CONTAINING CHINA : A FLAWED AGENDA

China has been on the radar screen of US foreign policy makers and political strategists since 1949. That was the year that the Chinese Communist Party seized power in the world's most populous nation through a popular revolution. For the next three decades the United States of America was concerned about curbing the influence of Chinese communism, especially in Asia. However, since the beginning of the nineties it has focused more on ensuring that China does not emerge as a superpower capable of challenging US supremacy and its global hegemony.

In this chapter we shall first show how the US sought to check the spread of Chinese communism. Both the successes and the failures of this enterprise will be examined. We shall then turn to the current, more complex phase in US China relations. On the one hand, corporate America is one of the principal beneficiaries of China's economic dynamism. On the other hand, the political and military elites in the US, deeply perturbed as they are about China's ascendancy, are seeking to curb and contain China's power and influence within the region and in the world. The chapter will conclude that there is no reason to contain China. But there is every reason to check Washington's global hegemony.

Curbing Chinese Communism
Various Moves

For American leaders in 1949 the "loss of China" --- meaning by which the overthrow of the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek, a staunch US ally, by the communists --- was a catastrophic blow. It conditioned to a great extent various US moves and manoeuvres in different parts of Asia for the next 20 years or so. It was one of the main reasons for instance behind "President Truman's decision in 1950 to order the Seventh Fleet to defend Taiwan and police the Taiwan Strait..." China was also a factor in explaining General Douglas MacArthur's decision to march north to the Chinese border in 1951 in the midst of the Korean War, thus provoking Chinese intervention. Even US intervention in Vietnam which began in an oblique manner in the fifties and intensified in the early sixties was motivated in part by a fear of China acquiring greater influence in Southeast Asia if North and South Vietnam were united under Ho Chi Minh's communist rule. US involvement in Indonesia in the late fifties till the mid sixties was also shaped to a considerable degree by the China factor. As the Kahins observed in their 1995 work entitled Subversion as Foreign Policy, "To a striking degree the massive involvement of the United States in Indonesia was part of a piece with the composite pattern of anti-communism, loss-of-China prescription, and opposition to neutralism that was so prominent in its relations with other Southeast Asian countries".

The string of military bases that the US either established or reinforced in various Asian countries after 1949 was also in a sense a response to the perceived threat of Chinese Communism. By the end of the sixties, the US had bases in a number of countries from Japan and South Korea to Taiwan and Thailand to South Vietnam and the Philippines. Two of these countries, the Philippines and Thailand were part of a eight nation anti-communist military alliance initiated by the US called the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). Set up in 1954, SEATO also included (apart from the US), Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan.

At the same time, the US forged close political and economic ties with a whole range of countries in Asia including those that were outside SEATO. Opposition to communism was one of the reasons why some of these countries --- such as Malaysia --- gravitated towards the US. The US for its part attempted to strengthen the economic foundations of these countries --- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, among others --- to show the world that capitalism offered a better alternative to communism.

 Investments from the US and other Western capitalist economies, American technologies and easy access to the huge American consumer market were all meant to accelerate the development of anti–communist Asia.

Those governments which were not communist but refused to be drawn into the US's anti-communist alliances, both formal and informal, often earned the wrath of Washington. Two outstanding examples of this were the Sihanouk government in Cambodia and the Sukarno government in Indonesia in the late fifties and sixties. Because of his refusal to join SEATO and his determination to develop ties with China and the Soviet Union while maintaining good relations with the US, Sihanouk became the target of US machinations - specifically CIA engineered manoeuvres - to topple him. Finally, the CIA succeeded in 1970. Similarly, concerted efforts were made by the CIA and successive US Administrations to depose Sukarno whose desire to remain outside both the US and Soviet orbits irked a lot of people in Washington. As with Sihanouk, they eventually managed to oust Sukarno in 1965.

It is worth noting that it was only after Sukarno was overthrown that Washington gave enthusiastic support for the formation of another regional grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in 1967. In the initial stages, ASEAN brought together five states, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Unlike, SEATO, ASEAN gave no emphasis to military cooperation. The focus was on economic and cultural cooperation, buttressed by political cooperation aimed at creating peace and stability within the region. However, the five ASEAN states, we should remind ourselves, were staunchly anti-communist. Indeed, right up to 1974, none of them had any diplomatic relations with China. And the US was very keen on making sure that it remained that way since its Vietnam adventure was turning into a mess and it was apparent by the early seventies that the US was on the verge of suffering a major defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese.

Success or Failure?

It is appropriate to ask at this point : did the US succeed in containing the spread of Chinese communist influence in Asia in the fifties right up to the seventies ? US intervention in the Korean War, specifically its provocative stance vis-à-vis China only served to entrench the division between communist North Korea, on the one hand, and South Korea, on the other, which, to all intents and purposes, was a client state of the US. Its massive military involvement in Vietnam could not prevent the unification of North and South Vietnam under communist leadership but a communist leadership which all along had been more nationalist than communist : a critical characteristic of the Vietnamese liberation movement which the political strategists in Washington had missed. As in the case of Vietnam, the US failed to stop communist governments from coming to power in both Laos and Cambodia.

But outside the Korean Peninsula and Indo-China, the US, at first glance, appears to have had some success in keeping much of Asia non-communist. Didn't it help to thwart the rise of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), an ally of the Chinese Communist party, by orchestrating a right wing coup and installing a military junta in power in 1965? Didn't the US blunt the appeal of the communist ideology by facilitating --- as we have seen --- the rapid economic development of a number of countries in the region?

While there is certainly a grain of truth in both these rhetorical questions, a closer examination of the situation in each country in Asia will reveal that the main reasons that explain why communism was kept at bay are more complex and contextual. A few examples will suffice. In Indonesia for instance the role played by Islamic organizations in mobilizing mass sentiment against communism --- given its association with atheism in the popular mind --- was a far more crucial factor in the demise of the PKI than the CIA engineered coup itself. Islam also acted as a bulwark against the spread of communism in Malaysia. An ethnic factor perhaps had an even more decisive impact. Since the majority of the communists in the country were Chinese immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the indigenous Malay community viewed the armed communist insurgency as an alien attempt to wrest power from the 'sons of the soil'. Besides, the government had also succeeded in overcoming the underlying political, economic and cultural grievances that had fuelled the insurgency. Similarly, by attending to some of the grievances of the peasantry, the Philippine government especially in the fifties and sixties managed to weaken the communist movement in that country. Catholicism also played a role. In Thailand, communism was never a major challenge. Nonetheless, the overwhelming moral authority of the monarchy ensured that belief systems which were at variance with its notion of order and hierarchy could not develop a mass following.

As for the link between the economic progress of various countries in Asia and the containment of communism, US support was far less important than certain endogenous inputs. In South Korea and Taiwan land reform and state led economic growth accompanied by distribution provided the real impetus for transformation. It is a matter of some irony that both these achievements were not in sync with American style capitalism. In the case of Singapore, an incorruptible, competent leadership capable of planning and executing policies for the people was the single most important factor that created prosperity in the little island republic. Likewise, Malaysia’s economic success was due mainly to a judicious mix of growth and equity achieved over long decades of relative ethnic harmony and political stability.

What all this implies is that neither American economic policies in the region nor its military and political interventions were decisive in checking the spread of communism. The attempt to forge a military alliance to curb the ideology's expansion was also an abysmal failure. SEATO was pronounced dead and laid to rest in 1977. The numerous military bases that the US established in Asia were equally ineffective. If anything, they merely served to incense and antagonise the local population. Okinawa was a case in point. The Clark and Subic bases in the Philippines were closed down in the late eighties partly because of 'people power' .

Containing China
Economic Transformation

It is one of the great ironies of history that after more than 27 years of American military, political and economic efforts to defeat Chinese communism, the ideology, specifically its economic dimension, was vanquished by the Chinese ruling elite itself ! The modernizers within the leadership with Deng Xiaoping at the helm, who managed to wrest power from the dogmatists following the death of Mao Tse Tung and the end of the disastrous Cultural Revolution in 1976, introduced some fundamental changes to the economic system. Private ownership of farms and small and medium sized enterprises was allowed by law; entrepreneurs could retain their profits; private savings were encouraged; and domestic and foreign investments in various sectors of the economy were given a boost. As a result of these changes, much of China was transformed into a market economy.

In the course of the last 25 years this market oriented economy has witnessed phenomenal progress. It has grown at an average rate of 9.5 % per annum for more than two decades, making it the world’s fastest developing economy. Indeed, in terms of purchasing power parity, China is already the world’s second largest economy .

Cheap, quality Chinese goods are found everywhere, from Latin America and Africa to Europe and the United States. China has also become a huge global factory producing goods for some of the biggest multinational corporations in the world. "For example, most Dell Computers sold in the US are made in China, as are the DVD players of Japan's Funai Electric Company."

The East Asia specialist, Chalmers Johnson notes that "China's trade with Europe in 2004 was worth 177.2 billion, with the United States 169.6 billion and with Japan 167.8 billion." It is because China’s trade with the US has been growing rapidly --- by some 34% in 2004 ---- that ports on the west coast such as Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland have become "the three busiest seaports in America".

It goes without saying that big American corporations view China today as a gigantic jar of honey which they have just begun to savour. But there are other influential and powerful actors who are becoming increasingly critical --- and wary---of China. Some of them have drawn up elaborate strategies on how to contain China.

Negative Perceptions: Human Rights

We have attempted to classify these negative perceptions of China into three categories. First, there are criticisms that revolve around China's human rights record. Then, there are those fears about China as a military threat to its neighbours. Finally, there is concern within certain circles that China, because of its growing economic clout, poses the most formidable challenge ever to the United States' global hegemonic power. These three categories are by no means water-tight compartments. A group that condemns China for its suppression of freedom of expression may also harbour misgivings about its alleged military build-up and at the same time may believe that China is preparing itself to become the next superpower. After elucidating the arguments in each of the three categories, we shall subject them to scrutiny.

Accusations about China's gross human rights violations have a long history behind them, dating back to the birth of the communist state in 1949. However, since the economic transformation of China, these allegations have become more specific and more focused. The continuing political dominance of the Chinese Communist Party, the absence of electoral competition and a multi-party system, state control over the media and the judiciary and glaring weaknesses in the observance of the rule of law are some of the issues that human rights caucuses in the US, academics and politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties often target. In more recent years, some of these groups, reinforced by influential Christian networks have deplored the lack of religious freedom in the country. They point to the curbs and controls imposed by the State upon the Catholic and Protestant Churches and upon the spiritual movement known as the Falun Gong.

There is a strong factual basis to many of the allegations hurled at the Chinese government about its lack of respect for the civil and political rights of the people. It is irrefutably true that the Communist Party controls all the major institutions of state and society. And yet, an objective evaluation of the situation will persuade us that perceptible changes are taking place in China. In certain parts of China, the Party has allowed grassroots elections for village councils to be held. The candidates are individuals without any affiliation to the Party. Some mayors and city councilors organize town hall style meetings where a whole range of issues are debated. Environmental groups have emerged even in rural areas to protest against state projects such as dams that impact adversely upon the lives of vulnerable peasant communities. There are also instances of well educated professionals challenging corrupt public officials in the media and exposing abuses of power. Even in the sphere of religion, 'household' churches that refuse to toe the Communist Party line are tolerated in an environment where all religions, from Buddhism and Taoism to Christianity and Islam are experiencing a revival of sorts. Besides, the teachings of Confucius --- China’s greatest sage --- which were sidelined during the Mao decades have now gained considerable respectability and are offered as university courses.

The unwillingness of the Washington political elite and most human rights advocates in the US to acknowledge that China is gradually embracing certain political and social freedoms has begun to pique Chinese leaders. They suspect that constant attacks upon China's human rights record may be a ploy to discredit the nation so that it will not gain legitimacy and credibility as a leader of the world community. This is one of the reasons why the Chinese government has now chosen to retaliate against US criticisms by publishing its own annual report on US human rights violations.

Negative Perceptions: Military Threat ?

Just as the US accuses China of human rights transgressions, it also often alleges that China poses a military threat to its neighbours. As we have hinted, since Chiang Kai-shek installed himself in Taiwan in 1949, US political, military and security elites have projected the island in the eyes of the world as the primary target of China’s military agenda. It is because of China's aggressive policy towards Taiwan, these elites argue, that tensions rose over the Taiwan Straits in 1954 and 1958 and then again in 1996. The fact that China fired missiles into the sea near two major Taiwanese ports between July 1995 and March 1996 and the US was forced to respond by dispatching the USS Nimitz and the USS Independence shows clearly that Beijing has no qualms about using military force to regain control over Taiwan. If anything, the anti-secession law passed by the National People's Congress in March 2005 which states unequivocally that China would resort to "non-peaceful means" to reunify Taiwan with mainland China after all other means have failed, is conclusive proof of Beijing's intention.

There have been other situations too where Beijing has flexed its muscles, Washington elites point out. It has allegedly adopted a belligerent stance over the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea. These islands are claimed in part or whole by six other governments, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. In fact, China and Vietnam clashed twice, in 1974 over the Paracels and in 1988 over the Spratlys.

All this indicates --- China critics are fond of saying – that China's neighbours are not safe or secure. After all, Beijing has increased its military budget by 12.6 % in 2005, bringing it up to 29 billion dollars. In the last 15 years, its military expenditure has been increasing steadily in the name of the modernisation of its armed forces.

While concern over China's militarisation and the challenge that this poses to the region has been expressed by American leaders of various stripes, it is the neo-conservatives (neo-cons) surrounding President George Bush who have been particularly vocal about it. They are convinced that China is building its military power in order to dominate the rest of Asia. This constitutes "a direct threat to Taiwan and China's other democratic neighbours---and to America's vital interest in a balance of power in Asia" .

China, as one would expect, has a totally different perspective on all the issues pertaining to its alleged military role in Asia. Taiwan is an integral part of China. Right from 1949, the Beijing leadership had made it unambiguously clear to the world that it would never ever tolerate the idea of a separate, independent Taiwan. The United Nations itself conceded to the Chinese view in 1971 when it returned the China seat in the UN to its rightful occupant - after it had been unjustly usurped by Taiwan for 22 years mainly because of the backing of the US. Indeed, when the US established full diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1978, it recognized that indisputable fact in international law that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. US Administrations since then have by and large accepted this political reality --- except that the Bush presidency, it is obvious, is less enthusiastic about it than its predecessors . Be that as it may, as far as international law and established political and diplomatic norms are concerned, China has every right to ensure that its territorial integrity and national sovereignty are respected, even if that means using force - as a last resort - to bring about the reunification of Taiwan with mainland China.

By the same measure, China's territorial claims over the Spratlys and the Paracels by themselves are no indication of its military ambitions in the region. A cursory study of Chinese history will reveal that the Chinese have always been preoccupied with the sanctity of their borders and have from time to time gone to war to enforce their territorial claims. This is what happened for instance in the early part of the fifteenth century during the period of the Ming Dynasty when the Chinese armada – the biggest and the most advanced in the world at that time --- embarked upon a series of global voyages under the famous Admiral, Zheng He. The only naval battles that the armada was involved in were confined to areas that were contiguous to China's borders --- in the Spratlys and Paracels; in parts of northern Vietnam; and in Yunnan. From other parts of Southeast Asia what the Chinese kingdom expected was an acknowledgement of its political suzerainty. This is why Zheng He who went right up to East Africa and Arabia and perhaps even further did not use the formidable naval power at his command to conquer alien territory or to establish bases on foreign soil . Fast forward to the twentieth century, even China’s brief war with India in 1962 was also about border regions and boundaries.

Based partly upon its historical record and partly upon its current political conduct in Asia, Beijing has always maintained that its neighbours have nothing to fear from its increased military spending which has been prompted largely by the US stance vis-a-vis Taiwan. Even with these increases, China’s military expenditure of 29 billion dollars for 2005 amounted to a fraction of the US military budget of 400 billion for the same year. By way of comparison, Japan's military expenditure in 2005 came up to 47 billion dollars.

It is not China that has been belligerent towards its neighbours. It is the US that has been aggressive towards China. In April 2001 for instance a US plane spying upon a Chinese battleship collided with a Chinese military aircraft in mid-air resulting in the death of its pilot. Beijing considered it an act of provocation but avoided a confrontation with the US over the incident . For even more compelling evidence of the US’s belligerent attitude towards China, one has to look at its ballistic missile defence (BMD) programme. The BMD programme is essentially "a new space-based, high-tech grand strategy for transforming the military and securing global dominance for decades to come." The proponents of BMD such as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, see China as one of the principal hurdles to total US global dominance and are convinced that an ultra sophisticated weapons programme will deter the former from even contemplating challenging the latter. To contain China, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush Administration are now encouraging some of China's neighbours to strengthen their military muscles. Japan has been asked to set aside its pacifist Constitution and accelerate its rearmament. Given the uneasiness between Japan and China which erupted yet again in April 2005 over Japan's distorted presentation of its massacre of the Chinese people before and during the second world war in a school text, a rearmed Japan can only send shivers down the Chinese spine. The US has also promised India that it will extend whatever help it can to enable China’s southern neighour to become a major world power.

There is no doubt at all that containing China militarily is high up on Washington’s Asian agenda. This is not because China is a threat to any of its neighbours or to the US. Projecting China as a military threat is part of the US strategy of perpetuating its own military dominance. It is to ensure that any nation that is not an ally or a client that may have some military potential is clubbed and clobbered before it raises its head. After all, for the neo-cons, US global hegemony is the prized trophy of American victory in the cold war. It is a trophy they would want to hold on to at all costs. Besides, military hegemony also means ever escalating military expenditure and bigger and bigger contracts for the arms merchants.

Negative Perceptions: Economic Clout

This brings us to the third major argument for containing China propounded by the neo-cons and their ilk. It is because of China's rapid economic ascendancy that the US feels threatened. We have already caught a glimpse of China's economic dynamism. What we have yet to fathom is why this economic dynamism is viewed with so much trepidation in certain circles.

For some years now in their burgeoning bilateral trade, the US has been recording larger and larger deficits as against China's bigger and bigger surpluses. In 2004 for instance China registered a 162 billion dollar trade surplus while for June 2005 the figure was 17.6 billion. These surpluses are due mainly to US imports of cheap Chinese textiles and apparel.

Since these huge trade deficits result in the loss of manufacturing jobs, quite a bit of anger has developed against China among both American workers and some owners of capital. They feel that it is because the Chinese currency, the Yuan, is grossly undervalued---its July 2005 de-pegging from the dollar and slight appreciation notwithstanding --- that China is able to export its goods so cheaply. They argue that China should therefore allow the Yuan to appreciate much more.

America's trade deficit has been exacerbated by its federal budget deficit. This deficit began to grow under the Reagan presidency in the eighties and was caused to a great extent by his tax cuts and military expenditure . This twin deficit - trade and budget - is primarily responsible for the US's massive debt which has worsened under Bush. As of 15 August 2005, its outstanding public debt stood at more than 7.9 trillion dollars. The US today is the world’s largest debtor nation. A substantial chunk of this debt is owed to countries in East Asia such as Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan. This is yet another reason why the US feels that it has become increasingly vulnerable to Chinese economic power.

To add to these woes of the US economy, China is attempting to buy up American multinational corporations. The most high profile of these was the bid by the China National Offshore Oil Corps (CNOOC) to take over the giant American oil company, UNOCAL. Though the CNOOC offered a better price – 18.5 billion dollars - than its American rival, Chevron, both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate went all out to stop the purchase. The failure of the Chinese take-over bid shows that the American political elite has become extremely alert to what they perceive as China's looming economic challenge.

There is yet another related aspect of China's present economic drive which has set alarm bells ringing in Washington. Since the Chinese economy is expanding rapidly, its energy needs have increased by leaps and bounds---which was one of the reasons behind its UNOCAL bid. But more than purchasing foreign oil companies, the Chinese strategy is to forge agreements and establish solid economic links with energy producing countries and regions. China has very good relations with a number of such countries in the African continent which supplies China with almost one third of its oil needs. Latin America is another region of the world where the Chinese are active finalizing sales agreements. They have agreed "with Brazil's state controlled oil company to finance a $1.3 billion gas pipeline between Rio de Janeiro and Bahia once technical studies are completed". Under new agreements made with the government of Venezuela "China will be allowed to operate 15 mature oil fields in eastern Venezuela. China will invest around $350 million to extract oil and another $ 60 million in natural gas wells" . In September 2004, China and Kazakhstan entered into a $ 3.5 billion pipeline agreement. Even more significant, on the 28th of October last year, Beijing and Tehran signed a $100 billion dollar agreement which "entails the annual export of some 10 million tons of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a 25 year period, as well as the participation, by China's state oil company, in such projects as exploration and drilling, petrochemical and gas industries, pipelines, services and the like" . At the same time Iran will also be exporting 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day to China for 25 years at market prices. Needless to say, these newly forged Beijing-Tehran links have created a great deal of consternation in Washington. Washington is equally dismayed that its long time ally, Saudi Arabia, has granted to a Chinese oil company "the right to explore for natural gas in Saudi Arabia's al-Khali Basin and Saudi Arabia has agreed to build a refinery for natural gas in Fujian (China) in exchange for Chinese investment in Saudi Arabia's bauxite and phosphate industry".

How has Beijing itself defended its trade, investment and economic ventures in the last few years? It rightly attributes its penetration of the American and other markets to its ability to produce cheap but quality goods and products which cater to consumer tastes. It is able to do this for an obvious reason : an abundance of skilled, productive labour and not because of its currency per se. Likewise, China views its quest for energy as a legitimate economic activity. It is seeking access to oil and gas. It has no intention of controlling the level of production or the pattern of distribution of these resources which it recognizes is the sole prerogative of the nation which owns them.

This is the nub of the matter. Unlike China, the US has, for the last so many decades, sought to control, directly or indirectly, the production and distribution of oil and gas at some of the most strategic energy centers on earth. It explains to a great extent why it has embarked upon wars, established military bases, propped up puppet regimes and manipulated politics in certain regions. This is especially true of its role in the Middle East---the world's most important oil exporting region --- since the second world war. From the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh in oil rich Iran in 1953 to the invasion and occupation of oil rich Iraq in 2003, it is the same old story of the assertion and re-assertion of hegemonic power over and over again. There is no need to repeat that it is because of its determination to perpetuate and expand its global hegemony that Washington has deliberately chosen to portray China's economic ascendancy as a threat to its well-being. China, on the other hand, has tried on a number of occasions to assure the US that its rise is not a threat to anyone. As one of its leaders put it recently, "China's development is an opportunity instead of a threat to the world. That is becoming the consensus of the international community."

Consequences... and Conclusion

If, in spite of Chinese assurances, Washington continues to regard Beijing as a threat that should be contained economically, politically and militarily, it is quite conceivable that tensions between the two nations will increase rapidly. In such a situation, Taiwan could be the flash point of an actual conflict. Other Asian nations might be drawn into the conflagration. Japan is a prime candidate. So is South Korea. Even India - the present thaw in Sino-Indian relations notwithstanding --- could gravitate towards Washington in the event of a Sino-US conflict. ASEAN states would also be forced to take sides.

Of course, there are analysts who argue that a war between the US and China is most unlikely because of the power and potency of globalisation. As we have seen, American investments are flowing into China and vice versa. Bilateral trade is increasing. Technology transfers are multiplying. China, in other words, is becoming more and more integrated into the Washington helmed global economy. As one of these analysts puts it, "That fundamental reality of the global economy explains why we won't be going to war with China. The Pentagon can plan for all it wants, but it does so purely within the sterile logic of war, and not with any logical reference to the larger flows of globalization".

It is doubtful whether globalisation alone will be enough to dissuade the Pentagon, the neo-cons and other influential actors and lobbyists in Washington from pursuing their agenda of curbing and controlling China. For containing China, as we have shown, is not just a question of putting China in its place. It is, we reiterate, a camouflage for perpetuating and enhancing US global hegemony. It is a goal which is driven by its own logic - the logic of power. Hegemony seekers like the neo-cons will not subordinate this passionate commitment of theirs to other considerations. In fact, this is explicitly articulated in Washington's infamous National Security Strategy of September 2002 which makes it clear that the US will not brook any challenge to its global hegemony - an hegemony which it views as permanent and perennial.

This is why the root of the problem that confronts humankind today is Washington's global hegemony, not China's ascendancy. It is checking Washington's hegemony, not containing China, that is the real challenge facing us all at this hour.

How will we respond to this global challenge?


References

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Paper presented on "Containing China - a Flawed Agenda" at Workshop on Searching for Peace & Equitability in the Post – 9.11 World: Exploring Alternatives for Japan and Australia' at Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan on 14 September 2005.

Di pos oleh Arbain Muhayat pada 27 December 2008