I recently viewed an on-line presentation of "The Rise of China on the World Stage," a segment from the PBS-produced Great Decisions Television series. Although there was not much said that hasn't recently been aired in the op-ed columns of leading papers around the country, I think that the issues raised in this program are well worth reviewing.
The narrator Peter Krogh began this program by questioning whether China was really ready to take a place on the world stage, given the current state of its economic infrastructure, the degree of government intervention in economic and financial matters that is still practiced in China and the variety of social and environmental problems that China faces in the near future. The next 20 minutes of this program was an attempt to answer this question.
Most of the program covered the key speakers at a recent Foreign Policy Association's World Leadership forum in New York. The forum's moderator noted that the rise of China has been called the single most important geopolitical event in the 21st century, suggesting that the US had better pay greater attention to this strategic relationship than has been the case in the past. The first speaker, former ambassador to China James Sasser, spoke of a China that was ready to work in concert with other nations, abandoning old tendencies toward isolationism for an engaged diplomatic position on issues that affected China directly (the situation on the Korean peninsula was one important example).
The next speaker Prof. Yashang Huang from MIT argued that the economic competition between the US and China is highlighted in the western media in a way that distorts the real relationship and hides the actual economic benefits that the US enjoys as a result of this relationship. CNN's Lou Dobbs was singled out as a purveyor of this lop-sided picture of current Sino-America relations. Professor Huang argued that, for example, he can afford the mortgage of his home in Boston largely because the Chinese government is busy buying up US T-bills to offset the deficit spending. I don't know if dependence on a foreign government for debt relief is necessarily my preferred path toward the balancing of the national budget, but Professor Huang's point certainly describes the current state of our national fiscal situation.
Finally, Congressman Mark Kirk of Illinois contended in his presentation that the private sector has woken up to the benefits of engaging China more directly well before the public sector, in particular government official with the Washington "belt," has given any real attention to the affects the rise of China has had on the US economy or made any corresponding adujstment in the US oficial stance toward China ("threat" has not yet given way to "opportunity").
All three speakers spoke of changes in China as bringing generally positive results in regional stability and global economic activity. The negative affects of this growth, including environmental degradation that spills over China's borders, economic dislocation (over-hyped or not!) that has affected economies world-side, and the potential for military confrontations over issues involving China's borderlands (Taiwan, Xinjiang, etc.), received little attention. Nevertheless, the speakers brought more depth to the issues they addressed than one receives when the same topic are covered in nightly newscasts.
Without looking one step ahead to predict where and when Beijing's leadership wishes for China to take up its "mandate" as a worldpower, we will always be reacting wildly to China's rise to the world stage without any hope of shaping its path upwards.
Click to watch: The Rise of China on the World Stage
Seeking Truth from Facts
