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http://www.news.com.au/national/ ... rfkvr-1225900504290
A LEADING Australian expert on China has described a visiting US academic's claims a "non-peaceful" China would seek to dominate Asia as "deeply pessimistic".
Considered to be one of the US's leading strategic thinkers, Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago, warned Australia yesterday that over the next 30 years China would seek to dominate Asia and said that its rise would not be peaceful.
"If China grows in the next 30 years as it has over the last 30 years, it will seek to dominate Asia the way America dominates the western hemisphere," the professor said at Sydney University.
"If China turns into a greater Hong Kong, it will try to push the United States out of Asia and develop its own Munroe Doctrine - a reference to a US policy of dominating other countries in the Americas.
"I think that China cannot rise peacefully and that this is largely pre-determined."
A foreign policy realist, Prof Mearsheimer opposed the Iraq war, is a fierce critic of the Israeli lobby in the US and a sceptic about American decline.
He will deliver the annual Michael Hintze Lecture at Sydney University tomorrow. His host, Sydney University's Alan Dupont, described Prof Mearsheimer as "America's boldest and perhaps most controversial thinker in the field of international relations".
However, Professor Stuart Harris from the Australian National University's School of International, Political & Strategic Studies said Prof Mearsheimer’s views were extreme among China experts.
"The time he is talking about in the next 30 years and his view on China is one of extreme pessimism,” Prof Harris said.
"The debate about China has been going on for thirty years and the (Chinese) leadership has taken a very steady line on most things and they are going to think very carefully about which line they take into the future.
"There’s no doubt China will try to be more active and to some extent dominate in South East Asia, but I don’t think they will get to a point where they will outpace the US in that timeframe, the US will be able to keep up.”
Prof Harris said China had huge internal domestic problems to overcome; millions still living in poverty despite record economic growth over past decades, the ongoing social and political problems of transitioning to an open market economy, and growing unrest among the burgeoning middle class on issues such as the environment and systemic state corruption.
He said that as a result, while some sections of China's armed forces may aim for military dominance, its political leadership held a more restrained view.
“China has along way to go to cope with all its problems, there are people in the system who want to do what Mearsheimer says they do, but there's still many domestic problems to resolve first and they don’t want the rest of South East Asia ganging up on them with the US, so they will be cautious,” he said.
"The hard headed naval people in China might want this type of future direction, but there's no sense of this from the leadership.”
He said an aggressive policy whereby China’s leaders sought to dominate the Asian region was not a “pre-determined” outcome as claimed by Prof Mearsheimer.
"I think they realise there are many risks in this, China is very vulnerable. What they call their 'crown jewels' - the big industrial areas on the coast are very vulnerable (to military attack),” Prof Harris said.
“I don’t see them necessarily taking an aggressive confrontational approach against the US unless the US adopts such an approach towards them."
Prof Mearsheimer believes the US and its Asian allies, including Australia, will follow a strategy of "containment" and of "balancing" China in Asia. He says there is no difference between these concepts - thus dismissing the formula that underpins Australia's policy towards China.
Profe Mearsheimer says that containment of China "is desirable from an American point of view". On Australia's potential conflict as a US ally and China's economic partner, he predicted we would develop closer economic ties with China but support the US to contain China's power.
The presence of nuclear weapons, he argued, meant there would be "no shooting war" between the US and China. |
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发表于 2010-8-3 13:49
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发表于 2010-8-4 11:53
