Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015. vi, 389 pp. (Figures.) US$29.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-62616-160-3.
Agreement is virtually unanimous in the United States, certainly within the foreign affairs establishment, that war with China must be avoided: that it would be disastrous for the United States, for China, and for the world. The issue for specialists, in and out of the government, is how best to serve US interests in the context of China’s rise. How can the “Thucydides’ trap”—of conflict triggered by the emergence of a new contender for world power—be avoided as tensions mount, especially in the South China Sea?
Early in his presidency, Barack Obama reached out to China in an attempt to improve relations. Beijing did not reciprocate. China became more assertive, most recently in its construction of military bases in the South China Sea. Then, in 2011, the Obama administration announced its “pivot” (later “rebalance”) to Asia, confirming Chinese suspicion of US intent to contain China, to hamper its rise.
The community of American policy makers and scholars concerned with US-China relations divides between those who would appease (not meant pejoratively) China and those who would confront China. The men and women who argue for appeasement insist that the Chinese threaten no vital American interest. Those demanding confrontation argue that the Chinese are hostile to the United States and all it stands for—that the enmity is indisputable—and it is essential to push back, to avoid being perceived as weak.
Lyle Goldstein is a superb analyst (albeit a less than superb historian), well read in the relevant Chinese literature. In this book he offers a carefully reasoned argument, reflected in the title. His argument is not to my taste. I confess to being more confrontational, less willing to put aside human rights issues (the Chinese government ceased perceiving me as a “friend of China” after my reaction to the Tiananmen massacres). I must acknowledge, however, that Goldstein offers a very well-conceived series of steps both sides can take to alleviate tension, and avoid conflict. He calls them “cooperation spirals” (confidence-building measures) that will allow the two states to cooperate in the twenty-first century. His proposals are comprehensive, with chapters on concerns over Taiwan, economic issues, the environment, activities in the developing world, the Middle East, Korea, Southeast Asia, and India.
My reservations begin with his contention that the United States should be more accommodating because of US participation in the multilateral imperialism in China during the “hundred years of humiliation.” His history of early Chinese-American relations is reasonably fair, but one-sided. He ignores the Chinese mistreatment of Westerners that led to American gunboats on the Yangtze. Whatever guilt Americans should have felt was surely mitigated by the aid (admittedly modest) to China in the 1930s and during World War II—and all that the United States has done since the 1980s to make China’s rise possible. And a student of Chinese history might wonder how much guilt the Chinese feel for what they’ve done to their neighbours in days gone by.
Similarly, his use of Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s willingness to abandon Taiwan in 1949–1950 neglects the context (see Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Patterns in the Dust, Columbia, 1983). Acheson despised Chiang Kai-shek and saw no reason to allow a nasty dictator, hated by the people of the island, to stand in the way of his efforts to reach accommodation with the People’s Republic. Today we are dealing with a democratic state whose people have no interest in reunification with the Mainland. Goldstein’s contention that Ma Ying-jeou succeeded in building a consensus for his policies of accommodation with Beijing has been proven false since Goldstein wrote the book.
Like most of us, Goldstein finds persuasive writers whose work fits his argument—and others less so. I was amused by his praise for Henry Kissinger’s pathetic On China (Penguin, 2011). On Taiwan, one of the more blatant examples of gamesmanship occurs when he finds Charles Glaser’s argument for eliminating the Taiwan issue persuasive and dismisses the reply by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (my late wife) and Bonnie Glaser. At a panel at the Center for Strategic and Internal Studies (CSIS), Tucker and Bonnie Glaser easily shredded Charles Glaser’s argument—an outcome he, an exceptionally thoughtful scholar, would readily concede. Goldstein is far too ready to have the United States push Taiwan toward reunification, a decision for which the people of Taiwan are entitled to a say.
Among his cooperation spirals, several seem laughable. Getting any Japanese prime minister—let alone Shinzo Abe—to go to Nanjing to apologize for the Nanjing massacre is surely a non-starter, as is imagining the US forcing Israel to surrender its nuclear weapons. Expecting Beijing to agree to allow labour unions independent of the Communist Party or to agree to allow strict and intrusive verification of a climate change agreement are surely fantasies. But Goldstein would be the first to acknowledge that not all of his proposals are practical and he calls for other suggestions. His key point is that a spiral of cooperation is essential to avoid a senseless war—and it would be absurd to disagree.
Given existing mistrust, how can you get this started? How can one trust a Chinese government that first denies transgressions—proliferation, cybersecurity, militarization of South China Sea “islands”—and only under pressure agrees to stop doing what it earlier claimed it wasn’t doing? Can a repressive, authoritarian dictatorship and a liberal democracy ever trust each other? But there is a consensus among foreign affairs specialists that policy has failed. Surely a modified Goldstein approach is worth a try.
Warren I. Cohen
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, USA
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