The Cat Learned How to Catch Mice: Now What’s Next?

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice.
Deng Xiaoping

He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
Rudyard Kipling, The Cat that Walked by Himself

Some analysts predict that China will rival the United States as a global superpower by 2020. Some say it will happen 20 years later. Yet everyone agrees, given the current pace of Chinese economic growth and the ability of the Communist Party to maintain political stability in China, the United States and China are destined to face each other in a new way: as equals.

It all began in 1979 when Deng Xiaoping, patriarch of modern Chinese thinking, glorified cats that could do their job no matter what their color. In the traditional idiomatic language of China, that meant that people should be free from ideological burdens and be able to pursue a living as they saw fit. A businessman has to do what a businessman has to do, and that is to make money. “To get rich is glorious,” added Deng, to make it sound even cooler.

Indeed the cats have learned how to catch mice. In fact, China became so energized that its economy grew an average of 10% each year from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. It slowed down to 8-9% for just a few years then jumped up to the 11% in 2006. Remarkable changes have changed the face of the whole country. China rapidly urbanized, built a gargantuan global manufacturing house, boosted its technology and dramatically increased its military spending. Just take a look at the numbers. While some thirty years ago, over 80% of Chinese lived in the countryside, nowadays 43% of Chinese live in cities. As of 2007, the country had absorbed USD 1.4 trillion of foreign currency reserves.

Now, as we were once told by the famous British writer Rudyard Kipling, cats usually like to walk by themselves. That is – they want to be independent. Applying Kipling’s story to China, countries with strong economies like to manage their own affairs without outside interference, and also to play a bigger role in world affairs. Yet the question is whether existing world powers will welcome the rise of a more assertive China.

How should the world accommodate a rising China? What is the role of the United States in the New World Order? And how should the U.S. and China work together to avoid a new global conflict? To gain a global perspective on these key questions, twenty U.S.-China Bilateral Trade Internship Program Fellows visited the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and engaged in their first debate with James Lewis, a senior fellow at CSIS and director of its Technology and Public Policy Program.

Lewis, who previously worked as a member of the U.S. Foreign Service and Senior Executive Service, spent many years studying the Asian Pacific region. Greeting our interns, Lewis gave a broad overview of the United States’ role in history, the genesis of this superpower, and outlined his views on the future of U.S.-China relations.

For the United States three major factors -- market competition, the rule of law, and free trade -- were always quintessential. These principles govern our perception how the world should operate, stated Lewis. According to Lewis, there is no alternative concept of how the world should work, which is one reason why China has accused the U.S. of being hegemonic. However Lewis insisted that “throughout its history the U.S. has always been anti-imperialist. And this is still our vision today."

Lewis acknowledged that there have been both positive and negative aspects in U.S.-China relations. For example, a century ago, after Western powers defeated China and received huge reparations, the United States was the only Western country that used the reparations it got from China to establish Tsinghua University.

Bigger problems arose when according to Lewis, China took the wrong side in the Cold War, working with the Soviet Union against the U.S. In the 1960s China’s alliance with the Soviets fell apart, but many Americans still refused to believe that China had truly broken with the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the U.S. finally agreed that China was not a puppet of the Soviet Union, Lewis said. The "China Card" era had begun, and we realized that "we can work with the Chinese to contain the Soviets."

"The relationship that we have now is pretty new – it’s only 20 years old," argued Lewis. Naturally, good changes for the Chinese economy began with the openness policy blessed by Deng Xiaoping. You can see the results. The United States has a strong interest in commercial relations with China. Yet on the political front, there have been ups and downs. For example, in the mid-1990s, the neoconservative Republicans who took over Congress pursued an isolationist policy that was deeply suspicious of China. They didn’t like the Clinton administration and some even feared that Clinton was trying to sell the U.S. to China. These were not rational fears, said Lewis, but politics does not have to be rational.

Later Lewis outlined some major problems that need to be resolved for our countries to move forward. Issues like dual-use technology, America’s concerns about growing Chinese espionage and China’s increasing military spending certainly irritate U.S.-China relations. However, the biggest potential problem is Taiwan. Lewis stated that not many Americans know Chinese history and "it is difficult for many Americans to understand the emotional side of the Taiwan issue." At the same time, "it is difficult for Chinese to realize how important a democratic Taiwan is for the U.S." And hence, the serious possibility of a military conflict remains.

Nevertheless, Lewis believes the U.S. and China must engage in dialogue to clarify their mutual intentions. Lewis remains optimistic about the future of Sino-American relations despite the challenges. He is especially encouraged by the healthy economic competition that exists. "Our economies are deeply integrated. We must work together to overcome difficulties and try to resolve our differences in a peaceful manner."

At the end of the one-hour session, it was clear that many Chinese and American students disagreed with Lewis’s perspective, but they very much enjoyed the debate. For as Mao Zedong once said to President Nixon "it is all right to talk well even if there is no agreement, because if we don’t talk, will we not stand in a deadlock?"

Andrey Gidaspov