Transcript
Ritulah Shah
Let’s think about how the new China handles its relationship with the United States. President Obama announced that the US was going to concentrate on the Asia-Pacific Region. It’s what’s become known as the pivot to Asia. Now this marked a departure from the more traditional focus on Europe and the Middle East and many in China have seen this as an attempt to contain China and they view it with deep suspicion.
Paul Adams, our Washington Correspondent, looks at what the Americans mean by ‘the pivot to Asia‘.
Barack Obama
After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific Region.
Paul Adams
November, 2011 and Barack Obama addresses the Australian Parliament and announces a much anticipated re-balancing of foreign policy priorities, a pivot towards Asia and one country in particular.
Barack Obama
The United States will continue our effort to build a co-operative relationship with China.
Paul Adams
It’s been more than forty years since Richard Nixon’s stunning announcement that he was off to see Chairman Mao. It’s hardly been plain sailing since then. Human Rights, cyber espionage, Taiwan and Tibet there are any number of differences, but over the course of four decades an elaborate network of ties has evolved in order to keep this difficult relationship on track. Michael Pillsbury has been advising Presidents on Defence policy since Jimmy Carter.
Michael Pillsbury
There's more than fifty different mechanisms by which the Chinese government and the American government meet periodically. It’s a very extensive system for consultation but on top of the whole thing of course is the President and the Chinese leader and that is where, so far, nothing hostile has been said by one side against the other. The United States has avoided calling China a threat. We simply don’t do that. What you do find is lots of voices from scholars and some lower level officials who do say harsh things about the other side.
Voiceover
China is stealing American ideas and technology everything from computers to fighter jets. Seven times Obama could have taken action. Seven times he said ‘no‘.
And even though the President is supposed to sail above all this, China bashing is a staple of the American electoral cycle.
Voiceover
Romney’s never stood up to China. All he’s done is send them our jobs.
I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.
Paul Adams
The implication of course is that one presidential candidate is more likely to bend China to his will than the other, a notion most China experts here would regard as fatuous. Not only does it not work but it serves to fuel Beijing’s fear that what Washington really wants is not so much co-operation as containment.
Michael Pillsbury
I think containment is a ridiculous notion to apply to US policy toward China. I see this in the media all the time. I especially see it in the Chinese media.
Paul Adams
Kenneth Lieberthal advised President Clinton on national security and is now a China specialist at the Brookings Institution.
Kenneth Lieberthal
I think that you have to ignore almost everything the United States has done in the last thirty years including in the last few years to reach a conclusion that we are seeking to contain China. We have developed a mutually interdependent set of economic and trade relations including financial relationships. We encourage if anything greater Chinese assumption of responsibility in issues around the world. We find the Chinese are not as willing to step up to issues as we would like them to.
Paul Adams
But if the desire for engagement is real, it’s hampered, says Kenneth Lieberthal, by a chronic degree of mutual ignorance, something decades of high-level contacts have yet to overcome.
Kenneth Lieberthal
I think there is a serious problem at a high level on both systems of a lack of real understanding of how the other political system works and therefore often a misinterpretation and misunderstanding may be interpreted as, you know, some major strategic move. I've seen that happen, frankly, repeatedly on both sides over the years. It does worry me.
Paul Adams
That might sound surprising given the huge importance of the relationship but Michael Pillsbury says there's something even more fundamental going on – call it a clash of exceptionalism.
Michael Pillsbury
Americans often say seriously, often they're joking, when they say we’re sent by God to enlighten the world and the Chinese have their own concept that they used to be the centre of the universe and some day will be again. So obviously when you have two rather powerful nations who have this sense of exceptionalism it’s rather difficult to co-operate on tangible things.