Chinese Foreign Policy in Hu’s Second Term
A report from a U.S. research institute looks at Chinese foreign policy in President Hu’s second term.
“China certainly feels more secure and confident in international affairs than it did before its rise. However, it has a peculiar sense of frustration related, ironically, to its rising power status. There are three aspects to this frustration.
First, many Chinese analysts have been frustrated about the so-called structural conflict between China as a rising power and the U.S. as the sole superpower in the post-Cold War world. They worry that the US has a hidden agenda to prevent China from rising as a peer power. As a result, they are cynical about U.S. criticism of China’s human rights records and lack of democracy and do not believe that the U.S. wants to see even a democratic China become richer and stronger than itself.
Second, its rapid economic growth has brought China an unprecedented resource shortage. Many Chinese elites are frustrated that China’s global search for resources has met with what Chinese perceive to be unfair pressure from the Western powers. Chinese scholars often cite the example that China’s CNOOC had to abandon its takeover bid for Unocal Corp in early 2005 because of unusual political intervention from the U.S. Congress.
Third, China’s rising power status, showcased in winning its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, has brought not only celebration of China’s achievements but also intense international scrutiny of China’s domestic and foreign policy performance on issues such as pollution, human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, etc. China is also expected to take more responsibility and work with the international community to find solutions to crises from Darfur to Burma to North Korea. Beijing is worried that if China can match heightened foreign expectations, its cooperation is generating ‘excessive responsibilities’ that the government cannot or should not take.”
