Eric Hyer: Is China the Cause of International (Dis)order?

[Music] as I mentioned Professor Eric heyer will be speaking today he received his PhD in political science from Columbia University in 1990 and is currently associate professor in the department of political science at BYU he also serves as the coordinator for Asian studies and we were just doing the math he's been doing that for 11 years which we think is longer than she has been running China his research focuses on China's Foreign Relations he's authored many articles on China's arms sales territorial issues and U.S China relations his book The pragmatic Dragon China's Grand strategy and Boundary settlements was published by the University of British Columbia press in 2015. I'll also mention that there's a website that is builds upon his work which is a great opportunity to explore his research further with really interesting video shorts from various locations where China's neighbors share boundaries on chinaboundaries.com and so you can get more information about his research and see the book illustrate and visualize in a very interesting way the title for today's lecture is China the cause of international disorder please join me in welcoming Professor Eric heyer [Applause] thank you Corey um we have been colleagues for for many years haven't we and thank you to the rest of thanks to the rest of you for showing up I had nothing to do with the temperature in the room I think some of you may feel it's a little bit cool but but I feel a little bit hot up here so um I want to move through my remarks today quite quickly as I as I began jotting down my ideas eventually grew to five pages so of notes but um I will move through because I want to save time for questions um but what I would like to do today is is uh first of all covers uh some general perspectives on China and international disorder uh talk a few minutes about China's peaceful rise beginning in 1978 uh talk about China's current challenge to International order International organizations and then talk a little bit about U.S China relations and the trajectory of U.S China relations and Finnish and it ends up being the law the longest part of my notes China and Afghanistan which I think is a contemporary and interesting topic and Afghanistan is a place that I've been fascinated with since my childhood and have visited a few times first of all to put things in perspective let me say that um the rise of China and the impact of China on International order and disorder is it was was foreseen and predicted um in the 1800s in in probably 1805 about uh Napoleon Bonaparte made his famous quote that is oftentimes quoted misquoted where he said there lies a sleeping giant referring to China let him sleep for when he wakes he will shake the world um fast forward to 2001 John mursheimer one of the preeminent Scholars of international relations wrote an important book called The Tragedy of great power politics in which he predicted this was 20 years ago when China United States were still very good friends uh when he argued that China would gradually rise and it would eventually challenge the United States hegemony and would be disruptive of international order that order based upon United States Primacy um he was speaking a time when when liberal internationalism and and U.S prime minister was very popular among Scholars and many people thought that he his prediction would be wrong that China would eventually uh experience what we call Convergence and China would Embrace uh International order and would base liberal democracy and become much like the rest of the world because of its economic interaction with the world and it hasn't turned out that way has it but China's uh peaceful rise is is a fact um it wasn't that many years ago it was four decades ago in 1978 Deng Xiaoping overturned the maoist Revolutionary uh politics of China and put China on the course of opening in reform and China became a very market-oriented capitalist country with a Communist party in power and China's rise I think is obvious to all of you you know that China's rapidly rise is now is moved from from a very poor nation in the back Waters of Asia to now it's when it's a manufacturing Giant and it's one of the largest trade powers in the world and its economy is second only to the United States that's a phenomenal rise in for decades so while China's rise has had impacts upon the international world I don't think we can fully I don't think we should blame China for that because China was exactly just simply excelling in the global market that the United States dominated and and constructed in World War II long before Beijing became a player in this International uh order in markets it was already in place and dominated by the United States and as European allies and China certainly took advantage of of free trade and free enterprise to rapidly rise but as China became more and more powerful in the late 1990s China began to chafe under the domination of American Primacy and began to push back against the U.S dominated World Order in April of 1997 along with Russia at the time by the way in the wake of the Cold War and the period of time which we sometimes refer to as a unipolar moment when the United States was was unquestionably the most powerful country in the world I was not challenged by any other countries China and Russia began to push back in 1997 they issued a joint statement which said their purpose was quote to promote the multi-polarization of the world and establish a new international order so they did say that they wanted to change the world system China denounced increasingly denounce what can what it considered Western hypocrisy by saying by talking about Western hypocrisy China was primarily talking about the unilateral foreign actions of the United States and its allies its European allies especially uh uh bothersome to China was the U.S NATO um Warren Kosovo in 1999. followed by the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 Iraq in 2003 and then the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 all of these were not sanctioned by the United Nations and all of these were led by a neoconservative leadership who was about regime change and overthrowing illiberal or undemocratic regimes and putting American style democracy in their place China of course was very opposed to that um China favors much more what we call traditional International values the values of sovereignty and non-interference in other countries International Affairs so China began to push back against what they felt was Western pressure on non-democratic regimes to change and they began to do this both internationally and domestically domestically China began to put into place laws as other countries did laws that would restrict the activities of liberal non-government organizations that were focused on democracy and human rights and things like that they felt this was a threat to their regime and this became clear more and more clear as they began to see the color revolutions take place in the Middle East and other countries around the world and in Ukraine um China proposed an alternative and that was what they called civilizational diversity in other words not just Western dominant democracies but civilizational diversity and China began to promote the value of civilizational diversity through the establishment of Confucius institutes for example around the world about 500 Confucian institutes around the world these are centers to promote Chinese values and Chinese culture and Chinese history much like the United States have been doing ever since World War II through the United States information agency and the French had done through Meson francaise or the British through the through the British Council promoting their values China began to do that and also China began to uh extend uh many many scholarships to students from around the world to come and study in China so China has a a very large foreign student population in China not only studying Chinese but studying in Chinese universities and much of these many of these or most of these I should say are funded by Chinese government scholarships so you can see that China's is in fact mimicking many things that the United States said earlier done when we were at our Peak promoting our values promoting student foreign exchanges inviting students to our country on scholarships and things like that now with the rise of China and its dominant domination this dominant position that they now hold China has began to challenge the quote liberal International order the liberal International was put in place just after World War II by the United States and its European allies especially Great Britain and they began they've begun to promote alternatives to that to that hegemonic order dominated by the United States they're not trying to overthrow that order in a revolutionary way as the Soviet Union did in the past but they certainly want to change that liberal International order to reflect their interests and their values and um I don't think that this means that we're headed to sort of some kind of hegemonic conflict between the United States and China what many people refer to as a thucydides trap the city's trap is an argument that whenever a nation Rises and begins to challenge the dominant power inevitably we have seen conflict global conflict this is the case with the rise of Napoleonic France and the Napoleonic Wars it was the case with the rise of Germany and the onset of World War One and World War II and it was the case with the rise of Japan and the second world war in the Pacific all of these countries were Rising Nations inevitably came into conflict with European other European powers and the United States I don't necessarily see that in the offing but certainly we're moving into a period of challenging of challenges as the United States and China work out their relationship in the future and China Finds Its new place in the international order so they're primarily pushing back against what I would call American Primacy American domination of the world China seeks greater accommodation in international organizations it wants a stronger voice in these International organizations the phrase they use is quote the democratization of international politics by democratization they're indicating that they don't want one voice the United States voice to be the only dominant voice in international organization but feel that other countries must have have their positions and their views listened to so they're confronting American unilateralism essentially and promoting what they consider a fair multilateralism so those are words that are commonly used in Chinese parlance democratization of international politics confronting unilateralism of the United States and promoting quote Fair multilateralism China set about doing this by uh in a very concerted way um taking a more a more forceful and Leadership position in internet in the international in international Affairs and here's some examples I can give you in 2001 China organized what is known as the Shanghai cooperation organization the SEO the Songhai cooperation this is a collective security organization including the Central Asian States Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan uh China and Russia and now also includes India and Iran and Mongolia as an observer example this was a a specific effort by the Chinese to and this excludes the United States and Europe this was in a specific effort by the Chinese to organize a collective security organization in its neighborhood that was not dominated by nato in the United States it was a great fear that NATO was pushing Eastward and this is the way that China was pushing back against that the the major principles of the Shanghai cooperation organization reflect Chinese values the values of non-interference in the external in the internal affairs of other countries and certainly other non-liberal principles they do not question the uh the issues of issues of democracy and human rights in those other countries this was followed in 2009 with the organization of brics b-r-i-c-s so it stands for it stands for Brazil Russia India China South Africa the the the five emerging middle Powers these are all great countries with certain potential great economic potential this was initiated in 2009 as a way to push back against the G7 the G7 is the organization of the United States France Britain Canada Japan the major European uh industrial democracies and China wanted to push back against their domination and also reflect changing the changing Global balance of power amid America in 2009 you know America was in financial crisis at that time and there was a global financial crisis and at that time the bricks stood up and said look it we are middle important Powers we're going to push back against the domination of the G7 which have really messed up the management of international financial affairs so they the the brics pledged to quote support a more democratic and just multi-polar world order one based upon the rule of international law equality mutual respect cooperation coordinated action and collective decision making of all states so you can see clearly pushing the gas against the domination of the United States and its European allies in places like Kosovo Libya Afghanistan and Iraq earlier they called for a for the organization multiple what they call dialogue organizations China has now organized significant dialogue organizations with all of the African countries it's quite a spectacle to be in Beijing and see 50 African heads of state show up in Beijing for a China Africa dialogue which is done about every three years all the flags flying all the Pomp and ceremonies quite impressive to see them orchestrate 50 heads of state from Africa at one time in the Beijing Capital the the another major dialogue organization is the central eastern Europe dialogue organization which involves about 13 central European states that have constant ongoing dialogue with the United States over economic issues development issues finance and things like that and then also the very significant dialogue organization with the Latin American states also so you can see that China is beginning to encroach into or push into areas spheres that were traditionally American spheres of influence especially in Latin America and Europe and making great Headway in Africa um so China has also proposed a new international economic order as I mentioned earlier the proposal of the new international economic mortar takes very specific uh form in in in the case of several important institutions in 2014 the brics organization remember this is Brazil Russia India China South Africa the brics organization organized something known as the new development Bank the new development Bank was a was a was a bank to help Finance development in these countries and other countries and it was dominated it's dominated by China of course it Rejects western style conditionality western style conditionality which is reflected in the world bank and the international monetary fund dominated by these sites puts conditionality on loans financial help to develop their economies or build infrastructure is conditional upon certain kinds of political reforms that generally push these countries to embrace liberal democracy women's rights and things like that China says specifically we will not intervene and dictate the policies of your countries we will give you the financing to develop your economies as you see fit and the new development Bank organized by brics is one way of doing them and is of course dominated by China a few years later I should say just the next year in 2015 China headed the organization of the Asia infrastructure Investment Bank the AAA iib the United States has never joined us and has encouraged most of its Allied and friendly Nations not to join but some have this was organized in 2015 as an alternative to the World Bank so that the United States which dominates the World Bank China says look there's there there are development models and financing necessary that don't reflect American values as reflected in the world bank and we want to promote those those those values and that investment and so the aiib the Asia infrastructure Investment Bank is the way that China does that and then probably the most significant economic initiative by the Chinese is the Belton Road initiative one belt one road it's gone through several permutations but now we just referred as the Belton Road initiative or the Bri which was started in 2013. it's the it's the pet project of Xi Jinping it is essentially a china-dominated infrastructure Finance Network project uh China finances roads railroads ports and harbors major infrastructure funded by Chinese engineered by the Chinese and oftentimes constructed by Chinese also and all roads do lead to Beijing it's a way of developing an infrastructure through Central Asia through southeast Asia going all the way to Europe and Italy by the way is part of the Bri project to facilitate rapid transportation of goods and services back and forth across the world through a Chinese constructed or Chinese Design Network so you can see that this is a major challenge to the United States and frankly I think the United States is still quite on its back foot on this we don't know quite how to respond I mean this is nothing more than a Marshall plan on on huge steroids the Marshall Plan was a significant economic program by the United States put in place by the United States after World War II to rebuild Europe through the uh through the ibr the International Bank for reconstruction and development which eventually became the World Bank the Belton Road initiative is essentially using the Asia infrastructure Investment Bank and the new development bank and Chinese Banking and finance to build a network of infrastructure throughout the world and this is something that is warmly embraced by many developing countries especially in Africa too and there there is legitimate criticism uh sometimes the financing is difficult sometimes it's it's it's it's a becomes a debt trap where these countries become indebted to China and they can't afford to pay those debts sometimes they're poorly planned projects and so there's there's plenty of criticism but I think on the whole uh there's also a lot of uh a lot of uh positive things to say about the Belton Road initiative and it certainly is very significant warmly embraced by Africa Latin America South Asian Southeast Asian countries um so China is clearly emerging um as a as a dominant non-western power which is changing the ordering infrastructure of the world so that the focus is no longer on the unilateral domination of the United States but now becoming uh competitive with China uh and we would refer to this as the ordering infrastructure of international political economy it's a clear competition of hegemonic powers China always said it would never become a hegemonic power but it is clearly a hegemonic power as is the United States and so we have these two great hegemonic Powers confronting each other but as I said earlier I I and I can go into more detail later on I don't see this as some kind of thucydides trap where we're eventually going to go to war China's expansion in many ways is very much like American expansion it's not expansion through Territorial and War but rather through through international finance and promoting a model of development that is certainly now different from the United States now um let me talk for her a little bit here about the trajectory of U.S China relations uh because this is certainly part of this first of all recall that there has been a strong bipartisan Embrace of China since the 1960s initiated by a Republican president Nixon when he was a candidate to bring shine into the family of Nations Nixon made his famous visit to Beijing in 1972 that was followed up by further negotiations and eventually the full full normalization of relations by by Jimmy Carter who was a Democrat so it's very bipartisan and subsequent presidents Reagan Obama everybody Clinton have all continued to embrace this idea of bringing China into the family of Nations and in the back of their minds certainly was this notion of convergence that if China Embraces International institutions like the World Bank the international monetary fund eventually the World Trade Organization the United Nations eventually their domestic politics should start reflecting sort of liberal values also that really hasn't worked out that way but I want to point out that this was a bipartisan effort um for example even after the bloody suppression of the student Democratic movement in China in 1980 in June of 1989 President Bush still embraced China and refused to put severe sanctions on China arguing that he wanted to maintain a dialogue with the moderates in China and continue their process of integrating into the International System the liberal World Order Clinton came to office pledging that he would he would take a hard line on China but quickly abandon that hard light on China and actually began to set the course for China to embrace and join the World Trade Organization which eventually did in 2001 a significant event in the international political economic history of China and once China joined the World Trade Organization and joined the a free trade system they have become very quickly a dominant power in that International Trade system even despite some is in U.S China relations after September 11th of 2001 the attack on the World Trade Centers in the Pentagon President Bush's first foreign trip was actually to China at the end of September of 2001 where he and at that time Zhang zameen emerged from their meeting arm and arm pledging a joint war on terrorism so China became our Ally in the war on terrorism beginning in 2001 we participated all of us in fighting terrorism but also in other aspects sharing intelligence and things like that but the the FRA the fissures in our relationship began to show more clearly especially with the global global financial crisis in 2008 when the United States was was devastated by a finance by a housing market collapse in a financial crisis and that eventually had a huge impact upon our our friends and allies Japan Korea and our European neighbors China basically went through the 2008 financial crisis unscathed it dented their foreign trade a little bit but they poured huge sums of money into infrastructure projects building bridges high-speed railway New Ports and harbors and so China was virtue in touch but it did begin to illustrate tensions in the United States domination of World Order and China began to challenge that China began to point out that the United States had mismanaged World Financial order that China's own the United States own economic house was in disorder and China's economic house was in pretty good order we engaged with the Chinese after the 2008 Global financial crisis in a series of what we call Strategic and economic dialogues trying to address the differences in our relationship China was embraced as quote a responsible stakeholder in international in the international economic order but those strategic and economic dialogues largely failed to overcome serious differences over trade ideological differences in human rights and things like that and strategic differences for sure and that brings us to the Trump Administration so my point is relations with China were deteriorating long before Trump ever came to office but certainly Trump put a strong exclamation mark on the difficulties in U.S China relations and began the process of decoupling from China encouraging American companies to withdraw their operations from China imposing sanctions on Chinese companies Huawei and others in other words it turned from strategic from trying to be in a strategic responsible stakeholder to China now becoming a great power competitor of the United States in both National Security and trade issues so relations with China took a very bad turn now I must say that Biden has continued to stay the Trump course Biden has not done anything significant to change that course he's made some minor changes um climate change we still try to engage China on climate change this last month in August John Kerry was in Beijing to discuss the climate problem and and and to uh solicit Chinese support for uh to address the international climate problems China is willing to do that China is one of the major producers of batteries that go into our cars they're one of the major producers of solar panels that that that that generate electricity China is certainly on the technological Forefront of of the war against climate change but China has also linked cooperation with the United States on climate change with other issues that are important to them like Taiwan human rights and things like that Wang e the Chinese foreign minister told um told John Kerry I forgot his name for more than told John Kerry after they're meeting that quote work on climate change cannot possibly be divorced from other geopolitical tensions the U.S side hopes that climate cooperation can be an oasis in china-us relations but if this Oasis is surrounded by desert it will also desertify sooner or later in other words China's clearly saying that if you want cooperation on climate change we need cooperation on other issues Taiwan being one of those big issues North Korean nuclear proliferation and other things so things are linked so looking forward at U.S China relations now when there was a bipartisan Embrace of China back in the 1970s and 1980s now there's a bipartisan uh rejection of China There's real no real movement in U.S China relations businesses are frustrated by this they're frustrated with President Biden's slow pivot away from Trump's trade war with China nothing has really changed and businesses are anxious to get back to business with China but Biden has not made any significant changes in U.S policy so the challenge at present for the United States and American liberal Primacy they the liberal the American premises those who Advocate that United States should always be militarily and economically dominant they want to frame China as a threat primarily due to its domestic policies its communist system they only have vague references to indications of China somehow be some kind of territorial expansionist power but primarily it's we can't trust a communist system we need to preserve American Primacy for me though the greatest China threat is more likely it's growing influence in international institutions and organizations and the United States needs to find how to effectively respond to that China you know an American an American armed global domination is simply not tenable anymore after uh Afghanistan and things like that we cannot maintain our dominance through military power and we need to we need to up our economic game if we want to uh if we want to compete with China because China is a very very good economic competitor and I see that as the major threat not that we're going to go to war with each other but we need to find how to be economically competitive both at home and abroad we need to figure out how to be more effective in leadership in international institutions these are all things and this is my criticism of the Trump Administration is they rejected participation in international organizations and essentially says if you don't want to play by our rules we're leaving the field and they they surrendered that field to the Chinese then Chinese moved into important leadership positions Trump was critical for our allies in Europe Korea Japan those are allies that we desperately need and we need their help to have a a multilateral response to the China Challenge so I think that's the greatest challenge we face it's not some future war with China or something like that let me turn for the last few minutes here and then we'll go to question answers to Afghanistan kind of the big elephant in the room um China's interest in Afghanistan right now is primarily the insecurity in Afghanistan that may spill over into China um the Taliban are a uh are a radical islamist movement and they're afraid that that islamist movement will have an impact upon xinjiang where the majority of Chinese Muslims live the uyghurs there is an organization in xinjiang the East turkistan Independence Movement the uyghurs refer to xinjiang or Western China's East turkistan the East turkistan Islamic movement which is recognized by the United States as a terrorist organization has engaged in a few terrorist acts and islamist ideology is is growing influential and so the the chiser of concern that that as as Afghanistan by the Taliban and they share a border if you look at the map it's a little bit too small over there but Afghanistan goes over and just touches China they share a border so they're considered concerned that in their neighborhood is the rise of this islamist movement which will then have an impact upon western China that's that's a a primary concern that they have um China in a recent statement said quote if the Taliban cannot exercise effective control over the whole of Afghanistan then the history of the 1990s could repeat itself when China was when Afghanistan was it was racked by Civil War then the history of the 1990s could repeat itself and the three evils forces the three evil forces of terrorism separatism and extremism are likely to spill over into other countries given such a possibility China should take precautionary measures to safeguard peace and development so China now looks at the Taliban government as a challenge and a source of possible instability a second concern they have is that now that the United States is relieved of the burden of Afghanistan and the burden of that ongoing war and seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan this imposed a burden on the United States and distracted us from our major challenges around the world and now with Afghanistan behind us will the United States be able to effectively transfer its attention to the indo-pacific and and and and and organize our alliance our allies with the with the Japanese the Indians and the Australians to challenge the rise of China in the indo-pacific so China in some ways was happy to see the United States leave Afghanistan because they didn't like the United States military on its border but also were bothered by the end of the war in Afghanistan with the concern that oh this will now give the United States an opportunity and the resources and the attention to turn more to China so if Washington devotes greater attention to China that's probably a good thing for the United States but it's something that the Chinese are somewhat concerned about now China also has adopted an important propaganda propaganda angle on Afghanistan they've been quick to point out that the U.S back government in Afghanistan the ashram ghani government rapidly collapsed and that this is evidence of quote Western democracy is not a universal value let alone a successful one the U.S militarized nation building program is a demonstrative failure so they use the propaganda and they also mention oh you people in Taiwan must be concerned that the United States will just cut and run when the going gets tough you people in Korea Japan so they've tried to undermine the trust in U.S allies also but clearly they see Afghanistan as a demonstration of the that the that America's Western Democratic Values are a failure and America's militarized efforts to impose democracy around the world has also a failure and I think they're quite right in that fact um now the Chinese have quickly pivoted to engage the Taliban diplomatic engaged with the talibomb is a preemptive effort to forestall instability that they're concerned about now this is not something new the the the Chinese participate with the United States in our dialogues with the Taliban in Qatar and other places uh the primary dialogue Partners were Russia China the United States and the Taliban organization and so China was already engaging with the Taliban before the fall of the Afghan government and the rise of the Taliban but much more formal engagement with the Taliban was quickly initiated soon after the United States announced that would withdraw in July 28th a month a little over a month ago China had a major meeting with all the top Taliban leaders in Beijing you can see the pictures there Xi Jinping with them on his side and they issued a statement quote we welcome the chance to deepen our ties with Afghanistan the Taliban is a critical military and political force in Afghanistan and has an important role in the process of Peace reconciliation and reconstruction that was the statement they made but China also participated and and on the U.N security council's resolution to urging the the Taliban to be inclusive in their new government and others involve other people beyond the Taliban and also to facilitate the peaceful exit of people with the right to leave Afghanistan now the Taliban have reciprocated with nice words about China also the Taliban spokesman said quote China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country who is now the second Deputy Prime Minister said quote China has been a trustworthy friendly trustworthy friend of it China has been a trustworthy friend of Afghanistan the Afghan Taliban is willing to continue to promote friendly relations between Afghanistan and China and will never allow Afghanistan territory to threaten China's interests the Belton Road initiative is conducive to the development and prosperity of Afghanistan in the region Afghanistan hopes to continue to actively support and participate in it so you can see that Afghanistan presents China challenges and concerns about instability but also great opportunities for the expansion of its influence especially through the Belton Road initiative but uh Chinese is is truly concerned that instability in Afghans could bleed over into Pakistan China has a major economic Pakistan China economic Corridor through Pakistan and and they're afraid that that might be disrupted they're also afraid of the of the islamist movements so economic engage China has been engaging China was engaged economically in Afghanistan even before the fall of the ashrafghani government recently and for example there's a large copper mine in mess anyoc that the Chinese began to develop it didn't go very far there was too much instability there's also the big amudharya oil fields which China began investing in a night in 2011 but none of these projects really got off the ground because of instability but now China I'm sure will let the dust settle before moving forward but if if the dust settles and stability comes to Afghanistan I'm sure the Chinese will be back in in a very big way with economic development funds expertise and labor so that China faces both opportunities and challenges um future relations with Afghanistan are in flux right now but as China looks at Afghanistan this is the picture they see Great Britain failed to impose itself on Afghanistan in the 19th century Russia failed to impose its system on Afghanistan in the 1980s and the U.S failed to impose its system of government on Afghanistan in the 2000s during a 20-year War so the challenges now can China prove that it's quote agnostic approach political systems and governance as well as its preference for building peace through Economic Development might be a better model I think the Chinese will be cautious because they certainly know that Afghanistan is the graveyard graveyard of Empires thank you very much so if you have any questions we have time I'm I'm actually even happy to stay after two so please come up line up I guess they we want they'd like you to state your name and who you are just to kind of show off and you can you can just drop your baskets so my name is Caleb Harding I'm a computer science major but I'm also doing the Chinese Flagship program at BYU so I was wondering so does the US essentially then need its own equivalent of the Belton Road initiative to be economically competitive with China or how will we do that I have always been an advocate of that for several years now that the United States needs to go back and reinvent the Marshall Plan that we put forward in post-war Europe to rebuild Europe and we need to have more effective engineering more effective financing more effective management of an International Development model that can compete with China I definitely think that we do need that or otherwise we'll just watch it go by and then if I could ask like a follow-up question I guess when we were already in a lot of debt and have you know budget issues how would we go about I guess doing that domestically well I'm not an economist but um we we have we have certainly debt concerns but I think you know we have to put that in perspective just because we don't have the money do we think we can just nickel and dime our way along while the changes are spending billions of dollars on this and we'll we'll end up in a decade or so with the Chinese dominating the international economy and we'll realize that we may be we're Pennywise but pound foolish so I think that we need to find a way to to finance this along with our allies of course Japan our European allies um I was I was I'm oftentimes stunned when China would propose projects to the to African countries or Latin Americans the best response the United States has was well look we can send our economists to talk to you about it we can send our Bankers to help you read through the finance arrangements and see if they're good or not we can send our lawyers to help you understand the technicalities of these agreements but we didn't offer an alternative to them an effective alternative yes we can build that road we can build that Harbor we can build that high-speed Railway we have this 5G technology we don't have it the Chinese are getting it we we've got to step up our game so as a computer science major get going I'm working on it hi there can you hear me I can hear you but I don't know if the mic sir I'll try okay so I'm Amelia English major I'm curious you sound kind of grim when you talk about U.S and China relations do you think of the future where we could have more of a positive relationship or is it kind of just not going to happen at this point um I'm I'm a realist uh I have been I I very much embrace the ideas of mersheimer 20 years ago um that it is the unfortunate inevitable situation between great powers that relations are always tense um the relationship between United States and Great Britain is quite unique but think about the United States relation with with other great Powers um Japan Russia uh now China I I think powers are inevitably to have some level of conflict but but I'm not the pessimist that thinks that there's a thucydidious trap that inevitably will go to war I think that we have bright diplomats bright leaders and we have our mutual interests that will lead us through but but I would predict more difficulty rather than you know good great smooth relations sorry to be pessimistic but I'm a realist it's fine that's what I wanted to know sure hi um my name's Julia I'm an international relations major and I was wondering um if you see any other countries like going about expanding their interests also through like the economic path that China's and especially in Afghanistan um I really you know there's there's Brazil Russia India South Africa these countries all have the potential they have the land mass they have the population they have the resources uh to mobilize but unfortunately India has always been ready to take off but never has got off the ground Brazil has always been racked by corruption and pro and ineptitude and problems Russia is is now uh essentially uh you know a kleptocracy driven by oil none of these con these countries all have the potential but unfortunately haven't risen to Global Leadership uh collectively they're trying to assert that leadership through the brics organization so in other words I don't think that there's anybody nippy any other country nipping at China's heels I think China has a clear path toward global domination uh along with the United States I just don't think there's any other any other countries on the horizon that have the land mass population technology to to be superpower status thank you hey uh my name is Will Ford I'm an I'm an economics major but I plan on going into international relations uh because of how China sees Taiwan as a rogue country do you think that it's possible that if it sees like the benefits as outweighing the costs then it will move to a military or otherwise invasion of the island absolutely um I think that is one of the main challenges in in global disorder as well as U.S China relations is the the case of Taiwan uh a country that is not a state by the way the United States does not recognize Taiwan we don't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan Taiwan only has a handful of diplomatic allies but of course China asserts a claim to Taiwan the Taiwan is historically part of China and they've made it quite clear that they would use military force Xi Jinping has been more forceful over recent years than than past uh leaders have done shopping put into place something known as the one country two systems formula arguing that China could be essentially its own country it could have its own leadership its own economic system it could pursue its Democratic aspirations things like as long as long as it recognized Chinese sovereignty and flew the Chinese flag of course the one country two systems form is is totally bankrupt now we saw what happened in Hong Kong that was run under the one country two systems formula and so Tuan is Taiwan is increasing the independent it has an increasingly strong Taiwanese identity it has it has a robust democratic system a good economy and um and and it's not at all interested in embracing any form of unification so I think there are voices in China that are pushing harder and harder for a military move the challenge to the United States is to somehow assure the Chinese that we would respond if they use military power and deter them from from thinking about that but at the same time um while telling the Taiwanese that we support them we do not support their their a rapid movement towards independence which would provoke the Chinese and that's a very difficult policy of ambiguity how do we reassure Taiwan that we have their back but don't move towards independence how do we tell the Chinese signal the Chinese that look at don't make a rash move and use military bear because we will respond uh I would just put the question to you I think this is a major dilemma for Americans if the Chinese do attack Taiwan uh what should the United States do many many years ago the United States public opinion was yeah we'll stand up and support it's a democracy and things like that after a disastrous war in Iraq after Astros war in Afghanistan I think the American population would say primarily that you know look it's a little island in the you know Pacific it really is it that important to us do we want to how many American lives are you willing to spend in Taiwan how much treasure are you willing to spend in Taiwan I just say that's a difficult question but for the United States to stand and watch a democratic country which is Vibra a vibrant democracy economically strong vibrant to watch it taken down by a communist and I think the government would feel compelled to do something about it there's a few people behind you but go ahead I'm what would be the geopolitical consequences for China if it invaded Taiwan like would it like be a shot in shooting themselves in the foot yeah it would be disastrous you know you would hope that the rest of the world would stand up no this just can't stand this is sort of a quintu Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 this will not stand and you think that the Japanese the Koreans or European allies would all step up and say no you don't watch a democratic country taken down by a communist country and they would stand up for that so you think that I I believe that China is a pragmatic country I think they think through the costs and benefits of what they do and hopefully they'll be pragmatic enough to understand that a military move against Taiwan would would have severe political and economic effects far beyond their imagination and if they think that tianaman sort of people forgot about Tana money in 1980 on soon after I think Taiwan would be a different matter I just hope it never happens hi my name is Gabe I'm a political science major it seems that there's a lot of interest in Chinese demography lately people talk about how Chinese becoming or China's becoming older there's really low fertility rates I was wondering if you had onions on whether they're changing demographics is going to affect their ability to maintain their position and international power it's a serious problem for the Chinese um China has many for several years now abandoned this one child per family policy and I was encouraging families with multiple births the biggest challenge that China has right now is that young couples are saying they don't want more children um China's become like Taiwan and Korea which have very low birth rates in European countries with very low birth rates um it's it's a democratic challenge for the Chinese China has become is becoming very old and they're not yet that rich overall per capita on a per capita basis um unlike India which has a very young population the United States which has a very vibrant population so it's a serious threat and the Chinese are taking clear measures to do that the education uh they've made recently imposed policies that uh kids can't play video games more than like one hour a week or something like that because it's distracting them it's a burden on parents they can't they can't they can't have these expensive after-school uh programs you know two English tutoring math tutoring because families are are complaining that the financial cost of even one child in China now is overwhelming them there's no way they would consider having two or three children so things are working against the growth in fertility in China and I think they understand this is a serious problem but this problem goes way back bottom line the Chinese government has always well the communist government has always been willing to intervene in family policy first of all telling you only to have one child and now trying to tell you to have two or three children I mean you know it's just a government which imposes itself upon people's personal choices hi my name is Andrew Hall I'm a pre-business major and I just have a simple question what can we do as like college students to improve our International relationship with China get to know more Chinese study Chinese get to know China the relations between the American people and Chinese people is still pretty is really good I mean I have very dear Chinese friends a lot of Chinese still come to the United States to go to school a lot of Americans go to China the at the government level relations are pretty difficult uh but but below the government level relationship among the people and businesses are so pretty pretty good so I would just encourage people to to study more about China to know more about trying to travel the train if possible engage Chinese students at BYU in conversations about their feelings and get to know China better China is not a big bad monster um but it's not a panda by there there's always this dilemma is China the dragon or is it the panda bear and there's the Dragon Slayers who want to fight China seed is a big enemy and there's the panda Huggers who just think it's all unique and Confucian and you know cute panda bear it's someplace in the middle but that's that's the best advice I can give you I've spent my whole career trying to do that by the way but it's coming to an end hi my name is Emily Kwan I'm majoring in computer engineering how are you I'm good thanks um my question is so as China gets involved in Afghanistan and economic Affairs um do you think they'll they will eventually succumb to that um to that urge to become more militaristically involved or do you think they will learn from that China if we look at the if we look over the last few decades China has not become militarily involved in other countries since the founding of the people's repair so they've only had two Foreign Wars in Korea and India and three Korea India and Vietnam where they actually went outside their borders but it will be a test of the China's program that if can they allow the Taliban to be the Taliban with their islamist ideology and prove that China's economic policies of modernization will be effective or will they simply get into the situation where they invest lots of money in Afghanistan Afghanistan continues to to be a basket case and then the Chinese feel urged to step in and maybe take over and through what they call debt Equity swap saying okay um we're gonna have to take over Afghan resources to get our money out of the country this is what happened in Sri Lanka where they built a huge port in humbuntota the Sri Lankan government could no longer pay the cost of building that Port so the Chinese went in says fine we'll just take it over for 99 years and operate it ourselves and get our get our investment back so the Chinese could find themselves in that dilemma Afghanistan but I don't Envision the Chinese deployed military to Afghanistan in in in the foreseeable future I just don't see that great thanks hopefully they learned from Britain Russia in the United States that that is not a workable Pro position they would just be a graveyard for the Chinese Empire like it has been for others absolutely my name is Delaney schill and I am a pre-choral education major for U.S citizens so let me ask what is pre-coral uh so Choir Oh you haven't learned to sing yet but you're learning to sing then you'll become okay it's just easy um for U.S citizens striving to become more globally aware what aspects of Chinese culture are most vital to understand uh Chinese history China has a rich fascinating history become pick up some good books on Chinese history and and understand Chinese history um I think that's the best thing and there are some good books out there there's some good courses on campus taught by some great professors in Chinese history and Chinese culture is that I would encourage you to take China has a rich culture there are there are great courses in the humanities also on on Chinese civilization and culture that are that I would encourage you to take and if you have the time you know you could take Chinese political science but I would start out with history and culture and there's plenty offered at BYU we have a very strong China program at BYU good language instruction good history the politics is okay the humanities is great hi my name is Taylor Nelson I'm a Communications major I don't want to take up too much of your time but I was just wondering if you could talk about the human rights violations um in Hong Kong and the free Hong Kong movement and where you see that going um not in a good direction at all human rights in China of course is a very big topic and I didn't even touch on it serious violation of human rights in xinjiang or suppression of weak years it simply stuns me that the Taliban says such nice things about China and the Taliban Fashions himself as a as an islamist movement protecting the interests of Muslims around the world and right next door there's major suppression of uh uyghurs who are Muslims I think the Taliban are reading more about power and interest Than They are promoting Islam I think that's proven in that Hong Kong is a very sad case incredibly sad push came to shove Hong Kong people continued to push against back against increasing and onerous laws put in place by by the administration which was backed by the Chinese National Security laws Free Speech laws and they kept pushing back and the Chinese kept pushing back harder and eventually suppressed the movement jailed many of the leaders many of them fled I don't think I don't see that turning around I don't think that the Democratic movement in Hong Kong which is now very small that this and the student movement for human rights has the wherewithal or sadly the international support to push back unfortunately it's a sad case but that's the reality okay thank you all for coming [Applause]

Channel: BYU Kennedy Center

Views: 305,048

Keywords: BYU, Brigham Young University, Kennedy Center, International Studies, International Relations, Political Science, Education, Lecture

Id: f32EH22IJEk

Length: 57min 33sec (3453 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021