There’s been an obvious pushback gong on from the US against China since the Copenhagen summit last year. This was to be expected after the free ride the PRC got during the Bush era, though right now it doesn’t seem to consist of anything more than perception management, the specific perception being that Chinese policies everyone was more or less OK with before are now to be viewed as threats, it’s points of difference with the US and others to be regarded as pig headedness and its carrying out of stated policy as aggression. The thing that these pieces tend to have in common is that they’re all incredibly lame:
China rankled the Europeans over its climate change diplomacy at Copenhagen. For all of Beijing's bluster, it failed to alter U.S. policies on Tibet and Taiwan. It backed down on the Google controversy. It overestimated the power that comes with holding U.S. debt. It alienated South Korea and Japan over its handling of the Cheonan incident, leading to joint naval exercises with the United States -- exactly what China didn't want. It's growing more isolated within the G-20. And, increasingly, no one trusts its economic data.
In order: Europeans aren’t fond of US climate change diplomacy either; China hasn’t tried to alter US policies on Taiwan and Tibet; Google is now operating its local search engine out of Hong Kong; the naval exercises are about what North Korea did, not about China’s response to that (and they don’t involve Japan anyway); isolated from who, exactly; and no-one trusts its data any more or less than they always did. In other words, what’s actually being described here is the usual truck and barter of diplomacy and the ususal messy execution of policy.
FP seems to specialize in this kind of crap polemic. Here’s another even lamer example. Expect forthcoming attractions to include “China spotted throwing chips at people in bus shelter”, “China ties snoozing OAPs shoelaces together” “who’s that sniffing glue in the park – it’s China!”
I can sort of see the point of this. According to this poll, China’s increasing heft in the world isn’t popular with many people in Europe and Asia, apparently on the grounds that since we’re doing badly, them doing well constitutes some kind of threat. Even so, China is more popular than not in Britain and the USA, so perhaps the aim is to change these numbers. But Jesus, talk about bricks without straw. Drezner says:
Developing.... in a very interesting way.
No Dan. It’s deeply boring. It’s the sound of a bad marriage playing out from behind thin walls, with the US playing the clichéd female role. “You said you’d change.” “Why do we always do the same things.” And China sighs and slopes off to the garden shed, a copy of Razzle firmly tucked under its arm.
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