770 { China’s Quest
domination had a proven track record of success, in Chinese eyes: in Eastern
Europe, in the Soviet Union, in the “color revolutions” of post-Soviet Central
Asia and during the Arab Spring in 2011. The function of many US-linked
NGOs operating in China was to spy on China in order to better carry out the
strategy of peaceful evolution.
The sinister state-promulgated view of US China policy was not without
some basis in reality.^16 Ever since 1972, US China policy has sought coopera-
tion with the PRC in areas of common interest. One reason for this search
for cooperation (aside from the specific interests furthered) was to build a
stable, long-term, amicable Sino-US relation. This traditional US approach
continued into the twenty-first century, when China was clearly emerging
as a leading global power. But at the same time that the United States sought
cooperation, it also sought to nudge China incrementally and peacefully
toward political liberalization and ultimately basic political change. Deputy
Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, for example, in a major 2005 call for
broadly expanded cooperation between the United States and the PRC under
the rubric of China as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system,
made clear the US view:
China needs a peaceful political transition to make its government re-
sponsible and accountable to its people. ... China needs to reform its ju-
diciary. It should open government processes to the involvement of civil
society and stop harassing journalists who point out problems. China
should also expand religious freedom and make real the guarantees of
rights that exist on paper—but not in practice.^17
“We do not urge the cause of freedom to weaken China,” Zoellick said, but
because these were core US values. Moreover, political transformation within
China would lay a more solid foundation for amicable Sino-American rela-
tions. Said Zoellick: “Relationships built only on a coincidence of interests
have shallow roots. Relationships built on shared interests and shared values
are deep and lasting. We can cooperate with the emerging China of today,
even as we work for the democratic China of tomorrow.” Several years later,
during the Obama administration, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
advanced the notion of “strategic reassurance” in an attempt to persuade
Beijing that the United States welcomed China as “a prosperous and successful
power.” Again, Steinberg, while calling for broader and deeper US-PRC coop-
eration, also called for basic political change in China. Some people said that
US interests in China’s internal governance issues were “designed to weaken
China” and were inconsistent with PRC-US partnership. “I couldn’t disagree
more,” Steinberg said. He continued:
We stand up for human rights because, as President Obama has said, it
is who we are as a people. But we also believe that a China that respects