634
24 }
China’s Long Debate over Response
to the US ChallengeThe Vagaries of Chinese DiplomacyThere was a sharp bifurcation in China’s interests vis-à-vis the United States
following the upheavals of 1989–1991. On the one hand, continued success
of China’s monumental economic development drive—which underpinned
the CCP’s claim to legitimacy—required continued access to US merchandise
and capital markets. China also benefited greatly from public goods supplied
by the United States which might be denied by a hostile Washington: secure
freedom of navigation on the high seas, a generally open global economic
system, and investment opportunities in areas of special US influence such
as Iraq and Kuwait. Washington also had considerable influence with allies
and friends that it could use, should it so decide, to constrain China’s inter-
national economic living space. Granted, US embrace of such hostile policies
would cost the United States itself a lot. But governments sometimes make
such choices when confronted with what they view as a dangerous rival. US
hostility could conceivably abort China’s development drive. Such consider-
ations pointed toward a Chinese policy seeking continued partnership, coop-
eration, and friendship with the United States.
On the other hand, CCP leaders deeply feared and resented the univer-
salistic political creed that led US voters and their elected representatives in
both legislative and executive branches of the federal government to press
upon China ideas of human rights, freedom, and democracy. US actors,
both governmental and nongovernmental, transmitted to China such sub-
versive ideas via radio and the internet, educational and cultural exchanges,
and high-level declarations from Chinese podiums and international fora.
Although intensified patriotic education combined with rising economic lev-
els seemed remarkably successful by the twenty-first century in persuading
Chinese citizens to affirm CCP leadership (at least in public opinion polls),