After the Showdown by Fareed Zakaria

April 16, 2001, U.S. Edition

After the Showdown
The Stakes: It all seemed familiar--a dogfight and a diplomatic dance. No, this isn't the cold war; it's different, but still dangerous. Why Americans need to worry more about Beijing's weakness than its strength
By Fareed Zakaria

Two years ago a pro-Beijing Hong Kong daily interviewed Chinese pilots who had begun "buzzing" American surveillance planes as they flew over the China Sea. The paper gushed that the way in which the pilots hassled the U.S. planes demonstrated "consummate flying skills and the wisdom of being bold but cautious." Whether or not that odd, almost oxymoronic, phrase can be applied to the Chinese pilot who collided with the U.S. Navy EP-3E last week, it accurately sums up the way that both sides have dealt with each other in the days that followed--bold but cautious. At the start, Beijing and Washington quickly and forcefully asserted their interests in muscular language. But once they recognized that the situation could get out of hand, both sides began climbing down from their rhetorical ledges. The Americans, having at first refused to apologize in any form, soon became willing to express "regret." The Chinese began by demanding a formal apology, but two days later President Jiang Zemin explained that what he wanted was more akin to a simple "excuse me." Those shifts, plus a few more diplomatic bells and whistles, have eased tensions. But those first few days of the crisis had a strangely familiar air. There was a sense that events could spiral out of control; that both sides desperately feared losing face; that diplomats would have to parse phrases and evoke obscure treaties. For a moment it seemed as if we were back in the cold war.

Of course we are not and China is not the old Soviet Union. It has neither the material capacity nor the ideological appeal to be a global rival to America. To state the obvious but often obscured fact: China is a Third World country. It has a per capita GDP of about $3,800--well below Mexico's--and spends less than 15 percent of the Pentagon's annual budget on its armed forces. Nor does the Middle Kingdom have the ideological appeal of the old Soviet Union. Nowhere on the planet is China the model for the future--not even in China, which is busily becoming a quasi-capitalist society.

The danger China poses to the United States is not one of booming strength but rather of weakness--both of the country and of its regime. Unfortunately, that's not going to make it any easier to maintain peace in East Asia.

China is going through a massive, painful transition from an agrarian to an industrial society (and from the lunacy of Maoism to the market). In recent years this has produced huge social stresses and strains as state-owned enterprises collapse in the northern rust belt, law and order unravels in the countryside and corruption accompanies primitive capitalism in the cities.

More troublesome for Beijing is the slow erosion of the ideology that gave it legitimacy. The regime has filled the vacuum left by Marxism in part by competent management. Chinese living standards have risen continuously for the last quarter century and most Chinese credit their government for this remarkable change. But equally, the regime has cultivated the image of being the fierce protector of China's sovereignty. This sort of nationalism rarely exists in the abstract and in China it has come to mean one thing more than any other--standing up to the United States. Thus we see that with the Communist Party in the midst of a leadership succession, none of its potential leaders wants to look soft. This is a problem that will not pass. The regime's vulnerability has made it encourage, or at least embrace ugly, anti-American forces it may not be able to control.

Economics and ideology aside, even in military terms China is fearful of its weakness. Ever since the gulf war--and then the Kosovo campaign--Beijing has been worried that it's old, rusting armed forces and a strategy that relied on quantity not quality (in men and arms) were no match for America's laser-guided weapons and stealth warfare. Even worse, they might not even be a match for Taiwan's high-tech forces. Over the last few years the politics of the region have, from Beijing's standpoint, gotten worse. Taiwan has grown bolder in its dealings with the mainland and the United States seems more willing to come to the island's assistance. So China has begun a major military modernization and is studying low-tech methods of battling a high-tech army--what military planners call "asymmetric warfare." American planes hovering above, hugging the Chinese coast, always there to watch, listen and learn must represent a constant reminder of America's overwhelming superiority.

So do these weaknesses suggest that China is really not a threat? No. It suggests that China is really not stable. It is being run by an aging regime that is trying simultaneously to modernize its vast country, gain influence in the world and preserve its own power. Besides, weak powers have often proved just as troublesome as strong ones. In an important essay in the spring issue of International Security, MIT's Thomas Christensen points out that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor fully aware that it was going up against a much stronger adversary and was starting a war it knew it would probably lose. China itself entered the Korean War, hoping that a quick strike at an advantageous moment would make up for the fact that American forces were superior to its own.Christensen's extensive interviews with Chinese strategists and analysts suggest that many in Beijing believe a confrontation with America over Taiwan is inevitable--even though these analysts recognize that China may not win that war. For them, the costs of inaction appear greater than the risks of action.

The greatest problem for America over the next few years is that the communist regime in Beijing will look around and see growing social unrest, the rise of a middle class, the Internet and satellite television, Falun Gong, America's relentless technological edge, Taiwan's growing assertiveness and conclude that it has to do something because time is not on its side. The fact that it is right is precisely what makes the situation so dangerous.