China's leader

If not Xi, who?

American politicians going after China's leader should think hard about who the alternative would be...

By ARNE WESTAD

“China is a rising threat to U.S. national security,” trumpeted Marco Rubio in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal laying out his hawkish China policy.  Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina would seek "retribution and consequences" for intellectual property theft and cybersecurity attacks, and called on President Obama to cancel President Xi Jinping’s state dinner.  Congressional leaders have joined in the attacks against Xi, lashing out at Beijing’s trade policies, human rights violations, and aggressive regional intentions.

Xi arrives in Washington today, and China is bound to remain a key issue long after his short visit ends. To many the country seems a threat to US interests at home and abroad.  This anti-China hysteria, however, is a grave mistake – and a graver one is focusing it, as some candidates are doing, on Xi himself.

There are certainly reasons for concern. Like many of his generation, Xi seems more of an instinctive nationalist than his immediate predecessors.  His policies toward his neighbors leave much to be desired in terms of cooperation. He is also an authoritarian;  the political climate in China has become more restrictive under his rule, and people find it more difficult to speak their minds.

But a closer look at what’s happening in China suggests that we may want to be more cautious in where we target our critiques. As the economic news over the past several weeks has illustrated, China today is a country facing severe domestic problems.  Corruption and the misuse of power is rampant.  The population’s trust in the governing party is at an all-time low.  Meanwhile the domestic economy is floundering.  The recent stock market crash wiped out more than $5 trillion in value, and many middle class Chinese have begun wondering if the dreams they have grown up with can ever be fulfilled.

China desperately needs reform at home.  President Xi, it’s true, has been slow in delivering on his promises.  Most of the audacious reform programs he sought to deliver when he took office three years ago have not materialized.  Instead he finds himself fighting rear-guard actions against a new financial crisis and the fallout from a well-intended but poorly executed anti-corruption campaign.  This is a president who could soon be facing real challenges to his power at home.

Like the rest of the world, the United States has a profound interest in a stable, reform-oriented China that is economically successful.  It is easy to forget that much of the international economy is still struggling to recover from the global economic shocks of the late 2000s, the last thing we should want to see in China right now is economic dislocation and political chaos.

If the alternative to Xi Jinping had been an orderly transition to democracy, then it would be a welcome process for China and everyone else.  But, as recent events in the Middle East and elsewhere have taught us, the alternative to an existing dictatorship is not always democracy.  It can be an even worse dictatorship.  Or a weakening of the state to the point that everyone suffers.

The main alternative to Xi Jinping in China right now are Communist traditionalists who seek the advice of nationalist demagogues and military hard-liners.  Some of them are members of the current Politburo, such as propaganda chief Liu Qibao, or provincial leaders such as the governor of Shanxi, Li Xiaopeng, the son of former Prime Minister Li Peng, the man behind the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.  They have no answer to China’s development problems.  But their ascendance would undoubtedly create a China that is more aggressive towards its neighbors and less cooperative with the United States.

If political infighting in the Communist Party were to result in political instability in China, its foreign policy would become less predictable and more governed by appeals to an aggressive nationalism that is already on the rise within the population at large.  That would be a bad outcome for the United States and for China’s Asian neighbors.  It would lead to more conflict over matters concerning the Korean peninsula, maritime disputes, or China’s increasing naval presence in the Western Pacific.

What should the United States do?  Trying to limit participation in Chinese multilateral initiatives, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, makes no sense at all. Instead it should encourage China's further integration into the global economy, including even higher levels of bilateral Sino-American trade and investment. It should invite increasing numbers of young Chinese to study or work in the United States.  And it should work with China's neighbors, so that they can stand up to Chinese pressure when needed.  They are well equipped to do so, but only if they pull together and are supported by the United States.

China itself needs to democratize for its own sake more than ours.  A more democratic China would be better prepared to handle the highs and lows of the economic development model the country has chosen.  But we should be wary of a transition to democracy in China wrought through severe crisis and economic disruption.  China is simply too important for all of us to risk such a changeover.  A more turbulent China will not be an easier partner for the United States in international affairs than Xi’s China is now.

Therefore, until China has a new political system in place that serves its own population better, Xi Jinping is about as good as it gets for the world in terms of Chinese leaders.  This may be seen as a sad reflection of China’s political frailty.  But it is an important point to note for those who will be meeting the Chinese president on his visit here.