KAWASHIMA Shin
\n<\/font>Professor, Graduate school of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo![\"\"](\"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/GaIeyudaTuFo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Kawashima_edited-scaled.jpg\")
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After the United States and China signed the Shanghai Communique 50 years ago, in February 1972, the U.S. pursued a policy of engagement with Beijing, hoping that China would become both a part of the existing international order and a democratic state in step with its economic growth.<\/p>\n
Such a stance, addressed by Henry Kissinger, the U.S. president\u2019s national security adviser at the time, has largely changed course today.<\/p>\n
This year also marks 50 years since Japan and China normalized diplomatic ties in September 1972 after Washington and Beijing began moving closer to one another in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n
But will the recent changes in the U.S.-China relations lead to the creation of a new China-Japan relationship?<\/p>\n
Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s administration, formed in 2012, began to call on the U.S. to form a \u201cNew Type of Great Power Relations,\u201d through which the two countries could cooperate on global issues while respecting each other\u2019s core interests.<\/p>\n
Xi sought to build such a relationship with not only the U.S., but also with Russia, the European Union and even Japan.<\/p>\n
China apparently believed that the concept had been accepted by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, but was nullified by the administration of his successor, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Beijing probably hoped that current U.S. President Joe Biden\u2019s administration would revive the concept, but that has not been the case so far.<\/p>\n
The term did not appear in documents released by Xi in 2021, including the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s latest resolution on history.<\/p>\n
How did the term first arise and how did Beijing regard its relationship with Washington?<\/p>\n
China recognizes that \u201conce-in-a-century changes\u201d are currently taking place, with the world \u2014 which is overly focused on the U.S. \u2014 becoming more polarized and moving towards a U.S.-China bipolarity.<\/p>\n
In his address to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi said that China was seeking to \u201cbecome a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence\u201d by the mid-21st century, which was interpreted as a call to match and eclipse the U.S. global influence by 2049.<\/p>\n
But this also indicates that China believes it is a challenging goal that takes more than 30 years to achieve, and that is why Beijing needed a New Type of Great Power Relations to avoid unnecessary conflicts with superpowers like the U.S. and to emerge as a superpower itself.<\/p>\n
The term was first used near the end of Xi\u2019s predecessor Hu Jintao\u2019s administration and was officially adopted in the early years of the Xi administration as a policy concept regarding China\u2019s relations with the U.S. and other major powers.<\/p>\n
Under the Hu administration, China\u2019s \u201chide your strength, bide your time and never take the lead\u201d policy \u2014 maintaining a low posture in international relations until it becomes an economic superpower \u2014 was gradually shifted toward focusing more on sovereignty and national security.<\/p>\n
During the Obama administration, U.S. foreign policy experts meanwhile proposed the idea of forming the Group of Two (G2) between the U.S. and China, as Washington sought to make Beijing a \u201cresponsible stakeholder\u201d while sticking to its policy of engagement.<\/p>\n
In a September 2009 speech, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg touched on the idea of \u201cstrategic reassurance\u201d through which China needs to reassure countries around the world that its development will not come at the expense of the security and well-being of others. Some took the remark as a further push by Washington for a G2.<\/p>\n
However, when Obama visited Beijing in November 2009, then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China disagreed with the suggestion of a G2, while stressing the significance of Sino-U.S. relationship.<\/p>\n
Tensions between the U.S. and China grew in 2010 after Obama hosted exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House and China became more vocal about its sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and surrounding waters.<\/p>\n
While the relationship improved to some extent following Hu\u2019s visit to Washington in January 2011, the U.S. did not make any proposal that suggested the creation of a G2.Instead came China\u2019s presentation of the New Type of Great Power Relations.<\/p>\n
Xi, then-Chinese vice president, proposed the idea directly to Biden, then-U.S. vice president, during Biden\u2019s visit to Beijing in August 2011. It was made clearer when Xi visited Washington in February 2012 and said that the two countries could build a \u201cnew cooperative partnership\u201d based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.<\/p>\n
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U.S. response<\/strong><\/p>\nAt first, the Xi administration, formed in November 2012, basically succeeded the foreign policy adopted in the late years of the preceding Hu administration.<\/p>\n
In June 2013, Xi visited Washington for the first time as Chinese president and again put forward the idea of the New Type of Great Power Relations, but Obama did not make clear whether he approved or disapproved of the idea.<\/p>\n
Susan Rice, then-national security adviser, said in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington in November 2013 that the two countries \u201cseek to operationalize a new model of major power relations,\u201d but later said this did not mean the U.S. had accepted the idea.<\/p>\n
In December 2013, when Biden visited Beijing, Xi took up the concept once again.<\/p>\n
It was notable that Xi said he and Obama, in their two meetings, had agreed to work together to \u201cbuild a new model called Major Country Relationship between China and the United States based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is still uncertain whether China took a more hard-line stance regarding such issues as the South China Sea and cyberspace based on such a recognition, and we must continue to look into the issue.<\/p>\n
In November 2014, in his speech before the Communist Party\u2019s Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs, Xi laid out a new diplomatic policy that became the core of his speech at the 19th Party Congress in 2017.<\/p>\n
He stressed that China should have \u201cmajor-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics,\u201d which implies that the Chinese government wanted to conduct its international affairs in ways that would align with traditional Chinese values, upholding international justice and speaking up for developing countries rather than accepting order centered in industrialized countries.<\/p>\n
His remarks were seen as a challenge from China to the U.S.<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s new diplomacy was also described in a speech by Fu Ying, then-chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China\u2019s 12th National People\u2019s Congress, at U.K.-based think tank Chatham House in July 2016.<\/p>\n
Fu said the existing world order, built and led by the U.S., contained three pillars: American or Western values; the U.S.-led military alignment; and the United Nations and its institutions.<\/p>\n
While noting that China had long been alienated politically by the West and that the U.S.-led military alliance was asserting increasing pressure on the country, she said China strongly belonged in the U.N.-led order system, quoting Xi as saying there was no intention to unravel the system.<\/p>\n
We can say that the Xi administration was clearly challenging the U.S. with his words and actions at that time.<\/p>\n
In response to such changes in China\u2019s actions, the Obama administration tried to be harsh on Beijing, conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. But China\u2019s stance did not change much.<\/p>\n
The biggest issue with the U.S. policy of engagement was that the country failed to grasp how China viewed the policy.<\/p>\n
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The Trump administration<\/strong><\/p>\nXi made his stance toward the U.S. clear in a speech at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017.<\/p>\n
And, in March 2018, China amended its constitution to abolish presidential term limits, making the country even more undemocratic.<\/p>\n
Around that time \u2014 near the end of the Obama administration and at the beginning of the Trump administration \u2014 the U.S. shifted away from a policy of engagement.<\/p>\n
It seems the U.S. finally understood that China had been challenging Washington for years. It must have been difficult for Beijing to understand why it took so long for the U.S. to react.<\/p>\n
From the point of view of the U.S., China\u2019s challenge was recognized gradually as a process to be reflected in the policy.<\/p>\n
Even though the U.S.\u2019 policy changed, China continued to adhere to the New Type of Great Power Relations idea.<\/p>\n
Although Trump initially showed some consideration for China in dealing with Taiwan and Hong Kong, a speech by then-Vice President Mike Pence in October 2018 that accused Beijing of trying to influence American elections, as well as intensified tensions between the two countries that followed, made Chinese people think that the Trump administration had destroyed the New Type of Great Power Relations accepted by the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
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Biden\u2019s approach<\/strong><\/p>\nThe launch of the Biden administration appeared to China to be an opportunity to revive the New Type of Great Power Relations, as Biden was the person Xi had originally explained the idea to.<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s hopes were reflected in his calling Biden \u201clao peng you\u201d or \u201cold friend,\u201d but Biden\u2019s reaction fell short of Xi\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n
China no longer uses the term in regards to its relationship with the U.S., but it has not stiffened its stance against Washington.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration\u2019s policy of ensuring that \u201ccompetition\u201d between the two does not become \u201cconflict\u201d is consistent with the notion of \u201cno conflict or confrontation\u201d under the New Type of Great Power Relations.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration is also seeking to cooperate with Beijing in such areas as climate change, regional issues and nuclear arms control.<\/p>\n
Such a stance is a positive factor for China. Beijing must have thought that Washington was coming closer in 2021.<\/p>\n
The New Type of Great Power Relations had been a prerequisite to the Chinese dream of achieving \u201cthe great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation\u201d by 2049.<\/p>\n
Its failure to establish such a relationship means China\u2019s attempts to create a new world order through provision of international public goods and rule making will continue to be checked by the U.S. and its allies.<\/p>\n
China, having difficulty cooperating with other major powers, is likely to try forming a majority by using frameworks such as the Group of 77 developing countries to make industrialized countries a minority.<\/p>\n
But will it be possible for industrialized countries to counter such a move by checking China\u2019s actions while winning the support of emerging and developing countries to form a majority in the global community?<\/p>\n
If they can gain such support, they will be able to delay the formation of China\u2019s own order or change its shape to some extent.<\/p>\n
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Japan\u2019s actions<\/strong><\/p>\nThe world centered on the U.S. and China under a framework like G2 is not desirable for U.S. allies including Japan.<\/p>\n
It is also not desirable for the U.S. and China to form a New Type of Great Power Relations that could make the U.S. respect China\u2019s core interests regarding such issues as Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Currently, the ideas of both G2 and New Type of Great Power Relations have diminished amid the formation of multilateral frameworks such as the \u201cFree and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy,\u201d and \u201cthe Quad\u201d alliance of Japan, the U.S., Australia and India, to construct a comprehensive regional order that covers military and economic affairs.<\/p>\n
However, the dynamics toward creating some sort of a G2 not only in terms of military and security affairs \u2014 including nuclear parity \u2014 but also in economic and technological terms will never go away. And China will keep on attempting to create its version of world order.<\/p>\n
The key for Japan, as a country located in East Asia, will be to take a flexible stance in dealing with a variety of issues, check attempts to create a G2 or a New Type of Great Power Relations and work to form a majority in the global community.<\/p>\n
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Disclaimer: <\/strong><\/p>\nThe views expressed in this API Geoeconomic Briefing do not necessarily reflect those of the API, the API Institute of Geoeconomic Studies or any other organizations to which the author belongs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAPI Geoeconomic Briefing\u201d is a weekly analysis of significant geopolitical and geoeconomic developments that precede the post-pandemic world. The briefing is written by experts at Asia Pacific Initiative (API) and includes an assessment of burgeoning trends in international politics and economics and the possible impact on Japan\u2019s national interests and strategic response. (Editor-in-chief: Dr. HOSOYA …<\/p>\n
Why China has failed to build ‘great power relations’ with the U.S. by KAWASHIMA Shin<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-api-geoeconomic-briefing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34803"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35186,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34803\/revisions\/35186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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