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--By George Mason |
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What the Heck is a Hegemon? It is not now and never has been the problem with China that the leadership is Marxist. The problem is that they are intimidation-based absolutist authoritarians completely at odds with the coming high-tech inter-connected Internet world. For 2,800 years, Chinese elites have been immersed in the tradition that China is, and ought to be by divine right, the Hegemon – the eternally expanding coercive power that recognizes only vassal states (those who kowtow) and enemies (those who refuse to kowtow). Marxism was simply a belief system by Mao Zedong to push aside Confucianism for a few decades. The spirit of Tiananmen Square was crushed by 1991. Outmoded Leninist thought was replaced by virulent nationalism as the glue holding Chinese society together. Author Steven Mosher sums it up this way: " China is today governed by an elite that controls the state sector directly and the crony-capitalist private sector indirectly. The generation now coming of age is in fact more patriotic, more resentful of the U.S. and more favorably disposed towards the current Chinese leadership than the generation of Tiananmen. Born in the late seventies and early eighties (The Tiananmen Square riots occurred in mid-1989), this generation has not known the chaos of Maoism but only stability and increased prosperity. The elite "princelings" provide business access to their fathers and uncles who are the party leaders and bureaucrats. They have been taught, and have come to believe, that a declining America is denying China her rightful place. These young superpatriots want China to be the supreme power in the world. They believe, above all, that there can only be one Hegemon." The analysis of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski is that China’s central objective is to dilute American regional power to the point that a diminished America will come to need a regionally dominant China as its ally and eventually even a globally powerful China as its partner. Finally, China’s ultimate ambition is not to be an ally of the reigning hegemon but to succeed it. General Mi Zhenyu has remarked "As for the United States, for a relatively long time it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance …conceal our abilities and bide our time." Americans do not grasp, says Mosher, the depth of China’s historic grievances against the West, its vengeful envy of the U.S. in particular or the breadth of its resurgent imperial ambitions. China is not, he concludes, a potential emerging superpower with a grudge. It is the Hegemon waiting to reclaim its rightful position as the center of the world.
The Taiwan Decision On April 1st, when the crippled EP-3e landed on Hainan Island, the Chinese took the position that to get our aircrew back, they wanted (1) the U.S. to admit full and exclusive responsibility for the incident, (2) apologize in a way that implied a kowtow (dao qian) to China’s superiority, (3) pay compensation to the government, (4) stop all surveillance flights in the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits and (5) recognize China’s sovereignty to the 200-mile limit. If we could also manage it, we should (6) stop supplying Taiwan with modern defensive armaments, especially AEGIS-equipped destroyers, diesel submarines and next generation PAC-3 Patriot missile defense systems. Plus (7) they would like to keep our recently upgraded plane to study. As of Thursday, the Chinese have released the aircrew and received: (1) a provable assertion that they are fully responsible for the incident by ordering their pilots to harass our flights in such a way as to cause the accident, (2) a tangential and irrelevant apology that they can use to save face with their fervent nationalistic population, (3) no compensation, (4) a promised renewal of phased-in surveillance flights including armed escorts, (5) an insistence that China honor the international understanding of a 12-mile limit, (6) a robust response to arming Taiwan and (7) an assurance by Congress that if there is a vote on trade relations without our plane having been returned the vote will be against Chinese interests. The two days of talks have ended without resolution but the notion that they might talk again sometime. China, but not Cuba, escaped condemnation by the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Distinguished members of the commission include Algeria, Burundi, Cuba, Congo, Indonesia, Liberia, Syria and Vietnam. The ASEAN members voted as a bloc for China’s position. The New York Times has declared that Taiwan should not get AEGIS-equipped cruisers, PAC-3 missile defense systems or submarines. The Bush administration has launched several trial balloons ahead of its announcement next Tuesday about this year’s arms sales to Taiwan. The betting is that they will postpone AEGIS radar systems, which wouldn’t be available for years and can be used as further leverage. Instead they would offer currently available and much cheaper Kidd-class destroyers, which could be upgraded to AEGIS capabilities after crew training, and diesel-powered submarines capable of defending Taiwan against attempted blockades. American policy has long believed in modern, reform-minded China that would act cooperatively with the United States and behave constructively in the region and around the world, according to Kenneth Lieberthal, Clinton senior director for Asia on the National Security Council. However, China’s current actions illustrate different and less mythical China. Over the century, business interests have consistently advanced the argument that countries that are prospering from commercial relationships are not likely to trade prosperity for war. The argument has two subsets – increased successful economic activity leads to economic freedom and therefore to political freedom plus the assumption that our capitalist/democratic system will be readily adapted once it is shown to produce growth. While providing a warm and fuzzy rationale for chasing a buck, these arguments, says columnist Tony Blankley, are not demonstrably true. World War I and II were both started by a nation that wanted global power more than it wanted continued prosperity. Beijing faces the prospect of leaning on twin pillars that might collapse – meeting the requirements of entry into the WTO and planning for the succession of unelected leadership. In addition, it faces three inherent problems – sustained growth, domestic stability and territorial integrity. Put these issues together with a simple fact – China does not have a ready supply of the oil needed to fuel its expansion – and American policy makers have to consider a new equation. Rising China is not the only possibility. Failing China, divided, weak and unstable, could be as great a threat to regional stability. Behind the bluster and the bullying, China’s strengths may prove brittle and her weaknesses pervasive. The Hegemon turns out to be Humpty Dumpty after all.
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