China has tried to put forth its best image to assure the world of its “peaceful rise” to power in Asia, but scholars are divided on whether Beijing will continue to adhere to international norms and laws when it achieves major-power status.
China “emphasize the positive aspects of its rise to power in order to reduce the concerns and anxieties of other countries in the region and outside the region, in particular the U.S.,” said Michael Swaine, a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Speaking at a conference at the Carnegie Endowment on Wednesday, Mr. Swaine called China’s focus on its relationship to the international community a “smart move” because it eases its ascendancy. By increasing foreign trade, involvement in international organizations and interaction with other countries, China seeks to strengthen its reach and influence and undermine forces countering its rise, Mr. Swaine said.
However, Jeff Legro, a University of Virginia professor, was skeptical whether China will adhere to international norms when it becomes substantially stronger.
China could use international precedents, notably intervention and regime change, to forcefully reunify Taiwan with the mainland, drawing the United States into a military confrontation, Mr. Legro said. China considers the island a renegade province and vows to reunite it with the mainland.
Qin Yaqing, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said a conflict over Taiwan would derail China’s efforts to identify with the international community. While China sees force as the last option for reunification, “in today’s international system, it’s likely for China to use force as necessary,” Mr. Qin said.
A Pentagon report in July 2002 said China, the world’s most populous nation with 1.2 billion people, is modernizing its military to realize its ambitions. Beijing would prefer the world to have several major powers instead of the United States remaining the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Since late last year, Chinese President Hu Jintao has said China’s development would be “peaceful.” Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said “the peaceful rise of China” would not “stand in the way of anyone else, pose a threat to anyone or be realized at anyone’s expense,” according to the People’s Daily.
A conference on China at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Thursday presented a different view on China’s global role.
China has “contributed nothing to the war on terror,” but used the world’s focus on anti-terrorism to suppress a separatist movement by Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, said John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation. China also has not fully exerted its influence on North Korea to wean it away from its nuclear-weapons program, he said.
In the long run, China will be America’s strategic adversary, said Ross Munro, director for Asian Studies at the Center for Security Studies.
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