Whatever happened to the reassuring view that expandingtrade ties make for a safer and more prosperous world? This idea has been longpresent in US strategies toward China, even before being concretized in RobertZoellick’s notion of integrating China into the world financial and commercialsystems as a way of promoting ''responsible stakeholdership.''
The Chinese had a parallel concept “ that promoting economicinterdependence with America would counter Washington’s natural tendency toblock China’s rise as an alternative power.
But as President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney argue overwho can be tougher on China and its trade practices, and as a wave ofanti-American nationalism surges across China, the commercial partnership meantto bring Washington and Beijing closer together appears to be pushing theworld’s two largest economies further apart. Are we headed for some new form ofCold War-style confrontation? Behind all the finger-pointing and fist-shakingon both sides is a powerful economic interdependence that constrains bothcountries and was totally missing from US-Soviet relations during the Cold War.What’s bad for one economy is still bad for the other, and both Washington andBeijing know it.
With trillions invested in US Treasuries, and the continuingsluggishness of American consumer spending, China has a huge stake in a morerobust US recovery. And the prospect of a rapidly growing consumer sector inChina creates enormous opportunities for American agriculture and industry.
There are a growing number of security risks around theworld. In Asia, an expanding US security and commercial presence has China’snext generation of leaders on edge, and Beijing finds itself in various formsof direct conflict with many of its neighbors, some of whom are America’sstrategic allies. In the Middle East, a variety of new actors with competingagendas are jostling to fill emerging power vacuums. In Europe, Germany hastaken a leadership role in what is sure to emerge as a quite differentcontinent. In Russia’s sphere of influence, a government that faces risingrisks at home may well respond more aggressively abroad.
In the past, these sorts of tectonic geopolitical shifts andthe uncertainty they create might well have provoked war. But today, theeconomic dimension is at least as important as military muscle in shaping thebalance of power. That makes for more complicated international relationships.
Look more closely at the contradictions. A military rivalryis a zero-sum relationship; what’s good for one side is bad for the other. Buteconomic security is good for both. America and China both need oil to flowsmoothly from the Middle East and for peace to prevail in the South China Sea.Deepening trade relations give each side a stake in the other’s success.
As China and Japan bicker over territorial disputes, bothsides are trying to exploit local resentments for political gain. But theyshare an overriding incentive to protect a deepening economic partnership thatreinforces stability at home by enriching them both. Similarly, Turkey and Iranare backing different sides in Syria, but neither will let their bilateralrelationship deteriorate too sharply; Iran needs Turkey to go easy onenforcement of sanctions, and Turkey needs Iran to continue selling its naturalgas.
However, there are two important reasons why this is not asgood as it appears. First, the assurance that all-out war has become sounlikely encourages governments to flirt with economically damaging lower-levelconflicts. Governments around the world face much more complicated challengesthan the Cold War could offer, and economic interdependence can create jointvulnerability. The risk of superpower nuclear war is much lower, but there islittle to protect one side’s security from volatility on the other.
Following the leadership transition in Beijing and thepresidential election in America, both China and the United States need toreinvigorate their top-level dialogue, and pay more attention to ensuring thatdomestic politics does not overcome the incentives for conflict avoidance thatmutually assured economic destruction has created.
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group andauthor of ''Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-ZeroWorld.''David Gordon is head of research at Eurasia Group and former directorof policy planning at the State Department
