One week in America and China’s
leader Xi Jinping has established his credentials as a world leader to be
reckoned with. This was particularly evident during his last stop in New York
at the United Nations.
His first stop was Seattle where
he was greeted with exceptional warmth, not surprising since the state of
Washington has been the foremost business friendly state with China.
Xi in turn did not come empty
handed but brought an order for 300 Boeing commercial jetliners, valued at $38
billion less whatever undisclosed discount. Bringing a present to the host (jian mian li) is a common Chinese
practice and tradition.
He was accorded a VIP tour of
Boeing and Microsoft, a round table conference on the Internet and a group
photo op with CEOs from China and the U.S. worth a total of $2.5 trillion in
market cap. Not much mentioned in the western media was his visit to Lincoln
High School in Tacoma.
Xi had been part of a
delegation from the coastal city of Fuzhou that visited Tacoma and the school
some 22 years ago. The two cities established sister city relations a year
after that visit. His taking the time from his busy schedule to again visit the
high school can’t be just for nostalgia sake but shows Xi as a sentimental leader
with feelings.
He does not forget his past human
connections just as was the case when he visited the Iowa farm on his last U.S.
visit. As a young rural official on his first visit to the U.S. some 30 years
ago, Xi had stayed with a family on a farm in Muscatine Iowa and he asked to
see them again.
President Xi also did not
come to the nation’s capital empty handed. Last November the surprise out of
the Obama/Xi summit in Beijing was China’s commitment to join the U.S. in combating
global warming and restrict emission of green house gases by 2030. The response
from the western skeptics was to wait and see.
This time, Xi indicated that
China was ready to stand with the U.S. by instituting a nation-wide cap and
trade program by 2017 to limit CO2 emission from major industrial
sources. Within one year, China has come up with a plan based on an American idea
that Obama has not been able to get Congress to go along in more than four.
Xi also pledged that China
would minimize financing third world projects with high carbon emission. One
observer noted, “China appears poised to enact the same climate change policy
that Mr. Obama failed to move through Congress.” Someday, the world may look
back and applaud the consequence of the bilateral agreement as the greatest
contribution to the world’s future.
The summit also made progress
in cyber security and repatriation of fugitives from China. In the cyber space,
both countries agree on certain rules of the road and to communicate and
consult with each other in the event of hack attacks. Much does lie in the
details and how effectively both sides will work together in lieu of public
finger pointing.
The U.S. and China also
agreed to cooperate on repatriating fugitives from China via periodic charter
flights and to return ill-gotten gains. This could become a significant
deterrent and cause corrupt officials to look elsewhere for safe havens
overseas. American officials privately claimed that it has been the snail pace
by the Chinese officials in providing the necessary documentation that impeded
expediting repatriation in the past. Again, the devil will be in the
implementation.
Xi’s jian mian li to the UN was even more dazzling and he received that
warmest reception of his visit. After his short speech on Saturday pledging $2
billion for immediate debt relief owed to China by the poorest, debt-ridden
nations and to invest $12 billion by 2030 in the least developed regions, he
was mobbed. Eyewitnesses say as many as 30 other heads of state, also attending
the 70th celebration of founding of UN, formed a queue to shake his
hands—unprecedented to say the least.
In his address to the General
Assembly before returning to China, he announced a straight $1 billion donation
to the UN over 10 years for peaceful development under the UN aegis. China will
also send 8000 police as part of the UN peacekeeping force and provide $100
million to the African Union to help them develop their peacekeeping
capability.
Xi’s message at the UN was to
reiterate China’s commitment to peaceful development as the key to avoiding
conflict and protect human rights by raising living standards. He declared that
China would never act as a hegemon or impose an exaggerated sphere of influence
but treat every nation, big or small, with mutual respect.
Unlike the US that ignores
the UN when it suits them, China has consistently insisted on working within
the confines of the UN Charter.
In the coming days, Xi said China
would propose six 100-project sets to address problems of common worldwide
interest. The six subject areas will consist of (1) poverty alleviation, (2)
agriculture development, (3) global trade facilitation, (4) climate protection,
(5) improving health care and (6) education.
President Xi came to America
offering cooperation and collaboration. His only stipulation, which China has
raised since 2008 even before he became the leader, was that the U.S. treat
China as a peer and strike up a new relations between “big countries” (da guo).
This is turning out to be a
hard sell in America. Obama seems to have difficulty reconciling the U.S. position
as the only hegemon with the need to accommodate China. Perhaps the toxic
political atmosphere in America does not allow Obama to act otherwise.
Current batch of American
presidential hopefuls are falling all over themselves to out bash China in
search a tiny decimal gain in the opinion poll. No doubt in debates to come
they will find hidden threat to America’s security in Xi’s message of peaceful
development.
Perhaps because the U.K. has
long ago given up any aspiration of being the world hegemon, George Osborne,
their Chancellor of Exchequer, went to Beijing with unbridled enthusiasm for
collaboration with China. Just as Xi was about to visit America, Osborne met
with Premier Li Keqiang and signed 53 assorted agreements and memorandum of
understandings on economic cooperation.
This was advanced work to tee
up Xi’s state visit to Britain in October and ensure total success. Osborne
said that his mission was to make clear that Britain wants to be China’s “best
partner in the West.”
Not that long ago, Britain
was America’s best partner in the invasion of Iraq and shared in the sorrow of
that disastrous adventure. Now Britain sees that it’s in their national
interests to move away from the shadows of American foreign policy. Last March,
despite White House urging not to support Xi’s Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank, UK led the ranks of western powers in becoming founding members.
China is making friends
around the world based on common economic interest and not on military
alliances. While they have no wish to compete on arms, their recent air-to-air
missile development with the capability comparable to the U.S. is another indication
that they also won’t be intimidated.
Whether
Washington will ever see more to gain from collaboration with China than continue
as “frenemies” will depend on the day a statesman/woman emerge from the current
comedy that passes as an exercise in democracy.
