Win-win is the ‘only viable option’
NEW YORK — A sound China-United States relationship featuring win-win cooperation benefits people of the two countries, and serves as a “bedrock” and key element of global stability, a veteran US diplomat has said.
“There’s a long tradition from Nixon through Reagan, Clinton, through both Bushes and Obama, of strong, cooperative ties between the United States and China,” Robert Hormats, vice-chairman of Kissinger Associates, said in a recent interview in New York.
“One of the things that is remarkable about US-China relations is that the US policy has not been partisan — the Republicans under Nixon did not differ very much with Democrats under Carter, and the Bushes’ and Obama’s views were very similar,” he said. “It has not been partisan, and it should not be.”
The 73- year-old veteran diplomat was actively involved in the thawing and normalization of China-US relations in the 1970s under the Richard Nixon administration, and also served as a senior adviser to Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, all big names closely associated with US diplomacy toward China in the past decades.
In Hormats’ view, the US and China, as two major countries and the world’s top two economies, have “very strong common interest” in many areas, and “it’s very hard to see real progress being made” on many important global issues without the two countries working together.
“So maintaining that sound (bilateral) relationship as a cornerstone of American policy and Chinese policy, I think, has been important and should continue to be important,” he said.
Having witnessed the vicissitudes of bilateral ties, Hormats said cooperation does not mean the two sides will agree on every issue or there will not be areas of dispute.
Trade issues
For example, trade issues “had been there when I was in government”, he said. “The question is, to resolve them in a constructive way or to resolve them in a nonconstructive way.”
According to him, the lesson that has been learned since the early 1970s is that this is a time, then as well as now, for these two great countries “to work together and find solutions which are mutually beneficial and also beneficial to the world, even though no solutions can be quick and easy”.
As for some people preaching the theory of “containing China” to maintain US’ world dominance, Hormats commented that “their minds are in the last century somehow.”
“I do know that that kind of policy won’t work and I do know also from my experience that doesn’t even make any sense,” he said, noting that today’s China, with its rising economic strength, is playing a more and more important role in promoting prosperity and stability across the world.
“I think the idea has to be one of collaboration, cooperation, and finding win-win circumstances. Working with China is the right answer,” he said.