JOHN HAMRE
PRESIDENT & CEO
THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
I grew up attending Rotary functions in a little town in South Dakota. My dad was a long time Rotarian. So when offered the opportunity to speak today, I accepted.
The Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan think tank. Our product is changing public policy.
Right now, we have to try to help the country and frankly it is a disappointing time. We are muscle bond as a nation and we can't seem to move. I think is because we are so busy trying to score political points against each other that people aren't stopping to realize their role. In Washington it is to fix problems in America. We need to go back to that.
If you start defining a problem together it is not difficult to find a solution. But when people start with the answer we don't find solutions. That is what we are doing in Washington. So, we trying in our small way to do that.
THE RISE OF CHINA - WHAT IT MEANS TO US
Is this going to be a century of eventual conflict and confrontation or a century of cooperation and prosperity . It is one of the ironies of history that the the most powerful military power in Asia is the United States. That is of course a by-product of World War II and the Cold War. World War II led us to do something we never thought we would do, that is station large numbers of our military in distant lands. What we have here is a centerpiece of our strategy for ourselves and the centerpiece of a very successful and prosperous Asia. What comes now. We clearly are seeing the rise of a new China.
Thirty years ago China was a country of poverty and today it is astounding what they are able to do. Recently we landed in China after not having visited for two years. They built an entirely modern terminal in one year. It took us 14 years to open a third runway at Logan Airport. How in the world are we going to compete when we are so bound up by our processes and this hungry, aggressive country is opening up whole new airfields. They are building a hundred new universities. This is astounding.
Is this something we should fear?
During the last year we have had five incidences in the South China sea where their naval forces and ours have brushed up against each other. We haven't shot at each other but we have gotten close. Is this a sign of a conflict prone future. There is no example in history of a static power like us, a power that is in place, being confronted by a rising power , where it hasn't ended in conflict and is this what we can expect?
We certainly don't want a poor, angry and isolated China. This is not in our interest. But is a rising, prosperous China with an aggressive defense established in our best interest? This is a country that is currently building three aircraft carriers to practice. From a country that says it only has peaceful intentions why does it need three aircraft carriers?
China is making enormous investments in very impressive and threatening technologies. So I am concerned about it but we also need to take a complete look at China. They have a very large military but it is an army that does not have a single general who has ever commanded a complex military operation. When they had the earthquake in China two years ago, it was a very club footed response. A year ago when they had up-risings ,they read the intelligence wrong, responded poorly and they made the problem worse.
I think we still have to look at China and say that it is a country that is more worried about its' weakness than strengths. I think we should not over react. Yes there are things they are doing to give me pause and there are considerable concerns. But taken as a whole it is largely on a defensive and not an offensive posture. However, it is a China that is becoming more confident.
It has been widely said that it will take China a hundred years for them to get the stature back that they had before Korea. Recently one of their senior officials was asked, "Is it still going to take you guys a hundred years ?" Yes but we are now starting at 1949. Does this put us on a collision choice? This is ultimately a matter of choice--ours and theirs. This brings up two sets of concerns.
My concern about China is that the military establishment is still the only part of the government that does not report to civilians. It only reports to the Party. The head of the military is the head of the Communist Party. Does this mean they are war mongers? No. But it does mean we have episodes where the army is provocatively challenging ships in the South China seas and the government does not know about it. We had an episode where a typhoon was coming and our ships were delayed. They sought safe harbor and we were refused. This is a universally recognized standard. The Foreign Ministry did not know anything about it.
We know that when China destroyed the satellites to demonstrate they had anti-satellite capabilities it was three weeks before they answered questions. The Foreign Ministry had no clue.
My concern on our part is that the rise of China is creating its' own antibodies. We may not be happy with it and the Vietnamese are really unhappy with it. They naturally look to us and not the next largest power, Japan, because of a bitter, ugly history. America's standing in the region is really quite good. But they don't want an America that is present in Asia. They want an America that is present diplomatically and overwhelming diplomacy in this region is about trade policy. We are seriously hurting ourselves by not having a good trade policy. It is not about economics but very much about national security. If America were engaged in this region in the way they want us engaged our power would be boundless. We need to change and rely less on military muscle and promote our economic interactions.
