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#13 - JRL 6536
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October 21, 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
THE CHINESE KNOW HOW TO BE PATIENT
Nikolai ZLOBIN, Director of the Russian and Asian Programs of the US Center for Defense Information
The Chinese don't have to seek confrontation with Russia at all. They could simply wait till it becomes weak. As for the United States, it probably doesn't have to worry about China taking an anti-American stand.
China, as well as Russia, doesn't have an alternative but to pursue the improvement of its relations with the United States and the whole Western world because the country is undergoing an economic modernization. It means that China is in a desperate need for markets, investments, new technologies, which it could get only from the West.
Also, the point to remember is that last year China exported US $102 billion worth of goods to the USA. It's an astronomical amount, especially if we compare it with the volume of exports to Russia - only US $6 billion. This circumstance also plays an important part in the bilateral relations - if the American companies suddenly stop buying Chinese goods, they would deliver a rather devastating blow to the entire Chinese economy.
Besides, both the Americans and the Chinese pay significant attention to the "exchange of students". Today, China is the leading country in the world in terms of sending students to study in the USA. Only in 2001, the number of Chinese students in the American universities increased by 60 thousand people.
Overall, in the last five years 400 thousand Chinese students graduated from American schools. Chinese scientific, technical, military and political elite is becoming more and more U.S.-oriented in terms of education.
Both Washington and Beijing understand that the majority of the goals pursued by the Chinese foreign policy could not be achieved without the American help. Those include the relations with Taiwan, India, Japan and even Russia.
That's why the Americans are certain that in the foreseeable future China would hardly take an anti-American or anti-Western stand. In that sense, China has less space in terms of choosing the model for the relations with America than the United States, which basically has a choice between the cooperation or rivalry with China.
It's worth remembering also that the Chinese political elite is gradually shifting its orientation toward the West. The fact that a new Chinese leader, who would replace the existing one, would be the first, who doesn't speak Russian and did not study in Russia, is an important sign in itself.
The Americans do not tend to exaggerate the threat caused by the further strengthening of China. There is no doubt that China could efficiently compete with the major economically developed countries of the world. However, taking into consideration its huge population, rather low standards of living and the number of problems facing the country, I don't think it can seriously compete with the United States, Western Europe or Japan, at least not in the nearest future. China has to spend a lot of efforts to take care of the internal development. That's why it will still lag behind the developed countries in terms of technological development for quite a long time, remaining meanwhile the world supplier of non-technological goods.
Certainly, if China starts showing the signs of aggressiveness, it might create a dangerous situation. However, no matter how cynical it might sound, the Western experts assume that the first victims of such development would be its northern neighbors - Russia in particular. It's absolutely obvious that Russian Siberia and Far East look very attractive to China. Russia should not have any doubts about it. The United States could try to play on those contradictions and take the best strategic advantage of this situation.
However, it seems that in the nearest future China, instead of seeking the confrontation with Russia, could simply wait till its northern neighbor gradually loses its geopolitical influence. At the present, as sad as it sounds, there is a strong perception of Russia going down the slope in the economic, demographic and geopolitical spheres. Its weight as the Eurasian power is plummeting. And if this process is going to continue, the influence Russia still has in a number of regions will go over to other countries, including China.
And the Chinese know how to be patient.
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