New challenge of stronger China

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 18

New challenge of stronger China

Hold on. Does the West really want a stronger China? For the last half-dozen years, the sight of a billion Chinese pulling themselves up by their collective boot-straps under the Marx-stretching leadership of Mr Deng Xiaoping has been loudly applauded in the West. China's chief strap-puller is the Communist whom Western leaders love to fete.

From “The Economist,” London

Now Mr Deng reckons he can stand up to Russia on his own and command the peace and quiet on his borders — Including the one with Russia — that his modernising reforms need. The communist-to-communist namecalling has stopped; trade between China and Russia is growing again; even political ties between the two will warm, slowly.

But there are problems. By the turn of the century, the richer and more self-confident China that gleams in Mr Deng’s eye will also pack a bigger military punch. It - will be a brasher, bossier place. >

The modernisation of China’s armed forces poses more concrete problems. Most of China’s smaller neighbours have been happy to see China rather unsuccessfully try to keep Sovietbacked Vietnam in check.

If the West wants to hang on to most of what it has got out of its late-born friendship with China, it should be telling itself that it stands to gain more than it loses from a strong China. The first casualty of China’s growing confidence has been the cosy “strategic partnership” that China and America once talked of. It was never built to last, because it was based on nothing more positive than a shared fear of the Soviet Union.

So far, military weakness has kept China’s army short-range, and relatively ineffectual. For how long? Future scuffles over islands and oil rights in the seas off China’s shores could pit a better-armed China not only against unloved Vietnam, but also against Indonesia or the Philippines, still both friends of the West

And it is not just the small guys who could be hurt if China does start to throw its weight

about Japan has found itself being understandably ticked off for falsifying wartime history and, less justifiably, for exporting too much to China.

Little Hong Kong’s best chance of preserving its freedom, when China takes control there in 1997, is China’s presumed willingness to be nice to Hong Kong in order to entice bigger Taiwan back into the family fold. But if force of argument fails to move Taiwan, 10 or 15 years from now will a stronger China be tempted to try by force of arms? Even a China that keeps its military power in check will be looking for ways to make its mark in the worid. That means more grand-standing in the Third World, more demonstrations that to be anti-Russian does not mean being pro-West. Nevertheless, there are good reasons why the West should not panic.

The first is that China’s growing armed strength brings benefits to the West through its effects on Russia. It will soon be impossible for Russia — if it is not impossible already — to contemplate an Intimidatory attack on China.

And even if the Russians stay on the defensive, they will find it harder to reduce the number of troops they keep on their eastern

front in order to redeploy them on their borders with the West As the Duke of Wellington might have put it we don’t know how much China will worry our friends, but by God it will worry our adversary. The second reason for staying calm is that the West can probably limit the danger China poses for its small pro-Western neighbours. So long as . China keeps broadly to the, modernising path that Mr Deng has mapped out — which means so long as his heirs keep their eyes on economic growth rather than Marxist purity — the West will remain at least as important, to China as it is today. Important enough to be listened to. , A .The free 'world’s two main international economic institutions, the World Bank and the 1.M.F., already count China as a member. Soon, so will G.A.T.T. and the Asian Development Bank. A hard-nosed calculation of self-interest is what brought rebel China into the world economic establishment Trade tiffs with America or Japan aside, that calculation is unlikely to change much. The third cause for comfort is China’s value as an ideological as well as a military counterweight to Russia. The economic growth*

i that is putting on the new mill* . tary muscle is being supervised t by a Communist Party with' the r courage to junk most of what it r learned from Marx and adapt its j socialist principles to the modem world.: ' ■ / ~ I- Mr Deng’s modified Marxism ■ has made his country more pros-. 5' perous and peaceable in the* last. ■ five years than Mao managed in 3 five times as long. It is a poke in i the eye for those unmodified - Marxists next door. By the tum. 3 of the China will -still : have a smaller G.N.P. than t Russia’s, and four times more t mouths to feed. t But unless Mr Gorbachev is J more adventurous in his economic policies than he looks like i being, any Third World countries - still interested in socialism are ; likely to conclude that they i would do better, faster, by imitating Dengism than by plodding t along the Soviet path. i If Mr Derig succeeds, in. 15 t years time China will still call • itself a communist country. But a 5 combination of Dengist economic realism and geographical neces- > sity — its border with Russia — should keep it the kind of com5 munist that Westerners can 5 cheerfully live and work .with: t even if it Is better armed/ , f • Copyright — The Economist