The Center for American Progress (CAP) has just released its new policy paper on China policy for progressives: A Global Imperative: A Progressive Approach to U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century (full report in PDF). What does it call for? How progressive is it?
The "progressive" view of US-China relations revealed in this report is essentially the Establishment view, encapsulated in their major policy goal:
"Peacefully integrating China into the international order will embed this rising power in the web of norms and responsibilities that come with being an active participant in the world stage."
The idea of integrating China into the US dominated world order is 100% US Establishment; nothing progressive about it at all. This "progressive" policy mirrors the view of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), whose recent China policy formulation is predicated on the assumption that China will continue to rise and will be happy to settle into the posture of junior partner in the US world system. The only dissent from that CFR position was from right-winger Arthur Waldron.
Unlike the CFR document, however, the CAP paper robustly embraces the idea of restoring America's lost moral authority. It calls for support for dissent in China, but stops short of calling for China's democratization as a formal US policy goal. The Establishment appears to believe that if China is encysted in the US world system it will be more able to make the transition from empire to state. The paper realizes the possibility that outcomes will be mixed but makes no recommendations for what to do in such outcomes, never mind when this policy fails, as it is almost certain to.
Sadly, on the key issue of Taiwan, the paper regurgitates Chinese propaganda that Taiwan is 'unfinished business' from the Chinese civil war (a war it did not participate in) and part of China's century old drive to recover "lost territories" (Taiwan was never part of any ethnic Chinese emperor's domain). While lauding Taiwan's democracy, it makes no reference to the desire for independence on the part of so many Taiwanese (seeing Taiwan's independence as a problem for China), thus defining 'dissenters' as people who call for reform within China proper -- not including those outside it who decline to be annexed to the new Chinese empire. The report calls for "genuine autonomy" for Tibet as a US policy goal -- but not for Taiwan.
Further, China's other territorial claims in Asia are ignored -- the problem of its expansionist claims to the Senkakus, the Spratlys, the Natunas, and other islands also claimed by its neighbors is only vaguely referred to in the text, nor are its claims to Indian territory. It should be noted that the US is committed by its military alliance to Japan to defend the Senkakus. Taiwan is not the only flashpoint in East Asia. This lack of clear discussion of these complicated issues makes the paper seem more reasonable than it actually is.
How willing will China be to cooperate with the US dominated world system? One merely need glance at its recent record. Anyone who has observed China's relations with the outside world for any length of time has seen a particular pattern again and again. In the midst of negotiations with the Vatican, it consecrates two bishops for the state Church. In the midst of negotiations over the Olympic Torch coming to Taiwan, it denies a visa to the representative of the city of Kaohsiung to discuss the games to be held there in 2009. Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. A couple of years ago the Chinese government shut down an expat magazine in China that was widely considered the most sympathetic and supportive expat rag in that nation. After attending the ASEAN meeting in November where it has positive interactions with ASEAN members, it immediately goes out and holds war games in waters disputed by those nations, without informing them. With ally Ma Ying-jeou newly elected President of Taiwan and needing 3,000 tourists a day to meet his election promises, what do they send him? 173. After many years of France helping China, emphasizing its 'special relationship' with China and demanding the Europe drop the post-Tiananmen ban on weapons sales to Beijing, who does China protest against during the Olympic Torch mess? France. With the US Navy engaging China positively in many areas, it refuses to permit the carrier Kitty Hawk to port in Hong Kong over Thanksgiving and refuses shelter to US ships during a storm. And of course China gets the Olympics with promises to upgrade its rights situation, yet crackdowns on the internet and journalists intensify, while state security arrests double.
There are many good things about this report -- its calls for intensive engagement on global warming (impossible under the current catastrophe we have as president), and its call for a re-engagement with Asia that has been sadly lacking under the Bush Administration. But on the whole, it remains a decidedly Establishment document, making no breaks with previous policies, making no particular demands on China policy for justice, democracy, and independence, and making no provision for its own failure.
Vorkosigan