Tai chi for Asian order has left US flailing

By Ding Gang Source:Global Times Published: 2014-11-19 19:28:02

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

It's time now for China to extend its efforts in building a new order in Asia to the political and security sectors to bring more dividends of China's political force to Asian countries.

Over the past year, China has been gradually pushing Washington's "pivot to Asia" to the margins of the region with a sophisticated portfolio of moves and the flexible employment of economic power.

With substantial investment and sincere willingness, China has outlined a Beijing road map for the Asia-Pacific free trade area. It announced it would contribute $10 million to the institutional development of APEC, $40 billion to setting up a Silk Road infrastructure fund and $50 billion to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China has also sealed a free trade agreement with Australia.

There used to be a view that China's policy on the US sometimes works like a piece of sponge.

When hawkish US politicians want to scuffle with China, they end up like punching the sponge. But this is not really a proper metaphor. The case is actually more like tai chi in which one has to conquer the unyielding with the yielding. 

So far the US strategy to safeguard its leading position in Asia mainly proceeds based on Asian countries' concern about the rise of China and disputes stemming from history. On the contrary, China strives to push ahead Asian cooperation by creating opportunities for win-win outcomes.

China doesn't intend to strike the US down, but instead to avoid its spearhead and rebuild the new order that serves the interests of Asian countries with China's own strength as per its strategic conception. It meanwhile guides the US to serve as a constructive participant of the new order.

China now has more sway than ever, be it in seeking peaceful solutions to the South China Sea issue or helping neighboring countries like Myanmar to address their ethnic conflicts and improve governance capacity.

It's not unchallenging to handle China's relations with Japan and India, yet they are no insolvable impasse. Fostering political trust between Asian powers requires magnanimous attitude and a strong control of domestic affairs, which the Chinese leadership has.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to former US president Jimmy Carter, recently proposed the US and China sign a "Pacific Charter" to ensure the world that leaders of the two most important countries are committed to enhancing the level of bilateral and global cooperation.

But for Beijing, such a charter is not necessarily a priority now, especially when Washington is beefing up its military deployment around China.

What China should focus on is building a multilateral framework for political, economic and security coordination with neighboring countries and working out regional hot spots by starting with the easy ones, so as to build up fresh rules for regional cooperation.

Only with an "Asian approach" that aims at solving the territorial disputes between Asian countries through negotiations, can Asia truly belong to Asian people and constitute a pole of the world.

In this sense, China's efforts to look for such an approach when developing the new type of major power relationship with the US is also a process of turning from a passive response to actively exerting influence on the US policy toward China.

Such influence can be made neither by US-China interaction only or tit-for-tat measures to counter the US military deployment. It relies heavily on rebuilding a new order and fresh rules in Asia.

To strike a rival's weak points, one often needs to move sideways until finally disrupting the overall arrangement. Where China's next step lies will be critical to the future US position in the Asian order.

The author is a senior editor with People's Daily. He is now stationed in Brazil. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on Twitter at @dinggangchina

Posted in: Columnists, Ding Gang, Critical Voices, Viewpoint, Commentary

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