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em>Territorial disputes in the South China Sea along with the US’ “Pivot to Asia” military strategy have escalated tensions between China and its neighbors.

The increasingly fragmented countries of ASEAN failed to produce a communiqué to settle the issue in the recent summit in Phnom Penh. The Jakarta Post discussed the issue with London School of Economics historian Odd Arne Westad and asked whether China’s peaceful rise would last.

Question: It’s been more than a century since China lost many wars against foreign powers and lived in “century of humiliation”. How have these past experiences related to its “peaceful rise”?

Answer: China’s current rise has been formed by many factors. One of them is the ability of the Chinese people to rebuild from the damage inflicted on them by foreign aggression.

Another is the ability to learn from other countries, including countries that in the past behaved aggressively towards China. It is a combination of China’s industriousness and its willingness to learn from others that has created the current boom.

In relation to the Qing Dynasty, you have argued that a lack of modern weapons as well as ineptitude in international laws as the core of why China lost to foreign powers. Now that China has survived for more than a century as a state and has gained prominence at the international level, will this peaceful rise last?

I have every hope that China’s peaceful rise will last, as long as China’s diplomats have the wisdom that Deng Xiaoping exulted: to work closely with other powers in the region to ensure common economic benefit. But China still needs to learn more about how the outside world works.

China should engage with the rest of the world on issues that go beyond its narrow interest. If China wants to be seen as a leading country internationally, it needs to be seen as leading at least on some issues, such as trade.

Its maneuvers in South China Sea have become a nuisance to neighboring Asian countries and triggered a stronger US presence in terms of military and trade in the region. Do they really have cause to worry about China?

Over the past two years especially, China’s foreign policy towards ASEAN has been marred by an excessive weight placed on a narrow Chinese national interest.  

It is almost as if all the lessons from the Deng Xiaoping era have gone out the window. China needs to readjust its policies, make friends, not enemies and take a balanced position in international negotiations.

Some Chinese leaders think that the [2008] economic crisis has put China in pole position vis-à-vis the West and its neighbors. Therefore it could accentuate its interests. They were wrong, or — at least — they exaggerated.

China’s excellence in maintaining peaceful trade relations has been famous for centuries. Is this a strong reason to believe that it will not use unnecessary military force?

If China followed its broader and long-term national interest, it would accentuate trade and common development in its region. China still has many advantages in production and trade, and the new free trade zone with ASEAN is a way to build on these advantages. But in order to do so, China needs to avoid pushing other countries away from it by hard-line positions on territorial issues.

We cannot [guarantee that China will totally avoid military intervention]. But China will have a number of non-military concerns over the next 20 years that will prevent its full militarization in terms of international affairs.

It needs to avoid spending too much on its military and to seek at least limited cooperation with its neighbors, for its own reasons. It is poor and needs to get rich.

Will the US and China trigger another Cold War?

No. An all-out conflict in Cold War terms between the US and China is unlikely, since the two countries are much more linked economically than what the US and the Soviet Union ever were. This does not, of course, remove the potential for conflict, but it makes a Cold War scenario unlikely.

How will competition, in terms of trade and military presence, between the two countries affect Southeast Asian countries?

Southeast Asia will have to be careful so that it does not become anyone’s pawn in a larger game of influence. It should pursue its own independent interests, strengthen regional integration and work with both the US and China in order to develop its economy and security.

A Chinese military presence would not be popular among other nations. What are the best ways for China to maintain its position as a global economic power?

China needs to develop its own market, so that it becomes less dependent on international trade. Its government also needs to control Chinese nationalism, so that it does not become a barrier to China’s fruitful cooperation with other countries.

— JP/Adisti Sukma Sawitri