Having the Olympics in Beijing and watching the Chinese dominate the gold medal category naturally leads to an uptick in the “China anxiety” you expect from citizens of the existing hegemonic power watching the rising number two. Some figures, like Robert Kagan, have already taken the arguing that China is inevitably bent on an aggressive foreign policy that will lead to clashes with the United States — and thus we must prepare for clashes with China and not at all worry that such preparations will look threatening to China since, allegedly, we’re already destined for conflict.
It’s interesting to observe, though, that when you look at concrete cases, far from seeming hell-bent on world domination, China is actually oddly passive on the world stage. When the PRC clashes with Western positions on the UN Security Council — over Iran, for example — it almost invariably hides behind Russia even though in the real world, as in the Olympics, China surpassed Russia some time ago as an important country. And when something happens that China can avoid taking a position on because it’s neither geographically in China’s backyard nor formally up for discussion at the UN, China usually says and does nothing at all.
This should be somewhat reassuring to Americans, but it can also actually be a problem. The Georgia situation, for example, has gotten to the point where some third-party mediation would probably be quite useful. A downward spiral in US-Russian relations across the board would be bad for both sides and the issues in play in Georgia just aren’t that important in the scheme of things, but nobody’s going to want to back down. It’d be a big opportunity for a China that was interested in becoming a traditional global power to kind of butt-in, do some mediating, and grab a bit of glory and it’d probably be a good thing for the world if it were to happen. But the Chinese leadership has seemed disinclined for years to try to play a global role in that sense and they give no indication of a desire to change that.
Anyways, consider that a bit of a not-quite-on-point introduction to CAP’s report on outlining a progressive approach to China policy.
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