My Top Story Op-ed article published on the Insight Page of the South China Morning Post of 24 May, 2014.
Download SCMP - China-US relations
By consent of the SCMP, the article was re-published by the China-US Friendship Exchange online on 1st July here with a translated Chinese version here
My Op-ed argues that aside from "core interests" of territorial integrity plus regime, energy and economic security, China's national psyche realistically seeks respect rather than dominance. Understanding what China wants is the key to avoiding a "Thucydides Trap" that threatens to ensnare an exising superpower and its perceived challenger.
Seen in such light, the "China Threat" refrain in Western strategic thinking may be overblown. Where such threat exists, it begs the question whether, rather than primarily relying on military deterrence, it should be better contained by building mutual strategic trust through cooperative ventures showcasing joint commitment to regional security or solutions to other global challenges such as green energies and ecocities.
I argue that the Middle Kingdom "would overturn at its peril a world order shaped and guaranteed by the West, particularly the US, from which it has benefited immensely and will continue to do so".
The extent to which the world order has been shaped and maintained by America is well elucidated by a thought-provoking piece "Superpowers Don't Get to Retire - What our tired country still owes the world" in the New Republic, Washington D.C., dated 26 May, 2014, on the The Allure of Normalcy by Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a contributing editor at The New Republic, and author, most recently, of The World America Made. Kagan underlines the danger of American "world weariness" undermining the real need for the United States as a uniquely-positoned superpower to maintain a benign, liberal world order.
Kagan's think-piece heralded what President Obama told the Class of 2014 at West Point on 28 May, that "America must always lead on the world stage. If we don't, no one else will." However, the President was careful to stress that "military action cannot be the only -- or even primary -- component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail". Click here
In "Strategic Vision - America and the Crisis of Global Power"(Basic Books, New York, 2012), Zbigniew Brzezinski, a doyen in American foreign policy, suggests that the best way for America to maintain global order is to achieve re-balancing in a "Complex East" in addition to expanding a "Larger West" built on American values. Rather than reliance on direct military confrontation, he advocates accommodating rather than confronting China's Rise through a strategic global partnership with the Middle Kingdom. This he proposes to achieve by nuturing a "cooperative triangle" between the United States, Japan and China. Click here
