BRUSSELS — 8/8/08 is not going to be remembered the way China would have wanted. Despite a widely praised opening ceremony, the first few days of the Olympics have been vastly overshadowed by the conflict in Georgia. In one sense, this has taken some of the heat off nervy Chinese officials. After a highly politicized lead-up to the Games, journalist friends in Beijing have commented that, with the serious diplomatic action taking place elsewhere, the interest of their editors has switched to the sport. And in the unfolding crisis, China has €“ predictably €“ kept its head down. A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued China’s call for restraint and a ceasefire on Saturday but the reports of Putin’s meeting with Hu Jintao the same day carried no mention of South Ossetia. China has not played a prominent role in discussions in New York over a possible UN Security Council Resolution, leaving the disputes there to play out between Russia and the West. The Georgian ambassador met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing to ask for China’s help but evidently received a non-committal response. A Chinese interpreter was too apprehensive even to translate one journalist’s question about Russia to the Georgian athletes, who had decided on the eve of the Games €“ after 3am instructions from Tbilisi €“ to stay in the competition.
But China is not going to be able to duck this one. Privately, Hu and Wen must be cursing the timing of their Russian friends, who have left them facing a different PR battle from the one they had anticipated. For many columnists, the juxtaposition has been too hard to ignore: the coincidence of the opening of the Beijing Olympics and Russian aggression in Georgia symbolizes a new authoritarian age. In today’s Financial Times, U.S. Managing Editor Chrystia Freeland argues that “figuring out how to contain the 21st century’s monied authoritarians is our most pressing foreign policy dilemma”. Similar arguments are on show in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. The alternative argument has been made by several other commentators in the same pages: whatever you may think of the Chinese, at least they don’t behave like the Russians. Because they are developing an economy that requires much more integration into the global order to succeed, “they do not make sudden moves and do not try to provoke crises“.
For many officials in Beijing, the fact that this debate is playing out at all must indeed seem terribly unfair. While Russia has been escalating its disputes with neighbors, China has largely been doing the opposite. Its two most fractious €“with Taiwan and Japan €“ have seen serious improvements over the last couple of years, with much of the credit due to Chinese efforts. Its approach to the West has been firmly non-confrontational too. Political and economic tensions yes, but no crises since the EP-3 spy plane incident seven years ago and no Putin-style nose-thumbing.
In truth though, the Chinese have done plenty to keep the “authoritarian axis” theory alive. Diplomatic coordination with Russia in New York is a demonstrable fact €“ Beijing’s two vetoes in the UN Security Council in the last two years have been undertaken jointly with Moscow. Officials in the Pentagon were dismissive of the first round of Sino-Russian joint military exercises in 2005 €“ the first since the Sino-Soviet split €“ with their embarrassing number of deaths from friendly fire. They took the 2007 round more seriously. And Georgia itself is the emblem of the shared ideological interest that brought the two sides even closer €“ preventing “color” revolutions, a goal that is institutionally embodied by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). One Chinese journal, attached to the Ministry of State Security, describes such revolutions in terms that would sound familiar (albeit less stilted) coming from the Kremlin: “squeezing [non-democratic] big powers’ geopolitical development space via €˜democratic transformation’ of [their] neighboring states with the ultimate aim to overturn the non-democratic system of the big powers at an opportune moment”. Which prompts the question: how would China’s leaders deal, say, with a Burmese Saakashvili if their efforts to prop up the junta fail? The approach towards the Dalai Lama, let alone Chen Shui-Bian, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
But we should be careful not to draw the wrong inference from 8/8/08. To conclude that the West is operating in a new strategic environment is one thing. To lump China and Russia together as a single “authoritarian threat” would be counterproductive. Whatever the appearance, the relationship between the two sides remains characterized by a series of tensions. Russia is uncomfortable about China’s role in Central Asia, and sees the SCO for what it really is: a cover for China to extend its influence in the region without rousing Moscow’s ire. Arms sales from Russia to China have tapered to a halt. Russia is uneasy about China’s growing military power and continues to sell higher technology equipment to the Indians. And while Putin and Hu evidently get on well, lower down the chain officials on both sides are often dismissive and suspicious of the other. “This is why so many of the agreements take so long to come into effect after the summits”, as one Chinese ambassador noted (with approval). In his new book, Bobo Lo argues that the relationship is an “axis of convenience” €“ while the two sides find”common tactical cause” over shared concerns about Western interference, he contends that they share”no strategic like-mindedness”.
At the very least, we should put this to the test in the coming years. There is much rethinking needed by the United States and Europe about how best to promote liberal values in a world of illiberal powers. But liberal democratic interests will likely be better served if “strategic like-mindedness” is discouraged rather than treated as an established fact. Playing on the differences between Russia and China is a preferable strategy to pushing the two sides any closer together.
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