If there’s one clear thing about China these days, it’s that the country is rising, and it doesn’t look to stop soon.
What’s less clear, though, is what role a rising China, with the world’s largest population and fastest growing economy, should play in the international community.
Wu Xinbo, professor and deputy director of the Center for American Studies, and associate dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, shared some of the current debates Chinese foreign policy experts are wrestling with on Friday in the Commons Theater.
Chief among the debates, Wu said, is whether China’s ascent on the world stage will be peaceful. If it is, he said, “this will be different from the past, when major powers had to rely on the use of force – wars – to seek big-power status, including the United States.”
As is the case with most of the major issues facing China, decision makers clash over whether the country should commit itself to peace. Proponents of peace, Wu said, claim globalization has freed markets and eased foreign relations to the point that countries can obtain natural resources and other materials without resorting to force. Moreover, these proponents say, China has experienced imperialism first-hand; knowing what foreign occupation is like, China never would act with such behavior toward its neighbors.
Peace skeptics, on the other hand, point to the contentious issue of Taiwan, a small coastal island China regards as its 23rd province. If Taiwan would ever declare independence, Wu said, China would use everything in its arsenal, including military might, to exert its power.
“If we use force in the case of Taiwan, can we still claim we are following the path of peaceful rise?” Wu said.
The argument about Taiwan raises another debate, as Wu pointed out: Should China orient its foreign policy toward the world’s established powers, mainly the United States and European Union, or should it focus more on its immediate neighbors, most of which are developing countries?
Political realists say China should work only with powerful countries, neglecting the rest as irrelevant. However, China borders 14 countries – tied with Russia for the most in the world – and the issues along its borders are hardly petty. Terrorism remains rampant in Afghanistan; India and Pakistan, both of which possess nuclear weapons, dispute the Kashmir region along China’s Tibetan border; and drug and human smuggling are pervasive along the borders of such Southeast Asian countries as Myanmar.
Although it does not directly border China, Japan is another country that heats up discussion among foreign policymakers, Wu said. In recent times, Japan has sought a more prominent international role and has become more assertive in its diplomacy. This worries some Chinese policymakers and much of the public, who recall Japanese aggression during World War II.
To heighten tension, Wu said, some conservative Japanese leaders have altogether denied Japan’s historical wrongdoings. In March, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said there was no evidence Japan had forced Chinese and Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II, although historians say at least 200,000 women were subjected to such treatment.
As China pays more attention to what is going on around it, Wu said, the country’s leaders realize the rest of the world expects it to participate more actively in global affairs – an approach that contrasts with the low-profile attitude Chinese leaders like economic reformist Deng Xiaoping espoused for most of the 20th century.
“As China rises as a major power, the international community will urge China to do more in developing peace and stability in East Asia and other parts of the world,” Wu said. “China cannot erase these kinds of obligations as its capabilities grow.”
Ciming Tang was one of several exchange students from Fudan University who attended Wu’s lecture. Having attended other lectures by Wu at Fudan, one of VCU’s partnership universities, the student of law and sociology said the professor offered objective analysis of how globalization has transformed Chinese diplomacy.
Aself-described political realist, Tang said China’s opening to the rest of the world has brought mostly improvements to his native country, but it’s still too soon to know globalization’s full impact.
“Maybe it’s just another way for the developed countries to expand,” he said, “and meanwhile the developing countries suffer.”