June 27, 2017

It seems that the apparent disappointment in the US’ China policy stems from a deeply-rooted parochialism in Western political culture. Hence it is no surprise that authors such as Harding (2015) have questioned the success of the US’ China policy based on such grounds as lack of political reform within China, China’s increasingly assertiveness in maritime policies, and China’s challenging of US hegemony in hitherto Western privileged “spheres” such as Africa and the Middle East. This is similar to Moore’s (2017) concerns of the increasing difficulty of avoiding a “Thucydides Trap” between the US and China, ostensibly stemming from China’s growing espionage activities, military spending, its disobedience in the South China Sea, and so on.

Hence, the simple conclusion: the US’ China policy has failed because China will not accept liberal-democratic ways of governance and will not comply to international rules. However, this is a fallacy. China is huge enough to play by its own “rules of the game.” Even if it does democratize, this will not occur overnight, considering China’s vast size and radically different historical trajectory from the West. In fact, the Americans should not be too quick to judge the failure of the US’ China policy, because if looked from a “relative” perspective (moral relativism), it could be argued that it has indeed succeeded in many ways.

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http://www.ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/488.html