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Reassurance is a two-way street

By Fu Mengzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-12 08:52

The United States should take concrete and positive steps to give shape to the "strategic reassurance" concept recently put forward by a top US State Department official for developing relations with China.

At a speech on China-US relations delivered at the Center for American Security in Washington on Sept 24, US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg proposed the new approach under which China and the US cooperate in managing the effects of China's rise as well as in grappling with a wide range of issues of global significance.

"Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China's 'arrival', as you all have so nicely put it, as a prosperous and successful power, China must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others," Steinberg said.

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Interdependence between China and the US has grown so much that even politicians, strategists and scholars across the Pacific who were involved in the process of the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic relations wrote articles or gave speeches not long ago to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ties, saying they had never expected the two countries to come together so closely as now.

The interests of China and the US have indeed become deeply entwined and their interdependence has increased greatly over the past decades. The two countries have cooperated extensively and fruitfully in dealing with common global threats and a series of international and regional hot issues.

Over the past three decades since the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China has achieved an economic miracle unmatched in mankind's history. The magnificent Olympic Games Beijing hosted last year made the world marvel at the country's rise as a big power and its ever-growing economic muscle. Despite being negatively affected by the global financial crisis, the country has still managed to maintain high economic growth. Its fast growth amid the widespread global economic slowdown is expected to soon elevate the world's third-largest economy to second only after the US.

The containments and blockades the US-led Western camp inflicted on New China for a long period after the founding of the new republic are still not forgotten by the Chinese. The country has even encountered similar treatment from time to time on its way to integrating itself into the world order after the milestone reform and opening-up initiative was embraced.

In a highly interdependent world, containment, however, has turned out to be a self-fettered diplomatic strategy. Well aware of this, the administration of former US president George W Bush quickly extricated itself from the long-standing meaningless wrangles and tussles with China and forged constructive cooperation during its eight-year tenure. A good Sino-US relationship had become one of the few worthwhile diplomatic legacies the conservative US administration has left to the American people.

In today's world, the challenges mankind faces are much different from those in the Cold War era. The settlement of such restive challenges as climate change, environmental protection, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, widespread pandemics and terrorism desperately needs all nations to transcend ideological differences and make joint efforts to avoid self-destruction. The global financial crisis has hammered home the message that no single country can be immune from a catastrophe in other places in an era of globalization and interdependence.

As the world's two most influential powers, China and the US should face up directly to problems emerging in bilateral ties instead of evading them, and communicate candidly. Steinberg's "strategic reassurance" concept indicates the US has realized the necessity and importance of working together with China to mitigate mutual misgivings and enhance mutual trust in a bid to develop bilateral ties.

Steinberg's "strategic reassurance" approach appears to be the intellectual successor to the Bush administration's "responsible stakeholder" policy framework coined by former US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick. The new concept, which stops short of substantial content, is based on the two countries' aspiration to build mutual trust. However, its creation is actually the result of the lack of mutual trust, as is indicated by Steinberg asking China to assure other countries that its development will not compromise their security and well-being. China, for its part, will by no means tolerate any double standards on issues relevant to its national interest and ethnic unity.

To reassure China first, the US should adopt a positive and unambiguous posture on the Taiwan question and human rights, and respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

China's peaceful development has proven a correct path that is consistent with its intrinsic logic and has contributed a lot to its emergence and rise over the past three decades. To forge a constructive partnership with the US not only serves its own interests, but is also necessary for global development.

It is expected that US President Barack Obama, during his upcoming visit to China, will make more goodwill gestures toward building the "strategic reassurance" framework with China and get a positive response from the hosts.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

(China Daily 11/12/2009 page8)