Sam Roggeveen raises an important question when, apropos my debate with Malcolm Cook about China's use of diplomatic carrots and sticks towards Australia, he asks why China bothers to use sticks at all when it has so many carrots. Like many others, Sam thinks China is making a mistake by acting so threateningly to so many of its nearer neighbours when it could so easily seduce them with economic opportunities.
We explored some aspects of this issue on The Interpreter back in May, specifically in relation to China's conduct in its maritime disputes with Japan and its Southeast Asian neighbours. I argued then that China uses these disputes specifically to weaken US regional leadership and strengthen its own by showing that America cannot or will not any longer support its friends and allies in Asia militarily as it used to do.
Sam's post however raises the deeper question of why China should think that this will help build its new model of great power relations in Asia. One simple answer is that everyone else does it. Most models of leadership at all levels of human interaction – even America's — involve a mix of both carrot and stick, and there is no reason to expect China's be to any different.
But I think there may be a more specific answer: the main target of China's sticks in the East and South China Seas is not its neighbours themselves, but Washington. It wants to convince America to step back from leadership in Asia by convincing Washington that it will have to confront China militarily to preserve its regional primacy, and that the costs and risk of doing so would be immense. It is trying to intimidate America, in other words. There is a good chance that it is working. [fold]
Most people are surprised that China would think in these terms. It does not fit our model of how the world works these days. But my whole point is that the world is working differently now from what we have known, because for the first time in decades we are seeing real strategic rivalry between great powers. China is deadly serious about its 'new model', and will run real, if carefully calculated, risks to create it.
Moreover, viewed from Beijing, such measures might seem justified, and indeed required, by America's stubborn refusal so far even to contemplate any accommodation of China's aspirations. That refusal was restated more bluntly than ever by President Obama in Brisbane just last Saturday week. For Beijing, if carrots won't work on America, sticks must be applied, even if indirectly.
Photo courtesy of the White House.