Wu Guangqiang

jw368@163.com

WHILE most objective and rational people around the world regard China’s peaceful rise as a natural outcome of the Chinese people’s diligence and intelligence as well as China’s active participation in globalization and international cooperation, a handful of Western politicians and elites are gripped by a mixed complex of jealousy and remorse.

They feel jealous because they think China’s success outshines theirs, which means the existence of paths to success other than the Western model. They feel regret because it has been their persistent belief that it is the West’s policy of mollification toward China that has resulted in China’s rise. In other words, they would never have been so “nice” to China if they had foreseen the future.

The fallacy is so prevalent in America that even some “serious” pundits have aired similar opinion to demonstrate how America miscalculated the situation and allowed China to grow into a great power under their nose.

John J. Mearsheimer, an American scholar of international relations, best known for his theory of offensive realism, has recently published an article titled “The Inevitable Rivalry, America, China, and the Tragedy of Great-power Politics on Foreign Affairs,” which is bloated with old platitudes. The following are some of his points.

• Due to the end of the Cold War making America the only superpower on the planet in the 1990s, both Democrats and Republicans were convinced that a policy of engagement, rather than containment, would boost investment in China, help China integrate into the world trade system, and open its door wider to the outside world, which, in turn, will eventually turn China into an America-like “democratic” nation and a “responsible international stakeholder.”

• Yet, instead of accepting “liberal values,” China has become more ambitious in its rise. Engagement failed to prevent competition but hastened the end of the so-called “unipolar moment.”

• Engagement is probably the most serious strategic failure by any country in recent history: one can’t find a comparable example of a great power actively promoting the rise of an equal competitor. It’s too late to change it. U.S. leaders should recognize that making China a great power is a recipe for trouble.

We can sense the extreme regret in this learned academician, as if he had had a switch in his hand that could control China’s destiny and he had pressed the wrong button to let a dwarf become a giant.

If you think it hilarious for a prestigious scholar to make such ridiculous remarks, you won’t think so if you know more about Mearsheimer. Lying is in many Western scholars’ blood including in his. In an article titled “Why Leaders Lie” in 2011, he said, “…Leaders sometimes conclude that they have no choice but to lie for their countries. Lying will be the option of last resort for leaders seeking to deceive another country.”

Despite their habitual lying, the ridiculous argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny at all. A brief review of history will reveal the truth.

In fact, the U.S. has never ceased to try to contain China. Since the first day when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, Washington kept trying to strangle the new nation in its infancy. In the following decades before 1979 when the normal diplomatic relations were resumed between the two countries, not a single day passed without seeing the U.S. exercise stringent economic, scientific and technological embargoes and blockades, diplomatic isolation and military threats, against China.

It was China’s unstoppable growth and America’s strategic needs to confront the Soviet Union’s threat that facilitated America’s engagement with China. Washington needed Beijing as much as Beijing needed Washington.

In the same way, America’s intensive economic relations with China benefited both countries rather than favoring China only. After all, America can’t possibly deny China’s participation in globalization and free trade, which was advocated by the former.

On the other hand, by seizing historic opportunities, China proactively adopted the reform and opening-up policy, unleashed pent-up productive forces, and created an economic miracle, which is nobody’s gift.

As for America’s disillusion of failure to transform China’s society and government into the Western model, it is the United States’ own problem. It should know the saying that you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Taking full advantage of dealing with China while keeping it down forever is a pipe dream.

(The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)