When China’s and America’s heads of state stage a one-on-one meeting, there’s usually a sense that both sides will repeat their standing agenda, and then will continue to overlook the lack of progress on such matters in deference to our larger shared economic interests in the status quo, which keeps both sides interlocked in forced civility. Things may not be too different when President Obama receives President Hu Jintao in the capital today, but there’s apparently a growing awareness in Washington that China’s authority is less monolithic and more fractured than previously believed, and that closer, more nuanced engagement is even more necessary than before.
President Obama, to be sure, seems certain to keep pressing for the same items that have topped the United States’ agenda in recent years. He’ll press China to revalue its currency upwards, restrain North Korea, restrict theft of intellectual property, and give more respect to human and democratic rights.
China seems likely, for a change, to lecture America on the need for fiscal discipline, along with its customary objections to the traditional American interest in keeping Taiwan well armed and strengthening relationships with China’s neighbors.
With its coffers swelled by nearly $1 trillion in Treasury securities, easily making China the global leader in the purchase of Washington’s debt, President Hu has legitimate reason for China’s interest in a stronger dollar. China obviously wants to protect its investment in Treasury bonds. And with its economy racing to overtake the U.S. in a relatively short term as the world’s largest, China can also afford to be a bit smug.
Yet despite its huge economic clout and its deep pockets for foreign investments, China is beset by internal problems that stymie Hu’s control and diminish the influence of American diplomacy.
China’s banks and its corporate and state-owned companies don’t want China’s currency revalued for fear it will weaken exports and earnings. It’s government focus on suppressing citizens’ dissent makes it easier for abusive corporations and corrupt local politicians to intimidate rural villagers and take their land and resources and leave poisonous pollution.
And its military, key to China’s regional and global rise to superpower status, often takes advantage of its authority and quasi autonomy to pursue policies and actions that complicate Beijing’s diplomatic goals and pledges. The military’s unofficial unveiling of China’s first stealth fighter jet while America’s Secretary of Defense William Gates was visiting China last week was one such showcase example.
In this environment, it’s harder than most Americans may imagine for President Obama to secure meaningful changes from China in the areas that most provoke U.S. grievances. So, ironically, Washington finds itself in need of a stronger central government in Beijing, even as it rightly seeks a more open political culture than Beijing has so far allowed.
President Obama may best assert American influence by reminding President Hu that China will not be accorded the respect due the emerging global superpower, whatever its level of economic growth and military might, if it is not able to embrace the core principles to which other leading nations subscribe with regard to human rights, control of its military and its regulatory authority in the general economy. That’s the milestone that China has yet to pass.