670 { China’s Quest
pivot strategy in a Foreign Policy article the same month.^62 The first of six
“lines of action” outlined by Clinton for the “pivot” had to do with strength-
ening bilateral security alliances in Asia. The second was deepening working
relationships with emerging powers, including China. The crux of the new US
approach was to clarify that the United States sought cooperation and part-
nership with China, but not on the basis of US acceptance of whatever Beijing
defined as its core interests.
China’s 2009–2011 assertiveness reverberated across East Asia. Govern-
ments watched as China confronted the United States, South Korea, and Japan
(the latter discussed in the next chapter). Many countries with their own deep
conflicts of interest with the PRC wondered if Beijing’s newly assertive behav-
ior foreshadowed the way Beijing would increasingly act as its power grew.Renewed Effort to Placate the United StatesThroughout the period of the US financial crisis and global economic reces-
sion, there was debate within China about whether the United States had
indeed gone into terminal decline, and whether US relative capabilities
had fallen sufficiently vis-à-vis China as to give Beijing a significantly more
advantageous position. PRC critics of the more assertive post-2009 poli-
cies pointed to the mounting US and regional reaction to argue that China
should return to Deng Xiaoping’s approach of “keeping a low profile” and
“keeping China’s light under a basket.” By using its rapidly increasing power
in a more assertive fashion, Beijing was scaring China’s neighbors, these
moderates said, energizing the United States and creating opportunities for
US efforts to contain and encircle China. This debate did not end, but by
2011 it was clear that China’s more assertive policies in defense of its nar-
row interests were not producing the desired effect. China’s assertiveness
had led not to a diminishing of US influence in the Western Pacific but to
a hardening of US policy, a strengthening of ties between the United States
and its allies, and the threat of a US effort to build an anti-China coali-
tion. Unless Beijing drew back and returned to a more low-profile approach,
China could find itself in escalating and increasingly open rivalry with the
United States for geostrategic position and influence in Asia, or so moderate
Chinese analysts claimed.
Early in 2011, Beijing began an effort to restabilize ties with the United
States. Although the power balance between the two countries had changed
over the last few years, the mainstream of China’s leaders feared that if China
pushed too hard, the shift in underlying power relations could frighten the
United States, pushing it toward embrace of stronger efforts to balance China.
In the words of Fu Mengzi, an American specialist with the China Institute of
Contemporary International Studies: