China and the U.S.- Building a New Strategic Alliance

Statement By Webster Brooks

Hartford, Connecticut - If America is to lead the world toward an era of global stability, then forging a new strategic partnership with China must be a pillar of our foreign policy foundation. In less than a generation, China's massive economy and military muscle will rival the United States, and its dominion over East Asia will be a certainty. Notwithstanding serious flash points of contention with the U.S., China's course is set on driving its massive economic engine to the top of the emerging global economy. Thus, it is in America's long-term interest to craft a strategic alliance with China that will define the global security arrangement for the first half of the 21st Century.

Despite foot dragging on North Korea’s nuclear threat, its intimidation of Taiwan and Japan, and cutting energy deals with nations the U.S. seeks to marginalize, China's commitment to a "peaceful rising" is authentic. Unlike the ascendancy of most great powers, China has not engaged in military aggression, colonization, coup plotting or invasions to achieve its ends. China has a rendezvous with destiny as a great world power, but its leaders harbor no illusions that it remains a relatively poor country with a long road to travel to modernity. Building its economy is not only an imperative of the highest priority, it is the key to the Communist Party hierarchy’s determination to maintain its grip on power.

Now is the time to unfold a grand strategy that offers China a seat at the table of its international peers, and an opportunity to demonstrate their capacity for great nation status. America welcomes this rare opportunity to embed China into the globalized economy in order to secure its cooperation to combat the forces of terror.

Ultimately, a grand bargain the United States can proffer to China should contain the following elements:

1. Support China joining the G-8. By opening the door to invite China into the G-8, the U.S. can reverse China's long history of self-imposed isolation and firmly tie China to the axis of advanced democracies.
2. Signal U.S. willingness to back off our commitment to militarily defend Taiwan "at all cost." China has made it clear that they are willing to tolerate the current status quo with Taiwan. The U.S. should inform Taiwan that if it precipitates a crisis with China by declaring its Independence, they are on their own. China will not relent on its insistence that Taiwan remain linked to the mainland, but it is likely with the passage of time that Taiwan will follow the same path as Hong Kong and be folded into the Chinese umbrella.
3. Support joint naval operations and exercises with China, India, Japan, Indonesia and Australia to increase momentum toward an East Asian collective security arrangement. While U.S. fears regarding China's designs in dominating East Asia may be well founded, the fact remains that the Pacific Rim will be increasingly dominated by China as they act to secure safe passage of its oil and gas shipping lanes. Half of China's oil and gas comes from the Middle East and 25% comes from Africa, but China lacks a sufficient blue-water navy to ensure its energy resources safe passage. This is strategic question of national security for China that cannot be underestimated.
4. The U.S. should offer its expertise to broker an agreement between China and Japan regarding oil rights in the South China Sea.

These incentives ensure China’s leaders can proceed with the peaceful economic development and sets the foundation for a full partnership with the advanced global powers. Liberation from external pressures will allow China to focus on internal modernization that will lead to more openness and inevitably diminish the need for oppressive control.

In exchange for opening up the grand bargain, the U.S. will maintain leverage in the global scramble for energy resources, stabilize East Asia, curb China's support for rouge regimes, and secure a partner in the fight against the forces of terror. Plus the deal levels our trade imbalance by allowing more exported goods, and creates a framework to help China address their growing environmental concerns.

This plan lays out just one component of the Imperato/Brooks 2008 centrist foreign policy position on that relies on strategic alliances creating a balance of power shared with major states like China and Russia. The Pentagon was still in Cold War planning mode before 9/11. U.S. military planners and Washington's political establishment spent the entire decade of the nineties preparing for a major conflict with China. Weapons systems were designed, force structures were re-calibrated, war scenarios were gamed in simulated situation rooms. A shift has already begun, and our team will ensure it stays focused.

If there is silver lining in the events of 9/11, it is that is gave us breathing room to re-evaluate China's peaceful rising. As Laura Secor* wrote in 2004 the U.S. leadership needs “to define a foreign policy that takes security concerns seriously but does not abuse the public's fears … and that neither retreats from the world nor frightens it with profligate use of U.S. military might.” Now with the Imperato/Brooks Independent ticket, we have a second chance to get things right. It's time to roll out the grand bargain.

*Source: Laura Secor, “Foreign Discomfort”. The American Prospect, April 2004 v15 i4 p51(4)

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