Another mention in People's Daily.com

Once again it is John Milligan-Whyte and his partner Dai Min, who write a weekly column for both People's Daily and China Daily.  If you recall, they mentioned my stuff once before, sent me a copy of one of their books, and I wrote a WPR column about it.  As I said in the WPR article, their stuff is clearly biased toward the Chinese case, much as mine is biased toward the U.S. case (they make no bones about it and neither do I), but it's the best, most straightforward counterparty example I have come across on the Chinese side for Sino-American alliance in this century, so you have to take it seriously if you take that goal seriously.

To remind from their byline:

John Milligan-Whyte has been called the "new Edgar Snow" and "21st century Kissinger" and is the winner of Social Responsibility Award from the 2010 Summit of China Business Leaders. John Milligan-Whyte and Dai Min are co-hosts of the Collaboration of Civilizations television series, founders of the Center for America-China Partnership, which has been recognized as "the first American think tank to combine and integrate American and Chinese perspectives providing a complete answer for the success of America and China's success in the 21st century," and the authors of the America-China Partnership Book Series that created a "New School of America-China Relations." 

I recently had a long Skype call with the two, because I wanted to check them out and get some sense of where they're coming from.  John has a long legal background as a lawyer in Bermuda for several decades.  He connects with Dai Min a few years back and makes the permanent leap to Beijing, sensing an historic opportunity for business dealmaking, especially as China's second-tier cities take off.  But what really drives these two is their unwavering commitment to fostering a better relationship between China and the U.S., which is what drew them to my stuff. 

I get asked a lot:  does anybody push for Sino-American strategic alliance in the US like you do?  And I always say, in terms of the strategic thinking community, no.  Some, like Niall Ferguson, speak about the symbiotic nature that already exists, but more as a symptom than as a basis for larger cooperation.  The reason why I push on this is that, like I argued in China Security (see just below) back in 2008, my logic of global integration and globalization's advance says this relationship must be or globalization essentially goes backward, something I don't think the planet could handle in many ways, because the sheer numbers involved in an emerging global middle class mean we've reached that all-sink-or-all-swim-together moment--resource- and cooperation-wise.  Knowing my timeline on the inevitability of political pluralism in China (I target a late 2020s/early 2030s as the rough half-century mark after Deng's initial revolutionary reforms), I then see the next two decades as perhaps the most crucial in human history--as in, get the big pieces right and all works out, but set the two biggest pieces against one another, and this can all go very badly--and backwards.

So I'm comfortable being perceived as too out-there and a bit naive on this subject, because I know I'll see the day when this logic comes to pass, and I'll be on the right side of history--betting on improvements and compromise and cooperation over degradation and ultimatums and conflict.

And so I do find these two thinkers awfully interesting, because they're tilting at the same windmill, but on the other side, where, quite frankly, I think the receptivity is much better at this point in history (a faltering #1 is more scared and thus more inflexible than a rising #2).  Thus I see a future collaborative effort between my work and what these two are seeking to accomplish via their center and foundation.  Collectively, we're a bit rag-tag compared to the powers-that-be, but I enjoy living and working primarily on the basis of the power of my ideas, and John and Dai Min are very similar in this regard (John, arguing like a lawyer in court, and Dai Min, possessing the mind of a business-developer/marketer).  Like most visionary types, they come as awfully self-promoting (John's theatrical way of speaking makes you realize this guy is ALWAYS in court), but being one myself (and long being accused of the same--to include the "entertaining" delivery), I don't have a problem with that. I enjoy working with people who really want to change the world and aren't shy about it (working with Steve DeAngelis is very similar, as he too is always about not just a business but a revolution in doing business).  I have no desire to live a life that does anything less.

Anyway, here's snippets of the piece (the start and the finish--where I am mentioned again):

President Obama announced he was launching a new era of partnership when he was in the process of recruiting the team of veteran China policymakers and advisors. Nonetheless, the positive approach he instinctively favored disappeared. Conventional and then hostile policies and actions began defining his administration's relationship with China. 

His policymakers are implementing an increasingly hostile approach referred to as hardball in the US press. It could be deliberately seeking to cause China to not continue Deng Xiaoping's successful policies of opening up economically to U.S. companies and of peaceful coexistence with America and or other nations. It could be simply disastrous U.S. policymaking responding poorly to the U.S. economic and national security crises. In any case, the hardball approach makes collaborative and therefore successful U.S. and Chinese policies hard to imagine or implement.

A U.S. president launching a new era of partnership with China is unconventional. It goes against the US policymakers' views and widespread U.S. feelings that China is a threat to Americans. But leading the changing of the direction of U.S. policies toward China is a presidential prerogative whether it begins covertly at the height of the United States' unsuccessful Vietnam War or covertly and then when private agreement is reached, it is changed once more overtly during the current U.S. economic, employment and other crises. 

A U.S. president cannot effectively begin to successfully establish a new era of partnership or solve economic and national security problems until he finds advisors and experts with policies able to achieve his goals. To do so, President Nixon reached out to Professor Kissinger at Harvard because Kissinger shared his worldview and goals and others did not. President Obama is currently overseeing the changing of many advisors who were key players in the first two years of his administration. He is looking for but not yet finding breakthroughs or new policies providing solutions to U.S. economic and national security problems. 

Neither America nor China can fully meet the economic and national security needs of their nation without the sincere, coordinated and constant help of the other. It is not possible in this century for one of the two largest economies in the world to fail, and the other to succeed. Because his administration is not finding the effective policies toward China needed to solve the U.S. crises, President Obama is open-minded and decisive. If China presents him with and supports solutions, he will grasp why they are solutions and lead in explaining them to U.S. policymakers and in implementing them. But until he finds solutions and has China's support in implementing them, he cannot take on the fear of China and hardball thinking policymakers in the US. Let's be clear about this, he needs Chinese policymakers to reach out to him with solutions because neither he nor his advisors have them today. Second, he can only act when a set of solutions has been privately negotiated and agreed, Kissinger style, and he is absolutely sure China will support the solutions when he announces his support for them . . .

...

. . . President Obama has pledged that he will double U.S. exports to China in an effort to increase U.S. competitiveness and stimulate its economy. To increase exports to China, the United States will need to remove policies that restrict trade with China and propose policies that are mutually beneficial for both nations. 

Increasing U.S. exports to China also requires preventing a trade or currency war. Nonetheless, economic and trade policymakers in President Obama's administration have implemented tariffs on steel, tires and other goods made in China, introduced more than 23 anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and special protectionist tariffs, and launched at least six Section 337 investigations against China for alleged unfair practices in export trade. At least a 53 percent increase in the number of cases involved 7.6 billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese exports, which is 800 percent more than in the previous year. The U.S. is seeking to increase its exports to China while setting up trade barriers for China's exports. China is the world's largest importer, and currently China and the U.S. are each other's second largest trading partners. There are threats of new tariffs if China does not agree to the United States' proposed carbon emissions cap and trade proposals and lately talk of a currency war and tariffs over cap and trade. This is occurring in addition to longstanding U.S. trade restrictions on what can be sold to China because U.S. military strategy is traditionally preparing for war with China. 

This is not the optimum path for American policymaking. Or is it? Americans are suffering from relentless and unsuccessful wars, unsustainable global trade deficits and government debt, high unemployment and the worst economic crisis in a hundred years. To many U.S. policymakers who learned their craft in the Cold War, hard ball seems to be the realistic approach to the United States' most important bilateral and multilateral relationship. It is obvious to them that China, with its second largest and fastest growing economy, is an increasingly dangerous threat to U.S. economic and national security. Their zero sum game view of how global economics and geopolitics work assumes and acts as if for America to be successful, China must be unsuccessful. They are wrong. They do not realize that or they do realize that and are trying to engineering or blundering into a showdown. 

The key point is that until President Obama and the American people are presented with a plan for how America and China can both be successful in the 21st century, we are on the slippery slope. Chinese policymakers' safe response is to provide President Obama with a new grand strategy introduced for discussion in a white paper for the Presidents of American and China. China's leaders and President Obama should also read and discuss Thomas Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating." The Sino-U.S. relationship must be made profoundly better soon. Therefore it must be fundamentally different soon. The 20th century is over.

Comments

[David Emery]

One question that comes up when you discuss the US/China 'special relationship' is whether there is, or -should be- a role for India, either as a 3rd leg in this stool, or as another binary special relationship.

[Hans R Suter]

Tom, maybe you should show a pic of you and your wife, next to the one of Milligan-Whyte and Dai Min, one more affinity might be evident :-)

[John Milligan-Whyte]

Leaders and the civilizations of India and China have provided the inspiration for a global 21st century grand strategy benefiting all nations that successfully implements the principles and goals of peaceful coexistence in the UN Charter. The 8 books in the China & America Book Series published in 2009-11 and Thomas Barnett's 3 books published in 2004, 2005 and 2009 explain how to achieve peaceful coexistence and why it is essential for America, China and other nations to play new roles in stabilizing failed and failing states, globalization and geopolitics in this century.

The US and other developed nations and China, India and other developing nations will achieve greater economic and national security when our books and Barnett's books grand strategies and recommendations are implemented. China will play a key role as will India because of their huge populations and understanding that preparing for a war with America is bad for their economic development and national security in the short, medium and long run. American policymakers do not yet understand how to ensure America's or other nations' economic and national security today and in the future. American has by far the world's largest economy and over half of the 194 nation's military spending and assets, but does not have either economic or national security...yet. If America reiterates economic and national security policies that are not adequate to prevent or recover from current crises, all nations' economic and national security are undermined. Our books and Thomas Barnett's explain how America will achieve much greater economic and national security.

The US drafted the UN Charter but has not found a way to make it work in preventing scores of wars and armed conflicts and terrorist events. China for 30 years has been demonstrating that peaceful coexistence economic, foreign and defense policies work brilliantly for it and other nations it deals with in the real world. US policymakers have not yet understood or accepted how beneficial China's peaceful coexistence policy are for America.

Secretary of State Dulles would not even shake hands with Premier Zhou EnlaiPremier Zhou Enlai proposed in 1954 to Prime Minister Nehru that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence as he termed them be the basis of China and India's and all nations interaction. Deng Xiaoping and his successors have unilaterally implemented the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence with the US and all nations after 1979. For over sixty-years the US has not implemented the five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence yet that China unilaterally has implemented.

American policymakers have not yet understood or accepted that China's policymakers and people feel peaceful coexistence with the US and all other nations is common sense. In spite of the 30 years of evidence now of how China's commitment to and succeed resulting from implementing the Principles of Peaceful Co-eixstence. US policymakers have not made the change from the mindset and policies of a 20th century clash of civilizations to the 21st century collaboration of civilizations that is essential for all nations's economic and national security.

To help US policymakers make that mindset and policy change among other parts of their mission, the Center for America China Partnership and America China Partnership Foundation established in 2005 and 2008 in New York. in 2009-10 published 5 of the initial 8 books in the America China Partnership Book Series in order to provide President Obama and other US policymakers and people and mankind with a new conceptual framework, grand strategy and agenda designed in and for the circumstances of the 21st century's new realities.

In 2009 CASS, CCIEE, NDRC, State Council Information Office, CICIR, China Daily, Peoples Daily and the Central Party School recognized as China Daily put it, that the America China Partnership Books created "the New School of US China Relations providing a complete answer for America and China's success in the 21st century." The books and new school of thought on US China relations were announced at the Global Think Tank Summit, Foreign Affairs magazine and many other forums. The Center for America China Partnership was asked to summarize the books and New School of US China Relations in A White Paper for the Presidents of America and China (available now for free download at www.CenterACP.com). It was delivered to the US embassy and State Council in Beijing on November 1, 2009 and used in President Hu's preparations for negotiations with President Obama.

Our 8 books create three new schools of thought. The first on US China relations has been established in 2009-10. The next two new schools of thought address how the "Human Extinction Challenge" in "The Age of Species Lethal Weapons and Science" must and can be solved. Each of the three new schools of thought recognize that and present plans for solving the fundamental foreign policy, defense strategy and scientific research issue is preventing human extinction.

The New School of US-China Relations does not just relate to those two nations. Its and the other two schools' shared conceptual framework, grand strategy and agenda explain that the time has come after the epoch changing national security events from September 11, 2001 and the financial and related crises events from September 16, 2008 for (1) the US to reciprocate China's unilateral implementation of the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence with the US and (2) to reciprocate China's opening up since 1978 to US investments and companies business activities in the US in order to create economic recovery and sustained economic and employment growth.

The three New Schools' grand strategy and Thomas Barnett's grand strategy, when must be combined and implemented together, are the only ones being discussed today that assert that they can successfully manage the global economic crisis, climate change remediation, energy and natural resources availability, balance US China trade, prevent and repair failed and failing states. and prevent human extinction in the "Age of Species Lethal Weapons and Science" we live in. Thomas Barnett's grand strategy fits with and details why and how the New School of US China Relations grand strategy will be implemented and establish greater economic and national security for all nations in a new international system. His grand strategy and books detail how peaceful coexistence benefiting all nations must and will be achieved.

The three New Schools' grand strategy and Barnett's grand strategy revolutionize the clash of civilization's, zero sum game views of the international order from earlier periods in history. Both explain for President Obama, other US policymakers and the people of 194 nations and diverse civilizations how first both America and China and then all nations' economies and national security can be stabilized and progress.