It is clear that China is determined to eliminate U.S. influence, which it describes as “hegemony,” in Asia. Beijing phrases its desire in quasi-peaceful statements, but the phrases contradict China’s recent actions in the South China Sea, where its armed forces have seized disputed territory and militarized islands claimed by other nations. It does not reflect China’s invasion of the Philippines offshore exclusive economic zone several years ago.
Internally, China has left little doubt that America is, in its view, the enemy. Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro described this in their tome, “The Coming Conflict with China:”
“In the early months of 1994, a large number of Communist Party officials from all of China’s provinces were summoned to a meeting in Beijing…the attendees…were soon told the reason…was to designate the United States as China’s main global rival and to announce an eventual aim: setting up “a global antihegemonist united front at an opportune moment.” In the carefully crafted attack vocabulary of China, the word “hegemonist” has special meaning. It refers to a country that is so powerful in Asia that China’s independence and sovereignty are threatened by it.”
In Beijing’s worldview, much of what is considered by others international waters or the sovereign territory of other nations belongs to China. Therefore, any nation that defends against China’s expansionist claims, be it the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, or others—is interfering in Beijing’s “internal affairs.”
Bernstein and Munro continue their reporting on the conference:
“General Zhang’s central statement: ‘Facing blatant interference by the American hegemonist in our internal affairs…we must reinforce our armed forces more intensively…’ The authors describe the statement as the “language of the sort of aggressive posture that China has assumed towards the United States, whether testing American resolve on such matters as arms proliferation, violating international human rights standards, or engaging in an ambitious military buildup.”
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“…both societies believe they represent unique values. American exceptionalism is missionary. It holds that the United States has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world…China…is the heir to the Middle Kingdom tradition, which formally graded all other states as various levels of tributaries…”
There is a strong belief on the part of many in Western governments and international organizations that China’s rise is relatively benevolent. But is that truly the case? Martin Jacques, in his study, “When China Rules the World,” presents a more realistic assessment:
“We are so used to the world being Western, even American, that we have little idea what it would be like if it was not…For reasons of both mindset and interest, therefore, the United States, and the West more generally, finds it difficult to visualize, or accept, a world that involves a major and continuing diminution in its influence. Take globalization as an example. The dominant Western view has been that globalization is a process by which the rest of the world becomes…increasingly Westernized, with the adoption of free markets, the import of Western capital, privatization, the rule of law, human rights regimes and democratic norms…[but] as nations grow more prosperous they become increasingly self-confident about their own culture and history, and thereby less inclined to ape the West…the United States may have been the single most influential player, exerting enormous power…but the biggest winner has been East Asia and the greatest single beneficiary China.”
Before placidly accepting China’s rise, which the United States and the West have tacitly done by sharply reducing their military power (the U.S. Navy has shrunk from almost 600 ships in 1990 to about 284 or 254—depending on how one counts certain types of vessels; the U.S. Air Force is at its smallest point since 1940, when it was part of the U.S. Army) it would be prudent to review what a new paradigm that does not include American naval and air supremacy would actually bring. Robert Kaplan discusses this in his book, Asia’s Cauldron:
“The fact that Russia is still constrained in its attempts to seriously undermine the sovereignty of states in Eastern and Central Europe; the fact that the Middle East has so far at least avoided an interstate holocaust of sorts; the fact that Pakistan and India have not engaged in a full-scale war in decades, and have never used their nuclear weapons; the fact that North Korea merely threatens South Korea and Japan with large-scale military aggression rather than actually carrying it out; is all in large measure because of a U.S. global security umbrella. The fact that small and embattled nations, be it Israel or Georgia, can even exist is because of what ultimately the U.S. military provides. Indeed, it is the deployment of American air and naval platforms worldwide that gives American diplomacy much of its signal heft, which it then uses to support democracy and freer societies everywhere. Substantially reduce that American military presence, and the world-and the South China Sea, in particular—looks like a very different place.”