The stealth normalization of U.S.-China relations

National Interest, The, Fall, 2003 by David M. Lampton

Finally, the United States unmistakably declares its intention to defend its solo position atop the pyramid of interstate power. As the NSS puts it: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."

For its part, despite the post-9/11 rapprochement, America's strategic apprehensions about China include concerns about whether China will be a cooperative actor in the strategy outlined above and whether the Chinese government will do all it can to stem the spread of WMD and the means of their delivery.

There are positive signs. Certainly, China has not shown interest in taking the lead in opposing the United States in areas removed from its immediate region and border, preferring to let Russia and America's traditional allies do the heavy lifting with respect to these "secondary" issues. Iraq is a case in point. Since August 2002, Chinese officials and scholars were telling me privately, "For China, Iraq is not a very big issue", an observation supported by the fact that only 0.6 percent of China's oil imports were from Iraq. Beijing would not sacrifice Sino-American cooperation in order to directly confront Washington over Baghdad, though it was also unwilling to explicitly endorse the U.S. use of force in Iraq in a second UN resolution. Beijing's interests were best served when the second resolution was withdrawn without a vote.

With respect to WMD and counter-proliferation, China is implementing more vigorous domestic export control measures, but there will be leaks and occasional intentional transfers that will alarm Washington and cause conflict. Demonstrating both the risks of the relationship as well as how far it has come, in May 2003, the U.S. Department of State placed export sanctions worth about $200 million on North China Industries (NORINCO) for alleged exports of missile technology to Iran. Beijing issued a pro-forma protest, but that was all. The relationship has reached a point where friction in one corner need not jeopardize all.

Yet, Beijing and Washington may clash over how to deal with a problem even when they both agree that there is a challenge that requires cooperation. The current North Korean nuclear challenge is a case in point. There is little doubt that both the United States and China agree that Pyongyang should not possess nuclear weapons. In a January 10, 2003 telephone call between Bush and Jiang, the then-president of China made this point. The problems come not in this shared objective, but in the relative priority each attaches to it and the means by which each side believes the goal can best be attained. (Moreover, until possibly recently, Beijing seemed to believe that Kim Jong-il was not as far along in his nuclear projects as U.S. intelligence seemed to think.) For Washington, having no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula is its first, second and third priority.

This is not to say that preventing North Korea's acquisition of WMD is not important to Beijing. Indeed, this objective may be of growing importance as PRC leaders contemplate the effects on Chinese security of a proliferation domino process that could spread from North to South Korea, through Japan, and possibly on to Taiwan. Moreover, North Korea's threats in the April 2003 three-way meeting with China and the United States greatly heightened the PRC's concerns and increased its willingness to consider a broader range of ways to bring Pyongyang onto the non-nuclear path.