DIIS Comment
The US-China relationship: Primed with identity dynamics?
Why China is likely to dominate the foreign policy agenda of the next White House steward
02 October 2012
It should come as no great surprise that foreign policy has been relegated to the outskirts of the US presidential elections. After all, large-scale economic hardships at home and disenchantment with the strenuous military campaign in Afghanistan forces the candidates to look inward. Even the Islamophobic video, “Innocence of Muslims”, which sparked off anti-American protest in many parts of the Middle East, did only temporarily bring the two presidential candidates to quarrel about foreign policy.
However, one may still be a bit puzzled that the big elephant in the room – the US-China relationship – has attracted so relatively little attention by either of the presidential candidates. With the partial exception of Mitt Romney’s Wall Street Journal editorial back in February the much-touted rise of China has not really agitated the presidential candidates, let alone generated the kind of China-bashing statements that might be expected during an election year.
Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that the US-China relationship will dominate the White House agenda in the coming years, irrespective of the hue of the coming house steward. While most pundits usually point either to the multifaceted interdependence of the US and Chinese economies or to the growing threat posed by China’s military modernization, there is a tendency to overlook what is likely to become a key driver of US-China relations: identity dynamics. Indeed, crucial aspects of each country’s self-understanding may easily spur these dynamics.
Firstly, the American polity has from its very inception displayed a strong urge to engage in identity dynamics with its outside world. On the one hand, this urge has taken the ‘positive’ form of a missionary impulse to shape the world in the image of America, ‘a chosen nation’ with a ‘Manifest Destiny’ to expand and propagate ‘the American Creed’. American evangelists of liberal democracy did run their heads against the Chinese wall in the nineties, but the secular, capitalist, and increasingly individualist spirit of Chinese society should provide fertile ground for another ideological campaign, especially now that the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer tying up all the resources.
On the other hand, this ‘American urge’ has been accompanied by an equally strong desire to identify, confront and ultimately eradicate what identity scholars usually label ‘the Other’. That is, the un-American elements – like Nazis, Communists or radical Islamists – that pose an existential threat in a material and ideological sense. To be sure, the United States is not alone in confronting its Others. Yet, in light of its heterogeneous ethnic fabric and its lack of deep historical roots, America may be regarded as the ‘imagined community par excellence’, deriving its internal cohesion from an outward-looking, exceptionalist mind-set, fed by ongoing missionary and confrontational practices.
Interestingly, with the War on Terror on the wane and despite the projected downsizing of the US military (500 billion USD in ten years), the United States is actually already redirecting its strategic attention elsewhere. The so-called “pivot to Asia” may not appear as a dramatic strategic shift in terms of military resources, adding 2,500 marines to northern Australia, a sixth aircraft carrier group and 10 per cent extra warships in the Asia-Pacific region, new missile defense interceptors and a projected long-range bomber. But if one includes Washington’s proposal of a new Air-Sea-Battle concept and its recent efforts to step up military cooperation with several southeast Asian countries to orchestrate what looks like an alliance of China-skeptics, then the “pivot” evokes a more clear-cut picture of American mobilization towards ‘the Middle Kingdom’.
Importantly, the rise of China provides a much stronger point of reference for American identity politics than the one-off, non-state Al Qaeda jihadists provoking the War on Terror. Not only is the potential China-challenge of an entirely different material magnitude, it also represents a far more viable non-Western identity model: the so-called Beijing-consensus, which epitomizes top-down politics, a state-propelled economy and absolute state sovereignty. Yet, it takes two to tango, and so far Beijing has been determined to downplay any notion of ideological rivalry, stressing instead the peaceful and harmonious nature of China’s ascendance.
Still, China – just like the United States – is infused by its own heavy dose of an exceptionalist mentality, which is likely to have a greater impact on US-Chinese identity dynamics than the notion of a Beijing-consensus. This exceptionalism (or ‘Sino-centrism’) is based on China’s ethno-cultural heritage and includes four more or less distinct discursive elements: Confucian moral philosophy, ancient civilizational uniqueness, dynastic tributary centralism and Han-ethnocentrism. As Sino-centrism seems to be gaining prominence in Chinese society – partly supported by the legitimacy-craving communist leadership – one may argue that it is only a matter of time before Beijing reverses its cautious identity profile internationally.
In this post-9/11 decade, most Chinese as well as American observers view the rise of China as a new defining moment in international affairs. However, as long as Beijing and Washington consciously refrain from accentuating their mutual differences, they need not revert into the game of oppositional identity dynamics that seemed to be in the making prior to 9/11. In that sense, the rhetorical restraint characterizing the US presidential race so far is indeed laudable.
However, one may still be a bit puzzled that the big elephant in the room – the US-China relationship – has attracted so relatively little attention by either of the presidential candidates. With the partial exception of Mitt Romney’s Wall Street Journal editorial back in February the much-touted rise of China has not really agitated the presidential candidates, let alone generated the kind of China-bashing statements that might be expected during an election year.
Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that the US-China relationship will dominate the White House agenda in the coming years, irrespective of the hue of the coming house steward. While most pundits usually point either to the multifaceted interdependence of the US and Chinese economies or to the growing threat posed by China’s military modernization, there is a tendency to overlook what is likely to become a key driver of US-China relations: identity dynamics. Indeed, crucial aspects of each country’s self-understanding may easily spur these dynamics.
Firstly, the American polity has from its very inception displayed a strong urge to engage in identity dynamics with its outside world. On the one hand, this urge has taken the ‘positive’ form of a missionary impulse to shape the world in the image of America, ‘a chosen nation’ with a ‘Manifest Destiny’ to expand and propagate ‘the American Creed’. American evangelists of liberal democracy did run their heads against the Chinese wall in the nineties, but the secular, capitalist, and increasingly individualist spirit of Chinese society should provide fertile ground for another ideological campaign, especially now that the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer tying up all the resources.
On the other hand, this ‘American urge’ has been accompanied by an equally strong desire to identify, confront and ultimately eradicate what identity scholars usually label ‘the Other’. That is, the un-American elements – like Nazis, Communists or radical Islamists – that pose an existential threat in a material and ideological sense. To be sure, the United States is not alone in confronting its Others. Yet, in light of its heterogeneous ethnic fabric and its lack of deep historical roots, America may be regarded as the ‘imagined community par excellence’, deriving its internal cohesion from an outward-looking, exceptionalist mind-set, fed by ongoing missionary and confrontational practices.
Interestingly, with the War on Terror on the wane and despite the projected downsizing of the US military (500 billion USD in ten years), the United States is actually already redirecting its strategic attention elsewhere. The so-called “pivot to Asia” may not appear as a dramatic strategic shift in terms of military resources, adding 2,500 marines to northern Australia, a sixth aircraft carrier group and 10 per cent extra warships in the Asia-Pacific region, new missile defense interceptors and a projected long-range bomber. But if one includes Washington’s proposal of a new Air-Sea-Battle concept and its recent efforts to step up military cooperation with several southeast Asian countries to orchestrate what looks like an alliance of China-skeptics, then the “pivot” evokes a more clear-cut picture of American mobilization towards ‘the Middle Kingdom’.
Importantly, the rise of China provides a much stronger point of reference for American identity politics than the one-off, non-state Al Qaeda jihadists provoking the War on Terror. Not only is the potential China-challenge of an entirely different material magnitude, it also represents a far more viable non-Western identity model: the so-called Beijing-consensus, which epitomizes top-down politics, a state-propelled economy and absolute state sovereignty. Yet, it takes two to tango, and so far Beijing has been determined to downplay any notion of ideological rivalry, stressing instead the peaceful and harmonious nature of China’s ascendance.
Still, China – just like the United States – is infused by its own heavy dose of an exceptionalist mentality, which is likely to have a greater impact on US-Chinese identity dynamics than the notion of a Beijing-consensus. This exceptionalism (or ‘Sino-centrism’) is based on China’s ethno-cultural heritage and includes four more or less distinct discursive elements: Confucian moral philosophy, ancient civilizational uniqueness, dynastic tributary centralism and Han-ethnocentrism. As Sino-centrism seems to be gaining prominence in Chinese society – partly supported by the legitimacy-craving communist leadership – one may argue that it is only a matter of time before Beijing reverses its cautious identity profile internationally.
In this post-9/11 decade, most Chinese as well as American observers view the rise of China as a new defining moment in international affairs. However, as long as Beijing and Washington consciously refrain from accentuating their mutual differences, they need not revert into the game of oppositional identity dynamics that seemed to be in the making prior to 9/11. In that sense, the rhetorical restraint characterizing the US presidential race so far is indeed laudable.
DIIS Experts
Photo/illustration by Lynggaardhansenfoto.dk
The US-China relationship
primed with identity dynamics?