The U.S. Should Give China Breathing Room to Rise Peacefully

By Ivan Eland

As President Obama visited China, he insisted that the U.S. welcomed China's rise and wanted that country to play a bigger role in regional and global affairs; but that rhetoric is largely hokum. The United States has been either the premier superpower or the only superpower in the world since World War II, exercising an outsize role in global and East Asian Affairs. In world history, many times rising powers have had tensions or conflict with status quo or declining powers, because the latter resist a more equal relationship with the new "upstart." America is no exception.

Xi Jinping, China's leader, has recently spoken of a "new type of great power relations" with the United States. This is diplomatic speak for China wanting its own sphere of influence in East Asia - much as other great powers have had a security buffer in the past. The American foreign policy elite self-servingly dismiss this Chinese desire as "so 19th century"; of course, they would howl if any country tried to encroach on the U.S. spheres of influence Europe (why the United States is very nervous about Russian activities in Ukraine) and Latin America (traditionally enforced vigorously with the Monroe Doctrine). [more...]