| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Ruan Zongze Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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As a student of international relations myself, I would have to say that some of the forces at work don't relate to a particular country, but just to the structure of the international system. If we look ahead, it's very clear that there are going to be three centers of power, so to speak: the United States -- and we used to be the only center of power -- but also China, with enormous wealth and population; and a united Europe, which may be further along than China today. The future looks to be one in which these three entities will be important. You were stationed in Europe, and one of your areas of expertise is Europe. Talk a little about how you see that dynamic between these three centers of power unfolding in the future.
It's a very interesting and a very complicated issue, but I'll try to explain what I think about it. Particularly for Europe, the integration in the past half-century of the European Union has sent a strong signal that for Europe, unity is power, because of most of the countries are small or medium countries. Europeans themselves always had a dream that they wanted to have one voice. Of course, they have different languages; but anyway, they pursued such a dream.
The integration of Europe is actually a political decision rather than an economic one. Of course, the economic decision is always in there. And the spearhead, from the fifteen, sixteen countries, pretty soon, next year, we will see another ten Eastern and Central European countries join the European Union. So it will make the European Union from fifteen to twenty-five members. This will add a lot of weight to the European Union to have a stronger voice, an independent voice. My understanding is that they want to have their own independent voice. This is something in their mind, they are so consistent, and they push forward the integration.
Of course, the Euro already is the currency. The Euro is one of the milestones in this integration. But on the other hand, the other side of the coin of that is that Europe is a combination by fifteen or even twenty-five sovereign countries, so they have a huge amount of homework to do before they can really have one voice on international affairs.
Interestingly enough, if you look in the economy, they can do that quite easily. But if you come to the foreign affairs and security issues, then we have greater difficulty, particularly in three countries -- Britain, France, and Germany. They may have different views on transatlantic relations. During the Iraq War, one of the casualties of the Bush administration's foreign policy was a rift of the transatlantic relations. That also reflects that Europe, they want to have their [single] voice, but they still have a long way to go.
Speaking of the Bush administration, Secretary Rumsfeld coined [the idea of] an old Europe which was less reliable versus a new Europe that was more willing to join the "coalition of the willing," I think he called it. What do you make of that trend? Is it just a short-term bump in the road, or are there longer-term issues involved here that China has to look at? That would be an important rift, as you say.
Yes. Well, I don't know. For Europeans and Americans, they will say that. But from my personal perspective, I don't think that is a good idea to say that there is an old Europe and a new Europe, because I think it may send the wrong signal to the Europeans. Why do I say that? Because in the past, the United States was seen as a supporter of European integration, because a stronger Europe could share more of the burden with Americans and would be a stronger ally of the United States, where a country [the former Soviet Union] was a threat in the Cold War.
So in the past several decades, Europeans have had a very positive idea of how Americans can be supportive in their integration. But to say there is a division between new Europe and old Europe, it seems that the United States is no longer a supporter of the European integration, a disturbing element, because you artificially divided those two.
Interestingly enough, for those so-called new Europeans, I think it also puts them in an embarrassing situation. They feel very embarrassed because, actually, they would like to join the European Union so that the European Union can provide them a good opportunity to develop their economy. This is something they're really looking forward to. But on the other hand, they have to keep their other eyes on the United States. So it really makes it very difficult to make the choice. But, finally, in my point of view, those so-called new Europeans have to be more inclined with the so-called old Europe, because, ultimately, they want to have a better chance to develop the economy. The European Union can offer that, rather than the United States.
One of the conflicts between the U.S. and Europe is a basic disagreement about how to achieve world order. The Europeans, building on their experience of integrating and uniting Europe, believe very much in negotiation, believe in a process which they're calling "enlargement," as they bring new members into the [European] Community. Whereas the United States, especially after 9/11, seems to emphasize heavily the military dimension of securing world order. So that was a very basic disagreement. How does China perceive this disagreement, on the one hand, and on the other hand, who is more right, do you think, about how in the long-term the world will look in terms of reaching a sense of order?
Well, if you look at this situation in the long-term view, I personally think [the U.S.] should take a multilateral approach. This is something that Europe has done for the past fifty years. They started from six countries to [what will be] in the future, twenty-five countries that take the step gradually. And at each step, they compromise; each step has involved lots and lots of negotiation and bargains, so unilateralism really doesn't pay for that. For the half-century's experience of Europe's integration, they came to understand that multilateral negotiation and a multilateral approach will be the sensible way to pursue the greater interests of Europe.
On the contrary, the American side, particularly the Bush administration, after the September 11 terrorist attack -- of course, it's a very tragic attack -- it seems that they prefer to take a unilateral approach. [With] this approach, yes, you can do something in the very short term, but you cannot achieve your ultimate interest or result in the long term, because there is a lot of feedback. If you look into what is happening in Iraq today, it is very easy to topple the regime, but it seems that it's far more difficult to [install] a new authority.
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