China must see past its own hype of an America in decline
Zha Daojiong says Chinese policymakers and analysts should not believe their own jingoistic rhetoric about a US in decline. Even if it's true, a weak America isn't good news for China
Talk of the US being on the decline is back in vogue. This time, China features more prominently - if not solely - in the follow-up question: which country is going to benefit? My answer is different: it's certainly not China who will benefit.
Arguably, the first round of sentiment claiming that the United States was in decline emerged in the wake of the Arab oil embargo on America and its allies in 1973. A little more than a decade later, Japan's rise to be No 1 in economic affairs helped bring back the questions about America's relative place in the world. However, in both instances, America managed to have the last laugh.
How does China feature in the current mood in the US about America's place in the world? It is not as if China has behaved as Opec did in October 1973. Quite the opposite, in fact; Chinese economic growth is helping to power the global economic recovery.
Nor is the Chinese presence in American society even close to that of the Japanese in the mid-1980s. To many American geostrategic thinkers, the crux of the issue is that China, unlike Japan back then, has failed to meet US expectations of evolving to become a "like-minded" country, in either domestic or foreign policy.
To make matters worse, China is simultaneously at odds not just with the US but most of its Asia-Pacific allies on maritime territorial and a host of other diplomatic and geostrategic issues in the Middle East and Africa. To be sure, China is decades away from competing on an equal footing with the US on military terms, if indeed that is ever attainable. But it does seem capable of making the US look hollow when Washington offers to defend its Asian allies against a not-so-thinly-veiled threat.
China abounds with jingoistic rhetoric about a declining US, particularly in the wake of the collapse of a number of large banks in 2008. But it would be a serious error, not to mention profoundly risky, for China to promote domestic and foreign policy choices based on that shallow premise. One should remember that, in the past half century, the US has managed to rejuvenate its economy, regain social cohesion and maintain its influence in setting standards in global economic and military affairs. Indeed, the very fact that rhetoric about the US in decline has resurfaced in American society is, in itself, a sign of American strength, starting with brutal self-reflection.