All of this blog entry is a quote from Thomas Barnett's blog post Recasting the Long War as a Joint Sino-American Venture. I agree with his view on this issue, totally. |
Next year the Chinese Communist Party will most likely pick from among the fifth generation pool the leaders who will assume the reins officially in 2012 but whose lengthy succession begins rolling out almost immediately. This generation may be known to many of you already, because whether you realize or not, you went to college with many of them in the late 70s and early 80s. So yeah, this crowd does get America. In fact, these guys get globalization better than our current leaders do, because China is so much closer—historically speaking—to the infrastructure build-out process associated with globalization’s Borg-like integration wave.
What’s so amazing about this next generation is how they look at the world: a Kantian naiveté bordering on Thomas Friedman (“Got McDonald’s? You’re in!”). But beyond that wide-eyed optimism there is a growing and rather steely awareness that, as Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben famously intoned, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Having spent days in deep discussion with this crowd, I will tend you what impresses me most about them is their earnestness. They are perceptively shifting—echoing John F. Kennedy’s generational call—from thinking about what the world owes China to what China owes the world.
There’s not a moment to waste.
When I last sat down with PLA strategists, I told them their biggest challenge over the next decade or so is rebranding their military from “revolutionary warrior” to “globalization’s security guard” in support of China’s role as globalization’s general contractor in the great build-out to come. This repositioning of China’s global security profile must be approached carefully, setting up easy wins that mark the PLA as both competent in its execution and trustworthy in its presence—especially in partnership with U.S. military forces. A joint response to Asia’s 2004 Christmas tsunamis would have been a good opportunity. It worked for the Indian Navy, but China’s military was nowhere to be found.
Over time, the Pentagon and the PLA need to prove out this strategic alliance in a series of early-stage engagements—preferably in Africa—that demonstrate how market economies—both old and new—come together to shrink globalization’s gap. Yes, I realize that many in my country consider the cultural and political gaps between America and China to be insurmountable in any time frame worth mentioning, but in my opinion, that Cold War mindset plays into the strategic goals of the global jihadist movement, which wants nothing more than to pit a rising East against an aging West with radical Islam as the great balancer.
I say we deny Osama that dream—as soon as possible.
- Thomas Barnett Recasting the Long War as a Joint Sino-American VentureSupplemental material:
Managing China's Ascent
Theory of a Peacefuly Rising China
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