Susan Shirk Interview (2007): Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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You point out two things as we move into foreign relations. One is a concern that some of these difficulties at home could spill over into international relations because they don't have an outlet within the domestic system, and so there are tendencies that could spill over into a different realm as the leaders attempt to deal with it. And you especially talk about relations with Taiwan, relations with Japan, and then also the United States. Talk a little about that.
If you're feeling anxious about your domestic support, one of the best things you can do to rally support for yourself is to find a foreign threat.
We've done that, too ...
Yes. People talk about the "wag-the-dog" idea, which is to create go-to-war in order to divert attention from domestic problems. I think that's a very small risk in China, but I worry that there could be some international crisis or provocation and that China's leaders would react to by making threats, in order to look tough and strong domestically, and then feel they can't back down from it. So, I'm not arguing so much the wag-the-dog scenario as it would be reactive. But it could be very, very dangerous. Now I saw this very vividly in this terrible experience I had when I was in government, in 1999, when the U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by mistake.
This was during the Bosnia war -- the Kosovo war ...
Right. It was part of the NATO action. I got this phone call saying, "The Chinese embassy in Belgrade has been struck and it appears to have been an American bomber."
Several people were killed.
Three people were killed, twenty were injured, and it turned out that in fact, it wasn't collateral damage or a stray fragment. We targeted this building, mistaking it for a Yugoslav military facility. I describe this in the book. I knew we had to apologize profusely, because if we didn't show how terribly sorry we were, the Chinese would never let us forget it, just as they've never let the Japanese forget their failure to apologize adequately for their brutal occupation of China during World War II. So, we did all these things to show how sorry we were. The President apologized, or he tried to -- Jiang Zemin wouldn't take his phone call. Finally he did a few days later, he apologized on television, we paid compensation, but nevertheless there were these demonstrations against the U.S. embassy and consulates in other cities, and the Party facilitated that. First of all, they told people it was an intentional act on the part of the United States, and secondly, they provided buses for the students, mostly students, to go to the embassy and to the consulates.
It was obvious why this had happened, and I discuss this in the book. The leaders were worried that if the students didn't go after the Americans they would come after them for being so weak that you would allow this humiliation by Americans who felt they could attack the Chinese embassy. So, that was quite a bitter lesson for me, and I saw other examples of that in which the leaders were willing even to confront the United States despite our tremendous military power, risk a confrontation with the United States, in order to protect their skins domestically.
Now you quote Deng Xiaoping, who was the preeminent leader ...
Before Jiang Zemin.
Yes. You say he said, "Hide our capacities and bide our time, but also get things done." This is part of a general sense that the Chinese have of wanting to be pragmatic in their dealings with the world, build up good relations in the region they're in, because they are on this treadmill, as you said earlier, they need this seven to eight percent growth every year to keep providing new jobs for the people who are moving to the cities.
Yes, and actually this is a positive thing. The Chinese now describe themselves as a "responsible power," which I find really interesting, given that that phrase was one that we put in the speeches of President Clinton and other of our senior officials back in the nineties. The Chinese just adopted the phrase to describe themselves. But I think it's credible because it is motivated, as you point out, by their own domestic power considerations. They want to prevent any conflicts, especially with the United States, that could interrupt this economic growth and domestic power. So, by and large, Chinese foreign policy has become increasingly pragmatic, and that's great. We can handle that, other countries are feeling reassured.
I don't know if you noticed, there's a new Pugh study. It's interesting because despite all of this pragmatic Chinese foreign policy, people have more apprehensions about China.
In the United States ...
Not just the United States; Europe ...
Oh, all over.
Yes, all over.
Well, they're a rising power.
That's right. But it helps you understand why the Chinese are working so hard to persuade people they have friendly intentions. They understand that their rise provokes this "misperception" (as they would put it) that they're a threat, because they don't think they are.
One of the places where we can see what's going on in China is their need for oil. Will their need for oil drive them to relations with countries such as the Sudan, which would then go against our interests, and possibly global interests, in human rights policies and so on? How do you think that will play out? Will the Chinese be pragmatic in this area, also? They have to get the oil; they need these relations. Talk a little about that.
In the last year or so, people are paying a lot of attention to the fact that the Chinese have gone out to Latin America, to Africa, to the Middle East, to get energy and other mineral resources to feed this rapidly growing economy. They don't have enough domestically, they have to get it somewhere. They've gone to a number of countries that we don't want to deal with because they have bad governments, but from their standpoint they feel that they need to invest in these resources and get them from somewhere, and all the good countries have kind of been sewn up by the western oil companies. So, they feel that they don't have that much choice. (By the way, India's doing the same thing.) So, now they find themselves confronted by this political dilemma, because everybody's pointing fingers and blaming them for dealing with people like Bashir in the Sudan, Chavez in Venezuela, although they're probably going to be leery of doing that, just as everyone is now.
They have to figure out how to manage this. They don't want to provoke conflict with other countries, but on the other hand, they need to get their resources. I think you see that their approach to problems like the Sudan is becoming more pragmatic.
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