Gates In China
The NYT reports on Defense Secretary Gates’ trip to China, where he is fighting an uphill battle to convince China that it is the rightful inheritor of America’s Wilsonian views on collective security in a multi-polar world. “China’s increasing political and economic stature calls for this country to take on a greater share of responsibility for the health and success of the international system,” he said.
This of course depends on an underlying faith and belief in the rightness of the international system. Gates, along with a host of other administration diplomats (including John Negroponte and Robert Zoellick), have been seeking to demonstrate through empirical means that China needs a healthy and successful international system as much as it needs them.
But does it? Or is it that the U.S. needs China to need the international system, more than it really does?
In the long-term, as China’s share of global production increases, will it rely more or less on the international system to achieve its national goals? Perhaps this question, more than other, will impact the way our world looks in the future.
December 23, 2007 at 2:53 pm
[...] blog China Redux answers: “This of course depends on an underlying faith and belief in the rightness of the [...]
March 4, 2008 at 8:59 am
[...] blog China Redux answers: “This of course depends on an underlying faith and belief in the rightness of the [...]