Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. xi, 355 pp. US$89.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4422-2015-7; US$35.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-4422-2016-4.
Robert Sutter is one of America’s leading students of Chinese foreign relations. In addition to teaching at Georgetown and George Washington University, he spent many years as an analyst for the CIA and the Congressional Research Service and two years as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and the Pacific. His publications are legion, several of them cited in his footnotes and listed in his bibliography. In brief, this is an important book that will be extremely valuable for anyone who wants to know more about the PRC’s current policies, the historical background of China’s place in the world, and the meaning of China’s ‘rise.”
My only caveat is that it is not well written and is very repetitious. Many editors hesitate to tamper with the work of much-published senior scholars. A determined editor might have shortened the book by as much as 25 percent, bringing Sutter’s arguments into sharper focus.
Sutter’s principal argument is presented clearly on the first page. He rejects the various theories by analysts who postulate a China threat and urge the United States to either appease or oppose China. He concludes that China’s rise “has not and probably will not” lead to a shift in the world balance of power. China’s foreign policy apparatus, he notes, has been incoherent over the years since the establishment of the People’s Republic. Its strategies have constantly vacillated between assertiveness, sometimes violent, and efforts to win the confidence of other nations—especially those of East Asia, as well as the United States. The result has been apprehension about China’s intentions and hedging against it. Its behaviour has limited its influence in the arena that matters most to it: the Asia-Pacific region.
In the pages that follow, Sutter provides a comprehensive review of the history of China’s foreign relations since 1949: Mao’s policies 1945-1969; efforts to maneuver between the United States and the Soviet Union, 1969-1989; and policies after the Cold War. He has a chapter on patterns in Chinese decision making, another on the increase of China’s importance in world affairs, and chapters on relations with the United States, neighbouring Asian countries, and the rest of the world.
In his initial assessment, he makes an important observation about the Chinese public’s ignorance of China’s transgressions and the leadership’s emphasis on Chinese exceptionalism. All of us who study China have been told again and again, by Chinese scholars as well as government officials, that China has always been peaceful, that Chinese culture precludes aggressiveness, that China has always been a victim of malevolent foreign powers—and despite ample evidence to the contrary, most of them believe it. The obvious result is that whenever China becomes involved in a controversy, virtually all Chinese are convinced of their country’s righteousness. As Sutter notes, Chinese exceptionalism greatly exceeds the exceptionalism many Americans imagine for their own country. The kinds of revelations of atrocities and torture by Americans, constantly revealed in US media, are unimaginable in China.
The efforts of the Communist Party to retain power, obviously its primary goal, have led it to stimulate nationalism as a substitute for ideology. To paraphrase an old Chinese proverb, once riding the nationalist tiger, it is difficult to get off. An aroused public has proved to be a restraint on the leadership, most obviously in relations with Japan. Trade with Japan and Japanese investment in China are enormously important, but it has proven all too easy to arouse anti-Japanese sentiment, anti-Japanese demonstrations, that complicate life for policy makers in Beijing.
Sutter is very good at describing the shift in US policy in 1983 when George Shultz took over as secretary of state after the departure of Al Haig. Haig, a Kissinger acolyte, was primarily concerned with maintaining good relations with China, less focused on Japan and other friendly nations in East Asia. Shultz’s team—Paul Wolfowitz, Gaston Sigur and Richard Armitage—were not especially interested in keeping the Chinese happy. They were determined to strengthen ties with Japan, Indonesia and other states on China’s periphery. A few years later, with the fall of the Soviet Union, China was less important to the United States, and the US was less important to China.
The Taiwan issue remained a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington. Many American policy makers, including Kissinger, Brzezinski and Scowcroft, would have abandoned the island to maintain good relations with China, but as Sutter notes, increasing public support—on the left as well as the right—for the burgeoning democracy there precluded that action. There were a number of tense moments over the years, especially whenever Taiwanese leaders appeared to be moving toward independence. The election of Ma Ying-cheou in 2008 and his subsequent reelection have reduced the likelihood of conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Among the reasons Sutter gives for limited Chinese influence is Beijing’s consistent unwillingness to accept international norms on human rights. In discussions with Chinese scholars and officials over the last thirty years, I have found a stubborn defense of Chinese practices and the suggestion that the rest of the world adopt China’s model. Sutter is also critical of the PRC’s refusal to commit to policies for the “global common good,” and its narrow pursuit of its own interests. He never denies concerns about a rising China’s impact on the world economy, but points to China’s dependence on the world economy. He recognizes the PRC’s increasing military power, but invokes what political scientists would call the “security dilemma”: every step Beijing takes to “defend” itself against the United States prompts American responses, military and diplomatic, to protect US interests.
Strengthening his argument about the limited prospect of China’s rise shifting the world balance of power is his discussion of the overwhelming domestic problems Chinese leaders face. Unrest is widespread. Corruption is widespread among officials, often at or close to the top of the government and party apparatus. The state-owned enterprises suck up funds needed elsewhere—and the banking system is a shambles.
Sutter has written a book that will be enormously useful as a reference for anyone who wants to know more about China’s past role in the world—and its likely role over the next decade or two.
Warren I. Cohen
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington DC, USA
pp. 315-317