into the China market.

Another foundation of the new China lobby is that a handful of companies are making what I call "super-profits" in China because they are selling China technology for which the R&D costs have already been amortized. And so the profit margins of, for example, United Technology are just colossal. And they want to keep that.

As a result, these businesses are lobbying for a go-easy-on-China policy, and those with major investments in China often take the same position, since their investments are always vulnerable to arbitrary Chinese actions that can make them unprofitable overnight. Some of these corporations have been very effective in arguing against sanctions and against linking trade with human rights in China. (Clinton initially supported linkage of this kind.) Thus my problem with the new China lobby does not stem from its desire to export to China. In fact I would like to see much more exported to China. But this lobby does not represent the interests of the U.S. economy as a whole or they would be pressing for an aggressive stance on the part of the United States for opening up the Chinese market. This is what I have a problem with.

Navigator: What do you make of the scandal about the Chinese campaign contributions? Do you think that was an attempt by Chinese government officials to "buy" favors at the highest ranks of the U.S. government?

Munro: Yes, I do. In the book Richard [Bernstein] and I describe a meeting that took place in early 1994 between central government officials and Communist Party officials from various Chinese provinces. During that meeting a two-pronged strategy was embraced to deal with the U.S. In the long term the delegates agreed that the United States was China's main global rival and strategic foe. In the short term they felt they had to launch a lobbying effort to continue the flow of trade and investment from the United States.

Four months after this meeting, Charlie Trie and Johnny Chung started getting loads of money from groups linked to the PRC-in some cases even directly from the PRC. Trie and Chung were two-bit hustlers who were trying, until then without any success, to trade on their connections with the Clintons. And then, after this meeting in Beijing, money started flowing to them. This may have been a crude and ultimately unsuccessful lobbying effort on the part of the Chinese government. But it was nevertheless a foreign government's attempt to influence American policy.

Navigator: Just when this campaign contribution scandal broke, there was another related scandal about China's acquiring sensitive satellite and missile technology from Hughes. How did this happen? Was it just an isolated snafu or did it have deeper roots?

Munro: You don't have to draw lines between money donations and transfer of technology. In 1994-96 donations from the Johnnie Chungs as well as from Hughes Aircraft and other U.S. companies created an atmosphere in which bureaucrats felt pressured to approve inappropriate transfers of technology. If the media is looking for a smoking gun, none will be found. There will be no memo from Bernie Schwartz demanding permission to transfer satellite technology to China as quid-pro-quo for his campaign contributions. That's not the way the world works. Instead, without a memo ever being written, the word is spread that someone should be treated preferably. And through these technology transfers the Chinese government has significantly improved its ability to accurately rain missiles on us.

Navigator: Can you comment on the Cox Committee report? [The Cox Committee is a select House committee established to investigate technology transfers to the PRC and headed by Representative Christopher Cox. Its 700-page report is scheduled to be declassified in March.

Munro: What the Cox Committee has uncovered is a lengthy concerted and successful effort by the Chinese, through espionage and illicit interaction with U.S. corporations, to acquire technology that has clear military potential. U.S. high-tech corporations have been saying for five years that Chinese espionage is their number one problem. The problem is: You have a political leadership in Washington that has bought the U.S. Sinologists' argument that we have little to fear vis-à-vis China. There is no need to be wary. And so we have had incidents like Chinese walking through America's best nuclear weapons laboratories and picking up documents because scientists and/or military officers were trying to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese and showing them things they should never have shown. And that is what the Cox report is demonstrating.

Navigator: But how much does that matter? How much does the U.S. itself have to fear from China right now in terms of its military power?

Munro: The U.S. military still has an edge over China, no doubt. But China's military should not be compared with ours; it should be compared with that of its neighbors such as Japan and other Asian countries that could check Chinese power. Seen in those terms, China's military capabilities are increasingly threatening to America's friends in Asia. So we need to be helping these countries develop their military strengths, and hindering China from developing hers.

Navigator: Of course, if Beijing has the ability to lob a missile into Los Angeles, then direct comparisons are in order?

Munro: Yes. And for that reason alone we obviously have to move toward an antiballistic missile defense program. This administration has ignored it. But that is probably going to be the biggest issue that American defense has to confront over the next decade.

This interview was conducted for Navigator by Shika Dalmia, an editorial writer with the Detroit News.



-- (Việt_Nhân@Filsons.com), October 10, 2004.


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