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China's Juggling Act and the Balance of Power in Asia
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11269 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1986 |
5,682 Words |
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Thomas W. Robinson
Thomas W. Robinson teaches Asian, Soviet, and national
security studies at Georgetown University and is professor of
Asian studies at the Foreign Service Institute, Department of
State. |
Lately there has been a lot of loose talk about China. In contrast with the past, this recent speculation is based not so much on a lack of data as on its surfeit, not on uncertainties concerning China's policies, leadership, and future, but on a solid basis in fact and on clear extrapolation from present trends that appear to be well established.
The evidence, it is said, seems decisively to point to a China finally and firmly embarked on the road to full modernization in most every area and to a foreign policy of peace, participation, and interdependence, within Asia and in the overall international system. The reemergence of the Central Kingdom as the premier Asian nation is viewed in most circles with hope, anticipation, and support, and most calculations run that it is better to join the race to become a true "friend of China" rather than be left behind and risk being left out, particular as concerns the riches that presumably will flow from that enormous market. If China is on its way to becoming a superpower--Beijing's protestations to the contrary--that is apparently all right with most Asians and most of those residents on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean.
Modernization is assumed to carry with it the means to convert that country into a variant (perhaps still socialist, if hardly communist, once the process has been completed) of that relatively open, mostly foreign trade-oriented, inclining toward democracy, middle class dominated society that is becoming the pattern in many parts of Asia and has been firmly established in North America.
Dominant thoughts
A combination of straight-line extrapolation and the infinity curve thus seem to dominate thinking about China's future. It does not seem to matter that this type of thinking has been seen before, whenever that country seems to have settled into a predictable path or that in every single previous instance, dreams or forebodings (depending on which side of the political fence one happens to fall) have quickly and uniformly been shattered or alleviated. The idea is that this time it's different, that China's leaders (to dredge up an old Communist party slogan) really do mean what they say--that the past is no predictor, that modernization will finally work its way on China. No matter that infinity curves always become S-curves, that political change in China has always spelled change in domestic and foreign policies, and that reality is always a low probability event. The euphoria that has developed since 1979 in China has spread to other nations
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