Establishing U.S.-China Relations

August 15, 2008

 

“We have a recurrent pattern of getting off on the wrong foot in our relations with China,” said Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy in his keynote speech at the Center for American Progress. How to get off on the right foot was one topic discussed at an event CAP hosted featuring Ambassador Roy; Harry Harding, professor of international relations at George Washington University; Michael Schiffer, Program Officer for Asia Policy at the Stanley Foundation; Bob Sussman, Senior Fellow at CAP; and Nina Hachigian, Senior Vice President at CAP. The event centered on the release of CAP’s new report, “A Global Imperative: A Progressive Approach to U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century.”

Hachigian introduced and moderated the discussion. She presented a summary of the report, which was written as a memo to the next administration on how to manage the important and complex relationship with China. Energy and environment, Hachigian said, should be a central point of collaboration between the two countries. Other Issues covered in the paper included climate change, economic relations, regional security, Taiwan, and human rights.

Hachigian stressed that the report presented a progressive approach to China. As such, it was forward-looking, and she highlighted the report’s acceptance of the rise of China as a strategic fact. “We embrace it and try to grapple with it,” she said. She also noted that a progressive approach means the United States should bring its values to the U.S.-China relationship, while still being pragmatic about getting results.

Ambassador Roy complimented many of the paper’s recommendations and also its emphasis on China’s strategic importance. “U.S.-China relations are viewed as an important issue but it is only one of many,” he said. “We need to see the singular importance of our bilateral relationship with China….The Center has devoted a report that is focused entirely on how the new administration should handle relations with the People’s Republic of China.”

Ambassador Roy described his experiences with presidential transitions and his observation of presidential administrations’ initial inability to handle U.S.-China relations because of counterproductive campaign promises and institutional inexperience. In contrast, second-term presidents are much more skilled when it comes to working with China. This pattern needs to be broken with the new president, Roy argued.

Roy’s advice included three main points: the United States must assess the external situation, determine the policies in an international context, and gain and retain domestic support for those policies. In addition, two recommendations of the report that Roy stressed were the need to re-establish the United States’ moral authority and put our "domestic house in order.”

The ambassador then joined the panel of experts, who commented on the suggestions outlined in the report. Dr. Harding emphasized the need to look at China in a broader international context. Harding said the United States had to improve its energy policies, economic relations, and human rights regardless of China’s place in the negotiations. “I think that so much of the discussion is about what’s gong on in China,” he said. “We need to be doing these things whether or not China is rising.”

Robert Sussman, a CAP Senior Fellow, authored the energy and environment chapter of the report. “The U.S. and China are the world’s two indispensable players on energy and environment,” he said. “[But] our mutual mistrust and economic competition have been barriers to finding common ground.”

Now that China has joined the United States in rates of greenhouse gas emissions, there needs to be increased cooperation between the two nations. The report advises that the United States should commit to substantial, mandatory reductions in emissions separate from actions taken by China.

Schiffer pointed out the progressiveness of the report, which recognizes the opportunities as well as the risks in the U.S.-China relationship. The pragmatic policy options outlined in the report could lead to further cooperation and improvements across different issue areas in both countries, he said.

The panelists agreed that the United States needs to adjust to the new global power dynamic, accommodating the rise of new powers instead of working to change other countries to fit an outdated, post-WWII era system.

“It’s in our interests, clearly, for China to rise peacefully,” Ambassador Roy said.

Read more on the event page.