The Bush administration’s unilateralism and incompetence, typified by its reckless invasion of Iraq, have damaged perceptions of the United States in much of the world. By many accounts, China has taken advantage of this lapse in U.S. leadership by bolstering its own influence across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But a new study of perceptions in Asia suggests that favorable opinions of the U.S. will outlast the Bush years and that China still has a long way to go before it can match America’s soft power. This offers grounds for optimism that forecasts of America’s global decline are premature and that a new U.S. president with a more multilateral foreign policy will find many overseas partners who seek and support his leadership.

The new study is a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the East Asia Institute of more than 6,000 people in China, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and the United States. The survey, conducted before this year’s unrest in Tibet and the devastating Sichuan earthquake, asked ordinary citizens questions about how they view each country’s culture, economy, politics, and influence. The findings are striking: majorities in every country except Indonesia see U.S. influence in Asia as positive, and Asians have more positive perceptions of America’s diplomatic, political, and human capital power than they do of China’s. Even Chinese views of America’s soft power are quite favorable: 44% of Chinese would pick the U.S. as their first choice for their children’s higher education. What’s more, pluralities or majorities in most countries state that U.S. influence in Asia has increased over the last 10 years. All of this suggests that, despite the many failings of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, the underpinnings of America’s standing in Asia remain strong.

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According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an article in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, China’s reluctant and belated concession to allow a skeleton UN-AU peacekeeping force in Sudan represents a newly “cooperative approach on a range of problems.” But the reality is that some newfound sense of Chinese responsibility on the world stage had nothing to do with Beijing’s decision to “cooperate.” The concession on Darfur (if you want to call it that) was entirely about the Beijing Olympics. Given that it took a threatened boycott by Western leaders for China to stop arms sales to Sudan and drop its veto of the peacekeeping resolution, I am dubious that we’ll see any further “responsible” behavior after the Olympic Games have come and gone. At this point, the Games are going ahead—with or without protesting Western leaders—and the leverage a coordinated boycott might have provided will be a mere memory.

But I’m not writing this to bemoan a missed opportunity or cast aspersions on Rice’s diplomatic optimism. I’m writing this to call some attention to the next opportunity down the road: Sochi 2014.

China and Russia are both rising powers, economically, militarily and diplomatically. Secretary Rice referred to both as carrying “special responsibility and weight as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council.” Translation: they both have lots of nuclear weapons, so our military power doesn’t really scare them. China is also not the only rising power we’d love to see adopt a more cooperative stance as it claims (or reclaims) “full membership in the international community.”

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There’s been a lot of talk about whether the U.S. President should boycott the Olympics because of Chinese human rights concerns. The irony is that in the eyes of much of the world, it may not mean very much if we took such a bold action. Studies indicate that the U.S. under George W. Bush has a less favorable image than China. And it’s hard to imagine that many people could take Bush seriously when he talks about human rights in China, after he has condoned waterboarding practices that clearly violate international human rights protocols.

Even in an ideal world, I’m not sure that a boycott is the most effective way to influence China’s deeply concerning human rights record. After all, Nixon’s trip to China was arguably the most impactful U.S. act in shaping China’s future and Nixon went there more in friendship than in protest. At the same time, he delivered a clear message. Similarly, I tend to think America should fully participate in the Olympics while wearing a clear symbol of our support of human rights and making clear our hope that China will change its ways.

What’s sad, though, is that our country, which for so long has been an image of freedom despite all our shortcomings and our continued inequities, is now seen so negatively worldwide that it is not clear even if we tried to make a statement anyone would take us seriously. It is yet another sign of one of the great casualties of the Bush years: America’s image in the world.

 The world has been watching closely the recent demonstrations in Burma and the crackdown by the junta there.  What I’ve found encouraging is the fact that both those on the left and the right seem to be in broad agreement that more must be done to rein in the generals who have maintained their grip on power there for many years.  President Bush used his speech last week at the UN to announce new sanctions against those Burmese leaders responsible for the crackdown.  The UN has sent a special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari to Burma to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis.  So far, however, the military junta seems to be holding out. 

The conservative National Review published a commentary condemning the Burmese government and urging stronger action.  At the same time, the Democratic presidential candidates are united in calling for stronger action to be taken against the ruling junta.  Here is Biden’s statement.  Here is Obama.  Here is Senator Clinton.  It’s not hard to see why everyone is condemning the actions of the military junta and calling for strong action against them.  It’s hard to be against a group of monks that are peacefully protesting a violent and oppressive regime.  So, if Democrats and Republicans are united in calling for more pressure on the ruling junta, why aren’t we doing more?  Well, the truth of the matter is that the U.S. actually has very little direct leverage with Burma.  The economic ties are minimal.  The pressure points with Burma are its Asean neighbors and major powers such as China, India, Japan, and Russia, as outlined by Michael Schiffer in a recent op-ed in the Des Moines Register. 

China it turns out is the major arms supplier to Burma. Once again, we find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Darfur.  Although the U.S. claims to be putting diplomatic pressure on the Chinese, China is using the justification of noninterference in another country’s internal affairs.  As I wrote in my last post, the U.S. and its allies must step up the pressure on China to play a constructive, positive role in world affairs.  We must make it clear to the Chinese that inaction against a tyrannical regime will be considered the same as support of that regime’s actions.  Nonintereference in domestic affairs will no longer be an acceptable excuse in situations such as Burma.  I’m not proposing military action  against Burma, but I am talking about making the Burmese pay an economic price for their oppressive policies.  There’s no guarantee that it will work and it could very well fail.  But, economic pressure from China would certainly be more likely to succeed that the limited measures the U.S. now has at its disposal.  (more…)

PSA Advisory Board member Sandy Berger and Eric Schwartz had a compelling op-ed recently in the Boston Globe on September 5th that I believe deserves more attention.  Berger and Schwartz argue that due to America’s foreign policy attention being focused primarily on Iraq, other competing powers are gaining the upper hand in important regions around the world.  In some developing countries America is losing influence as Russia and China pick up the slack with new infrastructure development projects and other types of support.  In national security terms the short term loss of influence in countries such as East Timor may not be the most pressing item on the US foreign policy agenda.  However, we must not forget that once upon a time Afghanistan also ceased to be a priority as Soviet troops departed, only to resurge as an Al Qaeda stronghold.  Seemingly insignificant backwater countries can have tremendous impact on the US at the hands of a few determined extremists. 

What is concerning is that in the Bush administration’s proposed 2008 budget the USAID foreign assistance component has been slashed by 31%.  Granted, some of this money has been funneled into the State Department’s economic assistance fund.  Nevertheless, this is no time to be pulling back on our engagement in the developing world. 

Berger and Schwartz raise the issue of China gaining ground in the developing world as it exercises its newfound wealth and global influence.  Although framing this relationship in adversarial terms can make sense, we may also want to consider how China might be brought into the global community as a responsible citizen.  I see this as one of our major foreign policy challenges. 

The jury is still out in terms of what type of foreign policy China intends.  My belief is that China’s foreign policy will be governed primarily by its interest in expanding both the markets for its products and for raw materials and energy.  Instability and conflict are bad for business, which leads me to conclude that although its foreign policy is focused primarily on its economic interests, it is not in the business of empire building.  Certainly this is the story that the Chinese are spinning for Western audiences so as to reduce their anxiety about China’s emergence.  Although a healthy dose of skepticism is always warranted, I tend to believe that narrative. 

See this explanation of China’s foreign policy on its US embassy web site: 

Maintaining world peace. China does not participate in the arms race, nor does it seek military expansion. China resolutely opposes hegemonism, power politics, aggression and expansion in whatever form, as well as encroachments perpetrated by one country on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, or interference in the internal affairs of another nation under the pretext of ethnic, religious or human rights issues.

Clearly for China sovereignty and economic self interest supersede “pretext” concerns such as human rights. (more…)

This week, there’s been a sudden flurry of questioning the economic value of free trade — on many fronts. Hillary Clinton came out against the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Senators renewed their bipartisan effort to bludgeon China about the value of the Yuan — this time by calling China a “currency manipulator” to trigger sanctions rather than by proposing a tariff to directly “compensate” for the manipulation. And one of my colleagues on this blog, Matthew Rojansky, was shocked to discover that some people think that aiming for energy independence (that is, avoiding all trade in energy) is not a smart goal.

Dan Drezner has a useful (if a bit ascerbic) post countering these arguments, especially focusing on China. His main point is that the U.S. benefits from many imports, whether it’s efficiently produced goods or capital that keeps interest rates low (pointedly right now, capital that we borrow from China). The argument that trade benefits consumers and investors in the U.S. is well-known but needs reiterating from time to time.

Why? Because it’s also well-known that trade does not benefit everyone. In the U.S., trade hurts certain import-competing business, and it hurts labor (especially workers without particularly scarce, hard-to-obtain skills). Critics of free trade like Scott Paul at the Huffington Post focus on those who are hurt, arguing that presidential candidates (specifically Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Edwards but also, he hopes and expects, Republicans, for whom he might cite positions on the immigration reform bill) are “witnessing the toll those [free trade] agreements are taking on America, and they are courageous enough to say it’s time to change course.”

But the free trade agreements are not taking a toll on America. (more…)