Opinion London duet: Hu and Obama

Although the idea of a ‘Group of Two’— of a Sino-US joint leadership of the world economy — has gained much currency,Washington is deeply divided on its China policy.

The American champions of the G-2 include the east coast’s financial elite,the State Department which looks for Beijing’s help on a range of international issues,and the China scholars.

There are three forces of resistance to the idea of G-2. One lot includes the American working class and the manufacturing industry,which are well represented in the Obama Administration. These groups struck hours before Obama met Hu in London. On Tuesday,the United States Trade Representative issued a 55 page report on Chineseprotectionist measures that are hurting American exports and jobs.

Meanwhile in its annual report on Chinese military power,the Pentagon last week once again drew attention to Beijing’s strategic ambitions. Many in the US defence establishment believe the surest way of undermining American clout in Asia is to promote the G-2.

A third force of resistance to the G-2 in Washington comes from the human rights groups on the left and the religious conservatives on the right,who have strongly criticised the Obama administration for muting its demands for political reform in China.

As you interpret the fine-sounding declaration from Hu and Obama this week,don’t underestimate the growing tension between their short-term imperatives to cooperate on a range of global issues and the inevitable long-term rivalry between an America in relative decline and a rapidly rising China.

Stalin’s road

It should be no surprise that American political fractures have a mirror image in China.

Beijing’s pragmatists argue that China’s economic interdependence with the United States is a permanent condition that Beijing must make the best of.

They emphasise a cautious exploration of political collaboration with Washington that will facilitate a rapid elevation of China’s standing in international institutions.

There are a group of nationalists,however,who contest the proposition that a G-2 is the way to go for China. The nationalists argue that Western capitalism is doomed and the latest crisis is a mere manifestation of its profound sickness. Huang Jisu,a leading academic from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,has argued in a controversial new book that a rising China has the power to build alternatives to Western capitalism.

“We reject the idea of ‘Chimerica’ or China and America jointly leading the world,if it means China merely sharing in the spoils of the old order,” Huang said. “We are for changing the world system” he insisted.

Hu Xingdou,a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology,cautions that China’s current prosperity and power might be deceptive and points to the dangers of overestimating one’s own strength. Comparing the current international situation to that of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the Soviet Union seemed to outperform the ailing Western economies,Hu hopes “China will learn the lesson and avoid the road taken by Stalin”.

Nationalist passion

Whatever course Beijing ultimately follows,New Delhi must note the new nationalist passion that is shaping China’s debates on the world order and its own future role. Huang’s volume Unhappy China: The Great Time,Grand Vision and Our

Challenges is a collection of essays by five authors who argue that China has been too deferential to a Western world. They argue that China needs to use its growing power and economic resources to carve out its own position of pre-eminence. “From looking at the history of human civilization,we are most qualified to lead this world; Westerners should be the second,” the book says.

We don’t know what position,if any,it has assigned to India. In a mildly critical commentary on the book,China’s official news agency Xinhua explained that the “book comes at a time when a series of events seemingly stirred the nationalistic sentiments among Chinese”.

The writer is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,Nanyang Technological University,Singapore