Recently, the United States issued a military strategy report. President Obama stressed the importance of maintaining U.S. superiority and reshaping the military. What's your comment on this?
There have been some shifts in strategy underway since 2004 or 2005. There's been some thinking about changing our strategy globally and among our ideas for the change was to wind down our engagement in the Middle East and refocus toward Asia. Also, the costs of the Iraq War and Afghanistan War may be over $3 trillion into the future—a very expensive mistake. The multi-trillion-dollar costs for these unnecessary wars in the Middle East have caused some rethinking in the United States particularly at a time of economic difficulty.
And by the way, the budget deficits in a lot of our economic issues are impacted by the expense of these wars. The costs of these wars over the past 10 years are actually reflected in our budget deficit problems. Therefore, to try to cut against that, there's an idea to try and wind down part of the military. [With regards to defense spending cuts,] $450 billion over 10 years is only $45 billion per year, actually a relatively minor cut when you think about it. These aren't really broad and serious cuts in our military budget—I would say minor modifications of the military budget, although they're being pitched to the public as saving all this money over 10 years. They're really not. We have high military spending, actually too much. That's because our foreign policy has become militarized. Militarization of our foreign policy has caused us to have to engage in moving more hardware around the world.
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea complicated Sino-U.S. relations in 2011. What do you expect in 2012?
There certainly could be some campaign rhetoric. But fortunately if we could just hold the rhetoric at that level, it shouldn't affect the relationship which we are trying to improve. Nonetheless, the United States has this recent policy shift. Unfortunately, the foreign policy establishment in the United States still retains some Cold War thinking and the idea of a hegemony policy. This is called "U.S. leadership," but what we're talking about is sort of a hegemony policy, and then they use a euphemism called "hedging" about China. "Hedging" really means containment, of course. They're just using different phraseology.
What we have to hope for is that in the dialogue between the United States and China, either government to government, people to people, at all levels of the dialogue, we can alter the perception in the United States, and policy, away from a unipolar, hegemony Cold War-oriented thinking, and reorient that into a more cooperative concept. That is to say, the United States and China cooperate on important issues. They cooperate on keeping the Korean Peninsula stable, cooperate on the Taiwan issue, and cooperate on the South China Sea issue. So in my view, we need to be thinking ahead toward cooperation in a multi-polar world. Unfortunately, leading Democrats and leading Republicans are still caught in a Cold War mentality. They may think they're not, but they are. And now they're talking about democratic states vs. non-democratic states, so there's still that Cold War kind of thinking.
The United States views the freedom of the seas as a core interest. China also views the South China Sea as a core national interest. There are lots of disagreements on this issue. Do you see more conflicts in the future?
In general, for 200 years, the United States' one core value has been freedom of the seas. We had the war with England in 1812 over that topic. In World War I, there was an issue with the Germans on that topic. So the basic concept of freedom of the seas—as a general international legal principle—has been a concern of the United States. Why? Because we have to reach out and trade with other countries in the world. It's vital to our life. So for 200 years, then, the United States has been interested in freedom of the seas, open seas, as a legal concept. Now, with respect to the United States and China, and the South China Sea, there is no reason at all why our diplomats and Chinese diplomats cannot sit down and reach some reasonable conclusions about the South China Sea. I'll make two comments on that:
First, we should not allow third parties to cause problems between ourselves. This is a very important problem. This is a very important subject that the U.S.-China relationship should not be derailed by third parties. This is a danger, a big danger. In my view, the United States and China need to speak frankly with each other and work closely with each other. And we don't need third parties to derail our relationship.
Second, it would be very important, I think, in terms of military exchanges, to have good communications between the U.S. Navy and the Chinese Navy—professional communications, so the two sides can get to know one another professionally, and so issues that come up can be solved professionally. For example, in the Persian Gulf, for a number of years, our navy has asked the White House for an "incidents at sea" agreement with Iran. That would mean that if there was a particular problem between the U.S. Navy and the Iranian Navy, we would have a diplomatic agreement that would provide a mechanism for taking care of that problem and not letting it get out of hand. And also it would be a basis for some cooperation between the two navies on a professional basis.
Similarly, I think it is important that the U.S. and Chinese navies establish some professional contacts and relationships, possibly even going into an "incidents at sea" agreement. Also, there's no reason that the United States and China cannot work together on patrolling for piracy or work together on anti-terrorism. So there are a lot of reasons for cooperation between the two sides when it comes to naval issues. What we don't want to have is some sort of a naval race or incidents to come up that provoke tensions.
I know you are a believer of the concept of "salutary balance of power" from Thomas Jefferson. Is the salutary balance possible between China, the United States and other powers?
If you look back into more classical diplomacy, it depends on what the statesmen wish to construct. After 1815 and the Napoleonic era, European statesmen got together and constructed a concert of power. After World War I, statesmen got together and constructed a world. So it just depends on what statesmen want to construct.
My view is that we need to think about the transformation of the international system in an era of the emerging multi-polar world. All of us together should be involved in changing the international system—American ideas, Russian ideas, Chinese ideas, Japanese ideas, European ideas, and ideas of the smaller powers.
Because we have globalization operating, it's a globalized world now. The world really is getting in some ways smaller. So, statesmen need to look ahead and get together and think through the transformation of the system—revitalization of the UN and revitalization of the international financial structures, which are a mess. But this is going to take Russia, China, the United States, Japan, European countries, and other countries sitting down and talking through transforming the system to a multi-polar world. Not, in the concepts of some, unfortunately, American politicians at the moment, the idea of an essentially unipolar world, with one superpower and a few other powers, with the United States running everything—that's not looking toward the future. It's actually unrealistic to think that way.
To be realistic, we have to think about our own position in the world, a changing world. And then, how can we transform the system so it's a win-win on all sides. It's not what we call a zero-sum game. We want a win-win on all sides, so the new system would be able to incorporate Chinese values and views, Russian values and views as well as Japanese, European and American. The statesmen, through the system, would be transforming diplomacy into a system that we could all agree on.
But the United States is the only superpower. It's difficult to think of a multi-polar world when you are the leader.
That's a very good point. However, you have to also be realistic. Our leadership element—either in the Democratic or Republican parties—perhaps isn't so realistic about the future. We have to admit that we have our own internal economic problems. Maybe we aren't going to be so strong in comparison to everyone else 10 or 20 years from now, as Russia recovers, China rises, etc. We have to think ahead and adjust our policy toward an emerging multi-polar world. And that's where we need creative thinking. And what's happened, I think unfortunately, is our thinking has fallen back on Cold War ideas—democracy vs. autocracies, as they say. And autocracies are a code-word for China and Russia.
I must say that our confrontational posture and rhetoric with China are paralleled in the Russia relationship. In my view, we need to reverse that thinking and go beyond it, and think about the multi-polar world that's coming along.
What do you think is China's role in this transformation, this constructing of a peaceful and multi-polar world?
I think it's self-evident that China represents about one fifth of the population of the planet, so it's very logical to me, at any rate, that a country that represents one fifth of the people on the planet should indeed take an active role when it wants to in shaping the transformation of the system. My view is that the United States and China and other countries should be working together to shape the transformation of the system.
In terms of the United States, it would be helpful for those of us who are trying to transform this system in a positive way, for the Chinese side to make as clear as possible its own positions. I don't think there is much understanding on the American side of the theoretical basis of Chinese foreign policy and diplomacy and the linkage between Chinese foreign policy and Chinese domestic economic policy. I don't think there's enough of an appreciation back home of the Chinese concept of international law, how Chinese see the emerging multi-polar world and what China thinks will be the appropriate international legal regime for that. m |
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario